RADICAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF POLITICAL VALUES IN THE STATES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE DURING THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC TRANSITION OF THE LATE 1980-s AND EARLY 1990-s

Abstract

The article analyzes the changes that took place in public consciousness during the political and economic transition in the states of Central-Eastern Europe as a result of the fall of totalitarian communist regimes and the formation of a democratic system. Special attention is paid to the transformation of political values (welfare, freedom, equality, security). The loss of economic and ideological legitimacy of the communist regimes, their collapse lead to the widespread dissemination of a new system of values in society, but at the same time to social anomie, when new individual values contradicts with the old ones.

It was found that the concept of well-being began to be perceived to a greater extent through the prism of the market economy, private initiative, integration into the EU, at the same time significant paternalistic attitudes were preserved, which affected the privatization processes in particular. Ideas of economic equality remained popular, although to a greater extent in the form of state redistribution of profits, but income differentiation was increasingly perceived as a necessary stimulus for successful economic development. In security matters, the idea of integration into NATO and the EU, under the condition of maximum preservation of national sovereignty, became dominant. The idea of stability gave way to the value of development, sometimes even revolutionary. The value of order began to be interpreted through the prism of democratic views, including free elections and a multi-party system, although differences in the political culture of different states caused different results of the implementation of democratic principles: they were more successful in the states of Central Europe, less successful in the Balkan states. The vast majority of the population of the states of Central and Eastern Europe were rapidly moving away from the Marxist interpretation of the value of freedom, now understanding it as limiting state intervention in the personal and public life of the individual.

The intensity of value transformations in different countries of the region is compared: the greatest changes for that period were experienced in Central Europe (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia), while in Southeastern Europe (Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, Romania) society turned out to be more polarized by value beliefs. Thanks to such cardinal changes in public attitudes, the countries of Central Europe went through the predominantly peaceful path of political and economic transformations of the 1990s. Whereas in South-Eastern Europe, where a value consensus in society had not been formed, the transformations were accompanied by instability and frequent upheavals.

Social stratification also affected the differences in value orientations: political elites, intelligentsia, businessmen were more prone to transformation of views, while workers, peasants, pensioners often maintained loyalty to the official values of the communist era or changed them partially and very slowly. In conditions of general growth of social anomie, value changes were unstable and could quickly roll back under unfavorable circumstances.