CivilSocietyandtheModernizationofSovietTypeSocieties

CivilSocietyandtheModernizationofSovietTypeSocieties

byMojmirKrian

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Source: PRAXISInternational(PRAXISInternational),issue:1/1987,pages:90110,onwww.ceeol.com.

CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE MODERNIZATION OF SOVIET TYPE SOCIETIES

by Mojmir Krian
Das grte Problem fr die Menschengattung, zu dessen Auflsung die Natur ihn zwingt, ist die Erreichung einer allgemein das Recht verwaltenden brgerlichen Gesellschaft. Immanuel Kant: Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbrgerlicher Absicht, 5. Satz.

Introduction In the course of the decades after the systematic disillusionment concerning all varieties of existing socio-economic systems calling themselves socialist, the utopia of a unifield and harmonious society in the universe of the normative socialist discourse has been abandoned. This was paralleled by the recognition of the unavoidability of divisions also in a, as yet nonexistent, socialist society, i.e. of the correctness of the thesis that differentiation of the spheres of social life as well as those of their symbolic representations (spheres of discourse) are constitutive of the modern age. These developments manifested themselves in the recognition of the necessity of some alienation and reification in the society and the acceptance of dichotomies such as state/society, council democracy/parliamentary representation, elite/ mass etc. The following discussion of the concept of civil society has to be seen in this context. Ambiguities of the concept of civil society History of the concept Originally, civil society denoted a politically constituted community of free and equal men, founded on natural law (Aristotle1 and Stoa) or constituted according to the theological prototype of the civitas dei2. The separation of civil society from the sphere of political power (state, sovereignty), characteristic of the modern age, is due to the necessity to solve two problems that became acute at its onset. One of them was the crumbling of all hitherto recognized institutions that guaranteed the integrity of societal life, so that a secular institution invested with sovereign political power had to be constituted for that purpose. The second was the recognition of the utmost social importance of economic activities and definition of a sphere in which these activities are protected from political interference. Henceforth civil society denotes the sphere of free (economic and other) interaction of equal

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citizens, who delegate the task of securing the cohesion of society to the political sphere. To that extent the modern meaning of civil society is inseparable from the concept of privacy. It was primarily Marx critique of capitalism and its identification with the existing forms of civil society (in its meaning of brgerliche Gesellschaft) that obscured the existence of as yet unexplored emancipatory potentialities of the concept. Correspondingly, Marxism-Leninism has accepted the notion of citizen in the sense of possessing the citizenship of a state and also the adjective civil in some reduced form but neither bourgeois society nor civil society in meanings transcending the condemned capitalist relations of production. Elements of civil society0 The concept of civil society, as developed during the last few centuries, implies several elements, the important of which are: - The principle that all humans are free and equal persons; - The principle of legality, implying universally valid laws which define the sphere of freedom of every individual; - Freedom to express ones own needs, interests and intentions and to try to persuade others of the correctness of ones own views. The institutional guarantee for this is the public sphere; - Freedom to pursue ones own interests, in the frame of existing laws, alone or together with others, i.e. freedom of coalition; - Recognition of frequently highly disparate interests of social groups and individuals and institutionalization of mechanisms of their mediation; - Existence of mechanisms which stabilize the relationship between civil society and the state and therefore offer to the society a certain amount of security from state penetration. These mechanisms can be formal or informal, include verbal influence, democratic election of representatives, forms of self-government etc. - Legally defined freedom of acqusition and disposal of property. Generally, and having in mind numerous historical transformations of the meaning of the concept, it can be defined as the sphere of activity encompassing economic, political and cultural kinds of human behaviour falling outside the field of the official, though sometimes sanctioned by the official.3 Disparate developmental potentialities of civil society A synoptic analysis of the developmental potentialities contained in the enumerated elements of a civil society can easily show that they are not always reconcilable. Agnes Heller writes in this connection of the internal logic (dynamics) of the categories of a social system, which enables her to use the category of contradiction for incompatible social developments.4 It is not difficult to discern several such potentialities: - The principle of individuation, the modern manifestation of what Kant called unsocial sociability of men threatens the ultimate victory of the

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unsocial, unless checked by the principle of legality which takes care of conservation of at least formalized social relationships; - The principle of free public communication and coalition promises the homogenization of society based on rational discourse in the search for consensus and compromise. Such discourse is compatible only with democratic mechanisms of influencing the political sovereign; - Personal autonomy and freedom of property can, in the economic sphere, result in free exchange of commodities, including labor power and money. The competition on the market, especially in combination with the industrial way of production, stimulates economic and, in its consequence, social differentiation, i.e. formation of social classes, primarily those of the rich, educated and powerful vs. the poor, uneducated and powerless. In the sphere of hierarchically organized industrial production, there is no formal equality of the capital owners and the wage earners. The disparateness (contradiction) of these potentialities is easily seen: (1) the unlimited individuation vs. the unification and homogenization through discourse, (2) this unification vs. the reckless competition on the market, (3) the formation of social classes implying different life chances vs. the principle of equality, (4) hierarchy and specialization in industrial production vs. the requirements implied in democratic publicity and plurality etc. are irreconcilable with each other. Solutions of the problem of disparate tendencies These practical and theoretical difficulties motivated social thinkers to look for solutions for some or all of the above mentioned incompatibilities. Generally, the theoretical constructions they offered tended in two directions. One was to give priority to individualism and free exchange on the market and find ways by which members of society can secure their economic and other independence. This liberal socio-economic structure has been combined with political systems ranging from absolute monarchy to anarchy. Alternatively, priority has been given to the harmonization of social relations, having in mind their inextricability, i.e. the untenability of the liberal construction. Here the principal theoretical quest was concerned with methods of prevention and mechanisms of solution of social conflicts. The proposals for solution ranged from Campanellas La Citta del Sole, to Rousseaus volont gnrale and Marxs communist utopia to the electronic-age-idea of incorporating society into an encompassing, computerized feed-back system of observation of behaviour for the purpose of preventive control and elimination of crime and deviance.5 As can easily be seen, in both cases the solution of the tensions of civil society is identical with its abolition as a sphere structurally and institutionally opposed to the state. In the first case, something like Adam Smiths invisible hand, steering the system of perfect liberty, reduces the state to the function of a night watchman or, if human rationality is judged rather optimistically, makes it entirely superfluous. As a result, civil society as a structure separated from the state makes no more sense. In the second case, the

