Comment on Eastern Europe by Zygmunt Bauman

For a peasant society, patronage is the way of life. This does not
imply that patronage is necessarily limited to peasant societies, but it
does imply, first, that patronage is a major functional prerequisite of
peasant society and, second, that the probability of its occurrence (or
persistence) in a society with an overwhelming and recent peasant
tradition is high. The ubiquity of patronage in Communist societies,
therefore, can hardly be considered peculiar-particularly in view of
the fact that precisely those features of their peasant past which made
patronage functionally necessary are still, though perhaps in a gener-
alized form, the dominant traits of the new social organization.
The paramount feature of peasant society that turned patronage
into an indispensable condition of its survival was the fundamental
and ineradicable uncertainty of livelihood. The capriciousness of
nature contained a constant threat of collapse whose extent the weak
peasant technology could not mitigate. The naturalness of patron-
age in the context of the peasant economy becomes evident if,
following James Scott, we view the peasant as a cultivator who
faces a set of continuing existential dilemmas over his economic and
physical security which he is often poorly equipped to solve by
himself or with other peasants. To the extent that someone of higher
status is willing to assist and protect him, providing the cost is not
prohibitive, a relationship of deference may develop that grows in its
resilience and closeness as expectations about mutuality and assist-
ance are met. The patron validates his friendship by helping the
peasant at times of crisis. It is on that basis that trust and confidence
grow; friendship and favour are, for the client, synonymous.1 A
mighty protector, managing resources large enough to see one safely
through a lean year or two, offers exactly the element of regularity
and predictability that the brittle peasant economy most agonizingly
lacks.
.The same peasant economy that created the problem contained a
pattern for its eventual solution-the remarkable mixture of loving
care and exploitation of the peasants attitude to his livestock. This
truly synergical relationship (one which, inRuth Benedicts descrip-
tion, makes the selfish-unselfish opposition inapplicable) could
1. James Scott, Patrons or Exploitation?
in Ernest Gellner and John Waterbury (eds.),
Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Sociefies (London: Duckworth, 1977), p. 34-35.
CLIENTELISM 185
serve as a ready-made cultural mold in which to cast the institution of
patronage. Imputing cold economic calculation as a link connecting
the two attitudinal opposites will fail to capture the true spirit of
peasant culture. Such an imputation will hinder, rather than facilitate,
an understanding of peasant patronage, where sympathetic assistance
and exaction on one side, trust and submission on the other, seemed
to belong naturally together.
The impact of peasant origins on the political culture of Commu-
nist societies can hardly be exaggerated. The massive influx of
peasants into the lower and middle levels of the budding institutions
of postrevolutionary states has been amply documented; this fact
lends plausibility to the supposition that the style of political life, as
shaped from the grassroot level upwards, owes more than its marginal
peculiarities to the legacy of peasant culture. More importantly, the
strength of the peasant politico-cultural contribution exceeds the
estimate based on the statistics of Communist cadres, as it must have
derived its thrust from the sheer fact of dominance of peasant culture
in the prerevolutionary society. One could therefore anticipate that
the norms of conduct and expectations deriving from the peasant
tradition of patronage and clientele would. be spontaneously applied
to the new life situation; the more so, the less familiar and compre-
hensible this situation looked from the habitual vantage point of
peasant environment with its inborn tendency to local autarky and
alienation from politics.
The assertion that the universality of patronage in Communist
societies is an effect of the resilience and inertia of peasant behavioral
patterns captures only half of the truth, however. The other half will
be grasped if one understands the extent to which the conditions of
action generated by the Communist political system bestow rational-
ity upon behavioral patterns shaped within the institution of patron-
age. Or, rather, the conditions in which life problems are confronted
and solved in a Communist society may be seen as a generalized
version of the conditions faced by the preindustrial peasant.
