Did Rock Smash the Wall?

The Role of Rock in Political Transition

Author(s): Jolanta Pekacz
Source: Popular Music , Jan., 1994, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Jan., 1994), pp. 41-49
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/852899

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Popular Music (1994) Volume 13/1. Copyright ( 1994 Cambridge University Press

Did rock smash the wall? The

role of rock in political
transition

JOLANTA.PEKACZ

A conviction that rock is the central manifestation of the post-War mass c

and the most common form of mass cultural activity, seems undoubted for
analysts. The question as to whether rock music is able to play any signific
in a process of political change evokes, however, scepticism rather than end
ment (Rosselson 1979; Hibbard and Kaleialoha 1983; Orman 1984; Pattison
Grossberg 1991).
The breakthrough in East Central Europe in 1989 opened an apparently
perspective for reflection on rock's influence on political events and its pot
contribution to transition from one political system to another. This si
inspired some rock analysts to advance the argument that rock music in th
tries of the former Soviet bloc effected one of the most significant social an
ical transformations in the history of Europe - the collapse of Commu
According to this argument, 'rock musicians were instrumental in setting in
the actual course of events which led to the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the
disappearance of the GDR'; and 'rock music contributed to the erosion of totali-
tarian regimes throughout Eastern Europe long before the cracks in the system
became apparent and resulted in its unexpected demise' (Wicke, 1992, p. 81); rock
represented 'probably the most widespread.vehicle of youth rebellion, resistance
and independence behind the Iron Curtain' (Mitchell 1992, p. 187); and was 'the
realisation of a democratic process' there (Ryback 1990, p. 233). Thus, rock in its
Communist incarnation may be opposed to that in Western countries, where it
became clear as early as 1970 that rock was unable to provoke any major political
change.
Examination of the reasons for the breakthrough in East Central Europe
undertaken by various analysts usually points to systemic contradictions of real
socialism in three spheres: the sphere of domination, of economy, and of the
colonial situation within the Soviet bloc. Contradiction within the sphere of dom-
ination came from the Communist party's claims to be an 'avant-garde' and to
represent the 'objective laws of history' on the one hand, and an anarchy inexor-
ably resulting from such claims on the other. Contradiction within the sphere of
economy resulted from state ownership and the absence of a market that made real
control of the economic process impossible. Real planning turned into emergency
actions undertaken to resolve periodically recurring crisis situations (regulation
through crisis). The colonial situation in East Central Europe that assumed double

41

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42 Jolanta Pekacz

dependency - on the world capitalist system on the one hand, and within the bloc
(COMECON) on the other (the latter meant to reduce the tensions of the former) -
contributed to the isolation and peripheral status of the region (Staniszkis 1991,
pp. 1-4). In addition to these fundamental contradictions the breakthrough in the
Soviet bloc was facilitated by additional chance factors, the main being the USSR's
internal problems and its concern with keeping a good relationship with the West
and, consequently, Moscow's constrained response to the affairs of its satellites.
The collapse of real socialism that followed was inevitable: the contradictions cre-
ated anarchy in the system and it was no longer possible to resolve them on the
basis of the existing (or, rather, non-existing) material and symbolic resources.
The argument behind the concept of rock's significant role in the political
transformation in East Central Europe is based on the following fallacious
assumptions:
1. real socialism was identical with totalitarianism;
2. the collapse of Communism was sudden and unexpected, and resulted from a pressure
from below (of which rock was an element):
3. rock and real socialism were, by definition, incompatible, therefore rock in the Soviet
bloc was in a continuous conflict with the regime.

