Evolution of Communism

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The Evolution of CommunismAuthor(s): Bartomiej Kamiski and Karol SotanReviewed work(s):Source: International Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique, Vol.10, No. 4 (Oct., 1989), pp. 371-391Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1601080.

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InternationalPolitical Science Review (1989), Vol. 10, No. 4, 371-391

The Evolution of CommunismBARTEOMIEJKAMINSKI AND KAROL SOITAN

ABSTRACT. The paper presents a framework for understanding the evolutionof communism. We suggest that the politico-economic system of communistregimes may be usefully seen as an institutionally and ideologicallyconstrained bargaining game. We distinguish three stages of the develop-ment of this game -pure communism, late communism, and constitutio-nal communism. Pure communism is characterized by an aspiration to thetotal control over society, and a strong commitment to ideology. Constraintson bargaining weaken in late communism, resulting in a system withdistinctive economic and political features, which we describe. Constitutio-nal communism is an ideal type based on the current wave of reform, inwhich the power of communists is limited without being undermined. Itschief ingredients are the rule of law, separation of powers, communistcorporatism, glasnost, and the market.

Marxist-Leninist regimes seem to be on the verge of major changes, prompted chieflyby economic stagnation. Facing deteriorating economic growth and the prospect ofbeing left out of a changing world economy, a number of communist countries havestarted looking for ways to alter some of the basic tenets of central planning and ofthe existing modes of governance.In spite of different political and economic circumstances, as well as different levelsof industrialization, the blueprints now being considered have one feature incommon. They all envisage some retrenchment of the party-state from direct controlover the society and the economy. The party-state apparatus is to be streamlinedand its authority to make decisions curtailed. Proposals for economic reform havebeen increasingly accompanied by recognition of the need to curb the dominance ofthe party, and by the introduction of other serious institutional reforms in a numberof spheres.Our scholarship has not caught up with these developments. In marked contrastto the modernization theory which dominated comparative communist studies in the1960s, the current focus has been narrowed to the study of the politics of economicreform.1 These studies fall short on several accounts. First, they tend to be descriptiverather than analytic. Second, the links among law, politics, and economics tend to0192-5121/89/04 0371-21 $03.00 ?) 1989 International Political Science Association


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372 TheEvolutionf Communismbe ignored or underplayed, despite the obvious significance of politico-economicintegrationin communist regimes.2A proliferationof theories and concepts explainsvarious aspects of contemporarychanges or gives an account of some periodsof theevolution, without setting them within a broadertheoreticalframework.3As a result,these studies fail to offerreliableclues as to the possible trajectoryof change and thelikely shape of the political and economic future.In this paper we propose an alternative way to understand change withincommunism. In a general politico-economicframeworkwe construct a typology ofcommunist regimes, distinguishingpurecommunismor totalitariancommunism), latecommunism, nd constitutional orjuridical) communism.All three share the basic officialidentifyingpropertiesof a communistregime, the leading roleof the party and publicownership of the means of production. We use this typology to identify what weconsider the central tendencies of evolutionarychange under communism.The firsttendency takes us from pure to late communism; the second leads to constitutionalcommunism. These are not inevitable tendencies, of course. A return to the purecommunist type is always possible (though costly, in various ways). There are alsothe alternatives of stasis or revolution. But in this paper we focus on the potentialfor reform of communist regimes.It is crucial in this task to show that the constitutionalizationof communism, theself-impositionof limits by communist rulers, can be in the interest of those rulersand can even enhance their power. We do this below (see p. 384). Thus prospectsfor reform do not depend (at least not entirely) on the public-spiritednessof thoserulers, or their commitment to socialist ideals. They depend in part on those rulers'desire to preserveand enhance their power, a far more reliable motive.The identification of communism with its totalitarianversion (with what we call

pure communism ) makes it all but impossible to understand changes withincommunism.4 Many other commonly used concepts are of little use as well. At best,they evoke considerablenostalgia, especially when the model happens to be called'bureaucratic'and the theory is that of 'convergence'(Korbonuski,988:46). Or, asin some recent loose applications of concepts developed to understand Westerndemocracies (e.g., pluralismor corporatism),they have a mostly distortingeffectonour view of communism. Our suggestion is that we shift to a higher level ofabstraction and think of the different types of communism as (weakly or strongly)constrained bargaining regimes, or bargaininggames.The simplest pure case of a bargaininggame is the standardtwo-persongame thathas been the foundationof formaltheoryof bargainingsince Nash (1950) and others.A game with minimal structure, it features two players, their interests, the set ofpossible outcomes, and perhaps a status quo point. The poverty of structureis onereason why formal bargaining theory has developed relatively slowly. As Schellingpointed out (1963), outcomes in real bargaining are heavily influenced by variousaspects of the background to the bargaining not recognized in the formal model.Institutional, cultural, and ideological factors constrain bargaining in this way. Abargaininggame is thus better characterizednot simply by the natureof the playersand the range of possible outcomes, but also by these backgroundconditions,whichwe call constrainingfactors.The level of complexityincreases dramatically,of course,as we move froma simpletwo-person bargaininggame to a whole politico-economicsystem. But we need notmodifythe basic model. A politico-economicsystemcan be thoughtof as a bargaininggame identified by the nature of the players and of the background constraints.


