Risikomanagement im Staatssozialismus

The ambivalent nature of religion in disintegrating socialist systems is a consequence of an ambiguous relationship in these countries between modernization and socialism (the theory and the social reality). “Real” socialist systems tried to constitute and to reproduce themselves outside the traditional religions and churches. The traditional (and traditionalist) churches were deliberately pushed into an autonomous, modern social position outside the (socialist) system. The socialist systems themselves took on a non-modern form and structure: domination by the state and ideology over other subsystems and the system as a whole. The disintegration of the socialist systems precipitates a dilemma of choice between further modernization or restoring the traditional position of the churches.

If we are to understand what (state) socialism was about, grasping the images, perceptions, and mentalities upon which this social order rested is crucial. (1) A possible approach to such entities leads through the study of mental mapping. Symbolic geographies reveal how human agents, in particular historical and cultural contexts, define themselves by locating themselves spatially as well as temporally, drawing the boundaries of social spaces where they are within, and relating themselves and their spaces to others and to what lies, in their discursively constructed spatial-temporal order, without, behind, and ahead. What makes these socially and historically situated processes really important is their intimate relationship to the formation of identities and, indeed, to identity politics (including the regular attempts in all kinds of political regimes at the deliberate management of identities through the projection of images about themselves and others). State socialism, the social order established by the communist regimes in Russia and in East Central Europe during the first half of the last century, is no exception in this regard. Barbara Walker's perceptive essay on the relationship between Soviet dissidents and Western journalists reporting from the USSR stands out from this set in that it alone focuses on the micro-dynamics of East-West encounters and interaction. Emphasizing the role of Soviet isolation in general and the constant stress to which the regime exposed dissidents, Walker shows clearly the role of the insider-outsider distinction played in this interaction as well as the high demands against the Western journalist if s/he wanted to establish a workable rapport with dissidents (and the high expectations of involvement and shared values one had to face if accepted and identified as an insider). Rewarded with an excellent analysis of the culture of dissidence and the dynamics of group formation along the boundary between insiders and outsiders, the reader is eager to see future reports from Walker's research discussing in greater detail issues pertinent to the questions what it meant for the dissidents to be Soviet, how they related to the socialist social order, and how all this affected their relations to Westerners (and Western journalists). All the other essays confront the issues of systemic identity in discussing various social fields' history under state socialism in terms of the symbolic geographies they yielded. Without wishing to turn the wheel of historiography back to the times when a great deal of theorizing about the Soviet type of political, social, and cultural order emphasized the ideocratic nature of these regimes, the despotic implications of Marxism, these new studies on identity formation and identity politics demonstrate unequivocally the supreme role of the Marxist-Leninist view upon the social universe of the modern and late modern era in prevalent discourses of identity throughout the career of the state-socialist project. While we strongly believe that the discourses of socialist society need to be taken seriously, this claim is not about the primacy of ideology imposed from above. It is about a common structuring feature or shared tendency of discursive practices (the practices of imagining) observable in various walks of life in state-socialist societies. There is no direct path from this claim to suggestions trying to assert anything like an ontological priority of ideology, even less of discourses, over all other practices in these (or other) societies. A discussion of the ways in which discursive and other practices combine to co-produce and reproduce a social order is beyond the scope of the studies included in this issue. The findings presented here offer valuable observations concerning the dynamics of discursive processes of identity formation along the Cold War East-West divide. Marxist-Leninist theory of social development tells a relatively simplistic story about a sequence of social formations. …

In many respects, the arguments of much of the book lead to the final chapter on the state. It begins with the intriguing observation that the state which began to develop in the Soviet Union was not a federation, not a nation-state, not an empire, not a colonising power, whether externally or internally, but an entirely new state formation. In a European and West-Asian context, each form of the state mentioned trails theological assumptions and associations. But if the Soviet Union was not such a state, then what form of the state was it? How one understands the state turns on a dialectic of the universal and particular, manifested in terms of nationality, class, affirmative action, anti-colonialism, the definition of ‘people’ and the role of a socialist state. The steps in the argument may be summarised as follows. First, a totalising unity produces hitherto unknown forms of diversity, as is manifested in the focus on class as a way to rethink the ‘national question’ (meaning here nationalities and not the bourgeois nation-state) and in the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Second, this dialectic provides the basis for the theoretical elaboration of the world’s first ‘affirmative action’ program. According to this program, nationalities were fostered, languages encouraged (to the point where new literate languages were created), and culture, education and political leadership actively nourished. Third, arising from the affirmative action program was the theoretical justification and practice of the international anti-colonial struggle. Fourth, within that international context we see the beginning of a new understanding of the state. This state is not comprised of a nation, since the term ‘nation’ was studiously avoided. Instead, it entailed a redefinition of the term ‘people’ (narod), in which the ‘Soviet people’, made up of all nationalities, was constituted by workers, collective farmers and intellectuals. But what did Stalin mean when he used the term ‘socialist state’? He faced an initial problem, deriving from Lenin’s definition of the state as a manifestation of class struggle, and the latter’s prevarication over whether the state was an instrument or tool to be used by one class against another or whether it was indelibly shaped by the class in power. Stalin’s attempted solution is to argue that Lenin wrote only the first volume of The State and Revolution, having been unable to complete the work due to the outbreak of the October revolution. So Stalin proposes stages in the development of the socialist state, in which the first stage accords with Lenin’s view, but the second stage moves beyond: internal class enemies have been destroyed, so one keeps a watch on external enemies; the classes of workers, farmers and intellectuals now work together in non-antagonistic ways (contradiction remains under socialism); and a strong state is required to enact the social and economic transformations characteristic of socialism. To these should be added the resolute focus on class, the affirmative action program, anti-colonialism, and the development of a new identity, ‘being Soviet’. Of course, this is only a beginning to analysis of the socialist state, so one must analyse other socialist states – especially China – to ascertain more mature practices.

