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The Closed Society in Stalinist State Socialism After 1948
The Closed Society in Stalinist State Socialism After 1948
after 1948
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Central and Eastern European
countries obediently copied the Stalinist regime. They all declared the
dictatorship of the proletariat and introduced the monolithic party-state
political structures. This system, which was "introduced" according to a
blueprint, was transplanted from the pages of textbooks into institutional
and social reality. The system was constructed on a stringent ideological
basis of "Marxism-Leninism" and its Soviet enforcement.
Notes: The figures for 1945: in Poland, December; in Czechoslovakia, August; in Hungary,
May; in Yugoslavia, December; in Bulgaria, September; in Romania, September. The 1949
figures: in Poland, December 1948; in Czechoslovakia, May; in Hungary, March; in
Yugoslavia, November 1952; in Bulgaria, June 1948; in Romania, September 1948.
Source: Brzezinski, 1961, p. 86.
administrative unit of the state (republic, county, town, and even their
sub-units, such as district or village), each ministry, including its separate
departments, each firm and even its workshops, each university and its
departments, all had their party organizations. Party and executive
committees, headed by the party secretary and a small leading body, and a
network of party organizations, existed inside each institution. The
members had regular plenary meetings, but they were organized into
small groups and party cells, according to the organization pattern of
their institution. The state-party played the same role at the local level as
it did nationally. They controlled and determined the activity of each
firm, office, or school.
The state-party was not only a center of decision making but also a
mass organization. From former illegal elite parties, the Central and
Eastern European communist parties began to expand immediately after
the war. This process gained momentum after power had been seized.
Beside workers, left-wing intellectuals, and enthusiastic young people,
more and more careerists joined, those who wanted to keep their positions
and those who sought advantages and advancement.
A membership of one to two million meant that in certain cases every
fourth orfifthman and woman from the active population were members
of the party.
The huge army of freshly recruited communists were strictly organized
and disciplined. The Bolshevik principle of "democratic centralism" was
rigidly adopted. According to this rule, different views or debates were
possible only before a decision was made, but afterwards there was no
place for doubt or contention, and working for the realization of all party
policies was compulsory.
The unity of the party was paramount, and forming a "faction" or
questioning a resolution was considered equal to treason. The paramilitary
discipline of the highly centralized illegal communist parties, however,
was not easy to introduce or maintain in augmented mass parties. After
The merging of the party and the state was consistently realized. At the
top level it was guaranteed by a personal union of the head of the party
and of the state. The secretaries general of the communist parties became
prime ministers or presidents, and formed their governments to serve as
executive state organs of the party. T h e foundation of party-states was
legalized by newly enacted constitutions. Yugoslavia and Albania
introduced their "people's democratic" constitutions as early as 1946.
Bulgaria followed in 1947, Romania and Czechoslovakia in 1948. These
early constitutions, however, reflected a transitory stage. The first
"genuine" state socialist constitutions, modeled after the 1936 Soviet
constitution, were introduced after the "year of the turning point,"
between 1949 and 1952 in Hungary, Poland, and Romania.
Central planning
Planning was not unknown in Central and Eastern Europe before the
war. The so-called Central Industrial Area in Poland in the mid 1930s
and the "Gyor Program," afive-yeararmament plan in Hungary initiated
in 1938, clearly represented certain planning efforts to cope with
industrial backwardness in connection with war preparation. Planning
became much more important during the postwar years, when compre-
hensive two- to three-year reconstruction plans directed the economies
from 1947 on. Soviet-type central planning was, however, inaugurated
only in Yugoslavia. This was the only country of the region where, by
January 1, 1947 on, a Five Year Plan copied both the methods and the
objectives of the first Soviet Five Year Plan. The model was soon
followed elsewhere: in 1949 Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, in 1950 Poland
and Hungary, and in 1951 Romania and Albania initiated similar plans.
After the political decisions, central plans were worked out by large
planning offices. (In the fifties 1,200 staff members worked at the Polish