 |
 |
| Reference Material |
| East Europe�s Left gains as it blunts ideology By Peter S. Green, The New York Times July 2, 2002, Today PRAGUE, Czech Republic � A new political divide has appeared in Europe: while Western Europe is moving to the Right, the Left has triumphed in former Soviet bloc lands that once rejected anything smacking of their Communist past. The Social Democratic parties that won in the Czech Republic this month, in Hungary in April, and in Poland last September bear little if any resemblance to the Communists of old. But they are led in at least two cases by men who were members of the Communist Party: Hungary�s Prime Minister, Peter Medgyessy, even confessed in Parliament this month to having worked for the Communist era secret police. It is a measure of changed times that his confession brought no huge outcry���. A half-dozen years ago, a strong showing for Central or Eastern Europe�s Left would have meant a vote for a watered down, rose-tinted version of Communism over anti-Communist free marketers, who championed individual initiative rather than government intervention. Now the Social Democrats have appropriated the very themes that were once the hallmark of the Right: membership in the European Union and NATO, a functioning judiciary, an end to corruption and the economic privilege of the political elite, and a rejection of rigid ideology. |