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BARTLOMIEJ KAMINSKI AND KAROL SOITAN 373Different politico-economic systems, in this view, are identified by the internalstructure of the bargaining regime itself (who are the players, and what are the rulesof the game) and by the institutional constraints within which the bargainingoperates. In capitalist democracies important sources of such constraints are electoralprocedures, the market, and the rule of law (Rechtstaat). In pure communism thechief sources are repressive dictatorial procedures and ideology. What we call latecommunism, by contrast, is characterized by all-embracing patron-clientrelationshipnetworks and the weakness of all constraints on bargaining. In its extreme form, itis a bargaining regime gone rampant. Indeed, in many ways communism is best seenas caricature. Pure (totalitarian) communism is, among other things, a caricature ofbureaucratic and dictatorial tendencies which are universal, but are elsewhere invarious ways under control. Late communism, in a similar way, presents a caricatureof the tendencies toward unconstrained bargaining many observers also see in theWest.5

The view of communism we develop here can be seen as a contribution to thenewly (re-)emerging institutionalist perspective in political science and politicaleconomy (March and Olsen, 1984; Smith, 1988;Ordeshook and Shepsle, 1982). Theold society-centered (Nordlinger, 1981) view of democratic regimes saw politicaloutcomes as a product of bargaining among groups. A politico-economic system wassimply a bargaining game. Differences of view between class theorists, elite theorists,neo-corporatists, pluralists, and others concerned only who the significant playerswere and how they played the game. The new institutionalist tendency affirms,against all of the above, the relative importance of institutional constraints on thisgame. It affirms in particular, in the Western context, the importance of the stateand the market. Communist politico-economic systems can also be seen asconstrainedbargaining regimes. But the constraintson bargaining are different undercommunism, and they weaken as we move toward late communism. Constitutionalcommunism is a form of communism in the making, with new types of constraintson bargaining, especially the rule of law.The dividing lines among the different forms of communism are fuzzy, and thetransitions between them not orderly. Revolutionary change has been either haltedexternally (Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968) or domestically contained,because it directly threatened the rule of the party (Poland after October 1956) orbecause it imposed unbearablepolitical and economic costs (the Cultural Revolutionin China, 1966-76). As a result we have seen mostly incremental evolutionarychange. The pattern has been one of progressionand occasional regression, with thetransition between forms difficult to pinpoint. Despite these difficulties it is possible,we believe, to identify three ideal types of a communist regime, and to show the logicof the transition from one type to the next.

Pure CommunismThe ideal type of pure (or totalitarian) communism is characterized by twoproperties:an aspiration to total control by a political center backed by an extensiveand active repressive apparatus, and a central role of Marxist-Leninist ideology.These provide a (relatively) effective restrainton bargaining:a proceduralrestraint(unilateral, top-down authority) and a substantive restraint whose sources are themain texts of Marxist-Leninism.


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374 TheEvolutionf CommunismAspirationto Total ControlThe aspirationto total controlof the society and the economy is shown most vividlyin pure communism'soppositionto every importantmechanismfor social controlofunilateralauthority (in the state or any other organization).Thus pure communismis (1) anti-market,(2) anti-democratic,and (3) anti-law.Anti-market.he communist take-over of the economy has been associated with twointerrelateddevelopments-the (partial) eliminationof the marketand nationaliza-tion. The bureaucraticmechanismof central planning has replacedthe market,andthe nationalization of capital assets has given the socialist state the status of theorganizerof production.The introductionof central administrativeplanningas a toolfor coordinating economic activity, and for allocating resources, has produced asymbiotic relationshipbetween the political regimeand the economy. The economybecomes fused with the party-state.Neither money nor consumers nterfere n this relationship.Real money is replacedby vouchers, and enterprisescannot spend them unless a projectis includedin theplan. Domestic convertibilityof monies for both enterprisesand consumeris limited;internationally,they are not convertibleat all. Allocation throughmoney is thus, inthe case of the dominant state-owned sector, fully replaced by administrativeallocation, albeit, in line with Lenin's recommendation,money is retainedas tool ofcontrol and accounting.Berliner (1976) aptly calls it a documonetary economy.The subordinationof an enterpriseto the marketplaceand to consumers is ruledout in favor of the plan, that is, a political regime. The discipline of the Gulagsubstitutes for the discipline of the market. An enterprise is shielded from bothdomestic and international competition. Economic goals are simple and well-defined.Prior to industrial modernization, the economy is simple to manage. The existenceof hidden unemployment in agriculture allows rapid gains in social productivity, oncethose reserves are put into use. The regime's capacity to mobilize resources (acquiredthanks to the fusion of the state and economy, and to the Gulag as source ofdiscipline) combined with the growth potential of catch-up dynamics produce rapideconomic growth.Anti-democracy. ure communism rejects democracy and calls for a highly centralizedvanguard party based on a military-like organization. Procedures and institutional-ized rules give way to the whims of party leadership which-according to theideology-is to act as an agent for the proletariat.In spite of claims to the contrary implied by Lenin's principle of democraticcentralism, there is no room for democracy within the party. Officials are alwayschosen from above, never from below as in democratic systems. The choice of topleaders is governed by the system of nomenklatura,which is the institutionalinterpretation of the basic regime principle of the leading role of the party. Lowerlevel party organizations rubber-stamp decisions made at the top, and members arerequired to implement them.Although representative organs are maintained, their only function, as the SovietTheses for the 1988 All-Union Party Conference admitted, is to sanction questionswhich have in fact been decided in advance (CPSU, 1988: 45). The party seeks tomonopolize all possible sources of social initiative and to destroy independent socialorganizations. Organizations are allowed to exist only as long as they are


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BARTLOMIEJAMINSKIANDKAROLSOETAN 375transmission belts of the party line. All forms of collective action organized frombelow are banned; change can come only from the top.

Anti-law. Soviet courts under Stalin were adorned with posters proclaiming: Law iswhat is good for the Party. They expressed well the anti-law bias of totalitariancommunism. It was a system in which the discretional intervention by the party andthe state, including extensive reliance on repression and terror, replaced the rule oflaw.The task of the top authorities was to revolutionize society and to create a newman. The revolution that began from below, or from abroad, was now continuedfrom above. Since revolution is a war-like struggle, a revolutionary organization suchas the Communist Party must be like a good military organization, centralized anddisciplined. But above all it must allow flexibility for its top leaders. Hencerevolutionary organizations disdain both bureaucracy and law. Yet in order toexecute the grand social and economic designs called for by Marxist-Leninistideology, the party controls the economy and society through hierarchical stateadministrative structures.There are two overlapping hierarchies-the state administration and the partyapparatus. The first operates through formal bureaucratic procedures, while thelatter introduces exceptions. We see a dual world of formal and quasi-formalprocedures governing state administration, and informal procedures followed by theparty apparatus in its political interventions. The party apparatus temporarilyrevokes formal bureaucratic procedures and intervenes directly across institutionallines. Since the efficiency of discretional intervention is critically dependent on adhoc decision-making, this arrangement exacerbates disdain for law. Thus, the essenceof the system of curbing administration is anti-legal.

