Spharen von Offentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowietischen Typs Zwischen partei-staatlicher Selbstinszenierung und kirchlichen Gegenwelten [Public Spheres in Soviet-Type Societies: Between the Great Show of the Party-State and Religious Counter-Cultures] (review)

This is an interesting bilingual book (German and English), particularly for those who understand that the study of Communist societies, with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, has just begun. Although the study of these societies is not free from the influence of the researchers' ideological orientations, the fervor is more subdued today than it was in the past. As a result, analyses of the same developments by different authors are not as diametrically opposed as they were during the Cold War. One of the editors of this book is Gábor T. Rittersporn, who along with several other "revisionists" (the critics of the totalitarian model of Soviet society) no longer displays the same degree of implacable opposition that he did in the late 1980s toward the supporters of the totalitarian model. I accept many of his and his coauthors' conclusions about the complexity of Soviet society. These conclusions, however, do not undermine the view that this society was dictatorial, or totalitarian, even if Rittersporn does not use the latter term.

In studying the public and private spheres in societies of the Soviet type (the main goal of the book), neither Rittersporn nor the other authors mention the existence of other centers of power in such societies. The reason is that no such centers existed in the USSR until the end of the 1980s. Not until the Soviet system began to founder in 1989–1990 did genuine alternatives emerge. Rittersporn and his coauthors acknowledge that in Soviet society "hardly any zone was free from the intervention of the state" (p. 24).

Soviet-type systems tended to control each element of the life of their subjects, including the most intimate ones. George Orwell was far from exaggerating when he described his Oceania in which sexual life was controlled by Big Brother. But even with a totalitarian monopoly on political, economic, and cultural power, Soviet leaders were often unable to achieve their goals. The contributors to this book describe various cracks in the system that permitted the emergence of exotic flowers, that is, various forms of private or semi-private life. The authors show what the critics of the totalitarian model disregarded—that the monopoly on power and the efficiency of power were very different dimensions of Soviet-type societies.

Although the authors make many useful observations and generalizations, they have not found consensus about the key concepts of the book, particularly what they mean by "public sphere." The lack of consensus is an evident manifestation of the old German love of definitions and the act of playing with their interaction. The persistent attempt by many of the authors to use Jürgen Habermas's obsession for seeing any social phenomenon through the prism of communication also enhances the German intellectual flavor of the book. This is an attractive feature even if it creates some difficulties in understanding the theoretical schemes used by the authors.

Indeed, in some of the chapters, the public sphere seems to be equated with the arena of political life that is directly controlled by the Communist party. Other authors, however, suggest that the public sphere denotes something like "civil society." These authors describe the activity of ordinary citizens and their efforts to challenge the existing political order. Rittersporn and his coauthors tend to define "public life" as a sphere controlled by the state. However, they also talk about "public zones" that did not function in accordance with the system's "ideal rules" (pp. 29–30).

The chapters written in German only exacerbate the confusion of terminology. Ingrid Oswald and Victor Voronkov talk about "die sovietische offentliche Sphere" (the Soviet public sphere), "offiziell...