The Balkans Wild in the Streets

By John Borrell

Ever since taking over from deposed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu last winter, Romanian leader Ion Iliescu has played down his Communist background and promised his countrymen a new democratic era. But actions speak louder than words. By setting club-wielding miners loose in Bucharest last week to crush antigovernment protests, Iliescu demonstrated that he was quite willing to rule by thuggery.

The Romanian leader's performance as a party boss was a brutal reminder that while the countries of Central Europe have removed Communists from positions of any real power, the Balkans remain dominated by an old order dressed up in new suits. That fact was reinforced last week when the Bulgarian Socialist Party, formerly the Communist Party, emerged victorious in the first free elections since 1931.

Iliescu's National Salvation Front also prevailed in elections last month, collecting an astonishing 85% of the vote. But even the magnitude of the win did not silence a minority that believes last December's revolution was hijacked by onetime Communists. Every day hundreds of protesters gathered in Bucharest's University Square, occasionally chanting, "The final solution is another revolution!"

The government tolerated the occupation for nearly two months, but last week it lost first its patience and then much of its credibility. Just before dawn on Wednesday, more than 1,000 riot police poured into the square, setting fire to the tents of hunger strikers and beating 100 dissidents. Within hours thousands of protesters armed with clubs and petrol bombs were battling police throughout the city. As black smoke rose over Bucharest, Iliescu appeared on television to appeal for support against "a fascist rebellion."

The next day thousands of miners, brought to the capital from towns as far as 250 miles away, took control of the city. Wielding clubs and steel pipes, they set up roadblocks and demanded identity documents, savagely beating anyone suspected of opposing the government. By the time calm returned, at least four people had been killed and hundreds wounded.

While Romanians assessed how badly their political environment had been poisoned, Bulgarians were giving their Communists a second chance. The Socialist Party took 47% of the vote in the first round of elections despite a strong showing by the opposition Union of Democratic Forces in the capital of Sofia. The U.D.F., an alliance of 16 parties and movements, finished second with 36%. When tens of thousands of U.D.F. supporters demonstrated in Sofia against the Socialist victory, police wisely did not intervene.

Despite their different ways of handling street dissent, those in power in Bucharest and Sofia share significant similarities. Just as Iliescu and his supporters seemed prepared to take over in Romania as soon as Ceausescu was toppled, Bulgaria's longtime Foreign Minister, Petar Mladenov, carefully orchestrated the ouster last November of dictator Todor Zhivkov and then engineered his own succession as President.

In both countries it is widely believed that the Soviets, concerned about the way Communists were being dumped elsewhere, encouraged party reformers to take over. It was a way of ensuring that forces hostile to the Soviet Union did not win power on its southern borders, and provided a possible model for the Communist Party in the Soviet Union to follow in securing its own future. "What they have done in Romania and Bulgaria is change the game without changing the players," said a Western diplomat in Sofia. But the violence in Romania has raised questions about the ability of former Communists to stick to the rules that govern democracy. There were clear indications last week that the plainclothes police who caused so much fear during the Ceausescu era were active once again. The miners may have been willing to come to the aid of the front because they felt a debt was owed: their salaries were doubled earlier this year. The workers also have little love for the intellectuals and students who belong to the opposition, a class conflict that was exploited by the front.

Meanwhile, the language of the government's justification of its actions quivered with the jelly-like rhetoric long favored by the region's Marxists. "To avoid bloodshed and disorder," said Iliescu lamely after the miners ransacked the headquarters of two opposition parties, "the government was forced to appeal for help." It was just the sort of doublespeak that Iliescu's onetime mentor, Nicolae Ceausescu, might have admired.