The Central Role of Official IdeologyThe basic regime principles of communism are contained not in constitutions or otherlaw-like texts (as in constitutional democracies, for example) but in texts of politicaland social theory. The party leadership provides authoritative interpretation ofthe texts. The party is committed to propagating the communist world outlook andto discrediting alternative political theories and orders. Ideological education aimsto convince everyone of the superiority of communism.

An important constraint on change in communism is the relative immunity of itsideology to rational development. A system of ideas basic to political life can be moreor less rational, in the simple sense of openness to rational argument, depending ona number of factors. First, it depends on the extent to which the institutions whichperform the authoritative interpretation of texts and of ideas are conducive to suchargument. Courts of law, for example, are designed (in part) to promote the role ofsuch argument. The communist party in a pure communist system, by contrast, isdesigned for effective combat against the class enemy. It is not conducive to rationalargument.Second, there are always contradictions between basic regime principles andpractical necessities. But the more serious these contradictions, the greater the riskthat rationality will be undermined. Thus, for example, American courts have beenable to give a meaning to the First Amendment of the US Constitution that takesaccount of the practical needs of government. The contradictions between absolute


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376 TheEvolutionf Communismfreedom of speech and the practical requirementsof governance have been mademanageablewithout ritualizingthe Constitution or turning it into a dogma. But purecommunism was faced with these contradictionsin a much more extreme form.Theideological claims have persistently flown in the face of the objective necessitiesofthe political situation. The regime principle of the withering away of the state, forexample, had to face the urgent practicalneed for extensive repression.Similarly,theprinciple of the erosion of commodity relations, that is, the de-monetization of theeconomy, had to reckon with the need for cost accountability of enterprisesand theneed to provide incentives to managers and workers.Even a ritualized ideology whose rational development is blocked, however, iscapable of performing some important functions. Thus the ideology of purecommunism neutralizes some of the potential opposition to the regime in thepopulation at large. In this regard the ideologically-basedpaternalismf the regimeplays a central role, providing security as a substitute for autonomy. The ideologyalso maintains the integrity of the regime in the face of the potential and actualpressureof powerfulnarrow interests.

Late CommunismThe line between pure and late communism cannot be clearly drawn, but themovement from one to the other can be identified. This movement-uneven, morepronouncedin some countriesand in some spheresof social life than in others-hasperhaps gone furthest in Poland. For a number of reasons, whose discussion wouldgo beyond the format of this paper, communism in Poland from its inceptiondisplayed more of the characteristicsof lateness than elsewhere. In part, because ofthe strength of the Catholic Church, the attempt at total control, characteristicofpure communism, failed in Poland. The Communist Party did not succeed inimposing cultural and political hegemony and had to accept the existence ofalternative sources (the Catholic Church) of social values; as Stalin observed,communism fitted Poland like a saddle a cow. Pure communism was bornin a weakform in Poland, and today that country constitutes the best example of latecommunism and of its fundamental inconsistencies. But the same tendencies arevisible throughout the communist world. The common denominator of thesetendencies is a movement toward a weakly constrainedbargainingregime.Late communism is distinguished by the weakeningf the characteristicfeaturesofpure communism. It can be characterized in terms of a weaker spiration to totalcontroland a weaker ommitment to both ideology and the notion of class warfare.Totalitarianism becomes increasingly leaky, until it fails to hold. The authorities inlate communism are forced to accept the fact that, in orderto impose theirwill, theyhave to bargain. As we will see later, this leads to a shift from a highly constrainedto a relatively unconstrainedbargainingregime.Symptoms of a weaker aspiration to total control include grantingsome rights offree action to individuals and accepting some degree of autonomy for economicactors.The shiftfrom such maxims as whois not with us is against us or whateveris not explicitly authorized is forbidden to who is not against us is with us andwhatever is not forbidden is permitted indicates not only a weaker proclivity touse revolutionary criteriain personnelpolicy. New groupsare invited to cooperatewith the regime without making prior ideological commitments.6New independentactivities within the existing legal frameworkare allowed. As the Polish ideological


