E

WHAT WAS SOCIALISM,

Sherry B. 0l.tne1; Nicholas B. Dirks, Ceofr Eley

AND WHAT COMES NEXT?

Katherine Verdely

PRINCETON STUDIES IN

CULTURElPOWERiHlSTORP

WI-IAT WAS SOCIALISM, AND WHY D I D IT FALL?

11E STAR'I'I.ING DISINTEGWrION of Cornmu~~ist

P;trty 1-nlr i l l
Eastern Europe in 1989, and its somewhat lengthier unraveling ill
the Soviet UII~IIII
betweell 1985 and 1991, rank among the cct~tury's
most lllotlrcntous occurrclrces. Especially because neither policv-m;tkers
nor area specialists predicted them, these events will yield much analysis
;~fterthe fact, as scl~olarsdevelop tlrc I~irtdsightnecessary for understaiiding
wl~atthey railed to grasp betore. In this chapter, I aim to stimulate discussion abot~twhy Soviet-style socialism fell. Because I believe answers to t11v
q t ~ e s t i < rne~q ~ ~ i rtittderstnnding
c
ILOW s<~ciaIis~,~
''\vot-ked,'' 1 11egi11u,itlt ;,,I
;trlalysis of this and tlten suggest l ~ o nit i~~tcrsrctcd
litef~~lly
wit11 rcrtail~
features of its world-systei~~
context.

What Was Socialism?

T l ~ socialist
e
societies of Eastern Eumpe and the Soviet Union diffcred f i . o l l l
one another in significant i-cspccts-for instance. in tllc intctlsity, S ~ R I I .a ~ ~ d
elfectiveness of central control, in tlte extent of popular support or rcsist;mce, and in tlre degrec and timing of (affi~rtsat refonn. Notwitl~st;ul(li~~g
tl~csedifferct~ccswitl~it~
"fot-tl~erlyexisting socialistn,"' I fullon, theorists
sttcl~as Kor~raiin opting for a single at~alyticalmodel of it.' The family resemblances alllong socialist countries \\,ere nlore important than their vnricty, fr~ratl;dytic p t ~ r p o s ~I~I IsI ,I C ~ as
B \\.c C;III I)est c01111)rcl1et1d
Til.rllcI1,Ji~pitTlris cltnpter war originally entitled "\Vhat \\gr Socialislr.and \\%at Comes Next? nncl \!,;a
delivered as a lectarc bl-tile Center fur Cotnparativc Rcscarcl~in ilist<,l): Society and Ctnlttlrr,
at lbe Universily of California, Davis, in Januaq 1993. 1 an) gmlcful lo lllose who in\,ilrcl
~ne-Willinnl Ilagen, C. \Villiam Skionn; and Carol A. Ssnitl~-ls \ \ d l 8s to n~ct~lbcrs
01tlw
Cc~atcr'sn:t~linsl,for 5, VCI). stirr~c~li~ting
discossiorl. I atso ivccivcd Ihdpfill ildvicv h o n ~Asllriif

Ghani.
Earlier form, of the arguluent appeared in 'Theorizing Swidiml" and in my bwk A'atiortul
I,loleology under Sociolknt: lrlentity and Cultural Polilics in Cmu~csgescuhRo,nonio (Berkeley and
Ins hgeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1991).The underl!ing conceplualization was dcvelopedin 1988:after 1989 1added some thouglatr on how the nladel might illuminate the systemdr
collapse. Reprinted fmrn Confeetion: Debater in Society, Cullare, nnd Science 1, no. 3 (1993).by
permission of Indiana University Press.

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C ~ P T E R
ONE

nese, West Gennan, and Worth American societies as variants of a single

&apitalists~stenr.
A"knowledging,-then, that my description npplics inore
fully to certain countries and time periods than to others, I treat t l ~ c mall
under
one 'umbrella.
..
.
For several decades, d ~ analysis
e
of socialism Ilas been an inter~~atiut~al
industry, employing both \Vestern political scientists and E i l s t c r ~dissi~
dents. Sin& 1889 thisindustiy has received a massive infr~sionof new raw
materials, i s once-secret files are opened and t~anslatioosappear of research
by Iocal s c l ~ o l a r s ~ ( e s ~ e cPolish
i a l l ~ and Hungarian) intu their own declitri~lg
sbcialist s y s t e n ~ s My
. ~ taste i n s u c h theori& is "iodigenist": 1 have found
most r~sefulthe analyses of East Eul-opeans concerning the world in which
ihey lived. Tlie followingsurn~na~y
awes ~ n u c to
l ~that work, and it is subject
temporal and
to refinement and revision as new rcsearch appears.' C;ive~~
spatial c,instr;~ints.I will compress el~e~ncnts
of a longer discussion, cmpllasizing how p r ~ d ~ e t was
i o ~organized
~
and the conser/ocllces of this ibr cont
into
sumption and for inarkets.' I believe these themes a f i ~ r dthe l ~ c s entry
why Party r111&cruml~ledI I I > I ~ ~'faster
I
than anyone v~pected.
Production
Fro111 t l r rarliest days of the "totalitarian" ~nodcl,Americ;~ns' ilt~agcof
" C ~ ~ ~ n n ~ u rwas
~ i s tof~ an
l " autocratic, all-powerfid st:ltc incxo~-;tl)lyi~t~pubing
its llarsl~will UII its subjects. Even after 1n0st ;ues sl)ccii~lisl\cc:krcd to ldsc
the tenn "totalitarian" in their-writing, the image of totalita~.i;lna~ltocl-;cy
persisted with 110th the broader public and many politicians; indeed, i t underpinncd Ronald Reagan's view of the "evil enrpire" as 1;ltc 21s t l ~ c1980s.
Yct the image was By ; ~ n d131-gewrong. Connnur~istWrty states were 11ut
all-powerful: the), were cornpar.atioely weak. Because socialisnis leivlers
managed only partially itnd fitfully to \vin a positive and sr~pprntingattitude
froid their citizens-that is, to b e seen as legitimate-the regimes wel-e constantly undern~inedby internal resistance and hidden forms of sabotage at
all system leoels." This contributed much to their final collapse. I will describe briefly sonle of the elements of socialist nontotalitatianis~uand signal
a few places where resistance la):'
Socialism's fragility begins with the system of "centralized planning,"
which the center neither adequately planned nor controlled. Central planners would draw up a plan with quantities of everything they wanted to see
produced, known as targets. They would disaggregate the plan into pieces
appropriate for execution and estimate how much invest~nentand how many
raw materials were needed if managers of firms were to fill their targets.
Managerslearned early on, however, that not only did the targets increase
annually but the materials required often did not arrive on time or in d ~ e

