Left And Right In A Divided Europe
By Sam Vaknin, Fri Dec 9th

Even as West European countries seemed to have edged to theright of the political map - all three polities of centralEurope lurched to the left. Socialists were elected to replaceeconomically successful right wing governments in Poland,Hungary and, recently, in the Czech Republic.

This apparent schism is, indeed, merely an apparition. Thedifferences between reformed left and new right in both parts ofthe continent have blurred to the point of indistinguishability.French socialists have privatized more than their conservativepredecessors. The Tories still complain bitterly that TonyBlair, with his nondescript "Third Way", has stolen theirthunder.

Nor are the "left" and "right" ideologically monolithic andsocially homogeneous continental movements. The central Europeanleft is more preoccupied with a social - dare I say socialist -agenda than any of its Western coreligionists. Equally, thecentral European right is less individualistic, libertarian,religious, and conservative than any of its Western parallels -and much more nationalistic and xenophobic. It sometimes echoesthe far right in Western Europe - rather than the center-right,mainstream, middle-class orientated parties in power.

Moreover, the right's victories in Western Europe - in Spain,Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy - are not without a fewimportant exceptions - notably Britain and, perhaps, comeSeptember, Germany. Nor is the left's clean sweep of the centralEuropean electoral slate either complete or irreversible. Withthe exception of the outgoing Czech government, not one party inthis volatile region has ever remained in power for more thanone term. Murmurs of discontent are already audible in Polandand Hungary.

Left and right are imported labels with little explanatory poweror relevance to central Europe. To fathom the political dynamicsof this region, one must realize that the core countries ofcentral Europe (the Czech Republic, Hungary and, to a lesserextent, Poland) experienced industrial capitalism in theinter-war period. Thus, a political taxonomy based onurbanization and industrialization may prove to be more powerfulthan the classic left-right dichotomy.

THE RURAL versus THE URBAN

The enmity between the urban and the bucolic has deep historicalroots. When the teetering Roman Empire fell to the Barbarians(410-476 AD), five centuries of existential insecurity andmayhem ensued. Vassals pledged allegiance and subservience tolocal lords in return for protection against nomads andmarauders. Trading was confined to fortified medieval cities.

Even as it petered out in the west, feudalism remainedentrenched in the prolix codices and patents of the HabsburgAustro-Hungarian empire which encompassed central Europe andcollapsed only in 1918. Well into the twentieth century, themajority of the denizens of these moribund swathes of thecontinent worked the land. This feudal legacy of a brobdignagianagricultural sector in, for instance, Poland - now hampers theEU accession talks.

Vassals were little freer than slaves. In comparison, burghers,the inhabitants of the city, were liberated from the bondage ofthe feudal labour contract. As a result, they were able toacquire private possessions and the city acted as supremeguarantor of their property rights. Urban centers relied ontrading and economic might to obtain and secure politicalautonomy.

John of Paris, arguably one of the first capitalist cities (atleast according to Braudel), wrote: "(The individual) had aright to property which was not with impunity to be interferedwith by superior authority - because it was acquired by (his)own efforts" (in Georges Duby, "The age of the Cathedrals: Artand Society, 980-1420, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1981).Max Weber, in his opus, "The City" (New York, MacMillan, 1958)wrote optimistically about urbanization: "The medieval citizenwas on the way towards becoming an economic man ... the ancientcitizen was a political man."

But communism halted this process. It froze the early feudalframe of mind of disdain and derision towards "non-productive","city-based" vocations. Agricultural and industrial occupationswere romantically extolled by communist parties everywhere. Thecities were berated as hubs of moral turpitude, decadence andgreed. Ironically, avowed anti-communist right wing populists,like Hungary's former prime minister, Orban, sought to propagatethese sentiments, to their electoral detriment.

Communism was an urban phenomenon - but it abnegated its"bourgeoisie" pedigree. Private property was replaced bycommunal ownership. Servitude to the state replacedindividualism. Personal mobility was severely curtailed. Incommunism, feudalism was restored.

Very like the Church in the Middle Ages, communism sought tomonopolize and permeate all discourse, all thinking, and allintellectual pursuits. Communism was characterized by tensionsbetween party, state and the economy - exactly as the medievalpolity was plagued by conflicts between church, king andmerchants-bankers.

In communism, political activism was a precondition foradvancement and, too often, for personal survival. John ofSalisbury might as well have been writing for a communistagitprop department when he penned this in "Policraticus" (1159AD): "...if (rich people, people with private property) havebeen stuffed through excessive greed and if they hold in theircontents too obstinately, (they) give rise to countless andincurable illnesses and, through their vices, can bring aboutthe ruin of the body as a whole". The body in the text being thebody politic.

Workers, both industrial and agricultural, were lionized andidolized in communist times. With the implosion of communism,these frustrated and angry rejects of a failed ideology spawnedmany grassroots political movements, lately in Poland, in theform of "Self Defence". Their envied and despised enemies arethe well-educated, the intellectuals, the self-proclaimed newelite, the foreigner, the minority, the rich, and the remotebureaucrat in Brussels.

Like in the West, the hinterland tends to support the right.Orban's Fidesz lost in Budapest in the recent elections - butscored big in villages and farms throughout Hungary. Agrarianand peasant parties abound

in all three central Europeancountries and often hold the balance of power in coalitiongovernments.

