Environmental Transitions: Transformation and Ecological Defense in Central and Eastern Europe

Environmental Transitions

Environmental Transitions is a detailed and comprehensive account of the environmental changes in Central and Eastern Europe, both under state socialism and during the transition to capitalism. The change in politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowed an opportunity for a rapid environmental clean up in an area once considered one of the most environmentally devastated regions on earth. The book ilustrates how transformations after 1989 have brought major environmental improvements, as well as new environmental problems. It shows how environmental policy, economic change and popular support for environmental movements have specific and changing geographies associated with them. Environmental Transitions addresses a large number of topics, including a historicogeographical analysis of environmental change, health impacts of environmental degradation, the role of environmental issues during the anti-communist revolutions, legislative reform and the effects of transition on environmental quality after 1989. Environmental Transitions contains detailed case studies from the region, which illustrate the complexity of environmental issues and their intimate relationship with political and economic realities. It gives theoretically informed ideas for understanding environmental change in the context of the political economy of state socialism and post-communist transformations, drawing on a wide body of literature from West, Central and Eastern Europe. Petr Pavlínek is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is the author of Economic Restructuring and Local Environmental Management in the Czech Republic (Edwin Mellen Press 1997). John Pickles is Professor of Geography and member of the Committee on Social Theory at the University of Kentucky. He has recently published Theorizing Transition: The Political Economy of Post-Communist Transformations, edited with Adrian Smith (Routledge 1998) and Bulgaria in Transition: Environmental Consequences of Political and Economic Transformation, edited with Krassimira Paskaleva, Philip Shapira and Boian Koulov (Ashgate 1998).

Environmental Transitions Transformation and ecological defence in Central and Eastern Europe

Petr Pavlínek and John Pickles

London and New York

First published 2000 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2000 Petr Pavlínek and John Pickles The right of Petr Pavlínek and John Pickles to be identified as the Authors of this Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Pavlínek, Petr, 1963 Environmental transitions: transformation and ecological defence in Central and Eastern Europe/Petr Pavlínek and John Pickles 384 pp. 15.6×23.4 cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Environmental policy—Europe, Eastern. 2. Europe, Eastern— economic policy—1989– 3. Post communism—Europe, Eastern. I. Pickles, J. (John) II Title. IIC244Z9E557 2000 333.7’0947–dc 21 99–059082 ISBN 0-203-44492-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-75316-X (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-16268-8 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-16269-6 (pbk)

For Adam and Leon May they always temper desire with compassion and ambition with justice. May they live to see a cleaner and better world.

Contents

List of plates List of figures List of maps List of tables Preface List of abbreviations

PART I Introduction 1 The political economy of environmental transitions 2 Theorizing social and environmental change

vi viii x xi xiv xvii

1 3 19

PART II Nature, risk and the legacies of state socialism 3 Environmental quality in Central and Eastern Europe 4 Nature, society and extensive industrialization 5 Social and environmental regulation under state socialism 6 Constructing risk: environment and health

37 39 83 103 125

PART III Post-communist transformations and the environment 7 Post-communist reform and the democratization of nature 8 Environmental legislation and policy: regulatory successes and strong opposition 9 State, environment and information in post-communist transformations 10 Environmental effects of post-communist transformations

155 157 191

PART IV Nature in post-communist societies 11 Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

213 239 283 285 297 319 351

Plates

3.1 Pollution dispersal efforts in the 1980s resulted in the building of high smokestacks throughout CEE. Tušimice power plant in the region of northern Bohemia, Czech Republic 3.2 Neftochim petrochemical combinat (Burgas, Bulgaria) 3.3 The plume of smoke from the Neftochim petrochemical refinery drifts over the entire region across a thirty-mile or more radius, with day-night reversals of wind at the coast (Burgas, Bulgaria) 3.4 East German Trabant in Budapest, Hungary 3.5 High smokestacks of four large power plants (Prunéřov 1, Prunéřov 2, Tušimice 1, Tušimice 2) located in close proximity in northern Bohemia, Czech Republic 3.6 Dead forest in the Ore mountains of northern Bohemia, Czech Republic 3.7 Waste products (including phenols) from Netftochim petrochemical refinery (Bulgaria) are “filtered” through a system of seven open lakes next to Burgas Bay and Burgas harbor. From the first lake (bottom right) pontoon boats skim off thick oils into barrels and the “clean” water flows under gravity into the second settling pond. Asbestos lined oil containers lie around on the banks of the settling ponds 3.8 Groundwater contamination has been a major problem throughout CEE. Here, workmen replace a broken pipeline whose break had lain undiscovered for nearly three weeks (Burgas, Bulgaria) 3.9 Stripping the overburden for brown coal production (Leipzig, former East Germany) 3.10 Stripping the overburden for brown coal production (Leipzig, former East Germany) 3.11 Waste piles from the strip mining of brown coal in the Tagebau south of Leipzig, former East Germany 4.1 Most-Kopisty Mine in the Most basin in the foreground (the old city of Most was located on this site). Chemopetrol is located in the background and the Ore Mountains on the horizon 4.2 Giant excavators used in open cast coal mining in the Most basin 4.3 Giant excavators used in open cast coal mining in the Most basin 5.1 Demolition of the old city of Most 5.2 Demolition of the old city of Most 5.3 Demolition of the village of Komořany in the Most District 5.4 The Chánov neighborhood built for the Most’s Roma under state socialism

46 52 53

54 58

64 65

66

69 70 71 86 100 100 109 110 111 118

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6.1 International cigarette manufacturers have found profitable new markets in CEE since 1989 (Prague, Czech Republic) 7.1 Opposition to environmental degradation took unexpected forms. This antidevelopment poster produced in the 1980s was used by the Committee on Environmental Protection in their 1989 publication Man and Nature (Sofia) 9.1 A curbside atmospheric pollution monitoring device for public information (Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic) 11.1 The fear of environmental violence expressed by ten-year-old children through drawings of their hometown, the city of Most, Czech Republic. The drawings were painted on a tram stop wall

131 171

223 290

Figures

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5

5.6 5.7 9.1 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7

Sources of sulfur deposited on the Czech side of the Krkonoše Mountains in the 1980s Development of sulfur dioxide emissions in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic and Slovakia after 1992), 1950–98 Air pollution trends in the Czech Republic in the 1980s 56 Forest damage in the Czech Republic Production of coal in the northern Bohemian coal basin, 1860–1996 Proportion of major industrial sectors on total industrial production in the Most District, 1961–85 Production of coal in the Most basin, 1913–98 Index of industrial production in the Most District, 1961–85 Area devastated by coal mining in the northern Bohemian coal basin, 1929– 91 Coal production in open cast and underground mines in the north Bohemian coal basin, 1960–89 Particulate matter and sulfur dioxide emissions from the registered pollution sources in the Most District, 1960–90 Sulfur dioxide pollution in the Most District Average annual levels of flying ash deposition at Komořany (in the Most District), 1958–78, and in the Most basin and the Most District as a whole, 1962–91 Air pollution by nitrogen oxides in the cities of Most and Litvínov, 1981– 91 (in µg/m3) Migration in the Most District (per thousand inhabitants) Soviet GNP growth rates, 1951–89 Annual change in GDP and unemployment rate in selected countries, 1989/ 90–98 Index of industrial production in selected countries, 1989–98 Passenger car ownership in Prague and the number of motor vehicles in the Czech Republic, 1990–8 Cargo and passengers transported by the Czech Railways, 1991–9 Growth in the number of motor vehicles in Poland, 1980–97 Trends in transportation emissions in Poland, 1991–7 Emission trends in Slovakia compared with trends in industrial production, 1989–98

55 56

62 87 87 98 102 113 114 118 119 120

122 123 216 242 243 246 248 249 250 251

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10.8 Volume of armaments production in Slovakia, 1987–98 (in billions of Slovak crowns) 10.9 Primary energy intensity of the Slovak economy, 1989–94 10.10 Emission trends in the Czech Republic, 1989–98 10.11 Emission trends in the Czech Republic, 1985–98 10.12 End consumption of fuels and energy in the Czech Republic, 1990–7 10.13 Annual emissions from Czech Energy Works power plants, 1991–9 10.14 Primary energy intensity of the Czech economy, 1990–7 10.15 Trends in the use of industrial fertilizers and pesticides in the Czech Republic 10.16 Trends in the use of fertilizers and pesticides in Poland 10.17 Trends in sulfur oxides emissions in selected CEE countries, 1980–96 10.18 Trends in total emissions of particulate matter, 1990–6 10.19 Air pollution trends in Poland compared with industrial production, 1989– 97 10.20 Trends in heavy metals air emissions in Poland, 1980–97 10.21 Emission trends in Hungary, 1985–97 10.22 Total annual sulfur dioxide emissions in Romania, 1990–5 10.23 Trends in average annual particulate and sulfur dioxide concentrations in ambient air in Romanian cities, 1990–6

253 254 256 257 258 259 260 264 266 267 268 269 269 270 271 273

Maps

1.1 Central and Eastern Europe 3.1 Environmental “hot spots” and areas with severe environmental degradation in Romania in the early 1990s 3.2 Air pollution by sulfur dioxide in 1988 3.3 Air pollution by nitrogen dioxide and acidity of precipitation in Europe in 1988 3.4 The “black triangle” 3.5 Transboundary pollution in Central Europe, 1985 3.6 Sulfur dioxide emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989 3.7 Nitrogen oxides emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989 3.8 Solid emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989 3.9 Heavy metals pollution in Poland, 1996 4.1 Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic 4.2 The district of Most 4.3 The Most basin 6.1 Comparison of life expectancy and environmental quality in the Czech Republic, 1981–5, average figures 10.1 Estimated sulfur dioxide deposition over CEE in the early 1990s 10.2 Environmental quality in Slovakia in the early 1990s 10.3 Spatial distribution of environmental hazards in Slovakia in the early 1990s 10.4 Environmental quality in the Czech Republic in the early 1990s 10.5 Daily average concentrations of sulfur dioxide during the temperature inversion on 4 February 1993 (in µg/m3)

5 41 48 49 50 54 60 61 63 72 84 85 99 134 245 252 253 262 263

Tables

1.1 Commercial energy consumption in CEE (consumption by fuel type as % of 16 total), 1989 1.2 Emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, 1989 (in grams per dollar 17 GNP), 1989 3.1 Percent of area in the two worst categories of environmental quality 45 3.2 Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions, 1989 51 3.3 Sulfur and nitrogen oxides deposition in CEE from foreign sources, 1985 55 3.4 Sulfur dioxide emissions in the Czech Republic by region, 1985–9 (in tonnes/ 58 sq. km annually) 63 3.5 Forest damage in the Czech Republic by region, 1970–2000 (% of forested areas) 3.6 River pollution in Poland, 1964–89 (%) 66 3.7 Soil contamination in selected localities of Upper Silesia (in mg/kg) 72 3.8 Heavy metals content in arable soils of selected local government areas of the 73 Katowice province, 1983–91 (concentration ranges in mg/kg of soil) 3.9 Lead and cadmium contents in the soils of garden allotments in the Katowice 74 province (concentration ranges in mg/kg of soil) 4.1 Sectoral structure of economically active population in the Most District, 88 1991 4.2 Population growth and national composition in the Most District (current 92 boundaries), 1861–1991 4.3 Czechoslovak coal production by district 1990 101 4.4 Industrial employment structure by sector in the Most District, 1961–85 102 5.1 Land use in the Most District and the Czech Republic in the early 1900s (in % 114 of district’s territory) 5.2 Villages and settlement units liquidated in the Most District, 1956–94 115 5.3 Large sources of air pollution (power plants) in the Most District and its 121 vicinity, 1987 and their rank in the Czech Republic (annual emissions in 1,000 tonnes) 5.4 Number of foggy winter days in the Most District, 1980–91 121 5.5 Change in average annual sulfur dioxide concentrations in selected districts of 122 northern Bohemia, 1970–85 (in µg/m3) 6.1 Quality of life in Bulgaria, 1980–7 127 6.2 Number of people per physician in Bulgaria, 1939–87 127 6.3 Life expectancy at birth and infant mortality in selected CEE countries, 1998 129 6.4 Prevalence of regular smoking and obesity (%) 130

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6.5 Health problems attributed to environmental degradation in CEE 6.6 Comparison of life expectancy at birth in the districts of northern Bohemia and the Czech Republic, 1989 6.7 Comparison of infant mortality and overall mortality in the mining districts of northern Bohemia and the Czech Republic 6.8 Incidence of diseases observed in the population of northern Bohemia compared with the Czech Republic in the early 1980s 6.9 Incidence of diseases observed in the pre-school, school and adolescent population of the coal mining districts of northern Bohemia, 1990 (Czech Republic=100) 6.10 Incidence of diseases per 100,000 inhabitants in the Czech Republic, northern Bohemia and coal mining districts of northern Bohemia, 1990 (Czech Republic=100) 6.11 Infectious diseases in the coal mining districts of northern Bohemia (Czech Republic=100) 6.12 Public perceptions of health problems attributed to air pollution in northern Bohemia (Answers to question: Does anyone in your family have health problems caused by air pollution?) (% responses) 6.13 Places where health problems related to the quality of the environment have been documented in the Czech Republic 6.14 Standardized ratios for cancer in the Czech Republic in the late 1980s (Czech Republic=100) 6.15 Changes in male age-specific mortality in Hungary, 1970–85 (per 1,000) 6.16 Blood lead levels among children in Hungary (in µg/dl) 6.17 Selected locations with health problems attributed to pollution in Hungary 6.18 Life expectancy in Poland, 1965–90 6.19 Infant mortality rates in the cities of Katowice province, 1990 6.20 Blood lead in children in various places within the Katowice region 1989, (in µg/dl) 6.21 Selected places where health problems are associated with environmental pollution in Poland 6.22 PCBs in human fat tissue at autopsy in selected districts in Slovakia (in µg PCM/kg fat) 6.23 Selected locations where health problems related to the quality of the environment have been documented in Slovakia 6.24 Selected places with documented associations between health problems and environmental pollution in Romania 6.25 Selected locations where health problems related to the quality of the environment have been documented in Bulgaria 8.1 Selected environmental legislation in the Czech Republic 8.2 Selected environmental legislation in Hungary 8.3 Selected environmental legislation in Poland 8.4 Polish charges for air emissions of lead, sulfur dioxide, benzene and fluorine, 1991–3 (in zlotys and US$)

132 135 135 136 136

137

137 138

140 140 141 142 142 143 144 144 146 148 148 151 152 194 203 205 206

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8.5 Selected environmental legislation in Bulgaria 10.1 Growth in total motor vehicles in use in CEE, 1990–4 (1990=100) 10.2 Index of gross production in industrial sectors of Slovakia, 1948–88 (1948=100) 10.3 Share of GDP on environmental investment on in the Czech Republic, 1989– 97 10.4 Sulfur oxide emissions per capita and per unit of GDP in selected CEE countries 1994 compared with the OECD average 10.5 Environmental investment in Poland, 1990–6 10.6 Wastewater treatment in Hungary, 1980–93 (in million cu. m)

210 247 252 259 267 270 271

Preface

In the early 1990s, while at the University of Kentucky, we each began our formal engagement with the study of the political economy of social and environmental change in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). One of us was a “young” (but aging) socialist from a working-class background and region of the North of England, steeped in the traditions and oppositions of Cold War geopolitics, grown politically and intellectually through the study of and engagement with the black consciousness and anti-apartheid struggles in South Africa, who completed doctoral and post-doctoral studies in the USA under Reagan and Bush. The other of us was a still young anti-communist from a working-class background and region of Eastern Bohemia in Czechoslovakia, forcibly steeped in the bureaucracies and ideological training of state socialist Mittel-Europa, grown of age politically in the Velvet Revolution in Prague, and steeled in Anglo-American traditions of political economy and regional development in America under Clinton and Gingrich. The transformations wrought by the events of 1989 were viewed by each of us vicariously as scholars working in critical geographical studies at the University of Kentucky and directly in various research sites in Central and Eastern Europe during that time. At each point we have been suspicious of the rhetoric of “transition” (and the triumphalism and neo-imperialism the term connotes). Instead, we have been drawn to alternative readings and renderings of the multiple processes of transformation that the term “transition” hides. At each turn we have tried to ask how actually existing actors have struggled to comprehend and build particular environmental practices and futures. In this endeavor we have each benefitted from exchanges with many colleagues. Colleagues at the University of Kentucky have provided a supportive environment for critical studies and have contributed directly and indirectly to our thinking in many ways. Among them are Keiron Bailey, Dwight Billings, Martin Bosman, Stan Brunn, Larry Burmeister, Barbara Cellarius, Carl Dahlman, Michael Dorn, Oliver Froehling, John Paul Jones, Mark Klar, Jennifer Kopf, Tom Leinbach, Peter Little, Eugene McCann, Matt McCourt, Patrick Mooney, Wolfgang Natter, Mohameden Ould-Mey, Jeff Popke, Karl Raitz, Herb Reid, Susan Roberts, Rich Schein, Chad Staddon, Karen Tice, Dick Ulack, and Ernest Yanarella. We are fortunate over the years to have benefitted from discussion and collaboration with several scholars and institutions in CEE. In the Czech Republic Jiří Blažek, Michal Illner, Jan Kára, Zdeněk Kukal, Luděk Sýkora, and Jan Vozáb, in Slovakia Mikuláš Huba, and in

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Poland Katarzyna Klich and Tomasz ylicz have helped along the way. In Hungary Sandor and Judit Peter have been engaged in parallel work on the economic and legal contexts of environmental reforms, and have been both colleagues and friends in this endeavor. In Bulgaria colleagues at the Institute of Geography at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Department of Geography at Sofia University have given unselfishly of their time and understanding, and also have become friends. In particular, we owe a debt of gratitude to Assen Assenov, Mariana Assenova, Roumiana Dobrinova, Christo Ganev, Zoya Mateeva, Didi Mikhova, Mariana Nikolova, Peter Petrov, Anton Popov, Poli Roukova, Vassil Vassilev, and Stefan Velev. Apostol Apostolov, Mitko Dobrev, Ivan Marev, and Simeon Simeonov were kind enough to share information, data, and insights into their work on environmental and agrarian change, and we are grateful. Staff of the Regional Environmental Center in Budapest and its regional center in Sofia provided useful materials and insight. In Germany Günther Taege introduced us to the Tagebau south of Leipzig. Adrian Smith has been a good friend and colleague in our efforts to come to grips with the political economy of post-communist transformations. Bob Begg and Mieke Meurs have been wonderful companions and colleagues over these years, and we draw heavily on their work on agrarian transformation and environmental change in Bulgaria in these pages. Mieke Meurs and Michael Watts provided a wonderful opportunity to learn from the parallel struggles to understand environmental change in post-communist societies in discussions in Cuba with Piers Blaikie, Judy Carney, Carmen Deare, Margaret Fitzsimmons, Joshua Muldavin, Mark Selden, Ivan Szelenyi, and many other colleagues from Cuba, Hungary, Bulgaria, China, and Russia. Others have contributed along the way: Eva D m t r, Dagmar Dzůrová, Jim Friedberg, Jaroslav Halaš, Paweł Ka mierczyk, Greg Knight, Boian Koulov, Naděžda Kučerová, Harmon Maher, Krassimira Paskaleva, Philip Shapira, Irena Vohralíková, Alžběta Rédlová,Jerome Simpson,Marietta Staneva,Andrew Tickle, Brent Yarnal, and Zde ka Zdobnická. We also want to thank to Stanislav Štýs for his permission to reprint four of his photographs, originally published in S.Štýs and L.Helešicová, Proměny měsíční krajiny (Changes of moon landscape) (1992), by Bílý Slon, Prague. Chapters Four and Five are based on parts of Pavlínek (1997) and were thoroughly revised and updated for this book. Chapter Nine draws on Mikhova and Pickles (1994a, 1994b) and Pickles and Mikhova (1998). Parts of Chapters Ten and Three draw on work we have recently published in Post-Soviet Geography and Economics and Kosmas. The authors would like to thank Didi Mikhova for her willingness to allow us to adapt this work to our present needs, and Bob Begg, Christo Ganev, Michael Kennedy, Bob Lloyd, Mieke Meurs, Caedmon Staddon, and Stefan Velev for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the original papers. Parts of the research on which this book is based were supported variously byfinancial assistance from the John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation and the National Science Foundation (Grants INT-8703742, INT-9021910, and SBR-9515244). The Institute of Geography (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), Department of Geography at the Cyril and Methodius University of Sofia also provided material and institutional support.

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The University Committee on Research at the University of Nebraska at Omaha provided financial support for Petr Pavlínek for his 1998 summer field research. We want to thank Marvin Barton (University of Nebraska at Omaha) for the production of maps used throughout the book and Dick Gilbreath (Director of the Gyula Pauer Cartographic and GIS Laboratory, University of Kentucky) for the production of maps for Chapters Four and Five. Our editors at Routledge have been patient beyond belief as the book has gone through unavoidable delays. We are grateful beyond measure to all people from the Czech Republic (and the Most District in particular) and Bulgaria who were willing to be interviewed in the course of research for this book. The environment of which we speak is theirs, and the futures for which we hope are theirs to construct and in which they will live. Our greatest debts are to our families, especially to our wives Gabriela and Lynn and children Adam and Leon. They have been patient and understanding at every point as we have been drawn away to far off places and to our respective offices to research, write, edit, and rework this book. Our debts are great and we look forward to repaying them with interest in the years ahead. Petr Pavlínek John Pickles

Abbreviations

AISA BANU BCE BCP BOD5 BSP CAD Cd CEE CEP ČEZ ClCMEA CO CO2 COCOM COMECON CPE CSO ČSSR ČSÚ CURS CxHy DNA EBRD EC

polling agency (Czech Republic) Bulgarian Agricultural National Union Business Central Europe Bulgarian Communist Party Biological Oxygen Demand Bulgarian Socialist Party computer aided design cadmium Central and Eastern Europe Committee for Environmental Protection (Poland and Albania) České energetické závody (Czech Energy Works) chloride anions Council for Mutual Economic Assistance carbon monoxide carbon dioxide Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls Council for Mutual Economic Assistance centrally planned economy Central Statistical Office (Bulgaria) Československá socialistická republika (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic) Český statistický úřad (Czech Statistical Office) Changing Urban and Regional Systems program hydrocarbons deoxyribonucleic acid European Bank for Reconstruction and Development European Community

xviii

ECU EIA EMEP EPA EU ESCBR FCE FDI FGR FSU FYR GAO GDP GDR GIS GNP GP GUS ha HEI HN IMF IPM IQ Kčs KDC kg km LIK LN MCC MERP MF Dnes mg/km MoE MOS

European Currency Unit environmental impact assessment European Monitoring and Evaluation Program Environmental Protection Agency; Environment Protection Act (Romania) European Union Economic and Social Council of the Basin Region Federal Committee for the Environment (Czech Republic) foreign direct investment Federal German Republic former Soviet Union former Yugoslav Republic Governmental Accounting Office gross domestic product German Democratic Republic geographical information systems gross national product Green Party (Bulgaria) Główny Urz d Statystyczny (Central Statistical Office, Poland) hectare Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (Bulgaria) Hospodářské noviny, Czech daily economic newspaper International Monetary Fund integrated pest management intelligence quotient Koruna československá (Czechoslovak crown) Kralovodvorská Cement Works kilogram kilometer Institute for Environmental Monitoring and Sustainable Development Lidové noviny, Czech daily newspaper Most Coal Company (Czech Republic) Ministry of Environment and Regional Policy (Hungary) Mladá fronta Dnes, Czech daily newspaper milligrams per kilometer Ministry of the Environment Ministry of Environment (Bulgaria)

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MW MZ MŽP NATO NBBCM nd NGO NIMH NOX NO2 NPK NSI OECD OMRI ONV OOČSÚ OOSSÚ OSS PAC PAV Pb PCB PHARE RDA REC REM REP RFE RIOS SCE SEF SGTB

megawatts Ministry of Health (Bulgaria) Ministerstvo životního prostředí (Ministry of the Environment, Czech Republic) North Atlantic Treaty Organization North Bohemian Brown Coal Mines no date non-governmental organization Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology (Bulgaria) nitrogen oxides nitrogen dioxide nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium National Statistical Institute (Bulgaria) Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development Open Media Research Institute Okresní národní výbor (District Authority Office—Czech Republic) Okresní oddělení Českého statistického úřadu (District Division of the Czech Statistical Office) Okresní oddělení státního statistického úřadu (District Division of the State Statistical Office, Czechoslovakia) Okresní statistická správa (District Statistical Office, Czech Republic) Pesticides Advisory Committee Public Against Violence lead polychlorinated biphenyl Pologne-Hongrie Assistance à la Reconstruction Economique (PolandHungary Assistance for Economic Reconstruction) Romanian Democratic Action Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe Romanian Ecological Movement Romanian Ecological Party Radio Free Europe Regional Environmental Inspectorates (Bulgaria) Slovak Commission for the Environment State Environmental Fund Statisticheskii Godishnik na Tsarstvo Bulgaria (Statistical Yearbook of Bulgaria)

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SHD SMoE SOX SO2 ŠÚSR t/km2 TV UDF UN UNDP UNESCO US USAID USSR VAT VÚVA Zn µg/m 3 µg/dl

Severočeské hnědouhelné doly (North Bohemian Brown Coal Mines) Slovak Ministry of Environment sulfur oxides sulfur dioxide sulfate Štatistický Úrad Slovenskej Republiky (Slovak Statistical Office) tonnes per square kilometer television Union of Democratic Forces (Bulgaria) United Nations United Nations Development Program United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization United States United States Agency for International Development Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Value Added Tax Výzkumný ústav výstavby a architektury (Research Institute of Construction and Architecture,Czech Republic) zinc micrograms per cubic meter micrograms per deciliter

Part I Introduction

2

1 The political economy of environmental transitions

The environment is man’s first right. Without a safe environment, man cannot exist to claim other rights, be they political, social, or economic. (Ken Saro-Wiwa 1996) Humanity’s historical responsibility is an interpretive task, “naming” both the potential of the new nature (now synonymous with nature’s “redemption”) and the failure of history to realize it. (Buck-Morrss 1990:240) In Milcho Manchevski’s 1995 film Before the Rain a London-based photo-journalist returns home to his Macedonian village to discover a political and social environment wracked with hatred, violence, and suspicion, pitting friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor, and family against family. The universalist goals of a federal Yugoslavia and the control functions of the party state have, in this transition, given way to localisms of violence based on ethnicity and religion. In returning to the village of his birth, the photojournalist finds a strange land re-configured along ethnic lines, in which the home of his former school-friend is now “alien” territory for a Slav, the boundaries of which are demarcated by old friends now sentinels under the sign of “the border.” The land, state, and the mind of the inhabitants are being re-territorialized as prior commitments and networks are re-worked, new actors emerge, and new powers are exercised. Throughout the film the landscape, sky, and weather play as a backdrop for the naturalized identities of ethnic, gendered, and nationalized actors. The clouds before the rain, the dry parched fields, and the rocky promontories are projected as the ominous and overarching context within which human destinies are determined. Nature here stands resolute against the contingent and socially constructed borderlands: the journalist is torn from his new European world and thrust back into the environment of actually existing transition on the ground. Here pre-existing ethnic and gender divisions have hardened and, like the dry ground, seem to be cracking apart as hope of relief withers. In this situation he is forced to act, to take sides, and, as a result, is eventually killed crossing a field; a symbolic space for the highly territorialized networks of permission andsanction

4 INTRODUCTION

that have been constituted to guard against transgression of “natural” borders. He is killed by his “brother” in blood. Before the Rain is a powerful account of the restructuring of violence from that of the state to that of the fragmented social networks whose lines of articulation are based on race and patriarchy. In it we are viscerally reminded of the ways in which cultural memories of historical boundaries and religious divides have been masculinized through overlays of personal injuries, family feuds, and war. The now-European photographer, Kiril, the Greek Orthodox monk who has taken a vow of silence (Gregoire Colin), and the Muslim Albanian girlfriend (Labina Mitevska) sheltered by Kiril, are all smashed by patriarchal and familial tensions stretched so taught that they seem to break inexplicably in single wild acts of violence, and in ways that none can comprehend, even at the point of their deaths. At one level the film forces us to recognize how particular understandings of cultural memory and conceptions of Nature (as ethnic, gendered, and nationalized) can so easily lead to incomprehensible and unresolvable acts of violence against the individual body, the body politic, and the land. In this sense, the film speaks directly of commonalities at the heart of state socialism, at the point of transition, and looks forward to the possibilities of social and environmental reconstruction to come. But the film also teaches us that we must be suspicious of claims about the predictability of transitions, and instead must remain open to the ever present possibility of the generation of new powers, capacities, and actors. Throughout the region new naturalizations have emerged to provide axes of intelligibility and action, and these naturalizations have drawn on those cultural memories and conceptions of “Nature” to a degree that has surprised many. In Before the Rain the “natural” is the social legacy of state socialism: a landscape of collectivities and differences inscribed in the very structure of the land and the villages; a social geography of exiles, clerics, war-lords, and patriarchs. It is also the ethnicity of the protagonists: European versus Oriental, Christian versus Muslim, Slav versus Turk. It is a fractured and ethnicized nationalism that polices a re-territorialized land and exercises immense, unpredictable violence upon it. It is a “Nature” whose beauty and foreboding symbolize communities and landscape practices struggling against each other, striving to achieve some new balance for a new world. In this book we seek to clarify some of the ways in which social and environmental change are occurring throughout post-communist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) (Map 1.1). In doing so we seek to elaborate on some of the ways in which specific “naturalizations” have contributed and continue to contribute to the construction of new axes of power and new patterns of social, economic, and political life in the region as the old withers and in the interregnum monsters are born. In particular, we ask how “Nature” and “environments” are being re-territorialized as social projects as the transition from communist to post-communist polities, economies and societies occurs. How were Nature, land, resources, and health “rendered” under state socialism and how are they being “reworked” in the combined processes of democratization, marketization, and reinstitutionalization throughout Central and Eastern Europe today?

INTRODUCTION 5

Map 1.1 Central and Eastern Europe

6 INTRODUCTION

Environment and transition In the late 1980s, all countries and many areas in Central and Eastern Europe were affected by severe environmental problems (French 1990). In these areas, centralized bureaucracies, massive and inefficient agricultural and industrial enterprises, the prioritizing of production over other social goods, and weak civil societies all led to poor ecological practices, dangerous working conditions, and heightened levels of environmental and technological risk for substantial numbers of people. Popular dissatisfaction with polluted and unsafe environments was one of the main factors in triggering and enabling the political unrest that brought down communist regimes throughout the region, illustrated nowhere better than in the Bulgarian case of the mothers of Russe, whose opposition to the deteriorating health of their children sparked a much broader national movement for ecological defense and environmental reconstruction that quickly became the mobilizing moment for political opposition to the regime of Todor Zhivkov. Throughout Central and Eastern Europe the fall of communism was universally hailed as an opportunity for the region to “clean up” its public spaces (to democratize them) and to “clean up” these environmental problems: transition was to mean the liberalizing of the economy and polity, democratizing civil society, and creating cleaner and safer environments. Democratization was to mean the decentralization of power at all levels and the return of decision-making to the people. Many assumptions were made at this time about how the transformation of the region’s economic and political systems would improve environmental conditions. It was widely believed that Soviet-style heavy industry would be replaced by cleaner light industry and the expansion of the service sector; communist era technologies would be replaced by less-polluting Western equipment; communist rulers and their narrow focus on economic output would be replaced by environmentally-conscious democratic politicians; and rule by decree would be replaced by a system based on the rule of law, including environmental laws. Many expected the clean-up to start immediately. However, most analysts overestimated the rate of change of the socioeconomic transformation, and grossly underestimated the depth of the financial crises that soon engulfed the countries of the region. That environmental problems were not generally dealt with quickly was in part a result of the newness of transitions from communism to democratic market systems and the particular problems posed by environmental clean-up, for which no blueprints existed, Jeffrey Sachs and the World Bank notwithstanding (Somogyi 1993). Furthermore, each country of the region has a unique socioeconomic context and each has exhibited distinct paths and patterns of transformation in the years since 1989 (Stark 1992). Technological and economic conditions have had different environmental consequences within the reforming countries, and the lessons learned for one country, or from one sector within a single country, do not necessarily apply to another. Nonetheless, one experience of all reform countries has been that environmental pollution and health conditions have not improved rapidly or significantly, although there are some notable exceptions, such as thereduction of solid and sulfur dioxide emissions in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.1

INTRODUCTION 7

The paralyzing financial crises and economic collapse that have accompanied transformation in several reforming countries, and the changes to legal, economic and political systems, have had important consequences for environmental conditions. On the one hand, there has been little money for environmental clean-up and investment in nonpolluting, efficient technologies: individuals and institutions, having to scrape to make ends meet, have diverted their attention from environmental to economic concerns. While new environmental laws and institutions have been put in place, few reforming countries have had sufficient available resources to implement the changes thoroughly. On the other hand, in many of the most polluting and dangerous industries economic crises have resulted in the shutting down or at least cutting back of operations which, in itself, has substantially improved environmental conditions in some locales. “Clean-up by default” signals an important achievement, but at the same time it poses important challenges to environmentalists. First, because it does clean up the environment in the short term, continued mobilization of popular support for environmentally sound programs and policies has become even more difficult. Second, it means that, without substantial restructuring of practices and technologies used in production, transport and construction, new economic growth—if and when it occurs—may lead to new rounds of environmental degradation in a context in which there has been little intervening change in public attitudes and practices. The “environmental question” has become even more intriguing since about 1993 as economic crises and political developments have rendered initially single and linear models of transition inappropriate. As Pickles and Smith (1998) have demonstrated, transition has produced multiple political forms, divergent development paths, and hybrid capitalisms. In these “actually existing transitions” the fortunes of environmental movements and environmental health have themselves been influenced by broader transformations, and their articulations with social, economic, and political life have similarly produced different paths and outcomes. Equally important, however, is the role of environmental social movements in the popular imagination as organizations at the forefront of public opposition to communist party states in 1989, and which (with the possible exception of Poland) provided the institutional and ideological ground for the articulation of forms of anti-politics which have so typified the first decade of transformation in CEE. In this sense, challenges to state policies found their most direct expression through the movements for ecological resistance which emerged to oppose the ravages of the environment and the health of the population under state socialism. And it was in these movements for ecological resistance (combined with civil defense movements) that a new “anti-politics” of transformation emerged, one that was skeptical of the formal institutions of the state, wary of parliamentary solutions, and sitting in uneasy relation with the technocrats within its own ranks. It is this “anti-politics” that has been a major target of domestication by the formal politics of reform. If the importance of geographical and sociological specificity are, thus,lessons we can learn from the experience of the environmental movement in post-communist societies undergoing reform, it is also important to acknowledge the universalizing influence of international capital (whose primary goal has, from the first days of 1989, been to open

8 INTRODUCTION

markets and gain footholds in CEE economies), and of Western governments (whose primary goal has been to orchestrate a smooth transition of reform countries into the global economy at least geo-political cost to NATO and the West generally). The articulations of local path dependent social and political struggles, the influence of international and globalizing institutions, and the differentiation of social and demographic structures in the region have produced a transition whose character is better described by Lenin’s notion of uneven and combined development than it is by any general model of modernization and democratization. However, from our point of view, classic studies of uneven development have too often externalized the role of environment and environmental politics and health, treating environment as something acted upon and external to the primary relations of society or as an arena of social action whose concern and effects are restricted to the level of household and family concerns, to the domain of women, and somehow not a part of the economic and political life of the broader community. The task before us is, as David Harvey (1996:184) suggests, one of demonstrating “the sheer necessity of always taking the duality of social and ecological change seriously.” This book is about these complex relations between environmental and social change. Specifically, it is about the ways in which environmental conditions have arisen and are changing in the transitions in and from state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe. Second, the book is about the ways in which environmental risks have arisen and have been constructed within a broader political economy, initially of forced industrialization and more recently of liberal productivism and reform. In this sense, the book is about the environmental hazards faced by people in the region and about the ways in which the environment “works” and is deployed as part of a broader system of societal regulation, as environments of concern, as contested environments, and as environmental policy. Third, the book is a conscious attempt to incorporate the environment into a social theory of environmental and societal change. To do this we seek to create articulations among various forms of political economy and political ecology from Marxian analytics, to regulation theory, to Gramscian analysis, to cultural studies, to Foucaultian genealogy. In doing this we aim to show how these parallel and related traditions can inform a critical theory of society and a genealogical analysis of environment and environmental discourse and practice. The structure of the book Environmental Transitions has three primary goals. First, it describes the environmental legacy of central planning and the geographical similarities and differences in environmental conditions among countries of Central and Eastern Europe that resulted from the rule of the Party. Second, the book describes andaccounts for the ways in which these legacies of environmental crisis are being addressed in Central and Eastern Europe. Third, the book locates the environment within theories of transition and analyzes the ways in which newly democratizing, market-oriented societies are attempting to deal with the challenges of environmental reconstruction. Specifically, the book:

INTRODUCTION 9

• describes air and water pollution and environmental degradation throughout the region, drawing on information from seven countries: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania • analyses actual environmental conditions in selected localities • explains the institutional and social contexts within which struggles over environmental health occurred and are occurring at the present time • provides detailed case studies of environmental conditions in both specific localities and specific sectors of industry. A growing amount of published work has begun to address one or other of these issues. Much has been useful in providing basic empirical information about conditions in the most polluted regions and industries of Central and Eastern Europe, and in raising the question of environmental conditions under central planning. Much of this published work is, however, descriptive and anecdotal, and much recites the now widely accepted mantra of “grey landscapes and polluted lands.” For those who travel throughout CEE, this image— while certainly accurate in some areas—does not ring true generally. Some of the better published work on this issue does articulate the geographically uneven nature of environmental degradation (such as Frank Carter and David Turnock’s Environmental Problems in Eastern Europe (1993)), but this literature tends not to engage either the literature of social theory and environment or that dealing with environment and the political economy of transition. In both cases, state-centered approaches mean that fundamental on-the-ground dynamics and their contradictory nature are elided. Where analysis has focused on the role of social and political dimensions of environmental conditions and change (such as in Elmar Altvater’s The Future of the Market (1993)), the environment has been addressed only in the most abstract of ways. In some of the detailed work on transition (such as that by Clarke et al., What About the Workers? (1993)) the environment does not figure at all, and where it does, as in the recent book by Elster, Offe, and Preuss (1998), it is signaled as an absence in the literature. In each case, detailed case studies are missing of the interplay between social and environmental processes at local, national, and international levels, a broader theorization of the social actors involved, explicit attempts to show how environmental issues are part of a broader regional political economy of transition, and a theoretical perspective that not only brings political economy and environment together, but does so in a way that treats each as fully dialectical, and thereby also puts in question the terms of what counts as sound economic and environmental practice. This book challenges simplistic and one-sided Western views of state socialism and its relationship toward the environment. For example, Klarer and Francis (1997:7–8) have recently argued that “with practically no exception, production processes were wasteful [under central planning]…there were no incentives to introduce efficient or environmentfriendly technologies…the neglect of environmental problems was pervasive throughout the system [and] environmental pollution officially did not exist” (emphasis added). Although we agree that there is some truth in these claims, the reality of state socialism and its approaches toward the problems of environmental degradation has been much more complex. We want to show, for example, that the state socialist countries seriously

10 INTRODUCTION

attempted to alleviate the extensive environmental degradation in the 1970s and 1980s that resulted in gradually declining levels of pollution in the 1980s. However, we also want to show why the environmental effects of these efforts were limited as they were deeply embedded in the existing state socialist political economic system. Environmental Transitions is about the effects of central planning on environmental conditions and the role the environment currently plays in liberal transitions from central planning. But it is not a celebratory text, nor do we intend to write a book about failed transitions (see Manser 1993). Environmental Transitions is meant to signal the importance of thinking of environment and environmental change as fully embedded in particular social conditions and projects. More directly it signals the post-socialist condition moving beyond the shadowed atmospheric lows of state socialism, but at the same time putting in question the triumphalism that often accompanies much writing on transitology. The film Before the Rain signals the liminal status of transformation: a period of anxiety and foreboding as people await and hope for the cleansing rains. Environmental Transitions hopes for a new brighter day, but tries to ask how state socialist legacies and practices condition or continue to influence the re-workings of the modernization project that is “post-socialism.” Detailed local case studies are used to illustrate the mixed and complex nature of the transition in process, the importance of investigating environmental change at a variety of temporal and spatial scales, and the necessity of revitalizing dialectical arguments to understand how social and environmental change are related. In particular, we hope to locate the “environment question” squarely within a critical political economy of transformation that is sensitive to the historical, social, and cultural contexts of actually existing socialisms and actually existing transitions. Before we develop a more extended theoretical interrogation of the environment question for the kind of analysis we carry out in the book (Chapter Two), we return first to the origins of the environmental crisis itself. Origins of the environmental crisis In the final analysis the greatest obstacles to effective environmental protection in the USSR and GDR are almost certainly political-economic in character (DeBardeleben 1985:151)

It is certainly the case that environmental problems in CEE existed before state socialism, and were a product of pre-war capitalist production. These problems were, however, of limited impact and were concentrated in specific regions, such as Saxony in the former East Germany, Bohemia and northern Moravia in the Czech Republic, and Silesia in Poland. Industrial development outside these larger regions was limited to several smaller regions usually centered on large cities such as Budapest, the region around Bucharest, and small-scale industrialization in individual cities and towns (see Turnock 1989:69–71). The causes of environmental devastation were also similar to those in Western Europe:

INTRODUCTION 11

air pollution caused by the burning of coal as a principal energy source and landscape devastation caused by coal mining in the coal mining regions.2 These problems were aggravated by post-war socialist industrialization which concentrated on the extensive development of heavy industries fueled by coal. Environment was not taken into account in this drive to socialist industrialization, in part because pollution levels were initially low and environmental degradation was not considered to be a significant problem. Problems of environmental degradation began to become visible and serious only in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the Czech Republic at this time areas of forest defoliation appeared in the Ore Mountains of the Black Triangle, and by the late 1950s, 50 percent of forests in northern and northwestern Bohemia showed the signs of pollution damage (Zpravodaj MŽP 1994:VII). Ivan Dejmal, the former Czech Minister of the Environment described this period as follows: I grew up in the city of Ústí nad Labem [in northern Bohemia] and I observed the environmental destruction from my early childhood. The Bílina River, which served as a sewer for the Stalin’s [chemical] Factory, flew behind our house. An open cast coal mine and a deep pit were located at the edge of the town and the surrounding area was still devastated by the World War Two air raid. Every year, we choked in a dense toxic fog from the middle of September until April because it was the time of construction [of socialism] and the chemical factory released all kinds of pollutants in the air. Our eyes stung. We could not open windows. Most people constantly suffered from a dry cough. Everything around was terribly dusty and dirty. Forest damage became visible by the early 1960s. (Plamínková 1993:4) As in capitalist countries, the socialist state responded with the introduction of policies that were designed to limit environmental damage caused by industries and agriculture. As we argue in Chapter Seven, CEE countries had—in many respects—well developed environmental legislation, with pollution limits often set at more stringent levels than in the West, as state officials sought to demonstrate the superiority of socialism over capitalism in environmental management.3 In practice, environmental policies were weakly enforced and unrealistic pollution limits could not be met by the state-owned enterprises, which were allocated only small investment funds for environmental remediation.Environmental investments were, in fact, considered non-productive.4 Instead, money that might have been spent on the environment was diverted into production. Growth in output was the measure of success in comparing state socialist economies with Western industrialized countries. Not surprisingly, many environmental goals and tasks were postponed indefinitely. For example, when the 1974 Water Act was enacted in Czechoslovakia the government approved about 2,400 exemptions from the Act for enterprises discharging untreated waste water in excess of established limits. Two thousands such exemptions were still in place by 1989 (Baltus 1993:13, Tickle and Vavroušek 1998:120). This does not mean that state socialist governments did not react to environmental problems or that they did nothing to control environmental degradation, as we will show.

12 INTRODUCTION

A number of anti-pollution measures and policies were introduced in all CEE countries. Some of these policies were effective, others were not. Each was devised and implemented as a part of the particular political economic system, and we need to understand how these contingent circumstances influenced environmental practices and management. That is, we need to be sensitive to the ways in which environmental practices were over-determined by knowledge of environmental problems and a wide array of socio-economic conditions (including financial and technological constraints, limited access to Western technology and knowhow, struggles among various ministries and state agencies over the nature, exploitation and approaches toward the environmental management, Communist Party hegemony, and the strength or weakness of independent environmental movements that could challenge the governmental environmental policies). For example, all CEE countries recognized the need for clean water and built water treatment plants. But construction was slow, demand for water treatment was much higher than the capacity of the existing treatment plants, and many of the plants built provided only mechanical treatment.5 Governments were even willing to close the most polluting factories with poor environmental records.6 In 1989 during perestroika, 240 factories were closed for environmental reasons in the former Soviet Union alone (French 1990:36). Air pollution was a major concern in the 1960s and 1970s, and as a result of government action particulate matter emissions declined dramatically with the installation of scrubbers into power plants and industrial enterprises. In some cases, high smokestacks were constructed and pollution limits for individual companies were based on the height of their smokestacks. Aimed at regional dispersal and relief for nearby communities, such measures ultimately expanded the range of pollution over a larger territory. Measures such as these were relatively efficient and technologically simple. The German Democratic Republic (GDR), for example, reduced solid emissions by 30 percent between 1975 and 1985 simply through the use of more effective filters (GDR Review 1986:37). The CEE countries were much less successful with gaseous emissions.7 For example, Czechoslovakia did not introduce any legislative measures to control gaseous emissions, and, as a result, no desulfurization equipment was put in operation during the state socialist period. In some countries, such as the former Soviet Union (FSU) and East Germany, limited access to Western technology andlack of financial resources resulted in attempts to produce desulfurization equipment locally. But this rarely worked well and was not widely adopted.8 Typical is the case of the soviet-style desulfurization plant built in the 1980s at the Tušimice II power plant in northern Bohemia (the Czech Republic), which upon completion was never activated. Thus, despite difficulties, state planners were looking for ways to reduce pollution. In the 1970s and 1980s they began to turn to nuclear power plants to replace coal-based power stations. While the major reason for this policy was an effort to switch to new energy sources in the face of the depletion of indigenous coal resources, the environmental benefits were also recognized to be substantial if safe nuclear power technology could be used. New nuclear power plants would allow the closure of coal-based power plants, and air pollution would be substantially reduced as a result.

