Soviet-type Regimes Research Articles

‘The Soviet Problem’ in Post-Soviet Russian Marxism, or the Afterlife of the USSR

Abstract The present article deals with different Marxist theories on the Soviet experience, which emerged in post-Soviet Russophone Marxist or neo-Marxist scholarship (concurrently with some reference to Marxist traditions in other former Eastern Bloc countries). The article demonstrates that these theories – if we leave the remaining ‘Marxist-Leninists’ of the classical Soviet type aside and focus on critical, post-Soviet Marxism – may be classified as either ‘fundamentally rejectionist’ or ‘Thermidorian’. The former, in line with the seminal criticisms of K. Kautsky and other early opponents of Lenin, reject the socialist nature of the October 1917 Revolution outright. The latter mostly define the Revolution as at least socialist-oriented, but further bifurcate into different varieties of the ‘state capitalism’ thesis with a number of theorists defining Stalinist societies as special varieties of post-revolutionary industrialism essentially different from orthodox capitalism. Most critical post-Soviet Marxists agree, however, that the main vector of Soviet-type regimes’ evolution indeed pointed towards increased class stratification. However, it should be remembered that Soviet-type bureaucracy was a class-in-the-making rather than a class-in-itself or a class-for-itself, and this point is further elaborated in the works of those theorists who prioritise the differences rather than similarities between Soviet-type industrialism and orthodox capitalism.

Illiberal deliberation: Communist regime travel controls as state capacity in everyday world politics

Much social theory takes for granted that transnational people-to-people dialogue is inherently liberal in process and content – a haven of everyday authenticity that shelters ideas of human rights and democratic reform. In contrast, this contribution shows how communist regimes built and institutionalised an encompassing administrative state capacity to control and shape micro-level professional contacts with the West. This extensive but secret system of coercion, which was brought to light only with the opening of former communist regime archives, set a markedly illiberal framework for everyday East–West deliberations during the Cold War. Effectively, the travel cadre system may not only have delayed the demise of Soviet bloc communism, by isolating the population from Western influences. It was also intended to serve as a vehicle for the discursive influence of Soviet type regimes on the West. The article provides one of the first and most detailed English language maps of the administrative routines of a communist regime travel cadre system, based on the East German example. Furthermore, drawing on social mechanisms methodology, the article sets up a micro-level ‘how it could work’ scheme over how travel cadre systems can be understood as a state capacity, unique to totalitarian regimes, to help sway political discourse in open societies.

Finding the Enemy: Ethnicized State Violence and Population Control in Ceaușescu's Romania

State violence as a complex system of ideological prescriptions, normative values, and everyday practices has been emerging as a major topic in the study of Soviet-type regimes. Overcoming the Cold War preoccupation with the totalitarian character of these societies, new historiographical approaches put at the center the changing degree of physical and psychological violence. This article sketches the evolution of state violence concepts and practices in Communist-era Romania, focusing on the treatment of the large Hungarian minority in Transylvania. Although Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania has been largely acknowledged as a special case, incompatible with the overall development of the Soviet bloc, it is possible to apply the model of “civilized violence” and “reliability of expectations” to the specific conditions of the late phase of Romanian national Communism. The most primitive forms of physical violence such as shooting or the savage beating of inmates never disappeared from the power instruments available to the different repressive bodies, but these techniques were supplemented by more refined attempts to encourage social collaboration based on patriotic conviction.

From Capitalism to Utopia Communist Nationalization of Companies in Central and Eastern Europe

This article gives an inside look on a current research project regarding the history of company law in Central and Eastern Europe. This project has a special focus on a certain company: the Renner Brothers & CO, later on called Dermata, Janos Herbak, and nally Clujana. But, on the basis of the particular legal history of this business entity, general questions of company law are also addressed: nationalization, privatization, and present- day effects of the historical evolution. After a short overview of the research, the pivotal question raised by the present article is nationalization, or more precisely the need to understand better the legal nature of nationalizations in Central and Eastern Europe in contrast to nationalizations in Western Europe, which took place in a very different economic and political context. Nationalization in Soviet-type regimes was totally different as compared to nationalizations realized in democratic societies. There are certain particularities which differentiate the two kinds of nationalizations, and the purpose of this article is to brie y highlight at least some of these disparities and try to design a precise legal theory of nationalization in Central and Eastern European context.

