Democracy’s Light Grows Fainter in Eastern Europe : Foreign Relations: The democrats flounder, the former communists get rich and the people long for the old security. Enter nationalism.

The fledgling democracies in Eastern Europe are imperiled. There seems to be no real sense of political purpose or coherent leadership in any of the ex-communist countries. Instability pervades the region.

Of course, it has been only four years since the peaceful and orderly Polish transition to democracy triggered the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. That may be too short an interval to expect a full flowering of representative democracy after generations of stupefying dictatorial practices and corruption. But, quite clearly, the trends developing in Eastern Europe are not encouraging.

Irony and paradox are emerging everywhere in a dangerous fashion. In Poland, the former Communist Party--now elegantly renamed the Social Democratic Party and forming part of the amusingly named Democratic Leftist Alliance--is daily gaining strength. It is certain to be a major political force in the general election set for September. The party captured 12% of the vote in the November, 1991, parliamentary elections, and projections are for it to command up to 25% of the vote for the next Parliament.

Elsewhere, reconstituted communist labor organizations won trade-union elections in Hungary last month. In the Czech Republic and the newly sovereign Slovakia, communists remain firmly entrenched in national political life.

The point is not that communism, as a system or as a tyranny, may return to Eastern Europe. With the disappearance of the Soviet Union, communism could not conceivably reclaim power in the region, simply because it would have no political or economic base. Indeed, no self-respecting former communist wishes a return of communism. Many of them are becoming fabulously wealthy as free-enterprisers, taking full advantage of their past connections, even of state assets.

Throughout Eastern Europe, the slow pace of privatization allows ex-communist bosses to hang on to their businesses and to “launder” them so thoroughly that nobody could ever strip them of ownership. The former spokesman for the Polish communist government has become a millionaire many times over by publishing a satirical magazine that weekly savages the country’s young democratic institutions. Lately, he has branched into hotels and restaurants.

What is so sad about the post-communist era in Eastern Europe is that such a mess has been made of democracy that people are developing something akin to nostalgia for the days when the regimes provided cradle-to-grave social protection. In the old days, the quality of care was deplorable and shortages of consumer goods were commonplace, but there was no unemployment--and nobody needed to make decisions for themselves.

This state of affairs inevitably deepens the political appeal of the former communists, who now piously urge social justice for their suffering fellow citizens and poke merciless fun at the fumbling democratic leaders and politicians. That no serious “decommunization” has been set in motion in most of Eastern Europe further strengthens the ex-communists. Ironically, they are the chief beneficiaries of the considerable tolerance in the post-communist societies.

It is the democrats who are democracy’s worst enemies. Events in Poland, the most sophisticated country in Eastern Europe, demonstrate the point.

Late last month, the Polish Parliament overthrew the fourth government in the four-year history of postwar Polish democracy. The reasons seemed plainly irrelevant or foolish. The Cabinet of the otherwise respected Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka, less than a year in office and quite successful in pushing ahead tough economic structural reforms, was ousted, by two votes out of 460, in a non-confidence motion presented by petulant members of a tiny breakaway faction of the Solidarity movement.

Ostensibly, the issue was the demand by labor unions for higher wages. Suchocka spurned the bid on the straightforward and sensible ground that the country could not afford it, short of triggering a new inflationary wave. In the preceding months, strikes had been widespread, but no political crisis had arisen. The government was expected to weather the labor storminess--until the non-confidence motion struck out of the clear sky.

It remains a mystery why a parliamentary majority voted against the Suchocka government. Most Polish analysts believe that personal ambition played a role: Many deputies hope the setback will give rightist parties a chance to win power in the September elections. The ex-communists, too, voted against the government. They also assume that the new elections will benefit their cause. Political cynicism has swept the nation.

The Suchocka Cabinet will remain in place until the elections as a caretaker, legally prevented from making any decisions. The fear is that all economic policies will be paralyzed for as long, with unpredictable consequences.

Even before the Cabinet was kicked out, May public-opinion polls indicated that the number of Poles who regarded the national situation as “bad” had jumped to 53%, from 46% in April. Some 42% were pessimistic about the future.

Democracy in Hungary is faring no better. The governing Democratic Forum suffered a painful split last month over charges by its extreme rightist and nationalist wings that the Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Jozsef Antall, has betrayed the nation by failing to force Ukraine to give up territories inhabited by Hungarian minorities. Meanwhile, mounting unemployment is handing anti-government ammunition to extremists on both sides.

The controversy over the Hungarian minorities living in Ukraine is one of many nationalistic tensions in Eastern Europe. Pointedly, Hungarian nationalists also demand “justice” for Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania, and their level of anger is increasing.

Western Europe’s and America’s preoccupation with the former Yugoslavia has had the unhappy consequence of moving these problems to the back burner. We may soon regret our neglect. Consider:

* In its quarrel with Russia, Ukraine, which is a major nuclear power, has proposed to Poland that Warsaw join a “Central European safety zone.” Recognizing the idea for what it plainly is--an alliance against the Russians--Poland rejected it, but the Ukrainians keep trying to create what could be lethal mischief in this corner of Europe.

* After breaking away from the Czechs, Slovakia, which is the poorer of the two ex-Czechoslovak states, has announced plans to block the pipeline bringing oil from the former Soviet Union and the Middle East across Slovak territory. It aims to extract economic advantage. The Czechs are mulling reprisals.

* Poland is angry with the Lithuanians over the latter’s treatment of the Polish minority living in Lithuania.

There are many more examples of nationalism’s growing appeal and strength in Eastern Europe. It is an immensely depressing situation. The Eastern Europeans, watching the Yugoslav war, are worried and uneasy about what they might do if the pressures become intolerable.

Small wonder, then, that Poland’s foreign minister, Krzysztof Skubiszewski, urged a visiting Clinton Administration official last week to persuade the White House that American troops must not leave Europe for a long, long time. In today’s Eastern Europe, Americans are the most trusted, chiefly because their armed forces seem the only source of stability on the unstable Continent.