INTRODUCTION 13

CEE countries also tried to cooperate on environmental protection within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). The first attempts began in the early 1960s with the 1962 CMEA Council resolution that mandated the coordination of scientific and technical research in the areas of air and water pollution. Further efforts continued in the 1970s with the creation of a Joint Council for the Protection and Improvement of the Environment in 1974, charged with the task of coordinating scientific and technical cooperation in environmental protection among the CMEA members. In the same year, a comprehensive program on environmental protection was enacted by the CMEA executive committee. Cooperation was further expanded in the 1980s to include global environmental monitoring and information problems. Despite these measures, progress in coordinating environmental efforts was very slow (Ziegler 1991:85–6). The deepening of the environmental crisis was closely related to the economic crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. As the sources for a predominantly extensive regime of accumulation became exhausted, centrally planned economies failed to adjust adequately to the new circumstances. Overambitious investment decisions financed from domestic savings and intra-bloc (CMEA) bilateral credits were made throughout the 1950s and the 1960s, but these failed to account sufficiently for resource availability and conditions in the world economy. Internal resources for extensive economic growth (labor, raw materials, and financial resources) were becoming exhausted by the 1960s and state socialist countries could no longer rely on assistance from the Soviet Union, which itself had started to borrow in Western capital markets to underwrite necessary investment in its own huge energy and industrial sectors in the Volga basin and Siberia, and for the Baikal-Amur Railway (Hamilton 1990). CEE countries began to borrow money in the West in the 1970s to finance industrial development and sustain high rates of economic growth. Capital equipment and technology imports were required to shift economic policy from extensive to intensive forms of development (Coffin 1987). But such investment policies had adverse effects on national economies especially after the global crisis of 1973 when developed countries considerably slowed their own pace of investment. In fact, CEE countries did not substantially change their investment behavior at this time and largely ignored or discountedthe negative impact the global economic crisis would have on their own economies (Marer 1989, Zloch-Christy 1987). The 1973 oil shock coincided with CEE investments in oil and energy intensive technologies and the construction of new petrochemical plants and refineries. Energy intensive industrial sectors were projected to grow faster than industry as a whole in the first half of the 1980s (Kramer 1991:60), and investments continued rapidly. In fact, growth was possible only because of subsidized low prices for oil supplied from the FSU throughout the 1970s, as oil prices in the rest of the World increased rapidly.9 CEE countries thus continued to specialize in energy-intensive heavy industries such as petrochemicals, refined oil products, and iron and steel products (Ziegler 1991:92), at the very time that Western economies were restructuring towards alternative energy sources and new technologies and industries (Altvater 1993:19–23).10 Western loans went into expensive, capital-intensive projects such as the Huta Katowice steelworks in Poland or the joint Romanian-Yugoslav Iron Gates hydroelectric power station on the Danube. These investments were very slow to yield any returns.

14 INTRODUCTION

The loans were also used to expand existing factories or construct new plants to manufacture tractors, cars, ships, tires, color televisions and chemicals, often for export. However, Western and Third World markets facing their own economic crises were unable to absorb these products (Hamilton 1990). Terms of trade deteriorated, demand for East European exports declined, international interest rates increased, and world prices for CEE goods dropped (Zloch-Christy 1987). As a result, CEE countries ran large trade deficits from 1971 to 1979. Eastern Europe’s gross indebtedness in hard currency increased about twelvefold in the 1970s, reaching US $70 billion in 1980 (including the Soviet Union), as annual trade deficits with the West soared from about US $0.5 billion in 1970 to nearly US $5 billion in 1975 and thereafter remained for the rest of the decade at an annual level of some US$ 3–4 billion (Coffin 1987). Poland’s debt grew at the fastest rate, tripling between 1974 and 1977. The debt of former East Germany and Hungary doubled in the same period. Romania’s debt tripled between 1974 and 1979. Poland, East Germany, Hungary, and Romania were the countries of CEE most indebted to the West. CEE countries responded with sharp cuts in their imports from the West, strict credit conditions, and efforts to export whatever was possible. In all CEE countries except Romania, the largest cuts were made in investment for domestic consumption, although in most countries significant reductions were also made in actual levels of consumption (Marer 1989). Not surprisingly, the environment and environmental investments were not major priorities during this period of economic stagnation, mounting economic problems and scarce fiscal resources. In Poland, for example, the steadily worsening economic situation in the 1970s led to a 28.2 percent decrease in investments in water pollution control and to a 20.2 percent decline in investments for air pollution control between 1975 and 1979 (Kramer 1987:158). Moreover, not all the funds designated for the environment were spent on the environment. Polish industrial planners frequently diverted the funds allocated for environmental protection to production. Between 1976 and 1980, only 40percent of the funds designated for waste treatment were actually spent on waste treatment (Kramer 1987:157).11 During this same period the gap in environmental quality between the West and CEE widened. Western European countries introduced new policies to decrease air pollution, such as the installation of desulfurization and denitrification equipment for major polluters, switching from solid fuels to natural gas, decreasing sulfur content in solid and liquid fuels, and in some cases increasing dependence on nuclear power (see Mounfield 1991:96–128). At the same time, CEE countries continued to rely on low quality coal to produce most of their electricity (see Chapter Three) and the role of coal actually increased during the late 1970s and early 1980s as the price of Soviet oil increased and deliveries from the FSU began to decline.12 In 1982, the former Soviet Union cut its planned oil deliveries to CEE by 10 per cent in order to increase its own exports of oil to the developed capitalist countries to offset declining oil prices since 1981.13 CEE countries were unable to replace this shortfall of subsidized cheap Soviet oil on world oil markets because prices were much higher and they lacked the necessary hard currency reserves. As a result, overall coal production in CEE increased by almost 13 percent between 1980 and 1985, and the production of brown coal and lignite increased by

INTRODUCTION 15

almost 20 percent during the same period (Kramer 1991: 63–5). For example, faced with rising foreign debt and oil prices in the late 1970s, East Germany shifted to brown coal as its primary source of energy in the early 1980s, thereby reversing the previous shift to imported oil that had taken place in the early 1970s. By 1985, almost 83 percent of electricity was produced from brown coal, and production increased from 258 million tonnes in 1980 to 312 million tonnes in 1985. While this strategy led to lower oil imports and thus lower foreign debt, it substantially increased air pollution (DeBardeleben 1991: 176–7, Kramer 1991:63). Similarly, Romania planned to increase its share of coal in electricity production from 27 percent in 1980 to 50 percent in 1985 by increasing its coal production by what turned out to be an unrealistic 143–8 percent between 1980–5, and by a further 150–65 percent between 1985–90. Poland and Bulgaria planned to increase their brown coal and lignite production by 40 percent between 1985 and 1990. The lowest increase in coal production, by 2 percent between 1980 and 1985, took place in Hungary. Only Hungary and Czechoslovakia did not increase their coal production plans for the 1985–90 period (Kramer 1991:61–3). Instead of focusing on ways to decrease energy use or increase efficiency, CEE countries adopted “supply side” policies by building more and more power plants, with negative effects on the environment.14 Focus on the development of domestic energy resources, especially low quality brown coal and lignite, resulted in increased mining (often using strip mining methods), landscape devastation, and the destruction of villages (Chapters Four and Five look more closely at these practices in a case study of the Most District of northern Bohemia in the Czech Republic). East Germany pursued similarly devastating large scale open cast coal mining. At least seventy East German villages or parts of villages were demolished between 1960 and 1980 to obtain the low-grade coal beneaththem. Demolition continued in the 1980s, especially in the Cottbus region and south of Leipzig, as coal production increased from 260 million tonnes annually in 1980 to 335 million tonnes in 1990 (DeBardeleben 1991:178–9). The low-grade coal was then burnt in nearby coal-based power plants, with consequent impacts on regional air quality (Table 1.1). Environmental effects of controversial nuclear power plants were not felt until the late 1970s and 1980s.15 Despite the Chernobyl disaster, CEE countries have continued to use and extend Soviet technology for their nuclear power plants, so that today, for example, about 50 percent of Hungarian and Slovak electricity comes from their single nuclear power plants. This percentage will increase for Slovakia when its new Mochovce power plant is fully operational. Poland has decided not to build nuclear power plants, and its reliance on bituminous coal has, as a result, remained extremely high. Romania and Albania have not built any nuclear power plants either, but both countries have substantial oil and natural gas deposits and consequently do not have to rely on coal or imports for their energy production (even though Romania attempted to increase its reliance on coal substantially during the 1980s).16 Central planning’s highly bureaucratic mode of economic regulation contributed to the enormous levels of energy waste. Prices for both natural resources and electricity were centrally mandated and subsidized, and were set at such low levels that they failed to take into account real costs of environmental degradation or improvement.17 Low prices for

16 INTRODUCTION

Table 1.1 Commercial energy consumption in CEE (consumption by fuel type as % of total), 1989*

Notes: * Consumption is defined as domestic production plus net imports, minus net stock increases, minus aircraft and marine bunkers ** Solid fuels include bituminous coal, lignite, peat, and oil shale burned directly *** Liquid fuels include crude petroleum and natural gas liquids # Gas includes natural gas and other petroleum gases ## Other fuels include primary production from hydro, nuclear, and geothermal sources Source: Livernash (1992:61)

coal and other natural resources undermined any incentives for industries to become more energy efficient. Instead, cheap electricity and energy usually led to overconsumption and energy waste both by industries and individual consumers. As a result, centrally planned economies used much more energy for the production of each unit of national income than Western industrialized countries. According to some estimates, East European economies required five or more times as much energy per unit of GDP than comparable countries of Western Europe in the early 1990s (Hughes 1992: 18).18 Consequently, energy inefficient production led to much higher levels of pollution per unit of income than was the case in Western countries (Table 1.2). Low levels of energy efficiency resulted in part from the overwhelming reliance on low quality brown coal and lignite as the major energy source in most CEE countries. The heating value of brown coal and lignite is low and energy yields are only about half that of hard coal. In addition, brown coal and lignite have a high ash and sulfur content, and the energy efficiency of coal mining operations is low. For example, the energy efficiency of open cast coal mining in northern Bohemia was estimated at less than 30 percent in the early 1990s.19 In Poland, thousands of industrial furnaces operated at energy efficiency below 40 percent in the 1980s (Kramer 1991:58–9). Despite the obvious and increasing scope of environmental degradation, only Poland, Hungary and East Germany established environmental ministries under state socialism. But even in these countries environmental protection remained subordinated to production and the environmental ministries were generally weak compared to the production ministries. In countries that did not have any central environmental authority (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Albania) many different ministries dealt with environmental protection and regulation, further weakening their effectiveness. In Poland,

INTRODUCTION 17

Table 1.2 Emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide (in grams per dollar GNP), 1989

Source: Livernash (1992:64–5)

the organization of environmental agencies was described as chaotic, lacking the necessary instruments to measure pollution levels and determine sources of pollution, and having insufficient trained personnel to carry out the work. The biggest deficiency, however, was a lack of political support for their work. As a result, they were simply unable to challenge polluters who had much more powerful political links (Kramer 1987:159). Communist Party hegemony and its monopoly over information made it possible to conceal information about the quality of the environment. Environmental data were secret, the public did not have access to even basic environmental information (see Chapter Eight), and even in places such as northern Bohemia in the Czech Republic and Silesia in Poland, where the extent of environmental devastation was obvious, people had little detailed knowledge of environmental conditions in their local region.20 Individuals who openly expressed their dissatisfaction with environmental policies and attempted to increase public environmental awareness were persecuted by the government.21 As a result, the independent environmental movements that emerged in Hungary and the Czech Republic in the 1970s were weak and generally under the control of the government (Livernash 1992). By contrast, official environmental organizations claimed to have hundreds of thousands of members, but these were firmly under the control of the Communist Party. For example, there were the Czech Union for Nature Protection and the Brontosaurus Movement in the Czech Republic, the Society for Nature and the Environment in the former East Germany, the League for the Preservation of Nature in Poland, and the Association of Friends of Nature in Hungary. Their journals were strictly regulated by the government and could not report and discuss freely air pollution or other environmental problems and their effects on human health (Jancar-Webster 1991:28, 35). Deteriorating environmental quality and increasing popular discontent with the state of the environment prompted CEE governments to consider new approaches toward

18 INTRODUCTION

environmental protection in the 1980s. Environmental investment increased in most CEE countries in the second half of the 1980s. In Czechoslovakia, for example, the share of environmental investment of GDP increased from 0.3 percent between 1980–5 to 0.6 percent in the period of 1986–90 (World Bank 1992a:18).22 Most CEE countries also doubled environmental investment in their 1986–90 plans (Jancar-Webster 1991:37). Environmental considerations became gradually integrated into the planning process. At least on paper, Hungary made environmental protection an integral part of national economic plans in 1980 and governmental priority in the 1980s (Szirmai 1993:150). Czechoslovakia adopted an ecological rehabilitation program in 1985 and new investments were to be reviewed for their potential environmental impacts. Other countries such as Poland, East Germany, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia began to stress the importance of environmental protection (Jancar-Webster 1991:37–8, Boehmer-Christiansen 1998:71). State socialist governments were faced with rapidly deteriorating environmental conditions in the most affected regions and popular pressure to deal with environmental crises was mounting.23 In Chapter Two we show how environmental change must be understood in terms of the broader processes of social, economic, and political transformation. We then turn in Parts II and III to more detailed analysis of Nature and environment under state socialism and during the past decade of post-socialist transformations.

2 Theorizing social and environmental change

In an essay published at the time of the coup in the Soviet union in 1991, E.P. Thompson suggested that: one of the great lessons of communism under challenge in the past 10 years —from Polish Solidarity onwards, and above all the east European lesson of autumn 1989— has been that awe of the state has been falling away: think of Gdansk, Wenceslav Square, and Leningrad this week. Ideological doping no longer works, the instruments of repression are less effective, the rulers have lost confidence in themselves, the people have been re-learning their power when aroused in great numbers. (Thompson 1991:3) Thompson ends his essay with “A note of warning.” At the European Disarmament convention, which ended as the coup in the Soviet Union was proclaimed, Soviet participants were obsessed with national autonomy with human rights and minority rights poor second and third concerns: So rejection of the coup may not be an outright victory for “democracy”; it may also be a victory for populist Russian nationalism against bureaucrats and ideologues. That is not altogether bad, but populist nationalism is by no means an unqualified good either. Look what it is doing to Yugoslavia. (Ibid.) With these words, Thompson evokes the dilemma of democratic movements in Central and Eastern Europe in which issues of demonopolization, anti-bureaucratic actions, local power, and individual and civic rights have arisen along with new and old forms of nationalism, ethnic struggle, local competition, core-periphery dominance, consumerism, and the substitution of political for economic power. This series of evolving tensions between democratic practices and the rise of new forces of social division is crucial to this book. Here questions of environmental pasts, ecological reconstruction, and environmental futures are located within analyses of the regional and local structure of power in the transition inCEE, and specifically within

20 INTRODUCTION

analyses of the relationship between decentralization, demonopolization, privatization, and democratization. First, it is important to recognize that in CEE there has been an extended period of transition from the political dominance of the Communist Party to systems of political pluralism. Hungary and Poland serve as the best examples. In the emerging situations of political pluralism, the degree of political power and electoral support retained by the reformed Communist Parties across the region varies, but in some countries it remains quite strong, such as Hungary and Poland (and Bulgaria until the 1997 elections). In this context, perestroika, glasnost, democratization, and decentralization have become both policy adjustments aimed at retaining power for an aging and increasingly delegitimized party bureaucracy, as well as the rallying demands of the democratic movements. Second, environmental problems and local concerns about health provided the focus for the mobilization of the mass democratic movement and have become universally accepted parts of political rhetoric in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Thus, the tools or policies of renewal and the problems of the environment constitute important aspects of the struggle for political power. Third, the deepening economic crisis since 1989 in several CEE countries and the relative economic success of others such as Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, exacerbated by the absence of clear national policy and the rapid adoption of marketoriented mechanisms, have created problems for the environmental and the democratic movements. New forms of economic power have arisen in the interregnum, with important implications for both the democratic movement generally and environmental issues in particular. Moreover, in all countries bread and butter economic issues have become so pressing that they have apparently reduced the support for environmental issues, and now threaten the emerging civil structures which are so central to effective democratic and environmental politics. Fourth, the deepening economic crisis has had a weakening impact on the emergence of an independent policy arena within CEE, and has favored a (re)assertion of a culture in which solutions are sought from the outside. In these circumstances, international agencies and foreign governmental bodies have been surprisingly influential in the formulation of public and environmental policy, and correspondingly Central and Eastern Europe governments have been surprisingly eager to accept those policy recommendations. Fifth, the conjuncture of new challenges to old powers, the difficulty of putting new regulations in place, the emergence of counter-reactive forces, and the problems for the environmental movement arising out of economic crisis must also be situated in a broader theoretical and geographical perspective. That is, the analysis of the environmental effects of economic and political restructuring must be situated within an analysis of international restructuring and the emergence of new forms of production, new regulatory environments, and new challenges to environmental politics. Sixth, the book makes clear the necessity of thinking about the current restructuring through multiple policy scenarios, rather than single trajectories. In thisway the book seeks to unpack popular analyses of East European events which crudely counterpose democracy and communism, or market economies and command economies, which

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 21

assume the inherent superior nature of the former and monolithic character of both (see Creed 1990). The book focuses upon the economic and political landscapes in CEE as one of emerging struggles over policy and resources. The model of development that will emerge from this period of transition is not a foregone conclusion, nor is it yet clearly evident. The Yugoslavian model represents one extreme potential of the transition process. The Soviet model of administrative and institutional collapse represents another. Another is seen in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic with their longer history of transition, rapid opening to Western capital and influence, successful transitions to functioning democratic systems, and integration in Western European supranational security, economic, and political structures (NATO, OECD, EU). In this sense, we should be wary of seeing restructuring and transition in terms of a unitary or single model, with a single logic. There is already clear evidence, if any were really needed, of the regionally differentiated nature of national responses to transition. Certainly, few would now contest that the experience of transition has been quite different for Central European countries on the one hand and those of Southeastern Europe on the other. But even this geographical distinction elides the intensity of competition over policy, and the geographically specific nature of these struggles at all scales. The development of economic and political policy in this context must also address the question of the environment. The book takes on the question of the environmental implications of particular models of development which have been prevalent or are now emerging in CEE and concludes with a discussion of these emerging development scenarios, their corresponding understanding of environment and economy, and their implications for democratic practice. Environmental Transitions addresses these issues through a series of case studies where environmental politics and socio-political change intersect. In this chapter we elaborate four arguments central to this work. First, in CEE “the environment in the pre-revolution days also served as a rallying point from which broader demands for political change emerged. Protests against pollution quickly turned into protests against Communist rule. Initially perceived by governments as relatively benign, environmental movements in the region soon acquired unstoppable momentum.” (French 1991:93). Second, while the popular democratic alliances forged across the region between 1988 and 1990 remain strong, and while CEE societies have opened up in many ways, these gains have quickly retreated in the face of a deep economic and political crisis and the difficulties of dealing with it. Third, these problems are not merely regional development problems consequent upon a shift to Western markets and market principles, nor just a “necessary outcome” of regional development in societies shifting to market-oriented economies. But they arise because modernization is taking place in a global context which has already seen (and continues to see) major changes ingeopolitical, industrial, and financial practices. Each of these ongoing and linked forms of restructuring has important implications for how CEE countries can articulate with the broader international economy and what impacts these articulations will have for national, regional, ethnic, and social integration and differentiation.

22 INTRODUCTION

Fourth, democratization, economic restructuring, and environmental reconstruction are thus occurring in a context that has important implications for the protection and rebuilding of healthy environments in Central and Eastern Europe, but which is (in one sense) outside the ability of policy makers to control. Regulation theory and the environment In contemporary social theory, social science, and East European studies two distinct and largely separate critical traditions have emerged to speak out against what Derrida (1994) has called “the new hegemony” of neo-liberalism installing itself in post-communist societies. The first of these is linked to political economy and critical theory influenced by Western Marxian and post-Marxian debates about economic and social transformation and restructuring. The second is linked to discourse analysis, influenced by post-structuralist concerns with a politics (often a geopolitics) that challenges the sedimented and naturalized categories and practices that normalize and stabilize social life, particularly categories of collective identity that undergird contemporary notions of the nation, citizen, economy, and polity. Each has its own clear ideas of its own contributions and the failings of its “ally” in unraveling and critiquing the new hegemony. But each also shares with the other one fundamental conception of societal change: that is, that the structuring and restructuring of everyday life occurs within complex articulations of local, regional, national, and globalizing contexts. Histories, political economies, discursive formations, and institutional assemblages and practices each comprise complex articulations of universalizing and particularizing processes. Moreover, each of these complex articulations can be thought of—as Lipietz and Aglietta have pointed out—as structuring moments which normalize and regulate social, economic, and political life and produce subjects and actors. These structurings, and their corresponding subjects and practices, regulate social and institutional norms and practices, and foster distinct and (at times) coherent forms of capital accumulation and distribution. In this sense “transitology” (as Michael Burawoy (1992) has called it) is very much about introducing and legitimizing “technical” instruments of transition into reform societies, producing new “technologies of the social body” and regulating and normalizing social and economic conditions and lives within post-communist societies. We hope in this chapter to contribute to thinking transition in terms of systems of regulation and discourse, and second to showing how nature and environment can be located within these systems—alongside the disseminated “social” “economic” and “political”—in ways that do not marginalize or treat as “additional” or “supplementary” the environmental question. Nature, environment, and risk: towards a geopolitics of the environment At the heart of this issue is the necessity of demonstrating the myth of industrial modern society. As Ulrich Beck has argued, this myth asserts that:

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 23

the developed industrial society with its pattern of work and life, its production sectors, its thinking in categories of economic growth, its understanding of science and technology and its forms of democracy, is a thoroughly modern society, a pinnacle of modernity, which it scarcely makes sense even to consider surpassing…. In the general view, industrial society is a permanently revolutionary society. But after each industrial revolution what remains is an industrial society, perhaps a bit more industrial. (Beck 1992:11–12) For our purposes, we want to add three other myths: • the myth of the Western economy: a single signifier for what in practice are multiples and hybrids transforming themselves along independent and interlinked pathways (Deleuze and Guattari 1987) • the myth of the national economy: a thoroughly confused and confusing category constructed as a form of hegemony which concretized particular social and gendered powers (see Gibson-Graham 1996) • the Cartesian myth of environment as a natural terrain existing over against society and on which social processes act. As David Harvey (1996:26) reminds us, for Raymond Williams “‘Nature’…is the most complex word in the language” (Williams 1983:219) because “it contains, though often unnoticed, an extraordinary amount of human history… both complicated and changing, as other ideas and experiences change” (Williams 1980:67). Thus, for Harvey: “An inquiry into environmental history as well as into changing conceptions of nature therefore provided a privileged and powerful way to enquire into and understand social and cultural change” (Harvey 1996:26). Divergences in the ways in which environmental risk and health were constructed are well illustrated by contrasting Western and Eastern European societies. For example, Hunnius and Kliemt have provided an interesting comparison of the social construction of risk in the Federal German Republic (FGR) and the GDR. The tendency to view technological progress from the perspective of risk is, they argue, limited almost exclusively to Western democracies: The theoretical discussion about the challenges posed by technological and scientific progress in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and otherEastern European countries largely ignored considerations of risk and was reduced to a process of passive reception. The reasons for this can be traced back to Marx’s equating technological with social progress, which provided an ideological foundation and a politically privileged status for “scientistic”, “technicalistic” and pseudo-optimistic patterns of thinking. These narrow and rigid ideological terms of reference severely restricted the scope of objective discussion on the dangers and risks and on the general ambivalence of technology. (Hunnius and Kliemt 1993:222)

24 INTRODUCTION

However the different ways in which environment and risk are situated within Eastern European societies and their mode of regulation are not restricted to their ideological embeddedness, but are products of all “short-supply economies… forced by financial exigencies to put up with enormous technological and environmental risks” (Hunnius and Kliemt 1993:222). The transformation of “short-supply economies” in the West to high mass consumption societies along Fordist lines led in the post-Second World War period to new forms of collective consumption and the generalizing of environmental concerns, but it also generated a new geopolitics of struggle over nature and resources. German reunification reflects particularly clearly these interactional dynamics, and specifically the divergent and distinct regulatory and ideological traditions of late capitalist and state socialist societies. And it also reflects equally clearly the hegemonic expansion of Western models over state socialist ones after 1989. A dialectics of nature: conceptualizing social and ecological change The difficulty in part derives from the tendency in discursive debates [sic] to homogenize the category “nature” (and discuss its social meaning and constitution as a unitary category) when it should be regarded as intensely internally variegated—an unparalleled field of difference…. The general debate over the society/nature relation loses sight of the incredible degree of ecosystemic variation. As much attention should be paid to the production of difference as to the relational meaning of nature in general. So where does all this difference come from? (Harvey 1996:183) How are we to account for social and environmental change in ways that do not reduce one to actor and the other to acted upon? How are we to think transition as both a process of social and environmental transformation? And how are we to do this without uncritically accepting the “new technicism” of human dimensions of global environmental change literatures? In what follows we attempt to answer these questions by dealing with them in terms of several notions at the heart of contemporary regulation theory and critical economic geography: development model, dialectics, scale, structured coherence and the production of space. A development model consists of a particular economic and political organization adopted by a society or imposed on it in a particular long-term period (Lipietz 1992a:1–3). According to Lipietz, a development model is composed of four components: 1 a “regime of accumulation” which describes the long term development in conditions of production and conditions of social use of its output

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 25

2 a “mode of regulation” which characterizes institutional and other mechanisms used to regulate the behavior of individual agents according to the general principles of the regime of accumulation 3 a “labor process model” which describes general principles of work organization and its development under a specific development model 4 a “hegemonic bloc” which involves a long term imposition of particular power dominance and relations in the sphere of politics, ideology, culture and behavior that secure continuation and stability of a particular development model (Lipietz 1992a: 2, 1992b:310–11, 1987:13–15; Leborgne and Lipietz 1991:28–9; Dunford 1990: 303–8; Benko and Dunford 1991:7–10). The acceptance of a particular development model by different social groups and classes is the basis of a “grand compromise” which is associated with the relative stabilization of this model of development over a period of time during which the rationale of this model itself is not challenged (Lipietz 1992a:x, 1992b:310). The state socialist development model can be characterized by: 1 its predominantly extensive regime of accumulation1 2 its bureaucratic mode of regulation based on central planning2 3 its labor process model based on the “bureaucratic despotism” (Burawoy 1985:180) and “authoritarian paternalism” (Clarke et al. 1994:181)3 4 its hegemonic bloc that was based on the Communist Party hegemony over political, social and cultural life to stabilize and protect the state socialist development model. In several ways state socialist societies followed the development pathway of the developed capitalist societies. The mode of social regulation was changed under state socialism to a one party system and economic planning, but the labor process model and the regime of accumulation emulated those in the developed capitalist countries because state socialism could justify itself only through economic success compared with the capitalist market economies. The result of this combination was that the same productivist rationality emerged under state socialism as in developed capitalism, involving the transformation of people into passive agents (Altvater 1993:14, Lipietz 1992a:x, Deléage 1989:25). An important difference between the developed capitalist societies and state socialist CEE since the Second World War has been that, while the Western economies concentrated on the mass production of consumer goods after the Second WorldWar, CEE countries focused on extensive development of the means of production (Department I) with rapid development of heavy industries (Altvater 1993:31). As in capitalist countries, the rapid development of heavy industries at all costs gradually produced similar environmental problems in CEE to those experienced in the West (O’Connor1989:95). However, in the West the existence of democracy, civil society and the flexibility in the mode of social regulation allowed the gradual introduction of relatively efficient environmental management. Western economies also underwent important transitions from an extensive phase of development to an intensive phase that included industrial restructuring away from the traditional heavy industries to

26 INTRODUCTION

lighter industries and a service oriented economy. By contrast, in CEE countries Communist Party hegemony destroyed pre-existing democratic structures (as in Czechoslovakia), replacing them with authoritarian dictatorships and driving independent civil society underground. One consequence was that it became almost impossible to defend the environment by independent action. Environmental management was totally controlled by the state and was subordinated to the logic of plan fulfillment. The state controlled both the means of production and environmental management, leading to the paradoxical situation that environmental policies and pollution limits were set by the state to control and discipline its own enterprises. If enforced and observed, pollution limits could have endangered plan fulfillment. Consequently, one reason environmental destruction was so associated with postSecond World War socialist industrialization, and continued more or less until the 1980s, was the failure to shift from an extensive to intensive regime of accumulation. But related to this was the inability of a bureaucratic mode of social regulation to provide for sufficient openness and flexibility to enable and facilitate change (Altvater 1993:23, 35). In this sense, democracy has been integral to the success of economic modernization and environmental regulation. While environmental degradation was not a major problem in the 1950s, the cumulative effects of the post-war environmental devastation became serious by the 1970s and 1980s, leading to economic losses and contributing to health problems in the region. The inability of state socialist governments to address effectively the environmental crises, or to provide for independent action in regard to it, contributed to a legitimation crisis of the socialist state and its collapse in 1989.4 Thus, the environmental crisis became one of the symptoms of a structural or “major” crisis of the state socialist development model (Dunford 1990:309; Brenner and Glick 1991:48; Lipietz 1992a:xi, 1987:34).5 This was characterized not only by economic slowdown, but also by political and social disaffection and opposition. By the 1980s such a crisis led to a “crisis of hegemony” which in turn led directly to efforts by leading social forces and social groups to adapt to the perestroika initiatives offered by Gorbachev to create a new vision and new development model acceptable to the rest of the society (Lipietz 1992a:xi). Communist Party elites were simply unable to sustain theexisting model of development; many had already accepted its eventual demise and had made their own financial plans for surviving the “inevitable” transition, and few could offer an alternative model acceptable to the society as a whole. The collapse of state socialism across CEE in 1989 forced a transformation away from a centrally-planned model of extensive development, but generated only minimal conditions for an effective and easy transition to a new development model, ostensibly based on the introduction of a market economy and a democratic political system. Dialectical geographies of transition I see no reason why the future of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, or Romania should be different from that of Argentina, Brazil, or Chile. (Przeworski 1991:190)

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 27

There are numerous reasons why Western Sovietologists are not well equipped to comprehend post-Communist systems. (Fleron and Hoffmann 1993a:371) Perhaps surprisingly, not all studies of environment and transitions in CEE have been geographically and environmentally sensitive. Many ignore the differences among individual countries and treat CEE as a unified area with the same history, geography and level of development (e.g. Blanchard et al. 1991), while many of those that are sensitive to geographical difference fixate on the category of the nation state and national statistics as a means of articulating that difference, reflecting fundamentally space-less, time-less, and environment-less analyses of reform economics and politics (see also Altvater 1993) in which questions of geographic scale, geographic variability and uneven development of the transition are largely ignored or externalized (such as Przeworski 1991).6 For example, the Czech economic literature dealing with transition focuses almost entirely on national level strategies and governmental policies (macroeconomic policies, privatization and so on). Differences in the performance of individual regions are not even mentioned in these assessments of the Czech economy (see Hájek et al. 1993, 1994 for instance).7 Indeed, for Czech liberal economists such patterns of regional uneven development are thought to be a “natural” outcome of capitalist transition and do not therefore need explanation. Thus, the Czech Economic Minister argued in May 1994: “The market economy leads also to natural differentiation at the level of the individual regions—this reality cannot be restrained, because it is part of the overall development dynamics and one of the economic engines” (HN 1994b:3). Except for unemployment data, since 1989 the Czech government does not even collect statistical data about uneven economic development (HN 1994c:15) (but see Smith 1995, 1996 on Slovakia). Western Sovietology has also frequently ignored variations over space and time in the region. Its sweeping generalizations about the region based on thebelief of the homogenizing effects of Marxism-Leninism and central planning overlooked the crucial variation that is critical to understand the unfolding transitions in CEE (Burawoy 1992, Pavlínek, Pickles and Staddon 1994). “Post-communist studies” often continue this tradition of Sovietology (see Fleron and Hoffmann 1993b:5). When “post-communist studies” do recognize variability and diversity in different countries (e.g. Remington 1993, Bova 1993) it is perceived as an obstacle to generalizations instead of a crucial part of any explanation. For example, Bova (1993:241) argues that in order to overcome such problems of geographical variability we need to focus on common characteristics of the transition processes in different countries and to apply general concepts such as postauthoritarian transition to all post state socialist countries. Comparisons of CEE with other regions, such as, for example, Latin America, are on the surface at least more sensitive to geographical difference. But such analyses are also often based on generalizations from national level statistics and ignore variability within these regions. For example, in one of the most influential texts on transition, Przeworski (1991:190) argues that there is no reason to believe that the countries of CEE will follow a different development pathway from that of Latin America except their location in Europe. For Przeworski (ibid.: 191) “geography, with whatever it implies, is just not

28 INTRODUCTION

enough to shape economic and political futures.” Lessons drawn from China, and Latin American and African countries that have faced similar economic problems to those of the centrally planned economies of CEE, are clearly important (e.g. macroeconomic imbalances due to the combination of a weak private sector, political monopoly, and extensive policy induced distortions) (Fischer and Gelb 1991). But these must be mediated by equivalent attention to the concrete lives of subjects of transformations whose scales, speed, and its political and historical context each have their own histories and geographies. Przeworski (1991:191) concludes Democracy and the Market with the strong assertion that “the East has become the South.” But he provides little evidence to support such a totalizing claim, and at a time when the reforms in CEE were just beginning. Lipietz characterizes such an approach as “pessimistic functionalist”, “presenting concrete history as the inevitable unfolding of a concept such as imperialism” (Lipietz 1987:4). Instead, he argues, we must first carefully analyze the historical and national diversity of every country before generalizing its role in the world economy and international division of labor. The destiny of any particular country and its place in the international division of labor is not predetermined, but will depend predominantly on the concrete internal conditions, developments and their combination with external forces and pressures. While Przeworski argued that “the East has become the South” (op. cit.: 191) even before the transition began, Lipietz claims that “no immanent destiny condemns a particular nation to a particular place within the international division of labor” (op. cit.: 24). For Lipietz, the outcomes of national transitions are the product of uncertain processes, including internal class struggle, and are not predetermined. There are many different trajectories through which any country or region can go. Therefore, we may rather expect that the future of theindividual countries of CEE and their place in the international division of labor will differ from one country to another or at least from one group of countries (Central European for example) to another (Balkan countries, post-Soviet region etc.). At the same time, transitions in the individual countries have some general features that are the same across CEE, such as the collapse of the one-party system and central planning, and the general processes of democratization, marketization, and economic decline associated with the “transitory recession.” But these concepts can never be anything more than an entry point for efforts to understand the very large differences and processes of uneven development that accompany actually occurring transitions, the historical experiences of concrete individuals and regions with democracy and markets, and their chances of achieving a stabilized and functioning democratic system and marketbased economy. In this sense, the concept of path dependency developed by Stark (1992) is extremely useful for understanding these complex issues because of its sensitivity towards multiple outcomes of actually occurring transitions both in different social realms and at different geographic scales (see also Chavance and Magnin 1997; Hausner, Jessop and Nielsen 1995; Stark and Bruszt 1998; Altvater 1998:593–5). In the words of David Stark: East Central Europe must be regarded as undergoing a plurality of transitions. Across the region, we are seeing a multiplicity of distinctive strategies; within any given

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 29

country, we find not one transition but many occurring in different domains— political, economic, and social—and the temporality of these processes is often asynchronous and their articulation seldom harmonious. (Stark 1992:18; emphasis in the original) Moreover, the change taking place in CEE is not only path dependent, but also path shaping (Smith and Swain 1998:27), different countries and regions can actively influence the outcomes of the transformation in various social domains. The actual transition pathway of a particular country or a region results from a combination of path dependent constraints and path shaping transformation strategies. There is ample empirical evidence suggesting that different countries follow differential pathways from state socialism, and that the transition leads to regional fragmentation and different regional pathways within the individual countries of CEE (Smith 1995, 1996, 1998). Such detailed case studies identifying different national and regional pathways from state socialism not only point toward the importance of uneven development during the transition, but they also challenge notions of smooth and linear transitions from state socialism to capitalism. Instead, transition is seen here as an experience of spatial and temporal unevenness, highly contested struggles over resources and policies, with uncertain and in principle open outcomes (e.g. Smith 1998, Pavlínek 1997). In this respect, we need to appreciate fully the geographical and temporal variability of the transition.8 Any consideration of Nature and environment mustalso take into account geography; not merely the distributional patterns of landforms, processes, and capacities, but also the ways in which Nature, Space, and Society interact, and the ways in which environmental, regional, and social changes are related. At one level, this is a question of geographic and temporal variability and unevenness, and of geographic scale. Without a clear understanding of uneven development, geographical variability and geographic scale, analyses of post-communist transitions fail to address the social and environmental complexities of state socialist and transitional models of development. Moreover, unless we go beyond the fetishizing of the nation-state and national territory as the primary frame for understanding the processes of post-communist transitions, and include the study of transition at the regional and local scales, and the relationship of these scales, there can be no clear analysis of how environmental futures are actually being built in the actually occurring transition. But at another level, articulating environmental and social change as co-constitutive moments of transitional societies is also about constructing a theory of environmental and social change. It is to this twinned task that we now turn, and we begin it with a consideration of the role of scale in transitional societies. A political economy of geographic scale in CEE The Group of 24 industrialized countries on 10 March [1995] warned Eastern Europe that if reforms do not continue, aid will cease. (OMRI Daily Digest, 13 March 1995)

30 INTRODUCTION

In the current world-economy the crucial events that structure our lives occur at a global scale. (Taylor 1989:38) In the dominant view, localities are irrelevant in constructing transition strategies …Place, the problem of localities, is out of place in these perspectives. (Grabber and Stark 1997:16) The main argument regarding geographic scale outlined in the previous section is that most studies of the transition in CEE focus on the region as a whole or on the national level and ignore subnational levels: regions and localities. By doing that, these studies overlook not only variations at regional and local levels, but also the fact that the transition operates unevenly in space and time. Changes at the national or international level resonate differently and result in distinct effects in different parts of a country (Massey 1993). The impacts of processes that originate at the global and national scale are experienced locally. For example, the changing strategies of capital accumulation and investment in industry associated with national transitions and attempts at reintegration into the global economy are experienced at the local scale by localities in terms of laborshedding, changing relations of plants with local communities, and plant restructuring (for a more general argument see Massey 1994). This section extends the discussion of geographic scale in the transition. In it we argue that the concrete processes of transition operate at the regional and local scale result from the combination of forces operating at different scales: international, national, regional and local. The combination of these forces at the national, regional and local scales leads to nationally, regionally and locally specific transitions and pathways from state socialism. Peter Taylor (1981, 1982, 1989) has argued that the global scale is the scale at which people’s lives and their environment are organized and exploited because the process of capitalist accumulation operates through the world market at the global scale. This global characteristic of accumulation is the basic driving force behind capitalism. Therefore, for Taylor, this is the most important scale that incorporates other scales, defines their characteristics and ultimate explanations within the world system must be traced back to this scale. In a similar way, Altvater (1998:594–5) stresses the importance of global scale for understanding the processes driving the CEE transformation. However, he also emphasizes the importance of incorporation of other scales in analyses of the CEE transformations. How can Taylor’s approach inform our analysis of the transition in CEE? External political forces represented by the international financial organizations, such as the World Bank, the IMF, the EU and foreign governments certainly have been crucial in the decisions of CEE governments to pursue liberal transition strategies. External economic forces have also had important impacts as multinational corporations, for example, expand markets into the territories that have largely been previously excluded from the reach of their operations and reap the benefits of cheap labor.9 As a consequence, CEE economies have been quickly integrated into the global economy following the collapse of the CMEA and trade flows have been reorientated to Western

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 31

industrial countries.10 As a result, CEE is increasingly influenced by changing strategies of capital accumulation that operate at the global scale, and export competitiveness in certain types of products, such as resource-based products and labor-intensive low-skill manufactures, reinforces the position of CEE countries in the international division of labor (Graziani 1993).11 Illner (1994) identifies five main international actors shaping transition in postcommunist societies (specifically the case of the Czech Republic). These include: 1 the individual countries of the European Union (EU) with the strongest influence from the unified Germany 2 the Visegrad countries of Central Europe (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia) 3 Russia and Ukraine as the strongest successor states of the former Soviet Union12 4 Western supranational organization with the EU and NATO playing the most influential role13 5 multinational companies.

For Illner (ibid.) these external forces interact and combine with national forces in the individual countries to form country-specific paths from state socialism to capitalism. Thus, to this international reading of transition we need to add the study of transition at the local and regional scale. Such arguments were precisely those made in debates in Western industrial countries in the 1980s, in the wake of globalization effects, about the nature of restructuring and its impact on localities. Here geographers considered the importance of locality, not only as a site on which global processes operated, but as a complex nexus of relations operating at many scales in determining responses to global restructuring processes. Notable among these projects were the Changing Urban and Regional Systems (CURS) program, which employed a comparative historical perspective to study the impact of international and national economic restructuring on seven localities in England (Leitner 1989), and theories of the local state which became predominant in the late 1970s and in 1980s (Cockburn 1977; Duncan and Goodwin 1982a, 1982b, 1987; Duncan, Goodwin and Halford 1988; Duncan 1989; Fincher 1987, 1989). The reconstruction of local self-government is recognized as a very important element of any successful transition to a democratic market-oriented society in CEE. Developments since 1989 have shown that this is not an easy task, however. Generally, changes at the local level have proceeded at a slower pace than those at the national level (Elander and Gustafsson 1993; Jensen and Plum 1993; Clark 1993). In the Czech Republic, for example, the central state was unable to solve the political disputes about the future form of territorial administration on the regional level until 1997. The issue of regional self-government became the source of tension not only between the different political parties but also between the central and local state. While the central state wants to keep as many powers as possible allegedly to regulate the transition effectively, the local state pushes for a wide reaching decentralization and self-government on local and regional levels. In the center of the dispute are the differences between the liberals and

32 INTRODUCTION

their opponents over the role of civil society in modern democratic system (see Pavlínek 1997:324–8). Structured coherence and the study of regional transformations So far we have identified three important theoretical and conceptual issues and concerns (complexity, uneven development, and geographic scale) that we need to include and address in the study of environmental transitions in CEE. But how are we to integrate these issues into a coherent conceptual and methodological approach applicable to the study of post-communist transitions and environment? In this section, we analyze David Harvey’s (1985) concept of “structured coherence” and propose to apply it for the analysis of the regional political economy at the sub-national scale in CEE. This use of structured coherence will also allow us to integrate two important theoretical moments into the analysis of transition and the environment at the regional and local scale: regulationistresponses to productivist explanations, and dialectical explanations of the production of space and Nature. The concept of structured coherence The concept of structured coherence is based on Harvey’s analysis of urban-regional labor markets. Urban-regional markets are defined as the geographic area in which “daily exchanges and substitutions of labor power are possible” (Harvey 1985:128). The geographical extent of urban-regional markets depends upon the commuting range. Harvey (ibid.: 128) considers the urban-regional labor market to be “a unit of primary importance in the analysis of the accumulation of capital in space.” One of the important characteristics of the urban-regional labor market is, according to Harvey, that each of them is unique. He (ibid.: 135) recognizes the spatial hierarchy of labor markets (international, national, regional and urban) but stresses the primary importance of the urban labor market as a fundamental unit of analysis within this spatial hierarchy and a fundamental arena of class struggle and labor force evolution. The urban-regional labor market is also characterized by a particular technological mix and spatial configuration of fixed capital. Although capitalist development is typified by its technological and geographical dynamism which results from capitalist competition, each technological and locational change includes necessary costs that force capitalists to slow these changes to secure amortization of fixed capital and reduce production costs. These tendencies result in periods of relative technological and locational stability that goes against the logic of capitalist accumulation and therefore leads necessarily to crises that involve sudden breaks with past technological mixes and spatial configurations. These processes tend to produce, according to Harvey, “structured coherence” of an urban region: At the heart of that coherence lies a particular technological mix—understood not simply as hardware but also as organization forms—and a dominant set of social

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 33

relations. Together these define models of consumption as well as of the labor process. The coherence embraces the standard of living, the qualities and style of life, work satisfactions (or lack thereof), social hierarchies (authority structures in the workplace, status systems of consumption), and a whole set of sociological and psychological attitudes toward working, living, entertaining, and the like. (Harvey 1985:140) Duncan, Goodwin and Halford (1988) further argue that the tendency to form structured coherence is reinforced by the development of regional and local cultures and by the formation of regional power blocks. Harvey’s notion of structured coherence is related to his understanding of a “spatial fix,” which describes the social attempts to control social and economicprocesses associated with the “creative destruction” of capitalist development and to achieve temporary geographical stability (Duncan, Goodwin and Halford 1988). These attempts are typically associated with the various forms of state intervention and economic as well as social regulation and the development of state institutions at different scales (Duncan, Goodwin and Halford 1988). This is also true for structured coherence because, as Harvey (1985:143) argues, there is only a tendency to produce structured coherence and it could be achieved “only by accident” for a brief period as it is constantly undermined and disrupted by the forces of capitalist uneven development.14 The efforts to stabilize structured coherence using some combination of local, regional and national forms of regulation result in the emergence of “local spaces of regulation” (Goodwin, Duncan, and Halford 1993). Regulation theory and local/regional political economy Several authors (see Peck and Tickell 1992, 1995; Goodwin, Duncan and Halford 1993) have attempted to establish connections between regulation theory and Harvey’s concept of structured coherence as a way to address the failure of regulation theory to deal with development at the regional and local scale and with the issue of uneven development in general. For example, Peck and Tickell have argued that: If the form of accumulation system-mode of social regulation couplings is spatially variegated, then it is conceivable that a distinctive set of regional couplings exist. Regional accumulation systems, embedded within a wider spatial division of labor, presumably interact with regional and national regulatory structures in different ways, producing yet further unique regional effects. There are resonances here with Harvey’s notion of ‘structured coherence’ at the scale of the urban region. (Peck and Tickell 1992:352, emphasis in the original) By integrating structured coherence into the regulationist framework, Peck and Tickell (1992, 1995) attempt to develop a concept of uneven development at subnational scales and regional political economy situated within a broader system of national and international structures of accumulation and regulation.