W I I A T W A S S O C I A L 1 Shl. AND

W H Y D I D I T P A L L ? 21

rigl~tamounts. So they would respond by bargaining their plan: demanding

lllorc investments and raw rnatcrials than the an~ouutsactually necessaly for
tl~eirtargets. E v c ~ ytnanageg and cvely level of t l ~ el)ureauc~-acy,padded
I,udgets and requests in hopes of having enough, in tile actnal moment of
pmduction. (A result of the bargaining process, of crlul-se, \\,as that central
alwavs had f;~nltyinfunnation about \vl~at\r.;,s really required for
production, and this impeded their ability to plan.) Then, if managers somehow ended up wit11 more of some n~aterialthan they needed, they hoarded
it. Iloarded material had two uscs: it could be kept for t l ~ cnext production
cycle, 111- it could be exchanged with s o n ~ eother firm h r son~ethingone's
own firm lnckcd. These excl~angesor barters of i~latrri:~l
wcre a crucial cornponellt of bel~aaior\vitllin centralized planning.
A result of all the paddir~gofbudgets and hoarding oii~lstcrialswas widespread shortages, fur wl~ichreason socialist economies ;)I-ecallcdeconomies'
of shortage.' Shortages were sometimes relcttive, ;IS \v11e11sr~nicientquantitirs of ~n;~terials
a ~ l dI;111orlijr a given lcvul ofoutput ; ~ c t ~ ~ acaistocl.
lly
11ut riot
~~~~~~t. xr~dtrllcn t l q were i~eeded.Sometilnes s11ort;igcs a8cl-e;il,soI~~te.
3ince relative sllartage often resulted in lowel-ecl production, o~--a, i n Ilon~ania-since iten~srequired fi1r production or c o n s t ~ n ~ p t wcre
i o ~ ~ he in^ exported. The causes (~l'sl~ortage
were primarily that people 1on:er clown i n thr
planni~~g
process \\ere usking for more inaterials t l ~ n lthe!
~ retluil-t.d iu~d
tlier~hoarding whatever they got. Underlying their hel~avior\\.as wl~atecotlo ~ ~ ~ icall
s t ssoft 1111(lgelc ~ ~ ~ ~ s t r . ~ i ~ ~is,
t s -ift l:I~ firm
a t ~ V ~ IL <S ~ s i !~~I IgC I I K , ? , t l ~ .
center woold hail it out. I n o ~ l II\VII
r
economy, with certain exceptions (SLICII
21s Clnysler and the savings and loan industry), l~udgetcunstrnints are 11;tr~I:
if yuu cannot make ends meet, you go 11ndel:But in socialist ecunon~ics,it
c nl~o:tl-cle(l
t
r;lw n,;itcri;~ls;
did not matter if fir~ns;~skeclfill- eatria i n v e s t ~ ~ ~or
they paid no penalty fol- it.
A fictitious cxan~plewill 11clp to illostrate-say, a shoc fi~ctorythat makes
women's shoes and boots. Central planners set the fistory's targets for tlw
year at one 11undrcd tllousarrrl pairs of slloes and twenty thousand pail-s of
boots, for which they think management will need ten tons of leather, a half I
ton of nails, and one thousand pounds of glue. The manager calcu1;ttes what
Ile would need under ideal conditions, if his workers worked consistently
during three eight-hour shifts. He adds some for \vastage, knowing the
workers are lazy and the machines cut badly; some for theft, since workers
are always stealing nails and glue; some to trade \\,it11 ot11e1-firms in case he :
comes up short on a crucial material at a crucial moment; and some more for
the fact that the tannery always delivers less than requested. The manager
tl~usrefuses the plan assigned him, saying Ire cannot produce that n u ~ n b e r
of shoes and boots unless he gets thirteen rather than ten tons of leather, a
ton rather than a half-tun of nails, and two thousand rather than one tllou-

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22
i

CHAPTER ONE

on the books, even tl~oughI I I I J S ~of the time 11e needed fewer; and since all
sand pounds of glue. Moreover, h e says he needs two new power stitchers
otller lrrauagers were doing the same, labor was scarce. This provided a confrom Germany, without wl~iclrh e can produce nothing. In short, Ire has
d
for the regimes' gua~anteedemployment.
venient if ~ ~ n p l a n n es~~ppol-l
bargained his plan. Then when he gets some part of these goods, Ire stockAII irnpwlant result (IS l;~lr<~r's
scarcity was that managers of l i r ~ ~
llad
~s
piles t l ~ e ~orntrades excess glue to the ~nanagerof;^ coat facto~yin rxcl~algc
rclativrly little leverage over tl~eirwurkers. Furthermore, bccausc supply
for some extra pigskin. If leather supplies still prove insufficient, Ire will
shortages ccausd so much ul~certai~rty
in thc production process, managers
make fewer bouts and more shoes, or more footwear ofsmall size, so as to l ~ s c
l ~ a dto tu1-11over to workers IIIUCII control over this process, lest work come
k s s leather; never mind if women's feet get cold in winter, or W I I I ~ ~wit11
II
i
!
big feet can find nothing to weal:
to B s t i ~ ~ ~ d ~Ttli~l al is,
.t ~ struct~~rally
speaking, workers under socialisn~llad a
s u ~ ~ ~ e wmore
l ~ a tpowerful positiun relative to management than du workers
With all tl~ispadding and hoarding, it is clear why sl~ortagewas er~det~lic
I
to socialist systems, and why tlre main problem for fimls was not u~hetl~er
in capitalism. Just as managvl.~'bargaining with bureaucrats undercut cent~al ~oL'c.'; XJ la1~nr'~1)ositi011
in pr-oduction o n d e r c ~ that
~ t of ma~r;~gernent.
they could meet (or genrrate) demand but whether they could procure adeI
hlore t1ra11this, the very ol.m~nirationof tlrc workplace bred oppositiorr to i
quate supplies. So whel-eas the chief problem of ecorro~nicactors in \\'cstern
Party rule. l'l~ror~glrthe 1':ll-ty-contn~lled trade uniun a ~ ~t l t rd f r e q u e ~ ~ t
econonries is to get profits by selling things, the chiefproble~ufor socialis~~is
merger uf I'iirty ; u ~ dulatlagrlne~~t
li~nctions,l'arty directives were < , o ~ ~ t i ~ r econo~nic:stars was to procure things. Capitalist firnls compete wit11 r a c l ~
~1;111yli:lt i n tile p r o d u c t i o ~i~rocess-and,
~
f r o ~ nwol-kers' vicwpoi~~t,
tlrcy
o t l ~ e for
r markets i r wl~iclr
~
they will make a profit; socialist firms c o ~ ~ ~ p t . t c d
\rere klt as unucccssary an11(lisrl~pti\.e.Union officials either 111e~lr1lc~l
IIIIto ~naxi~nize
their bargaining power with suppliers higher up. In our societ!;
I ~ r l p f i ~or
ll~
c<~lrll-ihntednotl~ing,only to claim credit fur prod~~ction
ic,s~tlts
the proble~nis other sellers, and to outcompete them you have to befriend
tll;rt n,urkers kne\\ were tlwir own. \\'urkers perticipated clisrl;~ir~lr~ll!~-:IS
:
the buyel: TIILISour clercs and shop owners smile and give the customer
sl~ciologistMichael UUI-awoyli~ondi n his studies of Hungariar~k~cturirs-ir~
friendly se~viceIrecause they want business; customers can be groucl~!: but
P;lrty-org;ini7ed pl-o(lrlction tit~l;lls,such as \aork-~~nit
competitin~~s.
\,rrlul~it will only make the clerk try lrarder, In socialism, the locus of co~npetitiun
.]I! . . \rr~rkdays,;rnd p r o d u c t i ~ ,c~a~
~ ~ ~ p ; ~ ithey
g n s ;resented these currc<:clenwas elsewl~erc:yoltr competitor was other buyel-s, other procurers; and to
p r c s s i , ~ ~rlf~ stlleir supposecl c o ~ n r n i t ~ ~ to
~ ean twonderful socialis~~r.'"
'Illus
outcompete tllem you needed to befriend those higher up who supplied
ilrstritd otx.cllri~lg\vorkersl ( C O I I S ~ I I\\.orkplircc
~.
rituals sharpct~erltlleir nrllyou. Thos in socialism it was not the clerk-the pnnidel; or "sellel-"-\vho
sciol~s~wss
s ~ l drrsistancr. A c ~ ~ i ~anl sofficial
t
"cult o t work" used to rttotiv;ctc.
was fi-iendly (they were ~ ~ s u a l grouchy)
ly
but tlre procurers, the custonlcrs,
cgalrrs i111d\ror!i~.rs t~\var<Il~~lfillir~g
the plan, inany workers dcvelolre<l;III
who sougl~tto ingratiate tl,r~nselveswith snriles, bribes, or favors. Thc \\.ark
c ~ d <IIIIOII\VOI-I\.
t
i~nitatil~g
the I'arty bosscs and tt).i~~g
tu (10 :LS
of procuring generated whole nctworks of cozp relations am~rngc a ~ r ~ i ~ ~ ~ ~ i c r~ppositit,~~:tl
little as pu>sil~lelijr tlirir p;~!cl~eck.Cacll-es olien fou~ldno way ~ ~ I . I I L Nthis
I~
~nanage:-sand tl~cirhurcnoo-ats, clerks and their custon~ers.\Ve wor~ldc;ill
i11ter11;11
s;~lx~t;~pc,
a.llic11by r~:clr~cing
productivity deepened the p ~ - u l ~ l rof
r~~s
this corn~ption,but that is bccausc getting supplies is not a pn111lt:111f11r
soci:iIist < ~ I I I ~ I I B [(I
~ < the
, S 11<)i11t
ol'crisis.
c;~pitalists:the prohlcln is getting s;lles. 1x1a word, bl-capitalists salrs~~r;ltlThe vcry torrrls of Party I r~lein the workplace, then, tended to fc~cus,
ship is at a prcmium; for socialist managers, the premium was on i s t l ~ ~ i s i puliticize,
and t r ~ r ~
agaiust
r
it the popular discontcut that capitalist societies I
tionsmanship, or procurement.
Inore
successfully
disperse,
depoliticize, and deflect. In this wax socialism I
So far I have been describing the clientelism and bargaining that UII\
produced
a
split
between
"us"
and "them," workers and Party leaders,
j dercut the Party center's eflkctive control. A similar weakness in vertical
'
founded on a lively conscionsness that "they" are exploiting "us." This conpower relations emerges from the way socialist production and shortage
1
bred workers' oppositio~ralco~~sciousness
and resistance. Among the many
sciousness was yet anothel- thing that undermined socialist I-egimes. 1i1
phrase it in (>ramscian t e m ~ s ,the lived expelience of people in social is^^^
things in short supply in socialist systenls was labor. Managers hoarded
,
precluded its r~topiandisco~lrsefrom becoming hegcmonic-precluded.
!
labor, just like any other raw material, because they never knew 11ow many
that is, the softening of coercion with c o n ~ e n t . ' ~
workers they would need. Fifty workers working three eight-hour shifts six
Ruling Communist Parties developed a variety of mechanisms to try to
days a week might h e enough to meet a firm's t a r g e t s i f all the ~rlaterials
I
obscure
this fact of their lratrtre from their subjects, mechanisms designed to
were on hand all month long. But this never happened. Many of those workproduce
docile subject dispusitions arld to ensure that discontent did uot
ers would stand idle for part of the month, and in the last ten days when most
become outrigl~toppositio~~.
1 will 111j~fly
discuss two of these n~ecl~aoisn~s:
of the materials were finally on hand the firm would need 75 workers workthe
apparatus
of
surveilla~lct..
and
redistrihutio~~
of the social product.
ing overtime to complete the plan. The manager therefore kept 75 workers

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5

WllAT WAS SOCIAL1

,I i ' :
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!!
>,

In each countn,.,. some eauivale~rtof the KGB was it~stru~nental

in maintaining surveillance, with varying degrees of intensity and success. ParticI I . Germany,
ularly effective were the Secret Police in the Soviet U I I ~ ~East
a i d Romania, but networks of informers and collnli~)r;~tors
open~ted111 some
extent in all. 'I'hese formed a i~igl~ly~elaborate
"prr~dt~ctirr~~"
s y s t c ~p:~r;illcl
~~
to the system for producing goods-a system producing paper, whiclr contained real and falsified histories of theCpeopleover wlron~the Party ruled.
Let us call the immediate PI-oduct "dossiers," or "files," tllougl, tllc ultimate
productwas political'sul~jectsand subject dispositions useF111to the I-egime.
- This parallel production system wasat least as impol-tant as the system for
producing goods, for producers of files were inuch better paid t l r a ~prr~doc~
ers of goods; hl!. image of this parallel production system comes friirn th<:
memoirs of Romanian political prisoner Herbcrt Zilbcr:
The first great socialist rrldustry war llrat of the pmduction of files. . . .Tl~isV I C ~
uf'workers: the informers. It works with ultmmudcl-n
industry has an
electronic equipment (microphones,tape recorders, rtc.), plus an army ol t).pists with their typewriters. Witllaut all tlris, socialis~~r
could not lrave rurvived. . . . In the socialist'lrluL,people and things exist only through their filrs.
All our existence is in the hands uf him whopossesses files and is constituterl by
l l i m who cunstrncts them Real people ale hot the i-cHectio11uf their filrs.''
files (and thereby political sul~jects)crc;~trdall
T l ~ cwork of
atmosphere of distrust and suspicio~~
dividing people fiom one anotl~e~:
One
never knew a.l~omone could trust, who might be informing on one to the
police abont one's attitudes toward the regime or one's having ;III America~~
to dinl~erDeclarations might also be false. Ink~rmerswith a denonciatio~~
;tgninst sonleune else wel-e 11ever asked what might lie their motive ihr illfor~ming;tl~cirperliaps-envious words entered directly into c o n s t i t ~ ~ t at,i~~g
other persun's file-thus another person's wciopolitical being. hloreove~;
like all other parts of the bureaucracy, the police too padded their "production" figures, for the fact of an entry into the file was often more important
than its veracih.IJThe existence of this shadowy system ofproduction could
it, and the assumption
have grave eKects on the people "processed" tl~rougl~
that it was omnipresent contributed much to its success, in some countries,
in suppressing unwanted opposition.
If surveillancewas the negative face of these regimes' problematic legitimation, its positive face was their promises of social redistribution and
welfare. At the center of both the Party's official ideology and its efforts to
secure popular~supportwas "socialist paternalism," which justified Party
rule with the claim that the Party would take care of everyone's needs by
collecting the total social product and then making available whatever peo-

SM,

A N D WllY D I D IT FALL?

25

ple needcd-cheap Food, jobs, medical care, affordalile housing, education,

aud so on. Party authorities claimed, as well, that they were better able to
assess and fill tlrese needs than were individuals or fa~nilies,who would
alwn)~stend to waut Inore tl~ilntheir share. Iterein lay the Party's paternalism: it acted like a father who gives l~andoutsto the children as 11esees fit.
d
to express needs it would
The Benevolent Fatlrer Party c d ~ ~ c a t epeoplc
t h c l ~fill, and ~liscnur;~gc~l
t l ~ ( : ~(i.o~r~
r ~ takit~gt l ~ einitiilti\,e that \rould cnalllr
them to fill tl~eseneeds on their own. T l ~ pror~~ises-socialist~<s
e
basic social
co~~tract--didnot go rmnoticed, and as Ionp as ecnnomic conditions peln~itted their partial f~~lfilln~ent,
certain socialist regimrs gaitred legiti~irac~
;IS i~
r e c ~ ~ lBut
t . this proved i ~ ~ ~ p o s s itnl ~slues t i ~ i ~ ~ .
Beyonrl its e k c t s U I I people's attitude\, ~ i ~ t e r t ~ a l ils~r na din~portal~t
col~.
sequences lor the entire systew of productio~~
cliccusscd previously imd fnr
col~srirnptio~~;
I ~ c r eI shift to tlre questi~t~t
of'\vI~).
ct~nsuo~ption
\rns 5r1 c e ~ ~ t r a l
ill the resist;tncr to socialislll. A Part), tlltlt pretends to meet its citizens'
needs tlirnupl~r e c l i s t ~ i l ~ ~ ~and
t i r ~that
n insi5ts U I I cloii~gso exclusi\.cl!.-tll;lt
is, witlrout enlistil~gtheir indepc~~dcnt
~ I ~ ~ J I - I S - I I I I I S ~ c,r~rtroln t r r ~ ~ ~ e ~ ~ c l ~ ~ t s
fitnd of rcs,iurces to ~r~dist~-ili~lte.
Natio~~i~lizit~g
tliit IIIC~IIISof I)~.~~duetiot~
I~elpedprovide this, and so did a ~relentlt~ssly
"pro~luctionist"<irien~atio~~.
wit11 ever-i~~creasrd
production plans and cxhor-tiltions to greater efTort.
The prot~liseol'rcdistributiun was an additional reasoli, l~esidesmy e.trlier
argument abor~tshvrt;~ges,why socialis~nworked diffkrently fron~capitalism. Socialisln's innrr drive \*.;IS to accun~nlatenot profits, like capitalist
cnles, l111t distrili~~l;il~lr
resources. This is inorc tliii~i sin~plya dl.iv~lilt.
aritarc1i)s reducing dependency on the outside: it i ~ i ~ ntos increase depenlate
for r e d i s t r i l i ~ ~ t i ~ ~ ,
dency [if those within. Striving to a c c u ~ t ~ ~ ~resriurces
ii~vol\xstllings ibr w11icl1profit is lr~t;lll!.irrt,l<:\,ant. 111capitalis~l~.
tlllrse \vlro
run ICII~IIII;IC~~
s t . ~ ~ ~endeavor
ds
to selve thirsty custon~ersi l l \VCI!S that 111;tke
;I plrilit and c,~ltcotnpeteother lemonade stand owners. 111 sociiilism, t l i ~ ,
point w;is I I U ~(nolit I n ~t l ~ er<:l:~tio~~sl~ip
IIC!~\VLYIIthirsty persons ~IIICIt l ~ eU I K ~
\vitl~t l ~ el ~ ~ ~ ~ o ~ ~ i ~Party
d e - center,
t l ~ c u~hichappr~~priated
f r o ~ rproducers
~
the various ingredients (lemons, sugar, water) and then mixed the lemonade
to reward the~trwith, as it saw fit. Whethcr sonreone made a profit LEIS
irrelevant: t l ~ ctransaction underscored the center's patenvalistic superiorit!
over its citizet~s-that is, its capacity to decide who got more lemonade and
who got less.
Controlling the ingredients fortified the center's c;~pacityto redistril~ute
things. But this capacity would be even gl-eater if the center co~rtrollednot
only the lenlons, sugar, and water but the things they come from: the lemon
trees, the ground for growing sugar beets and the factories that process
them, the wells and the well-digging machinely. That is, most valuable ofall
to the socialist bureaucracy was to get its hands not just on resources but oo
I-esources that genel-ated odter usable resoul-ces, resources that were then-

26

CIIAPTER O N E

selves further productive. Socialist regimes wanted not just eggs but the
goose that lays them. Thus if capitalism's inner logic rests on accumulat'ing surplus value, the inner logic of socialism was to a c c u ~ r ~ ~ ~lneans
l a t e of
production.1'
The emphasis 011 keeping resources at the center fix r e d i s t r i l ~ ~ ~ist i o ~ ~
one reason why items produced in socialist countl-ies so often proved UIIcompetitive on the world market. Basically, most of these goods were not
being made to be sold competitively: they were being either centrally accumulated or redistributed at low prices--effectively given away. Thus
whether a dress was pretty and well made or ugly and ~nissewt~
wils irrelevant, since profit was not at issue: the dress would b e "given amla);" at a
subsidized price, not sold. In fact, the wlrole point was rwt to sell things: the
center wanted to keep as much as possible under its control, because Illat
was how it had redistributive power; a d it wanted to give away the rest,
Selling
because that was how it confirllled its legitimacy with the
things competitively was therefore beside the point. So too were ideas of
"efficient" production, which for a capitalist \vould enhance profits 11y wasting less material or reducing wages. But whatever goes into calculating a
profit--costs of material or labor inputs, or sales of goods-was u o i m p o r t a ~ ~ t
in socialism until very latc in the game. Instead, "efficie~~cy"
was understood
to mean "the full use of existing resources," "the n~aximizatinnof Sivcn cnpacities" rather than of results, all so as to redirect resources to a goal greater
than satisGing the pop"lation's needs.'" 111other words, what was r:ttionaI ill
socialism differed from capitalist rationality Both are stupid in their own
way, but differently so.

Socialis~n's redistril~utiveen~pllasisleads to one of the gl-c:at pal-i~doxrsof a

paternalist regime claiming to satisfy needs. Having constantly h) anlass
means of production so as to enlrance redistributive power caused Party
leaders to prefer hea\y industry (steel mills, machine construction) at the
expense of consunier industry (processed foods, o r shoes). After all, once a
consumer got hold of something, the center no longer contr~~lled
it; central
power was less served by giving things away than by PI-oducing things it
could continue to control. The central fund derived more from setting up a
factory to make construction equipment than from a shoe factory or a chocolate works. In short, these systems had a basic tension between what was
necessary to legitimate them-redistributing things to the masses-and
what was necessary to their power-accumulating things at the center. T h e
tension was mitigated where people took pride in their economy's development (that is, building heavy industry might also bring legitimacy), but my
experience is that the legitimating effects of redistribution were more important by far.

W H A T WAS SOCIAL1 SM. AND WllY D I D IT PALL7