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conceptual and institutional differentiation between civil society and state disappears in the all-encompassing unity of a harmonious and self-transparent societal organization. Capitalism as a contradictory system in the above sense Parliamentary democracy combined with capitalist economy and an industrial mode of production constitute a socio-economic system in which the contradictions of civil society have not been solved. Moreover, it can justifiably be maintained that the dynamics of capitalist societies is due precisely to these contradictions: to the striving for individual success and readiness to compete on the market, to the freedom of disposition of capital and its ability to expand by exploitation of the labor force, to the democratic political structure enabling the citizens to elect and control the ruling elites, to the public discourse forcing its participants to rationalize their arguments and behaviour etc. Still, many social critics did not consider the overwhelming success of capitalism as a social benefit which compensates for shortcomings like unjust distribution of material and cultural wealth, deprivation of men from the development of their many-sided capabilities etc. Among them, the most important was Karl Marx. Marx and Marxism-Leninism Marx critique of civil society and capitalism Marxs critique of existing forms of civil society (brgerliche Gesellschaft) and capitalist economy is undoubtedly normatively and methodologically anchored in the Enlightenment.6 The highest value and formal methodological principle of the enlightenment is human reason. Relying on philosophy as the highest form of national activity, Marx dedicated his life-work to the search for the answer to the question of how reason could be implemented into human society and for the proof that such a development will indeed occur. He saw correctly that the historical context of the genesis of the normative impetus of reason, namely the economic interest of the expanding bourgeois class, does not imply the limitation of the emancipative potentialities of the enlightenment to the protection of these interests, as occured in reality in capitalist societies, but, on the contrary, requires such a selection of the elements of enlightenment, which would transform the society to a locus of human emancipation. Interpretations of the universality claims of reason The enlighted reason pretends to be universalizable; thus, it claims universalization in the society. Universalization means that to all persons are ascribed the ability of rational thinking, and that all objects of that thinking are supposed to be accessible to reason. This universality claim can be interpreted in two ways. The first possible interpretation is a holistic one: it

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optimistically postulates the ability of reason to penetrate all its objects, to form its knowledge into a totality, and to let all thinking individuals participate in that totality, thereby harmonizing their behaviour and constituting a conflictless society. The second interpretation is a pluralistic one. It sees the contradictory results of the efforts of humanity to understand its world not as a transitory stage of (scientific) development, but as an immanent characteristics (or shortcoming) of human thinking. Beyond it, and as a consequence, it recognizes the possibility and even unavoidability of disharmony in the thinking of different individuals, which nonetheless has to be recognized as rational. Consequences of Marx adoption of the holistic concept of reason. Unfortunately, due to his hegelianism and enlightenment optimism, Marx adopted the first interpretation of the universality claim of reason as the normative standpoint of his critique. Moreover, being also here a Hegelian, he gave to his theory the structure of a philosophy of history. So it suggested a to a large extent predetermined course of history towards communism, whose harmony and self-transparency are due to the rationality of thinking and acting of all members of society. In communism, all conflicts and divisions would be abolished; the most important of them Marx saw in the division between state and civil society and in the alienation of the egoistic bourgeois individuals from each other as a consequence of the private property in the means of production. The abolishment of private property through the conquest of political power by the proletariat as the executor of the historical project of bringing about communism (dictatorship of the proletariat) appeared therefore as a sufficient condition for the solution of all social conflicts and abolishment of all injustice. His thinking along the scheme base/superstructure stimulated his conviction that the abolition of capitalist relationships in the economic sphere is a sufficient condition for the harmonization of all social relationships. Identifying capitalism with alienation and injustice and looking forward to communist revolution as a kind of epochal catharsis, he failed to positively account for the emancipatory elements and potentialities in both the existing forms of civil society and even capitalist economy and the theoretical contents of the concept itself. His goal was the human society in which there are no classes, no market and corresponding alienated contractual relationships, and in which material and cultural abundance bring about the harmonious social structure in which the free development of each individual is the condition for free development of all.7 Thus, the floor was open for the subsequent ideologization of Marx theories into what was later called Marxism-Leninism. MarxismLeninism Among the various theoretical approaches towards the so-called real existing socialism, modernization theory can claim the highest degree of plausibility. According to it, Marxism-Leninism is a political ideology whose

