The Process and Prospects of Soviet Collapse: Bancruptcy, Segmentation, Involution

The Process and Prospects of Soviet Collapse: Bancruptcy, Segmentation, Involution




For citation:

Derluguian G. The Process and Prospects of Soviet Collapse: Bancruptcy, Segmentation, Involution . – Polis. Political Studies. 2000. No. 3. P. 18. (In Russ.)



Abstract
In this second part of the article (for the furst part see «Polis», 2000, No.2, p. 19-29), its author analyzes the process and the prospects of Soviet collapse. Critically commenting on the generally accepted view of the aftermath of Soviet collapse as the period of transition from state socialism to capitalist market economy and liberal democracy, he, instead, argues that the main vector of the post-Communist drift appears rather an involution. The post-Soviet States exhibit the familiar irrationalities and pathologies of state socialism, only in an exacerbated form. In the author’s opinion, a different regime can be introduced only by extraordinary political upheaval amounting to another revolution. At the same time he stresses that reverting the Russian involution depends not only on the radical change from within, but also on the invitation to join the capital flows and commodity chains from without. The trajectory of Russia will be critically conditioned by the emergent configuration of geopolitics and geoculture. In its turn, Russia remains a pivotal area whose trajectory will indicate whether the world-system is evolving along the lines of exclusion and violent challenges or it shifts in the direction of global reformism.

Content No. 3, 2000

See also:


Sorokin K.E.,
Russia and the Play of Geopolitical Interests in the Great Ocean Area. – Polis. Political Studies. 1994. No4

Kapustin B.G.,
Postcommunism as Postmodernity (Russian Variant). – Polis. Political Studies. 2001. No5

Barsukova S.Yu.,
Problems of Refugees and Emergency Migrants in the Mirror of Ideologies. – Polis. Political Studies. 1999. No5

Pastukhov V.B.,
From Statehood to the State: Europe and Russia. – Polis. Political Studies. 1994. No2

Laslo E. ,
Birth of a World - Birth of a Science - Birth of an Age. – Polis. Political Studies. 1993. No2


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