Generation Gap Is Destabilizing East Europe

Kati Fabian wouldn’t listen.

When the 22-year-old Budapest University student decided in May to join a new independent Hungarian students union, her parents warned her that it might jeopardize her career. Dinner time turned into shouting matches.

“My parents plead with me, ‘Don’t go, don’t go, it’s dangerous,’ ” Fabian said. “I answer, ‘Why? What do I have to lose?’ ”

An explosive generation gap is destabilizing Eastern Europe.

Bitter New Workers

Poland’s springtime strikes revealed a bitter new group of workers who were schoolboys when the independent trade union movement Solidarity erupted in 1980. East German teen-agers are flocking to church pacifist meetings; Yugoslav student journalists are crusading against military leadership, and courageous young Hungarians such as Fabian are challenging the official university union.

These youngsters disdain the moderating advice of opposition elder statesmen. Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, proud of his service as a corporal in the Army, reprimands the growing number of young Poles who refuse military service. Don’t go too far, the legendary union leader warns. Don’t question the alliance system.

“This army serves Soviet, not Polish goals” said Jaroslaw Nakielski, 23, who was imprisoned in 1986 for burning his conscript notice. “I would rather go to prison than serve in an army which supports the Reds.”

History taught caution to the older generation. Polish workers are scarred by the brutal martial law that destroyed their independent union in 1981; Czechs, by the 1968 Soviet invasion, and Hungarians, by the bloody 1956 revolution.

Bleak Futures

“My parents are always telling me how we lost this war and that war, how 1956 was so bloody,” said Jozsef Szajer, director of the new Hungarian student union. “I tell them, ‘That’s your problem, not mine.’ ”

Economic stagnation promises bleak futures for East European youth. Well-paying jobs are rare. Most children cannot hope to get an apartment of their own, even after they are married. In the Hungarian capital of Budapest, the queue for housing now stretches to 40,000 couples. In Poland, the wait is a staggering 25 years.

“You want to know what the biggest cause of divorce is?” asks Ryszard Szaflarski, a newly married teacher in Krakow. “It’s in-laws, being forced to live with them.”

This frustration does not always result in political activism. Many youths plunge into negative pastimes. Punk groups and gangs are proliferating. Teen-age abortions are soaring. Alcohol and drug abuse are escalating.

‘Addict Generation’

“A drug addict generation is emerging,” said Tamas Urban, a Hungarian journalist who has studied the drug problem throughout Eastern Europe. “They see their father working four to five years for a car, and they say, ‘Stop this, I don’t want to work four or five years to get a bloody car.’ ”

A more positive outlet is religion. Priests and pastors report a revival of worship among adolescents.

“Young people don’t find answers anymore in the official ideology,” said the Rev. Vaclav Maly, a dissident Czech priest. “They make room for God.”

After World War II, surviving Hungarian Jews struck a bargain with the authorities. In return for the right to set up Jewish institutions such synagogues, newspapers and old-age homes, the Jewish establishment refrained from criticizing the authorities.

Support for Israel

Younger Jews are more militant. They have created an underground magazine called Shalom, which supports Israel and questions the Hungarian role in the Holocaust.

“My grandchild comes to me and says, ‘Grandmom, why don’t you criticize this?,’ ” said Geza Seifert, president of the Hungarian Jewish Community. “We were thankful to be alive, to begin rebuilding our lives.”

Elder East European Communists hope that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reforms will rekindle enthusiasm among frustrated youth.

Once-staid Communist cultural organizations have begun sponsoring rock concerts. Imre Pozsgay, a reform-minded Hungarian Politburo member, said that he wants to legalize the new independent youth student organizations and offer Hungarians the option of substituting civil service for their military service. Polish officials are also drafting a new plan to legalize conscientious objection.

Controversial Causes

“We must rebuild confidence in the party,” Pozsgay said. “We must open it up to dialogue, new opinions, new associations.”

These reforms mean giving youth power and accepting exploration of unexplored, dangerous areas. In the Yugoslav Republic of Slovenia, the Socialist Youth Alliance has become a de facto opposition party. It sets its own program, prints its own membership cards, supports its own candidates for party offices and champions controversial causes: conscientious objection, gay rights, a ban on nuclear power and an end to celebrations of former President Tito’s birthday.

Mladina, the Youth Alliance magazine, presents a remarkable example of courageous reporting. Earlier this year, the magazine denounced Defense Minister Branko Mamula for using conscripts to build a villa. In May, Mamula retired early.