1 Communism and democracy – a problematisation (original) (raw)

As startling as the sudden and total disintegration of the Soviet Union may have been, the complete oblivion to which communism has quickly been consigned has been no less surprising. Political analyses of democratisation in eastern Europe have all but forgotten the rise of communism in Russia after 1917 and its enormous influence on the politics of the twentieth century. This book brings communism back into the study of democracy. The reason for such a return is not nostalgia for a failed political experiment, but the conviction that the rash classification of communism as an object of study for historians overlooks its active role in shaping the post-communist order. The unexpected collapse of communism indicated that much social science research was prejudiced with ideas about the immutable and eternal nature of communist power. Its sudden disappearance not only prevented corrections of this cognitive failure but also privileged views on communism as a ‘legacy’ rather than a soci...