patth@ccnysci.UUCP (Patt Haring) (09/04/89)
Media Transcription Service : Defence Information,
David & Susan Stott,
12 Sheri Drive, NEWTON-LE-WILLOWS,
Warrington. WA12 8PT
Telephone: Newton-le-Willows 0925 226647
GreenNet: "mts"
--------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIPT Ref No. 525
BBC-2 "Newsnight" : Tuesday, 22nd. August, 1989
Interview with William Waldegrave, M.P.
re. Eastern Europe and East-West relations.
Interviewer (John Simpson):
"I put to him (William Waldegrave), the view expressed today
by East Germany's top ideologist, Otto Reinhult (spelling ?), that
changes in the hard-line communist state would rob it of its reason
to exist?"
William Waldegrave:
"It's rather charming, isn't it, in a way? I mean it's a total
admission of failure that the only reason for there being two
Germanies is that the communists happen to have got hold of that
bit of it. And that seems to me to show that it's the structures
and not the ideas which are all that survive at the moment. I am
not saying that somewhere in Poland or in Hungary or in
Czechoslovakia there are no people who believe in Marxism. I am
sure there are, so there are in Britain. But the peoples have
deserted those ideas and the whole structure is therefore being
held up by a sort of inertia and I think it will all come tumbling
down much quicker than we expect. And that's going to create very
great difficulties and problems of transitions -which we can see in
Poland and, to some extent, in Hungary already."
John Simpson:
"When you talk about 'it's tumbling down' though, what sort of
timescale are you talking about and what exactly do you mean by
'tumbling'?"
William Waldegrave:
"This is rather a personal view of my own, but I think it will
all go quicker than people think. When I was in Poland last year,
people in the university in Krakow told me that an insignificant
proportion of their students were now joining the Party. So that
you just cannot maintain the system if people won't play its game.
Now there will be apparatchiks who will want to get the bigger car
and get the bigger house and so forth, will go on supporting it for
a bit. But if there are alternative power structures being set up
effectively, and there are now being set up in Poland and Hungary,
I don't think even that will last long. And you can see now in
Czechoslovakia and increasingly in East Germany, I think, the
desperation of the old-style ideologues and that they are like a
piece of sand in the incoming tide. They can see that history is
going against them. I shall get into trouble from non-Marxists for
saying that, there is no tide in history, there is no inevitability
about any of this. But they do look more and more marooned."
John Simpson:
"And what about the countries that are leading the whole
process? The Hungarians for instance: is it a possibility that the
Hungarians perhaps are going a little bit too far, too fast?"
William Waldegrave:
"It's very difficult for us to judge from outside. They must
take their own decisions and are taking their own decisions. No, I
don't think they are going too fast in one sense. But they have to
move quickly because of the fantastic muddle and chaos that the
communists economically have left behind, cannot wait. Communists
can't solve it, they have created it. Everything they do makes it
worse. Now, there isn't much time in which to put together new
policies to get those problems sorted out. Those problems cannot be
sorted out without the whole-hearted consent of the peoples
concerned and the peoples have withdrawn their consent from
communism. So, there is an alternative imperative, which is to get
on with the necessary rebuilding of those economies - which won't
wait because the interest builds up, the debts get worse and all
the rest of it."
John Simpson:
"And finally, briefly, is it possible for us to do anything to
hasten the process? Or should we simply sit and watch it happen?"
William Waldegrave:
"Well, we certainly shouldn't intervene in any crude way. But
when we are asked for help we should give it, both in training and
technical terms and, of course, in restructuring and rescheduling
debts in due course when those requests are made. But what we must
do is whole-heartedly, institutionally and symbolically to welcome
these potentially free nations back into the family of nations
again. And if that means support from the Bretton Woods
institutions, so be it."
---
Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations
patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information
patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange
-=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-
--
Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations
patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information
patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange
-=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-