Riding High

EASTERN EUROPE

A recent cartoon in the Rumanian Communist Party newspaper Scinteia pictured a chubby bon vivant in a homburg slouched in the back seat of a limousine driven by his uniformed chauffeur. The paper's lampoon was propaganda, all right, but this time it was not aimed at the usual effigy of a capitalist boss. Its target was the Communist Party's own fat cats. In Rumania, as in the rest of Eastern Europe these days, the party is working hard to eradicate one of the biggest and most abused privileges perpetuated by Communism's affluent new class: the chauffeur-driven car.

The cars and chauffeurs attached to government agencies and factories are a nagging reminder to more austere party men that their Communist "utopia" is far from classless. In fact, the party press has reported that, proportionately, more middle-level executives are entitled to chauffeur-driven cars in Socialist countries than in the West. Government ministers and factory managers in each of the East European countries fight constantly to enlarge their own pool of cars. They ride in everything from Fiat 600s to Russian Moskvichi, but favor the big and prestigious German Mercedes.

Visits to Aunt Magda. In Bulgaria, 19% of all cars on the road are chauffeur-driven, and Poland has 27,000 chauffeurs for its officials. All of the thousand or so cars with curtained windows that bump along Albania's dusty roads are government-owned, usually contain bureaucrats and their drivers. Even the tiny Czechoslovakian veterinary service has somehow managed to acquire 900 chauffeured cars. As a sop to socialist equality, the bureaucrat often rides in the front seat beside his driver, who is nonetheless expected to hop out and open the door for him. Throughout the East bloc, the chauffeurs drive the boss's children home from school, do the family shopping and, on long business trips, may drive miles out of the way to take him on a visit to his Aunt Magda.

With so many high-riding executives, Poland is considering retiring 10% of its motorized fleet and chauffeurs. Bulgaria has decreed strict restrictions on who can use official cars. In Rumania, where Rominia Libera reports that an "astronomical" amount is spent on chauffeured cars, the government has ordered their use limited to top-echelon people. Rumania is also launching a drive to find "useful work" for the displaced chauffeurs and, along with Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, is trying to sell the cars to the bosses to console them for the loss of their drivers. As a result, many a party panjandrum who once arrived at embassy cocktail parties with his chauffeur, now drives up himself--or comes by streetcar or on foot until he can learn to drive.

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