THE YOUNG and THE NEW versus THE TIRED and THE TRIED

The cult of youth in central Europe was an inevitable outcome ofthe utter failure of older generations. The allure of the newand the untried often prevailed over the certainty of the triedand failed. Many senior politicians, managers, entrepreneurs andjournalists across this region are in their 20's or 30's.

Yet, the inexperienced temerity of the young has often led tovoter disillusionment and disenchantment. Many among the youngare too identified with the pratfalls of "reform". Age andexperience reassert themselves through the ballot boxes - andwith them the disingenuous habits of the past. Many of the "old,safe hands" are former communists disingenuously turnedsocialists turned democrats turned capitalists. As evenrevolutionaries age, they become territorial and hidebound. Turfwars are likely to intensify rather then recede.

THE TECHNOCRATS / EXPERTS versus THE LOBBYIST-MANAGERS

Communist managers - always the quintessential rent-seekers -were trained to wheedle politicians, lobby the state and cadgefor subsidies and bailouts, rather than respond to marketsignals. As communism imploded, the involvement of the state inthe economy - and the resources it commanded - contracted.Multilateral funds are tightly supervised. Communist-era"directors" - their skills made redundant by these developments- were shockingly and abruptly confronted with merciless marketrealities.

Predictably they flopped and were supplanted by expert managersand technocrats, more attuned to markets and to profits, andcommitted to competition and other capitalistic tenets. Thedecrepit, "privatized" assets of the dying system expropriatedby the nomenclature were soon acquired by foreign investors, orshut down. The old guard has decisively lost its capital - bothpecuniary and political.

Political parties which relied on these cronies forcontributions and influence-peddling - are in decline. Thosethat had the foresight to detach themselves from the venalityand dissipation of "the system" are on the ascendance. FromHaiderism to Fortuynism and from Lepper to Medgyessy - being anoutsider is a distinct political advantage in both west and eastalike.

THE BUREAUCRATS versus THE POLITICIANS

The notion of an a-political civil service and its political -though transient - masters is alien to post communist societies.Every appointment in the public sector, down to the mostinsignificant sinecure, is still politicized. Yet, the economicdecline precipitated by the transition to free markets, forcedeven the most backward political classes to appoint a cadre ofyoung, foreign educated, well-traveled, dynamic, and open mindedbureaucrats.

These are no longer a negligible minority. Nor are they bereftof political assets. Their power and ubiquity increase withevery jerky change of government. Their public stature,expertise, and contacts with their foreign counterparts threatenthe lugubrious and supernumerary class of professionalpoliticians - many of whom are ashen remnants of the communistconflagration. Hence the recent politically-tainted attempts tocurb the powers of central bankers in Poland and the CzechRepublic.

THE NATIONALISTS versus THE EUROPEANS

The malignant fringe of far-right nationalism and far leftpopulism in central Europe is more virulent and lesssophisticated than its counterparts in Austria, Denmark, Italy,France, or the Netherlands. With the exception of Poland,though, it is on the wane.

Populists of all stripes combine calls for a thinly disguised"strong man" dictatorship with exclusionary racist xenophobia,strong anti-EU sentiments, conspiracy theory streaks ofparanoia, the revival of an imaginary rustic and family-centeredutopia, fears of unemployment and economic destitution,regionalism and local patriotism.

Though far from the mainstream and often derided and ignored -they succeeded to radicalize both the right and the left incentral Europe, as they have done in the west. Thus, mainstreamparties were forced to adopt a more assertive foreign policytinged with ominous nationalism (Hungary) and anti-Europeanism(Poland, Hungary). There has been a measurable shift in publicopinion as well - towards disenchantment with EU enlargement andovertly exclusionary nationalism. This was aided by Brussels'lukewarm welcome, discriminatory and protectionist practices,and bureaucratic indecisiveness.

These worrisome tendencies are balanced by the inertia of theprocess. Politicians of all colors are committed to the Europeanproject. Carping aside, the countries of central Europe stand toreap significant economic benefits from their EU membership.Still, the outcome of this clash between parochial nationalismand Europeanism is far from certain and, contrary to receivedwisdom, the process is reversible.

THE CENTRALISTS versus THE REGIONALISTS

The recent bickering about the Benes decrees proves that thevision of a "Europe of regions" is ephemeral. True, the centuryold nation state has weakened greatly and the centripetal energyof regions has increased. But this applies only to homogeneousstates.

Minorities tend to disrupt this continuity and majorities dotheir damnedest to eradicate these discontinuities by variousmeans - from assimilation (central Europe) to extermination (theBalkan). Hungary's policies - its status law and the economicbenefits it bestowed upon expatriate Hungarians - is the epitomeof such tendencies.

These axes of tension delineate and form central Europe'spolitical landscape. The Procrustean categories of "left" and"right" do injustice to these subtleties. As central Europematures into fully functioning capitalistic liberal democracies,proper leftwing parties and their rightwing adversaries arebound to emerge. But this is still in the future.

About the author:Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author ofMalignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain -How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for CentralEurope Review, PopMatters, and eBookWeb , and Bellaonline, andas a United Press International (UPI) Senior BusinessCorrespondent. He is the the editor of mental health and CentralEast Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.