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historical function is the liberation of Russia from its, at least economically and culturally, semi-colonial status and the search of an independent way of modernization. Marx theories, beside many other potentials for ideologization due to a number of inconsistencies and simplifications, offered two elements which made them very attractive in view of such a project: the radical critique of capitalism which seemed to justify the rejection of all its social insitutions with the exception of industrialism, and the eschatological promise that if all elements of bourgeois society are annihilated, economic development in the form of industrialization will be a sufficient condition for the realization of communist society. In last analysis the hope of the bolsheviks was that the elimination of the existing culture and institutionalized social relationships determining the alienated existence of man will make the way free for the unfolding of his essence, his hitherto hidden potentialities of altruism, rationality, solidarity, creativity, striving for social harmony, extreme learning capabilities etc.8 Very soon after the October revolution it became clear that the destruction not only of capitalist economy, but also of all alienated institutions of civil society did not result in the expected preestablished harmony of communist society. However, both the utopian communist project and the interest to exert uncontrolled revolutionary power over a society largely resting on premodern traditions, prevented the bolsheviks from making a step back greater than the one made by Lenin when he introduced the New Economic Policy. Communism promised a de-differentiation, because Marx identified differentiation with alienation. The Bolsheviks succeeded in shaking up existing social structures at immense economic and human costs, and to establish new differentiations and hierarchies. De-differentiation implies de-institutionalization. The Bolsheviks destroyed the existing institutions based on tradition and law and tried to establish social relationships on the level of the life-world of the members of society. The result was an inconsistent, disfunctional and spontaneous institutionalization, lacking legal guarantees and allowing the build-up of a totalitarian control over society. De-differentiation, as seen by the Bolsheviks, also implied the elimination of all spheres of free public discourse and the unquestionable domination of the only true ideology the extant version of Marxism-Leninism. Marx speculated on a proletarian party, the communists being its vanguard part. Already in 1902 Lenin developed the theory of a party declaring itself to be a vanguard of the proletariat and at the same time declaring the proletariat to have, at best, a trade-unionist consciousness, being unable to understand the historical project of communism and therefore being obliged to accept the leading role of the party. With that theorem, Lenin in reality gave up the universality claim of reason as postulated by the enlightenment. The binding of reason to a future state of society, radically opposing the present one, limits the attribute of rationality only to the representatives of this future in the present and declares the majority of the population to be unable to exercise autonomous rational thinking. The result of all these revolutionary transformations was that direct political power was left in the hands of a single party paralysing all initiatives of society, henceforth degraded to an irrational object of manipulation.

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Relevance of civil society for soviet type societies The political history of Russia and some other East European countries facilitated the implementation of a MarxistLeninist order of rule: the traditionally strong state tended itself to promote modernization, confronted by the nonexistence of free towns, the weak bourgeoisie and a permanent economic and military pressure from the West. Except in a few cases and for short periods of time, society did not succeed to delimit itself from the state. In some cases, the resistance to the one-party-rule turned out to be a process of learning about the possibilities of gradual emancipation from the (post-) totalitarian state, especially about the emancipatory potential of civil society.9 A number of reasons, accelerating this learning process, particularly in the case of critical intellectuals and some strata of the workers, can be quoted: Political reasons - In the political realm, it was primarily Stalinist terror with his show trials, extermination politics, near-extinction of cultural life and reduction of the workers to slaves of the state which pointed to the importance of legal limitation of the power of the state. In contrast to the USSR, the stalinist period in Eastern Europe was too short to successfully eliminate all elements of and knowledge about civil society. This allowed a reconstitution of a crippled civil society during the thaw-period. - The soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 demonstrated the futility of hopes for a reform from above, which arose in the 50s during the period of thaw. - The period of detente, the strengthening of Eurocommunism and the results of the Helsinki conference 19731975 awakened new hopes and stimulated discussion on the relation of human rights and socialism and on the compatibility of Marxism-Leninism with institutions compatible with these rights.10 The arguments in this discussion were located between the emphatic defense of the ideality of Marx communist utopia and a strict denial of reconcilabilty of human rights with Marx critique of bourgeois society.11 Taking into account the experience of recent years, this discussion resulted in the conclusion that a tendentially totalitarian political power not only will never grant human rights to the population on the basis of a humanistically motivated free decision, but, beyond that, that these rights cannot be realized in the frame of the existing one-party-systems without the institutionalization of civil society, i.e. its strict institutional separation from the party-state, which amounts to an institutionally guaranteed detotalitarization. - On the other hand, it was clear that the state as the central integrative institution was necessary, and that the one-party-rule in East European countries cannot be changed as long as the Soviet Union is not ready to tolerate such a change. The task was then to conceive a political structure in which foreign policy and the executive function remain in the hands of the party-state, and a sphere of freedom institutionalized apart from it. - The tendency of militarization of one-party-rule, e.g. Poland and Romania, that is, the readiness to openly rely on the disposable means of

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military violence to preserve the power of the ruling group, can in a conservative and deideologized period enlarge the space for the detotalitarization of power as well. In such a case, several reasons for conservation of the totalitarian character of the power of the state lose their importance, e.g.: revolution from above, mobilization of the masses for an accelerated industrialization, political penetration of the economy in order to secure a non-military form of domination etc. - The Polish experience of 1980/81, where the first social organization independent of the one-party-state immediately was transformed into an organizational base comprising nearly the whole society trying to limit state influence and constitute a sphere for autonomous social activities. As Bauman has noted: the historical novelty of Polish events consists perhaps above all in the fact that for the first time a process leading from an absolutist state to the separation of civil society from the state is both carried out and led by the workers.12 Socio-cultural reasons - On the socio-cultural level attention was focused on the system of privileges that developed in favor of the new ruling group. The association with premodern societies came to mind. In these, political and economic power were not separated, so that economic decisions were always dependent on political considerations, and thus the possibility for economic activity as well as the sharing of social wealth were a political privilege. Bourgeois revolutions liberated the economy from direct political intervention and legalized civil society as the sphere of competition of free and equal economic subjects. The reoccurence, in soviet type societies, of the dependence of the economy on politics and the corresponding system of privileges could not but reactualize the same old questions and, in the first approximation, suggest the old liberal answers to them, stressing the importance of the institutionalization of a civil society - The tendentially totalitarian pressure on the population to adapt its behaviour to the requirements of the ruling group resulted not in its atomization, but in a withdrawal of identification and life energy from the official institutions and defense of a private sphere of freedom (family, friends), in which cultural identity is preserved and some non-alienated economic activities are possible. This reduced private civil society turned out to be the social base of the constitution of free trade unions in Poland the social ties did not have to be reconstituted, but only more complex social structures reestablished on the base of the existing elementary ones.13 - Because of the attempts to destroy traditional culture, the population of Eastern Europe turns to traditional foci of identity like nation, religion, family. On the other hand, partly as a reaction to the neurotic relationship of the ruling party to the West, it is fascinated by modern western culture not only in the realm of consumer goods, but also concerning its social dynamics. This conflict of tradition and modernity can be, if not solved, at least mitigated only in the frame of a modern civil society.