The annulled Tax state: Schumpeterian Prolegomena to the study of postcommunist fiscal sociology

How was a new infrastructure of revenue-collection instituted after the collapse of Soviet-type regimes in Eastern Europe? This article suggests that currently available answers to this question are unsatisfactory. Building upon insights derived from the literature on fiscal sociology and from Joseph Schumpeter’s analysis of modern “tax states,” it outlines a new approach to the study of various phenomena related to revenue-collection in postcommunism. More specifically, I examine a set of empirical and theoretical issues related to the reemergence of a taxpayer as having a cultural role, the reconfiguration of the bureaucratic apparatuses bequeathed by the old regime, and the recreation of trustworthy national currencies. Having identified important gaps in our understanding of the transformative processes that engulfed the region after 1989, the paper introduces a more comprehensive research program focused on the context-specific challenges inherent in the attempt to re-establish tax states in the formerly communist countries.

The Problem of Legitimacy for Illegitimate and Semi-Legitimate Regimes

It is well-known that the former Soviet-type regimes in Europe and Eurasia suffered a deficit of legitimate authority. Whenever crises erupted, there was a simple explanation: These regimes were unpopular. They lacked legitimacy. Nevertheless, the overall track record of these regimes shows that instability and breakdown of authority were the exception rather than the rule. On balance, they were quite stable and their authority was broadly accepted. Such stability and popular acceptance appears to require explanation in light of the undeniable lack of legitimacy of these regimes. To be sure, Communist ideology purported to legitimize the Party's monopoly of power. But this ideology was manifestly unconvincing, both as ethical argument as to why people should, accept Party's leading role, and as explanation of why they did in fact, accept it. For many observers, it was totalitarianism that filled the explanatory gap. According to such an account, while only a small part of the population accepted the official ideology by their own choice, the regime's authority was bolstered through inculcation of the ideology by indoctrination, propaganda, and agitation. To complete the picture, the totalitarian vision saw resistance as being neutralized by various means of political and social control. Totalitarian regimes were viewed as combining fanaticism, and idealism with the desire of many to escape the burden of freedom and responsibility. Such factors, combined with force, terror, and monopoly of information, created a coherent vision into which Communist ideology fitted nicely. All this was thought to explain the relative stability of Soviet-type regimes. It also explained their occasional crises as resulting from as-yet-incomplete totalitarianism. Over time, the inadequacy of such accounts became increasingly apparent. The more became known about these regimes, the clearer it became that the totalitarian model was false and seriously misleading, not only as an account of softening post-Stalinist regimes, but of Stalin's regime too. This paper will inquire into neglected sources of legitimate authority that fill the explanatory gap between the official theory of legitimacy and the significant level of legitimate authority which Soviet-type regimes actually enjoyed. It first examines several extra-legitimate sources of authority beside fear and coercion, such as habit, self-interest, and existential pressures of the system. It then shows why such sources of authority were insufficient, and why Soviet-type regimes, like all regimes, needed to build reservoirs of positive legitimate authority. It then explores the role of sources of legitimate authority that are often overlooked, such as awe and respect for the might of the state, its ability to satisfy needs, and fusion of regime with the state, its history, traditions, symbols, and cultural and athletic achievements.

Lustration and Legitimacy

For much of their existence, the Soviet-type regimes of Central and Eastern Europe were accused of suffering from a “legitimacy crisis”. It is argued in this contribution that not only are such assumptions tainted by Cold War biases but that the nature of these regimes, combined with the inherent complexities of legitimacy, mean that such claims have limited credence. It proposes that studying a particular phenomenon in the post-communist world—in this case lustration—provides us with new insights into the legitimacy of the communist regimes in Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic and Poland.

Die erfundene Freundschaft: Propaganda für die Sowjetunion in Polen und in der DDR [The Invented Friendship: Propaganda for the Soviet Union in Poland and the GDR], and: Das sowjetische Massenfest [The Soviet Mass Festival] (review)

