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Abstract
The process of transformation of state socialist societies has been explained in different ways: revolution, ‘recombinations’ and ‘system change’. Elites and amorphous social forces, such as national movements, feature in theories as major agents of change. Classes have also played a major role in the process of change. Class analysis is distinguished by two different approaches: a political mode, in which class is dependent on political parties and ideology; and a sociological mode, which conceptualizes class as a determinant of political interest. In the latter sense, on the basis of empirical survey data, there are clear boundaries based on inequalities between class groups, there is a consciousness of class and an awareness of other classes. While it is conceded that other forms of self-identification (such as nationality) may be concurrent with that of class, the transformation of the post-communist countries has involved a revolutionary process in which endogenous and exogenous class forces have played a major role.
This work is part of a study of Transformation from State Socialism, supported by the Leverhulme Foundation. His recent books include The Legacy of State Socialism (2002), and Russian Banking: Evolution, Problems and Prospects (2002).
Notes
This work is part of a study of Transformation from State Socialism, supported by the Leverhulme Foundation. His recent books include The Legacy of State Socialism (2002), and Russian Banking: Evolution, Problems and Prospects (2002).
1. This view is clearly put by Kornai: ‘The socialist system was a brief interlude, a temporary aberration in the course of historical events … [T]here is no alternative to the “capitalist system”’: J. Kornai, From Socialism to Capitalism (London: Social Market Foundation, 1998), pp.2, 40. Kaminski also identified the ‘flawed’ nature of the state socialist system: B. Kaminski, The Collapse of State Socialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), p.234.
2. Charles Tilly, European Revolutions 1492–1992 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993), p.234.
3. Leslie Holmes, ‘Russia as a Post-Communist Country’, in Graeme Gill (ed.), Elites and Leadership in Russian Politics (Basingstoke: Macmillan, and New York: St Martin's, 1998), pp.167–70; see also Holmes, Post-Communism: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity, 1997), p.131. Claus Offe contends that the East European revolutions lacked aims, and any ‘prescriptive “ex-ante” revolutionary theory’: see his Varieties of Transition (Cambridge: Polity, 1996), pp.30, 31. See also Jack A. Goldstone, ‘The Soviet Union: Revolution and Transformation’, in Mattei Dogan and John Higley (eds.), Elites, Crises and the Origins of Regimes (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), pp.95–124; Goldstone contends that the changes of 1989–91 are a ‘major revolution’ (p.96).
4. Tilly, European Revolutions, p.234.
5. Ibid., p.235.
6. Valerie Bunce, Subversive Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.155.
7. In the totalitarian syndrome, the formation of classes was prevented by the omnipresent political elite; in the Marxist account, by the absence of private property and a market for labour.
8. David Ost, ‘Labor, Class and Democracy’, in B. Crawford (ed.), Markets, States and Democracy: The Political Economy of Post-Communist Transformation (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995), p.182; Richard Rose, E. Tikhomirov and W. Mishler, ‘Understanding Multi-Party Choice: The 1995 Duma Election’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol.49, No.5 (1997), p.807.
9. Linda Fuller, ‘Socialism and the Transition in East and Central Europe: The Homogeneity Paradigm, Class, and Economic Inefficiency’, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol.26 (2000), p.587.
10. Resnich and Wolff follow a long line of writers who contend that Soviet-type societies had always been on a continuum of capitalist societies, sharing a statist economy similar to that of Nazi Germany: S.A. Resnich and R.D. Wolff, Class Theory and History (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), Part 2. See also M. Schachtman, The Bureaucratic Revolution (New York: Donald Press, 1962); T. Cliff, Russia: A Marxist Analysis (London: Socialist Review Publications, n.d. but 1964); Mike Haynes, ‘Class and Crisis: The Transition in Eastern Europe’, International Socialism, No.54 (Spring 1992), pp.45–104. But there were also Marxist critics, including L. Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed (London: Plough Press, 1957); and Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory (London: Merlin, 1958).
11. A. Callinicos, The Revenge of History: Marxism and the East European Revolutions (Cambridge: Polity, 1991), p.56.
12. Chris Harman, ‘The Storm Breaks’, International Socialism, No.46 (Spring 1990), p.82.
13. Robert A. Nisbet, ‘The Decline and Fall of Social Class’, Pacific Sociological Review, Vol.2 (1959), pp.11–17.
14. Jan Pakulski and Malcolm Waters, The Death of Class (London: Sage, 1996), pp.58–9 and 146–7; quotation on p.146.
15. Ibid., p.147.
16. S.M. Lipset, ‘The Social Requisites of Democracy Revised’, American Sociological Review, Vol.59 (1994), pp.12–15.
17. Gil Eyal, Ivan Szenenyi and E.R. Townsley, Making Capitalism Without Capitalists: Class Formation and Elite Struggles in Post-Communist Central Europe (New York and London: Verso, 1998).
18. Ibid., p.18 (emphasis added).
19. Michael G. Burton and John Higley, ‘Elite Settlements’, American Sociological Review, Vol.52 (1987), pp.295–307; and John Higley and Michael G. Burton, ‘The Elite Variable in Democratic Transitions and Breakdowns’, American Sociological Review, Vol.54 (1989), pp.17–32; quotation on p.27.
20. M. Burton and J. Higley, ‘Political Crises and Elite Settlements’, in Dogan and Higley (eds.), Elites, Crises and the Origins of Regimes, p.66.
21. M. Weber, ‘Class, Status, Party’, in H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds.), From Max Weber (London: Routledge, 1961), p.182.
22. Geoffrey Evans and Colin Mills, ‘Are There Classes in Post-Communist Societies? A New Approach to Identifying Class Structure’, Sociology, Vol.33, No.1 (1999), p.42.
23. K.M. Slomczynski and G. Shabad, ‘Structural Determinants of Political Experience: A Refutation of the “Death of Class” Thesis’, in K. Slomczynski (ed.), Social Patterns of Being Political (Warsaw: IFiS Publishers, 2000), pp.201–3.
24. Ibid., p.239.
25. Ibid., pp.243–4.
26. Ibid., pp.204–6.
27. Ibid., p.206.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., p.209.
30. Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition (Cambridge: Polity, 1996), p.51.
31. O. Kutsenko, ‘Samoidentifikatsii s klassami: proyavlenie obraza klassovoi struktury postsovetskogo obshchestva’, in S. Makeeva (ed.), Klassovoe obshchestvo: Teoriya i empiricheskie realii (Kyiv: NAN Ukrainy, 2003), p.197.
32. See, for example, Randall Collins, ‘Market Dynamics and Historical Change’, in Randall Collins, Macrohistory: Essays in Sociology of the Long Run (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), pp.177–208, esp. pp.207–8.
33. Bunce, Subversive Institutions, p.62.
34. Ye.I. Golovakha and N.V. Panina, ‘Potentsial protesta Ukrainskogo obshchestva’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 1999, No.10, pp.31–40.