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- The modern requirement of rationalization of social life, implying the solution of its conflicts and constitution of new forms of social integration, could be fulfilled only by giving to the society a higher degree of autonomy versus both the state and the economy. Moreover, the historical experience with monism and dedifferentiation, and deinstitutionalization as their consequence, have even promoted the understanding of the advantages of impersonal, i.e. alienated institutions and mechanisms, e.g. of the free market as a central institution of civil society: their equitableness and universality exclude privilege, as a form of personal and/or particular relationship. - The expanding corruption is a fundamental mechanism that allows for a sphere of freedom incompatible with the totalitarian principle. It enables the bribers, potentially (if not actually) the whole population, to buy some independence from the ruling oligarchy. At the same time the bribed accumulate wealth, which makes them more independent from the corporative structure of the ruling group. Not clearly separable from the system of corruption are the black market and the second economy as a genuinely economic phenomenon enabling a large fraction of the population to a free, albeit illegal and permanentaly threatened form of economic activity.14 Economic reasons - Economic considerations point to the same direction. The hitherto dominant so called extensive industrialization has reached its limits, especially in the fact of the accelerated technological development of western capitalism. In all East European countries there is a decline or stagnation in economic efficiency, necessitating experiments of implementation of new economic mechanisms. Their aim is to stimulate economically relevant initiatives from below without allowing the development of an autonomy of society threatening the power monopoly of the party. It has not yet been generally realized that this can be achieved only by defining a protected sphere where such initiatives can develop free from political interference i.e. by the institutionalization of a state-free sphere at least in the economic realm.15 Consequences of the learning process The process of learning due to the enumerated experiences and insights was accompanied, in intellectual circles, by the gradual abandonment first of Marxism-Leninism, second of hopes in the ability of the ruling communist parties to implement reforms which would make life in East European countries at least as attractive as that in western capitalism (in Poland these hopes were bound to the idea of revisionism; in Chechoslovakia to socialism with a human face; in Hungary, Kadarism is still not considered to be a hopeless case), and third of classical Marxism and its allegedly non-ideological interpretations.16 In other words, East European intellectuals have realized that the normative content of the enlightenment goes beyond not only the ideological project of Marxism-Leninism, but also excludes the

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marxism monistic idea of Aufhebung of all contradictions of a nontraditional society in the harmonious and transparent communism. The majority of the population, not having at their disposal the intellectual instruments of comprehension of the authoritarian political system and disillusioning social reality, preferred to withdraw from public life, to buy a nondisturbed private one of moderate welfare by formal participation in the prescribed political rituals, and, to some extent, to accept cultural regression in the forms of partial disintegration of personality and reduction of the conceptual and semantic competence, especially as far as political questions are concerned.17 The problem of a socialist civil society Reasons of preference of a socialist civil society The requirement for the implementation of some form of civil society in soviet type societies originated from circles with different foci of identification: religious, nationalist of various colours, emphatically bourgeois, neoand post-marxist etc. The majority of them had nevertheless one thing in common: the concept of civil society they had in mind was not the traditional one, as developed in bourgeois societies. There are several reasons why this latter concept is unacceptable for East Europe: - The conflicting developmental potentialities contained in the different elements of the traditional concept, once they have been theoretically recognized, have to be eliminated before a new attempt of social implementation of civil society is made. - A large number of oppositional intellectuals, stemming from a marxist tradition, felt that socialism as a regulative idea should not be abandoned in spite of the disillusionment with both Marxism-Leninism and classical marxism. - Important elements of the experience of the working populations in soviet type societies have been a social security and employment guaranteed by the state and no personal property of means of production in conjunction with latent possibilities of implementation of elements of self-government. A return of capitalist relations of production was therefore not very attractive. The historical experience of the Solidarity-movement in Poland is an example where the workers wanted at the same time to avoid questioning of the socialist character of the system to result from the intended compromise with the political power, and to define a sphere of freedom for citizens aside from that power. Conclusion: necessity of a socialist civil society Therefore, the reconstruction of civil society in soviet type societies becomes an original project: it requires not only the political effort to reduce the sphere of influence of the party-state, but also a theoretical effort to conceive what might be called the socialist civil society in opposition to the traditional one, which promotes the development of capitalist relations of

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production, and which therefore may be called bourgeois civil society. The solution of these theoretical and practical problems would then be relevant not only for the East, but for the West as well. Genesis of the concept Theoretical thinking about the problem of conceptualization of civil society aside from the capitalist mode of production was stimulated by the events in Poland 1980/81. In that context, the difference in connotations between civil society and its german translation, brgerliche Gesellschaft has been thematized. The marxist critique of capitalism changed the original meaning of the latter. Increasingly, the centre of gravity of its meaning became the capitalist mode of production, i.e. it denoted either the political and economic constitution of western capitalism or civil society including the freedom of capitalist property. In english, this meaning is carried by the concept of bourgeois society. The proposal was to transpose this difference into the german discourse by introducing Zivilgesellschaft as a concept equivalent to civil society and not semantically bound to a capitalist economy.18 However useful, this differentiation is not satisfactory becasue the two concepts are not exclusive of each other. Therefore the concept of a post-bourgeois civil society was proposed, i.e. a civil society whose integrating institutions are not derived primarily from the interest of the citizens in economic freedom in the sense of capitalist enterprise, but based on the priority of non-materialist values.19 Explicitly, socialist and pluralist civil society is mentioned in J. Cohens analysis of the status of the concept of civil society in Marxian critical theory.20 Definition of socialist civil society In relation to these attempts of conceptualization the question arises whether post-bourgeois in this context can be identified with socialist and pluralist. Apparently not, because a post-materialist attitude towards the sphere of production is compatible with extreme individualism and narcissism, combined with difficulties of communication beyond the limit of an institutionalized rational discourse a phenomenon very well known in the rich societies of the capitalist West. On the other hand, the term socialism, however negatively burdened by the historical experience of the real existing socialism, is inseparable from the idea of solidarity of the members of society and of their association in various kinds of communities, excluding egoism and narcissism, especially in those located beyond the economic sphere. In socialism, the free and creative unfolding of the capabilities of every individual is the condition for material and cultural nourishing of all, and the members of a socialist society know that the other human being is the highest being and the only one providing a sense to their lives. This can be considered as the differentia specifica of the socialist civil society as one possible category of post-bourgeois civil society, the latter including other alternatives too. Then, socialist civil society would be charactarized by institutions

