they denounced it? On the contrary,nthe entire Estabhshment, from left-liberalnto Official Conservative to neoconservative,nhas lauded this wonderful,npeaceful, forbearance; this clasping ofnformer Communist rulers and secret policenthugs and informers to everyone’snbosom; this pursuit of mercy overnvengeance; this oh-so-beloved “velvet”nrevolution. The Establishment is alsonquick to denounce even the slightestnsign of wanting to throw the rascals out,nand to bring them to trial for their monstrousncrimes. Why “never forget” innthe one case, and quick peace and “healing”nin the other?nThe New York Times and other mainstreamnorgans, far from wanting decommunization,neven want to protect the viciousnsecret police informers from thenpeople’s vengeance. Not the Gestapo,nof course, but the KGB, the Stasi, andnequivalents. Thus, stories in the NewnYork Times often complain about thenfact that the old secret police files havenbeen opened, so that people find outnthat their spouses, or lovers, or closenfriends had reported regularly on themnto the secret police. As a result, marriages,nloves, friendships have broken up.nWonder why? But the Establishmentnputs the blame for these broken marriagesnand friendships not on the informersnbut on the process of openingnup the files.nOnce again, as too often in history,nthe reaction is to shoot the messengernof bad news. The moral of the story isnnot to close the files, but to open themnfurther, and to act upon them; that is, tontake action against these monstrous betrayersnand informers. Stringing themnup in the public square doesn’t seemntoo harsh.nThe New York Times’ man in EasternnEurope, Stephen Engelberg, alwaysnseems to be in the forefront of the antiopen-files,nantivengeance forces. Recently,nEngelberg was wailing about thenone country in Eastern Europe that reallynwants to decommunize, Czechoslovakia.nIt seems that a former prominentnCzech exile in London, Jan Kavan, editornof an exile magazine, has been uncoverednas an informer to the Commiensecret police. Since Kavan is a prominentnCzech Social Democrat, Engelbergnhas been complaining of the injusticennow being done to poor Kavan, who accordingnto this miscreant only engagednin a few harmless conversations with thenCzech equivalent of the KGB.n8/CHRONICLESnUnder the active drive of one of thenfew real free-market reformers in the ex-nCommunist countries, Czech Ministernof Finance Vaclav Klaus, Czechoslovakianhas passed a unique, and most welcome,n”lustration” law. “Lustration” is a venerablenterm for religious purification,ngenerally of an entire community. Andnso Klaus and his crew of genuine anticommunistsnand antisocialists want ton”lustrate” their country by prohibitingnany ex-Communist official from enjoyingngovernment employment for thennext five years. To me, this seems a verynmild first step, and a fate far too goodnfor this criminal gang.nBut to the U. S. Establishment, thenNew York Times and all their fellow-travelers,nthis is an act of vengeance to bendeplored, a harsh measure depriving thencountry of their best men, blah blah. Itnshould be obvious that the reason fornthis tenderness is the idea that Commies,nno matter how deplorable, werenreally not terrible monsters such as thenNazis, but good-guy socialists who sufferednfrom an unfortunate excess of zeal.nIt should be equally clear that thisnstrange tenderness has surfaced becausenthere really is not that much differencenbetween Commies and Social Democratsnand between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks,nand that clearing the land ofnCommunists will therefore inevitablynsweep up in its net a myriad of SocialnDemocrats, the group most favored bynthe New York Times, Washington Post,nNew York Review of Books, Commentary,net al. In every Eastern European country,nit is the Social Democrats and theirnwestern buddies who receive all thenplaudits and laurels of the U. S. Respectables.nThus, virtually every Establishmentnattitude toward Poland mustnget filtered through the lenses of the incrediblynbeloved (in America, not innPoland) Adam Michnik, Social Democratnagitator.nIt has become all too evident that thenreformers in the old Soviet Union andnin Eastern Europe have only been payingnlip-service to privatization and to thenfree market. One crucial problem is thatnprogress, especially toward privatization,nhas been stalled by the existing bureaucrats,nmany of whom have found it expedientnto change their ideological allegiancenfrom Communist to SocialnDemocrat, but who are still socialists,nstatists clinging to power.nThe accepted method of spurring thenreform, touted from left-liberals to neo-nnnconservatives, is to drain more U. S. taxnmoney into billions of foreign aid. Butnsuch aid will not and cannot acceleratengenuine reform; all it can do, on thencontrary, is to delay the free market andnto prolong statist repression of the ex-nCommunist economies. The old socialistnelites, whether calling themselvesn”democrats” or not, need to be blastednloose, and that blasting can only be delayednor even prevented by Americannaid.nThe Establishment media have notnallowed us to grasp this crucial fact: thatnit is no coincidence that the Czech lustrationnprogram is being pushed by thensame people, headed by Vaclav Klaus,nwho also insist on rapid privatization, anprogram that contrasts starkly with thenlionized Yeltsin’s scheme of “free prices”nwhile retaining the same old pattern ofnownership. The Klaus forces are behindnboth lustration and privatization becausenboth are part-and-parcel of a unifiednpolicy of destatization. Getting rid ofnsocialist bureaucrats, whether they callnthemselves Bolsheviks or Mensheviks, isnan essential part of genuine reform.nLustration and vengeance go hand-inhandnwith genuine privatization; mercynand “social peace” go hand-in-hand withnthe Establishment’s neoconservative policynof phony free-market reform and ofncontinuing Menshevik rule.n—Murray N. RothbardnCONQUERORS and intellectualsnhave dreamt of one big Europeanngovernment for centuries. The goal, asnwith all such millenarian fantasies, wasnto transform people’s national allegiancesn(viewed as reactionary and divisive)ninto larger loyalties to “Europe”n(viewed as progressive and cosmopolitan)n. But they face the barrier even todaynthat there are no “Europeans,” butnonly Erenchmen, Britons, Sicilians, etc.nThose who have pushed for a politicallynunified Europe hoped this wouldnbe their year. But in a surprising vote,nthe Danes said no to the Maastricht unificationntreaty, which would have abolishedntheir nation’s economic, monetary,nand military independence. ManynDanes suspected it would also eventuallyneviscerate their cultural identity andnlanguage. To them, the vision of a unifiednEurope meant the reality of beingnruled by an unelected foreign bureaucracynin distant Brussels. “We are ancountry with an Anglo-Saxon traditionn