In first and second lecture we talked about how a communist economy did (not) function and what beginnings of a post-communist transformation in years 1990 – 1991 were.
First months of 1991 were really turbulent. Prices jumped about 60%; some businesses bankrupted; an unemployment rate grew and salaries didn’t raised. Biggest macroeconomic and systematic deformations of a centrally planned economy were solved and a macroeconomic equilibrium was quickly established, but on the other hand, the living standard was decreased; prices and unemployment increased. Those costs had to be paid. Actually the costs were not the costs for a transformation, but the costs for decades of communist deformations. It was not simple to explain it to people. A majority of people expected that the quality of their lives will improve by a simple regime change. They wanted to live as people in Austria or people in the west. At least they wanted to approach to that level. First months and years of the transformation meant especially a growth of differences between us and them. Disappointment and frustration were quite a natural reaction on that situation. We may say that the disappointment and frustration were in the Slovak part of the federation bigger than in the Czech one. It had several reasons. Now I am going to mention the most important of them.
Firstly, accompanying costs of the transformation were higher in Slovakia than in the Czech part of the federation. Differences were significant and they were perceived very sensitively. During the first months after transformation launching, unemployment in the Slovakia increased to 11% while in Czech it did to 3%. The unemployment was a new phenomenon and it was perceived very sensitively and negatively.
Secondly, Slovak inhabitants perceived the communist regime less negatively than the Czech. It was based on history, as Slovakia historically belonged to a more backward part of Austria-Hungary and later of Czechoslovakia, while the Czech part belonged to economically advanced ones. Thus a rate of economic and social progress during 40 years of the communism was In Slovakia higher than in Czech. There also lied the main cause of different unemployment rates after transformation launching. While the majority of the Czech economy arose in a functioning market environment during Austria-Hungary and the first Czechoslovak republic, the majority of the Slovak economy arose during so-called socialistic industrialization in the fifties and sixties. Also for this reason Slovak businesses were much more oriented on a heavy industry and markets of other communist states. When these markets then were disintegrated after the fall of communism, it affected Slovak businesses much more than the Czech ones.
The best-known example was a so-called conversion of an armament industry. This industry had been concentrated especially in Slovakia and after the fall of communism it bankrupted. In Slovakia an interpretation became popular which said that Václav Havel and a bad (Czech) transformation conception were responsible for the bankruptcy and that it was a political decision. It was a non-sense. Weapons produced in Považie region had been for a longer time, during the communism, non-competitive. Already at that time only so-called befriended countries took them, although those countries didn’t pay for them.
The third group of causes of a different transformation perception in the Czech and the Slovak part of the federation emerged from a little brother’s logical and natural emancipating effort, in Slovak ambitions, to change working rules of the common state in a way that they would have more authorities and responsibility for its own development. The problem was that, on the one hand, these often legitimate Slovak demands didn’t meet with understanding, and, on the other hand, a bigger problem was that emancipating requirements were captured at the Slovak part by populist and demagogues, whose demands meant an impossibility of working a common state. The problem was that the majority of these politicians, for instance Vladimír Mečiar too, claimed that they wanted to preserve the common state. The majority of the Czech and the Slovak wanted it as well.
The main reason for disintegrating Public against Violence was a fact that Vladimír Mečiar wanted to keep and he successfully did keep popularity using a national and social demagogy. Because of this he got to a fundamental dispute with those politicians of PaV who considered necessary reforms and preserving the common state to be the key matter. This pro-federal and pro-reformatory part of PaV was then renamed to Občianska demokratická únia – Verejnosť proti násiliu (the Civil Democratic Union – Public against Violence). They had been the strongest governmental party since March 1991 up to elections in Jun 1992. In that time I was a part of the government as the Minister of Privatization. The Prime Minister was the chairman of KDH (Christian-Democratic Movement) Ján Čarnogurský, who took the function after Vladimír Mečiar. After Mečiar had left the government he fully established his policy of fundamental criticism of reforms and the common state.
In this situation actually an election result (1992) decided about Czechoslovakia’s split. In Slovakia Vladimír Mečiar and his HZDS (MFDS) gained more than 37% of all votes. As second then followed a transformed former communist party with almost 15%. The former strongest governmental party CDU-PaV got with 4% out of the parliament. Such was the support of reforms and the common state.
In the Czech part of the federation Klaus’s Občianska demokratická strana (the Civil Democratic Party) dominantly won gaining almost 30%.
