|
began using their new voting right to turn back to the past. Communist parties popped up once again, with liberal-sounding new names but many of the same old faces. In 1995 Poles ousted the mercurial Lech Walesa from the presidency, replacing him with ex-communist Aleksander Kwasniewski. Former communists won high office in Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia and Hungary. Even in eastern Germany, prospering from unification, a renamed former Communist Party won seats in parliament. In Russia only a timely alliance between Yeltsin and popular ex-general Alexander Lebed helped defeat a revived Communist Party and its candidate, Gennadi Zyuganov, in last summer's presidential election. While history clearly did not end in Eastern Europe, it sometimes appeared to have come to a standstill in the West. The Maastricht formula for a European Union proved to be a paper dream. The Danes initially voted against ratification, and Britain threatened to do the same, forcing virtual renegotiation of the treaty. A French referendum produced a narrow petit oui of only 51.05% in favor of the treaty, and there was little more enthusiasm elsewhere. By the end of 1992, Big Europe looked very much like the same Old Europe. When Yugoslavia broke  3 of 5
 |
For many in Eastern Europe, war was only one bitter consequence of newly won freedom. Market reforms shuttered unproductive factories and even whole industries, creating widespread unemployment and sometimes runaway inflation. Health and welfare systems collapsed: in 1994 the typical Russian male could look forward to an average life-span of only 57 years, the worst prognosis in the industrialized world.
Faced with such catastrophes, both public and personal, citizens
