ABSTRACT
The issue for intellectuals in East-Central Europe was succinctly presented to them by Janos Kadar as long ago as December 1961 when he announced that “whoever is not against us is with us.” The issue for intellectuals in East-Central Europe was succinctly presented to them by Janos Kadar as long ago as December 1961 when he announced that “whoever is not against us is with us.” Although ostensibly confined to the issue of opposition and dissent in contemporary East-Central Europe, this chapter is also intended as a contribution to our understanding of the transformation of this region in the last two decades. Eastern Europe exists, just as eastern France exists. But if sub-Carpathian Ruthenia, for example, is unquestionably in the East, then Prague and Cracow are necessarily less so. At some point in the course of the 1970s, the project of absorbing civil society into the state was seen to have failed.