The problem came when a new Czech and a Slovak representation sat to a negotiating table and started to talk about the programme. Simply it was utterly inconsistent. The programme which won in the Czech part of the federation, stayed out of the parliament in the Slovak one. A federal legislation had to be approved in two chambers, in the House of Nation – there was the same share of Slovak and Czech politicians. Images of a common state’s functioning were utterly inconsistent. Mečiar, on the one hand, announced that he wanted to preserve a common state, but, on the other hand, he introduced such proposals that were incompatible with the common state’ functioning.
And because of that new representations agreed that since 1 January 1993 Czechoslovakia would split. Without any referendum, for in that time the majority of people in Slovakia and Czech did not wanted the split. Even the majority of Vladimír Mečiar’s voters wanted so. And Czechoslovakia completely split in such a way for the second time.
Comments
9 comment(s). Display all comments.
Ja si myslim, ze je uplne jedno kolko kto ma rokov, podstatne je, aby v politike boli ludia, ktori politike dobre rozumeju. A ja sa tu snazim dokazat, ze Miklos politike nerozumie, ale ja mozno ano.
No a potom jasne, ze zapad vedel, ze my sme na vychod a do afriky posielali velmi lacne a dobre zbrane, ale vstupom do NATO nam to zatrhli, pretoze biznis so zbranami chcel mat len zapad pre seba. Mimochodom zmodernizovat povazske zbrojovky by nebol ziadny problem, skuseni strojari tu boli, aj su, ale teraz su bez prace alebo to robia na cierno. Velmi vela ludi zabuda na tom, ze zapad je nas konkurent a nie butlava vrba…
Tomáš, veď práve to je chyba, že mladí, neskúsení sú vo funkciách. Zober si koľko zla napáchali takí Kaliňák alebo Lipšic - bez praktických skúseností, Lipšic ani nemal skončenú koncipientsku prax, už robil pradcu, resp. ministra spravodlivosti, vnútra.
Nesúhlasím s viacerými vyjadreniami p. Mikloša, prax hovorí niečo úplne iné.
Zbrane vyvážané najmä na Považí, boli už počas komunizmu nekonkurencieschopné...
to je hlúposť, robila som firmu, kde po revolúcii sa vo veľkom vyvážali zbrane (deklarované boli ryby), lenže korupcia a klientelizmus je u nás ochraňované halavne ministerstvom vnútra - preto stále sú úniky v stovkách miliónov a postihovaní čestní občania. Podvodníci stále majú zelenú.
Skús si prečítať napr. ZRELOSŤ NA REFORMU: ZASTAVIŤ OBCHODOVANIE SLOVENSKA SO ZBRAŇAMI S PORUŠOVATEĽMI ĽUDSKÝCH PRÁV
Ale ved vsetko ma svoju postupnost. Ja som prejavil a este stale mam zaujem prednasat na UPMS a az potom, ako by sa ukazali moje navrhy za spravne, potom by som pokracoval v rieseni vacsich ekonomik. Ale nas mladsich nechcu pustit ku kormidlu. Preco politicke stany nerobia nabor mladych ludi? Preco sa nedava politicky priestor v televizii aj nezavislym ludom, ktori maju zaujem o politicke dianie?
Pán Tomáš Janík, čo ťa tu ešte drží? Prečo neprednášaš ekonómiu na Oxforde, alebo Cambridge?
Pokusim sa este pokracovat vo vysvetlovani, ako funguje ekonomika, ale uz ma to velmi vycerpava a navyse nie je jednoduche protiargumentovat prednasku len s 1000 znakmi.
Miklosov argument, ze ceny boli dlhodobo drzane na nizkej urovni a preto ich bolo treba zo dna na den zdvihnut o 60% je loz. CSR tvorilo za komunizmu prevazne uzavretu ekonomiku a navyse sa nijako krajina nezadlzovala. A to podstatne je to, ze ak bolo mlieko dotovane, tak bolo dotovane z inej oblasti priemyslu, ktora bola ziskova. Ale tym, ze sa zdvihli ceny o 60% a prepustilo sa 10% ludi, co je asi 300 000ludi, tak tym sa z tychto ludi urobili zobraci a naopak hned po 89, majitelia pohostinstiev, obchodov, pekarni, masiarstiev, kupalisk atd sa stali velmi bohatymi ludmi. Stavali si dva domy, kupili si moderne auta a to vsetko na ukor ludi, ktori sa dostali do chudoby.