34 INTRODUCTION

Along similar lines, Goodwin, Duncan and Halford argue that including Harvey’s concept of structured coherence introduces spatiality into the regulationist framework: Now, instead of regimes [of accumulation] and modes [of regulation] rather abstractly floating around in some general sense we can picture them as an ensemble of relations and institutions that are anchored in particular places at particular times…. Harvey is claiming not only that social relations and processes take spatial forms, but that within these forms some sort of coherence emerges which enables the daily reproduction and substitution of labor power. We can read such a coherence as the local objectification of anabstract mode of regulation, based on an ensemble of cultural, economic, social and political norms, as well as networks and institutions. (Goodwin, Duncan and Halford 1993:74) Goodwin, Duncan and Halford stress the central role of the local state in economic and social stabilization of structured coherence at the local scale (what they call “local spaces of regulation”). We can therefore understand structured coherence as being closely related to a regional regime of accumulation, regional mode of regulation and regional hegemonic structures including regional and local power blocs and regional and local cultures. These regional forms of accumulation, regulation and hegemonic structures are embedded within the national regime of accumulation, mode of regulation and hegemonic bloc. Structured coherence and the production of space Production means production of space and production of nature. (Altvater 1989:61) Following Lefebvre (1979, 1991) and Lipietz (1992c), we argue that social and economic processes associated with each development model produce a distinct spatial form and the environment (see also Harvey 1996:210–47). In geography, it is accepted that each development model and its accumulation strategies produce its own regional organization of economic activities (see, for example, Smith 1990; Smith and Dennis 1987; Scott and Storper 1992). Each transition between development models thus necessarily involves regional transformations including the restructuring and production of the new scale at which regions are constituted as coherent and integrated economic units. We will argue that particular economic and social processes associated with a particular structured coherence produce a distinct spatial organization of social and economic activities at the regional level that reflects the nature of these processes. Furthermore, we will contend that social and economic processes, operating at the level of the urbanregional labor market, also tend to produce their own social space, including the environment. According to Lefebvre (1991: 31, 46), every mode of production together with its specific relations of production produces (“secretes”) its own space and the

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 35

transition from one mode of production to another necessarily involves the production of a new space. We might therefore argue that each restructuring and transition of structured coherence associated with changes in a regional regime of accumulation and its regulation also entails the production of a new space. Lefebvre (ibid.: 33) introduces three concepts (what he calls a “conceptual triad”) to categorize the way each society produces its own space: 1 “Spatial practice” “embraces production and reproduction, and theparticular locations and spatial sets characteristic of each social formation.” Spatial practice produces space “slowly and surely as it masters and appropriates it” (ibid.: 38). Spatial practice is crucial for the reproduction of social relations. 2 “Representations of space” reflect and are the result of relations of production and power relations in a society. For Lefebvre this is “conceptualized space, the space of scientists, urbanists, technocratic subdividers and social engineers, as of a certain type of artists with a scientific bent—all of whom identify what is lived and what is perceived with what is conceived” (Lefebvre 1991:38). Representations of space illustrate planned and purposeful spatial transformations by the state in order to maintain existing social relations. In this way, space becomes a political instrument for the state and it is the dominant space in any society (Lefebvre 1979, 1991). In this view state intervention plays a very important role in the production of space by a particular mode of production (Lefebvre 1991:375). 3 “Representational space” is dominated space, a space experienced and lived by inhabitants and related to symbolic and historic meaning of particular places and objects (ibid.: 39). Spatial practice, representations of space and representational spaces are dialectically related and they “contribute in different ways to the production of space according to their qualities and attributes, according to the society or mode of production in question and according to the historical period” (ibid.: 46). In what follows we illustrate how social and economic processes of production and reproduction (spatial practices), and planned constructions and destructions of cities and villages allowed by existing social relations of production and power relations in the Most region under state socialism (representations of space), were two of the most important factors in the production of space and the environment in communist northern Bohemia. We argue that the development of structured coherence in the Most region resulted in the production of specific spaces typified by specific environmental practices and conditions, and that ongoing restructuring of a state socialist structured coherence in the Most region will in turn result in the production of new social spaces with their own distinctive concepts and uses of Nature. But before turning to this case study, we first turn our attention to the question of environmental degradation under state socialism and the role of environment and environmental struggle during the transition in CEE.

36

Part II Nature, risk and the legacies of state socialism

38

3 Environmental quality in Central and Eastern Europe

Introduction This chapter deals with the environmental legacy of more than forty years of state socialism in CEE. We focus on the conditions that existed in the region in the late 1980s and early 1990s before the collapse of party states and before the beginning of capitalist transitions. The effects of post-1989 transitions on the environment are discussed in Chapter Ten. An exhaustive description of environmental conditions is beyond the scope of the chapter and can be found elsewhere (e.g. Carter and Turnock 1993, Alcamo 1992c, Stanners and Bourdeau 1995). Instead, the chapter seeks to show how environmental analysis must take into account, first, the general tendencies of central planning to externalize environmental and health costs; and second, the reasons for “reform” analyses to overlook the geography of the actual environmental impacts wrought by central planning practices. Thus, this chapter seeks to clarify the ways in which environmental degradation functioned as a part of the logic of state socialism and the way in which the geographical variability of impacts itself enabled a particular kind of environmental (and anti-state) politics. On the other hand, the chapter also seeks to show how the universal experience of environmental degradation, versus actually existing state socialist geographies of difference, has functioned ideologically and politically as part of a “reform analytic.” Although in broad outline the nature of environmental degradation is similar in all countries in the region, it is the spatial and temporal variability in the way the environmental problems manifest themselves across the region that is crucial to building environmental futures. Regional environmental experts have estimated that in the early 1990s about 6–10 percent of the total territory of CEE had very poor quality of air or water and nearly 25 percent of the region had poor or very poor quality of air or water (Alcamo 1992a:30, Table 3.1). Some of the world’s most polluted urban-industrial areas were produced in CEE under state socialism, areas whose names have become synonymous with environmental violence: Katowice and Kraków provinces in Poland, the coal mining region of northern Bohemia in the Czech Republic, Horná Nitra region in Slovakia, Borsod county in Hungary, Sofia-Pernik and Maritsa-Istok regions in Bulgaria, cities Baia

40 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Mare and Cop a Mic in Romania, Obrenovac-Belgrade-Pančevo region in Serbia (Yugoslavia), and many others across the region. Following the collapse of state socialism, Western popular reports painted a gloomy picture of environmental disaster in CEE (e.g., Jensen and Wilson-Smith 1990, Borrell, Dorfman and Schoenthal 1990, Economist 1990a). But such reports have often overlooked the spatial and temporal variability of environmental conditions in CEE and have focused almost exclusively on the most environmentally devastated areas (the so-called “hot spots”). Cop a Mic , Romania, is a typical example of the “hot spot” (Map 3.1). Environmental devastation of the Cop a Mic industrial area has been caused by the chemical complex and the nonferrous metallurgical industry producing zinc, lead (two smelters), gold and silver. Every year, these industries release 12,000– 67,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide (SO2), more than 500 tonnes of lead, 400 tonnes of zinc and 4 tonnes of cadmium, 3,000 tonnes of carbon monoxide (CO), 200 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), and 3,000 tonnes of particulate matter. Air pollution by heavy metals exceeds 600 times the legal permissible maximum levels. Acid rain is devastating local forests, crops and soils. The total area affected by air pollution exceeds 180,000 hectares (ha), including 150,000 ha of polluted agricultural land, 31,000 ha of polluted forests, and 22,000 ha that are most severely damaged by air pollution. Local industries discharge their waste waters into the Tîrnava Mare River including on average 37 tonnes of lead, 639 tonnes of zinc and 37 tonnes of iron annually. Water pollution in the Tîrnava Mare River exceeds 500 times the permissible levels. As a result, its water is unsuitable for any consumption and the river cannot sustain life. The watertable in the large area surrounding Cop a Mic suffers from similar high levels of water pollution. Agricultural soils are polluted by heavy metals. The heavy metal concentrations exceed the permissible levels by 3–12 times for lead, 9–15 times for cadmium, 2–5 times for copper, and 4–5 times for sulfur. Local agriculture has been hard hit by high levels of soil pollution resulting in decreased productivity and production of food with high content of pollutants. The normal growth capacity of forests around Cop a Mic has diminished by 28–100 percent, resulting in tree dieback and annual losses of 70, 000 cu. m of timber. The species most sensitive to air pollution, such as mosses and lichens, have disappeared from the area. High pollution levels also led to loss in biodiversity as the number of animal species decreased by 50 percent. High levels of air pollution are also negatively affecting the health of 200,000 people living in the Cop a Mic region, 75,000 of them inhabiting the most environmentally devastated area. The region recorded the highest levels of infant morbidity in Romania. Other problems include lead poisoning, encephalopathy (disease of the brain), paralysis, and lung diseases. One health study investigated the impact of air pollution on the pulmonary function in 371 children from Cop a Mic aged 7–11 and compared results with a control group. The study found that 30.2 percent of exposed children had reduced lung function measured as peak expiratory flow compared with 10 percent from the control group. It found 18.1 percent of studied children from Cop a Mic had reduced lung function measured as forced expiratory capacity versus 10 percent in the control group. High lead exposure in Cop a Mic has also seriously affected neuro-behavioral responses and IQ in children in the region (based on Enache 1994:139–40, OECD 1994a:II–7).

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 41

Map 3.1 Environmental “hot spots” and areas with severe environmental degradation in Romania in the early 1990s Source: Adapted from World Bank (1992b:123) and Enache (1994:145)

“Hot” sites such as this have given rise to a widely held and publicized view of environmental devastation across CEE. There are several reasons for this tendency to generalize conditions from specific sites. First, conditions at these sites have been particularly and visibly bad. Second, data on environmental conditions have generally been available only in aggregate form or in ways that are unreliable, especially for countries such as Romania and Bulgaria. For example, based on different data sources, 1989 sulfur dioxide emissions in Romania ranged from 200 to 1,647 thousand tonnes and from 390 to 1,753 in the case of nitrogen oxide emissions (Livernash 1992:64–5, UN 1995:4–6). It is also hard to believe that nitrogen oxide emissions increased by 693 percent in 1989 compared with 1988 and then dropped by 50 percent in 1990 (UN 1995: 6). In the case of Bulgaria, previously accepted total 1989 sulfur dioxide emissions of 1, 030 thousand tonnes have been adjusted to double previous official estimates (to 2,180 thousand tonnes), putting Bulgaria in the same class as the Czech Republic and East Germany among the most polluted countries of CEE (compare Livernash 1992:64, Kabala 1991a:385 and UN 1995:4). Similarly, 1989 nitrogen oxide emission figures have been almost tripled from 150 thousandtonnes to 411 thousand tonnes (compare Livernash 1992:65 and UN 1995:6). Such wide data fluctuations make any reasonable comparisons of Romanian and Bulgarian pollution levels with other countries difficult. The data for

42 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary have been fairly consistent, however. Overall, there is much more environmental information and data available for the Visegrád countries of CEE (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) than for Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia. In general, most data have been collected in the most polluted areas and during periods with the highest levels of pollution. These are the regions where the majority of monitoring stations have been installed and operated. In the Czech Republic, for example, air quality was monitored by 195 active stations in northern Bohemia and ninetysix in northern Moravia, which are two of the most polluted regions. In less polluted southern Bohemia there were only nine monitoring stations in 1992 (Beneš and Héniková 1993:98). Slovakia had thirty-three automatic monitoring stations in the polluted regions and seven regional stations (Klinda 1995:342). Most Polish environmental information comes from heavily polluted Silesia. In Bulgaria air quality was monitored unevenly across the country, with most technical skill and apparatus being used near large population centers. In all countries, air quality is not often monitored in the areas that are believed to be relatively clean (Bobak and Feachem 1995:83). The result is over-representation of data from the most polluted areas and under-representation of information from relatively unpolluted regions. Often ignored in these accounts are the protected natural areas that still cover an estimated 30 percent of the area of CEE (REC 1994a:11) and the strong environmental ethos built up among a citizenry subjected to devastating industrial and agricultural practices and nurtured back to “health” through state organized nature clubs, vacation homes, and conservation areas. This environmental ethos sits uncomfortably alongside massive environmental degradation and suggests the need to address ambiguities in environmental outlooks and experiences, as well as the importance of geographical variability in environmental conditions throughout the region. In fact, we argue that, in order to understand how the strict mechanisms of command and control in state socialist societies in CEE led to environmental devastation on the scale they did, it is necessary also to understand how a particular dislocated environmental ethos was at work and was supported by the state through its own discourses, institutions, and practices of environmental awareness. While state enterprises polluted surrounding regions almost at will, hiking clubs, birding associations, fishing groups, sport associations, gardening clubs, and other state supported nature clubs formed complex networks and associations of outdoor recreational and environmental groups which in turn sustained a deep ethos of Nature among large parts of the population. In making this argument we do not seek to be apologists trying to explain away the environmental degradations of state socialism and central planning. But we do need to be able to explain what environmental discourses, institutions, and practices were present, and how Nature was located within the broader political economy of central planning. Even in the most polluted areas the worst conditions of dangerously high levels of air pollution did not occur on an everyday basis, but were usually limited to periods of temperature inversion during the winter months, typically accounting for only about 5–10 percent of the time within a normal year (Alcamo 1992b:10). In measures of sulfur dioxide (SO2) concentrations—notoriously bad in hot spots—there were important

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 43

seasonal, monthly and daily variations. Mean seasonal sulfur dioxide concentrations usually vary three- to fivefold in East Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. These numbers increased up to tenfold during individual months, mainly because of the burning of low quality coal during the heating season. The daily range of sulfur dioxide concentrations also fluctuated up to tenfold (Rovinski 1992:74). Finally, the rhetoric of environmental devastation must also be seen in the context of an international geopolitics of anti-communism and later of “normalization.” In this politics, claims about moral bankruptcy, environmental violence, and health risk have been both part of a politics of overcoming (of liberation and “post-colonialism”) and a partisan politics of party and personal ambition. As we have already seen, Bulgaria adjusted its pollution figures up precisely in order to be ranked in the upper echelon of CEE polluting countries at a time when there was strong competition for “environmental dollars” to support reform and remediation. World Bank and IMF negotiations with the Bulgarian government in the early 1990s were, in fact, carried out with the participation of teams of experts from the US Environmental Protection Agency; and in the wake of the Rio Conference and strong international criticism of the World Bank’s environmental record, Bulgarian environmental reform became a central element of structural adjustment negotiations and policies, and of the broader geopolitics of reform. Environmental degradation in CEE and Western industrial countries How did environmental degradation in CEE in the late 1980s and early 1990s compare with the situation in Western Europe and other industrialized regions? Various reports suggest that the environmental situation in CEE was comparable with conditions in parts of Western Europe or the United States before environmental clean-up began there in the 1960s and 1970s (Hughes 1991:121; Dominick 1998:316–7).1 Even in the 1980s, the major cities of CEE recorded concentrations of particulate matter comparable with Western European cities, and Athens recorded higher average annual concentrations than any city in the region including Prague, Zagreb and Bucharest, the most polluted CEE capitals. With the exception of Prague and Zagreb, all major CEE cities recorded average sulfur dioxide concentrations below EC standards and comparable with Western European cities in the 1980s (Hughes 1991:111–15; Juhasz and Ragno 1993:34; Stanners and Bourdeau 1995:30–2, 266). The environmental situation in the city of Ostrava, the center of heavy industry in the Czech Republic, has been compared to that of Pittsburgh in the 1940s (Wheelwright 1996:57). The city of Katowice was one of the most polluted cities of Poland, with maximum twenty-four-hourambient concentration of black smoke in the winter exceeding EU standards by more than six times, placing Katowice on a par with the famous London smogs of 1952 (OECD 1994a:II–7), and other major air pollution episodes in major cities such as New York and Osaka in the 1950s and 1960s (Elsom 1992:26). Even acid rain and tree die-back—perhaps among the most visible images of state socialist air pollution—have not been unique to the most polluted areas of CEE; in Sudbury, Canada, for example, no trees grew within a ten-mile radius around the Inco smelter until it was shut down in the late 1970s (Wallich 1990: 16), and in the late

44 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

1970s and mid 1980s acid rain was higher in West Germany and Sweden than in Czechoslovakia and Poland, two of the most polluted countries of CEE (Hughes 1991: 117). Severe water pollution of CEE rivers has also been comparable to pollution of Western European rivers such as the Rhine and the Thames twenty or thirty years ago (OECD 1994a:II–12). Hughes (1991:120) even argues that pollution problems of CEE rivers are probably less severe than for Western European rivers passing through major urban and industrial areas ten to twenty years ago. The Danube and Tisza rivers in Hungary are less polluted by fecal bacteria than other rivers in Europe, such as the Rhine in the Netherlands or the Tejo in Portugal (Hughes 1991:119), and the Danube has significantly lower annual mean nitrate concentrations compared with the Rhine (Hock and Somlyódy 1990:83). Western popular reports have also tended to exaggerate the environmental situation in CEE. For example, Light (1991:51) argued that air pollution in the city of Most in the Czech Republic was so bad that elderly people and babies were advised not leave their homes on about 120 days each year, that local brown coal had up to 20 percent sulfur content, and that coal with up to 7 percent sulfur content was officially mined. There is no doubt that the city of Most and its vicinity is one of the most environmentally devastated areas not only in the Czech Republic but in Europe as a whole. But data from the Most District indicates that the total number of days during which the twenty-fourhour sulfur dioxide concentrations exceeded the maximum of 150 µg/m3 set by the Czechoslovak government was only eighty-five between 1980 and 1989, that there were three years during which the maximum twenty-four-hour sulfur dioxide concentrations were exceeded (fifteen days in 1980, fifty-five in 1982 and fifteen in 1989) (Švec and Kučerová 1993a:31) (see Table 5.4), and that the average sulfur content of brown coal in dry substance of coal mined by the Most Coal Company oscillated between 1.1 percent and 2.0 percent in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Moreover, at least one deep mine producing high sulfur coal (about 3 percent) was closed in 1993 explicitly for this reason (Privatization Project 1992:7).2 Environmental quality in CEE Comparison of environmental quality among the different countries of CEE in the late 1980s is difficult because environmental data is often of questionable quality, if it is available at all. But this is also an important opportunity for a critical analysis of environmental politics. In Chapter Nine we deal with thistheme in more detail, when we consider how data and information were part of a political economy of totalitarian power, and how they are currently an important part of the political economy of transformation and reform. Rankings of the severity of environmental problems in individual countries have often been carried out without revealing the criteria used (e.g. Russell 1990:2–3). In one case, experts from CEE were asked to grade the quality of the environment in regions in their respective countries based on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and European Monitoring and Evaluation Program (EMEP) grid scale. The percentage of territory assigned the worst two grades in the individual

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 45

countries is summarized in Table 3.1. Based on these experts’ judgements, Czechoslovakia had the largest territory relative to its size suffering with severe air and water pollution, while Hungary had the smallest proportion of its territory with badly polluted air, and Yugoslavia had the smallest territory with worst water pollution relative to its size. Air pollution The northern part of CEE, including Poland and the Czech Republic (and also East Germany) suffers from more severe environmental problems across larger areas than the rest of the region. This area was traditionally more industrialized (especially the northern half of the Czech Republic and the southern parts of Poland and the East Germany) and it relied on coal for much of its energy needs. East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland derived 69 percent of their energy from coal in 1989 while Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania derived only 24 percent (Russell 1990:8). Air pollution problems were particularly bad in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, where low quality brown coal, or lignite, with high ash and sulfur content and low heating value was used to produce most of their electricity and heat. In Czechoslovakia, coal provided 55 percent of energy needs in 1989 and 78 percent of electricity (Russell 1990:8, Statistická ročenka Československé socialistické republiky 1989:394), while polluting brown coal accounted for 70–8 percent of coal used in the thermal production of electricity between 1970 and 1985 (World Bank 1992a:18). East Germany depended almost totally on lignite for energy production, lacking significant hard coal deposits and with a nuclear power industry inadequate to the supply of electricity needs. Despite the fact that the nuclear power plant at Lubmin (Nord 1–4) came online between 1974 and 1979 (Mounfield 1991:132), approximately 85 percent of East German electricity was derived from lignite in 1989 (Elsom 1992:303). The problem was exacerbated by the fact that power plants were not equipped to remove sulfur dioxide and other gases from their emissions. Scrubbers, which removed up to 98 percent of ashes and particulate matter were installed in most coal-fired power Table 3.1 Percent of area in the two worst categories of environmental quality

Source: Alcamo (1992b:30)

46 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Plate 3.1 Pollution dispersal efforts in the 1980s resulted in the building of high smokestacks throughout CEE. Tušimice power plant in the region of northern Bohemia, Czech Republic

plants, but other emissions were dealt with by dispersal from high stacks (Plate 3.1). High stack emissions mitigated extreme air pollution problems in the vicinity of power plants but caused environmental degradation in more distant regions and countries. In addition to power plants, industrial enterprises burned coal for heating. Large factories often had scrubbers to control the emissions of particulate matter but few installed desulfurization equipment.3 Small and medium-sized industrial enterprises had no control over their solid and gaseous emissions. Unlike power plants, however, industrial enterprises had low stacks and thus their polluting effects were concentrated more directly on the towns in their immediate vicinity. In areas such as Silesia in Poland, northern Bohemia in the Czech Republic, and Saxony in former East Germany, high concentrations of such enterprises resulted in high levels of air pollution in heavily industrialized regions. For example, 46 percent of soot and dust emissions in Katowice, Poland came from industrial enterprises (OECD 1994a:II–6). These problems were greatly aggravated in winter months by local household and utility heating, which also used low-grade coal without emission controls. In Poland in 1989, 76 percent of energy requirements was derived from coal (Russell 1990:8), most of which was hard coal. However, higher quality coal was usually exported to the West while lower quality coal with higher sulfur and ash content was consumed locally.4 Although hard coal produces considerably less sulfur dioxide and particulate matter than lignite, almost total dependence on this energy source for electricity generation, centralized residential heating, heavy industry and local heating resulted in

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 47

dangerous air pollution levels in the more industrialized and urbanized regions of Upper and Lower Silesia in the south. Overall, by 1991 it was estimated that about half of Poland was seriously affected by air pollution (Marshall 1991:856). Compared with Poland and Czechoslovakia, Hungary was able to restructure its energy production away from coal and thus avoid the high levels of air pollution experienced in former East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The dominant role of coal was gradually reduced by oil, natural gas and nuclear power. By 1987, electricity produced in the Paks nuclear power plant accounted for 38 percent, coal for 31 percent, and oil and natural gas for about 30 percent of Hungary’s electricity production. Less than 1 percent of electricity was produced in hydroelectric power stations (Várkonyi and Kiss 1990:62). A comparatively successful diversification of energy production resulted in a 33 percent decline in average annual sulfur dioxide emissions between 1980 and 1989 (UN 1995:4). As in the case of East Germany and Czechoslovakia, coal based power plants traditionally relied on brown coal and lignite (90 percent of coal mined) (Vukovich 1990:31), but such coal-fired power plants were concentrated in the coal mining regions of the Transdanubian basin and in the northern Mátra mountains. These areas consequently became the major industrial areas suffering from high sulfur dioxide pollution and forest dieback. Compared to its northern neighbors, the total area of Hungary suffering with air pollution was much smaller, with 11 percent of Hungarian territory affected by air pollution in the late 1980s. However, these were densely populated areas, containing more than 44 percent of the population of the country (Várkonyi and Kiss 1990:51) Overall, East Germany, Czechoslovakia (especially the Czech Republic), Poland, Hungary, and also Bulgaria (based on recently updated data) recorded the highest average sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides (NOX) atmospheric concentrations on their territories in CEE (Maps 3.2, 3.3, Table 3.2). The spatial pattern of atmospheric sulfur dioxide concentrations resulted from the geographical distribution of emission sources and predominantly eastward drift of long range transport (Rovinski 1992:74). Peak sulfur dioxide air pollution levels were consistently recorded in areas close to the CzechGerman-Polish border, which consequently was known locally as the “black triangle” (also called the “sulfur triangle” or “Bermuda triangle of pollution”) (see Maps 3.2–3.4). This “triangle” probably had the highest concentration of brown coalpower plants in the world (Marquardt, Brüggemann and Heintzenberg 1996: 215). In the late 1980s, the “black triangle” emitted about 3 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide annually, accounting for 20 percent of the total European sulfur dioxide emissions (Nowicki 1993:22, 106), with concentrations declining south and southeast from the “black triangle.”5 Environmental devastation associated with opencast mining and the burning of low quality brown coal was not limited to East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia experienced similar problems, albeit on much smaller scales because of their lower reliance on brown coal forenergy production: lower concentrations of heavy industries and less reliance on coal for electricity and heat production resulted in lower levels of air pollution across smaller areas. More common in countries such as Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and now the independent republics of Yugoslavia, is air pollution from point sources in the cities and around local power plants and industrial enterprises. Examples include large chemical factories in the Burgas and

48 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Map 3.2 Air pollution by sulfur dioxide in 1988 Source: Adapted from Institute of Geography (1991)

Varna-Devnya regions (Bulgaria), nonferrous metallurgical plants in Baia Mare and Cop a Mic (Romania), steelworks in Zenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina), a lead and zinc refinery in T.Mitrovica (Serbia), a large smelting facility in Titov Veles (Macedonia), and the copper smelter in Lac (Albania) (Plates 3.2 and 3.3).

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 49

Map 3.3 Air pollution by nitrogen dioxide and acidity of precipitation in Europe in 1988 Source: Adapted from Institute of Geography (1991)

Automobiles Motor vehicles were also important sources of air pollution under state socialism, especially in large urban areas. In the early 1980s, transport’s share of total emissions in Czechoslovakia contributed 40 percent of carbon monoxide, 33 percent of hydrocarbons, 22 percent of nitrogen oxides, 11 percent of solid emissions, 6 percent of sulfur dioxide and 25 percent of other gases (Straškraba et al. 1992:87). Although total vehicle ownership per capita was significantly lower than in Western Europe, it grew rapidly during the 1980s. For example, the total number of vehicles in use almost doubled in

50 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Map 3.4 The “black triangle” Source: Adapted from Nowicki (1993:106)

Poland between 1980 and 1989 (plus 93 percent) and it grew by 75 percent in Hungary, 55 percent in Romania, 46 percent in Bulgaria, and 37 percent in Czechoslovakia (OECD 1993:27, 1994a:II–18). This rapid growth in the number of vehicles contributed to growing air pollution in urban areas in the 1980s. In fact, in general, cars in CEE were responsible for more pollution than cars in the West despite the fact that they were fewer in number and were driven fewer miles (in 1990 there were between 207 cars per 1,000 people in Czechoslovakia on top and 61 in Romania at the bottom compared with 330 in OECD European countries (OECD 1994a: II–17)). Before the 1990s, virtually all vehicles used leaded gasoline. They were also much older than cars in the West, they were poorly maintained, and many had two-stroke engines which emitted about one hundred times more exhaust fumes than an average car in the West equipped with a catalytic converter (Byrne 1993:55). In the early 1990s, East Germany alone had about 3. 5 million two-stroke engine cars (Plate 3.4). Two-stroke engine cars accounted for 9 percent of vehicles driven in Poland, 30 percent in Hungary and 15 percent in Bulgaria. Overall, motor vehicles contributed less than 5 percent of total sulfur dioxide emissions and less than 10 percent of particulates, but they contributed 30–60 percent of nitrogen oxides, between 40 percent and 90 percent of carbon monoxide emissions, and between 35–95 percent of lead emissions in CEE countries (OECD 1994a:II–19). In Poland, for example, motor vehicles accounted for about 30–40 percent of the emissions of carbon

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 51

Table 3.2 Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions, 1989

Notes: * Estimated emissions ** 1987–91 average Sources: United Nations (1995:4–6), Livernash (1992:64–5)

monoxide, hydrocarbons, oxides of nitrogen and lead in the early 1990s (Livernash 1992: 65). Transboundary pollution Air pollution problems affecting large rural areas outside the urban-industrial concentrations in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were further aggravated by the long-range transboundary pollution of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals and other pollutants. Although the estimates of transboundary pollution for CEE fluctuate wildly, it has been considered a serious environmental problem for almost thirty years (compare Alcamo 1992d: 94–5; Nowicki 1993:106, 110; Moldan 1990:60; FCE 1992:62; Klinda 1995: 171–2). Bulgaria, former Czechoslovakia, and Hungary signed the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution which called for a 30 percent drop in sulfur dioxide emissions by 1993 from a 1980 base; East Germany and the FSU signed the treaty in 1984 but Poland and Romania did not (Lang 1991:127, Schreiber 1991:140). Under normal weather conditions and without rainfall only about 8–21 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions are deposited within a 70-kilometer radius from their source. The rest is transported longer distances that can reach up to 2,000 kilometers in the case of pollutants emitted by high-level sources such as power plants and smelters. The distance from source at which other pollutants settle depends on their relative weight. Relatively heavy pollutants such as soot particles settle more quickly compared with light ones, differentially affecting the areas and population close to the emission sources. The main direction of transboundary pollution in Europe is from the west to the east because of the prevalence of western winds. However, because of the higher emission levels in CEE,

52 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Plate 3.2 Neftochim petrochemical combinat (Burgas, Bulgaria)

Western Europe received almost twice as much sulfur from CEE in 1985 (870,000 tonnes) than the other way round (463,000 tonnes) (Alcamo 1992d:93), and even greater levels of pollution went east. For example, in 1989 Poland sent 637,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide across its eastern border to the FSU while it received only 21,000 tonnes from the opposite direction. At the same time, it received 662,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide across its western border from the East Germany but sent there only 59,000 tonnes (Nowicki 1993:106). As a result, a high proportion of specific deposition (t/km2) of sulfur and other pollutants originated abroad even though each of the CEE countries was a significant source of transboundary pollution (Map 3.5). In the case of Romania it was estimated that 91 percent of its sulfur and 84 percent of its nitrogen oxide depositions per square kilometer originated abroad in 1985 (Table 3.3). The effects of long-range and transboundary pollution can be devastating inareas located outside major urban-industrial concentrations. For example, the forests of the Sudeten Mountains located on the Czech-Polish border east of the “black triangle” and outside the coal mining and industrial regions experienced massive tree deaths in the 1980s. More than 50 percent of sulfur deposited in the Giant Mountains (Krkonoše in Czech, Karkonosze in Polish) on the Czech side of the border originated outside the Czech Republic, mostly from East German and Polish power plants in the “black triangle” and about 25 percent came from north Bohemian power plants (Figure 3.1). Similar cases could be observed across the region. For example, Poland reported a 50 percent increase in damaged forests between 1971 and 1989, 37,000 ha of severely damaged forests, and 13,000 hectares of dead forests on its side of the Sudeten mountains (Wierzbicka and Michalak 1993:248, Nowicki 1993:22). Eighty-three percent of East Germany’s forests

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Plate 3.3 The plume of smoke from the Neftochim petrochemical refinery drifts over the entire region across a thirty-mile or more radius, with day-night reversals of wind at the coast (Burgas, Bulgaria)

were damaged by air pollution by 1988 (37 percent dying), up from only 12 percent in 1980 (Russell 1990:12). Case study: air pollution in the Czech Republic The Czech Republic is one of the most polluted countries in Europe. In the 1980s it ranked second after East Germany in sulfur dioxide emissions and first in nitrogen oxide emissions per capita and per square unit of its territory (Table 3.2). As in other European countries, air pollution has been a long term problem, related to the crucial role of coal during the Industrial Revolution (which occurred in the Czech Republic roughly between 1800 and the late 1860s). The first instances of local tree damage from air pollution were recorded in northern Bohemia before the communist takeover in 1948, but forest dieback did not start to spread on massive scale in the Krušné hory (Ore Mountains) until the late 1950s (Moldan 1990:159). Post-1948 socialist industrialization of Slovakia and the less developed regions of the Czech Republic was based on rapidly increased production of coal for electricity generation and the construction of coal-fired power plants in the coal mining regions. As a result, sulfur dioxide emissions doubled in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s and more than tripled between 1950 and 1975 (FCE 1992:17). Since then sulfur dioxide emissions have declined steadily (Figure 3.2). The total volume of all gaseous emissions doubled from 1960 to 1980, then stabilized and began to decline during the 1980s (World Bank 1992a: 11). In the Czech Republic, sulfur dioxide emissions peaked in 1982 at 2,387 thousand tonnes (UN 1995:4). Emissions of other pollutants such as

54 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Plate 3.4 East German Trabant in Budapest, Hungary

Map 3.5 Transboundary pollution in Central Europe, 1985 Source: Data from Alcamo (1992d:95)

nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and solid emissions also began to decline in the 1980s (Figure 3.3). There are several reasons for these declines. Contrary to popular beliefs in the West, state socialist governments were well aware of the rapidly deteriorating quality of the environment and sought solutions to arrest degradation. As we have already seen, in the

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Table 3.3 Sulfur and nitrogen oxides deposition in CEE from foreign sources, 1985

Source: Moldan (1990:58)

Figure 3.1 Sources of sulfur deposited on the Czech side of the Krkonoše Mountains in the 1980s Source: Data, Kurfürst et al. (189:11)

1960s a policy of “high smokestacks” was adopted to decrease solid and gaseous depositions near power plants and large industrial enterprises. These policies were partially successful, but the dispersion of pollution from high smokestacks affected distant areas previously unaffected by air pollution and contributed to increased transboundary pollution. In the 1960s scrubbers removing the majority of particulate matter from the emissions were installed in power plants, leading to dramatic declines in solid emissions and deposition in the heavily industrialized regions such as the Ostrava region in northern Moravia and the coal mining region of northern Bohemia. Attempts to install desulfurization equipment based on the Soviet and East German technology failed in the 1980s. Another policy sought to reduce air pollution from power plants by diversifying energy production and shifting from coal to different fuels. All CEE countries launched controversial programs for building nuclear power plants based on Soviet technology, but these programs were launched too late to prevent the worst air pollution. The first

56 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Figure 3.2 Development of sulfur dioxide emissions in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic and Slovakia after 1992), 1950–98 Source: Data, FCE (1992:17), MOE (1998:119), ČHMÚ (1999), SHMÚ (1999)

nuclear power plant in Czechoslovakia was built in Jaslovské Bohunice, Slovakia, in the 1970s and launched between 1979 and 1986. The second one was built in Dukovany, Czech Republic, in the 1980s and launched between 1985 and 1987. By 1988, 18 percent of the Czech Republic’s electricity was produced in the Dukovany nuclear power plant, while 78 percent was produced in coal-based power plants and 3 percent in water power stations (Statistická ročenka Československé socialistické republiky 1989:394). Even then, about 60 percent of electricity was still produced from brown coal. Before its collapse, the Czechoslovak communist government initiated construction of two additional nuclear power plants, one located in the Czech Republic (Temelín, Southern Bohemia) and the second one in Western Slovakia (Mochovce). Construction on both has continued since 1989, despite continuous opposition from neighboring Austria. Finally, a series of relatively mild winters, demanding less heating and consequently lower emissions, contributed to the decline in emissions in the second half of the 1980s. As a result of all these factors, sulfur dioxide emissions declined by 16 percent between 1982 and 1989. Solid emissions declined by 34 percent between 1985 and 1989. At the same time, emissions of nitrogen oxides actually increased by 12 percent as car traffic and car ownership increased (World Bank 1992a:16–17, MoE 1993:57) (Figure 3.3). Power plants and heating plants burning low-quality brown coal were the largest source of sulfur dioxide emissions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In Czechoslovakia as a whole they accounted for about 80 percent of all sulfur dioxide emissions. Household heating contributed by about 7 percent. In the Czech Republic large sources of pollution (defined as fuel combustion that is equal to or greater than five megawatts) accounted for 87 percent of the total sulfur dioxide emissions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The ten largestsources produced 35 percent and fifty largest sources 58 percent of these emissions. Combustion processes accounted for 93 percent of the total sulfur dioxide emissions, followed by metallurgy (4 percent) and chemical production (2.5 percent).

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Figure 3.3 Air pollution trends in the Czech Republic in the 1980s Source: Data from UN (1995:4, 6, 14); World Bank (1992a:15); MoE (1993:57, 1994:23)

Eighty percent of sulfur dioxide emissions were released from smokestacks higher than 100 meters (World Bank 1992a:14). The bulk of brown coal mined in northwestern Bohemia is burnt in local power plants. These are located relatively close to one another, and this density of sources has resulted in extremely high levels of air pollution in the region. For example, there are four large power plants located within a 13-kilometer radius of one another (Prunéřov I, Prunéřov II, Tušimice I, Tušimice II) (Plate 3.5). This is the second largest source of sulfur dioxide emissions in Europe and it releases 500,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide annually (World Bank 1992a:14). Not surprisingly, this region of northern Bohemia has continuously recorded the highest levels of sulfur dioxide pollution in the Czech Republic (Table 3.4). There is significant geographical variability within the Czech Republic in levels of sulfur dioxide emissions per square kilometer (Map 3.6). For example, emissions of northern Bohemia were more than twenty times higher than in southern Bohemia and more than

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Plate 3.5 High smokestacks of four large power plants (Prunéřov 1, Prunéřov 2, Tušimice 1, Tušimice 2) located in close proximity in northern Bohemia, Czech Republic Table 3.4 Sulfur dioxide emissions in the Czech Republic by region, 1985–9 (in tonnes/ sq. km annually)

Source: MoE (1993:58)

ten times higher than in southern Moravia. Similar geographical variability exists with regard to NOx pollution: emissions per square kilometer were more than twenty times higher in Prague than in southern Bohemia and almost fifteen times higher than in southern Moravia in 1989 (Maps 3.7 and 3.8). Besides regional pollution problems such as those in northern Bohemia, there are also important point source air pollution problems in urban centers and around different industries and power plants. Prague, for example, recorded the largest pollution per square kilometer in all observed pollutants except sulfur dioxide (nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and solid emissions) (MoE 1993:58).

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 59

High levels of sulfur dioxide pollution and acid rain have severely damaged large areas of forest, particularly in the mountains of the “black triangle” and increasingly throughout the entire northern half of the Czech Republic. The 1970s and 1980s saw a dramatic expansion of forest areas affected by pollution emissions from domestic as well as foreign sources (from East Germany and Poland in particular) (Figure 3.4, Table 3.5). Forest damage in some mountainous regions such as Krušné hory (Ore Mountains) in northwestern Bohemia and Jizerské hory in northern Bohemia reached catastrophic proportions. Large areas of these mountains located above the elevation of approximately 800 meters have been completely deforested by air pollution. Other forested regions such as Krkonoše in northeastern Bohemia have also been severely damaged. The pace of forest destruction has accelerated. While it took fifteen to twenty years for the climatically exposed forests of the Krušné hory to die from its beginning in the late 1950s, the same process lasted ten to fifteen years in the Jizerské hory and Krkonoše mountains, and only seven to ten years in the Orlické hory of north-eastern Bohemia. After a blast of arctic air in the winter of 1978–9, forests in parts of the Beskydy mountains in northern Moravia suddenly began to die off, unable to sustain extreme weather conditions after having been weakened by long-term air pollution (Moldan 1990:159). By the 1990s, more than 60 percent of all forests had been damaged by pollution. To date more than 50,000 ha of dead forest have been cleared, and about 1,000 ha is currently being deforested each year (MoE 1993:30) (Plate 3.6).