We have singled out uncertainty as the dominant feature of prein-
dustrial peasant life; it remains a paramount characteristic in the
Communist society emerging in the wake of the peasant one. Its
major source has moved, however, from nature to society. As sec-
ondary and tertiary industries grew in importance and the network of
social arrangements screened individual life from the direct and
overwhelming impact of natural forces, the focus of uncertainty
shifted from erratic nature to whimsical agents of social power.
Uncertainty emanates now from the absence, or paucity, of legal
rules that could connect action and its effects into predictable (i.e.,
186 STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
regular) patterns. Once again, therefore, though on a different level,
favors of a powerful agent (i.e., an agent situated at the source of
uncertainty) can make up for the volatility of the general situation. A
peasant moving to town and taking an urban job finds the new
environment remarkably familiar; it clearly calls for the same behav-
ioral patterns which the life of a client has instilled. Far from becom-
ing invalid in urban conditions, these patterns draw a new lease on life
from the wide fissures in the Communist rule of law.
To this extent, any Communist society is a society of clients-in-
search-of-a-patron. The patron-client pattern dominates in all but
purely personal, intimate human relations. One takes the client pos-
ture when approaching the all-powerful shop assistant in a store
known for its erratic supply of basic commodities; one curries favors
of the omnipotent, though low-ranking, bureaucrat when trying to
secure the allocation of an urban flat, connection of a telephone, or a
place in a rest house; one knows that the benevolence of the local
news agent must be assured if the popular weekly magazine is to be
delivered regularly. Because most people are situated close to some
potential easer of uncertainty (a construction worker having access to
building materials unobtainable in the shops, a box office girl han-
dling cinema tickets which otherwise could be obtained only at the
cost of protracted queueing), the roles of patron and client are nor-
mally interchangeable. The opportunity to play both roles, turn by
turn, is a universal experience in Communist society. As a popular
Polish joke had it, Patronage is the last humane emotion on the road
to socialism. Joking apart, patronage may well be seen as a systemic
regulating feature of Communist society: a functional equivalent of
law and/or the impersonal marketplace.
This wide systemic context is missing in Willertons account. As a
result, patronage emerges from the account as a phenomenon
localized in the specialized agencies of political power and therefore
fully explicable in terms of the peculiarities of the Communist politi-
cal system with its notorious absence of impersonal criteria of per-
formance, of elective mechanisms, and of objectified procedures for
appointment and promotion. All these structural factors, however
important, derive an added and perhaps decisive strength from their
essential conformity with the dominant cultural pattern of Commu-
nist society, which molds all human relations under conditions of a
defective market and a defective (only partly rule-governed) bureau-
cracy. In comparing institutions of patronage in Mediterranean
countries, Ernest Gellner selected the Tunisian state as a machine
for the making and unmaking of patrons.2 The description fits
2. Ernest Gellner, Patrons and Clients, in ibid., p. 5.
CLIENTELISM 187
Communist states very well; and not surprisingly, for the protracted
Neo Destour rule is the non-Communist constitutional pattern that
most closely resembles the normal Communist political system.
Political patronage in the Communist state is best understood as an
aspect, or an extension, of the typical cultural pattern of Communist
society rather than as another case of the personal political ma-
chine or of personal favoritism within the bureaucracy, however
closely such bureaucracy approaches the Weberian ideal type of
professional impersonality. In contrast to the situation in countries
with a fully developed market economy and rule of law safeguarded
by appropriate checks and balances, in Communist society political
patronage is at home. Even if it remains faintly illegal or extrale-
gal, it is still in full harmony with the accepted pattern of human
relations.
In this respect, there is little difference among the various Com-
munist countries of Eastern Europe. The functionality of patronage is
related to socio-cultural traits common to all Communist societies
and is minimally dependent on the pecularities of national cultural
traditions. The relevance of Willertoris study, therefore, is not lim-
ited to the Soviet state.