Reconsideration of these assumptions is indispensable for a proper evaluation

of rock's role in the process of transformation all over the former Soviet bloc.
Totalitarianism, according to classical theories, implies total ideological con-
formity, effective control over minds, elimination of all forms of opposition, and
impossibility of any internal change. In the history of the Soviet bloc, only the
period of Stalin's rule can be interpreted in terms of the totalitarian model. The
process of dismantling Stalinism began officially with the Twentieth Congress of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, and since then the development
of 'real socialism' consisted in the gradual abandonment of its totalitarian features
(Walicki 1991, p. 94). The emergence of social movements in the 1970s, openly
oppositional, free from fear and indoctrination, and fighting for political self-
determination and for the 'subjectivity of society', marked the stage when the
theory of totalitarianism lost its relevance in the Soviet bloc. Demonisation of the
system of real socialism, by presenting it as omnipotent and as much more power-
ful than it was in reality, especially in its decadent phase, (Wicke 1990, 1992) is
untenable.
The dismantling of Stalinism was interrelated with a process of de
ideologisation. The flexibility of Communist doctrine, rather than its rigidity w
noticed as early as 1950 (Moore 1965). What was also noticed was a need for a
distinction between an organisation's official (formal) ideology and its leader
operative (informal) one. While the first was composed by publicly distribute
programmes and statements, the second consisted of basic, often unstated
assumptions made by leaders, which represented a compromise between mean
and ends; in other words, it was the former's current application (Moore 1965
pp. 416-22; Taras 1984, p. 27). Studies of ideology in some countries of the forme
Soviet bloc confirmed the difference between its official and operative leve
(Johnson 1972; Laszlo 1966; McCauley 1979; Taras 1984). On the other hand, th
meaning in Communist discourse
[was] often quite different from the real meaning of the terms - sometimes designedly so
for Communists [were] skilled in using words to convey one meaning to the unawar
outsider, another to the initiated (Armstrong 1975, pp. 28 ff.).

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 Rock in political transition 43

Therefore, for a complete image of real socialism, decoding the logic of Communist
ideological discourse and its different meanings on both, official and operative,
levels is a basic condition. In other words, the conventional platitudes expressed
by party leaders at official meetings about 'ideological tendencies alien to socialism'
should be complemented with what really functioned on an operative level.
Communist culture politicians understood the impossibility of introducing a
pure version of official ideology. In 1952, in his famous article 'Marxism and ques-
tions of language', Stalin denied the class nature of language and its part in the
ideological superstructure. In October of that year, during the Nineteenth Con-
gress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Malenkov launched an attack
against the policy of his predecessor, Zhdanov, and against socialist realism in
Soviet literature. Stalin's death in 1953 brought on the famous 'thaw' and a further,
gradual abandonment of the doctrine of socialist realism; operative ideology on
culture became more absorptive to values other than those of realism and social-
ism. The process of de-ideologisation proved irreversible. Each of the subsequent
upheavals in the Soviet bloc (1956, 1968, 1980) implicated further de-ideologisation
directed from above and meant to divert society from potentially dangerous intel-
lectual speculations; referring to communist ideology, especially to the social tradi-
tion of the left, was labelled as revisionism and seen as dangerous for the existing
status quo. In the cultural sphere, de-ideologisation meant the growing flexibility
of the Communist authorities and freer and wider openings to culture (not always
of the best quality) from behind the Iron Curtain. The signing of the Helsinki
agreement in 1975, which was to promote cultural exchanges between East and
West implied, on the formal level of ideology, that 'screening of works from capit-
alist countries had to be more careful' (Kossak 1977, pp. 165-9), while in practice
it permitted more autonomous development of culture. What developed was a
hybrid operative ideology on culture. Consequently, culture in countries of real
socialism, absorbing the challenges of 'ideologically foreign' Western culture, with-
out changing the political system, became socialist in form but heterogeneous in
content.

In other words, the history of the Soviet bloc countries is marked b

tracted and profound ideological crises because, on the one hand, a Co
party in a socialist state could not discard fundamental ideological princip
cially (as did the Congress of the French Communist Party in 1976) an
other, reasons for modifications were justifiable. As a result, socialist rea
characterised by a gradual erosion of official ideology and, consequent
structure of both ideology and everyday life. The following report by a
of the East German New Forum, Jens Reich, well illustrates the situation

In the fifties when a political discussion occurred at work, there was always a C
who stepped in and defended the position of the Party. In the seventies and eigh
a thing happened far less frequently. They usually avoided this 'ideological
preferred to walk out of the tea room or to change the topic of conversation. S
was really ready to take up the gauntlet on behalf of the Party when finally the c
(1990, p. 83)