Water pollution Water quality also deteriorated rapidly under state socialism. By the 1980s serious water pollution was a major environmental problem in all CEE countries, negatively affecting the economic performance and daily lives of millions of people. Water quality was particularly bad in Poland where, along with countries such as Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and FYR Macedonia, water pollution was considered to be a more pressing environmental issue than air pollution (REC 1994b:16, 39, 45, 61). Heavy industry releasing heavy metals and toxic chemicals, high biochemical oxygen demand levels that cause low dissolved oxygen concentrations, bacterial contamination, high nitrogen and phosphorus levels caused by agricultural practices, and high salinity all pose problems for water quality (Novotny and Somlyódy 1995:2). Heavily polluted rivers have also contributed significantly to increased pollution in the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas, and heavy metal pollution of the Polish Baltic Sea coast by zinc, cadmium, lead, silver and phosphorus has been well documented (Szefer et al. 1996:2723–54). Bacteriological contamination of the Baltic coast in Poland was so bad that the authorities were compelled to close the beaches in the Gda sk region and other Polish beach resorts in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Kramer 1987:156; Makinia, Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:29). As with air pollution, large scale pollution of primary rivers began to occur during the industrialization drives of the 1950s and 1960s when newly built factories began to discharge their wastewater directly into rivers with insufficient, if any, treatment. Increased contamination of surface and underground water resources also contributed to

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Map 3.6 Sulfur dioxide emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989 Source: Adapted from Geografický ústav ČSAV and Federální výbor pro životní prostředí (1992:8–2)

serious water shortages as many rivers became so polluted that their water was unsuitable even for industrial use. By the late 1980s, however, despite this evidence of neglect only a few rivers were believed to be biologically “dead” and general levels of river pollution were considered to be less severe than those of the most polluted rivers in industrial regions of Western Europe up to twenty to thirty years ago (OECD 1994a:II–12). Groundwater resources experienced a similar fate. Untreated sewage, overuse of fertilizers and pesticides in rural areas, and petroleum leaks led to large scale contamination of underground water resources throughout CEE (Plates 3.7 and 3.8). In Poland, for example, 66 percent of rural and 54 percent of urban residential wells had undrinkable water in 1989 (Nowicki 1993:24). It is believed that about 35 percent of the population of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania is exposed to nitrate pollution which can have potentially detrimental health effects. In Romania only two out of forty-one districts did not record elevated nitrate levels in local water supplies and in Hungary more than 1,000 out of 3,200 communities had their drinking water supplies contaminated by nitrates. However, nitrate contamination of agricultural soils is still considered to be lower in CEE than in many regions of Western Europe (OECD 1994a: II–13–14; Salay 1990:23). Into the 1980s it was common for even large citieswith more than 100,000 residents not to have any wastewater treatment facilities and instead to discharge their raw sewage directly into rivers. In 1985 in the Czech Republic alone

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 61

Map 3.7 Nitrogen oxides emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989 Source: Adapted from Geografický ústav ČSAV and Federální výbor pro životní prostředí (1992:8–1)

there were almost 5,000 registered water pollution sources (Vitha et al. 1989:38). A number of treatment plants were built in the region in the 1970s and 1980s reducing the flow of untreated industrial and municipal effluents discharged into surface waters. State socialist governments were even willing to shut down some polluters if it was cheaper than building wastewater treatment facilities, as the closure of the pulp mills at Hostinné and Vratimov in the Czech Republic in the 1980s illustrates (Vitha et al. 1989:37).6 In the 1980s, the largest areas (relative to country size) with very poor and poor water quality were in Czechoslovakia, Poland and then Romania, and the smallest areas of polluted waters (relative to country size) were in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Hungary (Table 3.1). Based on the information compiled using strict country norms, 75 percent of monitored length of Bulgarian rivers exceeded pollution norms in the late 1980s (Sadovski 1992:108), 61 percent of the length of Romanian rivers was polluted, including 5 percent (3,700 km) that was completely polluted (Ognean and V dineanu 1992:246), 99 percent of the total length of Polish rivers was polluted (Land 1993:12), 70 percent of the length of Czechoslovak rivers was heavily polluted and 27 percent of total river length was assigned the worst category incapable of sustaining fish (World Bank 1992a:II–42). Using the ratio of polluted river length to total river length, Novotny and Somlyódy (1995:1) have suggested a different ranking, with the worst situations being in Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria, with these three countries each having more than half of their total

62 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Figure 3.4 Forest damage in the Czech Republic Source: HN (1995a:9)

monitored river lengths in the worst water quality class. The situation in Bulgaria is compounded by a climate with generally low water regimes and recent periodic and severe droughts (Knight and Staneva 1996). The impact of water pollution was also exacerbated by the inefficient use of existing water resources. Compared with parts of Western Europe water consumption and water wastage were high under state socialism, about three to five times higher than comparable levels of consumption of water per unit of national output in Western Europe (Makinia, Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:27). For instance, fresh water consumption per capita was 56 percent higher in the Czech Republic than in the neighboring Bavaria, and it was twice as much in Prague compared to Vienna in 1985 (Vitha et al. 1989:32, 34). A large percentage of water continues to be lost during distribution to municipal users because of old and inefficient water supply systems. Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia have increased their water withdrawal by more than 20 percent in the 1970s and 1980s, although overall withdrawal per capita in 1990 was still significantly lower than that of Western Europe (51 percent of the Western European level in the Czech Republic, 54 percent in Poland, 59 percent in Slovakia, and 80 percent in Hungary) (OECD 1993: 28).7

Case study: water pollution in Poland and Hungary Water pollution in Poland has been described as catastrophic (Russell 1991:2). By 1967 class I water (drinkable after disinfection) was present in only 33 percent of the total length of monitored rivers. By 1986 the total length of rivers in this class had declined to only 4 percent (Livernash 1992:64, Land 1993:12) and by 1987 water classified in class I accounted for only 0.9 percent of the total river course length in the country. (See Table 3.6.) The situation was even worse with regard to lakes, where water of quality class I was completely absent in the late 1980s (Ekono 1990:5), but improved to 8

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 63

Map 3.8 Solid emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989 Source: Adapted from Geografický ústav ČSAV and Federální výbor pro životní prostředí (1992:8–2) Table 3.5 Forest damage in the Czech Republic by region, 1970–2000 (% of forested areas)

Source: Vavroušek et al. (1989:73)

percent among 104 lakes monitored (out of more than 9,000) by 1989–90 (Makinia, Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:28). In 1987, 42 percent of the surface water was virtually unusable even for industrial purposes, which represented a substantial increase from 23 percent in 1967 (Livernash 1992:64, Marshall 1991:856). As in other countries in the region, the most important contaminants of surface water are industrial wastes and sewage. In the late 1980s about 40 percent of industrial wastewater was released directly into rivers without any treatment and at least one-third

64 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Plate 3.6 Dead forest in the Ore Mountains of northern Bohemia, Czech Republic Source: Štýs and Helešicová (1992:21). Reprinted with permission

of municipal sewage was discharged without any treatment (Marshall 1991:856, Nowicki 1993:22, OECD 1994a). In 1987, only 34 percent of municipal and industrial wastewater requiring treatment was treated mechanically, 6 percent chemically and 22 percent biologically (Ekono 1990:5). The country had insufficient wastewater treatment plants and most of the existing ones were inefficient. Only 56 percent of towns and cities (459) had sewage treatment facilities in 1988, including 35 percent (292) with only mechanicalbiological plants. The remaining 44 percent of towns and cities (366) discharged their

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 65

Plate 3.7 Waste products (including phenols) from Neftochim petrochemical refinery (Bulgaria) are “filtered” through a system of seven open lakes next to Burgas Bay and Burgas harbor. From the first lake (bottom right) pontoon boats skim off thick oils into barrels and the “clean” water flows under gravity into the second settling pond. Asbestos lined oil containers lie around on the banks of the settling ponds

sewage into rivers without any treatment, including large cities such as Łód with more than 1,000,000 inhabitants, and Białistok and Radom with more than 200,000 inhabitants each. Over two-thirds of Warsaw’s municipal wastewater was discharged directly into the Vistula River (Roman 1992:176; Nowicki 1993: 22; Makinia, Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:29). The situation was even worse in rural areas, where only 2 percent of villages had wastewater treatment facilities (Makinia, Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:30). The discharge of highly saline wastewater from Upper Silesian coal mines is a water quality problem specific to Poland. Excess salinity not only reduces self-purification processes in rivers, but such water is also highly corrosive if used for industrial or municipal purposes. During the 1980s the amount of salt discharged to surface waters doubled, reaching 9,000 tonnes a day or 720,000 cu.m. of saline wastewater per day from eightythree discharge points (Makinia, Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:30, Rybicka 1996:4).8 The productivity costs of these discharges account for 0.5–0.8 percent of GDP losses in Poland (OECD 1994a:II–14). The Vistula and Odra rivers, two largest Polish rivers, became badly polluted in the 1970s and 1980s. Contamination of the Vistula’s waters peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when all of its monitored waters were classified in the worst category or were so bad as to be out of the range of the contamination measures (Makinia, Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:28). In the early 1980s, the Vistula’s water was even found to have been

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Plate 3.8 Groundwater contamination has been a major problem throughout CEE. Here workmen replace a broken pipeline whose break had lain undiscovered for nearly three weeks (Bourgas, Bulgaria) Table 3.6 River pollution in Poland, 1964–89 (%)

Source: Carter (1993a:113)

unsuitable for industrial use along more than 80 percent of its total length (Kramer 1987: 155, Rosenbladt 1993:58). In Hungary, water pollution is also serious and here is considered to be the most serious environmental problem facing the country. A regular water quality monitoring system of surface waters composed of 323 sampling sites was established in 1968 (Vigh 1994:19). The Hungarian system of grading water quality is based on five classes: excellent, good, acceptable, polluted and highly polluted water. As in other countries of

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 67

CEE, inadequate sewage treatment, the extensive use of fertilizers, the improper storage of cattle and pig manure, industry and transboundary water flow resulted in considerable water pollution (Salay 1990: 23). In the late 1980s, industry accounted for 73 percent of water use, followed by agriculture with about 13 percent and municipalities with 8 percent. Industry was also the largest source of water pollution and about 84 million cu. m of untreated industrial waste was released in the rivers and lakes annually in the 1980s (Hock and Somlyódy 1990:68–70). Although Hungary invested heavily in the development of sewage treatment facilities in the 1970s and 1980s, 27 percent of all industrial sewage and 11 percent of communal sewage was released into surface waters untreated in 1985 (Salay 1990:23). Insufficient sewage treatment capacity resulted in the discharge of some 1.3 billion cu. m of untreated sewage into Hungary’s surface waters annually. Furthermore, over 44 percent of the existing sewage treatment plants were equipped only for mechanical treatment of effluents. As a result two-thirds of Hungary’s wastewater are discharged directly into rivers and streams after only mechanical treatment (Hock and Somlyódy 1990:71, Marshall 1991:856). Despite the fact that Hungary built a number of treatment plants to reduce the flow of untreated industrial effluents discharged into surface waters in the 1970s and 1980s, the quality of water is still a serious problem. For example, nitrate pollution worsened in 87 percent of the tests carried out on Hungarian rivers between 1976 and 1985. Overall water quality in the five most important rivers (the Danube, Tisza, Kapos, Zala and Zagyva) deteriorated continuously from 1975 to 1990, with the Tisza river showing one of the highest rates of deterioration in the country (Hock and Somlyódy 1990:75). The quality of groundwater was also adversely affected by sewage, agricultural chemicals, animal wastes and industrial discharges. As a result, an estimated 60 to 75 percent of the groundwater is believed to have been polluted (Marshall 1991:856, Salay 1990:23). In the late 1980s, around 700 towns and cities with about 300,000 residents relied on bottled water or water piped in from neighboring communities because of high levels of nitrate pollution in the drinking water (Hock and Somlyódy 1990:81, Markus 1994:143). In Borsod County, for example, nitrate levels are twenty times higher than Western permissible standards (OECD 1994a:II–13). In the past several decades, Hungary’s two most important rivers—the Danube and Tisza—received increasing levels of pollution upstream from Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania. Water quality in the Danube deteriorates consistently as it enters the country from Slovakia, especially with respect to nitrates and dissolved solids. The Danube is further polluted by communal and industrial wastewater and agricultural runoff as it flows through Hungary. Budapest is the largest source of pollution on the Danube in Hungary and the water quality is worst in the section downstream from the city, particularly with respect to heavy metals and bacteriological pollution: all other sources of Danube pollution combined amount to only two-thirds of the communal and industrial load from Budapest. Records for the Tisza river indicate an even faster rate of water quality deterioration than for the Danube (Hock and Somlyódy 1990:75, Vigh 1994:29– 30).

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Land degradation Since 1945 moderate to extreme soil degradation has affected about 1.2 billion ha worldwide, representing almost 11 percent of the Earth’s vegetated surface (an area equivalent to the size of China and India combined) (Paden 1992:111–12). It should not be therefore surprising that state socialist countries have also had problems of land degradation. In general, agricultural activities, deforestation and overgrazing have been the most important causes of soil degradation (Paden 1992:111), with poor agricultural techniques being by far the most important. Other causes of land degradation have been air pollution and logging practices, the use of dry, infertile sandy soils, soil acidification, salinization, alkalization and other alterations of the chemical properties of soils, land degradation due to open cast mining, deforestation and overgrazing, and chemical or biological contamination of soils (Nowicki 1993:89; Fesus and Lanszki 1994:123; see also Várallyay 1990:102–6). With the exception of Poland and Yugoslavia, all state socialist countries underwent forced collectivization after the communists came to power following the Second World War. Collectivization not only completely reorganized agriculture, but it also introduced new large scale farming methods that were often detrimental to the environment. Heavy farming equipment extensively used by collectivized agriculture contributed to soil degradation by worsening soil compaction, and wind erosion increased as a result of poor seed-bed preparation. The overall neglect of and inadequate levels of investment in agriculturecompared with industry compounded the problems of collective farms, which rarely elected to invest in soil-conservation machinery and practices. As a result, soil degradation was a serious problem in all CEE countries. It affected about 40 percent of the total land used for agricultural production in Hungary in the early 1990s (Birkás et al. 1995:289). In Poland, 28 percent of the country was threatened with wind erosion, 28 percent with water and surface erosion, and 18 percent with gully erosion in 1990 (Nowicki 1993:89). Hadač, Kaštánek and Martiš (1989:48) have estimated, for example, that 54 percent of agricultural soil in Czechoslovakia was affected by soil erosion in the mid-1980s. In the Czech Republic alone 32 percent of agricultural soil was subject to water erosion and 11 percent to wind erosion in 1985 (Moldan 1990: 84). In Slovakia about 60 percent of agricultural soil was subject to erosion in the early 1990s and 27 percent of agriculture soil required “urgent protection.” The Slovak MoE estimated that 2.8 million tonnes of agricultural soil was lost annually because of soil erosion (Klinda 1995:264, Tončík 1996:49). In Romania, soil erosion also accelerated under state socialism, affecting more than 5 million ha of agricultural land by the late 1980s. About 150 million tonnes of topsoil was lost through soil erosion annually, 32 to 41 tonnes per hectare (Ognean and V dineanu 1992:254). Bulgaria also recorded heavy losses of agricultural soil due to erosion. About 54 percent of all agricultural land and 65 percent of crop land in Bulgaria was affected by erosion in the early 1990s, with estimated annual losses of about 136 million tonnes of agricultural soil, or 23 tonnes per hectare. For comparison, about 19 tonnes of topsoil is estimated to be lost per hectare in the United States annually because of wind and soil erosion (Meurs, Morrissey, and Begg 1998:30). Albania has also traditionally suffered from severe soil erosion, originally

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Plate 3.9 Stripping the overburden for brown coal production (Leipzig, former East Germany)

caused by massive deforestation long before the communists came to power and accelerated by overgrazing, unsuitable tillage and farming practices such as terrace building under state socialism. However, between 1951 and 1988 almost 200,000 ha had been reforested (Zeman 1996:35–6; Hall 1993:28). Soil contamination from air pollution, over-fertilization, and irrigation have also become serious problems, especially in industrial areas. Land degradation has been severe in the mining areas and in the open cast mining areas in particular (Plates 3.9–3.11). Areas of soil contamination by heavy metals correspond with the distribution of ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, chemical industries and other sectors. In Romania, for example, soils in Cop a Mic , Baia Mare, Zlatna, Bucharest, and Slatina, the sites of large nonferrous metallurgy plants, have been polluted by heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, and copper; heavy metal concentrations in soil greatly exceed the maximum permissible levels (sometimes by hundreds of times); high fluorine concentrations have been found around chemical plants, cement plants and power stations; the oil industry polluted about 50,000 ha of soil, and 3,000 ha of agricultural land are polluted to such an extent that it cannot be used for agricultural purposes; 300 million tonnes of solid, non-biodegradable wastes cover 22,000 ha of soil; and over 80 percent of the agricultural land inRomania (7. 5 million ha) is affected by processes that damage the normal functioning of soils (Ognean and V dineanu 1992:254–7, Enache 1994:135–6). Similar problems were recorded throughout CEE.9

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Plate 3.10 Stripping the overburden for brown coal production (Leipzig, former East Germany)

Case study: soil contamination in Poland The lead content of Poland’s soils is generally low. Piotrowska et al. (1994: 150–4) analyzed 1,060 soil samples collected across Poland in 1988 and 1989 and found that approximately 80 percent of soils sampled had natural lead concentrations (not exceeding 30 mg/kg), but 97 percent did not exceed the maximum permissible lead concentration set by the Polish government (100 mg/kg). The highest concentrations of lead in soil (in the range of 152–929 mg/kg, dry weight) were found in the industrial region of Upper Silesia in the vicinity of point sources of pollution (the range of lead concentrations for the rest of Poland was 0.8–53.0 mg/kg)(ibid.: 150) (Map 3.9). It appears, then, that lead contamination of soil is spatially concentrated in Poland and is not as widespread as some previous studies had indicated (e.g. Pawlowski 1990; Spuznar et al. 1990:176). In addition to the spatially concentrated nature of lead contamination in Upper Silesia, soil contamination within the region is highly variable.10 Dudka et al. (1994:237) found wide ranges of levels of primary metal contaminants in the arable soils of the region: cadmium 0.1–143.0, lead 4–8,200, zinc 5–13,250 (mg/kg in dry weight), with only 10 percent of the arable land within the region containing natural concentrations of the trace metals. About 60 percent of thesoils had higher than critical concentrations of zinc and cadmium and about 45 percent of the soils exceeded maximum permissible lead concentrations. The most contaminated area of Upper Silesia is the area of Tarnowskie Góry (Table 3.7), particularly around the lead-zinc smelter in the southeastern part of the region. Here soil contamination has affected crops and poses a potential health hazard for people and animals. For example, about 95 percent of the cereal and all potato samples from the Tarnowskie Góry region contained cadmium levels above the highest permissible concentrations (0.1 mg/kg) (Dudka et al. 1994: 243–8). However, Dudka et al. (ibid.:

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Plate 3.11 Waste piles from the strip mining of brown coal in the Tagebau south of Leipzig, East Germany

238, 248) stress that these high levels of soil contamination in parts of Upper Silesia are not unique either to Poland or to CEE, and that even higher levels of contamination were found in Western Europe, such as the high levels of cadmium, lead and zinc contamination found in the agricultural and horticultural soils in the former mining and smelting area of Shipham in South West England. Coal, zinc, lead, and sand mining, and the smelting and processing of ores, also contribute to land degradation in the region of Upper Silesia. In the late 1980s, mining was responsible for the physical degradation of 20,000 ha of land (Kabala 1991c:20), but it is in terms of soil contamination that their most serious effects have been felt. Research on lead, copper and iron concentrations in soil and plant samples from selected localities in the Katowice province of Upper Silesia has indicated that the contamination of the agricultural environment with lead and cadmium was widespread. Contamination of soil and plants by other chemical elements was only local in character, being associated with local emission sources of particular pollutants. Research conducted between 1983 and 1991 determined that only 49 percent of the arable land in Katowice province (mostly located in the peripheral parts of the province) was suitable for production of foodstuffs and animal fodders, while 43 percent of soils located in areas immediately adjacent to the Upper Silesia industrial region had been seriously affected by air pollution where plants for human or animal consumption cannot be grown. Extremely contaminated soils accounted for 8 percent of arable land area of the province and these were located close to mines, smelters, non-ferrous ore processing plants, power plants and other industries (Kucharski et al. 1992:23) (Table 3.8).

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Map 3.9 Heavy metals pollution in Poland, 1996 Source: Adapted from GUS (1997:278) Table 3.7 Soil contamination in selected localities of Upper Silesia (in mg/kg)

Source: Rybicka (1996:5)

Garden allotments are widely used in the Katowice province to grow vegetables and fruits, but one 1992 study of soil conditions in these allotments has shown that only 36 percent complied with contamination limits and could be used for cultivation of any vegetables (Kucharski et al. 1992:23). Half of the area of garden allotments in Katowice province, especially those around the Upper Silesian industrial region, had soil so contaminated that the production of vegetables for leaves or roots ought to be avoided, and about 6 percent of the garden allotments were so heavily contaminated that no vegetables at all should be grown there. These heavily contaminated single gardens were located in the cities of Bytom, Chorzów, Katowice, Bukowno, Olkusz, Piekary l skie and Sosnowiec (see Table 3.9).

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Table 3.8 Heavy metals content in arable soils of selected local government areas of the Katowice province, 1983–91 (concentration ranges in mg/kg of soil)

Notes: Permissible standards (mg/kg of soil): lead 50, cadmium 3, zinc 200. Source: Kucharski et al. (1992:24). Data from the Regional Center for Environmental Research and Monitoring in Katowice

The political ecology of Bulgarian agriculture The thematic treatment of environmental conditions presented above details the ways in which state socialist environments were incorporated and used in the drive to “modernize” the new party states of CEE quickly after the Second World War. But, as with all thematic analyses, the rich interplay of social forces at work in the production of a particular kind of Nature remains only thinly developed. In this section, we shift gears from a thematic treatment and instead attempt to sharpen our focus on the social conditions of environmental change through a regional political economic analysis of the effects on the environment of Bulgarian state socialist agriculture. Agricultural ecology prior to 1944 Prior to 1944 Bulgarian agriculture consisted mainly of small, owner-operated farms engaged in near-subsistence farming of livestock and crops. Substantial amounts of pasture land were held collectively by villages and managed through a system of collective, villagelevel decision making. This common land accounted for 9 percent of agricultural land in

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Table 3.9 Lead and cadmium contents in the soils of garden allotments in the Katowice province (concentration ranges in mg/kg of soil)

Notes: Permissible standards: (mg/kg of soil) lead 50 and cadmium 3 Source: Kucharski et al. (1992:24). Data from the Institute of Environmental Protection in Katowice

1932 (Stoyanova 1993, SGTB 1939:181). With few non-agricultural employment opportunities, villagers tended to remain in the village of their birth (or of their husband’s birth in the case of women) and land served as the main form of capitalizing the next generation. The long-term dependence of families on local resources for survival, and the collective oversight exercised by village governance, meant that management goals of both individual households and village assemblies were largely those of sustainability. Still, this system had already come under substantial pressure prior to the coming of the socialist government in 1944. In the villages, strong organs of civil society oversaw the practices of everyday life, and sophisticated local mechanisms existed for regulating the use of resources. Social norms served to regulate some behaviors. Local lore and collective norms were widely expressed in common phrases such as “it is a sin to pollute the water,” “the bucket with which water is taken from the well should not be put on the ground,” and “trees must be planted along the rivers and the water springs, and these must not be cut” (Kouzhouharova and Dobreva 1992). These norms were transferred from generation to generation and enforced by social and religious sanctions, maintaining a culture of respect for the environment (Sanders 1949). More formal restrictions also regulated individual use of collectively held resources. National laws regulated the use of resources such as forests. Within the limitations set by

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the state, village assemblies determined both the timing and level of appropriation from collective resources. For example, in the village of Gaitanikovo in the mountainous Gotse Delchev region a 1890 law prohibited, among other things, the cutting of wood along easily eroded river beds. This law was reviewed annually in a meeting of the entire village and then signed by all attending. Offenders were punished by fines as well as social ostracism. On Sundays after the church sermon, offenders might be marched through the village, accompanied by a drummer. Illicitly collected items would be hung from the offender for all to see. Despite minimal state regulation of resource use in this period, long-term dependence of villagers on the local resource base combined with social norms and family expectations to limit individual short-run profit seeking and promote sustainable farming practices (Stoyanova 1993). Alongside the common lands, most Bulgarians worked small plots of private land. In 1926, farms under 5 ha made up 56 percent of farms, but held only 16.7 percent of agricultural land. Land held by households was not consolidated, but was scattered around the village, with each family holding an average of 17 units (Stoyanova 1992). The small and fragmented holdings greatly complicated the implementation of irrigation, machine cultivation, or even crop rotation, both because most smallholdings could not provide a surplus with which to finance inputs, and because mechanization and crop rotation were difficult to use on the small, scattered plots. The severity of the problem varied by region, with the larger landholdings in the plains regions having more consolidated plots, while the smaller holdings in mountainous areas were even more fragmented. Despite the low level of agricultural production, state extraction of surplus from agriculture was significant. During the First World War, requisitions were common. Beginning in the 1930s, the state used agricultural marketing cooperatives to form a purchasing monopoly in grains, sugar beets, cotton, tobacco and other products. In 1932, delivery quotas were established at low, state-determined prices, and these requisitions were continued by the German occupation (Lampe 1986:82). The combined pressures of state extraction and limited landholding began to undermine the sustainability of agricultural practices in the early 1900s, and from 1908 to 1932 common property fell by a third, in part due to increasing pressure on village councils to meet the land needs of individual households (Stoyanova 1993). In an attempt to introduce new methods of maintaining agricultural productivity, the state founded the Bulgarian Agricultural Bank in 1903, and later the Bulgarian Central Cooperative Bank in 1910. These banks in turn supported village-level credit cooperatives to channel funds into agriculture. The staterun cooperatives were initially met with significant resistance from the peasantry. A more peasant-based response to the squeeze on agriculture can be found in BANU (Bulgarian Agricultural National Union), formed in 1890 to fight high rates of taxes on the peasantry. By the 1910s, party leader Alexander Stamboliiski was proposing a full-fledged alternative model of peasant farming, based on a system of agricultural cooperatives. Under this system, locally organized credit and processing cooperatives would aid smallholder members. In some cases, smallholders might also cooperate in certain aspects of production, but on the basis of private property. The local cooperatives would join nationwide cooperative unions in order to increase their power and to receive support

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from the state. This system could build on credit cooperatives supported by the state, but would be governed by peasants themselves. The Stamboliiski model sought to raise the productivity of peasant farming in order to allow rural households to retain their long run relationship to the land. At the same time, it sought to limit the rights of the state to dictate production or financial practices to farmers. Loans to agricultural cooperatives by the Bulgarian Agricultural Bank grew from 102 million leva in 1921 to 1390 million leva in 1930 (Nachev 1937:1–5), providing capital for modernization that could not be accumulated within the sector itself. As a result, 1,500 tractor-plows and 4,000 motorized cultivators were introduced. After Stamboliiski was murdered by political opponents in 1923, the new government continued to support credit cooperatives as a means of modernizing agriculture, but not as part of a vision of maintaining a self-sustaining viable peasant sector. By 1939, the staterun cooperative network consisted of 3,502 cooperatives with 955,805 members (Crampton 1987:138), and cooperative banks supported smallholders: 26 percent of cooperative members had 2 ha or less of land and another 31 percent had 2–4 ha, 42 percent held 4–10 ha, while only 1 percent had over 10 ha (TsDIA 165/1/82:20, TsDIA 288/4/7580:36). Nonetheless, the economic viability of peasant farming in Bulgaria continued to erode. Population growth, partible inheritance practices, and a lack of other employment opportunities exacerbated fragmentation of private plots, and refugee populations after the Balkan wars further increased pressure on land. By 1946, 69 percent of land holdings were under 5 ha. One estimate suggests that by 1949 only one private farm in three was capable of producing enough for household subsistence (Lampe 1986:125). The pressure to maintain subsistence and increasing fragmentation of land further undermined attempts to maintain soil quality through crop rotation and fertilizer use. At the same time, pressure on land contributed to the continued decline in common property holdings. From 1941, common property fell by another third over the 1932 level (Stoyanova 1993). Changes in agricultural ecology under central planning Structures of central planning Following the Second World War, the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) undertook a radical restructuring of agriculture, replacing the systems of smallholder agriculture and locally controlled common property with a system of collective farms under central management. From 1945 to 1958, discriminatory taxes on private producers and coercive practices were used to encourage the collectivization of private agriculture land into agricultural production cooperatives. The assets in these cooperatives were gradually socialized into collective property of the membership. By 1958, 93 percent of arable land was collectivized (Trifanova 1975:289–93, 305–10). In the earliest years of collectivization, farms were organized by village, building on traditions of collective village labor and property. While collective farms were

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increasingly expected to conform to party-approved forms of organization and remuneration, during the early years such conformity was difficult to enforce. Farms during this period averaged only about 560 ha (1949 data), production was guided by the subsistence needs of the members as much as by state demands, and little capital was available for improving production techniques. Thus, collectivization was said initially to produce “hundreds of over-extended estates worked by slow-moving buffalo” (Stillman 1958:85). After 1950, however, more capital was made available for intensifying production on the cooperatives. By 1954, fertilizer applications reached over ten times 1939 levels (in tonnes), while pesticides reached 12.5 times the 1939 level(Lazarcik 1973:47). By 1958, fertilizer applications more than doubled from 1954 levels, while pesticide applications increased 2.5 times (ibid.: 47). From 1958–67, the village-level farms were consolidated into a system of larger farms, incorporating three or more villages, and the farms were brought under much greater central control. The patchwork of farms producing mainly diversified products for household and local use was gradually transformed into a system of very large-scale, specialized farms managed by state functionaries. A second round of consolidation of farms occurred in the 1970s, and by 1985 average farm size had reached 18,000 ha. Production was much harder to centralize in mountainous areas, where the discontinuity of arable land and steep slopes made the consolidation of fields more difficult. In these areas, farm size remained somewhat smaller, more land was permitted to remain under private control, and in the Turkish and Pomak regions of the Rhodopi and Pirin cooperatives functioned as de facto marketing cooperatives for private producers rather than producer cooperatives. Village priorities of long run sustainability of subsistence production were replaced by state goals which prioritized rapid industrialization. For central planners, like state officials in the 1920s and 1930s, agricultural production was used as a means of financing industrialization through cheap food policies and agricultural exports. To maximize the surplus generated from agriculture, planners reorganized production: farms were ordered to specialize in a few “optimal” crops; to large-scale monocultural cropping practices were added capital- and chemical-intensive practices; and to promote both practices, planners kept the prices of energy, fertilizer, and other inputs well below world market prices. Fertilizer prices, for example, have increased tenfold since 1989 and are still believed to be slightly below world prices. Agricultural intensification rapidly increased land and labor productivity, freeing labor and generating export earnings needed for industrialization. There are interesting parallels between this process and the intensification of agriculture which supported capitalist industrialization. Rapid industrialization freed many peasant households from indefinite dependence on the agricultural sector, as the number of workers employed in agriculture dropped from 2.5 million in 1960 to 1.5 million by 1970 (Lazarcik 1973:20). As a result, the chain of inter-generational dependence on local agricultural resources was broken, shortening producers’ time horizons. Increased mobility also reduced the effectiveness of social pressure in controlling individual behavior; ostracism could be fled from if the need arose. Agricultural production practices intensified in response to rising demand for food for urban industrial workers.

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The system of state regulation through central planning did create a specific set of conditions, however. Collectivization of agricultural land and the tenuous legal claims of households on self-sufficiency plots shortened the time horizons of households and reduced the link between agricultural practices and producer welfare. At the same time, the shortage economy kept prices for other, “luxury” food items high, including those for livestock products and fresh fruits and vegetables, providing strong incentives for the intensification of householdprivate production for sale. While these changes happened more rapidly and more completely in the peri-urban areas, by the 1980s their effect could be felt even in the more distant mountainous regions. Farm managers, appointed by the party, tended to stay for only short periods on any one farm. During that time, they were judged mainly on the short term output performance and their effectiveness in implementing production plans designed by distant planners. Standardized production technologies were applied regardless of regional differences, without consideration to local conditions and local knowledge, and as a result effectiveness of fertilizer and pesticide applications was reduced and soil erosion common. Centrally-set prices included heavy subsidies for chemical fertilizers, fuel and other inputs, in order to facilitate intensification. Low fertilizer prices and the limited financial responsibility of farm managers provided little local incentive for economizing on fertilizer use. Water prices for irrigation were also kept low: according to one estimate, even after some upward adjustments in the early 1990s, Bulgarian farmers were paying approximately a hundredth of the true cost of irrigation water (Wolf nd: 2). Finally, the one-party state exercised tight control over information on the environmental and health costs of state agricultural policy. Private organizations for environmental data collection and action were illegal, and citizens had few rights to review state-collected environmental data. If access to data was permitted (on the basis of the requesting party’s state-authorized research), data had to be copied by hand from archived materials (Mikhova and Pickles 1994a: 230–1). Even if environmental costs were obvious, state organs were usually able to repress complaints by harmed parties. State policies thus favored rapid economic growth over environmental sustainability, and did so in a context of highly centralized state control and a relatively uncontested political arena.11 At the same time, however, it created a local context in which deviations from state policy by local producers were more likely to reinforce the dominant state goals of economic growth than to undermine them. Increasing geographic mobility again combined with price and information structures to encourage villagers also to prioritize short-run output over long-run sustainability. The environmental impact in agriculture The environmental impact of central planning includes soil and water contamination by fertilizers, pesticides, and livestock waste and significant soil erosion. As planners switched from crop rotation with nitrogen-fixing legumes and the use of natural fertilizer to the use of chemical fertilizers, nitrogen applications increased from 2,260 tonnes in 1939 to 100,560 tonnes in 1960, while phosphorus applications rose from 650 tonnes to 50,004 tonnes (Lazarcik 1973:47). Applications continued to increase in quantity in the

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1980s. While the Bulgarian application of an average of 173 kg of total fertilizers per hectare in the period 1985–7 (CSO, various years) was well below the average of 425 in West Germany or 431 in Japan, it was well above the average of 49 tonnes per hectarein Canada or 95 in the United States (Hammond 1992:274–5).12 In part, the increased fertilizer applications served to restore soil which had been exhausted during the prewar period. The percentage of phosphorous-poor soil decreased from 70 percent in 1963 to 40 percent in 1988. Inappropriate and excessive use mandated by distant planners produced environmental problems, however. By the early 1990s it was estimated that 37 percent of nitrogenous fertilizer remained in the soil because of the inappropriate timing of applications (Wolf nd: 6). Further, planners mandated the use of nitrogen in the form of ammonium nitrate, which, when applied over long periods of time, causes acidification and also contaminates groundwater. Approximately 40 percent of Bulgarian soils are naturally acidic, and in these areas the use of nitrogen fertilizers high in ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate and lacking sufficient base materials is particularly problematic. An estimated 1 million ha of soils have reached levels of soil acidity toxic to plants over the past two decades (Ganev 1992:8). Mountainous areas are particularly problematic. Acid soils create a number of problems, including the hampering of potassium uptake (exacerbating potassium shortages) and increasing plant uptake of (toxic) heavy metals existing in soils or deposited there by local industry. In addition to contaminating food supplies, plant uptake of heavy metals reduces their ability to process nitrogen fertilizers, contributing to a cycle of rising applications. The nitrates also find their way into groundwater supplies and into the Black Sea. One study found that: In three regions of the country, an estimated 70–80 percent of the population is exposed to drinking water that contains too much nitrate. In eight other regions of the country, 35–45 percent of the population uses drinking water with abovestandard concentrations of nitrates. In the remaining eight regions of the country, 2 to 30 percent of the population is similarly exposed. (Nikolova 1992:2) In comparison, only 6 percent of wells sampled in the United States by the US Geologic Survey had excessive nitrate concentrations (Wolf nd: 5). The excessive nitrates are also taken up by plants, resulting in concentrations in vegetables and fodder three to eight times the levels admissible under government standards (Nikolova 1992:2). Ingestion of nitrates has serious health consequences, including methemoglobinemia, or “blue-baby syndrome,” which can be fatal for infants (Wolf nd: 6). More than 4,300 tonnes of nitrogen waste are also estimated to flow into the Black Sea each year, contributing to the rise of the anaerobic (“dead”) zone along the coastal shelf from 180 m in 1978 to 50 m in 1988 (Begg 1994:12). Potassium applications, on the other hand, have generally been inadequate. Potassium fertilizers, which had to be imported and could not be substituted by organic matter, were in direct competition with industrial inputs for hard currency. As a result, planners provided only about half of recommended levels of phosphorous fertilizers over the last

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half of the 1980s. An estimated 75 percentof potassium needs were met directly from the soils, resulting in an increase in the area of potassium-poor soil from 6 percent of arable land in 1963 to 16 percent in 1988 (Nikolova 1992:4). As available potassium falls, the returns on other fertilizers also fall, resulting in increased applications. The mandated monoculture system also contributed to rising pest infestations, since the massive fields eliminated the natural habitat of birds and small mammals which had traditionally fought pests. Infestations of the gray worm, the grain runner, and the Colorado beetle in the late 1940s and early 1950s began the cycle of rising pesticide applications. Applications rose from a value of 1.3 million leva in 1951 to 7.3 million leva in 1960 to 8.9 million in 1970 (in constant 1968 prices) (Lazarcik 1973:47). Runoff resulted in substantial pollution of a number of Bulgaria’s main rivers (Gergov 1991:166). Spatial concentration of livestock waste also contaminated soil and water. The preference of planners for large-scale, specialized enterprises under central planning led to the concentration of livestock in large breeding facilities, some with as many as 300,000 pigs. The resulting concentrations of animal waste resulted in substantial environmental degradation; however, while plans called for ever-increasing levels of meat production for both domestic and export consumption, investment in waste management was never a priority. Methods of disposing of these wastes varied, but included the spreading of aged dry manure on fields, deep injection of liquefied waste into soils, and the use of slurry ponds. Barns were frequently cleaned by flushing them with water because of the availability of cheap water supplies, but the liquefied waste increased the dangers of surface and groundwater pollution during storage. Since farms were forced by planners to buy chemical fertilizers for crop production, local complementarities between livestock and crop production could not be fully exploited as a means of waste recycling (Douglass 1994:4). In 1991, there were 5,400 feedlots in Bulgaria and these produced some 33 million cu. m of wastewater, accounting for approximately 10 percent of the water used by all industries and municipal utilities for the entire country (Wolf nd, Deets 1993:2). Due to poor treatment, approximately two-thirds of all waste products entering Bulgaria’s rivers come from livestock effluent (Carter 1993c:47). The waste adds Biologic Oxygen Demand (BOD5) discharge to the water in the form of suspended solids, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and pathogens, and contributes to the problem of nitrate concentrations in drinking water (see above) (Wolf nd). Socialist legislation mandated fines for improper disposal of animal wastes, but they were negligible and did not serve as deterrents (Begg 1994:14). During central planning, rural households also kept a significant amount of livestock in private yards for household consumption or sometimes for sale to the state. However, the state permitted only a few animals—a few pigs or a couple of cattle—to be kept in this manner. Since chemical fertilizer was legally available to households in only very limited quantities, waste generated by these animals was carefully recycled for use on garden plots. A second type of environmental problem arising in centrally planned agriculture was erosion. The widespread elimination of bush and tree borders andplowing of large fields

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into the slopes of mountainous and semi-mountainous regions contributed to erosion, as did poor irrigation practices. For example, while approximately one-fourth of Bulgarian agricultural land was irrigated in the 1980s, and while costs of irrigation schemes were unwritten by low prices for energy and water, most irrigation systems used unlined furrows that were highly susceptible to erosion (Wolf nd: 45, Begg 1994:10). Water erosion was particularly problematic in the mountainous regions of Bulgaria, where slopes are between 3–12° (Rousseva and Lazarov 1992:1). Erosion resulted in an estimated loss of 136 million tonnes of soil per year, an average of 22.8 tonnes per hectare of agricultural land, compared with 19.3 in the United States. As with soil acidity, the mountainous areas of eastern and north-eastern Bulgaria suffer particularly from erosion. In 1990, 79 percent of agricultural land was classified as eroded (Begg 1994:9B10; Rousseva and Lazarov 1992), mainly by water erosion, affecting 70–80 percent of agricultural land (Begg 1994:9, Deets 1993:4). Erosion significantly affects crop yields. Wheat yields, for example, fall from an estimated 3 tonnes per hectare on slightly eroded land to 1.8 tonnes per hectare on severely eroded land (Rousseva and Lazarov 1992:9). Costs of water erosion also include downstream crop damage, as well as costs of dredging silted irrigation canals, and fertilizer pollution (Smith 1993:34). Dam reservoirs are silting up five to six times faster than projected. The BCP government did, in its ostensible role of protector of the social good, initiate some policies to encourage farm managers or local producers to address emerging problems. Especially after the effects of intensification began to be seen in agriculture in the 1960s and 1970s, the BCP set environmental and health standards more or less in line with those in western Europe or the United States. In 1975, for example, a Unified System for Monitoring and Information was established in Bulgaria which set up a system for monitoring surface water pollution, including nitrate and phosphate contents. Even earlier legislation included the 1963 Law on the Protection of Air, Water, and Soil, as well as the Law on Water of 1969, the Law on Protection of Arable and Pasture Land of 1973, and the Law on the Protection of Farm Property of 1974 (Friedberg and Zaimov 1994:241–2). Falling yields in the late 1970s also led to a slight shift in planning goals away from immediate performance and toward medium-run sustainability. New plans included the planting of tree belts and perennials to reduce erosion, the implementation of soilprotecting crop rotation, the use of moisture-retaining vegetation in dry areas, and the creation of terraces. Investment plans for 1986 also included increasing water purification capacity and chemical treatment of salinated and acidified soils (Gergov 1991:167). As in other CEE countries, environmental legislation was poorly enforced, however. In part, this was due to a lack of supporting regulations, which would have set clear guidelines for enforcement (Friedberg and Zaimov 1994:245). In addition, legal guidelines were often directly contradicted by plans issued to firms. Where plans and legislation were incompatible, plan fulfillment had thegreatest impact on a manager’s chances for recognition and promotion. In any case, state environmental inspectors might be encouraged to look the other way. Even if they acted, the fines were set so low as to offer

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few problems for the polluting firm (which was, in any case, faced with a soft budget constraint). The majority of new planning targets was also not met. While environmental plans called for adjustments in farming practices, the plans were not accompanied by changes in the incentives for local actors. Output plans remained the most important measure of management performance, and these often did not take into consideration the changing crop mix or the losses in crop land which would have been required to implement planned wind breaks. As a result, MoE publications from 1987 estimated that only 20 percent of eroded land had been improved through these plans (Ganev 1992:7). Further, the maintenance of erosion protection structures became the responsibility of the farms themselves, drawing resources away from other maintenance tasks more directly related to short-run performance, like the maintenance of calving sheds or tractors. Not surprisingly, structures mandated for environmental reasons were often quickly abandoned. A similar example is the use of state funding to develop systems of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) using insect predators and inter-cropping (Begg 1994: 16). Farm managers faced with tight production schedules were reluctant to experiment with what they saw as risky new production technologies, however, and the use of IPM technologies remained largely limited to experimental farms. At least two natural insect predators have been successfully introduced, but other IPM methods have not been widely adopted (Videnova 1993:42–3). Conclusion Environmental quality deteriorated rapidly under state socialism as the fast drive to industrialization by the sanction of the party state over-rode most obstacles in its path. But this account of bureaucratic authoritarian power and its construction of a particular kind of environmental ethos must be situated alongside a richer cultural analysis of how individual “socialist citizens” negotiated the intricate webs of hegemonic powers in order to effect some liveable outcomes. The case of Bulgarian agricultural ecology illustrates some important aspects of how capitalist agriculture before the Second World War and collective farming after 1948 severely weakened the organs of civil society and traditional village-based regulatory systems by which longer-term planning horizons and protection of collective resources had previously been maintained. Central planning generally replaced local systems of social regulation with a system in which distant decision-makers planned production and rewarded short term growth over environmental sustainability. The resulting industrial and agricultural practices yielded very specific social and environmental outcomes and distinctive new geographies. It is to the geographies of environmental change that we now turn.

4 Nature, society and extensive industrialization

This chapter analyzes the political economy of environmental change in the Most region of the Czech Republic with a primary focus on the state socialist period after the Second World War.1 The chapter seeks to deepen our understanding of the relationships between social and environmental change by working through three conceptual frameworks in contemporary critical political economy. First, we seek to understand how the political ecology of state socialist and postcommunist societies is part of a broader structuring of political economic life in each. In this chapter we read this linked political ecology and political economy through the French regulation school and its concept of “model of development” composed of a regime of accumulation, mode of regulation, labor process model and a hegemonic bloc (see Chapter Two). However, regulationist approaches (notably in the works of Lipietz 1984, 1987, 1992a, and 1992b), have focused primarily on systems of economic and social regulation at the national and international level. Using the example of the Most District, we focus on the ways in which integration of environmental concerns into the political economy of social change enables a richer reading of regional models of development and political ecologies of environmental transitions. Second, in order better to understand environmental change as a complex process of spatial and temporal relations, and to locate this process within the state socialist and postcommunist development models, we turn to David Harvey’s (1985:140) concept of “structured coherence,” showing how a specific structured coherence developed in the Most region before the Second World War based on coal mining and a particular conception of Nature, and how this was restructured during state socialism and afterwards. Third, we show how the pre-Second World War and state socialist models of development produced their own space and environment in the Most region. In this sense, we seek to show how Henri Lefebvre’s (1991:31, 46, 1979) concept of the “production of space” (which sees every mode of production or every society as producing its own space) can help us to understand the production of Nature. However, we differ with Lefebvre when he argues (1991:55) that the former state socialist countries failed to produce any specific space because they fundamentally “failed” in their transition from capitalism to socialism. While Lefebvre is correct in arguing that state socialism failed to break away from themethods of a capitalist regime of accumulation, it does not follow

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that state socialism created no specific “space” of its own or that state socialism was either a thoroughly incoherent model of development, never “stabilizing” as Lipietz puts it, or that it was thoroughly derivative (a form of capitalism in other terms). We seek to show that neither claim is tenable, although each holds important elements that are true. Moreover, Lefebvre’s reduction of state socialism to a “failed transition” from capitalism—while understandable in the context of political struggles in post-War France—is untenable in the face of the real transformations in social, production, and environmental relations wrought under state socialism. And it is these “real transformations” that concern us in this book. The district of Most The District of Most is located in the region of northern Bohemia on the Czech-German border in the Czech Republic (Maps 4.1–4.2). We have chosen this region for our case study for several reasons. Its industrial structure, typical for the state socialist development model, is based on large enterprises in chemicals and coal mining. The natural resources and the environment of the district were ruthlessly exploited under central planning, resulting in extreme environmental degradation. In this sense, the Most District typifies the old state socialist regime and provides a good opportunity to study the unfolding transformation and the impact of this political, economic and social change on the environment. The central part of the district is occupied by the Most basin, and is endowed with large deposits of lignite and low grade brown coal. These are part of the northern Bohemian brown coal basin that covers about 850 sq. km and is located on the territory of

Map 4.1 Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic

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Map 4.2 The district of Most

five northern Bohemian districts. And it is on and around this coal basin that an extremely high concentration of industrial activities has developed, resulting in a high degree of environmental degradation (Plate 4.1).

