East European Alternatives - Tapa dura

Do Eastern European societies have a chance to escape from the grip of totalitarian domination and build up Western democratic systems? In search of a reliable answer to this question, the author surveys various scenarios of what has happened in this region of Europe and what may happen there in the next few years. The analysis is focused on Hungary, with references mainly to Poland but also to other East European countries and the Soviet Union. The author describes in detail the main economic, social, and political processes which have led to the crisis of the state socialist system, and to the promising though chaotic explosion of economic and political pluralization in the 1980s. In a concluding chapter, he develops his own scenario about how the emergence of a new ruling class and the conversion of the bureaucratic power of the communist ruling elite into economic assets and constitutional rights may facilitate the transition from the totalitarian to a pluralist socio-economic system.