Tibor Valuch. <i>Everyday Life under Communism and After: Lifestyle and Consumption in Hungary, 1945–2000</i>

The unexpected emergence of the Solidarity movement in Poland has focused Western attention on conflicts within socialist states. The rapid truncation of Solidarity and the rise of a new image of the state as a militarized, relatively autonomous, repressive apparatus has left several theoretical questions unresolved and raised some new ones. This volume draws from historical and political accounts of the events that haunted Poland between 1980 and 1984, providing a complex sociological explanation of the major processes that occur within the state-society sphere of relationships. In part one, the authors examine the conflict between social movements and the state in Poland: the history of Solidarity, the nature of the political conflict between Solidarity and the Communist state, the institutionaliza-tion of the means of control by the party over society, the functioning of civil society, and the mediating role of the Catholic Church. In part two, the authors treat issues that go beyond Solidarity: the scope of state autonomy, legitimacy conflicts within socialist and capitalist states, other social movements in Poland, and the philosophical symbolism of Solidarity.

Science and Really Existing Socialism in Maoist China

We should not aspire to a highly stable family and look at marriage from that angle. Strengthening marriage and the family – making divorce more difficult – is not new, it is old: it is the same as bourgeois law. Iakov Brandenburgskii, arguing before the VTsIK in 1925 These “theories” were reflected also in denial of the socialist character of Soviet law, in attempts to portray Soviet law as bourgeois law – as law resting on the same bourgeois principles and expressing the same social relationships inherent in the bourgeois order. These persons trod the well worn path of Trotskyite-Bukharinist perversions… Andrei la. Vyshinskii , 1948 In the two decades between 1917 and 1936, the official Soviet view of the family underwent a complete reversal. Beginning with a fierce, libertarian commitment to individual freedom and “the withering away” of the family, the period ended with a policy based on a repressive strengthening of the family unit. Similar shifts occurred in the ideology of the state and the law as the Party systematically eliminated the libertarian currents in Bolshevik thought. A legal understanding of crime based on social causation and rehabilitation yielded to a new emphasis on personal culpability and punishment. Open intellectual exchange gave way to fearful caution, honest debate to a stiff, brittle mockery of discussion. By 1936, newspapers trumpeted support for a strong socialist family, elaborate legal codes, and a powerful state. The concepts of socialist family, law, and state, more reminiscent of Constantine Pobedonostsev than Marx, had become the new holy trinity of the Party.

It is now necessary to look into non-Anglo-American discourses on sovereignty in order to understand international conceptual struggles in the post-1945 era. While Germany ceased to be a major ideological enemy of Britain and America, the Soviet Union and other communist countries became the serious ideological threat in the Cold War period. In addition, newly independent states were more or less hostile to former colonial powers. To accommodate their demand for national sovereignty was an indispensable task for the Anglo-American powers in order to contain the communist threat. The era is symbolised by the principle of ‘sovereign equality’ that appeared in the Charter of the United Nations and became a pillar of international society. From immediately after the Second World War, the Soviet Union interpreted this principle in a peculiar way, so that it challenged the Western bloc led by the United States. China and other socialist states followed suit to reinforce the challenge. Newly independent states also endeavoured to put the principle into practice. Sovereignty was no longer an outmoded idea of Western international society; it was a vital element of global international society, and the conceptual field in which power politics in the age of the Cold War and decolonisation took place. In this chapter we shall trace the discourses on sovereignty in socialist and Third World states in order to identify the necessity of a re-establishment of the principle of sovereignty after the Second World War.

