Suchergebnisse

Many in the West and the USSR (but not in Eastern Europe) were surprised that communism as an idea fell along with the regimes that it had buttressed. Perhaps because of this exhaustion, the kind of fervent ideas-centered debates that had characterized previous revolutionary periods are largely absent in Russia. Yet communist ideas and ways of life have become the subject of nostalgic memory and reinterpretation, entering the post-communist present partially as legacy but also as novel adaptation, both as new ideas and new practice. In Russia where the democratic design is clearly ailing, if not failing, it is more important than ever to consider the views and the agency of those beyond the elite either to embrace or defeat conflicting visions of Russia's future. And once again, people are dreaming, not of democracy and capitalism, but of order and a strong hand.

Karen Dawisha suggests that Cohen's argument is based on a minimalist definition of the requirements for the survival of the "Soviet Union" and that it ignores what she asserts is its most fundamental feature, the essential internalized and structural violence that was at the heart of the Soviet system. She therefore disagrees with Cohen, arguing that at the end of the day, Gorbachev's brilliance and capabilities were restricted by the fact that he was die leader of a country almost totally lacking in political, economic, or social capital.