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BARThOMIEJAMNISKIANDKAROLS0*TAN 377motto has it: the authorities let live (wladze daja iyc). This new tolerance, however,is not based on established and rigid principles; it is instead continually subject tonegotiation and renegotiation.In response to the mass terror of pure communism, there is an effort to introduceconstraints on the repressive apparatus. Thus, one of the main legacies of de-Stalinization has been the provision for physical security of the communist rulingelites. In his secret speech to the XXth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party,Khrushchev noted that the only way of avoiding the repetition of Stalin's crimeswould be to observe Leninist party norms and the Soviet Constitution. But theapproach to law under late communism remains discretional, selective, andinstrumentalist. General wording and loopholes in various legal acts allow theauthorities to use selective terrorat their whim. Law does not acquirean autonomousstatus; it is still used instrumentally to protect the influence of central authoritiesover the society and the economy. There are no restrictions on the proliferationofbureaucratic laws and regulations.7Nonetheless, the sphereof permissibleindividualactions has expanded, as compared with pure communism.The weakeraspirationto total controlmay well be driven by economic imperatives.It is certainly reflected in how the administrationof the economy is transformed.Ina pure communist system the authorities operate free from the restrictions imposedby the market. The link between cost and profit is eliminated. Since this also meansfreedomfromthe imperativesof economic efficiency,its negative impact on economicperformance is bound to become visible at some point. It occurs when themacroeconomic efficiency gains achieved by mobilizing resources come to beoutweighed by the losses in macroeconomicefficiency. The move toward greater de-monetization of the economy, in accordance with the ideological principle ofvanishing commodity relations, can only aggravate the task of managing theeconomy. The only feasiblechange in this respectintroducesgreatercost accountabil-ity, which in turn implies a reversal of the process of de-monetizationand a less crudeform of central control.The elimination of global output as a measure of enterpriseperformance, and therevival of the enterprise as a cost unit (limited financial accountability), have markedthe beginning of a trend toward greater reliance by central planners on financialinstruments, on monetary rewards and penalties, to assure the fulfillment of plans.The objective is to enhance the discipline of economic actors throughreplacingdirectphysical commands by financial instrumentstransplantedfrommarketeconomies.The economic reforms in communism thus produce different combinations ofdirectives and financial instruments. Substituting and complementing individuallyaddressed directives with financial instruments constitutes the most strikingcommon feature in the changes of economic mechanism in communist regimes asthey move toward their late communist phase.No reform so far, however, has succeeded in replacing the administrativebargaining mechanism of resourceallocation with the market. Financial instrumentsare not responsive to market forces but are determined by the central planninghierarchy. In all reformedcommunist economies the survivalof an enterprise is morea product of its ability to bargainwith the state than of marketsuccess (Kornai, 1986;Kaminski, 1988). This is true even though reforms paving the way to latecommunism have produced greater concern among enterprise management forprofitability. Crane (1987), for example, observes that enterprise management inPoland pursues simultaneously two objectives: the maximization of output and of


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378 TheEvolutionf Communismafter-tax/subsidy profits. A similar argument for Chinese enterprise management isdeveloped in Wulf and Goldsbrough (1986).Because the market instruments of the state's control over the economy are usedin a non-competitive environment, enterprises are subject to a softfinancial constraint(to borrow Kornai's phrase). More significantly, they are in a position to negotiatemarket parameters to assure their financial survivability. Instead of adapting toexternal conditions, they adapt those conditions to their needs. The result is not areal competitive market but a more widespread and less constrained bargainingregime, although some reform measures may sharpen the constraints.8A weaker aspiration to total control is combined in late communism with a weakercommitment to ideology. As an important symptom of this trend pragmatists takeover from ideologues the party leadership positions, as the demand fortechnocratic skills increases. Simultaneously, the enlargement of the stateadministration required by the increasing complexity of the economy calls forassigning a greater role to experts. The monitoring and controlling function of theparty apparatus, carried out through ad hoc interventions across institutional lines,is eroded because of growing fragmentation and the pursuit of local interests by theparty apparatus itself (A. Kaminski, 1989). The authorities, facing loss of controldue to information constraints, have to rely increasingly on experts rather than onideologues. This in turn further erodes ideological zeal, a significant constraint onthe bargaining regime of pure communism.The constraints on bargaining characteristic of pure communism thus lose theirstrength. This applies both to procedural constraints, such as the dictatorship by topparty officials, and to substantive constraints due to ideology. The chief emergingfeature of late communism is the relatively unconstrained bargaining between thecentral authorities and various groups. This change has prompted some interpretersof communism to speak of it as pluralist or corporatistY But late communism differsfrom these Western systems on at least two counts: the structure of the bargainingitself, and the institutional and ideological constraints under which it operates. Theplayers, the rules of play, and the environment are all quite distinct.

The Structure f BargainingThe structure of bargaining under late communism has important properties whichcombine to distinguish it from bargaining as a method of resource allocation in non-communist systems. First, the bargaining groups are narrow,whereas the scope ofbargaining is wide. The typical neocorporatist pattern by contrast is bargainingamong much more encompassinggroups with the scope of bargaining much morenarrowly defined. Due to the logic of collective action (Olson, 1965), theimpediments to the achievement of public purposes (such as economic growth) areespecially severe when bargaining groups are narrow. 10 It is compounded byeconomic efficiency losses when the scope of bargaining includes domains taken careof by the market mechanism in non-communist countries.Second, the degree of authoritative recognition and formalization of bargaining isminimal. Bargaining is often sub rosa,making its regulation much more difficult. Theneocorporatist pattern, by contrast, is that of systems of bargaining that are public,fully institutionalized, and often recognized by the law. The bargaining of latecommunism is ad hoc rather than organized. Often it does not even take placebetween continuing social units; the partners are rather ad hoc coalitions. Thus not


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BARTLOMIEJ KAMIPSKI AND KAROL SOLTAN 379even the continuity of players is guaranteed. This makes it far more likely that short-term perspectives will dominate. These attributes distinguish the bargaining regimeof late communism both from the neocorporatist regimes of the West and from statecorporatism (see Schmitter, 1974).These properties of the structure of bargaining in late communism can be seen asby-products of their origins in pure communism. It is a system of bargaining amonga wide range of narrow groups, conducted outside public control, and regulated fromthe top down. The structure is plainly different from any of those found in democraticand capitalist countries.