27

Each country addl-essed this tension in its own way. For example, Hullgary after 1968and Poland in the 1970s gave things away more, while R o ~ l ~ a nia and Czechoslovakia accumulated things more; but the basic tension existed everywhere. The socialist social contract guaranteed people food and
clothing but did 110tpromise (as capitalist systems do) qu;tlity, ready availability, and choice. Thus the systemn's mode of operation tended to sacrifice
in favor of production and controlling the products. This paradoxical neglect of consumption contributed to the long lines about which we
lleard so ~ n u c (and
l ~ we heard ahuui i!iem, of course, because we live in a
5?ctr~nto wl~icllruns11nlpti1111
is cn~cial).
In emphasizing this ~ ~ e g l e of
c t cunsnmption as against building rlp the
central resource base. I have so far been speaking of theforr~lnllyorganized ecolinmy of socialism-some call it the "first" or "utlicial" economy. But
tllis is 110t the wllole stor! Si~lcethe center would not supply what people
neccled, they strugglcrl to dl so t h e ~ ~ ~ s e l vdeveloping
cs,
in the process a
llllgc rcpcrtoiru of stn~tegich I
r ~ ~ t a i ic~a ~
g ~ s u ~ ngoods
rr
and
services. These strategies, called the " s e c o ~ ~or
C "informal" economy,
spanlled a wide range from t l ~ cquasi-legal to the definitely illegal.'" In most
socialist countrics it was not illegul to mr~onlightfor eutt.;, pay-by doing
carpentry, say-11ut pcople doing so often stole nraterials or illegally ~ l s c d
tools from their \\rorkplace; or they might manipulate state goods to sell
on tlre side. Clcrks it) storcs ~uightparn favors or r w t t - : ~ 1;:onr): for P X ~ I I B ple, by saving scarce goods to sell to special crlsh)mers, wlro tipped ~ I I ~ I I I
or did some inpol-tant favor in return Also part of the second economy was
the so-called "private plot" of collective farm peasants, who held it legally
an11 in theory c o ~ ~do
l d what they \\,anted with it-grow food for their own
t;~l)leor to srll in the ~narketat state-controlled prices. But a l t l ~ o ~ ~tlle
g hplot
itself was legal, p ~ o p l eobtained higll or~tputsfrom it not just by virtue of
hard work 1n1t elso 1 1 s~t c a l i ~ ~~ fI I I I tI l ~ ccr~llectivcfarm: krtilizcr and Ilerbicides, foddcr for their pigs or cr~ws,work time for their o\vn weeding or
han~esting,tractor time and file1 for plo\ving their plot, and so on. The sccond economy, then, which provisioned a large part of consumer needs, was
parasitic upon the state e a ~ n o m yand inseparable fron~it. It developed precisely because the state economy tended to ignore consumption. To grasp
the interconnection of the two economies is crucial, lest one think that sirnply dismantling the state sector will automatically enable e n t ~ ~ p r e neursl~ip-already present in embry-to
flourish. On the contrary: parts of
the second economy will wither and die if deprived of the support of the
official, state economy.
It is clear from what I have said that whereas consumption in our own
society is considered primarily a socioeconomic question, the relative neglect of consumer interests in socialism made consumption deeply political.
In Romania in the 1980s (an extreme case), to kill and eat your own calfwas
a political act, because the government prohibited killing calves: you were

r'!

28
.

CHAPTER ONr

- .suppoied to sell them cheap to the state farm, for export. Ro~nanianvillagers

wlrofcd ~ n c v e a (having
l
assured themselves of my complicity) did so wit11
special satisfaction. It was also illegal for urbanites to go and buy forty kiloe
who grew potatoes on their
grams of potatoes directiy from d ~ villaiers
private plot, because the autlio~ities-suspectedthat villagers would c11a1-ge
more than the state-set pl'ice, thus enriching then~selves.So Ro~nanianpulicemen routinely stopped cars riding low on the chassis and coofisci~te~l
p n ~ d u c ethey found inside.
Consumption became politicized in yet another way: the vely definition
. of "needs" became a matter for resistance and dispute. "Neerls," as we
should know from our own experience, are nut given: they are cre;~ted.developed, expanded-the
work especially of the advertisir~gI~r~siness.
I t is
advertisil~g'sjob to convince us that we need tlliugs we didlit kn~lwwe
rwedcd,, or tllat if we feel unhappy, it's l~ecauscwe need s o l n e t l ~ i ~(;I~slll.illli,
g
or a !leer, or a Marlborn, or a man). Our need requires only ;I nalllu, a ~ i t l
car1 he satisfied with a pl-oduct or service. Nan~ingtl-o1111ledst;~tl:s,l ; ~ l ~ e l i ~ ~ g
them as needs, and finding con~moditiesto fill them is at the 11r;ll-tof our
ecollotny Socialism, by contrast, whicll rested not 011d c v i s i ~ ~inlinite
g
kirlds
of things to sell pcople but on claiming to satisfy people's basic o e c d , llad
a v c ~ yunadorned defi~~ition
of them-in keeping with socialist egalitnria~lism. Indeed, some Iiungarian dissidents wmte ofsocialisnis relationship to
needs as a "dictatorship."" As long as the food olfered was edible or the
clothes availa1,le covered you and kept you warm. that should be sulKcie~~t.
If you had trouble finding even these, that just meant you were not l(x~king
bard e n o l ~ g l No
~ . p1a1111crpresun~cdto i~~vestigiite
\\hat k i ~ ~ ~d ~s f g o o <prols
ple wanted, or worked to name new needs for ne\vly created products and
newly developed markets.
At the same tin~e.I~owevel;reginre policies paradoxically ~ n a d ecrrllsnmptiun a pro11lel11.Even as t l ~ eregimes prevented people from consu~ningby
not making goods available, they insisted that under socialism, the standard
of liviug would constantly improve. This stimulated consumer upl~ctites,
perhaps wit11 an eye to fostering increased ellort and tying people illto the
system. Moreover, socialist ideology presented consumptio~las a "right."
The system's organization exacerbated consumer desire further by fiustrating it and thereby making it the focus of effort, resistance, and d i s c o ~ ~ t e ~ ~ t .
Anthropologist John Borneman sees in the relation between desire and
goods a major contrast between capitalism and socialism. Capitalisn~,11r
says, repeatedly renders desire concrete and specific, and offers specific--if
ever-changing-goods
to satisfy it. Socialism, in contrast, aroused desire
w i t k t focalizing it, and kept it alive by deprivation."
As people became increasingly alienated from socialism and critical of its
acl~ievements,then, the politicization of consumption also made them challenge official definitions of their needs. They did so not just by creating a

WIIAT W A S SOCIAL1 S M , A N D W H Y D I D IT F A L L ?

29

second economy to grow food or make clotl~esor work after hours but also,
sometimes, by public protest. Poland's Com~nunistleaders fell to such protest at least twice, in 1970 and in 1980, when Polish workers insisted on
having nrore food tl~z~n
governnlent price increases \vol~ldpermit them. Less
immediately disrupti\.e were forms of protest in which people used consumption styles to forge resistant social identities. The black markets in
Western goods that sprang up everywhere enallled alienated consumers to
express tl~oircontenrpt for tl~cirgovernniellts tlil-ough tlle kinds of things
they chose to I~uy.YOII could spend an entire rl~onth'ssala~yon a pair of blue
jeans, for instance, but it was worth it: wearing them signified that you could
get s o ~ n c t l ~ the
i ~ ~system
g
s;id you (lidit rived and shouldn't have. Tllus
co~~sr~rnption
goods and objects conferred a11 identity that set you off fro111
soci;ilisrr~,cnnl~lingyou to dilrerentiate yor~rselfas an individual in the Llce
(II rcle~~tlrss
pressures to 11ornoge:enizc c\.eryo~ie'scalmcities and tastes into
; ( I ( ~~rldilTere~~tiated
collectivity Acquiri~~g
o1,jects became a way ofconstit ~ t i l l l : y11r sellhood against a deeply nnpopolar regime.
U~rrea~rcrulic
Factioaolis~~z
und Markets
Belore t~irningto why these systems fell, 1 wish to address one more issue:
puliticking in t l ~ ePiirty bureallcracy. Although this took different and speit is important to mention tlle issue, for
cific fbrn~sin the difrerent coo~~tries,
s<~ci;llisnis
collapse u\~.edIIIIICI~ to shifts ill tlle balance among lactioos that
~ I I I ~ I - gwithin
e d the h r t y apparatus. Even I d o r e 1989, researchers were
~x~irltirlg
to sr:vel-;II 1i11-111s
of i~ltl.a-P;~rty
d i v i s i c ~ I'c,lisl~
~ ~ . sociolt,gist ];t<lwig;~
Sb.u~iszkis,writing specifically of the moment of transition, speaks of three
I;u.tiu~~s-the globalists. the populists, and the middle-level bureaucrat!,;
others, writing more generally, distinguisll hetween "strategic" and "operativc" rlites, t l ~ cstale I~nreaucl-acyand the "global n~onopoly,"the hureailcmcy and tlle I'i~rtyelite. "ill-hor~se"and "out-of-11ouse" Party workers, and su
forth." One \P;I? ~ l t l ~ i n k~iI ~I (~I Igthese
I ~ various divisions is that they distinguish ownersllip li.urn inanagclnent, or the people who oversaw the papcrvnrk of administration from those "out in the field," inte~veningin actual
social life."' We might then look for co~iflictingtendencies based in the differeut interests of tl~csegroups-such as conflicts between the central "owners" or paperworkers, OII one hand, who migl~tpersist i n policies tl~ataccumulated means of production witl~outconcern for things like productivity
and output, and the bureaucratic managers of the allocative process or its
fieldworkers, VII the other, who had to be concerned with such things. Althougl~the power of the system itself rested on continued accumulation.
such tendencies if unchecked could obstruct the work of those who had
actually to deliver resources or redistribute them. Without actual investnlents and hard material resources, lower-level units could not produce the

I
..

30

CHAPTER ONE

means of production upon which both bureaucracy and center relied. If'
productive activity were so stifled by "overadministration" that nothing got
