Legitimacy Doctrines and Legitimation Procedures in East European Systems

Abstract

The term ‘legitimacy doctrines’ denotes doctrines prescribing the grounds for the validity of political domination.1 Communist systems of rule have at their disposal an Official ‘system—ideology’, the Soviet variant of Marxism—Leninism, and this system-ideology includes an obligatory legitimacy doctrine. The latter specifies the grounds for the postulated legitimacy of communist rule. Whether this normative legitimacy is accompanied by a corresponding real legitimacy, in the sense that the population considers communist rule to be legitimate on the officially specified grounds, must remain an open question for the present. One could answer it with assurance only on the basis of thorough empirical investigations, which are prevented by obvious serious difficulties. The problem of real legitimacy cannot be dealt with within the framework of the present essay.