Book Reviews
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00099 |
| Published date | 01 September 1998 |
| Date | 01 September 1998 |
FREEDOM’S ORDEAL: THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND
DEMOCRACY IN POST-SOVIET STATES
by PETER JUVILER
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998, 283 pp., £45.00)
RIGHTING WRONGS IN EASTERN EUROPE by ISTVAN POGANY
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997, 226 pp., £45.00)
Juviler and Pogany’s books concern different aspects of the progress of basic
human rights reforms in the former Soviet Bloc. While Juviler’s study
chronicles in broad thrust the overall progress of democratic institutions
and human rights for all successor states to the former Soviet Union,
Pogany’s book focuses on the progress in one particular issue – the attempt
of post-communist governments to correct the grave injustices and human
rights abuses committed during the communist era in Poland, Hungary and
the former Czechoslovakia. Both authors attempt to demonstrate a conti-
nuity in tendency toward autocracy in pre-communist, communist, and even
post-communist eras (although recognizing that the communists were
undisputed champions as human rights violators). They therefore devote
extensive portions of their books to a discussion of historical developments,
laying the groundwork for their conclusions that, in the present situation,
it is worth our while to look at the long-term tendencies in these countries
of not upholding a liberal democratic model and of a lack of toleration
toward the non-dominant groups, as they are still prevalent problems in
these societies and might be signs that the transformation is not proceeding
along proper lines or that (at least in the former Soviet Union) the
development toward fully democratic, law-based states might be undermined
by them.
Juviler examines the situation of and prospects for human rights in the
former Soviet Union, but most particularly in the Russian Republic. His
methodological approach is to review the long-term trends in political culture
and habits in the former Tsarist empire and the Soviet Union, revealing a
clear continuity, namely, the historical reality of an authoritarian regime that
periodically relaxed its grip due to the perceived need to catch up with devel-
opments in the West. Rather than viewing Russian history as an unchang-
ing procession of despotism, he shows Russia as having many impressive
periods of development toward liberal democracy and rule of law, so that
he can say ‘neither functionally nor culturally is despotism, rather than free-
dom, Russia’s fate. History supports the view of Bolshevism . . . as not a
continuation of but a destructive break from Russia’s development by 1917’
(p. 26). Just as the Bolshevik take-over marked the defeat for strong
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
427
Book Reviews
developments toward democracy and the protection of rights, not an
inevitable continuation of Romanov autocracy, Yeltsin’s ascendance in 1991
in no sense signalled the final victory of democracy over autocracy, the
euphoric hopes for quick democratization in 1991 being simply fanciful. The
struggle to build a democratic system and to establish basic rights’ protec-
tions remains in a sense the same and faces the similar obstacles and tenden-
cies. His final chapter is aptly titled ‘The Struggle Continues’.
Juviler devotes a good portion of his book (chs. 2–4) to chronicling the
efforts to achieve democracy and the rule of law in the Russian Empire, the
Soviet Union, then in the Russian Republic. He quotes a 1903 statement by
Paul Milyukov concerning ‘two Russias’ to underline the fact of competing
historical tendencies, anachronistic autocracy and modern liberal democ-
racy. There are no lack of leaders in Russian history with the urge to modern-
ize, such as Alexander II and Kerensky, but historical circumstances never
favoured them, and there were also leaders with uncompromising authori-
tarian tendencies, notably Lenin and Stalin. The most interesting group of
leaders were those, such as Nicholas II and Gorbachev, who attempted to
accommodate popular demand for reform by granting some modernization
and liberalization from above without actually changing the nature of the
system as a whole, that is, without foreswearing their prerogative to maintain
non-democratic control. They responded to the necessity of events by
accepting long-overdue reforms, but were constrained, by nature or the
circumstances, from taking the measures far enough to actually satisfy the
urge for democracy. Nicholas II was undermined by World War I and
Gorbachev by the very movements, glasnost and perestroika, which he set
in motion and then found he was unable to control. Juviler gave Gorbachev
his due – ‘no other regime, aside from that of a conquered country had so
radically and swiftly shifted ideologically from rejection to acceptance of the
supremacy principle of law and rights, and to human rights universalism’
(p. 52); nonetheless, he recognizes that ultimately Gorbachev was not a true
democrat so that he shrunk from thorough-going changes and that,
considering the utter devastation wreaked upon civil society during the
communist era could not be cured overnight, the ground was not ripe for
the swift and painless implanting of a civil society.
