3.1 Out of Communism?
The fall of communism as a political and economic system in eastern Europe did not mean, unfortunately, the demise of communism as a way of thinking and as a pattern of behaviour for people living in post-communist contexts. We may very well say, in this sense, that society came out of communism, but communism did not come out of people. What happened to us in eastern Europe was similar to the Israelites’ experience after the crossed they Red Sea. They were physically out of Egypt, but Egypt was alive and well in their minds.
This is one of the strangest paradoxes of the transition from communism to capitalism: people with a communistic mentality which is extremely resistant to change have the almost impossible task of building a modern society based on democratic values and on the principles of free enterprise.
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