Communist successor parties won by mastering capitalism, not by rejecting it

Evidence

Yet, as this book argues, a closer examination of the parties’ appeals and the electoral data shows that the parties have achieved their greatest successes where they could appeal to numerous, wide-ranging constituencies. Their electorates ranged from elderly pensioners to the intellectuals to successful, brash young entrepreneurs, and hence did not consist simply (or even mostly) of the “losers of the transition.” Moreover, all the successor parties remained committed to democracy – and few questioned the necessity of market reforms. Instead, in their programs, electoral campaigns, and parliamentary performances, they argued how best to implement these reforms. The electoral winners were those who convinced the voters that they could best administer the new economic and political system – the very “bourgeois capitalist democracy” their communist predecessors had railed against for over four decades. The regeneration of the communist successor parties is thus not the retrograde reaction that many had supposed. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 58

Categorization

• XREF: Directly on-point for the reader’s comparative question: successor parties did NOT rally nostalgia constituencies against the new enemy of capitalism/market — they survived by embracing the new system. Strong contrast against the manufactured-external-enemy hypothesis. — connects to: Communist successor parties revived by championing market democracy, not nostalgia — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 58; Post-communist party success depended on internal organization, not nostalgia or economic decline — John T. Ishiyama, Party Organization and the Political…, 81; Post-communist parties survived by positioning as managers of transition for the excluded majority — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 929 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: If regeneration required embracing democracy and markets rather than manufacturing an enemy, does this falsify or qualify the ‘external enemy sustains solidarity’ thesis? Worth chasing in the comparative 1989 question.
• SEED: Article angle: the parties that survived post-1989 did so by abandoning their constitutive ideology entirely and becoming competent administrators of the hated system — a cautionary case for theories that parties need ideological enemies to persist.

Broader Connections

• Communist successor parties revived by championing market democracy, not nostalgia #corroborates (0.95) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 58
• Post-communist parties survived by positioning as managers of transition for the excluded majority #expands (0.75) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 929
• Post-communist party success depended on internal organization, not nostalgia or economic decline #qualifies (0.72) — John T. Ishiyama, Party Organization and the Political…, 81