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Date:         Fri, 14 Aug 1992 10:28:36 DST
From:         Jan Szelepcsenyi <janszel@POSEN.MFF.UNIBA.CS>
Subject:      SDL - answer requested
X-To:         SLOVAK-L@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu

Mr Kubaska,

thanks for your compliments, but I have to disagree with
you, too.

>	I don't see why should almost young people, who
>	refused to leave sinking boat be marked as communists.

It's a contradictionary statement, indeed. There is somebody who
didn't want to leave a sinking boat (i.e. the Communist Party),
but I may not mark him as a communist (inspite of the boat he is
sitting in), because he is young...

Sorry, it doesn't make any sens for me.

I try to explain my judgement about the SDL more in detail.

There is one important problem in the contemporary policy of the
post-communist contries. It's the so called "social oriented
market policy", what means the defence of people with law income
against the merciless consequences of the market economy. This
defence is mostly organized and provided by the state, but it
may be also incorporated in the market system, in social insurance
system etc.

I don't like to see people in bad social need. I suppose,
everybody has a right to live a dignified existence. But the
social oriented ideology (and policy, too) includes a big
danger: the equalitarism. If you are working hard or lazy, much
or less - you have in general the same wage, the same social
position and the same possibility to develope your abilities.
The equalitarism is coming from an absurd idea: the people have
the same rights independent of their activity, productivity or
predisposition to be active and productive.  In the time of
communist government the workers got used to be a privileged
class: their sallaries were higher then the income of
scientists, teachers, graduate administrators or managers. If
the government had to decide about the financial support to a
technology program or a social program, the second one has got
everytime a preferrence. As you see, the follows were
disasterous...

For making a good social policy you need a lot of companies
and individuals making a lot money, briefly, you need a lot
of rich people paying high taxes. Only then has the state
real money to make an efficient and long-term oriented social
policy, as Sweden or Germany are doing...

This basic principle is the Rubicon, which the SDL is not able
to cross, because it would be the rejection of the basic
ideological rools of the marxism. HZDS is in danger to make
the same mistake, too. Till today I didn't hear about any
scientific or technology programs, no attempt was made in
direction inovation or restructuring, non of the politicians
told the people - you have to work. Miracles are expected -
caused by foreign capital, imported technologies, magic
managers... In this direction the history of mankind is giving
a simple lecture: behind every miracle was a lot of work and
will.

I suppose, the rightists in Eastern Europe recognized this facts
very soon. Of course, they are simplifying the situation and
don't think about the danger of social unrest. The Polish Prime
Minister told the workers very frankly: You have to get used
that you are not a privileged class any more. They answered by
a wave of strikes, which may kill the last hopes of the Polish
economy for recovering. (As far as I know the World Monetary
Fund already canceled promised loans to Poland.) Thats the
social feeling of the working class in action...

What's the point? The classical theory of Marx doesn't work any
more, or works only particularly. The most important social
groupings are the most productive ones. In 19th and at the beginning
of the 20th century it was the working class. Today the highest
importance for the being of a society have the experts in banking,
technology, research, management etc. If their production and
productivity is O.K., then all the society (and the social wellfare,
too) is O.K.

The neo-communists aren't able to accept this facts and moderate
their policy accordingly to the reality. They aren't able to
make a total ideological perestrojka, which is the conditio sine
qua non. And so they are compiling the old ideological rubbish
with some claims of "good social will", but they never showed,
how they would like to pay the bill for it.

Last but not least: it's not possible to solve problems and to
get rid of responsibility by changing the dress. This
responsibility doesn't have any relation to age. There is not
any rule you may show some political naivity or stupidity till
you are young and then you have to "change the boat" in a safer
one. Policy isn't a game. Policy is every time a ful
responsibility.

>	... they would like to join socialistic internacional...

There is a nice Slovak proverb: "Co sa babe zachcelo, to sa babe
prisnilo...", i.e. The wishes of the old wife mooved in in her
dreams... It's something like a cleaning procedure, what the SDL
would like to undergo. Looking for an appropriate face they are
dancing a bolero, which is totaly demasking their real goals.
That's the reason, why they would like to sign a political pact
with the Social Democracy of Slovakia, whose president is Mr
Dubcek. Doesn't it reminde you at the annection of Social
Democrats of CSR after February 1948 ?!

>	... they make it clear that SDL is not founded on
>	communist ideology or communist methods...

How and when dit they make it clear? Really, I don't remember any
disclaimer... And what is their ideology, in fact ?

If the methods are the same as the communist methods were or not
we may learn only after they have taken the might.
Unfortunately, I remember the time after 1948. I've seen how a
rabbit is changing in a wolf. I don't have any desire to make
this experience once more. And if I may give you an friendly
advice: don't trust any bird, although at moment it would look
as peaceful as possible. Hitchkok showed how it may turn in a
beast. Every time and anywhere.

P.S. SDL is the best organized party in Slovakia with a high
intellectual potencial in all structures. Lenin told: The power
of the communists is in the high level of their organization. I
have to add: the power of the post-communists, too. As well as
the power of Cosa Nostra, fascists groupings, as GESTAPO, SS,
Organisation Totenkopf etc.


Regards,

Jan

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       Sorry for being long. There is so much to say...
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--
Jan Szelepcsenyi                        	Telephone: + 42 7 220863
janszel@posen.mff.uniba.cs              	Address  : ul. A. Mraza 4
                                                	   821 03 Bratislava
							   Czechoslovakia
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