produced, this would jeopardize the redistributive bureaucracy's power and
prestige.
,.;Thus when central accumulation of means of production began to
threaten the capacity of lower-level units to produce; when persistent imbalances between investment in heavy industry and in light indust~y,between allocations for investment and for consumption, and so on, diminished the stock of distributable goods; and when the center's attempts to
keep enterprises fr0111!neddling with sulplus appropriation obstructed the
process of production itself-this is when pressnl-e :arose for a sl~iliof C.III['hasis. The pressure was partly from those in the wider socicty to ,vhorn not
enougl~was being allocated and partly from bureaucrats tl~etnselvcswhose
prestige a d , increasingly, prospects of retaining power depended on baving
more goods to allocate. One tl~enheard of decentralization, of tile rate of
growth, of productivity-in a wurd, of matters of output, rather thillr the
inputs that lay at tbe core of bureaucratic perforn~anc~.
This is pen<:rally
referred to as the langoage'ol "refor~n."
For those groups who became c o ~ ~ c e r n ewit11
d q,~rstiol~s
of output and
it~echanisms
productivity, the solutions almost always involved introduci~~g
such as profitability criteria and freer markets. This nlraltt. Iluwever, introducing a subordinate rationality discrepant with the syste~n'si n ~ ~logic
e r and
thereb)- threatening continued Party rule. Markrt li~rrpscrrate l ~ r o l ~ l r for
~ns
socialism in part for reasons treated implicitly or expliritly nbove in contrasting capitalism's dellland-constrained econo~nieswith socialis~risecollonly of
shortage (its lack of interest, for example, in the sala\,ility of its products).
But more broadly, markets create problems because they move goods l~orizontally rather than vertically toward the center, as all I-edistributivesystems
reyoire. Markets also presuppose that individual interest and the invisible
Irand," rather than the guiding hand of the Party, secure the common good."
Because these horizontal movements and individualizing pre~nisessubverted socialism's hierarchical organization, market mechanisms had been
soppressed. Reformers introducing them were opening P:lndords box.

Why Did It Fall?

My discussion of socialism's workings already points to several reasons for
its collapse; I might now address the question more comprehensively To do
this requires, in my view, linking the properties of its intemal organization
(discussed above) with properties of its external environment, as well as with
shorter-tern "event history.'' This means examining t l ~ especific co~ljuncture of two systems-"capitalist" and "socialist," to use ideal types-ne
encompassing the other.=

WIIAT WAS SOCIAL1

SM,

A N D W I I Y D I D I T F A L L ? 31

In event-history terms, the proximate cause of the fall of East European

and Soviet socialism was an act of the Hungarian government: its dismantling of the barbed \%,irebetween Hungary and Austria, on the eve of a visit
Ily President Geol-ge Bush, and its later renouncing the treaty with the GDR
that would lvave PI-evented East Gernvan emigration through Hullgar). This
cul~ninatiot~
of Ilnnpa~y'siring-term strategy :y~fopcning
I I t ~, the
~ West gave
an unexpected opportunity for some East Germall tnurists to extend their
Hungarian vacations into West Germany; the end result, give^^ tltat Gorbachev refused to bolster the East German governmcnt with Soviet troops ill
tllis crisis, was to l~ringdown the Berlin Wall. To undcl-sta~rdtile conj~mcturc in which l l u ~ ~ g a could
ry
open its borders and (;i~rl~.a.l~e\
o)ul~lrefuse
IIonecker his troops requires setting in motion the static ~ ~ > o dI eII;I\,~
l given
al~uveand placing it in its international context. This i~iclndesasking l~o\\,
sorialism's encounter with a changing world capita1is~nproduced i ~ aggrar
vated factional divisions within Communist Parties.

My discussio~~
of socialism indicated sever;~lpoints nf tel~sionin its \vr~rkingr
tl~ataffected the syste~n'scapacity for extended repn~duction.Thruughi~ut
tlleir existence, these regin~cssougl~tto nlanage sncl~tensii~nsin different
ways, ranging from Hungary's major market reforms in the 1960s to Rolllania's rejection of reform and its heightened coel-cive eatl-action. 111all case*.
~ n a n a g i ~these
~ g tensions involved decisiotrs that to a greater ur 1csst.r d e x ~ e c
upelled si~cialistpolitical economics to Western capital. Thc in~petusl i ~ this
r
opening--critical to socialisnis demisc--came chiell\ fronr \vithin, as Party
leaders attempted to solve their structural problems without m;tjor htl-111tnral reform. Their attitude in doing so was reminiscent of a "plu~ldernlrntulityn that sees the external e ~ l v i r o r ~ n ~as
e nat source of boo(? to I J used
~ ias
needed in maintaining oi~e'sown systetn, without tllought fur tlrc cost. This
attitude was visible in the tendency of socialist goverlllnents to treat foreign
trade as a residual sector, used to supplement budgets without being made
an integral part of then^.^ Because of how this opportunistic recourse to the
external environment brought socialism into tighter relationsl~ipwit11 capitalism, it had fateful consequences.
The critical intersection occurred not in 1989 or 1987 l ~ uin
t the late lSGOs
and early 1970s, when global capitalism entered the cyclical crisis fru~n
which it is still struggling to extricate itself. Among capitalists' possible responses to the crisis (devaluation, structural reorganization, etc.), an early
one was to lend abroad; facilitating this option were the massive quantities
of petrodollars that were invested in Western banks, following changes in
OPEC policy in 1973. By lending, Western countries enabled the recipients
to purchase capital equipment or to build long-term infrastructure, thereby
expanding the overseas markets for Wester11 prodncts."

32 c l l n p ' r E n o w e

The loans became available just at the n~oment\r,hen all across the socialistbloc,the first significant round of structl~rnlreforms had been pn)posed, halfheartedly implemented, and, hecanse profitability and market
critCia fit so poorly with the rationale of socialism, largely abandoned. Reluctance to proceed with reforms o w 4 much, as well, to Czecl~oslovakia's
Prague Spring, from which the Party apparatus all :la-oss the region had
been able to see the dangers that reform posed for its n~onopolyon power.
Instead of reforming the system from within, then, most Party leaderships
opted to meet their problems by a greater avticolation with the snrrounding
economy: importing \Vestern capital a ~ r dusing it to buy adwnccd tecllnulogy (or, as in Poland, to subsidize consr~mption),i n hopes of improving economic perrormance. Bot.1-owingthusbecatn~ea substitute for extensive internal changes that would have jeopardized the Party's monopoly over society
of social is^^^. In this way, the internal
and sul)verted the inner n~c.cl~ar~isn~s
cycles of two contrasting systenls soddenly meslled.
T l ~ intent,
e
as wit11 all tlie i n l e r ~ ~ i ~ t i o[ ~i ~oir~rlo ~ i nofgt l ~ eperiod, was to
goods into the world nmrket. By
pay offthe loans 11y exporting r~ri~nofactured
the mid-1970s it was clear, howevel; that the world market could not absorb
sufficient amounts of socialisnis products to enable repayment, and ;it the
same time, rising interest rates added staggeringly to the debt sen,ice. Wit11
the 1979-80 decision of the \Vestern banking establishment not to lend
more money to socialist countries, the latter were tl~rowninto r:o~~lplete
disarray I have allready mentioned several features that made sorialist economies inapt co~npetitorsill the international export market. The "plunde?
stance toward external economies, the system's fundamental 01-ganiz.I t.on
against notions of salability of its products, the shortage e c o n o ~ n ~ pre's
I ~ ~ I I I on
I I ac(pisitionsn~i~nship
rather than on salesmanship, the neglect of
consumptio~~
and of producing to satisfy consumer needs with diverse 11igl1quality products-all this meant that an adequate response to the hardcurrency crisis nrould haj'e catastrophic effects on socialism's inner mechanisms. To this was added the fact that socialist economies were "outdated:
as Jowitt put it, "ATter 70 years of niurderous effort, the Soviet Union had
created a German indnstvy of the 1880s in the 1980s."'"
In these circumstances, the balance of power tilted toward the faction
within the Communist Par& of the Soviet Union that had long argued for
structural reforms, the introduction of market mechanisn~s,and profit incentives, even at the cost of the Party's "leading role." The choice, as Gorbachev and his faction saw it, was to try to preserve either the Soviet Unior~
and its empire (by reforms that would increase its economic p e d o m a n c e
and political legitimacy) or collective property and the Party monopoly. Carbachev was ready to sacrifice the latter to save the former but ended by
losing 110th.
Wbile Western attention was riveted on the speeches ofpolicy-makers in

WllA'l WAS SOCIAL1 Shl. A N D WIlY D I D IT PALL?

33

the Kremlin, the Inore 5ignificant aspects of reform, I~oweve~;

were in the
often-unauthorized i>eha\,iorof bureaucrats who were busily creating new
pruperty forms ~ I I Itheir ouVn.Stanisrkis describes the growth of what she
calls "political capitalism," as bureaocrats spontaneously created their ow11
l)rofit-based cu~npaniesfro111 within tlie state economic bureaucr;sy Sige n t socialisnis articulatioo with world capitnlism
nificantly fur 111). a r g r l ~ ~ ~that
\\.as crucial to its fall, the elamples she singles out to illust~atethese trends
with thr o111side worlrl-in
arc all at the interface of socic~listeco~~omies
p;~rticolal; new c(~~npanies
mediating the export tradv and state procurer ~ t e of
~ ~\~L'CS~C.III
t
co11~~111trrs."~
111 fact, she sees as ct.itiral t l ~ e
factionill split
I,rt\reen the grorlps w l ~ rinar~agcd
~
socialism's interface wit11 the outside
