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Comunism and Political Culture PDF
Comunism and Political Culture PDF
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129
The evidence does not suggest that any of the communistregimes has suc-
ceeded in inculcatingthese values among significantpartsof the population.
Even in the Soviet Union, where the regime has been in substantialcontrolof
the populationfor two full generationsand wherethe revolutionwas led by an
indigenouselite, the extent of success in remodelingman has been relatively
modest. Samuel Huntington'sclaim that the Soviet Union is a dramatically
successful case of plannedpoliticalculturechange would seem to be exagger-
ated.5This is not to arguethattherehave been no positive accomplishmentsin
culturechange. The Soviet regime has widespreadlegitimacy;its centralized,
penetrating,and relatively unlimited institutionsare accepted. A diffuse no-
tion of socialism has widespreadvalidity, and the acceptanceof the obligation
of sociopoliticalactivism in the sense of participatingin campaignshas strong
and widespreadsupport.But these limited successes in the centerof the com-
munist world hardly extend into the countryside, into the blue-collar, rela-
tively uneducatedworkingclass, or into the non-Europeanpartsof Russia. It
can be arguedthat particularlyin Asiatic Russia, where traditional-religious
attitudesand ethnic nationalismdisplay considerable staying power, Soviet
indoctrinatorshave had to come to terms with stubborntraditionalismof vari-
ous kinds.6 Much of the legitimacy of the Soviet regime, one writer argues,
results from the fact that the structureof the Soviet system is very much like
the preexistingtsaristone in the sense of centralization,the extensive scope of
government,and its arbitrariness.The acceptanceof socialism as well as the
obligation of sociopolitical activism is the success story of communistpoliti-
cal socialization, but these attitudestend to be concentratedin the European
center and among the educated, professional, and white-collar strataof the
population.7Political activism in this context should not be confused with
civic and political participation;instead, it takes the formof mobilizedactivity
and voluntarypublic service. One writerhas describedSoviet participationin
the following terms: "The many political and administrativeactivities in
which Soviet citizens participatetake place within a dual frameworkof con-
trol. The hierarchicalstructureof the Soviets, andof the Soviet politicalsystem
in general, serves to coordinatethe agenda and prioritiesof the participatory
organs at any given moment, concentratingthem on centrally determined
goals, while the supervisionof Communistparty organs provides control of
staffing, leadershipselection, and auditingof the quality of activities.''8
This contrastbetween the ideological and the operationalpolitical culture
creates a certaintension among communistideologists and studentsof public
opinion and the media of communication. With the introductionof public
opinion research in the Soviet Union and EasternEurope in the 1960s, the
problemof opinion and attitudedifferences had to be confronted, for it pro-
duced a polemic of modest proportionsamong "monists" and "pluralists."
A. K. Uledov, a Soviet interpreterof public opinion who presents a monist
point of view, argued that deviations in opinion from the ideological model
133
reflect a lag between the old and the new, between progressiveand backward
forces. Proponentsof a pluralist point of view, reflected in the writing of
Grushinand to a much greaterextent in the work of Polish, Czechoslovak,
and Yugoslav scholars, argue that under socialism, nonconformingopinion
may contributeto social progress. Thus the pluralistattemptto legitimateop-
positional and critical tendencies, thereby reducingthe tensions between the
ideological, the operational,and the real political culture, tends to reducethe
ideological model to thatof a credoby adoptingan operativenormativemodel
more reconcilable with reality. This treatmentof pluralism as legitimate,
however, is distinctly a minor theme in the more conservativecommunistre-
gimes, having surfacedprimarilyin such countries as Poland, Czechoslova-
kia, and Yugoslavia.9
In testing political culturetheory in communistcountriesit is useful to sort
them into three categories: (1) the Soviet Union itself where the communist
"experiment" began and was carriedthroughby an indigenous communist
elite; (2) other countries such as Yugoslavia, China, Cuba, and Vietnam
where the communistrevolutionwas importedand carriedout by indigenous
elites; and (3) countriessuch as Poland, Hungary,Czechoslovakia, Romania,
and East Germanywhere communistregimes were imposed from the outside.
