The Politics of Culture

THE fork of "liberalization" that is jabbing all of Communist Europe these days has two prongs: "Cultural Freedom" and "Political Liberty." It is easy in an advanced capitalist country to forget sometimes how closely inter-related the two are. European Communist reformers, however, have never lost sight of this close connection--indeed, they sometimes disguise their political struggles as cultural ones.

The struggle for liberalization, in essence, is just another manifestation of the age-old conflict between two opposed mentalities; to speak very broadly, those of the "Bureaucrat" and the "Intellectual." The Bureaucrat is stolid, excessively rationalistic and cautious about accepting change. This is no accident, as administrative structures tend to select precisely such men for their top posts, weeding out those who do not fit the pattern. The Bureaucrat is therefore most at home in a politically repressive system, in which his power is least questioned. The Intellectual, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with unfettered human expression in both his personal and political life, and hence always finds himself an unwilling victim of Bureaucratic power.

The conflict between these different mentalities is universal, but varies in its virulence from society to society. In the U.S., for example, the Bureaucrat does not have much power over the individual's personal or artistic life. Crises erupt, as over the Vietnam War or at Columbia, when the Bureaucratic power suddenly stands revealed as unreasonably wide-ranging.

In Communist Europe, however, the Bureaucrat has unbounded power over both the material and spiritual resources of society. Such total control is inherent in a Communist state--once you begin to centralize authority it becomes very difficult to set limits on it. Thus, in the European Communist countries, artistic freedom was for a long time very tightly restricted. And it is precisely because this kind of control over personal life represents the furthest, and least defensible, encroachment of Bureaucratic power that the Intelluectuals of the Communist countries have found it possible to struggle for Political Liberty under the banner of Cultural Freedom.

Just as political repression led to its cultural counterpart it is expected that Cultural Freedom is inextricably tied up with, and should therefore lead to Political Liberty.

DOMESTIC confrontations of this kind in the East European countries, despite their covert political nature, might not have led to the present tensions in the area if it had not been for one other factor: Liberalization also seems to entail a heavy dose of Nationalism--which in East Europe means independence from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had come to be closely identified with the repressive Stalinist regimes of the past. The memory of the blatant economic exploitation carried out by the Soviet Union in the early 50's contributes to the bitterness felt by today's liberal reformers towards the Soviet Union.

In addition, liberalization, with its emphasis on individual rights, also fosters an awareness of the rights of individual states--nationalism. The connection between liberalization and nationalism is strong and it is in these terms as well as in terms of the split between Bureaucrats and Intellectuals that the current ferment in Eastern Europe can be understood.

Rumania's nationalistic defiauce of the Soviet Union has forced her leaders to inject some freedom into the domestic system--alienated from Russia, they were highly vulnerable to the Czech bug.

Czechoslovakia has followed the pattern. Czech artists initiated the process of liberalization by gradually expanding the limits of the creative freedom allowed them by the state. They have produced movies, for example, of such sensitivity and taste as to stun the West. This freedom has since spilled over into the political realm--till today there is talk of establishing non-Communist "opposition" parties.

The recent "purge" of the Novotny-clique thus seems to spell the final victory of the Intellectuals over the Bureaucrats. The source of the present trouble is the more aggressive nationalism that has emerged with the internal reforms. Nationalism, directed against the Soviet Union antagonizes--and frightens--the Russian leaders. From all indications, however, their current irritations seem to be mild and should pass quickly.

THE REAL danger spot in Eastern Europe these days is not Czechoslovakia but Poland, where the Bureaucrats are counter-attacking moves that so far have remained almost exclusively on a cultural plane. These Bureaucrats are trying to ride the wave of nationalism but deny the liberalization that may have originally produced it. This is the meaning behind the anti-Semitic themes now being sounded in Poland.

Many, but by no means all, of the Intellectuals, who would like to see some cultural liberalization in Poland are Jews. The Bureaucrats seek to discredit the entire movement, recognizing it as ultimately political in nature, by portraying it as led by Jews--and then branding these Jews as anti-nationalistic. A slight degree of plausibility for these charges, which may be all that is needed to tap the latent anti-Semitism of the Polish masses, is provided by the fact that many of the leaders of the Stalinist regime in Poland before 1956, and indeed many key officials of the secret police, were Jewish.

More recently there was widespread protest by most Polish intellectuals and students (who were certainly not all Jews) against the official Polish line which vigorously denounces Israel in the war against the Arabs. This protest has also been interpreted as evidence of the treasonous sentiments of the group pushing for personal freedom. However, it remains to be seen how effective the campaign to deny any cultural freedom will be.

Today all of Eastern Europe is seething. The primary battleground are those of art and letters, but once the initial breach is made on that front there is no holding back--for culture is as related to the political process as teeth are to eating.