rT s wo systems can be said to have dominated the 20th century: the capitalist system and the socialist system.' However, this judgement is not selfevident. It usually encounters three objections. The first objection is that it is exaggerated and unjustified to mention the socialist system alongside the capitalist system, almost in parallel with it. In terms of world history, the socialist system was a brief interlude, a temporary aberration in the course of historical events. That view could well be the one that historians take in 200 years, but it is not the way we who live in the 20th century see things. The establishment, existence and partial collapse of the socialist system have left a deep and terrible scar on this century. The socialist system persisted for quite a long time and still persists to a great extent in the world's most populous country, China. Its rule extended, at its height, over a third of the world's population. The Soviet Union was considered a superpower, possessed of fearful military might. The socialist system weighed not only on the hundreds of millions who were subject to it, but on the rest of the world's population as well. The second objection questions whether there were only two systems. Is it not possible to talk of a third system that is neither capitalist nor socialist? I am not enquiring here into the question of whether it might be desirable to establish some kind of third system. I do not know what the 21st or 22nd century may bring. All

Labor in State-Socialist Europe, 1945–1989: Contributions to a History of Work

Recent academic debate into women’s experiences of tourism employment has emphasised the extremely heterogeneous nature of such work and the need for sensitivity to local political, economic, social and cultural contexts. This article focuses on one such context which has received little attention – state socialism – and we explore women’s experiences of tourism work in socialist Romania. Such work had characteristics in common with non-socialist contexts, but in other ways took a form which was distinctive to the socialist state. It was characterised by extensive training, good pay and opportunities for promotion (at least to middle management level). The socialist state also devised unique solutions to the problem of the seasonality of tourism work. However, women also faced extensive surveillance by the state’s security services and faced harsh penalties for under-performance.

Reciprocity as Mutual Recognition

The system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and China's governance system have their own prominent advantages and features. Together, they are able to focus concentrated efforts on key large-scale projects, achieving great feats and securing popular benefits that are welcomed by the broad masses. This people-centered system is able to meet the ever-growing need of the population for a better life, and enjoys essentially universal support. The system of socialism with Chinese characteristics aims to unify the immediate and long-term interests of the people, and to combine the overall interests of the overwhelming majority of the people with the special interests of certain popular sectors. It also reduces the consumption of social resources and realizes greater social benefits. The system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and China's governance system are characterized by continuity and stability. They feature an internal unity of “success will come whether I see it achieved or not” and “success requires my participation and effort,” and are therefore capable of consistently executing each of the major strategic tasks that have been formulated.

The System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and Modernizing China’s System for Governance is the crystallization of the Chinese path to modernization and is the unity of theoretical, practical and historical logic. In theoretical logic, the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernizing China’s system for governance, adhere to the guidance of scientific theory, the combination of theory and practice, and the people's right to self-determination; In practical logic, it is the product of the combination of the basic principles of Marxism with Chinese specific reality, embodies the unity of the universal laws of socialism and Chinese specific national conditions, enriches and improves in the practice of constantly meeting the challenges of the times and solving practical problems, takes root in China and serves the Chinese people; In historical logic, it is logically rooted in Chinese 5000-year cultural tradition, and deeply rooted in the historical experience and practical exploration of Chinese development, so as to advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization. The system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernizing China’s system for governance, are the unity of theory, practice and history, which fully reflects the Deep logic and strong power of the Communist Party of China (CPC) led the people to promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with the Chinese path to modernization.

This chapter analyses how the basic features of socialist democracy in the Soviet Union began to emerge in the 1920s and especially 1930s. There are four features: (1) the first and faltering attempts to promote electoral democracy, and especially the campaign for universal, multi-candidate, and contested elections in the later 1930s; (2) the substantial and abiding contribution to consultative democracy through the primary party organisations (PPOs) in the workplace, collective farm, and neighbourhood; (3) in relation to the 1936 constitution, the identification of freedom from exploitation (and thus socio-economic well-being) as a core human right, along with proactive and substantive rights; (4) and the inescapable and dialectical role of the leadership of the Communist Party in socialist democracy. These features would come to be developed much further by other socialist countries. The chapter also deals with the increasing usage of the term “socialist state,” as a qualitatively different form of the state. The concern here is with Stalin’s reflections in response to debates concerning the state’s withering away, and his identification in an all-important speech to the eighteenth congress of 1939 of a second stage of socialism in which socialist state structures have attained relative maturity and stability. After summing up the features of such a “socialist state,” I address the contradiction in which the terminology of “socialist state” began to the deployed precisely when it was becoming clearer that the distinction between state and society was blurring and could no longer be applied. In short, the organs of governance were increasingly standing—as Engels had already proposed—in the midst of society.