The routinised way of 'ideologization' of the society produced an O

'dual consciousness'; the permanent inefficiency of the centrally planned
produced the underground 'second economy' and monstrous corrupt
'second economy' reduced planning to a fiction: decision making was i
more and more in the hands of local cliques and mafias organised in a

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44 Jolanta Pekacz

with traditional principles of clientism (Walicki 1991, p. 102). Before the proce
of privatisation officially began, political leaders themselves had abandoned the
pure version of the Communist ideology and joined the 'second economy', actin
in terms of corporate interest, rather than Communist principles. New lead
came to power with new elites already formed. After the collapse of Communi
the former political authority converted itself into economic power: in the proc
of privatisation of the public sector, they became supporters, rather than oppo
ents of the transition.
Thus, the collapse of Communism was not 'unexpected' (Wicke 1992, p. 81),
but was an outcome of a long process that had begun in 1956. The simultaneous
collapse of the political regimes in all countries of the Soviet bloc proved the
applicability of the 'domino theory' (the Communist countries were connected
with one another in such a way that changes in one involved changes in another),
rather than supporting the concept of the 'revolution from below'.
As a result of the erosion of official ideology, fear of rock as the ideologically
foreign 'product of rotten capitalism' gradually lost its impact. In addition, frontiers
between the East and the West became more and more permeable, making the
importation of rock music easy. What facilitated assimilation was that, like Com-
munist ideology, rock in East Central Europe had two levels of ideology: formal
(official) and operative. The formal level included values of individualism, inde-
pendence and anti-commercialism, as well as anti-establishment and anti-society
leanings; on the operative level it involved state dependence (patronage and
subsidies), going as far as the use of songs written by state songwriters, commer-
cial pursuits, opulence, pragmatism and opportunism. Rockers obviously assumed
that to live according to rock's formal idelogy, in a society which did not recognise
the same principles, was impossible. Thus, on the operative level both rock and
the socialist state went hand in hand: rock incarnated the weaknesses and corrup-
tion of the system within which it functioned. Rock was not tolerated only when
politics was liberated, and it was not 'used' by Communist culture politicians only
in times of internal crises, when it served as a safety valve, harmless for the
political system. (In the mid-1950s, for instance, despite critical articles in the press,
no serious action was taken to control the spread of rock'n'roll in Poland and
Hungary (Ryback 1990, p. 25).) What is more important, rock often coexisted
peacefully with the regime, healthily combining its formal, 'independent', ideology
with the promotion of socialist objectives during extensive concerts tours, in both
Eastern and Western Europe and the United States, sponsored and organised by
state agencies; East German Puhdys or Soviet Vocal Instrumental Ensembles being
exemplary cases (Ryback 1990, pp. 134-6, 150-2). On the other hand, Communist
authorities were usually ready to subordinate their official ideology to immediate
profit (both financial and propagandistic), not only by sponsoring popular bands,
but also by providing rock music in resorts and places visited by Western tourists,
for example, in Bulgaria and Rumania.
Decrease of repression, however, did not necessarily mean more independ-
ent culture. The hybrid operative ideology of culture and, consequently, the
relaxing of regulations did allow the releasing of films, books and plays unavailable
before but, on the other hand, it deepened assimilation to real socialism; it con-
vinced a part of society that the existing political system respected their interests
and their protest. In Poland, for example, the decade of the 1970s witnessed a
bloom of mediocre artistically popular culture consisting of a mixture of Western

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 Rock in political transition 45

