This rich and insightful collection of twenty-eight essays, originally published in Eurozine online in 2019, reflects on the fate of eastern Europe thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is an impressive but depressing compilation that captures the angst experienced by many of the region's inhabitants—and by a majority of outside observers.
The idea that 1989 represented “the end of history” is now widely dismissed. The new prevailing meta-narrative is that 1989 was a “false dawn” (Richard Sakwa, 21), proving liberalism and capitalism to be false gods. In the wake of their failure we see the rise of populism and the emergence of new divisions in Europe: between rich and poor, east and west, north and south. These partly replicate and partly complicate the old divisions. We are left with an ugly choice between neoliberalism (cosmopolitan capitalism) and illiberalism (protectionist nationalism). The former focuses on individual rights (especially the rights of capital) while the latter empowers the rights of majorities.
The threat posed by the “illiberal democracies” of Hungary's Viktor Orbán and Poland's Jarosław Kaczyński shapes much of the discussion, with the added fear that “The East may have shown the West its future” (Claus Leggewie, 55). At the end of 2018, populists were in government in seven East European states, plus Italy (73). The region seems trapped in an endless succession of crises, a never-ending transition. Major shocks include the financial crisis of 2009 and the migration crisis of 2015.
Dorothee Bohle and Béla Greskovits argue that the transition to a better society was hijacked by an unholy alliance of race-to-the-bottom capitalists, Brussels bureaucrats, and east European political entrepreneurs (17). With the rise of illiberal democracy in the east, and the simultaneous rise in social inequality in the west, the EU has lost its claim to be a normative power.
Ivan Krastev is interviewed about his new book (co-authored with Stephen Holmes) The Light That Failed: A Reckoning (Allen Lane, 2019). Krastev sees the post-89 democratization as mere mimicry, whereby eastern Europe tried to replicate an imaginary vision of western society. He comes close to arguing that 1989 meant not just the end of communism but also the end of liberalism, its ideological twin (278). “The future is back, not as a project, but a nightmare (290).” Ironically after 1989 the “winners”—the young and liberal-minded—migrated to the west, reinforcing the nationalist backlash at home (281).
Aleida Assmann pushes back against Krastev's imitation narrative, noting that the dissidents’ struggle for human rights played a crucial role in bringing about 1989, which was not “gifted” from the west (269). 1989 was above all a nationalist rather than a liberal movement, but this aspect was downplayed by liberals at the time, particularly once the Yugoslav wars erupted, giving nationalism a bad name.
Karl Schlögel argues that the main reaction at the time was surprise and joy, but not “triumphalism” as is often claimed by critics (61). The transitions were spontaneous and “wild” (62), not the result of a plan, or a conspiracy. For Jan Zielonka Europe is “a complicated maze with many fault lines” (72). Florian Bieber sees some parallels between the structure of the European Union and the former Yugoslavia (77), and asks whether Europe is becoming Balkanized (80). Post-89 Europe is “a place with no name for the present (81).”
Philipp Ther's piece is slightly longer than the others (30–47), and this gives him the space to provide a cogent analysis of the fate of East Germany, which experienced a 75% drop in industrial production. James Wang suggests that this deindustrialization was a foreshadowing of the entire continent's neoliberal future (102), along with the politics of illiberalism that arose in response (Holly Case, 112).
Bogdan Iacob argues that 1989 was an elite pact that excluded the masses, whose natural inclinations were toward democratic socialism or conservative nationalism, but not liberalism (128). Marius Stan and Vladimir Tismaneanu concur that the “fascist and Leninist” legacies loomed large (135) and undermined the 1989 “fantasies of salvation” (139).
Diana Georgescu critiques the British TV documentary “The Romanians are coming,” which reframes Romania as part of the Third World (241–52). While no-one wants to defend the excesses of British reality TV, it is worth remembering that the development gap between Romania and Britain is real, and not an imaginary product of Orientalist framing.
Robert Brier's essay—the longest in the book—looks back at the role of gender in the pre-1989 dissident movements, so it is a little out of place in this collection (154–76). Zsófia Lóránd discusses the challenges facing feminists trying to carve out a space for gender issues post-1989, amidst a backlash against EU-imposed gender mainstreaming (177–86).
Barbara Falk argues that the legacy of 1989 as a spontaneous, miraculous protest moment has attained a “fairy tale” quality (190), leading some later activists to underestimate the challenges facing the Arab Spring and similar resistance movements. Ondřej Slačálek agrees that it was a fairy tale (209), but it felt real to the people who lived through it. Afterwards, there was a profound sense of disillusion and confusion, with Slačálek focusing on the extreme inequalities that capitalism brought.
There is not much discussion of Russia or Ukraine, except for a conversation between Igor and Peter Pomerantsev, who conclude that Russia has a death wish (294). Sakwa (20–29) notes the “new cold war” with Russia, which means that the east-west divide has merely moved a couple of hundred miles east.
Judging by the biographies, only eight of the collection's thirty-five authors were living in the former communist bloc at the time of writing. So this is primarily the view of the transition from a western vantage point, even though most of the authors are themselves emigres from the east. The original articles and subsequent debates can be found online: https://www.eurozine.com/focal-points/legacy-of-division/.
