Continuities and Alternatives in Post-Revolutionary Scoieties
Continuities and Alternatives in Post-Revolutionary Scoieties

Summary/Abstract: For the time being, no attempt to integrate the tentative and divergent readings of the post-revolutionary experience is likely to succeed. As we shall see, the controversy is not only fuelled by ideological and political motives; there are objective, historical reasons for the difficulties and ambiguities that stand in the way of a balanced interpretation. In other words: the results of the Soviet line of development are on the one hand sufficiently massive and clear-cut to constitute—if not de facto, then at least de jure—not only a crucially important field of inquiry for the social sciences, but also a challenge to a whole tradition of social theory that has derived its core ideas from other historical experiences. On the other hand, they have raised questions which go far beyond the available evidence; and even more importantly, the post-revolutionary societies have — in flagrant contradiction to some earlier expectations — developed epistemological obstacles and mystifying mechanisms of their own that no improvements in conceptual schemes or research programs can neutralize. The resultant problems affect even the most elementary form of theorizing, i.e., the identification and circumscription of the object that must precede more constructive steps. For our present purposes, the questions arising at this level can be grouped under three headings; I will briefly discuss each of them and conclude with a glance at the major issues and alternatives that would confront us in the course of further analysis.

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