\r,~,rld(such as tl~osein li)rcign polic): a)unteri~rteIligence,and foreign
t~-:tde)and those \ r l ~ nnlanaged it internally (socl~as tlre Party's n~iddle-level
c x ~ c ~ ~ tappwiitlls
ive
;,IICI the KCH)." Fclrn~s privatiration already taking
place as edrlv as 1987 in P0li111d ;lnd si~nilarprocesses as early as 1984 i l l
llunga~y'*show t l ~ ce ~ ~ i c r g i n~o1~t0u1.s
g
u1. wlli~tStilniszkis sees BS tile refol-~nists'goal: a clr~alecr,llorn)i One p;~l-to1. this ecunollly was to he centl-;~lly
itd~ninistered,as before, and the r~therpart wils to he reformed through marketlprofit inecl~anisn~s
end selccti\.c privatization ol'state property. The t\rao
were tto coexist s!.ml~ioticnlIy,~
Tl~eseforn~sof"11olitic;il c;~~~italisni"
c~roscin part I,? econolnic nlan;qers'
exploiting the shortages endemic to socialism-sliortages now agrdvated to
In the new I~opeof inlaking a prufit, "political capitalists"
crisis pr~~portions.
r
wcrc n-illing to put into circulation I-cscn,es
(I call t h e ~ ~"e~~tl-epratcl~iks")
known only to tl~e~n-which they \+~ould
u t l ~ e ~ w i l~a\;e
s e lroarded-thus alleviating sl~ortages,to tliei~.ow11p;lin. As a result, even antirefomlist Soviet
i ~ l ~Polis11
d
I ) I I I . ~ . L I I C ~ If Ii~~\, ~ r ~t(ll w ~ ~ ~ s r l \acqnicscing
.es
i n cntrcpr;~tchiks'; ~ c tivitics, \rillwut \\-liicl~,i l l Sti~niszkis'swords, "the oNicial structure of thc
economic a d ~ n i ~ ~ i s t r ; l twas
i o ~ ~al)solutely unstceral~le."'" Contributi~~g
to
h e i r tolerance was I-ampa111
bi~rc*aucr;~tic
anarcl~!: a loss of control by thosc
higlier up, rur~tecli n tlle "innl~ilityul'supcriors to supply their subordinates
(managers of 10\\.er level) wit11 the nleans to construct a strategy of sorv i ~ a l . " ~Becaose
'
s~~periors
could no l u ~ ~ gguarantee
er
deliveries and investments, they were fol.ced to accept \vhatever solutions enterprising subo~dinates could devise--rven at the cost of illicit profits from state reserves.
Entrepratchiks son11 b e g i ~to~ ~regard the state's acculnulatiuns niucl~as
Preobrazhensky had once 111-gedSoviet leaders to regard agriculture: ;IS a
source of primitive accumulation. They came to find increasingly attractive
the idea of further "p~ivatiwtion,"so in~portantto Western lenders.
It is possible (though unlikely) that socialist regimes would not have collapsed if their hard-currency crisis and the consequent intersection with
capitalism had occurred at a different point in capitalism's cyclicity. T11e
specifics of capitalism's on.n crisis management, howevel; proved unman-

? '

34

CHAPTER ONE

ageable for socialist systems. Without wanting to present recent capitalism's "llexible specialization" as either unitary or fully dominant (its furn~s
d~
. f f.e rfrom place to place, and it coexists with other socioecononric furn~s),
I find in the literature about it a number of characteristics even more inin~ical to socialism than was the earlier "Fordist" variant, which Soviet prodl~ction partly imitated. These characteristics include: small-batch i , r ~ ~ d u c t i o ~ ~ ;
just-in-time inventory; an accelerated pace of innovation; tremendous reductions in the tulnover time of capital via automation and electronics; a
biuch-increased tulnover time in consumption, as well, with a conconritarrt
rise in techniques of need-creation and an incl-eased emphasis on the production of events rather than goods; coordination of the economy by finance
capital; instantaneous access to accurate information and arralysis; and an
overall decentralization that increases managerial cuntrul (at the expense of
I~iglrer-levelbodies) over labor.3z
How is socialism to mesh with this?-socialism with its emphasis on
large-scale heroic production of means ofproduction, its resources frozen Ily
11oa1-ding-no just-in-time herel-its lack of a syste~nicimpetus tou,ard illnovation, the irrelevanck to it of notions like "turnover time." its neglect of
consumption and its flat-footed definition of "needs," its constipated and
secretive llows of illformation (except for rumors!) in which the center could
have no confidence, and the perpetual struggle to retain central control over
all phases of the production process? Thus, 1 submit, it is not simply socialism's embrace with capitalism that brought about its fall but the fact that it
happened to embrace acapitalism of a newly "flexible" sort. David Haney's
schematic comparison of "Fordist modernity" with "Hexible post-modeniitf'
clarifies things further: socialist systems have much more in c o n ~ r n , ~wit11
r~
his "Fordist" column than with his "flexible" one."
Let me add one more tllought linking the era of flexible specialization
with socialisnis collapse. Il~creasir~g
numbers of'scl~olarsnote tllat acconlpanying the change in capitalism is a change in the nature of state power:
specifically, a number of the state's functions are being undermined." The
international weapons trade has made a n~ockeryof the state's monopoly on
the means of violence. The extraordinary n~obilityof capital means that as it
moves from areas of higher to areas of lower taxation, many states lose some
of their revenue and industrial base, and this constrains their ability to attract capital or shape its flows. Capital Bight can now discipline all 1rat.tonstate government^.^^ The coordination of global capitalism by finance capital
places a premium on capital mobility, to which rigid state boundaries are an
obstacle. And the new computerized possibilities for speculative t~ading
have generated strong pressures to release the capital immobilized in state
structures and institutions by diminishing their extent.%
This has two consequences for the collapse of socialism. First, groups

WIIAT WAS SOCIAL1 S M . A N D \lrllY D I D IT FALL7

35

inside socialist countries whose structi~ralsituation facilitated their fuller

p~rrticipationin the global econolny now l~ialreasons to expand their state's
receptivity to capital-that is, to promote reform. Second, the control that
socialist states exerted over capital Bows into their countries may have n ~ a d e
t h e ~ rspecial
~
targets for international financial interests, eager to increase
their opportunities by undermining socialist states. These internal and interlrational groups each found their chance in the interest of the other. It is in
any case clear from the politics of international lending agencies that they
aim to redocc the power of socialist states, for they insist upon privatizatio~i
of state prvperty-the basis of these states' power and revenue. Privatizalion
is pusherl ?\,en i l l the face of s o u r ~ ~ c o ~ ~ o ~objections
~ i i s t s ' that "too n ~ r ~ c l i
effort is bring irrvestrd in privatiz;rtion, and too little in creating and foste~;
illg the de\:rlop~~~cnt
of new private 1irms"-wllose clllry privatization may
;~ctuallyi ~ ~ ~ ~ , e t l u . : "
No TiaieJor S o c i n l i s ~ ~
Rattiel- tllan explore further how Hexil~lespecializutiu~lc o ~ ~ ~ l ~ cc111~11ges
llcd
in suri;~lis~r,,
I wisll to surnniarize rriy a r g u l n e ~ 1~ t1 liltking
~
i t 111 ~ ~ o t i of
~~r~s
tin~e.Ti~ne,as antliropulogists have sbown, is a fi~nd;rn~e~rtal
d i n ~ t n s i oof~ ~
1111111a11 :~fF:rirs,taking different tonns in different kinds of society. 'Cl~e\\'estern n o t i o ~of~a lir~ear,irreversible time consisting of eyoivalent and divisil~le
onits, for i ~ l s t a ~ ~isc ebut
, one possible way ofconceptualizi~~g
t i ~ rand
~ r li\*illg
it. A p,i\,rncultnral construction of time ramifies t l ~ r u ~ ~ g h its
l ~ rsocial
lt
nrde~:
it.; r;tlr~~<litrs,
scl~cdulcs,i ~ n dr11ytl1111s
esti~l)lisI~
111,. \t,ry gro1111ds
111cl;lilylil;,
(wllicll is \\.II?clit<~s,
especially revulutio~raryones, o f t c ~manip111;itc
~
~~II:III),
u~rdergirtlpower ilnd ineq~~ality,
and affect \lo\\,
make the~nselvcsas
s11ci:ll l~eiogs.
(;i~~>itiilis~~~
exists 0111y as a flln~tioll11f ti~~re-:i~id of a sp<:cific c011~1:l~lioll
of it. Elli)rts lo i ~ ~ c r ~profits
a s e by increasing t l ~ e\,elocity of capital circulation are at its very heart. Thus each i~rajol-re~~rganization
of capitalism hiis
entailed, in Harvey's ternrs, "time-space conrplession": a shrinking of the
time horizons of private and public decision-making, whose conscquences
encompass ever-wider spaces owing to changed communications and transport technology.3RT l ~ ebasic logic of socialis~n,by contrast, placed no premium 011 illcreasing turnover time and capital circulation. Altl~oughthc
rhetoric uf Stalinism emphasized socialism as a highly dynamic system. fur
the most part Soviet leaders acted as if time were on their side. (When
Khrushchev said, "We will bury you," h e was not too specific about the
date.) Indeed, I have argued that in 1980s Romania, far from being speeded
up, time was being gradually slowed down, flattened, immobilized, and rendered n~nlinear.~'

W ' H A 1 W A S S O C I A L 1 S M , A N D W H Y U I D IT P A L L ?

Like the reorganization of capital is^^^ at the end of the ninctc.rnt11 ccnt~~ty,
the present reorganizatibn entails a lime-space conlpressiun, which we ;dl
feel as a nrammoth speedup. Yet the socialism n;itl~w l ~ i c itl ~intersected had
no such time-compressing dynamic. Iri this light, the significance of Gorlxcl~ev'sperestroika was its rea,gnition that socialism's tc~nporalitywas IIIIsustainable in a capitalist \vorld. Pel-estruik;~reversed Sovict ide:~sas to
whose time-definition and rhythms were dominant and \\,her<: dyna~rris~l~
lay: no longer within the sucialist system hut outsirlr it, in the M'cst. Gurhachev's rhetoric from the mid-1980s is full of tvords al,out ti~lle:the Soviet
Union needs to "catch up;" to "accelerate" its development, to shed its "sluggishness" and "incrtia" and leave behind tlte "era of stagnation." R)r I~ixn.
change has suddenly become an "urgent" necessit!:

[By]the latter halfofthe sevruties . . . tlrecou~~tn.hegarl

to luae ,~mr,cntun~.
...
Elements of stagnation . . . NCgiin tu appeal: . . . kind ul"'lw;tki~~g
~~~ccIiianist>~"
I\