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Plate 4.1 Most-Kopisty Mine in the Most basin in the foreground (the old city of Most was located on this site). Chemopetrol is located in the background and the Ore Mountains on the horizon

Here we focus specifically on the Most basin. The mountainous northern part and southern agricultural areas of the district face their own problems, such as the depopulation of the mountains and the deconcentration and privatization of agriculture in the southern agricultural area.2 Democratization has opened the possibilities for different regions to seek remedies for their long-term problems and even in small areas, such as the Most District (467 sq. km.), the local political scene has become fragmented as different local interest groups and localities try to solve problems of specific concern to them. The industrial structure of the district is dominated by two sectors: chemicals (59.9 percent of the total industrial production in terms of the volume of production) and coal (31.6 percent). Power plants (3 percent), machinery (2.5 percent) and others (3 percent) account for the remaining 8.5 percent (Sociálně ekonomický ústav ČSAV 1992) (see also Figure 4.2). In 1991, 50 percent of all economically active inhabitants of the district worked in the industrial sector, a 4.4 percent decline since 1980 (OSS 1992) (Table 4.1). Coal mining activities employed nearly 8,700 people in 1999, a decrease from the peak of 18,988 achieved in 1984, and the chemical complex Chemopetrol at Záluží (the second largest employer in the District) employed 3,800 workers (down from 11,584 in 1985) (MF Dnes 1998f:16, ČTK 1999).3 In the early 1990s, industrial production was concentrated in eleven large enterprises on the district’s territory. Production in these enterprises was by far the highest in the entire Czech Republic, with output in 1992 valued at 3.38 billion Czech crowns (ČSÚ 1993b). The impacts of these coal mining, chemicals and electricity producers were most heavily concentrated in the Most basin. Unrestored strip mines cover 25 percent of the area of the district and 35 percent of the formerly available arable land, and all of this damage

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Figure 4.1 Production of coal in the northern Bohemian coal basin, 1860–1996 Source: Data from Jindřichovská (1991:3), Línek (1997:110)

Figure 4.2 Proportion of major industrial sectors on total industrial production in the Most District, 1961–85 Source: Data from OOSSÚ (1968:21) and OOČSÚ (1986:111)

is concentrated in the basin itself. Here 72.9 percent of all the land is occupied by human activities such as coal mining, urban uses and industrial land use (Švec and Kučerová 1993a, Häufler 1984, Janeček 1993) (Plate 4.1). All but one of the villages torn down in the Most District were located in the Most basin. Air pollution and opencast coal mining are considered by the citizens and local government officials of the district to be their most serious environmental problems (1992 and 1993 Social Surveys, see Pavlínek 1997:334–6), particularly the burning of locally mined low grade coal in steam power plants. These produce sulfur oxides, carbon oxides, particulate matter and organic and inorganic pollutants. The chemical plant Chemopetrol intensifies air pollution and health problems across the Most basin.

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Table 4.1 Sectoral structure of economically active population in the Most District, 1991

Notes: Social services include education, culture, health care and social care. Data is based on the 1991 census. Source: OSS (1992:34)

The physiography of the district contributes to these environmental problems. During winter months, thermal inversions are frequent resulting in increased concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX) and related particulate matter (see Table 5.4). But the frequency of their occurrence has been exacerbated by human activities: natural vegetation cover has been removed over large areas, contributing to faster cooling and more and deeper temperature inversions during winter months. Compounding this situation are the unrestored coal dumps which rise 60 m and more above the original terrain, blocking horizontal air flow, changing its direction and speed, and leading to poor air circulation and higher pollution concentrations (Janeček 1993, Švec and Kučerová 1993a). Air pollution has declined since 1989 as production of electricity has diminished and desulfurization equipment has been installed in existing power plants. However, thermal inversions with extremely high concentrations of pollutants continue in the district. For example, during one such thermal inversion in March 1991, the twenty-four-hour average concentrations of sulfur dioxide reached 560µg/m3 (the maximum limit set by the Czech government is 150µg/m 3) and the momentary concentrations (a half hour maximum) reached 1,470µg/m3 (the maximum limit set by the Czech government is 500µg/m3) (Švec and Kučerová 1993a). During the January 1997 inversion the twenty-four-hour average sulfur dioxide concentrations reached 621µg/m3 in the neighboring Teplice District and 532µg/m3 in the neighboring Chomutov District (MF Dnes 1997d:3).4 One consequence of this concentration of heavy industry is that population distribution and density in the Most District are unusual. The district has more than 120,000 inhabitants (120,136 in 1995) with a population density reaching its highest level in 1993 (257 people per sq. km). Fifty nine percent of its population is concentrated in the city of Most alone. This degree of urbanization is high, with 90 percent of the district’s population living in

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four cities and towns (Most, Litvínov, Lom, Meziboří). The first three are in the Most basin, and Meziboří is located on the slopes of the Ore Mountains just above the Most basin. Between 1956 and the present thirty-three out of a total of fifty-nine villages in the basin were destroyed because of coal mining (OSS 1992, 1994, ČSÚ 1993a), and at least 30,000 inhabitants from these villages and a majority of 35,000 inhabitants of the old city of Most have been forced to leave their homes (Švec and Kučerová 1993b, OSS 1992) (see Table 5.2). The strength of the coal-chemical complex nationally meant that the destruction of villages did not end with the collapse of state socialism, and in 1990 the village of Libkovice, which had celebrated the 800th year of its first written mention, was demolished. Partly because of the vast physical and social upheavals in communities disturbed by coal mining, and partly because of the labor pool used by the mining and chemical industries, the population of the Most District today exhibits a high degree of what are locally referred to as “social pathologies.” In 1991, the district recorded the second highest number of crimes (53.9 per 1,000 inhabitants) in the Czech Republic (ČSÚ 1994a). The Most District has a higher than average suicide rate (twenty-five suicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 1992 and twenty-three in 1993) (ČSÚ 1993a, 1994a), and is among the districts with the highest divorce rate in the Republic (64.9 divorces per 1,000 marriages in 1993 compared with 52.3 for northern Bohemia as a whole) (OSS 1994). Švec and Kučerová (1993b) also stress growing levels of drug abuse, alcoholism and sexually transmitted diseases and argue that the social pathology of the Most District results directly (at least in part) from the environmental and social devastation of the region caused by the excessive industrial concentration in the Most basin during the state socialist period. Some characteristics of this social pathology, such as high divorce and suicide rates, may also be associated with the fact that the Most District has the least religious population in the Czech Republic. Only 20 percent of the citizens recorded any religious affiliation in the 1991 census, compared with 44 percent for the Czech Republic as a whole. Social behavior and attitudes toward the environment are probably also influenced by the structure of education. A majority of inhabitants have only elementary schooling (38.1 percent in 1991, 51.1 percent in 1980) or vocational training (32.1 percent in 1991, 25.9 percent in 1980), and few have a university degree (4.4 percent in 1991, 2.9 percent in 1980) (OSS 1992). In 1980, the District recorded the lowest life expectancy rates in the Czech Republic; 64.18 years for men and 72.45 for women compared with 67.13 years for men and 74.13 years for women for the Republic as a whole. By 1990, life expectancy increased slightly to 65.39 years for men (Czech Republic 68.1 in 1989) and 73.09 for women (Czech Republic 75.4 in 1989), but remained the second lowest for men and third lowest for women out of seventy-five districts(OSS 1992). Cancer-related mortalities in the district increased by 51.3 percent between 1970 and 1990, compared with “only” a 13.3 percent increase for the Republic as a whole, surpassing national levels by 1990 (Švec 1992).5 The Most District also recorded a statistically significant higher number of miscarriages and birth defects than in the Republic as a whole (Švec and Kučerová 1992). The health of the population in neighboring districts of the northern Bohemian coal basin has been similarly affected. The incidence of diseases such as respiratory infection,

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skin disease, muscle and bone disorders and others is significantly higher in this region than in the Czech Republic as a whole (World Bank 1992a). Furthermore, it is possible that the full-scale health effects of environmental devastation will become evident only in the future, as the generation of young people born during the period of worst pollution in 1970s and 1980s enter middle age. The Most District is, therefore, a classic example of state socialist industrialization, replete with examples of callous planning, environmental degradation, and negative health and social impacts. But how far can we understand this process of environmental degradation in terms of the actually existing transformations on the ground with which we began this chapter? Coal mining, structured coherence and the production of space The modern history of the Most region is very closely related to coal and coal mining. The town of Most acquired its city status before the year 1247. It was an agricultural, handicraft and merchant center that prospered, especially in the sixteenth century, by supplying food to fast growing ore mining communities in the nearby Ore Mountains. The first written record of coal in the Most region comes from the Duchcov town book in the year 1403. In 1613 a Most burgher, Jan Weidlich, acquired a license from the emperor for coal mining around the city of Most. The first period in the systematic development of coal mining took place only after 1740 when coal was used in local breweries, distilleries, brickyards and lime works. Coal was mined in shallow pits on a small scale. After 1800, the arrival of the Industrial Revolution resulted in the accelerating development of coal mining in the region and related changes in the local economy. After 1830, the increased use of steam power led a growing number of industrial enterprises to locate in and near coal producing districts. Together these produced a series of new industrial regions underwritten by continued extensive development of shallow pits and underground mines in the coal industry (Stáhlík 1994), with the number of mines operating in the northern Bohemian coal basin increasing from 150 in 1847 to 1,000 in 1855 (Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985).6 The second half of the nineteenth century was typified by the mechanization of mining, increased production, and the concentration of ownership. The main railway track from the city of Ústí nad Labem to the city of Chomutov through the city of Most was completed in 1870. This removed two major obstacles to anyfurther expansion of coal mining—limited markets and transportation difficulties —and allowed for the cheap transport of coal out of the region to supply markets in the Czech Lands and abroad, such as in German Saxony (Pokorná 1991, SHD 1991, Štýs and Helešicová 1992) (Figure 4.1)7 By the end of the nineteenth century new transportation, wider markets and better mining technology resulted in deeper pits and larger opencast mines, with attendant impacts on the local economy and society. In areas of concentrated coal mining such as the town of Most and the Most basin, agricultural communities were transformed into mining communities. Small and ineffective pits went bankrupt and large highly capitalized mining companies took over. The resulting concentration of ownership led to the further

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development of large-scale coal mining. Coal mining companies replaced individual mineowners, and foreign finance capital (especially Austrian) began to underwrite the further development and technological modernization of coal mining in the area. The development of a distinctive regional regime of accumulation centered on coal mining was also the production of a specific form of structured coherence. This was characterized first by restructuring and internationalization of organization and ownership in coal mining. The first coal mining companies were founded in the 1870s and 1880s: the British company Britannia in 1866; the Most Company for Coal Mining in 1871 (predominantly financed by Austrian capital); the North Bohemian Coal Company in 1871 (backed by Anglo-Austrian capital and transformed into a joint stock company in 1890); the Most-Duchcov-Chomutov Coal Company in 1874 (which soon went bankrupt and was then taken over by the Austrian state, becoming one of the four largest coal mining companies in the northern Bohemian mining district); and the Lom Coal Company founded in 1888. All coal mining companies established their headquarters in the city of Most (Pokorná 1991, Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985). The second feature of the region’s structured coherence was the development of a geographically defined labor market based on coal mining. The end of the nineteenth century witnessed, first, the reorientation of local labor markets from agricultural activities to coal mining, and its subsequent exhaustion by coal mining. The number of miners working in the mines of northern Bohemia increased rapidly from 4,136 in 1868 to 10,072 in 1874 to almost 30,000 by the end of the century (Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985). Second, the rapid development of coal mining and related industrial activities attracted labor from all over the Czech lands, and soon the town of Most had the fastest growing population in the District. The town grew from 4,000 inhabitants in 1848 to 21, 500 in 1890 and more than 26,000 before World War I and became the most important center of coal mining in the northern Bohemian mining district (Pokorná 1991, ONV Most n.d.) (see also Table 4.2). Third, the emerging structured coherence was characterized by a high degree of urbanization and concentration of the working class in many town and village coal mining and industrial communities in a relatively limited geographical area of the Most region. The social relations of the Most region were based on polarization between the miners and the mine owners. Miners became the most radicaland progressive branch of the working class in the Czech lands. Their concentration in the Most region generated specific conditions for class struggle and allowed radical enforcement of social and political goals. As a result, the city of Most has remained the center of workers’ movements and class struggle in the entire region of northern Bohemia since the 1890s.8 The first massive coal mining strikes began in the 1870s and, as in the following decades, they were harshly opposed by the authorities.9 Fourth, the structured coherence of the Most region in the late nineteenth century was characterized by the nationalist struggle between the growing Czech minority and German majority. The conflict escalated as more Czech workers moved to the region to work in coal mining. The proportion of Czech population increased from 18 percent to more than 40 percent in only thirty-one years between 1890 and 1921 (see Table 4.2). Nationalism divided the Czech and German working class and was used by Czech

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Table 4.2 Population growth and national composition in the Most District (current boundaries), 1861–1991

Source: Švec and Kučerová (1993b: 18), OSS (1992:26)

capitalists to strengthen their positions vis-à-vis stronger and established German capital that in turn used German workers to defend its superior position in coal mining.10 This nationalist struggle culminated in 1918 when the Most region became part of Deutschböhmen (German border regions as a part of Austria) and newly established Czechoslovakia at the same time. The conflict was resolved by the military intervention of the Czechoslovak state in favor of Czechoslovakia.11 Class struggle in the Most region intensified in independent Czechoslovakia after the national problems were temporarily settled. The general strike on 14 December 1920 left eight people dead and twenty-two seriously injured after they were shot by the police during the demonstration in the city of Most. The 1920s and 1930s were a period of intense class struggle in the region, with the city of Most functioning as the headquarters of all important workers’ activities. In 1931, the police shot at a demonstration of unemployed workers in the town of Duchcov, in today’s Teplice District, and killed four workers. Overt class conflicts in this period culminated with the so-called “Most Strike” in March and April 1932, which was prompted by the plans of mine owners to close unprofitable mines and rationalize coal mining, including reductions in the workforce and wages. The Most Strike became the largest labor-capital conflict in the northern Bohemian coal mining district between the World Wars, during which two miners were killed and several seriously injured (six in the city of Most) by the police (Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985).12 In the middle of the 1930s, overt class conflict was again subsumed to Czech-German national conflict, resulting in the German occupation of the Most region by Nazi Germany following the Munich Agreement of 1938. The occupation ended the region’s capitalist period of economic development under peaceful conditions. Following the occupation

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and incorporation into the German Third Reich, the Most region quickly became an important center of production for the German war economy. In a short time, Germans built a new chemical complex based on coal, opened new large-scale opencast mines, and built coal processing enterprises and power plants using forced labor from sixty labor camps located in the Most region (Pokorná 1991). The pre-Second World War structured coherence of the Most region thus developed around a regional regime of accumulation based on coal mining that was deeply articulated with national labor markets, emerging national politics, and international capital. It involved distinct patterns of organization and ownership in coal mining, a specific character of the local labor market with unusually high concentration of the working class in the Most region and social relations distinguished by the polarization between miners and mineowners. The intense class conflict was frequently paralyzed by national divisions. The formation of this structured coherence in the Most region was strongly influenced by wider economic and political processes operating at national and supernational scales. The transition from small to large-scale coal mining was underwritten by foreign finance capital. The First World War, the international economic crisis of the 1920s and the global depression in the early 1930s substantially slowed the rapid growth and modernization of coal mining in the district.13 Regional conflict between Czechs and Germans reflected wider frictions between the two nations, as regional and local class conflicts were intertwined with nationalist class struggles in pre-Second World War Czechoslovakia and the international labor movement. The model of development pursued on the territory of the Czech Lands before the Second World War was typified by a predominantly extensive regime of accumulation, liberal economic policies, intense class struggle and liberal democracy. The development path pursued in the Most region gradually produced its own space and environment called the “industrial landscape” (průmyslová krajina in Czech). Its basic features included rapid expansion of urban space based on coal capital, transition of peasant communities into coal mining communities, rapid changes in ethnic and social composition of population, and increasing alterationof the natural environment by coal mining. And, as Pokorná (1991:91) has suggested, “coal changed the face of the whole environment.” In the city of Most, the city center was completely rebuilt to reflect its new function as the administrative and production capital of coal mining in northern Bohemia. New magnificent buildings were constructed as headquarters for coal mining companies and for all other important mining offices. “Coal barons” built large villas for themselves and their families while new working class districts were built quickly to accommodate the growing numbers of miners and their families. The result was a segregated urban landscape: on the one side great administrative palaces and villas of mineowners, on the other side overcrowded residential districts for working class families. Coal mining and its increasing scale generated growing environmental difficulties. The first complaints about environmental problems caused by coal mining, such as the devastation of agricultural land and cave-ins, were recorded in the 1820s. Between 1895 and 1896, several large coal mining related disasters occurred in the city of Most when ground in city neighborhoods sank by up to 19m.14 The movement of very fine underground tertiary sands (“quicksand”) across large distances to fill extracted coal seams

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caused surface collapse throughout the city. For example, on 19 July 1895 one entire district of forty houses, close to the former main railway station, was destroyed and 2,500 people lost their homes after 96,000 cu. m of quicksand, clay and water broke through into a mine outside the city. In a similar accident in the 1890s, dozens of people died in the town of Duchcov (Pokorná 1991, Štýs and Helešicová 1992). Landscape devastation increased as the percentage of coal mined using open cast mining expanded from 25 percent in 1910 to 51.5 percent in 1945 (Stáhlík 1994, SHD 1991) (Figures 5.1 and 5.2). State socialism and coal mining in the Most region Following the Second World War, the Most region underwent important transformations. Its structured coherence, formed in the decades before the war, disintegrated. Czech-German national conflicts, which we have identified as one of the elements of the pre-Second World War structured coherence of the Most region, were largely resolved by force. The contemporary national and social structure of the district is the legacy of the German expulsion after the Second World War and the in-migration of thousands of people from different parts of former Czechoslovakia in the following period. After the German occupation, 20,000 Czechs left the region. Following the war, most of the Germans were expelled or left, the number of Germans living in the current administrative area of Most District dropping by almost 50,000 between 1945 and 1961. Due to this forced expulsion, the total population on the territory of today’s Most District declined from almost 110,000 in 1945 to 64,000 between 1945 and 1947 (Švec and Kučerová 1993b). Gradually, the Germans were replaced by Czech immigrants, but the war and its aftermath destroyed the pre-Second World War social structure of the Most region. Open class conflict, the second important element of the pre-Second WorldWar structured coherence of the Most region, also changed in form. Miners sought mine nationalization at the conference of coal mining worker councils held in the city of Most on 7 July 1945, and the Czechoslovak government nationalized the coal mines on 25 October 1945. The Communist Party enjoyed strong support among the working class of the Most region and received 57.8 percent of the vote during the 1946 parliamentary elections. After the communist coup in February 1948, however, the labor unions gradually became completely subordinated to the Communist Party and degraded to its “transmission belt” at the workplace, and democratic structures, such as works councils and elected directors, disappeared from the workplace (Myant 1989). Socialist competition and workers’ exploitation in coal mining According to the Communist Party, “the working class takeover in 1948 was the definite end of the long and dramatic history of class struggle and represented the final and victorious milestone on the revolutionary path of the northern Bohemian proletariat” (ONV Most n.d.: 141). However, class struggle continued. Workers had to be coerced to produce and give up surplus product, and to achieve this a variety of techniques were deployed. “Socialist competition” became one such coercive mechanism in coal mining, as

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well as in other sectors of the state socialist economy (including the chemical industry), forcing workers to increase productivity.15 The trade unions, now under the control of the Communist Party, played an important role in the organization of socialist competition as a new form of workers’ exploitation. As Clarke and Fairbrother have suggested for the Soviet Union: The unions were not enjoined to express the interests of the working class for the sake of the workers, but as the means of increasing productivity by raising workers’ morale, stimulating their initiative, encouraging socialist competition, and goading a lethargic management. (Clarke and Fairbrother 1993:98) Initially, socialist competition was organized in individual coal mining districts. In the North Bohemian Brown Coal Mines, the first round of socialist competition improved worker morale, increased the coal production per worker and per shift, made better use of existing machinery, and decreased the usage of explosives. The Most region miners initiated socialist competition between different coal mining districts in Czechoslovakia with the Most-Kladno competition in 1948. The competition with the Sokolov coal mining district began in 1949, and with the Ostrava district in 1953. At the same time, the individual mines from the different coal mining districts also competed (Pokorná 1991, Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985). Socialist competition began to change in 1949 as the government tried to extend its scope and “encourage” participation to further increase production. In January 1949, the shock-worker movement campaign was launched in the coalmines of northern Bohemia and Czechoslovakia as a whole. The movement was organized by the Communist Party and trade unions and the title “shock-worker” was defined and approved at the trade union congress in December 1948. Shock-workers (Stakhanovites) committed themselves to surpassing monthly norms and developing better methods of work organization (Myant 1989).16 By the middle of 1949, 3,000 Stakhanovites competed with each other at fortyseven different mines in northern Bohemia. As a result of socialist competition, the coal mining industry fulfilled the first year of its first five year-plan at 106 percent by November instead of December 1949 (Pokorná 1991; Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985). Opposition to the shock-worker movement (Myant 1989) reflected the character of class struggle under state socialism. Workers feared that norm cutting by a few celebrated workers was intended to intensify the labor process or to cut the wages of workers who did not follow the examples of Stakhanovites. These new forms of worker exploitation were particularly resisted by the traditional core of the working class in sectors such as the glass industry (only 17 percent involvement of shock-workers), engineering (32 percent), mining (about 50 percent), iron and steel, ceramics, construction and socialist agriculture (Myant 1989).17 In northern Bohemia there was significant resistance to socialist competition among the miners. The greater exploitation of workers was also made possible by the general transition from the hourly wage to the piece rate system in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War.18 The result was a state socialism that

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provided job security with wage insecurity as opposed to a capitalism which had provided relative wage security with employment insecurity (see Burawoy 1985:168–71). The command economy was constantly looking for new ways to coerce labor to increase efficiency and produce more. Socialist competition was organized by the Communist Party and trade unions, and together these directly regulated production. After the eleventh Communist Party Congress in 1958 “socialist work-teams” were introduced as a new form of socialist competition. By the end of 1958, twenty-one workteams competed for the title “the socialist work-team” in the northern Bohemian brown coal district. By 1983, 320 work-teams with 6,497 miners competed for the title and 799 work-teams with 18,385 workers had received the title at one time or another.19 New forms of socialist competition and work organization were introduced from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, such as the Saratov movement and the Basov method. The best individuals were awarded the title “pioneer of socialist work” and “hero of socialist work” and received various high governmental honors, such as the Order of Klement Gottwald, Order of Republic, Order of Victorious February, Order of Work and others (Pokorná 1991; Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985). These governmental orders and distinctions were given to workers for their excellent work performance in the regulation of production (see Burawoy 1985:156–208). All these different ways of socialist competition were designed to coerce workers to exceed their own output, performance and norms.

Coal mining and restructuring under state socialism State socialism resulted in profound restructuring of the structured coherence in the Most region, though its most important element remained unchanged: it was still centered on coal and coal mining. The most important change in the regional regime of accumulation was the growth in the role of the chemical industry, itself originally based on coal. For example, in 1961 coal mining, electricity production from coal, and the chemical industry together accounted for 92.6 percent of the gross industrial production of the Most District. Heavy investment in the chemical industry gradually lowered the proportion of total industrial production in the Most District coming from coal mining from 51.9 percent in 1961 (OOSSÚ 1968) to about 27 percent by the 1980s (Figure 4.2), even as the production of coal increased from 31.9 million tonnes in 1961 to 38.6 million tonnes in 1984 (OOSSÚ 1968, OOČSÚ 1986). In 1985, coal mining and the chemical industry combined accounted for 91.3 percent of industrial production in the Most District. Coal played a crucial role in the postwar economic revitalization of Czechoslovakia, but especially in the industrialization drive after the February 1948 coup, when the economy was taken over by the Communist Party and Soviet bureaucratic methods of centralized command planning were adopted. The first five-year plan shifted priorities from consumer to investment goods, stressing rapid development of heavy industry requiring increased demand for coal. The pace of growth again increased in 1951 when the Soviet Union forced Czechoslovakia to further increase the growth of heavy industry in line with CMEA planning. Exports to the industrially developed capitalist countries were reduced and redirected to the underdeveloped countries of Eastern Europe and the

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Soviet Union. Hard currency earnings needed to buy raw materials for manufacturing declined rapidly. Exports to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were on a credit or an exchange basis. Soviet planners advised Czechoslovakia to exploit its natural resources to their maximum extent, including coal (Myant 1989, Selucký 1991). The northern Bohemian coal basin in particular was expected to satisfy this growing energy demand (Stáhlík 1994). Traditional underground methods of coal mining could not keep up with this demand and so large, open cast mining was used instead. As a result, coal mining had to be fundamentally restructured, and was concentrated into even larger units, reliance on open cast mining increased, and new technology was deployed in underground and open cast coal mining.20 Private mines were nationalized and new methods of bureaucratic management and planning were implemented. Since 1950, coal mining has relied increasingly on open cast mining and production has been concentrated in several huge mining combinats. The number of deep pits had declined to 20 by 1965 (22.2 percent of coal production) and to five by 1990 (4.8 percent of coal production). By 1990, coal mining in the northern Bohemian coal basin had been concentrated into eight huge open cast mines. Four of them were in the Most District (Čs. armády, Jan Šverma, Vršany and Most-Kopisty) (see Map 4.3, Plate 4.1). As a result, the annual production ofcoal increased rapidly in northern Bohemia from 20 million tonnes in 1950 to 40 million in 1960, 54.5 million in 1970, 60 million in 1975 to its peak of 72.8 million tonnes in 1984 (Stáhlík 1994, SHD 1991) (Figure 4.3). Brown coal was by far the cheapest source of available energy, and in 1990 the northern Bohemian coal district accounted for 74.1 percent of brown coal mined in the entire country and 57.2 percent of all solid fuels extracted (see Table 4.3). Together with the Sokolov district, it was the source of more than 90 percent of brown coal and more than 70 percent of solid fuel production in Czechoslovakia. New technologies on a new giant scale had to be used to achieve such high levels of coal production, especially to strip increasing amounts of over-burden from the surface to reach the coal beneath (Plates 4.2 and 4.3).21 In northern Bohemia, strip mined coal is up to 200 m under the ground, and thus in 1990, for example, it was necessary to clear away on the average 3.7 cu. m of the overburden to mine one tonne of coal in an open cast mine. The total annual amount of overburden cleared in the northern Bohemian mining district reached 217 million cu. m in 1990, and since the 1960s and 1970s conveyer belts (327 km in 1990) have had to be used to enable this level of transport of coal and overburden (SHD 1991). The Most region remained the center of coal mining after the war. In 1967, the Most District produced 31.8 million tonnes of brown coal, representing 68 percent of the northern Bohemian coal output and 47 percent of the entire Czechoslovak brown coal production. At the same time, 37 percent of electricity produced in northern Bohemia and 6 percent of Czechoslovak electricity was produced in the Most District (OOSSÚ 1968, OOČSÚ 1970). By 1985, the Most District produced 37.4 million tonnes of coal (38.6 in 1984) representing 56 percent of northern Bohemian coal production (OOČSÚ 1986) (Figure 4.3). In 1993, it supplied 26.5 million tonnes of coal accounting for 50.3 percent of the northern Bohemian coal production and 38.9 percent the brown coal production in the Czech Republic (Schreiber and Št’áva 1994). The effects of the

98 NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

Figure 4.3 Production of coal in the Most basin, 1913–99 Source: Data from Štýs and Helešicová (1992), OOČSÚ (1986:115), Schreiber and Št’áva (1994: 220), HN (1996b:6, 1998:13)

post-1989 transformation and coal mining restructuring were dramatic. Coal production in the Most District declined to 18.7 million tonnes in 1998 and 14.5 million tonnes in 1999, a 62.4 percent decline from its peak in 1984 (HN 1998:13, ČTK 1999). The coal mining industry thus remained at the heart of Czechoslovakia’ssocialist model of development, and this was transformed with the rapid development of the chemical industry, to which we now turn. The chemical industry in the Most basin Compared with coal mining, the development of the chemical industry in the Most basin is a relatively recent phenomenon. Germans began preparation for the construction of a chemical plant at Záluží, located between the towns of Most and Litvínov in the Most basin, in October 1938, only a few days after the occupation of the Most region by Nazi Germany. In March 1939, the German construction company Mineralöl-Baugesellschaft was asked to prepare technical documentation and start construction of the hydrogenation plant at Záluží. The construction work began on 5 May 1939 and a new joint stock company called Sudetenlädische Treibstoffwerke, moved to the city of Most, was founded in Berlin in October 1939. The number of construction workers building the new chemical plant grew rapidly. One month after construction began it employed 1,800 people. The first prisoners of war arrived at the construction site in June 1940. Construction employed 14,000 people by the middle of 1941 and 32,600 by June 1942. The first turbine in the power plant was launched in June 1942 and the hydrogenation plant was completed in November 1942 when it began to produce motor fuels from the local brown coal. In 1944, the plant produced 40–50,000 tonnes of motor fuels a month. The first bombing air raid conducted by 200 allied war planes targeted the plant on 12

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Map 4.3 The Most basin

May 1944. Fifteen hundred bombs killed 557 workers and damaged the plant considerably. The following twenty air raids conducted during 1944 and 1945 dropped more than 6,600 bombs directly on the plant (almost another 12,000 bombs hit the vicinity of the plant) and destroyed 70 percent of the chemical complex before the war ended (Chemopetrol 1993, 1994; Pokorná 1991; Šilhavý and Ort 1990). Following the war, the original chemical plant was first reconstructed and later gradually rebuilt and considerably expanded in three phases.

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Plates 4.2 and 4.3 Giant excavators used in open cast coal mining in the Most basin Source: Štýs and Helešicová (1992:37). Reprinted with permission

Between 1945 and 1953, brown coal was the only raw material used in production. The postwar reconstruction of the plant broadened its production mix by adding the production of coke, coal gas, phenol and electricity. The production of methanol was introduced in 1950 and of ammonia in 1953. Between 1954 and 1972 the chemical plant was gradually rebuilt from the use of coal to crude oil as its basic raw material for production. Processing of crude oilbegan in 1956.

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Table 4.3 Czechoslovak coal production by district 1990

Notes: Ostrava-Karviná and Kladno districts refer to hard coal Kčs=Czechoslovak crowns Source: SHD (1991:3)

In 1964, synthetic ethanol was produced and later the production of ethylbenzene began. The Friendship pipeline delivering the Soviet crude oil was extended to the plant in 1965. The second power plant T 700 inside the chemical complex was finished in 1966. Oxosynthesis began to operate in 1969. The hydrogen plant based on heavy oil gasification was launched in 1971 and the urea plant in 1972. In February 1972, the construction of New Petrochemical Plants Litvínov began and chemical coal processing was shut down in September 1972. Between 1973 and 1989 further expansion of the chemical complex occurred with the building of new petrochemical plants. Polypropylene was produced in 1975, polyethylene in 1976, ethylene production started in 1980, the new refinery complex began production in 1981, and finally in 1988 the hydrocracker (feed-stock preparation for pyrolysis) came online (Chemopetrol 1993). As a result, the chemical industry was the fastest growing sector of the regional economy (Figure 4.4) and it became the second largest employer in the Most District, providing about 30 percent of industrial employment in the 1980s (Table 4.4). It is currently the largest producer in terms of gross industrial production in the District (Figure 4.2).22 The chemical industry in the Most District is, like coal, an example of an exploitive type of extensive industrialization typical for the state socialist countries throughout CEE. Initially, driven by the war interests of Nazi Germany, state socialism followed a similar ruthless productivism of extensive accumulation, and vastly expanded both the chemical industry and coal mining in the Most basin. This was possible only through extreme exploitation of natural resources, with resultant environmental devastation across the region. But this level of natural resource extraction and industrial production was possible only because of the careful regulation of labor markets and patterns of consumption. It is to these twinned systems of social and environmental regulation that we now turn.

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Figure 4.4 Index of industrial production in the Most District, 1961–85 Source: Data from OOČSÚ (1986:21) Table 4.4 Industrial employment structure by sector in the Most District, 1961–85

Notes: * Construction in 1961 and 1966 ** Agriculture and nutrition in 1961 and 1966. Source: OOSSÚ (1968:22) and OOČSÚ (1986:112)

5 Social and environmental regulation under state socialism

The post-Second World War restructuring of coal mining in the Most District involved, among other elements, its nationalization and changes in its organization and management. Between 9 May 1945 and 1 March 1991, northern Bohemian coal mining was institutionally reorganized thirty-three times (seven reorganizations in the 1940s, nine in the 1950s, ten in the 1960s, three in the 1970s, two in the 1980s and two in the early 1990s) (Jindřichovská 1991:12–20). This high number of institutional and administrative reorganizations, especially in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, suggests not only that northern Bohemian coal mining was constantly looking for ways to increase its efficiency through improved organization, but also that these efforts failed. It also suggests that there were continual struggles at the national, regional and local levels over the organizational structure of coal mining and the direction of its development. For example, both management and labor unions of the northern Bohemian coal mines strongly objected to the 1967 government proposals for structural reforms which might lead to the closure of unprofitable mines and an increase in the use of Soviet oil and gas for electricity production. Labor unions organized several short protest strikes, while management attempted to convince the government that open cast brown coal mining was the best alternative for the future of electricity production in Czechoslovakia (Myant 1989). Constant reorganization of the labor process was a typical feature of the state socialist economy, and was usually designed to cope with existing shortages of basic supplies, such as materials, equipment, services and labor, as well as with changing production requirements from central ministries (Burawoy 1985: 162–3). Coal mining and the chemical industry in the Most region constantly suffered from labor shortages. After the War, thousands of prisoners of war left the region and about 50,000 Germans were expelled (see Table 4.2), leaving only several dozen workers in the chemical plant (Pokorná 1991). Both coal mining and the chemical industry had to rely on part-time workers who were hired from all over Czechoslovakia, usually on four-month contracts (Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985). But, despite all efforts of state socialist planners, labor shortages in the Most region persisted during the entire state socialist period. Even by the late 1980s there were 10,000–13,000 temporary workers employed in coal mining and the chemical industry in the region.1

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The government used several ways to attract labor to the region: state apartments were easier to get for young couples in the Most District and other coal basin districts of northern Bohemia than in the rest of the Czech lands; miners and workers in the chemical industry enjoyed the highest salaries in Czechoslovakia; and the government provided other financial incentives, such as “burial money” and constancy bonuses in coal mining. In fact, wages in coal mining and the chemical industry in the Most District were the highest in the entire country.2 Shortages of consumer goods were generally less severe and the supply of southern fruits, for example, was much better in the Most District and other coal mining districts of northern Bohemia than in the rest of the country.3 Higher levels of investment by the government were also made in the provision of collective consumption goods in the Most District and northern Bohemia than in the rest of Czechoslovakia.4 Planning became the basic principle for regulating coal mining after 1948.5 Five-year production plans and production quotas were set by the State Planning Commission, the Ministry for Fuels and Energy and general headquarters, and plans were based on the previous levels of production and bargaining between individual mines and their supervising bodies. According to the managers of the Most Coal Company who worked in the coal mining management under state socialism, when the plan was approved it became a “law.” Officially, the plan was “impossible to change” at the level of individual mines by their directors or management: Before [1989] we had a plan broken down to individual mines. For example, we had to mine ten million tonnes [of coal] regardless of whether anyone needed it or not. The center was not willing to reduce the plan by one tonne even if we were forced to take a loan from a bank to mine it and put it into a heap and leave it to disintegrate… The director [of a coal mine] could not stand up against such nonsense decisions. Changing a plan of how much we were supposed to mine was impossible, although we knew that no one needed that coal and no one wanted it. There was no defense.6 Mines were particularly weak vis-à-vis the Ministry. Brown coal was viewed as an important strategic resource for the national economy, and the fulfillment of coal production plans was seen to be the necessary precondition for plan fulfillment in other sectors of the national economy. In the winter of 1979–80, for example, brown coal power plants were unable to produce enough electricity because of the lack of coal, forcing the government to implement a set of costly restrictions limiting electricity consumption by industry and population.7 Communist Party hegemony in the Most District under state socialism Although there is a commonly held perception in northern Bohemia that the giant coal mines and other large enterprises somehow acted independently, in fact enterprises were tightly regulated and closely monitored by the Communist Partyand state apparatus, and

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mine directors, although members of the Communist Party, were subordinated to the district Party committees. Today [1994] we are partners [with state apparatus, regional, district and local administration], today no one can dictate to us. Before [1989] these authorities held us accountable. It was very easy to do that through the district committees of the Communist Party because as a rule the chairs of these authorities were [also] members of the board or at least of the assembly of the Communist Party district authority. And he [a chairman] called a director of a mine directly or the Party called him, made him toe the line and told him what they needed and he [a mine director] had to fulfill that wish somehow or look for ways how to do it… The Communist Party authorities played a very important role. Their wishes [and] decisions made by the district board of the Communist Party were the same as a law. It often contradicted the law but it was the same as a law. A mine director did not have a way out.8 This system of state and Party control forced the mines to behave toward the public and the environment according to certain rules. In this process, many villages were destroyed to make way for coal mining. Householders were obliged to sell their houses to the state at the official low price. A mine could not offer more money to offset the difference between the official price and the price of a new house. This was regarded as stealing socialist property and a mine director was held responsible if this happened.9 Local communities and government agencies were often similarly powerless in the face of state mandates. The case of three power plants planned in the 1970s for the Most District is particularly instructive. On the face of it, the example of these power plants suggests that local authorities did have some discretionary power vis-a-vis the central state, and that they exercised it. The central economic ministries planned to build three large power plants with 2,500 megawatts of total electricity output. One of them (Sedlec) was supposed to be located about 5 km southwest of the city of Most and two (Všestudy I and II) were planned to be built on the border of the Most and Chomutov Districts, 12 km southwest of the city of Most, and located in such a manner that prevailing winds would have brought smoke and pollution directly to the city of Most. The Sedlec power plant and Všestudy power plants would each release 160,000 to 179,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide into the air annually. The district hygienist requested that scrubbers and desulfurization equipment be installed in these power plants, but his requests were ignored. As a result, he refused to approve the project and was supported by the regional hygienist for northern Bohemia. When construction began without approval from the district and regional hygienists in 1968, the regional hygienist asked the regional prosecutor’s office to intervene and halt construction. The dispute was finally decided by the general prosecution office at the national level in favor of the hygienists. Construction of the power plants ceased and they have never been built. The deputy minister who ordered the construction to begin was dismissed. But this is only part of the story, because instead of challenging or overturning the ruling, the Party and state apparatus found an alternative solution. Two different power

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plants were planned for the Most District (Počerady I and II). Again the district hygienist denied approval for construction and for the same reasons: his requests for the installation of scrubbers and desulfurization equipment were ignored. But, in order to prevent prosecution and to eliminate the powers of the Most District hygienist, the government first took away the decision-making power of district and regional hygienists and concentrated it in the hands of the principal hygienist of the Czech Republic in Prague; and second, the Most District authority office made an agreement with the neighboring Louny District according to which the Most District transferred its territory on which the power plants were supposed to be built to the Louny District. The Louny District hygienist did not object to construction. The authority of the Most District hygienist was eliminated, the power plants were built in a planned location without scrubbers and desulfurization equipment, and today they pollute the Most and Teplice Districts but not the Louny District.10 Resistance toward increasing environmental degradation began to grow in the region in the 1970s. The northern Bohemian regional and district Communist Party and the state administration leadership (also members of the Party) began to cast doubt on the central state policy of increasing exploitation of coal deposits at all costs and growing production of electricity in the northern Bohemian coal mining region. For example, Antonín Job, the chair of the North Bohemian Regional Authority Office, argued in 1971: The Ministry of Energy plans to build additional power plants in the region [of Northern Bohemia], but we disagree with this decision. There is no doubt that such a policy would be economically profitable for the center but what would people who are supposed to live here say? Fifty thousand people left the region in the last decade. I will present this opinion to the Czech government but I would not like to clash with the government over this issue. (Vaněk 1996:48) In April of the same year, Jaroslav Hajn, the first secretary (chair) of the north Bohemian branch of the Communist Party said: “It is hard to believe that the health situation of the north Bohemian population is as bad as this working paper shows. The losses are enormous.” (Vaněk 1996:49). During a 1973 meeting of the Communist Party leadership of northern Bohemia, Mr. Škornička, then secretary of the north Bohemian branch of the Communist Party, complained bitterly that: Our region [of northern Bohemia] has enormous environmental problems because of industry. Recently I have received a letter from Slovakia accusing us of not being patriots for our unwillingness to allow the construction of a coal crushing plant at [the town of] Dubí. The letter assures us that the noise and particulate matter pollution levels will be within the norm. However,what kind of norm is that if it is already three times exceeded in this region today? We must not allow additional location of industries in our region. (Vaněk 1996:49)

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In 1975, north Bohemian Communist Party officials argued that “the region should establish strict conditions for the construction of additional power plants and gasworks.” They complained about enterprises and power plants releasing excessive solid and gaseous emissions at night to lower their production costs. They further stressed the need to continuously inform the Czech and Czechoslovak governments and the Central Committee of the Communist Party about environmentally devastating economic policies pursued by various ministries in northern Bohemia (Vaněk 1996:49). However, in this they received little help from the central government and the central Party Committee. Gustav Husák, the General Party Secretary and president of Czechoslovakia, was not interested in environmental problems at all and believed that the environmentalists should not be allowed to influence any economic decisions. Instead of scaling down construction of environmentally devastating enterprises in the Czech Republic, and northern Bohemia in particular, Husák supported the idea of moving environmentally harmful production from the much cleaner Slovakia to the Czech Republic. This idea was supported by Vasil Bi ak, a member of the Central Party Committee and the top Communist Party ideologue, who repeatedly declared that environmentalists were “the enemies of socialism” (Vaněk 1996:52, 70). Thus, while environmentally devastating national economic development policies were already challenged from within regional Party organizations and the state administration in northern Bohemia in the early 1970s, the central party apparatus remained unreceptive to their arguments and to the implications of heightened environmental degradation. While the regional Party and administrative structures opposed further environmental devastation of the region and voiced their concerns about future development, the central state largely ignored such complaints and pushed through plans for further development of coal mining and the energy sector in the region. Regional Party organizations and regional state bureaucrats were too weak to stop or reverse the central state policies. They were also generally unwilling to challenge openly the policies of the central state. In general terms at least, government and Party officials in Prague and in northern Bohemia were well informed about the extent of environmental crisis in the region and its effects on health, and probably also about its likely future effects. But, despite this knowledge, plans for further construction of power plants and increased coal mining in the region were usually realized, over local opposition, throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Industrial paternalism in the Most District Although mining enterprises had little power in the face of central state mandates, enterprises did have enormous powers vis-à-vis the communities inwhich they were located, and these resulted in strong industrial paternalism in the coal mining districts of northern Bohemia. This type of domination over local social life and space by large industrial enterprises typified state socialism at the local level across CEE (Illner 1992a, Pickles 1995b, Doma ski 1992, Morawski 1993). The central state dominated enterprises through the system of central planning and Communist Party hegemony and the enterprises dominated and controlled local communities (Pickles 1995a).

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In the Most region, coal mining enterprises and Chemopetrol provided social infrastructure and many social services for their employees. These services included the provision of free or subsidized food at the workplace, the building and provision of apartment buildings for the workers, and the building and running of the “houses of culture” and sport facilities outside the plants in nearby urban centers. The city of Most was actually dominated by coal mining and its general headquarters were located in the city. After the demolition of the old city in the 1970s, a large portion of the social infrastructure built in the new city was financed by coal mining (Plates 5.1 and 5.2). The mayor of the city of Litvínov characterized the pre-1989 relationship between the city and Chemopetrol, located on its territory, as paternalism: There was a clear paternalistic relationship between Chemopetrol and the city [of Litvínov] before 1989. Chemopetrol essentially assigned what would be or would not be done in the city. Chemopetrol built all kind of things here … Simply the city silently obliged itself not to stick its nose into the area of environmental problems caused by Chemopetrol. It was not a relationship of two partners. Even today it is not entirely the case, but we [the city] are trying to push it to a normal state.11 In many ways, coal mining functioned as the “landlord” to the city of Most, determining land-use policy, disrupting and removing communities almost at will, and intervening in public policy, planning and expenditures through its own control over enterprisecommunity disbursements (Illner 1992). A similar “landlord” relationship developed between Chemopetrol and the city of Litvínov. In reality, coal mining and the chemical industry each developed this relationship with both Most and Litvínov, but the influence of coal mining was much stronger in the city of Most where the bulk of its activities and its headquarters were located, while the influence of Chemopetrol was much stronger in the city of Litvínov in which its production facilities were located. Enterprises developed these levels of community involvement and investment mainly because they wanted to attract and retain workers.12 Labor shortages were an endemic problem for state socialist enterprises, particularly in regions of extensive economic development such as the Most District. In exchange for their services, enterprises such as Chemopetrol expected that cities such as Litvínov would not meddle in their affairs, especially relating to environmental pollution.13 However, such paternalism was limited to large cities, such as Most, Litvínov and to a lesser extent Meziboří. Smaller towns and villages in similarsituations (supplying workers and affected by pollution) rarely received substantial money, services or other benefits from the large enterprises.14 Here coal and chemical enterprises functioned as “parasites” (Illner 1992) on small towns and villages in the Most basin, using their resources but not contributing to their development. The mayor of Mariánské Radčice, a village in the Most basin negatively influenced by both underground coal mining and the activities of nearby Chemopetrol, summarized their contribution to the development of the village during state socialism in these words: “The only contribution we received from the coal mining enterprises in the past was that they

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Plate 5.1 Demolition of the old city of Most Source: Štýs and Helešicová (1992:62). Reprinted with permission

sent two members of [people’s] militia and two wreaths for important [communist] anniversaries here. This was their entire contribution.” 15 Often this type of parasitic, hegemonic relationship between coal mining and towns and villages was also “antagonist” (Illner 1992). For thirty-three communities in the Most basin, such antagonist relationships with coal mining culminated in their liquidation (Table 5.2, Plate 5.3): No one cared about our opinion [before 1989]. Coal mining enterprises simply said: “We will bury you, we will close it here and move you to the blocks of flats.” This was how it worked here. Such was the routine practice with all liquidated villages here.16 In such circumstances, not only did earlier democratic practices and structures of civil society (as “a genuinely pluralistic and actively self-organizing civil society which is independent of state power and capable of questioning and—from time to time— resisting its expansionist claims” (Keane 1988:28)) wither away, but new forms of despotic social and environmental regulations emerged, each with its own distinct geography.

