ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a dialectical model that represents the interaction between economics and politics in the reform process. It focuses on the similarities between the countries. The chapter also focuses on institutional interests, since most of the conflicts are at the institutional level. It explains the Party-state in Eastern Europe by emphasizing the conflicting institutional interests between its different segments. The chapter describes the conflict of interests between the Party-state and workers. It discusses differences in institutional interests between the state economic bureaucracy and the Party elite. The chapter shows that, even if the Politburo had been completely unified in its support for radical reforms, the reformers would still have faced the difficult task of juggling many contradictory interests based on the Party-state. Economic reforms were implemented in a watered-down version following the declaration of martial law. Western literature on Soviet-East European relations is filled with conflicts of institutional interests between the Kremlin and its "satellite states.".
