Synopsis
Examines the political situation in Eastern Europe, discusses nationalism and the fate of Marxism, and provides portraits of some of the leaders trying to guide Eastern Europe's new future
Reviews
In the wake of communism's demise, Goldfarb ( Beyond Glasnost ) is cautiously optimistic that democracy will emerge in the newly independent nation-states of Central and Eastern Europe. Fusing political analysis, reportage and encounters with Adam Michnik, Vaclav Havel and other prominent figures, he identifies the reconstructed Soviet Union--tilting toward economic collapse or military dictatorship--as the prime danger still facing the former Iron Curtain countries. A political scientist at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, he muses on other dangers facing the emergent democracies: nationalist tensions both within and between republics, unfamiliarity with the workings of a market economy, Poland's politically influential church, and anti-Semitism. His poignant reflections are an incisive remainder that democracy does not automatically deliver the goods.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A fitfully enlightening exploration of the political transformation of the former Soviet satellites, by Goldfarb (Political and Social Science/New School for Social Research). Like Oxford's Timothy Garton Ash, Goldfarb mixes political, social, and cultural analysis with personal experience of the ongoing revolutions in Eastern Europe. There is a good deal here that is illuminating: background on Lech Walesa, who actually has spent more time mediating and averting strikes than leading them; a portrait of the postrevolutionary education minister in Bulgaria, who was seemingly unable to conceive of a university system not centrally controlled; and a description of the Soviet Writers Union, which gave great financial benefits to its members as long as the Party line was toed. Goldfarb is ruthless in his dissection of the death of Communism: ``The failure of `actually existing socialism' (as it has been called by those who wish to distinguish between realities and their dreams) has been so thoroughgoing that the connection between dreams and realities can no longer be denied.'' But while saying that protagonists of this ``third way'' between Communism and capitalism ``were destined from the beginning for the historical dustbin,'' the author seems to expect such an outcome from any system: ``Socialism is simply not the answer to all social ills. But neither are capitalism or nationalism.'' He never resolves this dilemma. Occasionally far-fetched (Goldfarb argues that Jeffrey Sachs, the Harvard economist advising the Polish government, ``represents for Poland a new totalitarian temptation of the laissez-faire kind'') but frequently perceptive. A curate's egg of a book. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Goldfarb (New Sch. for Social Research) has been writing about Eastern Europe, and especially Poland, for ten years. Here, he uses his perspective as a sociologist of political culture to analyze the events of 1989 and 1990 through a close reading of the writings of the intellectual leaders (Adam Michnic and Vaclav Havel) and study of the actions of political leaders (Lech Walesa). He also discusses the roles of social institutions (religion, economy, popular culture) in the emergence of a civil society and assesses the chances of Western democracy becoming permanently established in the region. The largest part of the work concerns Poland, because the transformation began there first and because Goldfarb has studied it longest, but he also covers Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. For academic libraries.
-Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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