The eradication of civil society In a region formerly at the core of organized and spontaneous labor struggles in Czechoslovakia, Communist Party hegemony in economic, political and social life quickly led to the virtual eradication of civil society at the local level, and partially explains why the

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Plate 5.2 Demolition of the old city of Most Source: ONV (n.d.: 71)

citizens of the Most District and the broader region of northern Bohemia allowed such extreme environmental devastation to take place.17 Without a functioning civil society, coal mining was increasingly regulated only by the system of central planning and Communist Party hegemony. It was driven by the need to supply coal and energy for the national economy, and increasingly failed to take into consideration local interests voiced by decreasingly independent civic structures. Even local government became almost totally subordinated to the party state and functioned as its transmission belt at the local level. As such, its ability to defend local interests gradually eroded and social regulation in the Most District was seized by powers external to the district. The hegemony of the Communist Party, the centralization of state power and the absence of civil society on their own cannot, however, satisfactorily explain why local citizens in the Most District did not resist the liquidation of their villages and towns and why they seem to have acquiesced in the face of massive environmental degradation by coal mining and chemical enterprises. Several broader social forces were important. First, the population of the Most region and its social ties were disrupted by Nazi occupation in 1938 and especially by the expulsion of Germans from the region in 1945. The newcomers were attracted by jobs, high wages and apartments and, as a result, tended to live and work in the region only for a limited time. There were also clear differences in background between the new immigrants and those who left: newcomers were typically poorly educated young single men, while those who left the region in the 1980s tended to be educated and married (Šilhavý and Ort 1990). Newcomers rarely seem to have developed strong personal attachments to the land and countryside, while the

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Plate 5.3 Demolition of the village of Komořany in the Most District

thousands of people who were moved out of their homes in rural communities as their villages were torn down experienced significant disruption in their own attachments to the land.18 As a result, many people in the Most region developed what one resident of the region called a mechanistic mentality toward nature, allowing them to ignore the devastation of the environment in which they lived.19 This direct involvement through their jobs with the very activities that destroyed their environment and their health further contributed to deeply embedded variable and differentiated webs of repression that came to mark, for many, the experience of state socialism.20 Although the central government was well informed about the extent of environmental pollution and its impact on health, it took only limited steps to alleviate the worst consequences of extreme environmental degradation in the region.21 For example, from the 1970s onwards free vitamin-enriched snacks and lunches were provided at schools, “prophylactic” foods (that is, foods such as yoghurt which were thought or claimed to “cleanse” the body of pollutants) wereprovided to workers, and children were sent to the so-called “schools in nature” for about three weeks every year to allow for the natural purging of pollutants.22 Monitoring activities were also improved: in northern Bohemia fifty-seven observation stations were established to monitor air pollution by sulfur dixoide, twenty-seven to measure air pollution by particulate matter, twenty-two by sulfur acid, and ten to measure toxic metals. Finally, new requirements were introduced for enterprises: for example, during temperature inversions and high levels of air pollution power plants were supposed to burn coal with lower sulfur content and lower the production of electricity (Pohl 1988).

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Although the social mode of regulation in the District was largely determined in these ways by the national hegemony of the central party state, it had very specific regional and local components. It especially included distinct labor politics, local forms of industrial paternalism, the systematic undermining of civil society, what we have identified as the mechanistic mentality of the local population, and repression of the boundaries between the contradictory experiences of work in coal mining and the chemical industry and its effects on individuals and the environment. This regional mode of social regulation was a crucial component of the structured coherence produced in the Most District under state socialism. Production of space and environment in the Most District under state socialism State socialism and its development model were characterized by an extensive regime of accumulation based on socialist industrialization, a bureaucratic mode of regulation typified by central planning and the Communist Party hegemony, and a labor process model distinguished by anarchy of relations in production and worker control of production. In the Most District, this development model was typified mainly by coal mining and chemical industries and their “gigantomania”: organization into huge enterprises employing thousands of workers, consuming enormous amounts of raw materials and energy and producing tremendous amounts of pollution. While it is certainly the case that these enterprises operated with the same effects as similar highly polluting and exploitative capitalist enterprises in the West, it is simply unacceptable to us to suggest— as Lefebvre did—that state socialism did not produce its own, distinctive space. In this section, we will consider further how, in the Most District, space functioned as a means of production within the state socialist development model.23 Large scale landscape devastation A simple comparison of present maps of the Most region with the situation before state socialism reveals a staggering difference: not only has the human geography of the region been changed in terms of industrial patterns and settlement systems, but the physical geography has also been changed due to landscape devastation and the production of new landscapes that in turn have led to the alteration of microclimates. This section investigates these changes. In 1991, 117 sq. km of the Most District were devastated by open cast coal mining, representing 25.1 percent of the area of the district (Švec and Kučerová 1993b). Between 1952 and 1991, 21.4 sq. km of landscape devastated by coal mining had been recultivated (Štýs and Helešicová 1992; Švec and Kučerová 1993b).24 In total 138.4 sq. km of the Most basin in the district had been directly involved in coal mining between 1952 and 1991 (29.7 percent of the district’s territory). Besides the landscape devastation caused by coal mining, Chemopetrol also expanded its territorial reach under state socialism. Today, it occupies 7.9 sq. km and its chemical dumps take up an additional 4.1 sq. km (Chemopetrol 1994). Thus together coal mining and the chemical industry consumed

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Figure 5.1 Area devastated by coal mining in the northern Bohemian coal basin, 1929–91 Source: Data from Štýs and Helešicová (1992:159), Stáhlík (1994:325)

almost 150 sq. km of space in the Most District alone, although actually these uses were heavily concentrated in one-third of the district and here so much territory was taken up by them that little was left over for other activities. The rest of the district, occupied by the Ore mountains and the southern agricultural area outside the Most basin, was not directly affected by coal mining (Table 5.1, Maps 4.2 and 4.3, Plate 4.1, Figures 5.1 and 5.2). Because of this shaping of nature, the environment and landscape of the Most basin have been completely changed. On the one hand, the surface has been stripped sometimes 200 m deep in large areas of open cast coal mines. On the other hand, the dumps of overburden have built new hills up to 60 m above the original terrain in the Most District (Švec and Kučerová 1993a).25 We have already discussed how the open cast mines and unrestored dumps influence the local climate by changing the direction and speed of air flow and temperature regimes by stripping the natural vegetation cover from large areas. We have also shown how this contributes to air pollution problems.26 The hydrological system of the Most basin has also been devastated by coal mining and forest depletionhas occurred throughout the Ore Mountains because of air pollution. The course of the Bílina River has been changed frequently and, in several areas of the district, the river has been redirected into a pipeline. In the 1980s, the Dřínov water reservoir was discharged to make a way for the open cast mine, Čs. armády. In this way an entirely new physical geography of the Most basin has been produced. In the 1980s state socialist planners had actually planned to increase the levels of surface disruption and landscape change in their plans for the future of northern Bohemia. According to the so-called “large variant” for the future of coal mining, prepared by the company Mining Projects Teplice for the Federal Ministry of Fuel and Energy and one other federal ministry, the entire northern Bohemian basin was to be liquidated and all

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Figure 5.2 Coal production in open cast and underground mines in the north Bohemian coal basin, 1960–89 Source: Jindřichovská (1993:36) Table 5.1 Land use in the Most District and the Czech Republic in the early 1990s (in % of district’s territory)

Source: Janeček (1993:3)

coal exploited. Liquidation was to involve the entire settlement system of the area, including the cities of Chomutov (70,000 inhabitants), Litvínov (34,000), Dubí (9,000), and Krupka (9,000), and the large industrial enterprises, such as Chemopetrol, Chomutov Iron Works and others. In the plan 6.2 billion tonnes of brown coal was to be excavated in open cast mines up to 400 m deep, devastating 500 sq. km of the landscape over the next 100 years. Another 1,500 sq. km of mountains would have been degraded by pollution from the power plants and acid rain (Kubricht 1980). Writing in 1980, Štěpán (1980:6) argued that “research has shown that the area around the cities of Most and Chomutov, including these cities, would become practically uninhabitable in a critical period around the year 2000.” Landscape degradation under the state socialist development model was also a fact of life for people living in many villages and small towns in the region, as well as those who lived in the old city of Most. After 1955, thirty-two villages and the district capital were torn down, resulting in the liquidation of more than 15,000 apartments and forcing thousands of people out of their homes (Table 5.2).

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Table 5.2 Villages and settlement units liquidated in the Most District, 1956–94

Source: Švec and Kučerová (1993b:17)

At the same time, state socialism produced its own new industrial and urban space. First, while coal mining and the chemical industry were important, other industrial activities usually associated with the two were also developed, such as the construction of power plants, a transportation infrastructure (new railway tracks and roads), machine works, mining equipment, a new drinking water dam at Fláje and an industrial water

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reservoir at Dřínov.27 Second, the production of new urban space is illustrated by the largescale construction of new apartment buildings beginning after the Second World War. A program of housing construction was designed to accommodate thousands of workers needed in the new chemical factories and the expanding coal industry. Initially, construction focused on the completion of the housing complexes that Germans had started to build during the war. Later, new city districts were built in Most using first bricks and later (since 1958) concrete. A new plant producing concrete panels for apartment buildings was built in Most to satisfy the rapidly growing demand (Pokorná 1991). The city of Litvínov was expanded in a similar way and in the 1950s a new town of Meziboří (more than 5,000 inhabitants) was built on the slopes of the Ore Mountains. The central government decided to sacrifice the city of Most in 1962 in order to exploit almost 100 million tonnes of high quality brown coal found in a rich seam some 30–40 m under the city (see Plates 5.1 and 5.2). Governmental resolution no. 180/1964 specified the ways in which the city of Most was to be demolished and a new city was to be built at a different location. To our knowledge, this governmental decision was never seriously challenged.28 On the contrary, the demolition of the old city of Most was celebrated as a triumph of state socialism and modernity, and as a feat of skilled engineering, as the church museum at Most moved from the mining site to the edge of the open cast mine illustrates. The old historical face of the city of Most has disappeared, as well as renaissance, baroque, art nouveau and cubist features, ostentatious buildings of mining companies and poor houses of miners…. New Most has plenty of space for new and further construction, for roses and green areas, department stores and public buildings, it has modern and wide streets. New Most is a broad-mindedly designed city with extensive housing projects built inmodern style, some public buildings display extraordinary architectonic creativity and merit, sport facilities show perfect architecture, functionality and are artistic dominants of the city. There are no renaissance or baroque buildings built on the remnants of Gothic or Roman foundations in new Most. New Most represents one complex urban plan of this historical epoch, it is a socialist city from its foundations, it is a representation of our present. (ONV Most nd: 68) Today, the demolition of the old city of Most is considered to have been a mistake and a cultural and historical loss, certainly not worth the 100 million tonnes of brown coal it yielded. New construction focused on the building of hundreds of concrete apartment buildings (paneláky) (10,000 apartments between 1981 and 1990) in single function housing zones without any job opportunities for their inhabitants, while the domination of the city’s labor market by coal mining and Chemopetrol prevented the development of other economic sectors in the city. During the reconstruction of the city in the 1970s attempts were also made to settle and segregate the Roma population into a separate neighborhood (“Chánov”). In the 1950s, thousands of Roma had been encouraged by state socialist authorities to move to

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Plate 5.4 The Chánov neighborhood built for the Most’s Roma under state socialism

northern Bohemia from Slovak villages to alleviate severe labor shortages in the region (Carolina 1992). Serious social problems, such as crime and alcoholism, resulted. But forced overcrowding of the Roma with their removal to the Chánov neighborhood only escalated the problems. In the 1980s, the neighborhood was demolished by its inhabitants (VÚVA 1991) (Plate 5.4). “If we are looking for an identity of the city of Most,” VÚVA (1991:26–7) commented, “it is found in its alienation to human standards … The city of Most is a warning example of city degradation and degradation of the urban environment. The mayor of the city declared in October 1994: “The construction of a socialist city was a big mistake. Today we do not know how to humanize it here” (LN 1994c:2). Environmental degradation in the Most District under state socialism The nature of space produced by the state socialist development model is also illustrated by the continuous deterioration in the quality of the environment in the Most District in the post-Second World War period.29 The levels of sulfur dioxide pollution peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s, while the deposition of particulate matter peaked in the early 1960s and has declined since (Figures 5.3–5.5).30 Levels of flying ash deposition exceeded the highest average annual permissible level of 150 tonnes per sq. km (t/km2) many times in many locations across the district. For example, in the village of Komořany polluted by the Komořany power plant, the levels of flying ash deposition reached an incredible 5,644 t/km2 annually (in front of the elementary school) and 4,811 t/km2 (at the bus stop) in 1954. At Ervěnice, the levels of ash deposition oscillated around 2,000 t/km 2 annually. In 1957, it reached 1,026 t/km 2 annually at Záluží, 1,385 t/km2 at Litvínov, and so on. In

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Figure 5.3 Particulate matter and sulfur dioxide emissions from the registered pollution sources in the Most District, 1960–90 Source: Data from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:28)

the city of Most in February 1965, the hygienic station measured 11,450 t/km 2 of solid deposition around the local furnace (Švec and Kučerová 1993a:14). As we have seen earlier, the common strategy of state socialist societies to improve pollution problems such as these was to build higher smokestacks to better disperse pollution over a larger area. For example, the 40 m high smokestacks of the Komořany power plant were replaced by a 180 m smokestack in 1966, and this substantially reduced ash deposition in the area (Table 5.3). The old Ervěnice power plants with smokestacks lower than 100 m had been liquidated by 1980. Similarly, local furnaces were shut down in Most and Litvínov after these cities began to receive their heat from the Komořany heating plant in 1965. All these measures reduced the ash deposition (Švec and Kučerová 1993a:14). Figure 5.4 shows that the annual maximum limit of average sulfur dioxide concentration (40 micrograms per cu. m (µg/m 3)) was usually exceeded several times each year in the Most District during the 1970s and 1980s. The highest sulfur dioxide concentrations were reached in winter months during temperature inversions (Table 5.4).31 As Table 5.4 indicates, in 1982 there were fifty-fivedays during which the highest permissible twenty-four-hour sulfur dioxide concentrations (150 µg/m3) were exceeded. The longest temperature inversion was recorded in January 1982. It lasted for nineteen days and average sulfur dioxide concentration surpassed 400 µg/m3 for ten days in northern Bohemia (Moldan 1990:57). Table 5.5 provides a comparison of sulfur dioxide pollution in the Most District with the neighboring districts and illustrates a situation of worsening air pollution throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Air pollution by nitrogen oxides (NOX) is another environmental threat in the Most District, as Figure 5.6 shows. According to the former district hygienist, hydrocarbons such as benzene, and other chemical substances released by the chemical industry but which are not measured, pose a greater health hazard than sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in blood-related illnesses and in causing lung cancer. Poor environmental quality is estimated to contribute to up to one-third of the health problems and lower life

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Figure 5.4 Sulfur dioxide pollution in the Most District Top: Average annual levels of sulfur dioxide pollution measured by the “summary method” in the Most basin 1970–86 Bottom: Average annual levels of sulfur dioxide pollution measured by automatic equipment at the Most District hygienic station. Note: The “summary method” was discontinued in 1987 and replaced by the “absorption method” and measurement by automatic equipment Source: Data from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:36, 30)

expectancy in the Most District. The other two-thirds result from social factors and unhealthy life practices.32 Today in northern Bohemia, environmental degradation is being blamed for lower life expectancy and higher morbidity rates in the general population particularly in lower age groups, such as infants, pre-school and school age children (World Bank 1992a, Wedmore 1994). Tables 6.6 to 6.11 in the next chapter show the health and mortality statistics for the Most District in comparison to other mining districts of northern

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Figure 5.5 Average annual levels of flying ash deposition at Komořany (in the Most District), 1958– 78, and in the Most basin and the Most District as a whole, 1962–91 Note: Komořany is the site of former power plant built in the early 1950s and rebuilt as a heating plant in 1965 that lowered its output and coal burnt by one-third Source: Data from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:29–30, 35)

Bohemia and the Czech Republic as a whole. Other reported health problems in the 1980s included a 2.2 times higher incidence of viral liver infections compared with the Czech Republic as a whole, 3.6 times higher incidence of parasitic diseases, and 1.2 times higher incidence of mental disorders (World Bank 1992a). Mining districts recorded reduced immunity and delayed bone maturation in children, and strong correlations between air pollution, cancer and total mortality, but these correlations require further investigation (OECD 1994a). The productivist rationality of state socialism was willing to sacrifice the coal mining region of northern Bohemia and its population to the diktat of planned development.33 In the process in northern Bohemia, and especially in the Most District, state socialism reworked the spatial and environmental structure of the pre-War capitalist economy and

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Table 5.3 Large sources of air pollution (power plants) in the Most District and its vicinity in 1987 and their rank in the Czech Republic (annual emissions in 1,000 tonnes)

Notes: * rank among the largest sources of pollution in the Czech Republic. In 1992, four largest sources of solid emissions in the Czech Republic were on the territory of the Most District (Chemopetrol Litvínov (ranked no. 1 in the Czech Republic) and Komořany (2)) or in its immediate vicinity (Ledvice (3) and Počerady (4)). Two largest sources of SO2 emissions (Prunéřov II (1) and Počerady (2)) plus four more in top eleven (Prunéřov I (6), Chemopetrol Litvínov (7), Ledvice (9), Komořany (11)) and two largest source of NOX emissions (Počerady (1) and Prunéřov II (2)) plus three more in top eleven (Chemopetrol Litvínov (4), Ledvice (9) and Prunéřov (11)) Source: Compiled from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:27) and Ministry of the Environment (1994:18) Table 5.4 Number of foggy winter days in the Most District, 1980–91

Note: 150 µg/m3 is the maximum average 24-hour concentration of SO2 Source: Compiled from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:31)

produced its own space and its own very much manufactured environment. But in molding space and nature to its own ends, the party state was also producing the very spatial fix that first typified one regime of accumulation and its mode of social and environmental regulation, and later gave rise to the very crises that forced the party from power.

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Table 5.5 Change in average annual sulfur dioxide concentrations in selected districts of northern Bohemia, 1970–85 (in µg/m3)

Note: The annual standard is 40 µg/m3 Source: World Bank (1992a:29)

Figure 5.6 Air pollution by nitrogen oxides in the cities of Most and Litvínov, 1981–91 (in µg/m3) Source: Data from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:40)

Structured coherence in the Most District under state socialism Thinking of state socialism in CEE as some kind of minor interruption in a “normal” process of capitalist development, or as a mere aberrant form of capitalist exploitation, is of little help in understanding the concrete experiences and practices of life under the party state. It certainly does not allow us to understand the ways in which the Soviet style model of development was “implanted” and adapted in the same and in different ways in particular localities. More importantly, these forms of reduction deflect thought away from the very real struggles of concrete individuals under difficult circumstances, and they in part do this by denying to these people not only their own history (what Samuels (1962) called “people’s history”) but also the very geographies bequeathed to them and produced anew by them. The importance of understanding the spatial fix of the party state and the particular forms of structured coherence produced at the level of the regions is thus an analytical claim with important practical consequences. First, the manufactured structured coherence of the Most District was centered on coal mining and chemical production, itself originally based on coal. We have shown that these two economic sectors dominated the regional economy and labor market. Second, social

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Figure 5.7 Migration in the Most District (per thousand inhabitants) Source: Data from Švec and Kučerová (1993b:19)

relations in the district and the social mode of regulation were dominated by the hegemony of the Communist Party and central state orchestrated from outside the district. This hegemony changed the nature of class struggle, degraded labor unions into the transmission belt of the Party, removed democracy from society, virtually eradicated civil society and dominated the regional regime of accumulation through the centrally planned system. It was typified by a specific form of industrial paternalism, itself producing specific geographies of relations between large coal mining and chemical enterprises and the cities of Most and Litvínov on the one hand, and between the enterprises and other local communities on the other. Third, the structured coherence of the Most District was characterized by a mobile population with a very high turnover, exhibiting high levels of social pathology and an apparently “mechanistic mentality” and repressed relationship towards the environment (Figure 5.7).34 It was typified by specific consumption patterns based on the highest average monthly salaries in Czechoslovakia at the time as well as other financial incentives (such as constancy bonuses in coal mining and stabilization allowances or “burial money” provided by the government). Fourth, the structured coherence of the district was typified by the production of a distinct space and environment by the state socialist development model. The old spatial order of the Most basin was destroyed by open cast coal mining, resulting in large scale landscape devastation and the destruction of thirty-two villages as well as the old city of Most. A new thoroughly “state socialist” space was produced, and this was typified on the one hand by the urban structure and form of the new city of Most and other cities in the region, and on the other hand by the scale and form of the abandonment and recultivation of coal mines and mine dumps. This combination of coal mining, chemical production, and electricity generation resulted in extreme levels and particular forms of environmental degradation in the district.

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6 Constructing risk Environment and health

Health care and health “risk”: regimes and economies If the velvet revolutions that swept across CEE in 1989 were, in the first instance, struggles for democracy, they were also at root cries of desperation from people fearful for the deterioration of the environment and their children’s and their own health. If, as Elmar Altvater (1993) has suggested, the “catching up and overtaking project” set in place under state socialism to legitimize “fast growth” policies resulted in a popular demand for (and a corresponding inability to provide) higher quality consumer goods, it produced at the same time a sense of entitlement to improved health and public health services, and a sense of alarm as actual health conditions began to deteriorate. The effects of socialist growth policies in the post-war period, particularly in the more agrarian states of southeast Europe, had been rapid improvements in the general condition of health and health service provision for the majority of people. These improvements were most visible to post-war parents and most taken for granted by children in the 1970s and 1980s. However, by the end of the 1980s pollution had reached crisis proportions in some communities, and throughout the region poor environmental conditions were becoming increasingly a fact of everyday life. The fiscal crisis of the 1980s also brought tighter controls on government spending for collective consumption goods, such as health care, recreational facilities, and public infrastructure. The debt crisis meant that the supply of imported Western goods dried up. Bureaucratic inefficiencies and ever higher quota demands on enterprises led to a reduction in state enterprise support for community infrastructure and worker health. Production crises throughout CMEA resulted in uneven supplies of poor quality consumer goods, and in Romania, Poland and the USSR food quality and supply also deteriorated. Threatened with shortages of poor quality goods, badly polluted waters, air, foodstuffs and workplaces, health across the regions deteriorated. But so also did the quality of health care, and for the same reasons. There is, therefore, a whole history of health struggles still to be written for this region at this time, and such a history would also be a history of popular discontent and political revolution. In this chapter we focus on the consequences of state socialist environmentalpolicies for health in the region and on the ways in which environmental risk and its significance for

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health have been constructed differently under state socialism and post-socialism. In fact poor environmental quality is only one of many factors that affects health. As a result, it is extremely difficult in practice to separate the specific health effects of environmental pollution from other health risks (such as behavioral and lifestyle factors including diet, smoking and exercise habits, the quality of health care services, the overall quality of social and economic environment in the region, and ambient conditions such as indoor and work-place pollution). Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík (1992:37) have even suggested that a single person can eliminate more than 75 percent of the health impacts from pollution by changes in life practices. Yet when we turn to issues of health under state socialism, it is environmental hazards and risks that have attracted most attention. In this chapter we document the role of environmental hazards and risk, but also show how this focus on environmental data quality and coverage has been misleading. The second goal of the chapter, then, is to show how health and environmental risk have been constructed under state socialism, and how have these constructions been changed by reform and the new forms of modernization wrought by capitalism and democratization. That is, we focus on the ways in which environmental health risks were defined under state socialism and are being redefined and reconstructed at the present time. State socialist health care systems in CEE have to be understood first and foremost historically and geographically. Collectivization, militarization, and mass industrialization of manufacturing and agriculture were attained through strict controls over population movement, work, and residence. In the great push to industrialize the communist state, agrarian peoples were urbanized and agricultural workers were collectivized. In both cases, although for different reasons, the growth phases of extensive industrialization resulted in rapid improvements in aggregate health care statistics for CEE countries. Bulgaria is a particularly good example. After 1948 Bulgaria experienced one of the highest rates of economic growth in Europe in the twentieth century. At the end of the Second World War, 80 percent of Bulgaria’s workforce was employed in subsistence agriculture. By the end of the 1950s the economy had been transformed into an “industrial-agricultural” economy tied to raw material and market supports from the USSR.1 By the 1980s, national growth seems to have generated rapid income equalization (at least until the early 1980s), extended social service provision and universal improvements in social well-being and health (see Tables 6.1 and 6.2.) In contrast to these apparent improvements in the quality of life are the terrible consequences of the mechanisms used to achieve them. Property was expropriated. Productive resources were collectivized in the hands of state managers and bureaucrats. Restrictions on movement were introduced and rigid influx controls into the city were enforced. National economic development was achieved by subsuming all other concerns to a productivist ideology in the cities and the countryside. In what Eric Green (1989:1) refers to as the “hubris of giganticism,” Soviet-style central planning and norms were imposed on every sector of production. The environmental consequences and resulting health problems were tremendous and a particular attitude towards the environment emerged in which the entire economic structure and system of management operated to induce people to pollute. Often such inducements were not only implicit but were made quite explicit, as in the slogan exhorting workers to work harder: “We cannot wait for

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Table 6.1 Quality of Life in Bulgaria, 1980–7

Source: Compiled from CSO (various years 1991–) Table 6.2 Number of people per physician in Bulgaria, 1939–87

Source: Compiled from CSO (various years 1991–)

favors from nature; our task is to take them from her” (quoted in Green 1989:2). Michael Colby (1989) refers to this model of exploitation as frontier economics, in which the promise of infinite growth is achieved by the application of high energy, low efficiency technologies and mechanized production without regard to or knowledge of the ecological consequences of such action. Field (1994:178) has referred to the Soviet system of centrally planned health care as the “residual service”, financed last among all agencies and only then with residual funds if and when available. Since health care was not an arena of state action that produced quantifiable output, claims that a viable public health service might contribute to the greater social and economic well-being of the country were accepted only in principle. As health care costs elsewhere in the world rose and as new technologies for dealing with disease and injury came online, the proportion of Soviet gross national product (GNP) earmarked for health care fell. Even the former Soviet Health Minister E.I.Chazov acknowledged that Soviet health care ranked seventy-fifth out of 126 countries in the proportion of GNP allocated, and that it was “hopeless” to fight for a renewal of the Soviet health care system (quoted in Field 1994:179). The scope and pace of gains in aggregate health of the population in the early years of extensive industrialization in each country of CEE (underpinned by free health care, improving diet, and increasing household incomes), contrasted markedly with declining

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health conditions as environmental and workplace pollution began to impact people of all ages. Increasingly state officials and workplace managers attempted (in some cases successfully) to redefine health care in terms of prophylaxis, where individuals were provided with certain foods and recreational opportunities to moderate or alleviate the “necessary” and “normal” health effects of industrial and agricultural practices. Prophylaxis involved a wide array of remediation practices: vacation homes for workers and their families in mountain resorts, spas and associated water and air treatments, and special foods (such as yoghurt) “known” for their curative and cleansing effects. Its primary purpose was, of course, to allow polluting enterprises to “pay” for polluting workers and commuters; to buy compliance. Certainly, workers in heavily polluting large state enterprises throughout CEE were fully aware that wage premiums were paid for working in unsafe environments, that workers were only allowed to work in certain parts of the production process for a limited number of years before early retirement to alleviate the inevitable health effects of exposure, and that factory canteens supplied a daily ration of yoghurt “to cleanse the system” of toxins. But prophylaxis also contributed to building a distinct environmental ethos. Through state-sanctioned activities such as annual holidays for workers in polluting enterprises to mountain and spa resorts, or special party organizations for exposing children to nature and outdoor pursuits, people formed attitudes towards nature that cannot be reduced to the productivist logic of the state. The indirect consequences of state action were also important in creating a view of nature that was not consonant with either the ideal of the state or the lumpen rendering given by much Western environmental analysis. Indeed, we would argue, a clear understanding of the compromised nature of state socialism’s rhetoric of protections for both citizen and nature was forged among workers at the workplace and in the factories, and among parents in the communities, precisely because of the transparently contradictory public health practices and effects of state socialism. It is to these that we now turn. Life expectancy and infant mortality The effect of these deteriorating environmental conditions, societal transformations, and changes in lifestyle and forms of health care delivery has been a progressive deterioration in the health of the people of CEE. But to what extent can this deterioration in health be attributed to environmental pollution and degradation? People in the CEE countries have the shortest life expectancy at birth among thirty-three industrialized countries and infant mortality is high in comparison to industrialized countries (Levy 1992:62–3;Bobak and Marmot 1996:17–23; Zaniewski 1993; World Population Data Sheet 1998:8–9) (Table 6.3). There are several possible explanations for this lag in life expectancy. First, CEE historically lags behind Western Europe with respect to life expectancy, and the current life expectancy gap between CEE and Western Europe is therefore not unusual. Second, there is the influence of the quality of the physical environment: while the environment has been improving in the West in the past several decades, its quality has significantly deteriorated in CEE, and this combined with increases in mortality from chronic diseases

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Table 6.3 Life expectancy at birth and infant mortality in selected CEE countries, 1998

Notes: * Average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live under current mortality levels * Annual number of deaths of infants under age one year per 1,000 live births *** Western Europe: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom # Northern Europe: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden ## Southern Europe: Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain Including the European countries of the former Soviet Union (Russia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova) † 1997 Source: World Population Data Sheet (1998:8–9)

since the 1960s (an increase which had occurred earlier in the West) has negatively affected health and contributed to increased levels of mortality (see Bobak and Feachem 1995). Third, economic factors have impacted on the quality of health care: the economic difficulties of the centrally planned economies and the growing technological gap between CEE and the Western industrialized countries have resulted in serious declines in the quality of health care services in the former. This has been particularly evident in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases considered to be the principal causes of mortality. Fourth, individual lifestyles and factors such as smoking habits, diet, obesity, alcohol consumption and blood pressure control contribute to substantially higher incidence of heart disease and stroke in CEE (Table 6.4, Plate 6.1). Fifth, the overall social, economic and political environment associated with state socialism has been blamed for lower life expectancy in the region (Hertzman 1995:5–15; see also Hertzman, Kelly and Bobak 1996, Bobak and Marmot 1996:31–42). Each of these factors contributes to an East-West life expectancy gap (Hertzman, 1995:5–15). But environmental pollution

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Table 6.4 Prevalence of regular smoking and obesity (%)

Source: Bobak and Marmot (1996:38)

and the quality of health care are each considered to be responsible for at most 5–10 percent of the mortality gap between CEE and the industrialized countries (Bobak and Marmot 1996:41). The quality of the environment alone cannot, therefore, be considered a principal factor causing life expectancy gap between CEE and the West, but must be situated within a broader context of public health policy issues. Nevertheless, in those etiologies related to environmental pollution people in CEE do suffer higher incidences of respiratory diseases, childhood lead poisoning, occupational injuries and other health problems (Levy 1992:62), and some environmental factors do have particularly strong impacts on health, such as lead levels in the air and soil, airborne dust, sulfur dioxide and other gases, and nitrates in water (OECD 1994a: Annex 1:1) (see Table 6.5). Can a relationship between poor environmental quality and poor health be established for state socialist societies? In each country of CEE health was monitored by institutes of epidemiology, but these had limited budgets and, as a result, before 1989 the “epidemiologically detectable risks” to human health from environmental pollution had not been generally recognized or defined as such. By contrast, since 1989 many research projects have been launched in CEE in the field of environmental epidemiology, often with international help, to investigate the effects of environmental pollution on human health. Western models of epidemiological research are currently being extended to CEE and are attempting to determine the impact of pollution on human health. Examples of these efforts include comparative studies between polluted and relatively clean regions such as the comparative studies between the districts of Teplice in northern Bohemia and Prachatice in southern Bohemia in the Czech Republic (Šrám, Kotěšovec and Jelínek 1996), and between the cities of Chorzow and Mikolow located in Polish Upper Silesia (Zejda et al. 1996). Other examples of epidemiological research launched after 1989 include the investigations into the impact of environmental quality on immune mechanisms in human bodies (Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík 1992; Richter and Pfeifer 1996), on mortality and health effects in regions with spatially variable levels of air pollution (Kotěšovec and Brynda 1996; Guliš et al. 1996a; Bobak and Feachem 1995; Jedrychowski 1995; Peters et al. 1996; Wojtyniak, Gorynski and Piekarski 1994; Krzy anowski and Wojtyniak 1991/92), on water pollution (Guliš et al. 1996b), on pregnant women (Dejmek, Selevan and Šrám 1996), on the incidence and mortality from lung cancer and

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Plate 6.1 International cigarette manufacturers have found profitable new markets in CEE since 1989 (Prague, Czech Republic)

other lung diseases (Vondra et al. 1996, Marel et al. 1996, Jedrychowski et al. 1990), on molecular and genetic effects in humans (Binková et al. 1996, Perera et al. 1992), on food contamination (Černá 1995), and on overall health (Hertzman 1995; Levy, Rest and Levenstein 1993; Jackson 1994). Although it is generally accepted that the quality of the environment in CEE countries has had negative effects on human health, the available data on environmental health risks are often of insufficient quality and quantity to definitively establish concrete causality (see for example World Bank 1992a:8, OECD 1994a, Hertzman 1995, Mikhova and Pickles 1994a). For example, poor data on air pollutant exposure prevent environmental epidemiologists from demonstrating the relationship between duration of pollution exposure (together with its nature and concentration) and its health effects. Lack of data also prevents researchers from considering total exposure assessment (that is, exposure from multiple locations during the day, such as at work, in transit, at home, and while shopping), instead forcing them to consider only the site where pollution is most evident. Because of the paucity of relevant data, many studies disregard variables other than environmental pollution as being detrimental to human health, and these may confound the health impacts of environmental pollution (Jedrychowski 1995:19–20). Not surprisingly, many of the most acute health problems are often concentrated in the most environmentally devastated regions: Upper Silesia in Poland, northern Bohemia in the Czech Republic; or in extremely polluted single locations such as Cop a Mic , Medias and Baie Mare in Romania, Borsod County in Hungary, and Dimitrovgrad in Bulgaria (Hertzman 1995:19–20, World Bank 1992b:112).

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Table 6.5 Health problems attributed to environmental degradation in CEE

Source: OECD (1994a, Annex 1:1–8); Hertzman (1996:79–81, 1995:73–52)

In this chapter we chart the emergence and expansion of Western epidemiological research on environmental impacts on health. Our general goal is threefold. First, to show how prophylactic models of health care functioned under state socialism. Second, to illustrate the shift in “health” regime from prophylaxis and the emergence of democratic managerialism as a model for dealing with environmental health. And third, to use this research to clarify specific material conditions of environmental pollution and health impacts faced by the countries of CEE. We begin this work with a detailed analysis of environment and health in the Czech Republic. Czech Republic Czechoslovakia ranked among the countries with the highest life expectancy at birth in the 1950s, but has subsequently slipped considerably ranking around fortieth in the world in the mid-1980s (Rychtaříková and Dzůrová 1987:298). In the 1960s, life expectancy at birth decreased for men and remained stable forwomen. Mean length of life for men was the same in 1988 as in 1960 and life expectancy for men at age sixty was shorter in 1989 than it was in 1960. During the same period Western countries achieved significant improvement in life expectancy (Rychtaříková 1991:75). In the late 1980s, mean life expectancy for men was five to seven years shorter in Czechoslovakia than in the developed countries of Europe (World Bank 1992a:8) and the situation was similar in the mid-1990s (Table 6.3). Life expectancy at birth in the coal mining districts of northern

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Bohemia lagged behind the more developed countries of Europe by up to ten years (Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík 1992:36). The mortality trends were similar in other countries of CEE. After a period of convergence with the West after the Second World War, CEE countries experienced stagnation or even decline in life expectancy at birth. At the same time, life expectancy in the West has continued to rise, creating the East-West life expectancy gap (Hertzman 1995:2). In the 1960s, and increasingly in the 1970s, epidemiologists began to report deteriorating health conditions in regions such as the northern Bohemian coal mining district of Czechoslovakia, long considered to be one of the most environmentally devastated regions of Europe (Map 6.1). Epidemiologists pointed to increased incidences of allergies, immuno-deficiencies and respiratory diseases in children living in the region, increased numbers of birth defects and low birth-weight babies, decreasing life expectancy at birth, especially for males, and increased mortality caused by tumors and cardiovascular diseases (Šrám, Kotěšovec and Jelínek 1996:2). Reports linking worsening health conditions to poor environmental quality remained unofficial and were often suppressed. Publication of such information was banned by the state socialist regime in Czechoslovakia, and research into such issues was discouraged and even restricted. The government completely banned the publication of any health statistics for northern Bohemia in the 1980s because of the worsening health situation there. Detailed monitoring of health conditions were carried and the government was regularly informed about health conditions of citizens in the region.3 According to some estimates, and based on the assumption that an increase in particulate or sulfur dioxide air pollution levels by 10 µg/m 3 will increase all-cause mortality by one percent, in 1987 2–3 percent of total mortality could be attributed to air pollution in the Czech Republic (Bobak and Marmot 1996:33–4, Bobak and Feachem 1995:84).4 However, the relationship between mortality and the quality of the environment in Czechoslovakia is not very clear because, as Rychtaříková (1991:77) has pointed out, mortality may be more dependent on social background than on natural factors. Although the districts with high mortality rates more or less correspond with environmentally degraded areas, these districts also have distinct social characteristics compared with the rest of the country, such as ethnic and social structures, and levels of education (Rychtaříková 1991:77, Rychtaříková and Dzůrová 1987:305). Moreover, health data are often ambiguous: overall mortality in the most environmentally devastated districts of northern Bohemia does not differ considerably from the CzechRepublic as a whole, but infant mortality tends to be higher and life expectancy at birth lower in the region (Tables 6.6 and 6.7). In fact, morbidity would be a more appropriate measure of the effects of environmental quality than mortality. For example, hospital days or health center visits would give a much better assessment of the health effects of pollution because most of the illnesses associated with pollution, such as asthma, are rarely fatal. Unfortunately, good quality data on morbidity are not collected and regional comparisons are not possible (Rychtaříková 1991:81). Insufficient data, often of questionable quality, combined with the multiplicity of factors influencing human health thus make it impossible to estimate

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Map 6.1 Comparison of life expectancy and environmental quality in the Czech Republic, 1981–5, average figures Source: Adapted from Geografický ústav ČSAV and Federální výbor pro životní prostředí (1992: 16– 1, 7)

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Table 6.6 Comparison of life expectancy at birth in the districts of northern Bohemia and the Czech Republic, 1989

Source: Carter (1993b:81) Table 6.7 Comparison of infant mortality and overall mortality in the mining districts of northern Bohemia and the Czech Republic

Source: ČSÚ (1996:28–31), World Bank (1992a:II 81)

accurately the health effects of pollution (World Bank 1992a:9) and researchers have instead relied on other indicators of environmental health. For example, Carter (1993b: 75) draws on Czech newspaper reports to argue that in 1988 about one-fifth of the population in Czechoslovakia suffered from environmentally related diseases, and Wedmore (1994:29) and Bobak and Feachem (1995:84) cite the 1993 World Development Report to support their claim that 3 percent of all deaths in the Czech Republic are due to air pollution. The areas where health problems have been connected directly to environmental pollution include northern Bohemia and numerous cities such as Prague and Ostrava. Environmental degradation is also blamed for lower life expectancy and higher morbidity rates in the general population, particularly in lower age groups such as infants, preschool and school age children (World Bank 1992a: II 78, Wedmore 1994:29) (Tables 6.8– 6.11). In the early 1980s, the population of northern Bohemia recorded 2.2 times higher incidence of viral liver infections compared to the Czech Republic as a whole, 3.6 times higher incidence of parasitic diseases, and 1.2 times higher incidence of mental disorders (World Bank 1992a: II 83). The areas with the highest ambient dust and sulfur dioxide pollution also recorded five to eight times higher infant mortality (infants less than one year old) from respiratory causes compared with relatively unpolluted areas, and higher rates of congenital anomalies compared with less polluted districts (Hertzman 1995:19, 29).5

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Table 6.8 Incidence of diseases observed in the population of northern Bohemia compared with the Czech Republic in the early 1980s

Source: World Bank (1992a: II 83) Table 6.9 Incidence of diseases observed in the pre-school, school and adolescent population of the coal mining districts of northern Bohemia, 1990 (Czech Republic=100)

Source: Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík (1992:35)

After 1989 the Czech popular press and the newspapers vigorously attacked government policies, blaming them for poor environmental quality and poor health in northern Bohemia. For example, Crha (1993:9) argued that northern Bohemia recorded a 40 percent higher incidence of acute bronchial infections and chronic respiratory diseases and three times higher incidence of various allergies compared with the Czech Republic as a whole. Three-quarters of northern Bohemian children allegedly suffer from light brain disfunction. Medical doctors have also been openly talking about the direct effects of poor environmental quality on the health of the general population of the region. Jiří Kroch, director of pediatrics at the Chomutov hospital argued in 1993: Children are being born to children who were born here. We are beginning to see genetic problems. Each generation has a lower immunity than the one before it. I can’t say we’ve seen a lot of birth defects yet but they are coming. I’m expecting an onslaught of deformed children. It’s a time bomb waiting to go off. (Medrow 1993:5) However, many of these reports exaggerate the seriousness of the situation. They were published after particularly bad temperature inversions with correspondingly high levels of air pollution hit northern Bohemia during the winter of 1992–3. Momentary sulfur dioxide concentrations reached 2,400 µg/m3 on 18 February 1993 (the maximum limit set by the government is 500 µg/m 3 of sulfur dioxide) and led to demonstrations “for

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Table 6.10 Incidence of diseases per 100,000 inhabitants in the Czech Republic, northern Bohemia and coal mining districts of northern Bohemia, 1990 (Czech Republic=100)

Source: Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík (1992:39) Table 6.11 Infectious diseases in the coal mining districts of northern Bohemia (Czech Republic=100)

Source: Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík (1992:39)

survival” in the cities of northern Bohemia in February 1993, some organized by the local Green Party organizations while others were spontaneous. Local governments from northern Bohemia also exerted strong pressure on the Czech government to do something about environmental quality in the region, and the environment and its potential health consequences became a weapon in the hands of local politicians competing for financial resources from the central government (Pickles, Pavlínek, and Staddon 1998:249). Many local citizens also blame poor environmental quality for their health problems. According to one opinion poll published in 1994, two-thirds of respondents believed that they, their spouse or their children experienced health problems caused by air pollution (Table 6.12) (Regional Plan of Environmental Priorities 1994:3–3). In the Most district, children of 28 percent of respondents suffered from chronic health problems attributed to air pollution while only 20 percent of children did not experience any health problems due to air pollution. Does the epidemiological research launched after 1989 support these public perceptions that the environment has very negative effects on human health in northern Bohemia? The biggest research program to date designed to answer questions about the relationship between environmental quality and public health was launched by the Czech government in November 1990.6 The Teplice Program has clearly demonstrated that the health of the Teplice district citizens differs from that of the Prachatice district with respect to the higher incidence of the respiratory diseases and child allergies, reproductive functions and increased mortality. Air pollution is one of the several factors that contribute

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Table 6.12 Public perceptions of health problems attributed to air pollution in northern Bohemia (Answers to question: Does anyone in your family have health problems caused by air pollution?) (% respondents)

Notes: The survey was carried by AISA in January 1993 Total number of respondents: 703 (health problems respondent), 569 (health problems spouse), 558 (health problems children) Source: Regional Plan of Environmental Priorities (1994:3–3, Table 5 in Annex 2)

to the lower health status of the Teplice district population. But other factors are important, and these include indoor pollution by heating and overall lifestyle (diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, and lack of exercise), while ethnicity also seems to be a factor, with certain groups, especially the Roma, experiencing a higher thanaverage share of health problems. The Teplice Program has also determined that the Teplice district population has suffered genetic damage at the level of DNA, chromosomes and cells (Šrám, Kotěšovec and Jelínek 1996:4–6), that air pollution is one of the factors influencing mortality levels although it is not the most important one, and that the most polluted coal mining districts of northern Bohemia recorded statistically significant higher mortality levels compared with the least polluted areas of the Czech Republic. The coal mining districts of northern Bohemia also have a higher share of respiratory system tumors, but air pollution is only a contributory factor, with smoking being the most important factor. The researchers found statistically significant higher incidences of chronic bronchitis, a higher number of prematurely born children, and higher percentages

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of low-weight newborns in the more polluted Teplice district compared to the less polluted Prachatice district. These results held even after the standardization of data to account for the influence of smoking and ethnic composition (Kotěšovec et al. 1996:12– 13; Kotěšovec and Brynda 1996:195–201; Dejmek, Selevan and Šrám 1996:510–14). Similarly, Richter and Pfeifer (1996:37–41) found that a higher percentage of people living in the polluted areas of northern Bohemia have statistically significant lower natural antibody levels than the population of the Czech Republic as a whole, and this they concluded results primarily from occupational exposure to the pollutants, with environmental exposure being a secondary factor. Negative impacts of pollution on health have also been observed in central Bohemia. A World Bank study of illnesses in children caused by air pollution was carried out in three towns of central Bohemia (Neratovice, Kralupy nad Vltavou, and Benešov which served as the control town) between 1982 and 1984. Neratovice and Kralupy nad Vltavou are industrial towns with considerable air pollution (dustfall, sulfur dioxide, carbon disulfide, ammonia, hydrogen mono-sulfide, and chlorinated hydrocarbons in the case of Neratovice from the Spolana chemical complex, and dustfall, sulfur dioxide, styrene, ethyl benzene, and acrylonitrile released from the Kaučuk chemical complex in Kralupy nad Vltavou) (World Bank 1992a: II 82). The results of this study showed that in Neratovice the children from birth to fifteen years of age suffered higher cumulative incidence of acute respiratory disease (including pharyngitis, sinusitis, laryngitis, tonsillitis, bronchitis, asthma, flu, and pneumonia) than the children in Benešov. In the case of sinusitis, the incidence rate was seven times higher in Neratovice than in Benešov. In Kralupy nad Vltavou, the overall incidence of respiratory disease was recorded about 2.4 times higher than in the city of Benešov, and the incidence of acute bronchitis was three times higher (World Bank 1992a:II 82). Toxic pollutants in drinking water and food (including aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead and others) which have potentially negative health effects were reported from different localities in the Czech Republic. These reports document a three-fold increase in the average concentration of lead in children’s teeth in the lead smelting area of Příbram in central Bohemia, and higher levels of arsenic in the blood, urine, and hair of boys living near one of thepower plants using coal with high levels of arsenic. Levels of PCBs in breast milk are also higher than in western countries. Water pollution is also a problem, causing epidemics of dysentery, jaundice, and virus-based hepatitis in Ústí nad Labem and Jablonec nad Nisou in northern Bohemia and other localities (World Bank 1992a:II 84) (Table 6.13). The mining districts of northern Bohemia and the most polluted districts of central Bohemia also seem to show strong correlations between air pollution and cancer and total mortality, but these correlations require further investigations (Table 6.14). Although water pollution does not pose a significant health threat in the Czech Republic right now (OECD 1994a: Annex 1:7), wide variations in metal concentrations (e.g. aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and others) have been measured in drinking water samples from the Czech Republic. Higher concentrations of metals in drinking water may be of health significance (World Bank 1992a:II 84).

