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The turbulence of the final years of the former Soviet Union had dramatic consequences for every region of that great colonial empire. The promise of a democratic system modeled not on the Leninist but rather on the Jeffersonian concept of democracy electrified millions of Soviet citizens who accepted the reality of Gorbachev's reforms. The transformation first seen elsewhere in the USSR came late to the south-western republic of Moldova and was not evident until the appointment of Petru Lucinsky as First Secretary of the Moldovan Communist Party. Hailed as a Moldovan Gorbachev, Lucinsky arrived too late to satisfy the escalating demands for a democratic transformation of this remote region of the USSR. Consequently, in that small nation's first free elections it was the Popular Front which assumed power and Mircea Snegur, a former communist who had joined the Popular Front, became president.
The Snegur presidency ended with his defeat in the December, 1996 elections and his replacement by the former Communist Party leader Petru Lucinsky. Spanning half a decade, the Snegur administration record offers an excellent picture of the limits of the democratic transformation not only of Moldova but also of the former Soviet Union itself. In order to gauge the accomplishments as well as the shortcomings of the transformation of this former Soviet republic, it is necessary to consider both Moldovan developments as well as the theoretical parameters that enable us to determine the existence or absence of democratic government. Therefore, let us first outline the philosophical foundations of the democratic state.
Philosophical Basis of Democracy
The effort to transform Moldova illustates an ancient drama. This is a drama which recapitulates the timeless struggle between liberty and power that began with the origins of politics and the beginning of organized human associaton. This struggle involves the first questions of political meaning, both as process and end. The lessons of the twentieth century demonstrate that this distinction is ultimately false, for we now know that that no process or method can be disassociated from its end, or rather, that no end can be rendered as distinct from the moral substance of its means. Substance and procedure - end and means - are inextricably bound, and in those instances wherein they are treated as somehow both...