elements married to a local flavour. This culture reflected the spirit of the time
which was characterised by an increased need for security, a quiet existence and an
escape from the realities of life, accompanied by a general lowering of aspirations
(Koralewicz 1987, p. 4). Peaceful coexistence between officially promoted locally-
made 'youth music' and silently approved Western rock ran boringly, yet undis-
turbed: rock criticism was given space in youth magazines and radio broadcast
(limited) rock music. A competitor for rock was disco, rather than the Communist
authorities.
Opinions, often repeated in the West, about severe restrictions aimed at rock
music in the former Soviet bloc for political reasons, and about the state's alleged
heavy-handed persecution of rock musicians came directly from the assumption
of the totalitarian character of socialist reality and reflect another facet of rock
mythology. It assumes, that any criticism of rock in the Soviet bloc was ideolo-
gically motivated. In reality, rock had and still has many critics, and its bad publi-
city has a long history. Rock has been criticised on both sides of the political fence,
paradoxically enough, for the same reasons: teasing the lowest human passions,
our primitive instincts; feeding 'alien primitivism' (Shostakovich), 'hypnotizing'
and 'subverting' young people, causing an 'explosion of the basest instincts and
sexual urges', as well as 'brainwashing listeners into entering the drug culture'
(Denisoff 1983, p. 20; Orman 1984, pp. 3-4; Dougherty 1985, pp. 52-3; McDonald
1988, pp. 294-313; Ryback 1990, p. 30). 'It would be wrong not to recognize the
dangerous role played by American music in preparing the people for war' - wrote
a German critic in 1949 (Ryback 1990, p. 12). Twenty years later this concept was
echoed in the United States during a rally in Minneapolis in 1970 of the Movement
to Restore Decency, where some speakers advanced a theory that most rock musi-
cians are 'part of a Communist movement to incite revolution throughout the
world' (Dougherty 1985, p. 53). Not only in the Communist countries were some
rock genres not always available through normal distribution channels: race music
in the 1950s or reggae in the 1970s and 1980s in the USA are examples (Chapple
and Garofalo 1978, pp. 231-67). Criticism against rock in the United States seems
to be increasing and even took an institutional form in 1985 (in the Parents' Music
Resource Center, discussed by McDonald 1988, pp. 302-10).
On the other hand, rock criticism (both capitalist and Communist) has, from
the very beginning, reflected an ambivalence in the attitude of the dominant cul-
ture to youth culture: patronising publicity and imitation versus moral anxiety and
outrage - both having their roots in a deeper social and cultural crisis in the society
(Clark et al. 1976, p. 74). Rock thus came into conflict in both socialist and capitalist
societies with other societal norms. What was usually being criticised in rock in the
countries of real socialism was not its inherent 'capitalist' ideology or 'subversive'
political content (rather rare before the 1980s), but its challenge to these broader
societal norms. A typical case was a concert of a Polish rock group, Lady Pank, in
1986 during which the heavily drunk leader of the group screaming obscenities
exposed himself to his audience of fourteen thousand. The incident (echoes of Jim
Morrison) ended with a trial for indecent exposure and open profanity; rock texts
aimed at the governing Communist team (quite frequent at that time) could have
been tolerated, but not an offence to public morals. As in former periods, rock is
still viewed as ambiguous about societal norms: on the eve of the June 1990 elec-
tions in Czechoslovakie - which brought a victory to the Civic Forum Coalition
partly headed by Vaclav Havel - a concert, SOS Rassismus, with popular pop and

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46 Jolanta Pekacz

rock stars was carefully cleared of 'controversial' skinheads and punks, so that
Vaclav Havel could safely announce his 'gift' to the audience: Paul Simon accom-
panying himself on acoustic guitar (Mitchell 1992, p. 193).
Criticism of rock in the Soviet bloc should also be viewed in a broader per-
spective than merely in terms of an 'ideological' struggle between two opposite
political systems. Rock was seen as 'alien' as against 'familiar' cultures. This
reflected a long and profound conflict between 'occidentalism' and 'ethnocen-
trism'; between an orientation postulating the adoption of foreign cultural patterns
in order to escape the status of the European periphery, on the one hand, and an
orientation towards cultivating traditional, native culture on the other. The fear of
being culturally colonised by Western Europe has existed in East Central European
countries for a few centuries now, taking especially dramatic forms in the nine-
teenth century. On an even broader scale, Europe as a whole has, for a long time,
been afraid of American 'cultural imperialism': heated discussions in the French
mass media in the late 1980s about building EuroDisney near Paris (occupying an
area 1/5 the size of the French capital and finally opened on 12 April 1992) proves
that feelings of being endangered by an invasion of 'foreign' and 'barbaric' Amer-
ican culture were not just the hysterical reactions of some Communist leaders.
These broader cultural issues, having nothing to do with any particular polit-
ical system, were reflected in a debate on rock music in the Soviet Union under
Gorbachev. While admitting that the genre is still 'controversial and vulnerable',
Russian rock critic Artemy Troitsky, equated glastnost with an affirmation of rock:

The spring [1987] witnessed the biggest anti-rock backlash [in the Soviet Union] of the past
couple of years. It was initiated by some Russophile writers, supported by certain officials
in the Ministry of Culture and the central television networks, and featured active agitation
by the so-called Memory group, a chauvinistic organization that carries on anti-semitic
propaganda and decrees rock music as 'satanic'. All this under the banner of glastnost
(Troitsky 1987, p. 131).

The rock scene of the 1980s was marked in the Soviet bloc by the appearance
of punk rock/new wave; the political scene by the introduction of the state of war
in Poland. The punk rock phenomenon in Western Europe raised some controver-
sies as to its political role. Despite the declared political indifference of most punk
rock musicians and some political ambiguity within the punk movement and its
ideology (Clarke et al. 1976), punk (especially British punk) was labelled by some
scholars the most 'political' of all rock's genres: a negation of the dominant political
structure and of oppressive culture, a perfect incarnation of the protest of the
objectively oppressed working-class kids (Lamy and Levin 1985, p. 169). According
to another critic, however, more detailed insight reveals a 'mythical' level on which
punk functions, that leads to its 'depoliticization' and to the conclusion that 'when
acting within punk culture one cannot engage in politics, one can only speak about
engaging in political action' (Tillman 1980, p. 171).
In the Soviet bloc, the fact that elements of criticism in some punk rock lyrics,
which appeared in the 1980s, were aimed at the Communist reality, does not mean
they had any influence on the audience. Far from being revelatory, they reflected
a general situation in late-Communist societies, their 'collective consciousness',
rather than a specifically rock phenomenon. Almost the entire population of the
society under real socialism was involved, directly or indirectly, in activities
loosening systemic controls, and the most active part participated in various forms

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 Rock in political transition 47

of demonstration, dominated by a political dimension: from illegally published

and distributed books and the press, through theatrical and street happenings, to
overt anti-establishment rioting. On the other hand, the declining status of the
authorities/state (the object of protest) diminished the political significance of the
act of protest (Norton 1988, p. 172). What would have been a grave offence a few
years previously, was just an expression of popular protest by the late 1980s: the
symbolic significance of authority was almost non-existent. 'When presidential
candidates quote rock stars and proclaim to be their friends, it becomes quite clear
that rock is no longer a threatening force to the elites' - wrote an American rock
critic in 1984 about the US situation (Orman 1984, p. 165). The Communist leaders
overtly flirted with rock in the final phase of Communism; Gorbachev being a
chief example. The process of absorption of rock into the culture of real socialism
thus reached its symbolic end (in practice absorption had been for a long time an
everyday practice in the operative ideology of culture.)2 It is therefore more proper
to say that East European rock music in the 1980s accompanied a final state of the
process that inevitably led to the political change, rather than that it played a
somewhat more significant role. How much out of tune this accompaniment could
be was shown by the role of rock during the state of war in Poland, when the
authorities' interpretation of the music effectively denied it any oppositional polit-
ical significance. Rockers, not engaging in 'conventional' opposition and believing
that by singing they could change the hated reality, helped, in fact, the authorities
to divert young people from serious political action and to channel the potentially
threatening emotions of the youth (Pekacz 1992, pp. 205-6). In the GDR, in Sep-
tember 1989, rockers declared their attachment to the system and demanded
reforms to 'repair' it (Wicke 1992, pp. 88-9) though at that time it was clear that
it could not be reformed. Their limited claims, formulated carefully within the
possibilities offered by real socialism, proved not only their poor understanding
of the current power structure of that system (which collapsed several weeks later),
and their opportunism, but also undermined the very legitimacy of the power
they claimed to possess over the young people, who by that time, no longer
believing in the possibilities of 'repairing' the system, were escaping by the thou-
sands to West Germany via Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland (for a concise
and reliable report of events see Gwertzman and Kaufman 1990).3
Rock's vision of the world is not complex: there were only two poles, we
(good) and they (evil), the latter identified with state, authorities, older generation,
etc. This myth of youth against the rest of society, acquired considerable strength
as a source of resistance to the Communist regime, and is far from having been
dispelled under post-Communism (Pekacz 1992, p. 207). Simple categories, the
comfortable refuge of simple minds, remained to inform rock ideology in post-
Communist countries. 'Revolutionary' manifestos of the leading East European
punk rock groups in the early 1980s and their 'alternative' pursuit of 'freedom',
turned out to be a delusion and a surrender of freedom in favour of something
more immediately useful as (anti-establishment) propaganda, satisfying the myth-
seeking masses of youth. Even if rock 'freed' itself in a form of violent punk
protest, it proved unable to survive its own 'triumph'.
Estrangement and passivity as confused reactions, radicalism of opinions
without radical activity, aggression (criminal and fascist) and auto-aggression, poor
understanding of social reality and of the political and economic changes, passivity
in professional or entrepreneurial performance, little cultural and social activity