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and values of a post-materialist kind promoting diverse forms of solidary communities, including enough free space outside of the (legal) institutions for spontaneous forms of communal life. Theoretical and practical problems The formulation of the differentia specifica of a concept does not imply that all connected theoretical and practical problems are solved. In the case of the socialist civil society they seem to be especially numerous. Some of them are: - In the political realm, the criteria of division between the state and civil society have to be reformulated and corresponding new institutions implemented. The experience with the tendency of real existing socialism to etatize the whole society suggests that the sphere of direct political influence should be defined rather restrictively and that the institutional delimitations should be made clearly recognizable. The state certainly has to offer the institutional frame of mediation of those conflicting interests which could not be mediated on the level of pluralist institutions of society, to include central representative institutions (parliament) in which universally valid laws can be discussed and voted for, to guarantee the constitution and the observation of these laws, i.e. to dispose of the means of coercion, to be the carrier of social policy, i.e. to offer protection to socially and economically threatened persons and to steer the economy. On the other hand , members of society have to be free to constitute associations based on diverse particular interests, organizations which represent these interests towards the rest of society, i.e. political parties on local and global levels, and communities based on particular values and life-styles which more or less strongly delimit themselves from other such groups, nonetheless staying in the frame of the universally valid laws and those values, which constitute the consensual basis of the integrity of the society.21 Also, freedom of economic activity has to be guaranteed, including production for the market by individuals and groups and even the free choice of the status of a dependent, entirely heteronomous worker.22 Institutional mediation of state and society - Beside the clear delimitation of competences and spheres of influence of state and society, the question of the institutional form of representation of society on the state level has to be solved. The main principle here has to be that single individuals and those institutionalized groups which are of central importance for the constitution of social identity of their members have to be represented. Of course, preceding the institutionalization, a general consensus on the question of which groups offer such central foci of identity has to be reached. It is reasonable to presume that the form of representation will depend on the interests represented and on the size and inner structure of the groups. For example, single individuals and nations as nonorganized groups can be represented only through free elections of representatives with a free mandate. On the other hand, territorial political organizations of a smaller size

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and economic enterprises can be represented by delegates who are, at least partially, subject to the imperative mandate.23 Also, some mechanisms for representation of minorities have be found and institutional safeguards of tolerance implemented. After some sort of basic consensus and democratic constitution have been established, the optimum combination of representative and council elements has to be found by trial and error. Because of lack of experience, the present discussion on this subject is highly controversial.24 Prevention of concentration of economic power - In the economic sphere, some combination of market and planning will be unavoidable: planning on the level of single enterprises, market mechanisms defining the conditions of exchange among them, and indicative central planning on the state level, implemented only by indirect means of economic policy, i.e. by changing only the marginal conditions of the market exchange. The as yet unsolved problem is the simultaneous effectiveness of mechanisms guaranteeing economic efficiency as necessary condition for social welfare and those preventing the constitution of centers of economic power and its possible consequences: domination of their particularistic interest in state organizations and possible reconstitution of capitalism. Its solution can probably be approached by accepting a relatively low level of unemployment combined with a progressive income taxing and predominance of representation of the weaker, i.e. middle and low social strata in the political sphere. Problem of ownership and economic reproduction - New solutions of the property question will have to be looked for if both capitalist and marxist-leninist relations of production are to be avoided. At first glance it seems easy to replace state ownership of all means of production by group ownership by declaring the working collectives as owners of their factories. As the case of Yugoslavia shows, the attempt to legally define a council system can encounter unsurmountable obstacles if the concept of ownership is not clarified beforehand. Present attempts in the Sovjet bloc to retain the concept of state ownership and define the members of the enterprises as collective managers of state property are not promising as long as the problem of stimulation of extended economic reproduction is not solved. In other words, the concept of ownership (or of the disposition of the means of production) has to be redefined in such a way that efficient production and rational reproduction of the means of production is secured. It seems that best results are reached if investment decisions are made by factory managements because they are directly involved in production and marketing. The problem of prevention of concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a minority could possibly be solved by defining the members as formal owners of the means of production which they use, enabling them to act as employers towards new employees with the restriction that these have to be paid the same salaries and, after they have worked in the same factory for a defined period of time, obtain the same rights of ownership as the old