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Table 6.13 Places where health problems related to the quality of the environment have been documented in the Czech Republic

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–4), Hertzman (1995:73–5) Table 6.14 Standardized ratios for cancer in the Czech Republic in the late 1980s (Czech Republic=100)

Source: Hertzman (1995:39)

Hungary Like the Czech Republic, Hungary has also experienced a rise in mortality since 1965 especially among men in the age group 40–59 (Vukovich 1990:18) (Table 6.15). But as in the case of the Czech Republic, it is very difficult to find convincing evidence to link rising mortality with increasing environmental degradation. This is compounded by the fact that while Hungary has not experienced pollution problems as severe as those in Poland and the Czech Republic (see Chapter Three), it has the worst health status among these three countries (Hertzman 1995:14). Clearly factors other than environmental ones are

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Table 6.15 Changes in male age-specific mortality in Hungary, 1970–85 (per 1,000)

Source: Vukovich (1990:18)

involved, and some researchers have even suggested that general environmental pollution is too small to have any significant impacts on the health of the population as a whole (Hertzman 1995:25). Others have argued the opposite: it has been estimated, for example, that even in a country with generally lower pollution levels every twenty-fourth disablement and every seventeenth death in Hungary is caused by air pollution, and that losses due to illnesses and death attributed to air pollution account for 13.3 percent of Hungary’s health and social welfare expenditures and 0.38 percent of its GDP in 1984–5 (Várkonyi and Kiss 1990:56). Children living in the industrial cities of Dorog and Ajka (both in regions with highly polluted air) develop twice as many respiratory diseases as children who live in relatively clean environments, and children one to two years old who attended nurseries in Ajka have been shown to have annual morbidity rates 57.6 percent higher than those in the less polluted town of Pápa. A strong correlation between monthly morbidity rates of all respiratory diseases and mean monthly sulfur dioxide concentrations was also found among children in the highly polluted town of Dorog (Jedrychowski 1995: 19). The incidence of congenital anomalies has been also attributed to pollution, the incidence of digestive cancer has been linked to nitrate levels in drinking water in the Borsod County, and arsenic contaminated water has been associated with a number of health problems in the Bekes County (Vukovich 1990:19, Hertzman 1995:34, 43). Several studies have found high blood levels of lead among children in Hungarian cities resulting either from heavy traffic flows or from industrial sources of lead. In Budapest, for example, children living in inner city locations with heavy traffic record several times higher mean blood lead levels than those living in the outskirts of the city. Almost 60 percent of inner city children were recorded to have blood lead levels above 20 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dl), compared with less than 2 percent of those living in the outskirts of Budapest (Hertzman 1995:23, Prognosis 1993:7) (Table 6.16).7 (See also Table 6.17.)

Poland Together with the Czech Republic, Polish environmental health conditions have received most attention. Research to date has focused on the most polluted areas of the country, especially on Upper Silesia and Kraków. The first longitudinal epidemiological study of

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Table 6.16 Blood lead levels among children in Hungary (in µg/dl)

Source: Hertzman (1995:23)

the relationship between air pollution and the incidence of chronic respiratory tract disease was conducted in Kraków in 1968 (Wojtyniak, Gorynski and Piekarski 1994:21). Polish analysts face similar data problems to researchers in other CEE countries when attempting to establish a causal link between quality of the environment and human health. It is particularly difficult to separate the negative influence of pollution from other factors such as the extremely high rate of smoking (the second highest in the world, after Greece), large population movements after the Second World War, occupational health hazards and unregulated abortions (Kabala 1990:30–1, Osuch-Jaczewska and Baczy skaSzymocha 1992:31). Among Polish men mortality increased between 1972 and 1982 and life expectancy declined (Table 6.18). By 1983, post-infancy male life expectancy for men between forty and sixty was lower than it was in the early 1960s and had fallen to the 1952 level. Overall mortality rates increased by 27 percent between 1970 and 1985 and by 35.5 percent between 1960 and 1985 (Kabala 1990:31). In the early 1990s, the life expectancy of Polish men was still shorter than it was in 1965 (Carter 1993a:121), a phenomenon very similar to that in the Czech Republic and Hungary during the same period. However, it is impossible to determine with accuracy the extent to which increased environmental degradation contributed to growing mortality. Osuch-Jaczewska and Baczy ska-Szymocha (1992:31) reported that in 1990 infant mortality was considerably higher in the cities of the heavily industrialized Katowice province of Upper Silesia than in Poland as a whole (Table 6.19). The Katowice province also recorded a higher percentage of newborn babies with low weight (8–16 percent) than Poland as a whole (7.6–7.8 percent) (Osuch-Jaczewska and Baczy ska-Szymocha 1992: 31). Diseases attributed to environmental pollution include pulmonary diseases, heart

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Table 6.17 Selected locations with health problems attributed to pollution in Hungary

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–4), Hertzman (1995:73–5) Table 6.18 Life expectancy in Poland, 1965–90

Source: Carter (1993a:121)

conditions, allergies, deficient cellular immunity and chromosomal disorders (in areas affected by lead, cadmium and zinc pollution). In fact, the Katowice-Kraków area of Upper Silesia is the most polluted region of Poland. Air pollution poses the greatest health threat followed by deposition of metals (especially lead) in the soil (OECD 1994a: Annex 1:2–4, Hertzman 1995: 73–5). About 50 percent of Upper Silesia’s population (1 million out of 2 million) lived in conditions characterized in 1984 as a “daily health hazard” (Kabala 1990: 31). Health statistics from the region indicate a 155 percent higher incidence of circulatory illnesses than among the population in Poland as a whole, 30 percent more cancer, and 47 percent more

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Table 6.19 Infant mortality rates in the cities of Katowice province, 1990

Note: * annual number of deaths of infants under age one year per 1,000 live births Source: Osuch-Jaczewska and Baczy ska-Szymocha (1992:31) Table 6.20 Blood lead in children in various places within the Katowice region, 1989 (in µg/dl)

Note: According to the US Center for Disease Control the damage occurs when the lead blood levels are higher than 10 µg/dl Source: Hertzman (1995:22)

respiratory diseases. Locations heavily affected by airborne deposition of metals from industrial point sources of pollution and from the use of inorganic industrial waste to lime acidified soils registered concentrations of lead, zinc, cadmium, and mercury in garden soil samples 30 percent to 70 percent above the World Health Organization norms. The industrial towns of Olkusz and Slawkow recorded the highest concentrations of lead and cadmium in soil in the world (Kabala 1990:32, Hertzman 1995:20). As a result, children in the Katowice region exhibit high blood lead levels derived from the air, food and soil (Table 6.20), and other health problems of the Katowice children, such as widespread anemia, may be related to lead poisoning (Hertzman 1995:22). Based on a thirteen-year study of mortality and pollution in Kraków, Krzyžanowski and Wojtyniak (1991/92:73) have estimated that the daily number of deaths due to respiratory system diseases has increased by 19 percent and deaths due to the circulatory diseases by 10 percent following a 100 µg/m 3 increase in sulfur dioxide concentrations. They also found that mortality is more related to sulfur dioxide pollution than to

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suspended particulate matter and that it especially affects people over sixty-five years old. A similar study of mortality in Kraków followed 4,355 residents of the city for twentythree years (between 1968 and 1991) and concluded that the mortality risk may be related to air pollution concentrations in different parts of the city, with higher risks of death occurring in more polluted parts of the city (other factors such as age, smoking, education level, dwelling conditions, education level, and occupational exposures to pollution were controlled) (Wojtyniak, Gorynski and Piekarski 1994:318). Overall, some 3 percent of total mortality was attributed to air pollution in Upper Silesia, a figure similar to total mortality attributed to air pollution in the Czech Republic (Bobak and Feachem 1995:84).8 Although the overall impact of air pollution on total mortality is low, its effects on morbidity might be more significant. Epidemiological studies from the region suggest that air pollution in places such as Kraków, together with other factors such as smoking, industrial exposure and nutritional factors, may increase lung cancer risk (Jedrychowski et al. 1990:114, 119). Kraków has significantly higher mortality rates from lung cancer compared with the rest of Poland. The highest standardized cancer mortality rate was found in the city center which also recorded the highest sulfur dioxide and suspended particulate matter concentrations (Jedrychowski 1995:19). Air pollution has also been blamed for increased incidence of asthma and respiratory diseases among children of polluted towns of Upper Silesia compared with less polluted areas (Zejda et al. 1996:115– 20). Jedrychowski (1995:17–18) and Perera et al. (1992:256–8) have linked exposure to highly polluted environment to a genetic alteration that increases cancer and reproductive risks in residents of Gliwice in Upper Silesia.9 Poland’s rivers and lakes are very polluted (see Chapter Three), but because tap water is not used for drinking water pollution does not pose a significant direct health threat at the moment (OECD 1994a: Annex 1:7; Hertzman 1995:75) (Table 6.21). Slovakia Unlike in the Czech Republic and Poland, Slovakia’s environmental problems are mostly associated with point source pollution. As a result, the health problems attributed to pollution do not reach regional dimensions but are concentrated in particular cities and areas around the pollution sources (e.g. Bratislava, Žiar nad Hronom, and Nitra). Despite this situation, the Slovak Ministry of the Environment (SMoE) argues that 55 percent of Slovaks live in areas with damaged environments and 41 percent of these people live in the regions with strongly and extremely polluted environments. These areas include the Bratislava region, Trnava-Galanta region, Horná Nitra region, Stredné Pohronie region, Košice region, the Stredný Zemplín region, Stredná Spiš region, Horné Povážie region, and Strednogemerská region.10 According to the SMoE (1996a:12) the environment in these regions has negative effects on human health. Slovakia also has a significant problem with nitrates in drinking water in rural areas caused by over-fertilization, requiring large investments to replace water systems, especially if newborns are to be protected against methemoglobinemia (OECD 1994a: Annex 1:5, World Bank 1992a:II 89).11 As in other countries of CEE, life expectancy at birth is lower in Slovakia than in Western Europe by six to seven years in the case of males and by five to seven years in the

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Table 6.21 Selected places where health problems are associated with environmental pollution in Poland

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–4), Hertzman (1995:73–5)

case of females (SMoE 1996a:5) (see Table 6.3). Life expectancy declined in the 1960s and increased slightly between 1970 and 1987 without reaching the 1960 levels (Hertzman 1995:7). Mortality increased by 0.22 percent between 1960 and 1980 and has stagnated since. However, cancer mortality andthe incidence of cancer have almost doubled since 1965 (SMoE 1996a:5–6). According to the SMoE (1996a:6–12), environmental pollution has caused increases in the number of stillbirths and children that die within seven days after the birth, of deformed newborns, overall morbidity and allergies. The fact that much Slovak pollution is point source pollution means that geography plays an important role and strong regional variations exist in health indicators. While Slovakia as a whole recorded declining infant mortality in the 1990s, some districts (such

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as Lučenec, Rimavská Sobota, Michalovce, Trebišov, and Žiar nad Hronom) recorded increased rates of infant mortality. Several districts of eastern Slovakia (Prešov, Vranov nad Topl’ou, Košice, and Lučenec) recorded much higher than average infant mortality (10.6 in 1993), reaching up to twenty-six deaths of infants under age one year per 1,000 live births. Several districts (Lučenec, Rimavská Sobota, Svidník, and Vranov nad Topl’ou) also recorded higher rates of congenital anomalies (SMoE 1996a:9). The SMoE (1996a:9– 10) argues that environmental pollution “significantly contributes” to these health problems and that poor environmental quality together with unhealthy lifestyles and poor health care are the three most important reasons responsible for lower life expectancy and increased morbidity in Slovakia compared with Western industrial countries. Specific locations around individual polluters exhibit particular pathologies. High rates of bladder cancer among male workers from the aluminum smelter at Žiar nad Hronom in central Slovakia have been attributed to air pollution from the smelter. Fluorosis has been observed in workers and children living near the smelter. Arsenic is blamed for increased rates of non-melanoma skin cancer and hearing loss in children downwind in Žiar nad Hronom (OECD 1994a: Annex 1: 5). High arsenic levels were also observed in tissues of children living in the vicinity of the Nováky power plant in western Slovakia. The population living in the vicinity and downwind of the power plant (in the districts of Prievidza and Martin) has high incidence rates of non-melanoma skin cancer (World Bank 1992a:II 84, Hertzman 1995:47). Slovakia has a considerable problem with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) produced by a chemical factory at Michalovce in eastern Slovakia between 1956 and 1984. Untreated wastes from the factory were regularly discharged into the Laborec River and solid wastes were put into a local landfill. The result was increased levels of PCBs, formaldehyde, and nitrates in water in the Laborec River and the Šírava Reservoir in the late 1970s. Drinking water was contaminated with formaldehyde and PCBs, and by 1980 a high proportion of the congenital abnormalities known as Potter’s Syndrome were reported in Michalovce (with twelve times higher incidence than expected).12 The local drinking water source was closed and PCB production was halted at the plant in 1984. Although PCBs in the local water supply declined to negligible levels following the closure, high levels of PCBs in breast milk and the fat tissue of hospital patients have persisted. In 1988 and 1989, average PCB levels in breast milk reached approximately 4 to 4.4 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) of fat in Michalovce and 2.5 to 3.4 mg/kg in the nearby town of Trebišov.Some samples exceeded 20 mg/kg (World Bank 1992a:II 86–9, Hertzman 1995:47) (Table 6.22). Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia, is an example of a polluted urban center. Here health problems attributed to air and water pollution include a 35.2 percent increase in newly reported cancer tumors between 1981 and 1985, a three to ten times higher incidence of respiratory diseases among children than in less polluted regions of Slovakia, and increasing levels of infant mortality (Miklós et al. 1989: 132). There are also documented associations between acute respiratory diseases (sinusitis, pharyngitis, bronchitis and laryngitis) and air pollution in the city (OECD 1994a: Annex 1:2). However, the city has experienced significant improvements in its quality of the

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Table 6.22 PCBs in human fat tissue at autopsy in selected districts in Slovakia (in µg PCB/kg fat)

Notes: Comparative values: United States (637 specimens): 69 percent < 1,000 g/kg, 26 percent 1, 000 to 2,000 µg/kg, 5 percent > 2,000 µg/kg. Japan (30 specimens): range=400 to 2,500 µg/kg, average=1,000 µg/kg Source: World Bank (1992a: II 88) Table 6.23 Selected locations where health problems related to the quality of the environment have been documented in Slovakia

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–4), Hertzman (1995:73–5)

environment since 1990 (with the exception of nitrogen oxides emissions) (see Klinda and Lieskovská 1998:66–8; Meth-Cohn et al. 1998:34–6). To better determine the negative health effects of environmental pollution, the Slovak government and foreign institutions launched several joint research projects in the 1990s. For example, the European Union through its PHARE 2 program financed a project aimed at investigating the effects of pollution on human health in the Nováky region, one of the most polluted areas in Slovakia. Another project “Demonstration Project Risk Assessment—Risk Management in the Slovak Republic” has been conducted in cooperation with the US EPA and focuses on the city and region of Žilina (SMoE 1995: 121–2). (See also Table 6.23.)

Romania As in Slovakia and Hungary, Romanian environmental pollution is primarily of point source origin and consequently does not affect large regions. Nonetheless, low life expectancy at birth and high infant mortality indicates a relatively poor health status for the country, even within the context of CEE (Table 6.3). Contrary to the situation in

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Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria, life expectancy of male Romanians at birth increased between 1971 and 1991. However, male life expectancy at age fifteen declined (Bobak and Marmot 1996:20–1), and according to some reports life expectancy at birth declined by six months between 1978 and 1984, a situation partially blamed on environmental degradation (Oldson 1997: 517–18).13 Epidemiological research investigating health effects of pollution, especially on children, has focused on locations with high pollution levels such as cities of Baia Mare, Cop a Mic and Medea (lead smelters), Turda (chemical plant and asbestos cement plant), Tarnaveni (non-ferrous metallurgical plant), Navodari (production of fertilizers and sulfur acid), Tulcea (metallurgical plant), and Zlatna (aluminum smelter) (Hertzman 1995:19, 23, 32–3; World Bank 1992b: 112–14; OECD 1994a: Annex 4:5). Researchers in these areas found similar effects from pollution as in other CEE countries. Analysis of registered morbidity in four towns with high levels of air pollution (Baia Mare, Cop a Mic , Medias and Zlatna) between 1983 and 1987 revealed 1.4 to 1.6 times higher incidence of acute and chronic respiratory diseases and cancers in adults than in unpolluted areas. Respiratory diseases in children were 2.5 times more frequent (1.9 times in Baia Mare) compared with unpolluted towns. The incidence of respiratory diseases in adults in Cop a Mic and Medias was 1.7–7.0 times higher than in unpolluted Sibu during the same period (World Bank 1992b:112). Children living close to lead smelters suffered higher incidence of neuro-behavioral damage, and more than 50 percent of workers at the IMN plant in Cop a Mic had excessive urinary lead levels (more than 150 µg/dl) (see World Bank 1992b: 112–22 and Hertzman 1995:32–3 for examples of research results of various epidemiological projects). Overall morbidity is 20 percent above the national average in the most polluted regions of Cop a Mic , Zlatna, and Baia Mare. Estimates for lead poisoning alone are that the health of more than 800,000 people is threatened (Enache 1994:133). A six-year study of pollution and health in nineteen cities in Transylvania conducted between 1983 and 1989 yielded similar results. The study found statistically significant correlations between the level of air pollution and incidence of disease in adults and children. Levels of sulfur dioxide pollution correlated with the incidence of malignant tumors of the respiratory tract in adults. In children, the incidence of bronchitis and bronchial asthma correlated with sulfur dioxide and particulate matter pollution (Jedrychowski 1995:17). Additional reported health hazards associated with environmental pollution include elevated levels of soil nitrates in drinking water from agricultural over-fertilization (found in thirty-nine out of forty-one districts and resulting in cases of methemoglobinemia innewborns in fourteen of these), and the discovery of carcinogens in water samples in thirty-two districts, in air samples in twenty-six districts, and in food samples in twenty-three districts (World Bank 1992b:115). Occupational health problems are considered much worse in Romania than in other CEE countries such as Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia (Herztman 1995: 108). Dangerous working conditions in mines, mills and smelters seem to have persisted in Romania through a system of wages and other incentives paid by the government to compensate workers. In order to continue earning wages several times the national average, workers were complicit, or at least quiescent, in maintaining dangerous working

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conditions and practices (OECD 1994a: Annex 2:2, Hertzman 1995:106). Severe occupational exposure to various pollutants in Romanian mines and foundries resulted in approximately 500–600 new cases of silicosis annually (of which 10 percent had silicotuberculosis), high levels of chemical disease in some factories (such as the Acumulatorul factory in Bucharest, the UREMOAS plant in Bucharest, the friction material factory in Rimnicu Sarat, and the synthetic fibers factory in Braila), and acute and chronic lead poisoning in plants such as the IMN plant in Cop a Mic and the Phenix plant in Baia Mare discussed earlier (OECD 1994a: Annex 2:3–4, Hertzman 1995:106–7) (Table 6.24). Bulgaria The Bulgarian public became concerned about the health effects of polluted regions in the 1980s. Despite official propaganda about the priority given to environmental considerations over economic issues and the declared intentions of the government to bring society and nature into “complete harmony” (see Zhivkov and Djolov 1989:9–11), the quality of the environment gradually deteriorated under state socialism. Epidemiological studies conducted during the 1980s indicated increasingly negative health impacts of polluted environments in industrialized regions of the country with single or multiple point sources of air pollution. This pattern is similar to that of Hungary, but compared with Hungary Bulgaria has more areas with documented associations between air pollution and poor health (Hertzman 1995:75). Over 3.1 million (out of a total of 8.5 million) Bulgarians live in areas with excessive levels of air pollution (Carter 1993c:53). High pollution levels in Sofia and eight other cities have been blamed for significant increases in childhood respiratory and circulatory diseases (Carter 1993c: 51), while the most severe health effects have been recorded in places such as Bourgas obstina (district) where the Neftochim chemical complex has polluted the environment for years (Plates 3.2 and 3.3). Public awareness of environmental health issues was greatly heightened in 1987 when popular demonstrations occurred in the city of Ruse against pollution from a chemical factory located in the Romanian city of Giurgiu. Chlorine and other gas emissions from the plant had polluted the Bulgarian city of Ruse across the Danube for years. Within ten years after the plant opened in 1975, the incidence of various lung diseases had increased eighteen times among the citizens of Ruse (from 969 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1975 to 17,386 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1985). Spontaneous anti-pollution demonstrations took place in November 1987 and February 1988 calling for the closure of the Romanian plant. It was this popular discontent that led to the formation of the Ruse Committee in 1988 and subsequently to the emergence of the first national public environmental opposition group in Bulgaria, Ecoglasnost (Carter 1993c:58; Pickles and the Bourgas Group 1993: 172). Within weeks Ecoglasnost cells had been formed in towns throughout the country. Exposure to high levels of lead in Bulgarian cities such as Sofia, Povdidv Varna, Veliko Turnovo, Stara Zagora and Pleven has been documented, although given available data it has been difficult to assess the relative contribution of different sources of high blood levels in children (such as food, soil, house dust, and air). However, studies from the

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Table 6.24 Selected places with documented associations between health problems and environmental pollution in Romania

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–7), Hertzman (1995:73–5)

cities of Devnya, Vratsa and Dimitrovgrad do indicate the effects of air pollution on health in heavily polluted Bulgarian communities. These include higher incidences of respiratory diseases (such as chronic bronchitis and asthma), reduced pulmonary functions in children, allergies, and irritant diseases compared with relatively unpolluted control towns (Hertzman 1995:23–4, 31–2). Over-fertilization on collective farms has largely been responsible for high nitrate concentrations in drinking water (Hertzman 1995:41–2), as collective farm managers used cheap state subsidized fertilizers (and pesticides) in excessof requirements to ensure that state mandated production quotas were met. These practices were particularly damaging in the dry-land climate of Bulgaria, where normal low water regimes and extended serious droughts in recent years have meant that such chemical applications have remained highly concentrated in the soil and groundwater (Knight and Staneva 1996). As a result, nitrate pollution of drinking water is also a widespread problem in rural areas of western Bulgaria. In particular, Turgoviste, Stara Zagora, and Burgas obstina have been affected, where ten-year average nitrate concentrations reached 70 to 100 mg/l (the maximum set by the Bulgarian government is 50 mg/l). About 70 to 80 percent of the population of these obstini are exposed to high nitrate levels in their drinking water. Six additional obstini (Pazardzhik, Kudzhaly, Yambol, Sliven, Varna, and Toboulchin)

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Table 6.25 Selected locations where health problems related to the quality of the environment have been documented in Bulgaria

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–4), Hertzman (1995:73–5)

recorded ten-year average nitrate concentrations in drinking water in the range of 50 to 100 mg/l, with about 35–45 percent of their population being exposed to nitrate concentrations in drinking water above acceptable limits. (See Table 6.25.) Conclusion Above all other indicators, health is surely the most crucial one in assessing the state of any society. The failures of state socialism to maintain whatever short- run improvements in mortality, disease, and health indices were generated in the first years of socialist industrialization are evident from even the rather poor quality data and intermittent studies we have available. In particular, the time lag between environmental pollution and health impacts renders extremely difficult any evaluation of even the early years of rapid growth, when immediate conditions of food supply, infrastructure, and health care did improve for many. Perhaps more interesting are the ways in which competing understandings of health and environment were at work within state socialist societies. In this chapter we have discussed the emergence of prophylactic approaches to public health alongside and within

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state sanctioned epidemiological practices, and we have seen how these practices generated contradictory views of environmental protection. The immense body of epidemiological data beginning to appear on community and worker health under state socialism paints a gloomy picture of everyday life in CEE. But precisely because of the often readily apparent environmentally destructive practices and the extreme health risks they generated, and because of the official sanctioning of prophylactic medicine, we are still faced with the need to understand in much more detail how individuals and communities responded to the crises in health care and health conditions they encountered. In particular, we need to consider in much more detail how “environment” and “nature” were constructed in these communities by individuals negotiating new (hidden and transparent) hazards and risks.

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Part III Post-communist transformations and the environment

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7 Post-communist reform and the democratization of nature

Theorizing civil society and environmental futures Recent changes in CEE have proved to be fertile ground for theorists from both sides of the former Iron Curtain to assess the democratizing impulse of the transitions under way in the region. Analysts from positions to the left and the right have passed judgements on the democratizing effects of market reforms, the political and economic impacts of the dismantling of the strong command state and its economy, and the social and political impacts of popular mobilization in the years 1988–91 and de-mobilization since. Central to both the debates in the East about the liberalizing of state socialism and the debates in the West about the possibility of a socialist project no longer grounded on the unity of revolutionary agency or class politics is the current debate about civil society. By civil society is meant public voluntary associative activity, in which groups build solidarity, forge a language of common values and interests, groups which provide an organizational framework within which people can mobilize to protect their or their neighbors’ interests. The major focus of civil society in CEE has been opposition to state socialism and central planning, but in some places it has taken the explicit form of mass mobilization against the environmental degradation caused by the “hubris of giganticism” which undergirded the productionist ideology of central planning. In Bulgaria especially it was environmental problems and local concerns about health that provided the focus for the mobilization of mass democratic movements, and which in the late 1980s became the universal cry of national and local level political opposition groups.1 But if there is general agreement that civil society played an important role in the overthrow of communist governments in 1989 (Bernhard 1993; Kubik 1994; Ost 1990; Stokes 1993; Tismaneanu 1992), there is now equal consensus that post-communist transitions throughout CEE have resulted in a weakening and demobilizing of the institutions of a so recently flowering civil society (Ekiert 1991; Arato 1991; Szklarski 1993). As French noted (1991:93), throughout CEE “the environment in the pre-revolution days also served as a rallying point from which broader demands for political change emerged. Public protests against pollution quickly turned into organized protests against communist rule. Initially perceived by governments asrelatively benign, environmental

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movements in the region soon acquired unstoppable momentum.”2 However, while the popular democratic alliances forged across CEE between 1988 and 1990 remain strong in some localities, and while post-communist societies have opened up in many ways, there is some evidence that these gains are already in retreat in the face of deep economic and political crises and the difficulties of dealing with them. In particular, the early years of transition have been ones in which the restorative elements of the old regime combined with a revamped ideology of privatized individual rights (as opposed to individual civil liberties) were re-asserted. Two consequences were a retreat from the civil liberties that emerged at the point of the revolution and a withdrawal from many of the strong positions that were initially enunciated in regard to environmental regulation (see Pickles, Pavlínek, and Staddon 1998). In Chapter Two we focused on the dilemma of transition in CEE in which issues of demonopolization, anti-bureaucratic actions, local power, and individual and civic rights arose along with new and old forms of nationalism, ethnic struggle, local competition, core-periphery dominance, the segmentation of consumer markets, and the substitution of political for economic power. In this chapter these issues are treated in terms of three central themes. The first theme concerns the central role played by the environmental movement in the politics of protest that erupted throughout CEE (and the former Soviet Union) in the late 1980s. In each of the countries of CEE the environmental movement seems to have played a distinct and important role in fostering and enabling a broader coalition of political forces to emerge under difficult and repressive conditions. Specifically, we outline the emergence and successes of environmental politics in these years and the role played by environmental politics in forging a shift from the reformist democratization policies of the old regimes to the democracy movements that led to the dismantling of the command economies and the formation of new governments after 1989. The second theme evaluates the new social roles, practices and institutional forms emerging around new kinds of voluntary public associative activity and new systems of self-government. Each of these new forms contains within itself potentialities and problems. Flourishing sites of individual and group action (new subject positions) found their expression in the social movements emerging after the late 1980s, but they also provided vehicles for the reworking of older class powers. Thus, we focus on the way in which the environmental movement has served as a legitimating force for struggles for political decentralization between the central and regional state and local governments, creating new and potentially effective environmental regulations and controls on the one hand, and strong re-centralization of powers on the other. Second, we consider the ways in which market relations themselves served to constitute autonomous economic agents, and in doing so provided new possibilities for individual action within the market economy with implications for environmental regulation in a new largely unregulated market economy. Third, the chapter investigates the extent to which civil society has, in fact, been extended during the transition. Specifically, we consider the extent to whichthe transition has struck a new balance between what Gramsci (1971) described as restoration and revolution in regard to civil society and the state. The popular press, which initially saw in the new environmental and social movements the foundation for new democracies, now

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seems to see in all social action the workings of restoration, be it through nomenklatura power, red capitalists, or mafia groups. Our own initial hypothesis is that a balance is being struck in favor of restoration, with the consequent and rapid demise of certain parts of civil society and the environmental movement. But it is also the case that these changes are not monolithic or predetermined, as the 1998 UNDP report on governance and transition in Bulgaria illustrates so well (UNDP 1998). We show how there are strong differences in the workings of civil society between and among the Visegrad countries (Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary) and the Balkan states (Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and the states of the former Yugoslavia). Further, we show how even in these restorative transformations new social forces are emerging, with important implications for the environment. Thus, the initial flourishing of civil society groups for ecological defence was, indeed, quickly followed by their demobilization. But in documenting this history we also want to avoid fetishizing particular notions and structures of civil society which overlook the more informal associative relations that formed and still form the actual basis for much social action in CEE. In this sense, the chapter points to the importance of distinguishing between interpretations of movements for ecological defence provided by analysts and planners in CEE which generally focus on the demise of NGOs and environmental groups in the regions, and those that circulate in impacted communities, even among residents who do not actively participate in formal institutions of civil society but who strongly engage in, or at least seem to continue to support, actions of civil defence. And who, moreover, in their everyday lives are engaged in constructing new environmental relations and practices, albeit under rubrics not actually called “environmental.” Central to all three of these themes are questions about how we explain and theorize change in post-communist societies. Some authors suggest that the revolutions in CEE were primarily political revolutions without economic or social causes (Musil 1993). Others have argued that the revolutions of 1989–90 were an important step in the evolution of a universal history characterized by the expansion of market economies, liberal democratic practices, and recognition of the incompatability of political democracy and central planning (Fukuyama 1992). Yet others have turned to a theory of civil society and social change that emerged from the Central and Eastern European revolutions themselves. In this view, state socialism suppressed civil society. Yet it was such voluntary associational forms that became the sites of opposition to the state and operated as models for the creation of liberal pluralist democracies. In this notion, civil society is a realm of popular economic, social, and political activity outside the state. We take a different view. First, we attempt to situate the political changes occurring after 1989 in the context of the social and economic conditions from which they emerged, and evaluate the implications of these social and economic conditions for the continued success of a grassroots environmental politics.Second, instead of following the Czech writers who see civil society as a domain of activity outside the state, we follow more closely Gramsci on civil society, and attempt to analyze the changing relationship between civil society and the state. In particular, we analyze the ways in which the state and the social forces that underpinned it have responded to the challenges of the revolutions of 1989, and what these responses mean for social movements such as the environmental

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movement. In this regard, we reject the notion that there ever was a clear divide between civil and political spheres (here we follow Iris Young 1993), but we also do not wish to theorize civil society as free-floating social movements ungrounded in a political economy from which they emerge and within which they function. Thus, the first half of the chapter briefly indicates the importance for the success of the politics of protest of the fiscal crisis in which the central state found itself by the mid-1980s, while the second half suggests that the environmental politics of mass mobilization that flourished between 1989 and 1991 has been weakened by the normalization of political life at the international, national and local levels and by the continued deepening of the economic crisis at all levels. At the same time, these changes in political and economic life have involved the reconfiguration of social identities and the construction of new subject positions. These new social identities potentially signify an opening (or reconfiguration) of civil society (Young 1993), but they may also and just as well signify the constitution of new subject positions under new rules of the game (for example based on autonomous and selfish economic agents, see Bowles and Gintis 1986, 1990). Thus, we also link together the recent debates on the emergence/extension of civil society in CEE with recent thinking about the regulation of economic and political systems and the constitutions of new subject positions and social identities. In this perspective the process of democratization is a multiply-structured transition involving different and complex transformations. In this sense, the initial democratizing impulse in CEE came from complex combinations of social forces, including state officials who saw in the late 1970s, and certainly by 1980 and 1981, that the system of command planning would have to be changed: from scientists, academics, and students witnessing first hand in their research the effects on the social and natural environment of central planning in decline, and from trade unionists, church officials, and community organizers increasingly frustrated by their inability to sustain democratic structures and practices. Their early efforts resulted, on the one hand, in the emergence of reform communism, and on the other in massive disinvestment in industry and social infrastructure which led to the fiscal crises that brought down communist parties throughout CEE in 1989. As John Agnew (1988) has shown for Italy, “better thieves than red” became a distinguishing hallmark of one group of nomenklatura who robbed their societies through complex joint ventures and ownership transfers, and salted the capital away overseas either to invest elsewhere or to re-invest in other sectors after 1989. The immediate public stimulus to changes of government throughout the region was the emergence of outspoken social movements, organized inparticular around environmental groups (like Ecoglasnost in Bulgaria) and labor groups (like Solidarnosc in Poland and Podkrepa in Bulgaria) (see Pickles and the Bourgas Group 1993). But the weakness of this phase of social mobilization—the archetypical form of social movement and civil society— was rapidly challenged by a third phase of democratization. The social forces unleashed in this phase of democratization were tied less to social goals than individual opportunities and needs, and rapidly took over from the incipient and rather weak social movements. The “normalizing” of political life by technocrats and professional politicians occurred at the expense of social mobilization. The social movements of 1988– 90 were replaced by struggles for electoral power and were focused on the conditions for

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various forms of decentralization and re-concentration of power, and individual struggles for economic survival and well-being as economic crises deepened. As Gramsci argued in “The State and Civil Society”: The crisis creates situations which are dangerous in the short run, since the various strata of the population are not all capable of orienting themselves equally swiftly, or of reorganizing with the same rhythm. The traditional ruling class, which has numerous trained cadres, changes men and programmes and, with greater speed than is achieved by the subordinate classes, reabsorbs the control that was slipping from its grasp. Perhaps it may make sacrifices, and expose itself to an uncertain future by demagogic promises; but it retains power, reinforces it for the time being, and uses it to crush its adversary and disperse its leading cadres, who cannot be very numerous or highly trained.3 (Gramsci 1971:210–11) Each of these transformations of public life has important implications for the ways in which individuals and social movements can participate in the process of transformation, and specifically the space for environmental politics in the transformation. Thus, after an analysis of the elements of the reform process, it will be necessary to turn to the evolving tensions between democratic practices and the new forces of social division in CEE following the revolutions of 1989–90. In this regard, the chapter addresses changes in the regional and local structure of power in CEE and particularly in Bulgaria. It focuses on the shifting balance between centrist/technocratic and grassroots/populist tendencies within the body politic. Further, it investigates the relationship between the emergence of social movements and the restorative impacts of privatization and marketization on the one hand and the potential impacts of local government decentralization and reform on the other. In each of these phases, and as a result of the changes that each has generated, new social identities are being formed within the polities of CEE, and new social and political actors are emerging. These have not yet become clearly defined or identifiable in any straightforward manner. Nonetheless, it is possible to map out some of the characteristics of the social identities and subject positions that haveemerged, and to speculate on their role within the democratizing process. It is to the question of how we can theorize the transformation process and the emergence of new subject positions that we now turn. The new social movements, civil society, and public space In the past decade, the new social movements literature has captivated many in the social sciences, and with it we have begun to deepen our understanding of the role of agency in social and environmental change. Through the new social movements literature has emerged both a practical politics of difference and rigorous theorizations of such difference. These challenge a politics predicated on notions of identity which are unproblematized, taken as given, as “natural”: notions of social action based only on “acting” subjects who are white, male, and middle class (or, in CEE, Slavic, Christian, and nationalist); conceptualizations of social relations grounded in monogomous,

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heterosexual, nuclear family units (and in some regions of CEE identified with ethnicized national groups); a system of power and politics in which practical citizens are constituted by their embeddedness in social, regional, or ethnic networks. Or as Iris Young has suggested: Universally formulated standards or norms, for example, according to which all competitors for social positions are evaluated, often presume the norm capacities, values, and cognitive and behavioral styles typical of dominant groups, thus disadvantaging others. Racist, sexist, homophobic, ageist, and ableist aversions and stereotypes, moreover, continue to devalue or render invisible some people, often disadvantaging them in economic and political interactions. (Young 1990:173) All forms of naturalized identity politics are thus put into question in favor of a pluralistic politics in which identity is de-naturalized, and new identity forms or subject positions are recognized and made possible. In this new plural politics, the question of public space becomes central as the hegemonic power of a certain type of identity politics is undermined, as its control over the spaces and environments within which civil life is allowed to occur is also broken apart, and new spatialities are opened for civic action. What is civil society? The epochal shift that some have seen in the transition from industrial to post-industrial society, from modern to postmodern culture, has marked social theory for the past two decades. From the side of pluralism and neo-Marxism, interest has grown in nonfunctionalist analysis by bringing the state back into the analysis of the economy (Cohen and Arato 1992:1). Cohen and Arato, along with many other analysts have argued, however, that these efforts have been limited by the tendency to reduce explanation to class explanation. As a consequence, “the legal, associational, cultural, and public spheres of society have no theoreticalplace in this analysis. It thereby loses sight of a great deal of interesting and normatively instructive forms of social conflict today” (ibid.: 2). The current discourse of civil society, on the other hand, focuses precisely on “new, generally non-class based forms of collective action, oriented and linked to the legal, associational and public institutions of society. These are differentiated not only from the state but also from the capitalist market economy” (ibid.: 2). Cohen and Arato go on: “[al] though we cannot leave the state and the economy out of consideration,…the concept of civil society is indispensable if we are to understand the stakes of these ‘transitions to democracy’ as well as understanding the relevant actors;” We are truly impressed by the importance in East Europe and Latin America, as well as in the advanced capitalist democracies, of the struggle for rights and their expansion, of the establishment of grass roots associations and initiatives and the ever renewed construction of institutions and forums of critical publics. (Cohen and Arato 1992:2)

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Cohen and Arato (ibid.: 2) locate the central problematic of contemporary society in “the problem of civil society and its democratization.” Alberto Melucci pushes this argument even further: Today, this distinction between the state and civil society, upon which the political experience of capitalism was based, has become unclear. As a unitary agent of intervention and action, the state has dissolved. It has been replaced from above by a tightly interdependent system of transnational relationships and subdivided from below into a multiplicity of partial governments, defined both by their own systems of representation and decision-making and by an ensemble of interwoven organizations which combine inextricably the public and the private. Even ‘civil society’—at least as it was defined by the early modern tradition— appears to have lost its substance. The “private” interests once belonging to it no longer have the permanence and visibility of stable social groups sharing a definite position in the hierarchy of power and influence. The former unity (and homogeneity) of social interests has exploded… The simple distinction between state and civil society is replaced by a more complex situation. Processes of differentiating and “laicizing” mass parties have transformed them increasingly into catch-all parties which are institutionally incorporated into the structures of government; at the same time, the parliamentary system tends to accentuate both its selective processing of demands and its merely formal decision-making functions. On another plane, there is an evident multiplication and increasing autonomy of systems of representation and decision-making; this process results in the pluralization of decision-making centers but also carries with it the undoubted advantages associated with the diffusion of decision-makinginstances. Finally, on a further plane, there is an evident formation of collective demands and conflicts which assume the form of social “movements” aiming at the reappropriation of the motivation and sense of action in everyday life. (Melucci 1988:257–8) Civil society and Central and Eastern Europe The way in which civil society is understood is important for the interpretations of transformation in CEE. For many recent commentators the current revival of interest in civil society can be attributed to the collapse of state socialism and the new forms now emerging from the ruins of central planning and state owned and run economies. In much of this debate it is assumed that civil society could not or did not exist under communism, or that those forms of civil society that did exist were highly constrained by state power. Moreover, under this interpretation the current patterns of social unrest can thus be understood in terms of the halting emergence of civil forms of society from conditions in which their exercise has been unable to draw on popular support. Neo-classical economic analysis certainly sees the operation of the market in these terms, whereby the failure of state socialism to build financial incentives or economic levers into

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the system of economic regulation creates aberrant forms and difficult transitions when such natural economic conditions are introduced. Michael Walzer has expressed clearly the connection between civil society and transition in Central and Eastern Europe: The words “civil society” name the space of uncoerced human association and also the set of relational networks—formed for the sake of family, faith, interest, and ideology—that fill this space. Central and East European dissidence flourished within a highly restricted version of civil society, and the first task of the new democracies created by the dissidents, so we are told, is to rebuild the networks: unions, churches, political parties and movements, cooperatives, neighborhoods, schools of thought, societies for promoting or preventing this and that. (Walzer 1991:293) Walzer goes on to ask, what sorts of institutions should we work for? He answers that nineteenth and twentieth century social thought has given four answers to this question (each answer presupposing its own ideological context): the political community or the democratic state; the economic domain; the realm of the marketplace; and the nation. In his view, each is problematic because of its tendency to develop a singular argument for causality, and thereby to miss the complexity of human society. For Walzer: Ideally, civil society is a setting of settings: all are included, none is preferred. The argument is a liberal version of the four answers, acceptingthem all, insisting that each leave room for the others, therefore not finally accepting any of them. Liberalism appears here as an anti-ideology, and this is an attractive position in the contemporary world. (Walzer 1991:298) The problem for Walzer (ibid.: 301) is the tendency to view the new social movements and debates about civil society through a lens of “antipolitical tendencies that commonly accompany the celebration of civil society.” Similarly, Iris Young (1993) has suggested that a politics of difference suffers from a fundamental inability to address questions of structural power. Specifically, they argue that the emerging monopoly and transnational power of corporations and financial capital raises serious questions about the limits of the new social movements literature. Without change in structural power, the spaces of public discourse, the proliferation of social identities and subject positions, and the gains of social movements run the risk of being overturned or at best limited to gains for certain groups within a broader social formation of economic polarization. As Young (1993) recognized in her final ironic call for a return to Leninism, the network of uncoerced associations cannot dispense with the agencies of state power or efforts to control the state apparatus: “The collapse of totalitarianism is empowering for the members of civil society precisely because it renders the state accessible” (Walzer 1991:301). Walzer’s analysis of civil society raises important questions about the relationship between civil society and the state. In his view, only a democratic state can create a