Constraintson BargainingAt least some versions of the pluralist doctrine held that public interest could be theproduct of the balance of power among organized groups each pursuing their narrowinterests. The more we understand about such bargaining the more implausible thisresult seems. 2 In fact, pluralists looking at democratic capitalist systems, and at theUnited States in particular, are looking at very constrained bargaining games.The constraints in the West are in the form of electoral systems, markets, and rigidlaw. They place limits on the discretion of politicians and corporate managers. Criticsof pluralism, such as Lowi (1979), have noted the weakening of those constraints,and its disastrous consequences. But the constraints have not disappeared, evenunder interest group liberalism. In the West they continue to be the sources ofequilibrium points in politics, ones not provided by a pure bargaining game. Thebargaining regime of late communism is characterized, in contrast, both by theabsence (or extreme weakness) of the constraints typical of Western systems, and bythe weakness of the constraints that gave integrity to pure communism, centralcontrol and Marxist-Leninist ideology. The constraints derived from pure commun-ism still operate in late communism, but they do so in a debilitated form. A moreserious source of constraint on bargaining, and of pressure for change, comes fromoutside.Even a bargaining regime relatively free of domestic constraints, like latecommunism, is not free of constraints. Communism exists in a non-communist world,and this world has a deeply destabilizing effect on communist regimes simply byvirtue of being there, not being communist, and refusing to conform to the predictionsof Marxist-Leninist ideology about its social and economic disintegration.The existence of a technologically and economically superior non-communist worldimposes several constraints on communism. First, the bargaining regime of latecommunism must preserve national security in a potentially hostile world. Second,it has to make progress, or at least maintain position, in the international economy.Third, it operates as a member-state of the international political community and istherefore sensitive to world public opinion. Last, it has to survive in a system ofrelatively free-flowing world communications (TV, radio, press). The efforts tosustain an information monopoly of the communist regime have been increasinglyineffective, thus limiting its control over political thinking. Military and economiccompetition, as well as the population's exposure to world communication and theregime's vulnerability to world public opinion, provide an incentive to change theinstitutional framework of bargaining, though (admittedly) the incentive is not a verystrong one.


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380 TheEvolutionf CommunismThe solution to the problem of security is the militarization of communism, butthe second problem, due to the constraints of international markets and ofinternational debt, cannot be so easily resolved. While domestic economies areisolated to the maximum extent possible, the international economy remains a crisis-

provoking external constraint on late communism. There are also no easy ways toavoid the other constraints the external world imposes on communism. Internationalagreements, such as the Helsinki Accords, restrict to a certain degree the uses andabuses of power open to the regime. Information flows are increasingly freed fromcentral control. ' 3The failure to integrate with the world economy and to sustain economic growthhave been driving forces in the evolution of communism. The limited capacity ofcommunist economies to innovate and to adapt, as well as the accumulatedinternational debt, force authorities to consider seriously greater integration with theworld economy. This has led many communist regimes to renounce a number ofsacrosanct ideological principles. Under the pressure of international indebtednessin the 1980s, Hungary and Poland became members of such Western multilateraleconomic institutions as the IMF and World Bank, organizations not known for theircommitment to the communist model of development. Although the full impact ofthese organizations remains to be seen, it is likely that they will indirectly affect theframework of bargaining.' Under the same pressures some countries have openedtheir economies to foreign direct investment and to multinational corporations,traditionally portrayed as a vehicle of capitalist-imperialist penetration andexploitation.

The Political Economyof Late CommunismThe politico-economic system of late communism can be summarized in two briefphrases. Its economy is the economy of shortages. Its politics is the politics of anaimless bully.The Economyof Shortages.In the economy of late communism the main players are thecentral and local authorities, the enterprises and to a lesser extent, trade unions andprofessional organizations. The main institutional context is an administrativemechanism for the allocation of resources. Under pure communism, the directives ofthe central authorities are mainly in the form of commands expressed in physicalunits, specifying not only what should be produced, and in what quantities, but alsowhat inputs should be used. Under late communism, the scope of physicalcommands is curtailed. They are replaced by financial instruments transplanted frommarket economies. 5 This shift from physical to financial instruments recognizes theimpossibility of all-embracing and detailed central planning (because of informatio-nal complexity),16 but does little to reduce the scope of negotiations betweeneconomic actors and the central authorities.If the central planners had perfect knowledge of all production functions, therewould be little room for bargaining, nor would there be shortages. But they do not,and their ability to control economic activities is far from satisfactory. Relativeinformational simplicity of central planning, and the use of terror, limits bargainingunder pure communism. With the expansion of the economy and the diminishedwillingness to use force, however, bargaining proliferates.


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BARTIOMIEJ KAMIVSKTAND KAROL SOLTAN 381The object and scope of bargaining is shaped by a number of factors. The majordeterminants are the tools of macroeconomic intervention by the state. With increaseduse of the financial instruments of intervention, formulas and magnitudes of financialparameters come to be the main object of negotiations between enterprises and

planning authorities. Even prices are mainly set by the authorities, and not by theinterplay of supply and demand. Profitability can also be negotiated. Thus, forexample, although the 1980-81 reform in Hungary aimed to introduce competitiveprices,17 Kornai (1986) has shown that it has not changed previously existingrelationships in profitability levels. New tax rates and other specific subsidies wererenegotiated to maintain the same level of profits. In China also, price changes havehad an insignificant impact on state-owned enterprises. Thus direct controls andallocation through bargaining continues to prevail even in the most reformedeconomies of late communism.Prices set at market-clearing levels are a necessary although not sufficient conditionfor economic efficiency. If they are not set in this way, access to resources has to beadministratively determined, thus making it subject to bargaining. If there wereoverabundance, this would not be a problem, but we live in a world of scarcity.Similarly, if the administrative allocation of resources were governed by clearlydefined, rigid and general rules, the rationing would be free of bargaining, but centralplanners' rationality requires flexibility, not rigidity. Hence the administrativeinterventions are invariably ad hoc.Shortages and bargaining are two sides of the same coin; they are both necessaryconsequences of administrative controls. Shortages are bred by taut planning, theonly available substitute for competition to combat inertia and low macroeconomicefficiency. To elicit maximum effort, planners set ambitious targets. But there areother mechanisms of shortage generation, as well (Kornai, 1986). Even less ambitiousplans would not eliminate shortages since an unconstrained bargaining regimecreates strong incentives for excessive hoarding of materials. Materials are useful notjust in production but also in bargaining. Products are more valued than money,which is not fully convertible domestically. In the absence of markets, no mechanismexists for moving excessive inventories from one producer to another. Furthermore,uncertainties about the current and future availability of productive inputs, as wellas the possibility of unplanned extra tasks (usually well rewarded), increase thepropensity to hoard materials.Bargaining thus feeds upon shortages when allocation is not subject to strictlydefined rules. But because of the multiplicity of independent negotiations and thedominance of ad hoc macroeconomic interventions, attempts to impose constraintson bargaining by introducing legal procedures result in a hybrid system ofregulations too complex to be followed. In order to avoid a collapse, rules have tobe circumvented. This produces a situation in which actors are subject to a soft lawconstraint,an inevitable counterpart of the soft budget constraint. As in the case of anenterprise's budgetary constraint, the degree of its softness is a matter ofadministrative decision.TheRegimeas an Aimless Bully. Late communism is no longer totalitarian. It is instead,like a bully, rough on the weak but compliant toward the strong. We should notexpect anything else from unconstrained bargaining. If you have something to offer,or an effective threat, you will be treated well; if you don't, you will be exploited tothe fullest.