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members of the enterprise. Leaving the collective would thus be connected with responsibilities of a capital owner: leaving the collective in situations where the work of the departing member is needed would be possible only under the condition that the corresponding share in capital is not paid out, because such situations usually correspond to phases of prosperity and the capital objectified in means of production is not arbitrarily divisible. Conversely, if a collective wanted to get rid of one of its members, it would have obligations toward him which go beyond the obligation of paying him his share of common capital.25 Plurality of subcultures and communities - It is imaginable that even the proposed changes of relations in the economic sphere would not eliminate mechanisms promoting the formation of social classes. In order to prevent their domination, social structures and institutions are required which further the constitution of social relations and communities across the (potential) class limits. One of them is cultural pluralism; its central value is openness for cultural or, more precisely, subcultural differences, the ability to realize that they arise along qualitatively different variables, and that each of these variables can serve as a base for the constitution of communities. From this perspective class cleavages appear partly as a result of a behaviour whose ideal presupposition is that the society is divided into several classes clearly delimited along almost all of the relevant variables. Secondly, pluralism as value is inseparable from tolerance and a moderate cultural relativism. These, again, are conditions for the readiness to accept other (sub)cultures and to communicate and get acquainted with them, find the similarities and differences, advantages and disadvantages, to implement corrections and look for new syntheses, in short, to assure what may be called a dynamic interaction and development of culture(s). Public sphere - The norm of plurality is closely linked to the topic of public sphere. It has to be institutionalized, besides the mechanisms of political representation and the executive apparatus of the state, as a medium for direct and impersonal horizontal and vertical communication. Due to the existence of mass media, primarily television, which are at present suitable primarily for a one-way communication from the centre to the periphery which excludes dialogue, the reconstruction of the public sphere should concentrate primarily on the promotion of horizontal communication among different groups of society. Yet even mass media can play an important positive role in the process of formation of a democratic political culture if they are not used only for propaganda but give some insights into the political process and thereby reduce its arcane character.

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Justice It goes without saying that a socialist civil society can be instituted and upheld only in connection with an independent judiciary and a modern system of law. In this area a civil law has to be developed with the centre of gravity in the social, and not in the economic sphere. Definition of the role of the party A specific problem of all soviet type societies is the political method of confining the ruling partys influence and the redefinition of its political status and function. As Polish experience has shown, even after its total delegitimation and destruction of mechanisms of active implementation of policies, the ruling group is ready to obstruct all attempts to reform existing institutions and power relations if it fears that its power and privileges could be seriously impeded. East European reformist movements, intending to reconstruct civil society, have therefore not only to define their own claims, but at the same time shape the functions and the range of power of the party apparatus in such a way that it can be accepted both by the big brother in Moscow and by the local Nomenklatura. Evidently this will include external policies, executive functions, ideology production and some sort of veto-right as far as the restoration of capitalist relationships in the economy is concerned. The problem of council democracy The topic of a socialist civil society cannot be discussed without mentioning the theories of council democracy. From the standpoint of theoretical interest of this article, the most important question concerning this form of democracy is the institutional extension of the council system. If it is confined to relatively small groups mediated by the market in the economic sphere, by publicity and various forms of interaction and association in the socio-cultural, and representative state institutions in the political sphere, no problems must arise and self-management can be welcomed as a very important form of democracy. Things appear to be entirely different if all spheres of social life have to be mediated and integrated by the same principle of council democracy, including several levels and several intertwined hierarchies of councils, interconnected by the principle of delegation, the delegates being subject to the imperative mandate, and excluding such alienated mechanisms as the market and political parties. Here a number of important objections can be formulated: Complexity and intransparency of the system An encompassing system of councils becomes too complicated because of its multiple horizontal and vertical divisions. In the vertical dimension, several levels of delegation are necessary between the bottom and the top of the hierarchy. The effective democratic influence of the population on the peak of

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the pyramid becomes thereby virtually impossible. Moreover, several such pyramids can turn out to be necessary, each for a different type of interest. Hierarchies are imaginable around the interests of production, around those of consumption, some territorially bound interests, education, justice etc. The horizontal communication among them then also becomes almost impossible. The reaction can be only the tendency to evade the legal institutions and procedures and replace them by unofficial ones resulting in the total opaqueness of the process of decision-making. Centrifugal tendencies The monism of such a council system is founded on the premise that the acting of all participants is guided by the norm of searching for the common or general interest and trying to implement it. A more realistic supposition is that in each individual there is a conflict between the general and his particular interest. Bourgeois political theory takes this into account by differentiating between bourgeois and citoyen and by requiring separate institutionalization of the political and the social sphere. Lacking these two spheres, actors in a monistic self-management system are in a permanent dilemma whether to act as bourgeois or as citoyen. It is not surprising to find that they give priority to their particular interests. This is especially true when conditions of material scarcity are dominant. The council system then becomes a locus of centrifugal tendencies requiring additional institutions for social integration. Personal privileges The system of personal relations and unofficial decision-making tends to be distorted into a system of privileges and corruption compared to which the injustices due to the alienated mechanisms of the market appear quite moderate. Thus, this kind of distortion, made possible by a nonalienated power structure based on personal and other informal relationships, makes evident the advantages of such alienated systems as for example a (relatively) free market or an independent judiciary: they are just in the sense that their laws and mechanisms are impersonally applied, i.e. are universalistic. Constitution of oligarchies In modern complex societies it is virtually impossible to eliminate bureaucratic administration. Even under optimal conditions broadly educated population, its participation in self-management, institutionalized mechanisms for prevention of constitution of hierarchies of power and privilege (like rotation of offices and salaries not exceeding the average) the system is not immunised against Michels famous iron law of oligarchy, especially on the informal level. Moreover, the unofficial lines of decisionmaking and the centrifugal tendencies will favour the uncontrolled extension of central political power into all spheres of social life. The danger then arises

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that the society is etatised, or even a totalitarian role established, rather than the state reintegrated into the society. Division of powers The interpretation of the institution of the division of powers as a superfluous relic of the revolutionary struggle of the new bourgeois class against the feudal order fails to realize that checks and balances are a very efficient means to control and confine central power. Political parties Since no political parties or lobbies are provided, it is unclear how political ideas and interests can be systematically integrated, formulated and promoted. Here the statement of the totalitarianism-theory seems to be confirmed: an atomized society corresponds to a monistic political system. Especially bad is the situation of minorities, who have little chance to find some representation on the central level. Problem of education Proponents of council democracy suggest that no special education is necessary for the participation in self-management bodies or even for political leadership. At best, a broad general education is required. However, the decision-making in complex societies requires long experience and in most cases an academic education, in the optimal case directly connected with the sphere of concern. None of these conditions is fulfilled in the case of workers in workers councils. The reference to professional advisory groups which elaborate possible consequences of various alternatives is not satisfactory: there is no reason to presume that these professionals will not try to extend their influence and power if the methods of their work are entirely obscure to the members of the council. This kind of backstage power, in distinction to professional and formally institutionalized decision-making, carries no formal responsibilities for its consequences. Problem of exclusion On the lowest level, the council system always faces the problem that many members of society are not ready or able to participate in it. They are then not only excluded from the council system, but unable to influence the decisionmaking process in any way. From the standpoint of this group of people, the formal election of ruling elites in any case seems preferable. One-man-one-vote The complicated structure of councils on different levels and in different spheres of social life regularly injures the democratic principles according to