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democratic civil society and only a democratic civil society can sustain a democratic state. This political idealism is grounded in an analysis of “civility” as the underlying principle of democratic governance and civil life: Only a democratic state can create a democratic civil society: only a democratic civil society can sustain a democratic state. The civility that makes democratic politics possible can only be learned in the associational networks; the roughly equal and widely dispersed capabilities that sustain networks have to be fostered by the democratic state. Confronted with an overbearing state, citizens, who are also members, will struggle to make room for autonomous associations and market relationships (and also for local governments and decentralized bureaucracies). But the state can never be what it appears to me in liberal theory, a mere framework for civil society. It is also the instrument of the struggle, used to give a particular shape to the common life… Nor need we be involved all the time in our associations. A democratic civil society is one controlled by its members, not through a single process of selfdetermination but through a large number of different and uncoordinated processes. These needn’t all be democratic, for we are likely to be members of many associations, and we will want some of them to be managed in our interests, but also in our absence. Civil society is sufficiently democratic when in some, at least, of its parts, we are able to recognizeourselves as authoritative and responsible participants. States are tested by their capacity to sustain this kind of participation… And civil society is tested by its capacity to produce citizens whose interests, at least sometimes, reach farther than themselves and their comrades, who look after the political community that fosters and protects the associational networks. (Walzer 1991:302–3) Civil society is also grounded in units much smaller than the demos of the working class or consumers or the nation. Instead, the notion of civil society is an attempt to develop a theoretical concept in which necessarily fragmented and localized forms of social organization and civil association can be incorporated in our analysis: They become part of the world of family, friends, comrades, and colleagues, where people are connected to one another and made responsible for one another… I have no magic formula for making connections or strengthening the sense of responsibility. These aren’t aims that can be underwritten with historical guarantees or achieved through a single unified struggle. Civil society is a project of projects; it requires many organizing strategies and new forms of state action. It requires a new sensitivity for what is local, specific, contingent—and, above all, a new recognition (to paraphrase a famous sentence) that the good life is in the details. (Walzer 1991:304)

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Civil society and political economy The arguments about civil society we have discussed thus far are rooted either in a politics of difference (and a corresponding project of opening the spaces for marginalized groups) or in a liberal politics (and a corresponding project of providing a safe context within which those different groups can get along). In CEE initial struggles over civil society took a different form. Here the struggle against the state was not directly a struggle to constitute a politics of difference, but to create the space for any civil groups whatsoever: that is, to roll back the state from the family, the church, the economy, and the spaces of public life, to enable individuals to begin to express themselves outside the scrutiny of the state apparatus. Moreover, in rolling back the state, privatizing the economy, and deregulating everyday life, CEE countries have been engaged in transformations of the relations between politics, economic, and civil domains so fundamental that the second goal of creating safe spaces within which the different groups and domains can get along remains highly problematic (indeed, as it does at a theoretical level in Walzer’s own arguments and in practice in the West). Before unpacking the relationship between the struggles for civil society and the problems of democratizing the public sphere in CEE we will return to Gramsci, whose analysis of the state and civil society seems to take us much further than either Young, Cohen and Arato, or Walzer. In “The State and Civil Society” Gramsci argued that as social classes becomedetached from their traditional parties and as a “crisis of authority” (general crisis of the state, or a crisis of hegemony) deepens, situations are created which are dangerous in the short run “since the various strata of the population are not all capable of orienting themselves equally swiftly, or of reorganizing with the same rhythm. The traditional ruling class, which has numerous trained cadres, changes men and programs and, with greater speed than is achieved by the subordinate classes, reabsorbs the control that was slipping from its grasp” (Gramsci 1971:210). Thus, the emergence of civil society must always be analyzed in the context of the ways in which a political leadership, bureaucratic functionaries, and the military respond to the new circumstances. The conflict between the old order and the newly emerging civil society is thus a battle between restoration and revolution (ibid.: 219). Restorations do not occur in toto, but they do occur to safeguard the interests of particular groups. It is this notion of restoration that seems to be largely absent from the recent works on civil society, such as those of Iris Young and Michael Walzer. In its absence, the articulation of the political implications of a politics of difference and the emergence of an autonomous civil sphere is celebratory. When it is present, a much more sober and detailed analysis of the changing constellations of power and their emergence and reinscription in social, economic and political life is required. Modern political technique became totally transformed after Forty-eight; after the expansion of parliamentarism and the associative systems of union and party, and the growth in the formation of vast State and “private” bureaucracies (i.e. politicoprivate, belonging to parties and trade unions); and after the transformations which

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took place in the organization of the forces of order in the wide sense—i.e. not only the public service designed for the repression of crime, but the totality of forces organized by the State and by private individuals to safeguard the political and economic domination of the ruling classes. (Gramsci 1971:220–1) The resultant struggle between civil society and political society is reflected in many ways, such as the struggle between the church and the state. But liberalism of the kind laid out by Walzer breaks down at this point for, as Gramsci points out, liberal ideology is predicated on the principle of the separation of powers and here its source of weakness becomes apparent. The bureaucracy exercises coercive power and acts as a caste. Liberalism’s argument (and Walzer’s) that the institutions and officers of a democracy must be controlled by civil society is, according to Gramsci (1971:246), “a demand which is extreme liberalism, and at the same time its dissolution.” From democratization to the politics of protest in Central and Eastern Europe In this section we outline the ways in which a politics of popular protest in the civil arena emerged out of the problematic relationship between state sanctioned policies of democratization and the restricted state controlled and manipulatedcivil arenas existing before 1989. It is important to note that the notion of civil society predates the democratic revolutions of 1989, both as an essential element of state socialism and as social strategies of everyday life under the restrictions of the state apparatus. We stress these issues because we do not want to be seen to be claiming that civil society emerged in CEE with the collapse of state socialism. This theoretical point is particularly important in countries such as Bulgaria (and perhaps elsewhere) because it is not clear to what extent some aspects of centralized decision-making and command communism have been removed or are in the process of re-configuration and restoration (shape shifting). At the end of the Second World War the countries of CEE inherited quite distinct socio-economic systems. By the 1960s their economies had been transformed into “industrial-agricultural” economies tied to raw material and market supports from the USSR. For example, by 1984 71.9 percent of Bulgarian exports went to Comecon countries and 55.7 percent of the total went to the USSR (Pitassio 1989:205). National growth occurred along with income equalization (at least until the early 1980s), and social services and social welfare were rapidly improved in aggregate terms. However, as we have seen in previous chapters, these apparent and real improvements in the quality of life were achieved by subsuming all other concerns to a productionist ideology and the hubris of giganticism. The environmental consequences were tremendous as the entire economic and political system prioritized production over preservation. Consequently, environmental issues were of secondary concern to industry, and the costs of their polluting were externalized to the surrounding communities. In this context, local authorities and individuals had very little power or effective jurisdiction over the enterprises and their activities, and even when fines were levied they

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did not go to those most affected, but to the national government and district councils. According to the mayor of a small village near the petrochemical complex outside Burgas, Bulgaria, “Ecology has always been the last paper in economic development plans” (interview, 24 June 1991). Similar complaints were made across CEE. For example, the mayor of the village of Louka, located close to the Chemopetrol chemical complex in the Most District, argued: “We have nothing from Chemopetrol, only that stench and fly-ash deposits.” 4 The mayor of the village of Mariánské Radčice endangered by coal mining argued in 1993: “In the past the coal mines behaved as those in power, because they were in command here, industry ruled here. We were subordinated.”5 Communities in industrial areas across CEE felt subordinated to the industrial interests and largely powerless in the face of unconstrained environmental pollution before 1989. Declining environmental quality and health, especially in specific environmental hot spots, became a rallying point for growing public resistance against state socialist regimes throughout CEE in the late 1980s. Anti-governmental movements and demonstrations in Leipzig (East Germany), Teplice (Czech Republic), Bratislava (Slovakia), Sofia and Rousse (Bulgaria), Budapest (Hungary) and other places across CEE were dominated by environmentalconcerns (French 1990:6; Bowman and Hunter 1992:925–6; Pickles and the Bourgas Group 1993:172–3; Kanev 1991:57; Pavlík 1996:59). The environment and environmental clean-up were high on the agendas of the first post-1989 governments in countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary and former Czechoslovakia, and in 1990 the environment was considered to be a national priority in all CEE countries except Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia (REC 1995a:8). In the Czech Republic, for example, Petr Pithart, the Prime Minister of the first freely elected post-1989 government, argued that his government had placed the efforts to take care of the environment at the very top of its agenda (Mladý Svět 1994:11) and had received an electoral mandate to do so: 83 percent of the electorate chose improvement of the environment as their number one priority (Moldan 1990:7). How are we to understand these eruptions of popular environmentalism, their effects on the party state, and the degree of success they exhibited immediately following the collapse of party states throughout the region? Post-1989 euphoria First, it is important to recognize that this environmental awareness was quite different from that which emerged in Western countries in the 1960s. Because of the hegemony of the Communist Party, it was extremely difficult and dangerous for ordinary citizens to participate in anti-government activities, including protests against pollution and polluters. However, in relative terms environmental opposition was more difficult for the state to eradicate and control than other forms of anti-state activities. There was a legal basis in the constitution for the environmental rights of citizens, and there had long existed various means of expression for environmental concerns and activism through official “party” clubs and societies for nature, recreation, and conservation. Environmental activism, therefore, allowed the participation of a greater number of people than did, for example, opposition to human rights abuses (Jehlička and Kára 1993:10). Environmental

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protests thus attracted support in the late 1980s from a public that would otherwise probably not have participated in anti-government demonstrations. Second, the state found it much more difficult to clamp down on environmental organizations than on other more directly political activities. Surveillance and arrest were carried out against environmentalists, notably in the GDR where Stasi operatives penetrated environmental groups (Kopf 1993). Media campaigns to attack the legitimacy of environmentalist claims were also carried out, notably after the success of the mass demonstrations against state environmental policies in Sofia in 1989. But demonstrations in fact articulated claims that had long been party policy (that socialist citizens had a right to a clean environment, that it was the responsibility of the state to provide clean air and water, good health care, and to improve the health of citizens). In this regard, the state was both officially committed to the demands of the protesters while also being the major cause of their grievances. At the same time, the state accurately perceived such environmental protests to be direct political protests against the party. Third, this environmental activism was also different from that in the West because, with the political successes of 1989, far from broadening the base and activities of environmental organizations, the environmental euphoria and participation in and support for environmental action quickly disappeared as well.6 The very reasons environmentalism was able to stand against the force of the state were the reasons that led to its rapid demise: since the environment was no longer needed as a political tool for people who were not genuinely committed to environmentalist goals, and since new governments initially prioritized environmental reconstruction very high in their policy goals, environmental activism lost momentum and support. Such declines in environmental politics occurred quickly after 1989 in several CEE countries including Hungary, Bulgaria and former Czechoslovakia, where the role of the environment in the collapse of the state socialist system was the strongest. Fourth, many environmentally committed activists also left environmental organizations to take up positions in government and the private sector. Political changes after the collapse of state socialist regimes brought many of these opposition leaders into the new democratic governments, new green parties were quickly established, and multi-lateral lending agencies took on a “green” hue by hiring directly out of the leadership of environmental NGOs that had been so active up to and after 1989. Although the environment lost its priority relatively quickly after 1989 and environmental parties generally failed to attract any significant support during the first free elections, the period of high environmental awareness following the revolutions had important impacts on environmental quality. During this period many environmental institutions such as new Ministries of the Environment were established or completely reorganized. Constitutions were re-written providing, among other rights, the right of the public to a clean environment. The foundations of new environmental legislation were laid in most countries and the process of environmental clean-up was begun. New political parties, such as greens, were formed and a number of environmental NGOs emerged and began to operate independently of governmental control. Thus the short period of environmental euphoria after 1989 served as an important impetus for a gradual and long term improvement in the quality of the environment in the region.

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With the extremely difficult period of economic transformation that followed, the environment lost some of its priority among the governments and the public as the failures of neo-liberal reform and rigidities within the old bureaucracies produced severe economic and social impacts on the everyday lives of millions of people. Governments were also able to reduce their commitments to environmental reconstruction because throughout the region economic collapse associated with shock therapy resulted in production declines and cleaner environments. The perception that environmental quality was improving was thus mobilized by governments desperate to persuade their publics about the successes of reform, to justify their environmental policies, and to demobilize their more vocal environmental critics.

Environmental politics and ecological defence in Bulgaria The particular origins of the environmental movement as an opposition democratic movement in Bulgaria lie in the formation of local political groups involved in civil disobedience as an attempt to prevent the continued pollution of local communities. These local environmental movements are all the more remarkable because they arose during a period when the central state had placed strict prohibitions on any such civil actions, and in a society in which information about environmental issues was suppressed (Plate 7.1). For example, since Bulgaria’s uranium mines were a state secret, public debate about the health effects of mining and the shipment of ore in uncovered rail-carts on residents in nearby villages and on workers in the mines was virtually impossible (Searle and Power 1989:25). Until 1992 topographic maps were still classified documents and penalties for their use, possession, and copying were severe. Under such constraints, how did the environmental movement succeed in becoming a national social and political movement? Sharp criticism of ecological problems in Bulgaria emerged publicly in July 1987. At a national ecology conference in Sofia on 1 July, organized by the National Committee for the Protection of the Environment, several researchers revealed that: The most severe sanctions known to have been imposed on polluting enterprises are fines, but in 98 percent of cases courts refuse to fine offenders in accordance with the law, mainly because managers have repeatedly circumvented environmental legislation in order to fulfill plan targets. (Radio Free Europe Research 1987:13)

In the same year, criticism of government policy and of scholars emerged in Sofia, and environmental groups were formed demanding an open discussion of health problems caused by heavy industry and a decentralization of the search for solutions. For example, the Civil Committee for the Ecological Defence of Ruse (later “Civil Initiative”) organized well-publicized protests in 1987 and 1988 in the city of Ruse, focused on toxic emissions

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Plate 7.1 Opposition to environmental degradation took unexpected forms. This anti-development poster produced in the 1980s was used by the Committee on Environmental Protection in their 1989 publication Man and Nature (Sofia)

from a Romanian chlorine and sodium plant which wafted over to the Bulgarian side of the Danube.7 In April 1989, Ecoglasnost was formed as a grassroots environmental movement and umbrella organization for independent organizations striving for “a democratic public climate and up-to-date ecological consciousness to challenge the stagnating monopolism and demoralizing command centralism in all spheres of social life having to do with ecological problems” (Ecoglasnost n.d.; Pickles and the Bourgas Group 1993:172–3). The group emerged to counter a reformist group of politicians who argued that change would be best achieved within the old system by the gradual reform of the party and the command economy. This reformist position was the basis for the government’s own measures to democratize central planning by devolving limited powers to the local and regional councils and to enterprises (Creed 1990:45–65, Pitassio 1989: 204–16). Ecoglasnost and the trade union federation Podkrepa, by contrast, advocated the abolition of the old system and the turn to liberal democratic principles. The major goals of Ecoglasnost were: • free access to environmental information • protection of people’s health and safety • the change of the old system and the building of democracy.8 The Policy Statement of the Social Movement Ecoglasnost argued:

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We should be aware of the fact that [bureaucratic functionaries] are usually entrapped in an all-embracing network of biased administrations, whose apparatus runs like a steam-roller OVER both environment and public opinion, as well as OVER the merely symbolic punitive sanctions applied by official environmental protection agencies. This calls for DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC CONTROL OVER ECOLOGICAL POLICY. Recognizing the need for ECOLOGICAL SELF-DEFENCE of the citizens, the participants in the movement ECOGLASNOST are resolved to unite their efforts for a deep SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION. They see the major strategic weapon of the struggle as FULL ECOLOGICAL GLASNOST, which is the precondition of the people’s control over the existing institutional activities. (Ecoglasnost n.d., emphasis in original) This constituted an explicit call for the building of a “radical democracy” based on citizen rights and citizen participation. Demands by the movement included the right to clean air, water, soil and foodstuffs, the abolition of classified data, full disclosure of nuclear dump sites, medical information about the population, broader access to and dissemination of information as it is collected, expansion of environmentally protected areas, new laws governing the press reporting of environmental issues, freedom to travel and discuss environmental issues, and changes in school curricula to include ecological education. In early 1989 several other civic opposition groups emerged to challenge the hegemony of the Communist Party and the central power of President Zhivkov in particular. The Labor Confederation Podkrepa, the Committee for Religious Rights and Liberties, and the 272 Committee, among others, arose alongside the environmental groups. Approximately fifty organizations formed during 1989, but by the end of the year the most important groups had joined together to form the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) (Bell 1990:420). The UDF was extremely effective in organizing mass demonstrations in Sofia, and these demonstrations resulted in an agreement with the Communist government to enter into televised round table discussions about the future of the country and agreements to legalize political parties, to move towards multi-party elections in 1990, and for the government to provide resources to the opposition press with time on television to be given for debates between the candidates. How do we account for the emergence and success of such democratic environmental movements, and how have these new social forces begun to affect both the body politic and the economy? As we have seen in other parts of CEE, with the rise of new forms of democratic politics new structures of civil society emerged.9 Grassroots environmental movements and the struggle over environment and health have been a central part of this democratic politics. Popular struggles and ecological defence have challenged crucial elements of bureaucratic management, state-enterprise collusion, the destructive effects of productionist ideologies, and the inefficiencies of large state enterprises which are not accountable to workers, the local community or the law. Through these struggles, emerging strong local democratic practices and institutions have been developed.

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By 1993 there were eighty-three formally registered environmental non-governmental organizations in the country, ranging from bird-watchers’ clubs to radical environmental protection groups. The proliferation of these NGOs under conditions of extreme economic difficulty reflected, in part, the reconstitution of a new regulatory environment out of groups which had operated under the auspices of the state prior to 1989 (restorative elements, but reworked for new circumstances). But it also reflected the formation of new groups based on a strengthening of the legal and social rights of individuals to act as political agents and groups: rights which may currently be more real than legal, as the regulatory and legal framework within which individual and group rights still remains undeveloped. Consequently, civil groups were able to form and operate, and in some cases to carve out effective domains of action because of the absence of formal regulatory and legal frameworks to circumscribe or formally enable their actions. This was also true of the emergence of new powers at the central government level.

Bulgarian social movements, NGOs, and the loss of political momentum Initially, the environmental movement permitted a diverse array of political interests to mobilize around Ecoglasnost, and to present a common front to the government. As political life normalized after the ousting of Zhivkov in 1991, environmental groups began to articulate independent agendas, new groups have arisen, new problems in the economy have come to light, and the universal support previously given to the environmental groups has begun to diminish. Consequently, a shift has occurred within the environmental groups themselves. While environmentalists entered the post-communist governments throughout CEE, Ecoglasnost refused to take part in government. As a result many of its politically ambitious members left the movement (Baumgartl 1993:167). Another group formed a political wing of Ecoglasnost, which did take part in the 1990 parliamentary elections as a member of the UDF coalition, receiving 4 percent of the vote and nineteen seats in the parliament (the UDF as a whole received 35 percent of the vote and 111 seats). The Green Party of Bulgaria, which was founded in December 1989, received 3.25 percent of the vote and thirteen seats (Frankland 1995:336). Ecoglasnost and other environmental NGOs, together with the Green Party, significantly contributed to the development of new environmental legislation after 1989. The new Ministry of the Environment was established in early 1990. The new constitution, adopted in July 1991, provided for the right of all citizens to a healthy environment, and the new Environmental Protection Law enacted in October 1991 gave the right to all citizens to access environmental information (Stec 1993:95, OECD 1996a: 163–4). However, the number of parliamentary deputies from environmental parties and NGOs declined sharply after the 1991 national elections, from 9 percent of parliamentary seats to 4 percent, and their influence declined accordingly (Georgieva 1993:86, Mindjov 1995:27). The environmentalists in the parliament were also accused of being more interested in power than the environment (Georgieva 1993:77). However, several other important successes were achieved. For example, strong opposition of environmental

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NGOs to construction of the Belene nuclear power plant forced the government to abandon the project in 1990. Other protests led to the suspension of plans to build the Cherni Osam dam and divert the flow of Rila River to Sofia, and uranium mines were shut down after the protests in 1992 (OECD 1996a:30). Nonetheless, the mobilization of mass support has gradually become more difficult because of continued economic difficulties and the normalization of politics around parliamentary, council and informal structures of influence and power. Moreover, environmental groups have to deal with internal tensions resulting from their dual goal of mobilization and democratic organization on the one hand, and the need to organize resources to carry out research on environmental “hot spots” on the other hand. The 1991 split within Ecoglasnost occurred along these lines, between the “hippies” and the “yuppies.” The former supported continued mass mobilization and political action; the latter supported a withdrawal from politics and a concentration on building an effective non-governmental organization organized for ecological defence. While the former group sought to extend networks of Ecoglasnost at the grassroots level, the latter group sought to concentrate efforts on distancing itself from political parties in order to maintain and extend links with the emerging international agencies concerned with environmental problems, many of whom will only fund non-political NGOs. A parallel shift has taken place in the Green Party (GP). In distinction to green parties elsewhere in Europe, the Bulgarian Green Party began to argue in 1991 that it was not a social movement but was engaged in parliamentary politics. Ecoglasnost was seen by the GP as the social movement for the environment, whereas the domain of responsible action for the GP was in government. This was also partly a response to the size of the task facing the new parties (from writing a constitution to writing laws governing every aspects of social and economic regulation) and the limited resources available for such work. But the decision not to concentrate on mass mobilization and environmental and political education through engaged practice became more significant when this delimitation of the Green Party’s activities to parliamentary politics was seen in the light of Ecoglasnost’s own decision to reduce its own emphasis on popular action and grassroots organization. The consequence was a loss of momentum in mobilizing the grassroots democratic movement around environmental issues at the very time that popular support and expectations were high and just as economic conditions began to deteriorate rapidly. One consequence of this normalization of politics, the adoption of a Western multi-party and electoral system, the apparent shift from mass mobilization to the creation of a technocratic NGO, and the weakening of the environmental movement nationally, has been a loss of political momentum in environmental groups in the country generally (see Staddon 1996 for a similar discussion of the fortunes of Green Patrol in southwest Bulgaria). The turn away from grassroots organization to the formation of research cadres in the environmental movement has meant that popular struggles for ecological defence will in future be much less central to the democratic process than had previously been the case. The failure in the 1991 elections of the Green Party to gain the necessary 4 percent of the vote to remain in Parliament was indicative of these shifts from popular to formal environmental politics.

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Immediately after the fall of the Zhivkov government in 1989, it appeared that strong environmental regulation would play an important role in mobilizing civil society and creating strong and clear legal protections against environmental damage. Civil society would again take up its pre-war role in promoting sustainable practices, this time through national legislation. Popular groups like Ecoglasnost would assure that environmental problems were the subject of extensive public discussion and that government officials listened to their programs. Improved environmental conditions would be a high public policy priority. And indeed, legislators did incorporate the right to a “healthy and favorable environment” and citizens’ obligation to protect the environment into the new constitution. And they passed legislation protecting citizens’ rights to information about the environmentalconditions to which they are subjected (Friedberg and Zaimov 1994: 247–8), making it easier for those affected by pollution to demand appropriate regulation (Pavlínek, Pickles, and Staddon 1994). In the first half of the 1990s, however, significant changes occurred. As we have seen, like other Bulgarian political organizations, Ecoglasnost split into a number of political and non-political groups and in the process lost much of its focus and clout. Further, part of the organization became a political partner of the anti-statist Union of Democratic Forces, prioritizing market development and privatization as the main means of improving environmental conditions. At the same time, the great optimism which predicted rapid transformation of centrally planned economies into (imagined) western-style consumer heavens was drowned in a sea of budget deficits, unemployment and discontinued social services. Long-term goals such as environmental sustainability have been replaced by backof-envelope calculations about how to keep a city’s main employer afloat for another month. Under these conditions, the interests of the new Bulgarian state are not very different from those of the old one: maximize export earnings, keep down industrial wages, if necessary by keeping down food prices, and worry about one year at a time. While the increased levels of openness and democracy do mean that people can obtain more information about the health and environmental consequences of production decisions and better pressure the state to protect their long-run health and economic welfare, there are few social actors willing to take advantage of these opportunities. In a report on the environmental movement in Poland, one research center noted, people “prefer being poisoned slowly to losing their jobs and thus experiencing an immediate reduction in their income” (Manser 1993:93). The interests of individuals and the state again coincide around the promotion of short-run growth. Balancing “other needs”: Polish environmentalism and shock therapy Although the first green party established in CEE was founded in Poland in September 1988, Polish environmentalists played a surprisingly insignificant role in the 1989 political changes compared with countries such as Bulgaria, former Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and this despite the emergence of a relatively strong grassroots environmental movement

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in Poland in the 1980s when hundreds of independent environmental organizations and clubs formed (Frankland 1995:324). The beginnings of an independent environmental movement were associated with sporadic public protests against environmental devastation, such as the marches against the pollution of the Baltic Sea in June 1981 and environmental demonstrations and marches in Kraków. Many environmental groups formed under the umbrella of Solidarity (Hicks 1996:123), and some like the Polish Ecological Club (founded in Kraków in September 1980) were initially closely related to the independent trade union. As in other countries of CEE, anti-government opposition groups used the environmental crisis to challenge the government (Kabala 1993a:62), but unlike those countries the Polish opposition elected not to use the environment as one of its major weapons against the state. As a result, the environment and issues of environmental management played a relatively small role in the economic reforms proposed by Solidarity in the early 1980s and before martial law in early 1982. The limited role given by Solidarity to environmental protection did not change very much after the Chernobyl disaster on 26 April 1986, even though the disaster did lead to a substantial increase in environmental activism against the development of nuclear energy in Poland.10 Economic and political concerns dominated the political opposition. Environmental mismanagement was understood simply as an additional reason for political change, although independent environmental groups did receive support from Solidarity, they benefitted from its underground press and networks, and members of the Polish Ecological Club participated in the round table talks (sub-table for ecology) between the government and Solidarity in 1989 (Hicks 1996:123, 125–6, 129–31, 133–4). As in other CEE countries, the environmental movement was fragmented (as was the entire political scene in Poland). Attempts by the Polish Party of Greens to unify the movement failed, as did their repeated efforts to win seats in parliamentary and local elections (Szacki et al. 1993:18). Although the environment was a relatively high priority of the government in the late 1980s (Rakowski’s government) and early 1990s, in 1990 a spokesperson for the Polish government’s environment ministry could still argue that “right now, the environment has no priority, because there are so many other needs” (quoted in Jensen and WilsonSmith 1990:54). The 1989 Balczerowicz’s program did include proposals for environmental improvement using economic policy (Slocock 1992:28), but neoliberal shock therapy launched in 1990 and designed with the help of foreign advisors and international financial institutions failed to address explicitly environmental management issues at all (see Sachs 1990, 1992). Instead, it was expected that the introduction of a market economy would “automatically” lead to environmental improvements since the worst polluters, as the least efficient ones, would be forced by market conditions to recapitalize or go out of business. New technologies and higher energy prices would be sufficient mechanisms to clean up most air pollution (Economist 1990a: 54–6, 1992:29; GAO 1994:25). In the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a short period of relatively high environmental awareness, and during this period several important environmental laws were enacted. For example, the law for the formation of a State Inspectorate for

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Environmental Protection and the National Environmental Policy were both approved by Parliament in 1991 (Matuszewska and Spyrka 1995:79; Stec 1993: 111). The environmental round table negotiations between Solidarity and the government in early 1989 yielded a list of the worst polluting plants and it was agreed that these were to be closed. Closing these polluters was one of the priorities of the Polish government in the early 1990s. The National Environmental Policy document identified the eighty worst polluting plants at the national leveland the 800 at the regional level that were supposed to be closed or restructured. Closure and restructuring were, however, slow to occur and deadlines were repeatedly extended by the government (Manser 1993:72–3). As in other CEE countries, the environment quickly disappeared as a high priority issue from government priorities as the economic collapse associated with shock therapy undermined living standards and threatened political stability. As a result, the government and major political parties were preoccupied with economic issues and concern over environmental pollution diminished. Solidarity too lost interest in the environment in the early 1990s. Some of its members became openly hostile to environmental issues, fearing that environmental protection could undermine their jobs (Slocock 1992:30). As a result, the close relationship between the trade unions and environmental movements of the 1980s was disrupted. As in Hungary and former Czechoslovakia, many environmentalists began to work for the government and withdrew from environmental NGOs, further weakening them (Szacki et al. 1993:19). The public also shifted its attention away from the environmental crisis toward the growing economic crisis and unemployment (Slocock 1992:31). Media coverage of environmental issues decreased, contributing to reduced public awareness of and interest in environmental activism. Thus by the early 1990s, twothirds of the population in the most environmentally devastated areas were opposed to the closure of polluting factories because this would lead to job losses and declining personal incomes. They were also against investments that would finance environmental clean-up (Manser 1993:92). Neo-liberalism, healthy environments and the debate about priorities in the Czech Republic As in Poland, the 1989 November revolution in Czechoslovakia was preceded by environmental demonstrations. In Prague, five small demonstrations were organized in June and July 1989 to protest plans to build a tunnel under one of the Prague’s largest parks (Stromovka). According to these plans, concentrated exhaust fumes would have been released directly into the park through a ventilation system. Environmentalists argued that this would destroy many precious trees growing in the park. The implementation of the project was stopped after the revolution (Vaněk 1996:125–6). In early 1989, four Prague mothers began to protest against increasing levels of air pollution in the city and the inefficiency of a “smog decree” enacted by the city in 1988. They argued that the number of children with respiratory diseases was growing rapidly because of increasing air pollution. These women were soon joined by other mothers, who formed the movement called the Prague Mothers. The movement organized several environmental demonstrations of mothers with their small children in buggies in front of

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Prague’s city hall and in the pedestrian areas of the city center during 1989 (Nika 1996: 6). One such demonstration took place on 29 May 1989 involving about thirty mothers with fifty children. The Prague Mothers collected signatures for a petition asking for information about the quality of the environment. They alsoprotested against the construction of the Gabčíkovo-Nagyamaros dam on the Danube at the Slovak-Hungarian border, construction of nuclear power plants, industrial pollution of the cities, the tunnel under Stromovka and construction of the lift on the highest Czech peak, Sněžka. As with similar demonstrations throughout the region, the police were not able to use their traditional methods such as water canons and beating to disperse demonstrators because of the presence of women and children.11 In Teplice, environmental demonstrations took place one week before student demonstrations began in Prague. On 11 November 1989, about 1,000 demonstrators, some equipped with gas masks, marched through the heavily polluted town to the district headquarters of the Communist Party shouting “We want clean air!”, “Oxygen!” and “We want healthy children!” Similar demonstrations continued for the next three days. The police were totally unprepared to face the demonstrators on the first day of protest, but in the subsequent demonstrations police clashed with demonstrators using water canons and dogs to disperse them (Pavlík 1996:59; Vaněk 1996:130–1). Similar smaller demonstrations took place in other polluted northern Bohemian towns: in Litvínov on 15 November, in Most on 16 November, and in the town of Děčín on 17 November 1989 (Vaněk 1996: 131–2). Following the 1989 revolution, the environment became an important priority for the new Czechoslovak government. During this period, both the enthusiasm of the government for rapid environmental clean-up and public awareness of environmental problems were high. The Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic was established in 1990.12 At the federal level, the Federal Committee for the Environment (FCE) was created after the parliamentary elections in the summer 1990. The FCE was designed as a coordination committee for the environmental efforts of various governmental ministries and institutions. Josef Vavroušek, who became the FCE chairman, was a typical ecological activist with a dissident background and employed many ecologists in the FCE who, prior to the 1989 revolution, had constituted the core of the semi-official environmental movement. The goal of the FCE was to rebuild and further develop the government’s role in environmental management based on recent parliamentary legislation and under conditions of an emerging market economy. The FCE also saw its role as increasing environmental awareness, providing accurate information about environmental quality, sustaining and extending the new monitoring system, supporting environmental NGOs, and fostering cooperation with Western and other Eastern European countries in the field of environmental management and protection. The post-1989 federal government supported these activities. Throughout its existence, however, the work of the FCE was hindered by internal divisions between Czech and Slovak commission members, and these divisions became more pronounced as tensions over the break-up of Czechoslovakia increased.13

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Post-1989 environmental euphoria lasted only until the middle of 1991 (Jehlička and Kára 1993:13–14). After that, economic concerns regained their priority as the country began to feel the effects of shock therapy introduced in January 1991. Inthe Czechoslovak government, the proponents of fast environmental clean-up lost ground in their struggles with supporters of a more pragmatic liberal view of the environment. The environmentalists, led by the FCE chairman Josef Vavroušek, emphasized the need to tackle environmental problems first and even at the expense of short-term economic growth. The liberals, led by then the federal finance minister and later the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus, maintained that only successful economic transformation would create favorable conditions for solving the environmental crisis. By mid-1992 the liberal view of the environment had prevailed amid rapidly declining economic output associated with shock therapy. Environmentalists lost their positions in the government after the 1992 parliamentary elections and in the same year the FCE was abolished (Pavlínek 1997:102). One indicator of environmental euphoria during the 1989 revolution was the establishment of the Green Party in former Czechoslovakia. The Green Party was founded in Prague on 21 November 1989, just four days after the first student demonstration that began the revolution. The speed with which the Party was established is surprising given the chaotic nature of late November 1989 in Prague. Another surprising fact is that it was established by people who were not previously active environmentalists. These facts led to accusations that the Green Party was orchestrated by the still communist secret police in the Czech Republic, particularly in Prague (the situation in Slovakia was different) (Jehlička and Kostelecký 1992:74, 1991:6–9, 1995:228; Chorváthová 1996: 76). Another green party called the Green Alternative (Zelená alternativa) was established in Prague in December 1989. As in the case of the Green Party, the founding members of the Green Alternative did not include any recognized environmentalists but the Green Alternative claimed to be completely independent of political forces (Jehlička and Kostelecký 1991:7). Unlike the situation in Hungary and Poland, environmental awareness among the Czech population did not decline dramatically after 1989 and in many ways ran counter to the government’s perception of the importance of the issue. At the national level, between 1992 and 1994, the environment consistently ranked high among the “very or rather urgent problems” facing the country, together with crime, living standards, economic reform and health care (Brcha ová and Hrušková 1994:3). Support for environmental issues certainly did decline, but remained relatively high: in 1990 83 percent of citizens claimed that it was “very important” for them “to live in a healthy environment”, by 1991 this number was 76 percent and by 1992 67 percent (REC 1995a: 43). Based on opinion polls conducted in the Czech Republic in 1994, only 17 percent of the 800 respondents prioritized economic prosperity over the environment, 40 percent prioritized the environment over economic prosperity, and 35 percent thought that both economic prosperity and the environment were equally important for them (LN 1994a: 9). In environmentally devastated regions, such as the Most District of Northern Bohemia, local citizens considered the poor quality of the environment to be by far the most important single problem they had to face in the near future (Pavlínek 1997:334–6).

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However, this environmental awareness did not translate into votes for the Green Party during the national elections. In the June 1990 elections the Green Party won only 4.1 percent of the vote for the Czech Parliament and 3.3 percent for the Federal Parliament in the Czech Republic (Jehlička and Kostelecký 1991: 15). As a result the party failed to enter the Czech and Federal Parliament. Support for the party was surprisingly low, even in the most environmentally devastated districts of northern Bohemia. The strongest level of support attained was only 9 percent in the district of Chomutov (ibid.: 17). As a part of a three-party coalition, the Green Party won three parliamentary seats in the Czech Parliament and three in the Federal Parliament during the 1992 parliamentary elections. At the same time, however, the Green Party lost twothirds of its members who objected to the dubious coalition for various reasons (see Jehlička and Kostelecký 1995:225–9). Plagued by internal disputes, membership losses, marginality and overall disintegration, the Czech Greens failed to become a parliamentary party during both the 1996 and 1998 parliamentary elections and any electoral support they might have had vanished.14 Nonetheless, popular support for specific environmental issues remained strong, as the case of the cement industry in Tma illustrates. Case study: foreign investment, the cement industry and environmental degradation in the Czech Republic The efforts to build a new cement factory close to the Czech Karst Preserve became one of the rallying points for the emerging Czech environmental movement after 1989. This case also illustrates the role of state socialist legacies after 1989 and potential negative environmental effects of foreign direct investment in the region. The original project to build a new cement factory close to the village of Tma , just outside the Czech Karst Preserve, was first proposed in the early 1970s. The project would involve a substantial increase in limestone mining and the production of lime and cement to supply Czechoslovak and CMEA markets. The proposed cement factory was supposed to replace the existing facility located between the towns of Králův Dvůr and Beroun (the Královodvorská Cement Works or Královodvorská cementárna—KDC). Although construction was to begin no later than 1985, concerns about the environmental effects of the proposed cement factory were raised in an ecological study completed in 1983, and this led to a new plan to modernize the existing KDC facility. The idea of locating the new cement factory close to the village of Tma reemerged after 1989. In 1992, the Královodvorská Cement Works formed a joint venture with the German firm Heidelberger Zement AG which eventually acquired 100 percent of KDC’s shares in December 1993. Also, the nearby Čertovy schody Lime Works formed a joint venture with the Belgian firm Lhoist SA and later the Čertovy schody Quarry formed a joint venture with a foreign partner too (one half is owned by the Heidelberger Zement AG through the KDC and a large portion of shares is also owned by Lhoist SA). The HeidelbergerZement AG promised to invest DM 366 million to finance the construction of a new large cement factory close to the village of Tma and planned to export more than one-third of the factory’s cement production.

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After conducting the environmental impact assessment, the Czech MoE refused to approve the construction in August 1993. However, under Czech law the Ministry’s decision is not binding. Construction was approved by the Beroun District Office, whose decision is binding. Indirectly, construction was supported by the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The subsequent struggle over the new cement factory involved not only the company and the state but also citizens from the surrounding communities, several environmental NGOs (Children of the Earth, the Rainbow Movement, the Prague Mothers, Friends of the Earth), and several academics. Opposition was based primarily on the environmental implications of building the proposed cement factory, located close to the Čertovy schody Quarry itself in the Czech Karst Preserve. The factory was to be built only several hundred meters outside the Czech Karst Preserve. The Čertovy schody Quarry is the largest limestone quarry in the Czech Republic and is already responsible for serious environmental devastation of the region. Mining limits were set at 4 million tonnes of limestone annually in the 1970s and have not changed since 1989. At the end of 1997, Prague’s supreme court ruled that both the Ministry of Economy and the Beroun District office that approved construction of the factory followed illegal procedures during the approval process. As a result, the court ruled against construction of the new cement factory. Five months later, in May 1998, the director of the Czechomoravian Cement (owned by the Heidelberger Zement AG, the KDC is one of its plants in the Czech Republic) announced that the company had decided not to build the cement factory and that it would rather modernize the existing facility between the towns of Králův Dvůr and Beroun. The director argued that the decision was based on several factors: the original project had become outdated, land ownership at the proposed site had changed, and the continuous campaign against the factory by environmental NGOs made the project unfeasible (Kvasničková 1994a, 1994b, Baroch 1998a). Environmentalism as politics by other means: the case of Hungary In Hungary, environmental movements also played a major role in the demise of state socialism, contributing substantially to anti-government feelings among the general public. Sporadic and isolated local environmental protests took place in the 1970s and increasingly in the 1980s. For example, lead poisoning caused by lead contamination from Budapest’s Metallokémia company led in 1978 to local public outrage at Nagytétény, a southern industrial suburb of Budapest. A decade later in the summer of 1989, several Nagytétény activists formed a local environmental group, Green Future, to address environmental problems in their district such as pollution from Metallokémia, Chinoin Pharmaceutical and large pig farms, and the plans to construct a ring road around Budapest that would cut through a densely populated housing estate in the district (Pickvance 1998:76–83). In 1980, in the town of Vác, people complained about contamination of drinking water by improperly stored hazardous wastes by the Chinoin Pharmaceutical company. In 1984, in Ajka the glass factory workers protested against excessive solid emissions from the power plant in the town. The same year, the

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inhabitants of Dorog opposed plans to build a hazardous waste incinerator in the city (Szirmai 1993:150, Enyedi and Szirmai 1998:150). In 1987, a local group began to organize to oppose construction of a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in the village of Ofalu in southern Hungary. The protest culminated in a large demonstration in the spring of 1989. The government subsequently abandoned the project (Juhasz, Vari and Tolgyesi 1993:228–32). In the mid-1980s the movement against the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros project on the Danube developed into a major anti-governmental opposition group led by the Danube Circle that brought together other social and political groups.15 Public support for environmental issues was strong: in 1988, 62 percent of Hungarians believed that environmental protection ought to have priority over production issues and 36 percent saw the environment as the most important concern (Persanyi 1993: 137). The success of the environmental movement in stopping the Hungarian part of the project and the significant role it played in the collapse of the state socialist regime in Hungary was, in the longer term, self-destructive. The overall importance of the environmental movement declined as its leadership gradually disintegrated and public support evaporated. After 1989 the leaders of the Danube Circle and other environmental opposition groups began to pursue new goals and careers, taking jobs in the new government and in newly formed environmental organizations, new political parties or private research organizations (Hajba 1994:184–6). The Danube Circle was Hungary’s leading environmental organization and its disintegration has negatively affected the entire environmental movement in the country. With the exception of the Danube Circle, the environmental movement was actually quite poorly developed: existing groups were small and they had very little influence or public support (Salay 1990:27). The Hungarian Green Party, established in November 1989, failed to transform initially high public environmental awareness into votes during the March 1990 parliamentary elections, receiving only 0.37 percent of the final vote (Frankland 1995:327). As a result, the overall importance of the environmental movement greatly diminished and its ability to influence the course and direction of the transformation were negligible. The public, which had previously supported the environmental movement, became preoccupied with political and economic problems (Kabala 1991b:15, Salay 1990: 27). One plausible explanation for this sudden change in public support for environmental issues is that environmental protests served primarily as a vehicle for the expression of popular discontent with the existing system. When the system collapsed, environmental protest and its support lost their significance among the public (Persanyi 1993:141). By early 1992 few Hungarians thought that the environment should be a major national priority (Okolicsanyi 1992:67). Although the influence of the environmental movement declined rapidly, environmental problems were recognized as an important national issue by all parties in the first free parliamentary elections in 1990 (Salay 1990:25–6). Initially therewas significant support for the environment in the new Hungarian government. In 1990, the government opened the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC). REC was largely financed and partly staffed from the West but the support of the Hungarian government was also substantial; the US government and the European

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Community allocated $5 million each and Austria and Hungary allocated $1 million each (Kabala 1991b:15). In the same year, the Ministry of Social Welfare’s Public Health and Disease Office closed down the Metallokémia factory in Budapest. The factory recycled car batteries and produced toxic waste that polluted the area around the factory. However, this was the only case where the government took radical action against a chronic polluter and similar actions against other chronic polluters did not materialize (Okolicsanyi 1992:67). The government did not keep its promise to introduce forestry protection and new legislation to deal with the safe disposal of hazardous waste. The first freely elected Hungarian parliament also failed to address environmental issues despite its initial commitment to introduce effective environmental protection policies (Hajba 1994: 180, 187). In 1991 the existing Ministry for Environmental Protection and Water Management, originally established only in 1987, was reorganized into the Ministry for Environmental Protection and later into the Ministry of Environment and Regional Policy, but it was criticized for being no better than the one existing under state socialism (Okolicsanyi 1992:69; Reeves 1995:71, Erdey and Karcza 1996:75). Legal experts began to draft a new comprehensive environmental law in 1991 but the process was a protracted one and the law was not finished until 1995 (Stec 1993:103; Woodard 1995:62; Bowman and Hunter 1992:949–52; MERP 1995). This delay in legislative action reflected the declining importance of environmental concerns in the government in the early 1990s despite criticism by the opposition parties (Okolicsanyi 1992:69; Enyedi and Szirmai 1998:151). When the opposition won the 1994 parliamentary elections the newly appointed environmental minister, Ferenc Baja from the Hungarian Socialist Party, argued that environmental protection was a priority issue within the economic program of the Socialist Party. The new government planned to increase environmental expenditures (from 0.5 to 1 percent up to 1.5 to 2 percent of Hungarian GDP) (MERP 1994a:8). Overall, however, all post-1990 governments showed little interest in the environment, political agendas were dominated by economic concerns (Pickvance 1998:149), and the environmental movement became fragmented and marginalized (Enyedi and Szirmai 1998: 152). Environmentalism and nationalism in Slovakia In Slovakia, Public Against Violence (PAV) was the leading anti-government movement to emerge during the 1989 revolution in Slovakia, and was largely based on the environmental movement formed in Slovakia in the 1980s. The authors and editors of Bratislava/nahlas (Bratislava/aloud), which in 1987 had independently and critically evaluated environmental conditions in Slovakia, became the founding members of the PAV. Through them the environmentalmovement substituted for the lack of a wellorganized political opposition against state socialism. This role as the center of antigovernment resistance and in the 1989 revolution was comparable with the role of the civil rights movements Charta 77 in the Czech Republic (Budaj 1994:107). The members of the environmental movement were the largest and best organized group during the “velvet revolution” and became its organizers and leaders (Tatár 1994:107). The

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revolutionary committee of the PAV was originally located on the premises of the Slovak Union of Nature and Landscape Protectors and the members of the environmental movement accounted for more than half of the revolutionary leadership in Slovakia (Huba 1996a:283–4; Gál 1994:108). Podoba (1998:129) has even called the revolution in Slovakia the “green velvet revolution” to reflect the prominent role the environmental movement played during the 1989 collapse of the state socialist regime. Several members of the environmental movement were elected to the Slovak and federal Czechoslovak parliament in the 1990 Czechoslovak parliamentary elections (Huba 1994:117). The Slovak Green Party was established on 28 November 1989 as one of the first political parties to emerge in Slovakia during the 1989 revolution. The main priority of the party was to protect the environment using political means. Unlike the Czech Greens, the Slovak Green Party was founded by active members of the pre-1989 environmental moveme