Neither is Yeltsin portrayed as the hero who in 1991 saved democracy
from the forces of reaction when he stood atop the tank at the barricade in
front of the White House. His many sins of omission and commission are
amply laid forth, particularly the 1993 storming of the Duma and the brutal
war in Chechnya, which Juviler sees as marking a new authoritarianism.
This portion of the book is most interesting in that Juviler devotes sufficient
attention to the issues, is clearly in his element, and has amply – almost
extravagantly – researched and documented his findings. A crucial theme
implicit in this section (and others as well) is that, for the establishment
of firm human rights protections, a crucial aspect is the satisfactory
development of political institutions along democratic lines. Secure rights
428
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998
protections is simply not possible in the absence of the state authorities’
accountability to voters and of the transparency of their actions. The events
in Russia in the 1990s amply demonstrate that free elections are no guarantee
the people will chose leaders committed to democracy (that is, the success
of Zhirinovsky) or that even those nominally committed to democracy
(Yeltsin) can so easily resort to non-democratic means to achieve their ends.
Juviler’s book also gives a quite forceful account of how the peoples of the
former Soviet Union are suffering under utterly intolerable conditions. While
one often hears how bad the situation in Russia is, Juviler’s grand survey of
it from the perspective of democratic institutions and human rights brings a
wide array of facts and little-known details that give a truly illuminating
picture of a country in strikingly poor condition. The details of prison condi-
tions, the economic situation, and short life spans make a lasting impression.
In the middle of his book (chs. 5–7), Juviler focuses on the situation in
all the republics of the former Soviet Union other than Russia. The Baltic
states are considered separately, and the other republics are discussed
primarily in terms of their advances toward developing democratic insti-
tutions. Juviler applies a sliding scale to gauge them (free democracies, partly
free democracies, near-democracies, and non-democracies). Unfortunately,
the actual criteria behind this scale are not quite clear and do not help to
illuminate what exactly was the crucial factor in placing a country in any
particular category. However, his description of the situations in them brings
out the basic condition that many of the states are troubled by armed
conflict, economic collapse, ethnic strife, and political cheating that make
them simply not amenable to the development of a rule-of-law state where
human rights are given sufficient protection. The author’s attempt to make
a comprehensive survey of all states was clearly too ambitious for such a
slim volume. Inevitably these chapters can only suggest the problematic
situation of democratic institutions and human rights’ protections, but they
cannot provide a clear picture of the situation. His brief assessment of the
situation in these countries results in oblique statements without further
elaboration, such as, ‘there is notable corruption in government.’ This is not
to fault Juviler’s knowledge or scholarship. Just as the Soviet Union was
unfathomable in its immense size and multifarious ethnic makeup, it is
simply beyond the scope of one person to comprehensively survey the region,
even if that person is so deeply steeped in knowledge of the region as Juviler
clearly is. It might have been more instructive had Juviler chosen to focus
on a few states, such as one Baltic, the Ukraine, and a central Asian dicta-
torship to show them as examples of what he sees as the general trends in
the region.
Pogany focuses on the understandably immense political pressure after
the 1989 revolutions in Poland, Hungary, and the former Czechoslovakia
(later the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic) ‘to seek redress through a
righting of wrongs’ (p. 7) and the various resulting programmes for the
restitution of confiscated property and compensation for imprisonment,
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© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998
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