The Balkan backlash

Here are two outstanding contributions to the literature on postcommunist transformation, a literature numbed by a pervasive Western mind-set, anaesthetised by a timeless neo-classical economics and by a strong urge to believe that, with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, history had ended. In 1989 the victory of liberal capitalism appeared complete; its superiority demonstrable and unchallenged.

Yet it can hardly be argued that the revolutions that year proceeded uniformly in the single linear direction predicted. First, and most glaringly, the breakup of Yugoslavia, the quest for Greater Serbia, the horrors of "ethnic cleansing", the systematic violation by Orthodox Serbs of Muslim women and the return of the concentration camp all testified to a retreat not an advance, a "stepping back into history" not its end.

Stjepan Mestrovic argues in his passionately written book that the consequences of war in former Yugoslavia are likely to be far reaching, a catalyst for the "Balkanization of the West" - its fragmentation, the discrediting of international organisations and the whole post-modernist notion of the victory/superiority of liberal democracy supposedly based on tolerance.

Second, social and economic transformation in the former Soviet bloc has not gone smoothly or followed the expectations of its technocratic architects. Tadeusz Kowalik discusses three years of Polish experience, noting that recession was much sharper and deeper than anticipated, that economic stabilisation brought much destruction but little creativity. Zygmunt Bauman observes the demise of Solidarity, as much "a product of the absurd centralised system" as shortage and the queue. Solidarity, he continues, was a movement which did not get what it bargained for but was on the receiving end of much for which it did not bargain.

Arista Maria Cirtautas comments that one by-product of the dismantling of Leninist institutions was the creation of a "debilitating vacuum" often filled by nationalism. So what went wrong?

Mestrovic argues that progress stumbled on a quite mistaken "postmodernist" view that capitalism and democracy could be quickly established. Bryant meanwhile wonders if the transformation would have been any different if it had started not in 1989 but in 1993 when Western doubts were growing as to the economic consequences of ten years of aggressive liberalism of the Thatcher-Reagan variety.

In both books the notion is developed that technocracy is also to blame. For Mestrovic, this is simply a strong and inevitable characteristic of postmodernism while contributors to The Great Transformation are more inclined to see new elites making errors of judgement or succumbing to compelling outside pressures.

Cirtautas suggests that the first Solidarity government in Poland was elitist, socially insensitive and guilty of trying to create capitalism by decree and of neglecting the social base outside the parliament building. Bauman notes wryly that Tadeusz Mazowiecki's short stint as Polish prime minister was enough to push him into third place in the 1990 presidential election, his association with government becoming a "stain", making him one of "them".

Kowalik criticises the technocrats who are not slow to condemn "third ways" but see only one model of capitalism to which there is no alternative. Maurice Glassman notes the powerful influence of the "neo-classical commissars of the World Bank" and asks of Solidarity, "why is it that this Catholic syndicalist movement has adopted the market utopia as its central commitment with its bestial notion of starvation-based incentives and its contempt for the traditions and values of Polish society?".

Perhaps Glassman is right to suggest that the prevailing orthodoxy was simply too strong to resist. It is certainly a view reflected by Bryant who suggests that mainstream economists were listened to because they spoke with a seductive self-assurance that other social scientists hear either with awe or alarm. But the time is ripe, says Bryant, for sociology to make its contribution, "to lower expectations and fortify resolve for the long haul".

A haunting theme across both volumes is the danger of backlash or even counter-revolution. Kowalik argues that economic engineering that permits "no alternatives" is exceedingly dangerous, paving the way, if things go badly, for a clamour in favour of the unworkable past. Cirtautas sees a stalemate between nationalist and liberal movements and a tension that is likely to produce "a cycle of political and social instability combined with frustrated economic development".

The most chilling prospects, however, come from Mestrovic who argues that the "postmodern paralysis" of the West is nowhere more evident than in its inability to act decisively against Serb land-grabbing in former Yugoslavia. It is hard to accept, in 1994, that a two-hour flight from Heathrow is enough to land us in a Europe where history is in full retreat and morality has ended.

Barring any convincing Western action Mestrovic predicts one of three gloomy outcomes. First, Serb land-grabbing continues in a patchy fashion until the rump Yugoslavia extends to the Adriatic coast, Croatia crumbles under a lost war and refugee problem that Europe insulates itself from but only at the cost of growing xenophobia and race hatred.

The second possibility is of a Balkan-Mediterranean war which pulls in Greece and Turkey, unravels an already defunct Nato and generates intolerable strain among EU members.

The third is where Russia throws its weight behind the Serbs, ex-Communists see an opportunity for counter-revolution and Russia begins again the oppression of its "near abroad".

We may fervently hope that none of this happens and that post-communism will find its own identities based on freedom,tolerance and social solidarity but darker possibilities exist. The authors of Balkanization and Transformation urge us to think through these issues more carefully, warning against dangerous Disneyworld dreams of the speedy establishment of only one model of capitalism.

George Blazyca is professor of economics and management, University of Paisley.