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Did postMarxist theories destroy

Did postMarxist theories destroy Communist regimes? Communist regimes?
Tony Judts Reappraisals: The
shipwrecks of the 20th century
Is liberalism to blame?
The breakup of the Soviet Union was one of the most unusual My interview for a Korean paper
"Hankyoreh"
events in history. Never before had an empire this powerful and
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vast given up its power and allowed the dissolution of its
internal core (the Soviet Union) and its tributary states (Eastern
Europe) so quickly and without a fight. The Ottoman empire Follow by Email

went into a process of disintegration that lasted several Emailaddress... Submit

centuries and was punctuated by numerous wars, both with
western powers and Russia, and numerous struggles for national
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independence (Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria). The Habsburg empire
dissolved after four years of the hitherto largest conflict in Search
history. The same is true of the Russian empire and the
Hohenzollerns. But the Soviet Empire gave way almost entirely Google+ Followers

peacefully and without a fight. How did that happened?

32
A slender volume by Wisa Suraska (How the SovietUnion
disappeared, Duke University Press, 1998) tries to answer the
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question. It is important to explain what the book is not. It is
not a book about Communism and economics. It does not try to Branko Milanovic

answer (at least, not directly) the question about successes and View my complete profile
failures of Communism nor does it deal with economics at all. It
is remarkable that the book does not contain a single number. It
is a book written by a political scientist and it focuses on
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internal political determinants of the Soviet collapse.
2017 (6)
It is a very well and clearly written volume. The key conclusion February (2)
of Suraska, enounced in italics in the last chapter, is that the Did postMarxist theories destroy
Communist regime...
break up is due to the general failure of communist regimes
Tony Judts Reappraisals: The
their inability to build a modern state (p. 134). It is the state shipwrecks of the ...
weakness, rather than its omnipotence [that] stalled communist
January (4)
project of modernization and, most notably, Gorbachevs
perestroika (p. 134). Lest somebody believe that Suraska is a 2016 (38)

partisan of state power, let me explain that what she means is 2015 (41)

that the arbitrary nature of Communist state, overseen by the 2014 (26)

Communist party, prevented it from ever developing a

responsible and impersonal machinery of Weberian bureaucracy.
Such a machinery that follows wellknown and rational rules
cannot be established if the power is arbitrary. And without such
a machinery, the project of modernization is doomed.

But this still does not explain why the country (the USSR) broke
up. It broke up, she argues, because of a Brezhnevite
equilibrium thatlacking a functioning centrallycontrolled state
apparatus and forsaking the use of terrorconsisted in the
creation of territoriallybased fiefdoms. The power at the center
depended on having peripheral supporters and these peripheral
supporters gradually took over most of the local (in the USSR
case, republican) functions. They could be dislodged only by the
application of mass terror as when, under Stalin, the center
actively fought the creation of local centers of power, either by
purging the leaders or by shifting them constantly between
the regions in order to prevent accumulation of power. But
Brezhnevite equilibrium consisted precisely in decentralizing
power to local barons who would then support the faction in
the center that gave them most power.

When Gorbachev tried to recentralize decisionmaking in order

When Gorbachev tried to recentralize decisionmaking in order
to promote his reforms, he was obstructed at all levels and
eventually figured out that without the republican support he
could accomplish nothing. This is why, as Suraska writes, at the
last Party congress in 1991, he outbid his competitors (Yegor
Ligachev) by formally bringing all regional party bosses into the
Politburo and thus effectively confederalizing the Party and the
country. But even that proved too little too late as the largest
unit, Russia under Yeltsin, became, together with the Baltic
republics, the most secessionist.

Suraska rightly adds to this vertical deconcentration of power

the everpresent wariness and competition between the Party,
the secret services (KGB) and the Army. The triangular
relationship where two actors try to weaken and control the
third contributed to the collapse. She sees the beginning of the
end of the Armys role in Politburos decision, strongly promoted
by Andropov (then the head of KGB), not to intervene in Poland
in 198081. Andropovs positon (according to the transcripts of
the Politburo meetings) that even if Poland falls under the
control of Solidarity [nonintervention] will be (p. 70) was
grounded in the belief that every Soviet foreign intervention
(Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968) reinforced the power of
the Army and thus, if KGB were ever come on top, Army must
not be in the drivers seat.

The ultimate weakness of the Party could be, as Suraska writes,

seen in the final denouements in the Soviet Union and Poland: in
one case, the top party post went to a head of the secret police,
in the other case, to the head of the Army.

In perhaps the most original insight, Suraska deals with the

ideology of Gorbachev and the first entirely Sovietraised and
bred generation that came to power in the mid1980s. They
were influenced by postMarxist thinking where democracy or its
absence were simple external (or nonessential) features:
democracy was a sham since the real power resides
elsewhere. Armed with this belief and the 1970 ideas of
convergence of the two systems plus (in my opinion) millenarian
Marxist view that Communism represents the future of mankind,
they began to see no significant contradictions between the two
systems and trusted that even the introduction of democracy
would not affect their positions. Thus, in an ironic twist,
Suraska, who is thoroughly critical of both Marxist and post
Marxist theories, credits the latter (p. 147) for bringing to an
end the Marxistbased regimes.

In the penultimate chapter Suraska quickly and very critically

reviews different theories that purported to explain the
Communist state: modernization theory, totalitarianism,
bureaucratic theory, are all found wanting. Suraskas conclusion,
stated in the beginning of this text, is then expounded in the
last chapter revealingly entitled Despotism and the modern
state. There, in a final note worth pointing out, Suraska
discusses Communist rejection of the state and its rulesbound
procedures (which make Communists ideological brethrens of
anarchists) and compellingly argues for the complementarity of
council (soviet) democracy and central planning. Both
eviscerate the state, take over its functions, impose arbitrary
decisionmaking, and do away with the division of powers.
Anarchic and despotic features are thus shown to go together,
moreover to be in need of each other.

Note. Regrettably, I have to point one, extremely odd mistake in somebody

whose knowledge of the Soviet and East European politics is, by all
indications, quite remarkable. Suraska puzzlingly writes of GheorghiuDej
(also misspelled), the Romanian leader, as Bulgarian (p. 128). I think she
had in mind Chervenkov, but made a mistake, not spotted by herself nor
the editors.