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which, as far as affairs of common interest are concerned, every individual has to dispose of the same number of votes, and all representatives have to represent approximately the same number of voters.26 Economic disaster Being without or with only rudimentary market mechanisms and burdened with underdeveloped civil law (contractualism), the global council system has to rely on diffuse agreements and is therefore lacking an effective economic mechanism. Therefore it is faced with the alternative of returning to the central material planning or acquiescing with economic anarchy, autarchic tendencies of small territorial units, inefficient investments, constitution of illegal markets, return to distribution mechanisms based on barter, etc. These problems and experiences have made it today virtually impossible to defend such a monistic global system of self-management. Even the most persistent proponents of council democracy have in the meantime accepted the premise that there is a difference between particular and general interests and recognized the advantages of a mixed system of institutions, combining elements of council and representative democracy and including social pluralism and many elements of a socialist civil society.27 Conclusions and prospects Both in the case of Marx implicit idea of communism as a de-differentiated and de-institutionalized harmonious and transparent society, and in the case of theoreticians of the institutions of an encompassing system of council democracy, we find an idea of social monism that overloads those participating in the resulting social structures. In the first case they have to overlook all important events and processes in the whole society. In the second case they must additionally overlook the complicated institutional structure of the council system. These issues can be reduced to a tolerable level without questioning the regulative ideas of socialism and democracy only by abandoning the monistic utopia and institutionalizing civil society as the sphere where rational action is possible and recognized as such within a narrower horizon as a rule that of the life-world. From this perspective, the first task becomes the solution of the problems of constitution of a socialist civil society. Historically, the concept of civil society is inseparable from the genesis of the idea of socialism: very soon it was realized that the existence of the poor threatens the system of social norms which guarantee legal security and thereby the freedom of civil society. In other words: just the political theory of civil society posed the class question, i.e. pointed to the social fact that class cleavages could have fatal consequences for the stability of civil society, and that their elimination or at least controlled reduction is the conditio sine qua non of its preservation notwithstanding the fact that free competition tends to reproduce old and produce new divisions and differences. From this particular perspective, arguing for a socialist civil society appears to be identical as arguing for civil society simpliciter. Thus, the

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solution of the problem of constitution of a socialist civil society can be considered as the simultaneous solution of the problem of socialism and that of civil society. What are the prospects for a development in the indicated direction in present soviet type societies? As Fehr and Heller have recently argued,28 in the USSR they are bad, whereas in middle-European countries economic liberalization is likely. It implies the reconstruction of some elements of civil society, in particular legality and some forms of freedom of individual (or group) economic initiative. Two questions concerning future developments presently cannot be answered. First, it is not yet clear in what direction and how far economic liberalization will develop, i.e. how the chances of development of a socialist civil society should be assessed. Second, it is difficult to estimate the chances of realization of the liberal ideal in which the state is the legitimate official political organization of the socialist civil society. The case of Poland suggests a development towards the total delegitimation of the party-state and the resulting necessity of an alternative self-organization of society. In such a situation, the best imaginable result would be a dual political institutionalization, the existence of two competitive power centers, whose relation could be stabilized only by strict division of competences and mutual recognition of legitimacy, including the fact that the successor of the old party-state structure is fully dependent on soviet hegemony. One advantage of this structure would be the implied division of power and mechanisms of checks and balances. One of the disadvantages would be the danger of destabilization in case of weakening of soviet imperial power, the danger of the rise of new uncontrolled power structures in case that the party-state collapses as a consequence of withdrawal of soviet hegemonic protection, and the danger that the relationship of the party-state and the self-organized society develops into a kind of cold civil war because of the total delegitimation of the one-party-system. The question is still open whether this new kind of social compact has any chance of realization in soviet type societies both from the practical and from the theoretical point of view.
NOTES
Aristoteles: Politik, Mnchen DTV, 1973, 1252 b 30, 1253 a 24. Manfred Riedel: Gesellschaft, brgerliche, in: Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, edited by Otto Brunner, Werner Conze and Reinhart Koselleck, Vol. 2, Stuttgart, Klett, 1975, pp. 719800, pp. 719729. 3. Salvador Giner. The Withering Away of Civil Society? Praxis International, Vol. 5, No. 3, Oct. 1985, pp. 247267, p. 258. 4. Agnes Heller: A Theory of History, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, pp. 2834. 5. Hans Magnus Enzensberger in Kursbuch No. 56, June 1979; Sebastian Cobler: Herold gegen alle, Gesprche mit dem Prsidenten des Bundeskriminalamtes, Trans-Atlantik, No. 11, Nov. 1980, pp. 2940; Friedrich Karl Fromme: Die Terroristen-Jagd hat ihn verfremdet, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 26. March 1981, p. 10. 6. The following argumentation is an abridged reproduction of my talk Modernisierung und Avantgradeprinzip, given on April 3, 1986, in the framework of the seminar Politische Theorie und politische Bildung in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, to be published. 1. 2.

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8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16.