Reviewed by: Die erfundene Freundschaft: Propaganda für die Sowjetunion in Polen und in der DDR [The Invented Friendship: Propaganda for the Soviet Union in Poland and the GDR], and: Das sowjetische Massenfest [The Soviet Mass Festival] Balázs Apor Jan C. Behrends , Die erfundene Freundschaft: Propaganda für die Sowjetunion in Polen und in der DDR [The Invented Friendship: Propaganda for the Soviet Union in Poland and the GDR]. 438 pp. Cologne: Böhlau, 2006. 9783412230050. €49.90. Malte Rolf , Das sowjetische Massenfest [The Soviet Mass Festival]. 454 pp. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2006. ISBN 9783936096637. €35.00. Interest in symbolic politics and political symbolism in the Soviet Union and Soviet-type regimes in Eastern and Central Eastern Europe has boomed over the last few years. A growing number of scholars have decided to study the symbolic side of such regimes and the way these polities relied on symbolic weaponry to advance their utopian goals. Apart from now-classic studies on communist propaganda, an increasing number of works focus on the symbolic building blocks of socialist regimes and the symbolic policies pursued by the leading political elites.1 More specifically, the topics of these recent publications include political rituals, the culture of heroism, strategies of myth creation, political iconography, and so on.2 Moreover, there is a pronounced tendency to associate Soviet-type regimes and communist ideology [End Page 472] with political religions.3 The two German-language books under review here also belong to the field of symbolic politics and political symbolism in the Soviet Union under Stalin's rule and on the peripheries of the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Jan Behrends's intriguing study, based on his 2005 Potsdam dissertation, concentrates on "friendship propaganda" in East Germany and in Poland between 1945 and 1956. The book focuses on how the political elites in East Germany and Poland tried to overcome the traditionally antagonistic cultural relationship with Soviet Russia by promoting the idea of the friendship of peoples. The popularization of friendship with the Soviet Union in these two war-stricken countries, where historical hostility toward Russia and the Soviet Union was remarkable, was meant to create a sense of fraternity and unity of the peoples under Soviet rule. Behrends provides an interesting analysis of the amount of effort invested in the promotion of the idea of friendship, the range of institutions and party functionaries who were involved in the construction of such an illusion, and the means that were used by the party apparatus in the popularization process. The author puts special emphasis on the discursive features of the friendship propaganda and the way the friendship discourse was invented and shaped by various institutions and individuals according to Soviet expectations. Behrends generally interprets the creation of symbolic ties among Moscow, Poland, and East Germany in the context of Sovietization. He argues that the cult of the Soviet Union was introduced in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe with the aim of consolidating Soviet rule in the region and advancing the utopian ideological goals of Stalin's regime. On the basis of his case studies, the author makes a distinction between different phases of Sovietization: pragmatic and utopian. According to Behrends, during the phase of pragmatic Sovietization (before the takeover of communist parties) the policies pursued by the East German and Polish regimes took into consideration popular political beliefs and expectations (i.e., an appeal to national traditions), whereas in the phase of utopian Sovietization the regime's ideological concerns enjoyed priority, and the populations under control were mobilized accordingly. Without questioning the claim that Sovietization had two distinct phases in Poland as well as in East Germany, it is important to highlight the problems that arise from a collision of the semantic fields of the concepts "pragmatic" and "Sovietization." One is tempted to claim that utopianism is an inherent element of the concept "Sovietization" and thus the phrase "pragmatic Sovietization" is difficult to interpret. It is beyond doubt that the communist parties of Eastern Europe [End Page 473] pursued pragmatic policies with the aim of strengthening their social base, and it is also true that the Red Army often acted in favor of local...

Opposition and Dissent in Soviet Type Regimes: Civil Society and its Limitations

Following the collapse of Communist regimes in 1989, academics and dissidents alike were quick to claim that agents of ‘civil society’ had played an integral role in the 1989 ‘Velvet Revolutions’. However, the appropriation of civil society to explain events in Eastern Europe is highly problematic. In arguing that civil society offers an inappropriate framework in which to study opposition and dissent in Soviet type regimes, this article recommends dismissing the typology for this particular scenario. Instead, a new typology, the totalitarian public sphere, is introduced. This article concludes by elaborating on why the totalitarian public sphere serves as a more comprehensive typology by which to explain dissent and opposition in Soviet type regimes.

The Inner Asian anomaly: Mongolia's democratization in comparative perspective

Following the demise of Soviet-type regimes most countries of postcommunist Inner Asia either experienced initial political openings followed by reversion to authoritarianism or moved directly from one type of harsh authoritarianism to another. Mongolia is exceptional. The extent of political opening there during the 1990s far exceeded anything seen in any neighboring country and the gains of the early post-Soviet period were maintained instead of reversed. This paper investigates the causes of Mongolia's relative success and argues that the absence of several factors that are often regarded as propitious for democratization has actually facilitated Mongolia's democratization. The experience of postcommunist Inner Asia casts doubt on some arguments current in thinking on regime change.