If patronage in general is an ubiquitous institution affecting life
throughout the Communist world, the political brand of patronage
involves a single, though wide, stratum of Communist society-
officialdom.3 For these people, the general uncertainty of Com-
munist society extends to their employment and promotion. These
people are the most poignantly affected by the absence of impersonal
criteria of appointment and performance, which Weber considered
the most salient attributes of rational bureaucracy. For them, the
universal search for patronage assumes a political form. Serving as a
political satellite to a powerful and presumably well-entrenched per-
sonality seems the only antidote to insecurity. The source of political
patronage lies more in the clients frantic search for potential patrons
than in such patrons pursuit of personal bases of power. A rising star
in the Communist bureaucracy may be surprised to find minor and
not-so-minor members of officialdom suddenly vying for his accept-
ance of their services and sympathy, not necessarily in exchange for
specific benefits. The political patron-client bond does not boil down
to a business transaction. What the average client seeks more than
anything else is emotional security and a heightened probability of
survival in the uncharted waters of Communist politics.
The nonspecific character of the patron-client relationship con-
3. Cf. Z. Bauman, Officialdom and Class,
in Frank Parkin (ed.), The Social Analysis of
C/ass Sfrucrure (London: Tavistock, 1976), pp. 129- 148.
188
STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
founds the map of patronage and makes it exceedingly hazardous to
chart its patterns with objective indicators and without access to
inside information. The indices selected by Willerton to spot
probable Politburo clients are germane to a model of political patron-
age operated by needs and designs of patrons. They seem less con-
vincing if clients rather than patrons are the spiritus mavens of
patronage.
If the relationship is rooted in clients rather than in patrons needs,
then neither of Willertons two clues-geographical proximity and
correlated promotion-seems as obviously necessary as he sug-
gests. If Willerton could demonstrate that geographical proximity
had resulted from a career-minded patrons effort to mobilize sup-
port, he would strengthen his case for the existence of patronage.
Clients, however, may and often do recruit themselves, with no
respect for the logic of geography. A rising star tends to attract
supporters whose spread is likely to defy any consistent geographical
or functional pattern. This was clearly the case in Poland. The
clientele of Gomulka was a true cross-section, geographically and
institutionally, during his first demotion. During Giereks tenure as
Silesian regional secretary, his clientele was largely self-recruited
from other regional secretaries and was not limited to nearby regions.
The clientele of the current controversial strong man, Jozef Kepa,
has been recruited from regions remote from his Warsaw fief; Mie-
czyslaw Moczars clientele during his brief but spectacular ascent
contained motley elements from all regions and all institutions; it was
united only by frustrated ambitions of the most diverse character.
Some of these clients did follow their chosen patron on his way up;
some outlived their patrons fall, retaining high positions and even
continuing their way up (shifting their loyalty, presumably, to other
patrons on the way). But many, perhaps most, simply remained in
their previous posts or settled for less spectacular perquisites, gain-
ing, however, in security and authority.
The complexity of the patronage network will be better grasped if
one is careful not to underestimate the strength and role of lateral
bonds within the apparently highly centralized Communist system;
significantly less tangible than the vertical links, they are often
conveniently neglected by the researcher to the detriment of his
findings. Bureaucrats of all levels, however, often meet laterally,
and on such occasions the varying strength of contenders becomes
clear to all, though it may not be reflected in the relative importance
of their offices. The chosen patron is often remote-both geographi-
cally and functionally-from his client, and (worse still for the
external observer) may lack any evident opportunity to do tangible
CLIENTELISM 189
favors for the client. The patrons rise does not necessarily lead to an
equally visible promotion of his client, for the two may move in
different hierarchies. On the other hand, the mere synchronization of
geographically close promotions, taken by Willerton as an indicator
of patronage, may have a simple technical cause: every rise in the
hierarchy entails a vacancy in the previous post, which sets in motion
a whole chain of promotions, which may, or may not, be linked to the
original one by the bond of patronage.
These comments are not meant to cast doubt on the validity, much
less usefulness, of Willertons attempt to measure the extent of
patronage at the top level of the Communist hierarchy. But they are
meant to alert us to the pitfalls present in every attempt to measure the
phenomenon with the help of objectively observable indicators
alone. In view of this limitation, Willertons findings must be ap-
proached with caution.