A Cultural Analysis of the Fall of Communism

Abstract

The dramatic fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is analyzed from such cultural theories and perspectives as Oswald Spengler, Pitirim Sorokin, Arnold Toynbee, Thorstein Veblen, and Alexis de Tocqueville. This approach is contrasted with the modem and postmodern approaches found in such works as Talcott Parsons, Francis Fukuyama, and Jean Baudrillard. The essay concludes that the dominant, boosterish view extant today, that Western democratic and free-market institutions can be transplanted onto Slavic culture, is unrealistic, and is itself a product of what Sorokin and Spengler called the "late" or autumnal phase of civilization.