Czech evolution scenarios in cybernetics for the next millennium

The history of the position of cybernetics in the former Czechoslovakia from the 1950s is briefly described. At first it had been condemned as bourgeois quasi‐science, but in the 1960s it was non‐critically idealised as an almost omnipotent tool of human knowledge. The authors have elaborated, by means of workshops and brainstorming, several scenarios of a future development of the cybernetic applications in the Czech Republic. Many reasons support scenarios that preserve the contemporary lower state or suggest a slightly optimistic development with a slowly strengthening role of cybernetics in Czech society. The countries of a former Soviet bloc are turning from a centralistic directly planned economy to the market one. In this way they have gained a unique experience. However, this experience can be only to a very small extent applied to a world which has no inherent experience with a Soviet type regime.

Democracy and environmental movements in Eastern Europe: a comparative study of Hungary and Russia

Introduction A Little Bit to the East from the West and a Little Bit to the West from the East: Democratic Development in Hungary The Historical Absence of Democratic Tradition: The Case of Russia Pluralism, Opposition and Civil Society in Soviet-Type Regimes: in Conceptual Debates and Practice Hungarian Environmental Movements: Case Studies and Analysis Environmental Movements in Russia Local and National Authorities Versus Environmental Movements: the Hungarian Case Local and National Authorities Versus Environmental Movements: the Russian Case A Comparison of Russian and Hungarian Environmental Movements The Relevance of Western Theories in Eastern Europe Conclusion

Ideology and the demise or maintenance of soviet-type regimes perspectives on the Chinese case

The rapid demise of Soviet-type regimes seems to confirm that communist ideology is either resistant to change or, when it does change, changes totally, and that the belief factor is extremely weak or non-existent in these previously self-avowed ideological systems. But what about the Chinese case where ideology has survived and has entertained major empirical reforms? This article seeks to argue that it is possible to retain the conception of ideology as a belief system and incorporate it into an interpretation of its role in the demise or maintenance of Soviet-type regimes. An adapted, but still centrally sanctioned, doctrine can contribute both to policy innovations and to the maintenance of ideological hegemony and political stability. Conversely, the failure to manage ideological change and the corresponding loss of ideological hegemony in a Soviet-type regime can contribute significantly to the breakdown of its moral and political authority. These points will be illustrated with a survey of leading Chinese discussions on the nature and role of ideology, ideological change, and the role of ideology in empirical reforms. These discussions show how the Chinese regime has steered a middle course, against conservative opposition to change on the one hand and liberal challenge to the system on the other, leading to successful reform communism.

Civil Society in Reforming Communist Regimes: The Logic of Emergence

Analyses of the development of a in Soviet-type regimes began during the 1980-1981 Solidarity period in Poland, as scholars attempted to explain patterns of autonomous social participation in the face of a state-directed society.' Since 1985, as tens of thousands of unofficial groups and political parties emerged in the USSR in response to Gorbachev's reforms of glasnost' and perestroika, the same concept of civil society has been applied there to characterize independent social activism.2 Despite the ubiquitous use of the concept in both Central Europe and the USSR, there has been little attempt to compare the development of civil societies in Soviet-type regimes, largely because the USSR presents a unique case, given its particular historical experience and the indigenous development of Marxism-Leninism.3 Despite the obvious national differences, however, such a comparison can prove fruitful as western political science strives to place the pieces of the posttotalitarian puzzle together from information on group activity and collective action by encouraging more systematic analyses of the causes and forms of increased social participation in reforming Communist states.4 While the swift and complex social developments in Central Europe and the USSR defy strict categorization, we base our analysis on discernible trends in civil society development as it has emerged in Central Europe and compare them with those of the (now former) Soviet case. The experience of Central Europe suggests that there are four stages in the ongoing development of civil society: defensive, in which private individuals and independent groups actively or passively defend their autonomy vis-a-vis the party-state; in which independent social groups or movements seek limited goals in a widened public sphere which is sanctioned or conceded by the reforming party-state; mobilizational, in which independent groups or movements undermine the legitimacy of the party-state by offering alternative forms of governance to a politicized society; and institutional, in which publicly supported leaders enact laws guaranteeing autonomy of social action, leading to a contractual relationship between state and society regulated eventually by free elections. It is our contention that during the first two stages, defensive and emergent, civil society in Central Europe and the USSR can be compared on the basis of regime type. That is, the Communist regimes of posttotalitarian social systems shaped the character of civil society development. In Soviet-style regimes, systemic crises in the context of posttotalitarianism engendered the particular form of civil society development during its first two stages, as social actors attempted to protect their autonomy from party and state penetration and, when afforded the opportunity, to express their interests or press their claims in an expanded public sphere. Expanding independent activism increasingly contradicted the legitimacy and power base of the single ruling party, leading to the end of