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382 TheEvolution f CommunismStrength in late communism is a function of the vulnerability of the regime toexternal pressures and its dependence on cooperation with various groups andindividuals. This cooperation has to be bought; it can no longer be forced upondomestic actors, as it could under pure communism. Nor can public opinion in the

West be ignored. It is reasonable to suspect, for example, that the pressure of Westernofficial creditors entered the considerations of Jaruzelski's government on how tonormalize Poland after the imposition of martial law in 1981. In the Soviet Union,Sakharov was released from internal exile presumably as part of Gorbachev's publicrelations efforts aimed at the West and also, perhaps, at the Soviet intelligentsia.More generally, reports on the human rights situation in various communistcountries (compiled by Helsinki Watch Committees) seem to indicate that dissidentsnot known in the West are subject to much harsher treatment than those who havegained some notoriety abroad.A similar differentiation occurs in the case of domestically strategic groups. Thepolice and army traditionally occupy privileged positions in communist regimes, asdo the central and local administrative authorities, and the transition from pure tolate communism often enhances their position. New laws and regulations oftencontain loopholes or are vaguely worded, their interpretation left to the discretion ofauthorities. Those who can return favors obtain preferential treatment, while othersare given short shrift. An analogous asymmetry can be observed at the bottom of thehierarchy of power. The burden of economic adjustment usually falls on those socialgroups least likely to threaten political stability. Thus, for example, despite a 2percent increase in average real wages in Poland in 1983, the real wages of about45-50 percent of the workforce fell. The losers were mainly employed in smallindustrial plants which, unlike the large ones, could not organize visible andeconomically costly strikes. The weak suffer, while the strong are both feared andrespected.Yet if the regime has turned into a bully, it is an aimless and lethargic one. Theunconstrained bargaining regime adds an ironic twist to the Leninist principle of theprimacy of politics over economics: from being masters, politicians become slaves ofthe arrangements of their own making. The old Marxist-Leninist justification for totalcontrol has been to promote revolutionary changes, accelerating the development ofproductive forces and moving society toward material abundance. To achieve this,institutional arrangements have been created to make the regime both omnipotentand omnipresent. These same arrangements, however, coupled with a dramatic lossof ideological purposefulness and society's partial emancipation from the regime'scontrol, produce a profound inertia and curtail the capacity to adapt and to change.Despite the official rhetoric, late communism is conservative and relatively inactive.18The regime's stability is maintained less by the successful pursuit of widely sharedpurposes than by undermining various possible standards for the evaluation ofdecisions. Without such standards, whether their source lies in economic efficiencyor Marxist-Leninist ideology, it is hard to formulate objections to decisions. It is hardto tell what does, and what does not, promote efficiency in late communism. Andfew people take the ideology seriously. But the price of the resulting stability isaimlessness and stagnation.

Constitutional CommunismTwo closely related tendencies define the move from late to constitutionalcommunism, as we see it. Their common denominator is an organized retrenchment,


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BART-LOMIEJAMINSKIANDKAROLSOLTAN 383not just a de facto withdrawal, of the regime from the aspiration to control directlyall domains of public life. It is motivated not by socialist humanism, but by thegrowing inability of the regime to govern. Thefirst trend is toward replacing ideologyas a constraint on bargaining and a guarantor of regime integrity with a reliance onlaw. This tendency toward law is already present in the earlier transition from pureto late communism, but initially it produces only a more complex and intricate jungleof bureaucratic regulations. Constitutional communism, by contrast, introduceselements of the rule of law, law that can limit bureaucracy, instead of extending it.The secondendency replaces the weak aspiration to total control characteristic oflate communism by an institutionally limited aspiration to control. It involves a dejure abdication from the control of selected activities, contrasted with de factoabdication under late communism. More limited control is no longer a product oftemporary weakness and shifting policy; rather, it comes to be a more fullyinstitutionalized regime principle.IdeologyPartially Replaced by LawLaw and ideology are partial substitutes as constraints on bargaining in any politico-economic system. Comparisons of administrative agencies in the United States, forexample, show a similar pattern. Agencies left less discretion by the law, but alsothose more directly driven by a clear ideology (as the Environmental ProtectionAgency, for example), maintain their integrity more easily, and resist capture moresuccessfully. But not all kinds of law can serve this function. In the legal literaturea distinction is commonly made between bureaucratic and autonomous law (Nonetand Selznick, 1978; Unger, 1976). Bureaucratic law is simply a systematic instrumentof authority. Autonomous law (guaranteed by an independent system of lawinterpretation and enforcement) can be, by contrast, a method for controlling andlimiting authority. Law of this kind must be general and rigid. Instead of craftingrules to meet the specific demands of each situation and each actor (a typical latecommunist pattern), law-making (and bargaining) is concerned with more generalrules, moving toward a more autonomous law characteristic of constitutionalcommunism.The move introduces into communist regimes elements of a legal, as against apurposive, rationality. The first favors rigid rules, while the second accords priorityto flexibility in the service of purpose. Purposive rationality, the chief aspiration ofcommunist officials in pure and late communism, but also of managers in capitalism,represents a managerial and pragmatic point of view, but it can also be revolutionaryand anti-legal.'9 It aims to get things done, and rigid rules are for it only possibleimpediments. Flexibility is important in order to be able to adapt to new andunpredictable situations.In pure and late communism the party apparatus (as against the state apparatus)aims to provide such flexibility by arranging exceptions to bureaucratic rules andthus making it possible to get things done. This principle of the bending of the rules(Hirszowicz, 1980) can work well when effectively restrained by a coherent set ofpurposes, such as those provided by Marxist-Leninist ideology. Purposeful rationalitywithout strong commitment to purposes cannot work, however. So, as ideologyweakens, the party's capacity to arrange exceptions comes to be simply anopportunity for unrestrained bargaining-which (literally) serves no purpose. As theexperience of late communism amply shows, the solution to the problem of


