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The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review

Social Theory and the Crisis of Socialism by Larry J. Ray; What Was Socialism, and What
Comes Next? by Katherine Verdery
Review by: Ellen Comisso
Russian Review, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Oct., 1997), pp. 615-616
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review
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Book Reviews

615

by Leopold Haimson, Alfred Meyer,RichardPipes, LeonardShapiro,RobertTucker,and


BertramWolfe [none of which are cited in the bibliographyof "WorksUsed for the Present
Study"(p. 147)]. Lenin's attitudetowardRussianpeasants,which Dovringaccuratelyidentifies as one of the originalproblemsof the Soviet system, is discussedmore thoughtfullyin
an importantstudy by Esther Kingston-Mann.
Given the depth of the existingliteratureon Leninism,whatis the appropriateaudience
for this book? Unfortunately,thisbook is apparentlyintendedfor readersalreadyconvincedandonly seekingreaffirmation-that the Sovietsystemwas a "giganticfraud"andthat "nothing of positive value remains"of Leninism(p. 146). Studentsand scholarsseeking a better
understandingof Lenin'sinfluenceon Russian/Soviethistorywill want to look elsewherefor
their insights.
Tom Ewing, DePauw University

Ray, LarryJ. Social Theoryand the Crisisof Socialism. Cheltenham,UK: EdwardElgar


PublishingLtd., 1996. xi + 288 pp. $69.95.
Verdery,Katherine. WhatWasSocialism,and WhatComesNext?PrincetonStudiesin CulPrinceton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1996.298 pp. $49.50 ($17.95
ture/Power/History.
paper).
Analyzingstate socialism, its collapse, and the emergingsociopoliticalorderis the common
denominatorof recent volumes by LarryRay and KatherineVerdery.Neithersees pluralist
democracyand well-institutionalizedcapitalismas the necessaryor exclusivealternativesto
state socialism, and both agree that the heavy handof the past is likely to play a criticalrole
in shapingthe present and the future of postsocialistsocieties. Yet how they come to these
conclusionsdiffersdramatically.
Ray attemptsto examine the socialist and postsocialistorder throughthe lens and terminologyof modernsocial theory.The result is a ratherobscureand difficultto follow volume; everythingis covered, but preciselyfor this reason,one is neverquite surewhatto make
of it.
Strippingawaythe veil of theory (or perhaps"theory"),Ray's basic argumentseems to
be that state socialismis an exampleof failed "modernity,"largelybecause it refusedto incorporatemechanismsand institutionsthroughwhich increasinglycomplex social "subsystems" could engage in "self-steering."Instead, the state took responsibilityfor coordinating
all social interactionvia commands.Such an inherentlyrigidsystemcould thus only operate
by generatingelementsantitheticalto its basicprinciples,butwhichservedto impartflexibility
in managingthe very social changesit created. If those elements-from the nomenklaturato
the "secondeconomy"-arose in orderto strengthenthe survivalcapacityof the regime,they
eventuallybecamethe basicfactorsleadingto its downfall.Moreover,they formthe key social
elementsoutlivingthe regime and shapingthe postsocialistpresent.
Verdery'scollectionof essays comes to similarconclusions,but througha far less turgid
route. While Ray triesto paintthe big picture,but windsup with an abstractcanvasthat could
mean virtuallyanything,Verderypresentsus with a series of detailed snapshots,bracketed
by well-informedessays summarizingthe sociopoliticallandscapein whichthey were taken.
An eminent anthropologistand distinguishedenthnographer,Verderyrecreatesthe topsyturvyworld of socialismand its aftermath,a worldin whichdistinguishingcontinuitiesfrom
discontinuitiesis as difficultfor those living throughthe changesas for outsidersobserving
them.
Forexample,she describeshow Romania's1991statuterestitutinglandto formerowners
nominallyseemed to marka clear breakwith collectivizedagricultureand the (re)initiation
of privateownershipof land. But all is not as it seems: villagershave moved around,deeds
lost, parcelsrelabeled, roadsbuilt, and buildingserected-even rivershave changedcourse.

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616

The Russian Review

As claims mount for a limited good, the land itself becomes "elastic," so that in the end,
acquiring or reacquiring one's parcel becomes a heavily politicized process. Not surprisingly,
complaints of local "abuse of power" are common (hardly a new phenomenon), as potential
owners-often the same officials accused of "abuses"-invoke the intervention of the central
state on their behalf, thereby augmenting precisely the power "privatization" was supposedly
intended to limit. In effect, the struggle for entitlements continues under the label of private
property, while administrative discretion is now recast as the "rule of law."
From this and other essays, we derive a graphic picture of how both concepts and experiences of "nation," "citizenship," "property," and "the state" have and have not changed
over the past decade in Romania and the former socialist bloc. Like Ray, Verdery does not
see a teleological end to these processes; indeed, she suggests toward the end of the volume
that there is as much evidence that a return to feudalism describes the dynamics of postsocialism as that modern capitalism and democracy are taking root.
The description Verdery gives of the process of change and stability in Romania and the
former Soviet bloc more broadly is a rich one, and one cannot do justice to it in a short review.
Yet in the end, she concludes very similarly to Ray, noting that the emerging social order will
be the outcome of "struggles" rather than "theories." It is ultimately a rather unsatisfying
conclusion, since we know from the start that there have always been struggles, and there will
always be struggles; it is the logic of struggles that we need to understand, and here, we are
still very much wandering in the wilderness of postsocialism.

Ellen Comisso, Universityof California,San Diego

Devlin, Judith. The Rise of the RussianDemocrats:The Causesand Consequencesof Elite


Revolution. Studies of Communism in Transition. Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar, 1995.
x + 294 pp. $74.95.
One of the more persistent explanations for the failure of democracy to put down deeper roots
in Russia has blamed weaknesses in Russian political culture. Gorbachev began a process of
democratization of the Soviet social and political system, the argument goes, but the process
has proceeded unevenly and suffered setbacks because it failed sufficiently to move the mass
public. According to this view, Russia is an Asiatic country populated by a passive and collectivist people temperamentally suited to authoritarian rule, not democracy.
Judith Devlin rejects this explanation, arguing instead that the flaw lay not in the population but in the democratic movement itself. It was too diverse a coalition, united only by
anti-Stalinism and isolated both geographically and socially from the population at large.
Democratic reform was launched and led by the reform-minded party leadership, inspired by
the principled resistance of creative intellectuals, and pushed forward by lower levels of urban
intellectuals active in the informal movement and later by the lower party officials and economic managers who were elected in large numbers to Russia's new parliament in 1990. This
narrow group could not win wider support because of the divisive nature of the democratic
agenda-the market transition, the rejection of Stalinism, and the dismantling of empire.
In making this argument, Devlin covers a lot of familiar territory. For much of what she
discusses-the rise of informal groups in the Brezhnev era, the expansion of glasnost beyond
its early limitations, the failure of the party to control the changes Gorbachev had set in motion, the 1989 and 1990 elections-Devlin does not have a lot new to offer. Drawing from
Russian newspaper and magazine articles, some interviews, and the Moscow Bureau for Information Exchange archives, Devlin does provide detailed descriptions of the political clubs
that arose in Moscow in the late 1980s and of the new parties that emerged between 1990 and
1991, but the fact that her narrative breaks off right before the 1991 coup attempt limits its
usefulness. Even for the period it covers, it offers more detail than most readers who come to

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