For our purposes in this paper we will examine briefly the experience of (1)
the Soviet Union, (2) Yugoslavia and Cuba, and (3) Poland, Hungary, and
Czechoslovakia. If political culturetheory is to be falsified, we would expect
to see majorchange in politicalculturein the desireddirectionin all threecat-
egories and to a largerdegree in the case of the Soviet Union because its rev-
olution was indigenous and has been in operationmore than sixty years; to a
substantialdegree in Yugoslavia and Cuba because their revolutions were
made by indigenous elites; and to a lesser degree in Poland, Hungary, and
Czechoslovakiabecause their communistregimes, which have been in exis-
tence for only a single generation,were imposedon them from the outside and
have been maintainedby the threator the actualityof Soviet militaryoccupa-
tion.
134
dom. The two new elements in Yugoslav political culture are political ac-
tivism and participationand enterpriseself-management,which ideologically
is supposedto representthe fulfillmentof the ideal of participationand the es-
sence of Yugoslav democraticsocialism. Here one can distinguish a differ-
ence between the official political culture and the real political culture. The
official political culture sanctions "classlessness" in participatorypatterns;
but much evidence thathas been gatheredfrom studiesof political recruitment
and opinion surveys demonstratesthat political participationin the sense of
officeholding and other forms of activism is biased toward the upper social
and economic groupings in the populationand is dominatedby membersof
the League of Communists.Enterpriseself-managementappearsto be effec-
tive. It involves all levels of workers in matters having to do with wages,
hours, conditionsof labor, and similartradeunion issues but not in production
and other managementdecisions.10Thus the political leadershipof Yugosla-
via has settled for a set of operationalpolitical culturalnormsthat accommo-
date prerevolutionaryethnic, religious, and economic propensitiesand the so-
cialization agencies that tend to perpetuatethem. The novel elements of par-
ticipation and decentralizedsocialism have been accepted in a limited way,
particularlyamong the educated, advantaged,and politically mobilized strata
of the population.
In contrastto Yugoslavia, anothercountrythat made its own revolution-
Cuba-has been subjectedto concentratedindoctrinationdesigned to produce
a new "Cuban socialist man." This ideological political culturediffers from
the Leninistone in its lack of emphasison the "party" and its greaterempha-
sis on heroism, selflessness, personalismo, and the propagandaof the deed. It
appearsto draw on a Latin Americanrevolutionarytraditionas much as on
specifically Leninist ideological norms. In two decades of Cuban commu-
nism, these ideals have been propagatedin connection with majorcampaigns
of mobilizationfor purposesof defense, literacy, sugar cane harvesting,and
revolutionary-militaryactivities abroad. Such evidence as we have from re-
ports and surveys of one kind or anothersuggests that these campaignshave
had moderate success in creating regime legitimacy, the acceptance of the
norm of activism in the implementationof goals, and the acceptance of so-
cialism in the diffuse sense of that term. In recent years there is evidence of
growing bureaucratization,less stress on utopian ideals and mass mobiliza-
tion, and more stresson efficiency and regimentation.A patternsimilarto that
in the Soviet Union, in which the utopiancultureof the socialist man takes on
the proportionsof an eschatology and the operationalpolitical culturestresses
compliance with the regime's policies and programs, may emerge. Real
popularvalues and attitudesmay increasinglytake the form of adaptionsto
constraintsand incentives as well as accordinglegitimacy to the new institu-
tions.11
135
137
successes and the failuresof our communistcases suggest that there is a pat-
behavior,thatlibertyonce experiencedis
tern to this tractability-intractability
not quickly forgotten, and that equity and equality of some kind resonate in
the human spirit.
NOTES
138