affect[ed] social ;md ccu~iutnic~le\.elopeic~t~.

. . . TIE i~~crti.t
ofcx~ensi\~,
cuononr~icd e v e l ~ ~ ~ ~was
n e nIe'iildinp,
t
to an econonlic <lr.a<llork
; ~ t l r lst;lgn;ltic,n."'
These .are the words of'a lrlall s ~ ~ a t c l ~11y
e dthe a,rtrpressio~iof space and
time.
Even as he spoke, new tin~elspace-compl-ezsing technologics were
wreaking havoc on the possible rhythms of his ant1 other 1c;lders' control 111'
politics, as Radio Free Europe ~rradetheir words at once do~i~estic
nnrl international. Soviet leaders could no longer cl.eate room for thcmselscs hy saying one thing for don~esticconsumption and soinething else for the o~itside
world: they were now prisoners of simultaneity. The role of Western infor
mation technology in undermining socialism was evident in the spread of
Solidarity's strikes in 1980, news of uzhic11 was telephoned out to thc \Vest
and rebroadcast instantly into Poland via Radio Free Europe ;t~idtllc BBC,
mobilizing millions of Poles against their Pa~t!: l'lre revolutiol~s01' 1989
were mediated similarly.
I am suggesting, then, that the collapse of socialisln calue in part fro111the
massive rupture produced by its collision with capitalismn's speedup. If so, it
would be especially useful to know something mol-c about the life-experience of those people who worked at the interface of these two te~r~poral
systems and could not help realizing how different was capitalism's time
from their own. Bureaucrats under pressure to increase foreign tr;~deand
foreign revenues, or importers of computer eqeip~nent,would have disco\,ered that failure to adapt to alien notions of increased turnover time could
cost them hard currency. They would have directly expel-ienced time-annihilating Western technologies, which effected a banking transaction in milliseconds as opposed to the paper-laden hours and days needed by their own
financial system. Did the rise of "profitability" criteria in the command economy owe something to such people's dual placement? Did they come to

