Sorry, Richard:
with all the problems that exist in the transformation countries, I think
the whole tone and content of the debate is absolutely mistaken. Much of
what today is termed "mafia structures" had their roots in the 1960s, 1970s
and even more so in the 1980s. Think about all these people who were shot
or marched to death from September 1939 onwards in Poland by both occupying
powers; think about the repression in the postwar years, the hardships of
reconstruction, the lies, the shootings in Poznan 1956, the anti-zionist
campaign 1968, the repression in Gdansk 1970, Giereks debt-ridden
"socialism", the mobilization of society against the bureaucratic
structures in 1980, marshall law in 1981. By all means Poland is light
years away from all this - thanks be God. Yet structures have to be found
that allow Central Eastern Europe and the other transformation countries a
proper and rightful place in world society. The UNDP Poland has published
wonderful Human Development Reports Poland in English since 1995 about
these dimensions, and all participants in the "comrade" debate are kindly
invited to read these materials - about the advances and contradictions of
transformation. Those of you that read German, might also consult my recent
Schwierige Heimkehr. Sozialpolitik, Migration, Transformation und die
Osterweiterung der EU. Eberhard Verlag, Munich, 1997.
I of course agree with all of you who see the dangers in the
centre-periphery relationship that evolves between East and West. Again,
Samir Amin, whom we all too often neglect simply because he writes in
French, has provided us with pioneering insights about the global character
of the "tequila effect". What are the solutions? That would be a true
debate
Kind regards from
Arno Tausch
----------
> From: Richard K. Moore <rkmoore@iol.ie>
> To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Subject: Re: freedom and Eastern block
> Date: Dienstag, 30. September 1997 16:49
>
>
> 9/30/97, Andrew Wayne Austin wrote:
> >If freedom is only a state of mind, and if physical position completely
> >incapacitates judgment, then I suppose Korotayev and Schell have even
less
> >to say than I.
>
> What I find structurally interesting about the post-Soviet experience is
> the variety and intensity of destabilization tactics (from devolution to
> mafia infiltration, from political funding to economic pressure) that
have
> been employed, and the success of the media in attributing each episode
to
> this and that sundry cause.
>
> What we are seeing is the systematic accomplishment by other means of
what
> Napolean and Hitler both failed to achieve - the subjugation of the once
> Soviet realms to Western interests.
>
> Andrew's charming prose can perhaps make a case for decreased personal
> freedom being part of this picture, but why focus our attention on this
> most-difficult-to-settle minor aspect of the situation?
>
> Even if Russians and others _are_ experiencing increased freedom, in some
> meaningful sense, that doesn't change the fact that one-third of the
> world's people are having their societies destroyed, their economies put
> into chaos, and their assets robbed. All is being reduced, so to speak,
to
> rubble so that tried-and-proven Third-World exploitive practices can be
> deployed in this vast new de-developed realm.
>
>
> rkm
>
>
>