Habersack, Sabine - Puşcaş, Vasile - Ciubotă, Viorel (szerk.): Democraţia in Europa centrală şi de Sud-Est - Aspiraţie şi realitate (Secolele XIX-XX) (Satu Mare, 2001)
Ivan Vovkanych: Democracy and Totalitarianism in East European Countries: Transition Periods int he History of the 20th century
Ivan Vovkanych Ukraine DEMOCRACY AND TOTALITARIANISM IN EAST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES: TRANSITION PERIODS IN THE HISTORY OF THE 20th CENTURY The democratic societies, which have been forming in the countries of Eastern Europe after the anti-totalitarian revolutions and the breakdown of communist regimes since the 80-90s of the 20th century, still remain too vulnerable and imperfect to guarantee absolute impossibility of the revival of authoritarian or totalitarian power. Post-socialist society’s “genetic anti-democracy” is based on the idealized historic memory of social “equality in poverty” during the period of communist governance and single-party system, while post-socialist “neo-capitalism” brings forth potentially non-democratic oligarchy and lobbyist groups, which tend to support even totalitarian dictatorships, whenever it suits their clan interests. The pace of gradual decommunization in new East European democracies at the beginning of the 21st century is insufficient and timid, hence the transparent attempts of preserving the state paternalism and quasi-collectivism in social and economic spheres of most East European countries. The tendency of monopolizing power, after the communist pattern, is also characteristic for most of the post-socialist political party elites. The pendulum of public opinion in the countries of Eastern Europe in the 90s showed a wide range of fluctuation from conservative right to socialist left ideas. This region has not yet reached a high level of stability in both home and foreign policy, the countries are at different stages of post-socialist transition. This accounts for the fact that on the threshold of the 20th and 21s1 not all East European countries were included in the first and the second waves of the EC and NATO expansion to the East. This decade-long slowed down post-socialist transition stands in clear contrast with historically recent radical high-speed communisttotalitarian change in these countries after the World War II. The comparative analysis of the theory and practice of the two transitional periods in the history of Eastern Europe, 1st in late 40s, and 2nd in the 90s of the 20th century, the transition from democracy to totalitarianism in the first
