On the Path to Civil Society

Abstract

Abstract The tempestuous events of recent years have, of course, expunged from memory the pre-perestroika scandal caused by the report of Tat'iana Ivanovna Zaslavskaia. At a scientific seminar held in Novosibirsk, Tat'iana Ivanovna discussed the social mechanism of economic life. Much that she said then sounded revolutionary for our social sciences: a vision of the economy as a field of interaction and conflict among the social and economic interests of different social groups; acknowledgment of man's status as a subject of economic activity rather than an object of administrative interventions. In some mysterious, still unknown way, the report's text, mimeographed and stamped "For Official Use," got to the West, where it was published and provoked a considerable stir. To a certain extent it rehabilitated our ideologized social science in the world's eyes. But on the Staraia Ploshchad attitudes were different. The Institute was overrun by suspiciously proper people in civilian garb who traced the path of every opy. Tat'iana Ivanovna expected considerable problems, but the matter was settled with a reprimand from the CPSU regional committee. In the USSR the report was published in abridged form only in our journal in 1985. Essentially it was a methodology for future research into the structure of Soviet society. Tat'iana Ivanovna came to head the All-Union Center for Public Opinion Research, and the investigation was postponed indefinitely. But one cannot get such a theme out of one's head, especially since survey findings yielded a steady flow of new information about society. Here we continue this conversation begun long ago.