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384 TheEvolution f Communismunconstrained bargaining lies not in more rigid bureaucratic law but in autonomouslaw; not in the more rigid control of every sphere of social life, but in a more rigidrefusal to control at least some spheres.The logic of this move is simple. One can sometimes achieve more by restrictingwhat one is capable of doing. It rests on Schelling's (1963: 22-28) observation thatthe ability to constrain oneself may be a source of power. One can gain power notsimply by having more numerous, more powerful, and more credible threats orpromises, but also by having firmer and more credible commitments. The centralauthorities of communist regimes can resist the pressures being brought to bear onthem by being credibly committed not to do certain things. A capacity to resistpressure in this way will allow more effective pursuit of those more limited purposeswhich are given official and legal recognition. The problem is to make such self-limitscredible, its solution is autonomous law guaranteed by autonomous courts.Various official statements, usually voiced during periods of upheaval, seem tosuggest that communist authorities have not been oblivious to the potential inherentin the rule of law. Perhaps because he is a lawyer, this is especially true of Gorbachev.In his program, as outlined in the Theses of the CPSU Central Committee for the19th All-Union Party Conference (CPSU, 1988), the rule of law theme clearlydominates. Gorbachev's reforms call for a strict observance of the law: thefundamental trait [of the socialist state] is the supremacy and triumph of lawexpressing the will of people . .. and . . . all party organizations must act within theframework of the USSR Constitution and Soviet laws (CPSU, 1988: 43, 47). Wefind an almost identical statement in Zhao Ziyang's report to the 13th NationalCongress of the Communist Party in 1987: the Party must conduct its activitieswithin the limits prescribed by [the] Constitution and [the] laws (Zhao, 1987).

In some countries the movement toward the rule of law has gone substantiallybeyond the stage of slogans and proposals. In Poland, for example, though theproblem is seldom discussed, potentially significant institutional changes havealready been implemented. New institutions such as the Constitutional Tribunal andthe Sejm Ombudsman have been set up to give citizens some protection against theabuse of power by the administration and to curtail the discretion of the Sejm andthe administration in issuing and interpreting new laws. In 1980, the AdministrativeTribunal was set up to control administrative activities. All these institutions lay thegroundwork for subjecting the relations within the administration and between theregime's bureaucracy and individuals to transparent legal procedures. Too short aperiod of time has elapsed, however, to gauge their impact on the regime.Other changes have not been conducive to the rule of law. Some legislation,enacted in the 1980s, has effectively extended the scope for arbitrary action by thestate and restricted civil freedoms (Cave, 1983). Although these new laws (such asthe law on the police and the Security Service, or the amendments to the Constitutionextending the circumstances under which a state of emergency may be introduced)provide greater room for arbitrariness by the state, they do not automaticallyneutralize progress in civil rights, nor do they necessarily imply more repression.These powers are new not in practice, but in law; they provide a legal basis foractivities previously pursued without a legal basis. It is possible, therefore, that thisextension of state authority contains the seeds of a future transformation toward afuller respect for the rules of law, making them something more than a simpleinstrument of repression.Another trend accompanying the transition from pure to late communism that


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BART+-OMIEJAMINSKIANDKAROLSOTAN 385may contribute to the emergence of constitutional communism is the increasingindependence of courts. Kowalik (1987) has argued that this occurred in Poland afterthe 1956 explosion of freedoms and, more generally, that it was a component ofthe process of de-Stalinization. At first, we see only more selective politicalinterventions in the judicial system. The regime of late communism is more likely torefrain from dominating the judicial system, although it retains influence over it.Gorbachev's program goes a step further, calling for independence of the judiciary:prosecutors and judges must be subject to law and to the law alone (CPSU, 1988:47).The void created by the decay of ideological discipline thus has been partially filledby law. While law is still a soft constraint on the bargaining regime of latecommunism, there is also a growing recognition among decision-makers that thisconstraint should be hardened if the regime is to retain an ability to implementits own designs, especially in the economic sphere. The common denominator of theeconomic reform wave in the 1980s was the search for solutions to the problems ofsoft budget and soft law.Institutionalized imitsof GovernmentontrolThe rule of law is a central component of constitutionalism, but it is not the onlycomponent. Constitutionalism broadly means the limitation of power, and thisapplies also under constitutional communism. The regime's aspiration to totalcontrol, which was its driving force in pure communism, and was substantiallyweakened (though not abandoned) in late communism, is now authoritativelylimited.