17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

See also: M. Riedel (note 2), pp. 799800. An excellent critique of the utopian element in Marx thinking and its consequences gives Albrecht Wellmer in: Reason, Utopia and the Dialectic of Englightenment, Praxis Int., Vol. 3, No. 2, July 1983, pp. 83107. This can easily be concluded from the utopian fragments in Lenins State and Revolution and Trotskys Literature and Revolution. A concise description of this process of learning in the case of Polish intellectuals is given in: Andrew Arato: Civil Society against the State: Poland 198081, Telos 47, Spring 1981, pp. 2347, pp. 2729. See for example six articles on the subject in Praxis Int., Vol. 1, No. 4, Jan. 1982. The latter in: Leszek Kolakowski: Marxism and Human Rights, Daedalus, Vol. 112, No. 4, Fall 1983, pp. 8192. Zygmunt Bauman: On the Maturation of Socialism, Telos 47, Spring 1981, pp. 4854, p. 53. This argument is developed in: Kazimierz Wojcicki: The Reconstruction of Society, Telos 47, Spring 1981, pp. 98104. Ferenc Fehr, Agnes Heller: Are there Prospects for Change in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, Praxis Int., Vol. 5, No. 3, Oct. 1985, pp. 323332, p. 3256. It is not yet quite clear what Gorbatchev has in mind when he demands at the same time stimulation of economic initiative in the society and strengthening of the mechanism of central planning. Possibly he prepares a gradual transition from material planning and direct command of economic organizations to planning of global economic developments combined with indirect means of steering. Beyond the growing scepticism about the relevance of Marx theories, including their praxisphilosophical interpretation, a further reason for the loss of interest in marxism by East European critical intellectuals in the 60s and 70s was the realization that the ruling power elite does not think ideologically and is not at all interested in marxist critique of its political system. An additional reason was the refusal of large fractions of the population to think and speak in terms of the official ideology, including the narrative of classical Marxism. As representative of this process can be considered Leszek Kolakowski. For details of this process see: Gyrgy Bence, Jnos Kis: On being a Marxist: a Hungarian view, The Socialist Register, London Merlin Press, 1980, pp. 263277; Mihaly Vajda: Marxism and Eastern Europe A Sort of Letter to My Friends, in: Vajda: the State and Socialist, New York: St. Martins Press, 1981, pp. 79106; Vladimir Tismeanu: Critical Marxism and Eastern Europe, Praxis Int., Vol. 3, No. 3, Oct. 1983, pp. 248261; Svetozar Stojanovi: Marxismus als Gesellschaftstheorie und Ideologie. berlegungen zur Krise des Marxismus, in: Ossip K. Flechtheim (ed.); Marx Heute, Hamburg, Hoffmann und Campe, 1983, pp. 253274; R. Fenchel, A.-J. Pietsch: Introduction, in: Fenchel, Pietsch (eds.): Polen 198082, Hannover SOAK, 1982, pp. 1618; Andrew Arato: Marxism in Eastern Europe, paper presented at the conference on Marxism, Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, April 1983. An excellent analysis of this cultural regression in the case of Poland is delivered by Jadwiga Staniszkis in: On some Contradictions of Socialist Society: the Case of Poland, Soviet Studies, Vol. XXXI, No. 2, April 1979, pp. 167187, and: Pologne, la rvolution autolimite, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1982, pp. 115148. General information on opposition in soviet type societies in middle Europe can be found in: Rudolf L. Tkes (ed.): Opposition in Eastern Europe, London: Macmillan, 1979. Reinhard Fenchel, Hans-Willi Weis: Staat, Partei, Gewerkschaft, Thesen zur Krisenentwicklung in Polen, Links, 12. Jg., Nov. 1980, No. 128, pp. 1818. Andrew Arato, Jean Cohen: Social Movements, Civil Society and the Problem of Sovereignty, Praxis Int., Vol. 4, No. 3, Oct. 1984, pp. 266283. Jean L. Cohen: Class and Civil Society: The Limits of Marxian Critical Theory, Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983, p 228. See: Agnes Heller: The Dissatisfied Society, Praxis Int., Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 359370. Agnes Heller: The Great Republic, Praxis Int., Vol. 5, No. 1, April 1985, pp. 2334, p. 29, argues stringently when from the postulated plurality of needs and ways of life she accepts the possibility that someone opts for being employed by others and not to participate in the institutions of democratic management of economy. It is not difficult to imagine the genesis of such a need: the situation of heteronomous employment with a routine work will be attractive to all those who want to concentrate their mental energies to other tasks, outside of the sphere of government of society and economy. See on that subject Svetozar Stojanovi: Teze za reformu jugoslovenskog politikog sistema (Theses for

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reform of the yugoslav political system), lecture given to the study-group Man and System on March 19, 1983, in Zagreb, Yugoslavia. A good example of differences of views on the subject of the locus of the representation and definition of particular and general interests has been given by A. Heller: The Great Republic (note 22) and Mihailo Markovi: Democratic Socialism, Theory and Practice, Sussex: Harvester Press and St. Martins Press, 1982, pp. 126150. Heller sees the elections for parliamentary representatives as the institution which enables every citizen to vote according to his personal preferences and egoistic interests, whereas participation in self-management is always connected with some sort of group pressure enforcing stronger consideration of the general interest. Markovi, on the contrary, sketches a global system of self-management in which self-management bodies tend to promote particular interests, whereas the general interest is defined in a parliamentary body of representatives of individual citizens. The authors disagree also on the question of necessity of political parties and directly elected parliamentary representation. The discussion of these subjects would probably be facilitated by replacing the notion of private property by the notion of disposition over the means of production and thereby eliminating some historically generated connotations of the former which hamper its free and rational use, especially the fetishism of property characteristic for bourgeois societies and its anathematization by MarxismLeninism. For this critique see e.g.: Udo Bermbach (ed.): Theorie and Praxis der direkten Demokratie, Texte und Materialien zur Rte-Diskussion, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1973, Introduction, pp. 1332. This is the case for example with Markovi (note 24). Fehr, Heller (note 14).

24.

25.

26. 27. 2S.