Coercion, Corruption, and Reform: State and Society in the Soviet-Type Socialist Regime

This paper offers an institutional and evolutionary interpretation of the Soviet-type state. Coercion, corruption and reform are treated as three distinct principles organizing the system of rule and the developmental potential of the state. The strong reliance on coercion characteristic of Stalin's period gave way to the corruption of the society by the elites, and vice versa. This mutual adjustment between the ruling classes and the society is one of the reasons for the declining efficiency of the Soviet-type regimes, particularly in the economic domain. The solution to this is the market reform and political changes that are necessary to make it work. The reform problem is examined from two perspectives: (1) the Soviet world system; (2) internal factors that help or block the reform efforts. The general theoretical analysis is illustrated with a discussion of the Hungarian, Polish and Czechoslovak cases.

Is the Soviet Present China's Future?

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, scholars in the fields of Soviet politics and comparative communism began to reexamine the political and social character of the Soviet Union and Soviet-type regimes in the wake of more than a decade of de-Stalinization. They questioned the validity of the totalitarian model (at least in its more rigid forms) that suggested a static image of politics and society in communist systems, and proposed concepts more cognizant of the dynamic nature of these systems. A prominent theme in much of this literature was that social differentiation resulting from economic development and the emergence of modern industrial society would prove incompatible with continued dictatorial rule by a “vanguard party” following a militant, Utopian ideology. In particular, the rise of a large elite stratum of skilled technical and professional personnel was expected to militate against the long-term viability of a revolutionary regime. Analysts proposed that, under pressure from this group, whose contributions are indispensable to economic growth and development, the party leadership would eventually be compelled to abandon radical social and economic restructuring through revolutions from above in favor of more legal-rational modes of operation, and see its own role as the balancer of the various interests typical of a modern society.

Soviet studies and “Scientific” political science

Addresses four problem areas bound up with attempts to integrate Soviet area studies and theoretical political science. Argues the choice is not between science and theory, area studies that are merely descriptive, but rather between aimless fact gathering and research guided by explicit theoretical problems; the prophets of a pseudo science of society who claim to provide authoritative standards for scientific inquiry would legislate out of Soviet studies most problems worth studying. There is no reason to accept this account of the scientific enterprise unquestioningly as the only alternative to purely descriptive area studies. Social science theory consists mostly of contextually limited generalizations. 'Soviet studies' can be fruitfully viewed as a designation for the study of a particular type of socio-political setting within which interesting problems can be identified and about which hypotheses of varying generality can be made. Students of Soviet-type regimes can be informed by what is known about similar socio-political settings. They can in turn contribute to more general theoretical knowledge in consequence of what is learned about problems studied in the Soviet setting. The conceptual component of inquiry is crucial and much neglected. While concepts and conceptual frameworks are necessary instruments for making sense of the universe, they are also, by their very nature, biases that distort the universe. Since much of the conceptual base of any inquiry is tacitly assumed, its biases and distortions are more than likely to go unrecognized and thus to escape critical scrutiny.

An Organizational Approach to the Study of Political Culture in Marxist-Leninist Systems

This paper is addressed to three tasks and the analysis operates at three levels. First, there is an attempt to specify an analytic approach to Marxist-Leninist sociopolitical systems that integrates regime and sociocultural units. This approach rests on a structural conception of political culture, a conception that stresses the informal adaptive quality of political culture, and that includes behavioral as well as attitudinal patterns. The second task consists of analyzing the paradoxical character of development in Soviet-type systems; development that simultaneously reinforces and undermines traditional-peasant political cultures at the community, regime, and elite levels. Finally, this pattern of development is examined in the context of a single Soviet-type regime and society, the Romanian.