Key components of this tendency, if a transformationto constitutional communismwere to be accomplished, include the separation of powers, the institutionalizationof bargaining (communist corporatism), the institutionalization of freer informationflows (glasnost), and the introduction of clearly defined rules of state intervention inthe economy (market). All are capable of reinforcingeach other. If they do so, theycould remove the basic source of the decay of late communism.Separationf Powers.The separation of powers has always been a central doctrine andan important goal of the constitutionalist tradition. It is achieved in part when courtsbecome more independent from outside interference,as is essential for the emergenceof autonomous law. But more than independent courts is required.We must also seethat governance through general laws replaces governance through more direct andspecific commands, with two immediate effects.The first is the withdrawal of centralcontrol from those areas where governance through general rules is simplyimpossible. This is combined with a separationof executive and legislative functions,making the legislature, the body that makes those general rules, a more importantelement of the regime.

In a constitutional communism we can expect that the leading role of the partywill be increasingly exercised through control of the legislature, less through directadministrativecommands and control of the repressiveapparatus. Movement in thisdirectioncan be seen clearly in current reformsand proposals for reform in the SovietUnion and Poland, to takejust two examples. We see an effortto establish legislaturesthat are more important law-making institutions, possible channels for oppositionand criticism, signs of limited democracy, but still firmly controlled by the party.


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386 TheEvolution f CommunismThe basic regime principles of communism can certainly accommodate a legislatureof this sort.CommunistCorporatism.Official recognition of bargaining groups, and of bargaining,accepts limits on the power of central authorities, but also facilitates the regulationof bargaining in order to make it serve public purposes. Such recognition allows thecentral authorities to act as a mediator among competing interests. The interestsbecome institutionally organized and subject to well-defined general rules. This kindof change recognizes a variety of functions, organizational forms, and particularinterests that organizations should serve, without necessarily introducing democraticpluralism. Since the purpose of participating organizations is well defined, as are thelinks between the organizations and the central authorities, this would be a full-fledged corporatism,unlike the late communist pattern of the Brezhnev era depictedas corporatist by Bunce (1983).There are some signs in contemporary communism of the recognition ofindependent social activity. In the Soviet program, the creation of a legal frameworkfor de-statized public organizations is a logical extension of glasnost. Thesis 9promises the encouragement of any public activity that is carried out within theframework of the Constitution and does not contradict the interests of thedevelopment of the Soviet socialist society (CPSU, 1988: 48). The goal is to breakup social apathy and indifference, the results of society's alienation from power.Chinese reformers seem more directly concerned with changing the relationshipsbetween the party and other government and non-government institutions. ZhaoZiyang (1987) called for the gradual institutionalization of the relations betweenthem. In Poland, grass-root pressures have prompted the authorities to register some

ideologically hostile independent organizations (the Cracow Business Association,for example) and to begin legislative work on the rules of their creation andregistration.Glasnost. Glasnost denotes an opportunity to voice dissatisfaction with an objection-able state of affairs, and therefore challenges the communist tradition of secrecy. Itsacceptance by the regime is tantamount to a rejection of the claim that the party hasthe monopoly on truth and an unlimited control over information. A policy ofglasnost recognizes the value of dissenting voices in choosing policies, and may thusimprove the quality of decision-making. It could open the regime to rationalargument and public debate, something notably absent under both pure and latecommunism.In addition, the creation of extra channels of control through the mass mediafacilitates the regulation of local authorities and other groups whose main bargainingweapon has been control of local information. The strategy of information-withholding becomes more difficult to carry out successfully. As a result, the regime,or the central authorities, improve their administrative capacity.The move toward public openness is not confined to the Soviet Union. By thestandards of the 1970s there is an unprecedented openness in the official mass mediaof Hungary and Poland. The Czechoslovak regime is also reportedly under pressureto loosen its control over information.20 Combined with an end to the jamming ofprograms broadcast from the West, these developments point to a reluctantreconciliation with a loss of information monopoly. In certain cases the limits to theauthorities' control have been institutionalized, as in the Polish censorship law.21


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BART-LOMIEJKAMUNSKIAND KAROL SOETAN 38918. Similar tendencies can be seen in market-oriented democracies, but in a weaker form.Loosely constrained bargaining regimes are difficult to change because they provide aneffective veto power to many groups.19. In the legal literature this pragmatic point of view is best represented by legal realists (for

a review, see e.g., Purcell, 1973). Its more radical counterpart is now developed in theCritical Legal Studies Movement (see, for instance, Kelman, 1987).20. See Jackson Diehl, Czechs Get Whiff of 1968 'Prague Spring' in New EconomicReforms, The Washington ost, November 16, 1987.21. For a discussion, see Kalabifiski (1984) and Hauser (1984).22. For an analysis of problems facing Gorbachev's economic reform, see Hewett (1986) andNuti (1988).

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BART+.OMIEJKAMFNSKI AND KAROL SOITAN 391Winiecki, J. (1987). Economic rospects EastandWest:A ViewromtheEast. London: Centre forResearch into Communist Economies.Wulf, L. de. and D. Goldsbrough (1986). The Evolving Role of Monetary Policy in China.IMF Staff Papers,2: 209-242.Zhao Ziyang (1987) Advance Along the Road of Socialism with Chinese Characteristicsin Report delivered at the XIIIth National Congress of the Communist Party of China onOctober 25, 1987 Beiing Review,Nov. 9-15.

Biographical otesBARTtOMIEJKAMIRSKI,Assistant Professor, Department of Government and Politics,University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. Has published recently oneconomic developments of centrally planned economies and East-South relations. Hismain research interests are in international political economy, and political economyof Soviet-type societies.KAROL SOETAN, Associate Professor, Department of Government and Politics,University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. His main research interestsare in political economy, and political and legal theory. Has published recently onjustice and on different forms of democracy. His book, The Causal TheoryofJustice waspublished in 1987.Acknowledgment.An earlier version of this paper, The Evolutionary Potential of LateCommunism, was presented at the 1988 Annual Meeting of the American PoliticalScience Association, Washington Hilton, September 1-4, 1988. This versionbenefited substantially from the comments of F. Eidlin, J. A. Laponce, John Meisel,M. So-tan, and an anonymous referee.

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Evolution of Communism