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Public and Private Life of the Soviet People
From the late 1950s to the early 1980s, the Soviet people's acceptance of official state ideology was gradually replaced by an emphasis on the family and the individual. Perhaps one of the most important social, economic, and political processes to occur in modern Soviet society, privatization has caused people to withdraw their time, energy, and emotion from state controlled activities, investing them instead in family and friendship. Utilizing novels, films, and his own surveys done in the Soviet Union, the author, an emigre sociologist, analyzes the evolution of attitudes toward family and friendship and the emergence and development of civil society as a sphere of interaction not directed by the state. Finally, Shlapentokh examines Gorbachev's reforms as an attempt by the political elite to restore the authority of the state and the prestige of official public activity as well as to exploit some elements of privatization in the interests of the state. A gripping and revealing account of an aspect of Soviet society usually hidden from Westerners, this book will attract a broad audience.
Contemporary Russia as a Feudal Society
The book offers a theoretical discussion of the feudal model and a preliminary application of the model to post-Soviet Russia. In addition to a review of the feudal model as an ideal type, the author explains the analytical benefits of drawing comparisons between countries and across historical contexts. Specifically, contemporary Russia is compared to Western European countries during the Middle Ages and to the Soviet period in Russian history. The book is devoted to illuminating the most important political, social and economic characteristics of contemporary Russian society.
Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power
In this unprecedented work on the status and role of intellectuals in Soviet political life, a former Soviet sociologist maps out the delicate, often paradoxical, ties between the political regime and the creative thinkers who play a major part in the movement toward modernization. Beginning with Stalin, Vladimir Shlapentokh explores the mutual need and antagonism that have existed between political leaders and intellectuals. What emerges is a fascinating portrayal of the Soviet intellectual network since the 1950s, which touches on such topics as the role of literature and film in political opposition, levels of opposition (open, legal, and private), and the spread of paranoia as fueled by ...
An Autobiographical Narration of the Role of Fear and Friendship in the Soviet Union
This book is an autobiography of a well-known American sociologist who first rose to prominence in the Soviet Union. The author tries, with utmost honesty and without sparing himself, to examine the life of an individual who realized in his early youth the totalitarian character of the Soviet society but who did not dare fight the system. The book revolves around the intellectual evolution of the author and his attempt to create for himself a picture of society that was opposed to the official ideology. The author reflects on human nature based on his life experiences in the USSR and to some degree also in the West. Special attention has been devoted to the role of fear in totalitarian society, and to the way people adjusted to it. Friendship is described as one of the best ways to cope with the omnipresent fear of the state in societies of the Soviet type.
The Last Years of the Soviet Empire
Between 1985 and 1991, the Soviet Union was shaken to its core by a series of remarkable social and political developments. Throughout the period, the eminent Sovietologist Vladimir Shlapentokh monitored the revolution and recorded his impressions in a series of essays which were published in major North American newspapers and periodicals. Here Shlapentokh collects these snapshots of current events that detail the progression of perestroika and glasnost. The essays and accompanying narrative form a kind of political diary, reflecting not only the facts of history, but the author's perspective as a Soviet/Western observer. Each chapter focuses on a single year. The snapshots from that year a...
Freedom, Repression, and Private Property in Russia
Demonstrates how the emergence of private property and a market economy after the Soviet Union's collapse enabled a degree of freedom while simultaneously supporting authoritarianism.
A Normal Totalitarian Society
Shlapentokh undertakes a dispassionate analysis of the ordinary functioning of the Soviet system from Stalin's death through the Soviet collapse and Russia's first post-communist decade. Without overlooking its repressive character, he treats the USSR as a "normal" system that employed both socialist and nationalist ideologies for the purposes of technological and military modernization, preservation of empire, and expansion of its geopolitical power. Foregoing the projection of Western norms and assumptions, he seeks to achieve a clearer understanding of a civilization that has perplexed its critics and its champions alike.
The Soviet Union
The book analyzes Soviet society as a 'hard reality', emphasizes the varying perceptions of it in the Soviet Union and the US, and insists that, while glorifications of the Soviet reality have been useful, the most accurate descriptions of this reality were critical.
From Submission To Rebellion
This book addresses the relationship between the center and its provinces—an important issue in any society—using Russia as a case study. It analyses the historical stages of Russia's past, with special focus on the post-Communist era.
Fear in Contemporary Society
Contemporary social science avoids the discussion of fear as a major element of social life and as a factor that shapes social order and the quality of life. The author wants to fill this lacuna. The fear of punishments for violating the laws imposed by the state and other social institutions, such as the family, public opinion, the church and others, are useful for the maintenance order in society. The author's views oppose the mainstream of American social science, which is hostile toward coercion and the state in general, and sees social order as based only on the allegiance of the individual to the dominant culture and self-regulation. Pointing to the flaws of these views, which are mostly based on the Lockean-Parsonian tradition, as well as on the postmodern perspective, the author proposes that the Hobbesian viewpoint be included in social analysis. He assumes that social order is shaped not only from "below," but also from "above" with the state as a positive agent.