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48 Jolanta Pekacz

and participation in community life and initiatives ('depressive-withdrawing

syndrome') and pro-authoritarian attitudes are characteristics of the present atti-
tudes of youth in post-Communist countries. (Wertenstein-Zulawski 1992). Such
a background favours certain types of behaviour and activity characteristic of the
generation of the 'fall of Communism'. The revival of punk in Poland and of
neo-fascist groups of youths, particularly in former East Germany is significant.
The author of a recently published monograph on rock in Eastern Central
Europe ends his book in the following way:

In a very real sense, the triumph of rock and roll in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
has been the realization of a democratic process. Three generations of Soviet bloc youths
have compelled governments to accept step by step a cultural phenomenon long decried
as an outgrowth of Western capitalism. In the course of thirty years, rock bands have
stormed every bastion of official resistance and forced both party and government to accept
rock-and-roll music as part of life in the Marxist-Leninist state. (Ryback 1990, p. 233)

In fact, the situation was considerably more complicated than that. The his-
tory of rock in East Central Europe was not a history of persecution and struggle
with the imposed political system; rock and real socialism did not prove to be
natural enemies. Rock was not inherently anti-Communist (neither were rock
musicians inherently anti-Communists); rock in many cases profited from Com-
munist state patronage; the state (being more pragmatic than dogmatic) succeeded
in the domestication of rock; relationships between the socialist state and rock
were more often symbiotic than contradictory, hence many rock musicians were
more interested in 'adapting' to the status quo, rather than in destroying it (e.g.
the GDR); rock 'revolt' was not against the dominant culture, but within it.
The breakup of the Communist bloc was caused by inherent structural contra-
dictions, rather than by a process of 'democratization' forced from below, and
even less by attempts to 'repair' a malfunctioning real socialism (Wicke 1990, p.
2). But although the belief in rock's significant role in the process leading to the
collapse of Communism is incomprehensible on intellectual grounds, its self-
serving aspects are obvious. Self-aggrandisement and self-glorification feed rock
mythology by presenting rock as a victorious force against an allegedly monstrous
political system. Arguing for rockers' 'active' part in the transformation of East
Central Europe also makes the moral condemnation of their earlier flirtation with
the 'monstrous' regime difficult. However, fighting one myth with the help of
another myth, is not likely to be a successful means of overcoming the authoritar-
ian legacy in East Central Europe.

Endnotes

1. The terms 'Communism' and 'post- 3. The 'protest' of East German musicians might
Communism' are used here as conventional suggest that the system's roots were not
labels. In reality, the countries of the Sovietentirely rotten. In reality, the extent of the cor-
bloc, including the USSR, had not achieved theruption which came to light, and which far
Communist stage. exceeded that in other countries of the Soviet

2. For example, the only 'independent' rock fest-bloc, completely shattered the legitimacy of the
ival in the Soviet bloc, organised in Jarocin GDR, and deprived the 'reformists' of much of
(western Poland) since 1980, was subsidisedtheir social confidence, and, ultimately, served
each year by Polish state cultural institutionsas an argument against preserving two
until 1992. German states.

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 Rock in political transition 49

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