ABSTRACT
All elites are very complex social groups, composed of representatives of economic, political, social and cultural-ideological powers. Political elites, usually, are ‘functionally distinct elites’; namely, ‘those who make or influence state decisions are members of the political elite’. 1 However, in Central Europe this functional differentiation has never reached the classical Weberian distinction among elites, because the state has remained powerful in the economy and vice versa. This fusion of functionally different elites can be observed in the case of other elites as well. Thus, Central European elites have always been very heterogeneous along these lines, even in the age of state socialism. In that period the party state tried to homogenise the power elite in the spirit of the unity of powers against the separation of powers. This traditional Central European heterogeneity—involving mutual animosity as well as some large overlap among the different elites—increased considerably in the period of pretransition crisis. This can be described as the rise of potential or actual counter-elites, with their competitive infighting and their common struggle against the state socialist regimes.