37

cxpcrience differently thcir scnse of themscl\,cs as agents? My point, in

short, is that the fall of socialis111lies not simply in the intersection of t\vo
systenrs' temporal cycles b r ~ rather
t
in the collision of two dimerentl? ctll~stitoted temporal orders, together wit11 the aotio~lsof person aud acti\.ity
proper to t h e ~ n .
If socialist ccutlunlies llarl 1101 opened tl~en~selves
tu capitill i~nportand to
debt servicing, perhaps tl~<,ircollisio~~
wit11 capititlist speedup would 1l;ive
Ileen less jarring+)r wonld at 1c;lst h;~veoccul-wd on inore eq~l;tltrrtns. 1311t
the capitalist dcfinitioi~af time prevailed, as socialist debtors 11owed to its
dictates (cve11 while postponing them), tIierc.11~ aggl-avating factional
conflicts withill the elite. Because its leaders accepted \Tester11 t e ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ n r z ~ l
h e p ~ n o n y socialis~~is
,
inessianic time g n ~ v e dapoc;~lyptic.The iron! ia tl~at
had debtor rcgi~nesrefused the definitions i~nposcdfrom \vithout-l~i~d tlic!,
united to deLnlt ~il~~nltanouusly
on their \'ester11 loil~ls(which i n 1981
stood at over $90 11illion")-they !night \,.ell have brought down tlle n-orld
financial syste111illtd realizccl Kl~rusl~ul~cv's
thrcateni~rgprophecy < ~ \ c l - ~ ~ i g l ~ t .
.l'lu~tthis did not I I ~ I ~ I ~ I ~>IIII\VS
BI
I I ~ \ v vital ;t thing \,.IS ~ ~ ~ ~ i ~ i~ lI iI s~ tI ,s O' ~ X ~ I ~
1111 tile de(i11itio11
~ I ' S O C ~ . re~ility.
I~

What Co~ilesNerl?

Thc outcor~lcol'tl~vc o t ~ l l ~ t c11etwee11

~ ~ ~ r r socinli\t and c;~pitalistsysttwlic crises is thr more con~l~licated
tl~an"capitalism triu~rlphaat,"11on.ever. Ken
Jowitt captures this \\zit11 all unexpected n ~ e t ; ~ p l ~that
o ~ ;of biological extinction and its ~~ttentlant
erasure of formel-ly existing boundaries ;Inlong hrms
oflih. In his brilliant essay "The Leninist Extinction." he pursues the il~rt;tplior's i ~ n p l i a ~ t i oas~follou~s:
~s
[One F;cln~rrI~ , I ' i ~ i n sextir~cli<rt~s
s
. . . is tl,:>t 1 1 1 1ypic;tlIy
~ ~
;tll'bcl mc>rcl l ~ a t u<IIIC
species. 111this rc,specl. tllr collapse uf Euro~)t,;ct~
Leninisln may he seen iliv1.e
;aa pvlitical v<,lc.lt>o
than ;as
;~sten)id.A vnlcitno's ~rul~tion
ittitially ;ifC.ctr ,I

rircumscri1,ed area (in this case limited to Leninist reginter),I~ut,depending on

its force, tht: efi,cts gradr~itllybut dlarnatically 1,ecornr glol)al. Tllr Leninist
volcano of 1988 mill have L; carnp;tl-al~l~
e&ct on liberal and "Tlrird \\nrlcl"
biota around the glol~c.'~
After describing the new regime "species" that have emerged with changed
forms of governluent in Poland, Hungi~y,Ro~nania,and elsewhere, as \yell
as other new forms of political l i f arising out of Yugoslavia and the Soviet
Union, he ponders the larger question of the end of the Cold War:
For half a century we have thougl~tin terms of East and West. and now tllere
is no East as nlch. The primary axis of intcmational politics has ''~lisa~peared.''
Tl~emonrlclearRussia haslit, but the Soviet UaioniEmpire most certainly has.

38 C H A P T E R O N E

Its "extinction" radically revises the framework within whicll the West, the
United States itself, the Third World, and the countries of Eastern Europe. tile
fonner Russian Empire. and many nations in Asia have bounded and defined
themselves.
Tlre Leninist Extinctiun will force the United States [not to inention 811 those
others] to reexamine the ntraning of its national identit!"
Wlrat the Leninist Extinction cunfi-unts us with, then, is a conccptttal vacuum. Jowitt concludes by invoking the biblical story of Genesis ("tire world
was witltout fornt, and void"), whose theme is bounding and nn~ttingIir\rr
entities, as the "narrative" nmst appl-upriate to t l ~ ei n ~ m e datie I'tttttre.
In my view, not only is Juu.itt absolutely right 11ut one ct~ttldgo even
h~rtl~er.
It is not just new political identities, including our own, that we will
have the task of l~oundingnt~dna~t~ing-a task which, if the ex;ttnple of
Bosnia is any indication, is ofa\veson~einagt~itudc.It is also tlte entire tollceptual arsenal through wltich Western institutions and social science disciplines lrave been defined in this century As one reads scholarsl~ipon the
postst~cialistprocesses of "privatiration," the creation of "propert), rights,"
the develop~nentof "democracy" r ~ r"civil society" or "consti1utions"-ill
short, the proposed l~uildingofti "liberal stat<'-pn)found confusion sets i r ~ .
One hegins to see that tltesc terms du not Inl~eluscftll voncrpts: tlrey a r c
elen~entsin a missive politicitl itnd ideological u~~lteaval
that is l ~ y
no ilteat~s
restricted to the "East."
If this is true, then e\,en,tlting
know is up for grabs, and "\\,hat cotnes
next" is anyone's guess.

TIIE "ETATIZKSION" OF TIME IN

CEAIISESCU'S ROMANIA

IIXT TIIE NATURE of titl~e(liRers i l l dil'ltrent xtcial olrlers 11;ts

stal~lc of antlrropt~loqical analysis at least since EvansPritclrnrd's work on the Nuer and Leach's classic paper on the sytilI~olicrepresentation of time.' Accordingly, anthropologists have cataloguer1
tlw \'aria~~t
organiz:ttions of till!(, i n ~ t l ~CLII~IIIPS;
er
tlley have also examined
\vh;~thappens wltett the 11e;ll-crsof nun-Western or noncapitdist te~nporalities confi-ont the ,sew orgaoiz;~tionsof litne brougltt to the~nby capit;dist
comnlodity l~roductio~~.i
Sucli tre;tttnents of time as a social construction do
not ;~lw;lysmake explicit, lto\vr\,e~;the political context witltitl whicl~tinre is
capwirtrce~la ~ t dt l ~ e
tltl-urlglt \vhich it is culturall? "~nade."Th;~tis,
to ser titne ;IS cr~ltt~l-ally
val-ialde. wilh different conceptior~sof it fr~ttctionally
fitted I t ) olie or a!totl~crsoci:tl e~~virottnle~it,
is ottly part of the s t o ~ yTh~.se
conceptions tl~e~nselves
XIP brged through cotlHicts that in\,ol\,e, UII one
II;III~, social actors who seek to create or impose np\v t c n ~ p o ~disciplinesal
cillrrr as r l c ~ r ~ c of
~ ~new
t s pl.t~doctivearrangements or ns the projccts of
rc\,oluti~~n:u?
llolitical regin1t.s-attd. on the othcr, the pel-so~tssuldccted to
these tra~tsC,rn~ativr
projccts. 11);I word, tlie social cot~strttctionof ti~nemust
Ilc see1121s a political pl-ocess.
ltr tl~iscllapter 1 explore te~npuralpolitics th~-nl~gh
an enarnple in n-l~iclt
regime policies created struggles over time, as people weir sul~jectedto and
resisted new tcn~polalorganizatiu~~s.
The example is Romania of the 1980s,
I~ri-11
a

'This cllnptcr was tirst prepamrl fbr r itlcelinl: of the Amerioln Etloo~ologirslSlrieh i h ~\Isrcll
IYKlJ--Illus1jeL11-e
the end of Pn~tyvule-and revired slightl! tl~errallrrI hod not mndncted
fieldwork explicitly on the sul,jecl or titne but i~~arrltded
ethnographic data % v ~ nvarious field
bips on utltrr topics (ptlrsued chirlly before tlw collapse of sociali,m, plus a brierviait in 1990)
lo m ~ k ctlre slgtnnent. 1 an, tnuch indebted lo ArhrafGhani for r~lensivcdiscur,ions Illst lcd
ole to 6nntle lhis clmpter .u I lrrve ancl fur suggesting many of its nntral ideas. 'Rants also tu
Rvel Car~~pr;slu.
Gail Klignla~r,and Henr)i Rulz hr m!nm~nlsoa an errlicr vc:rsiotl. Three
research grmta from the Internatiollal Research and Exchnnger Board (IREX) supported my
fieldwork in 191W85. 1987, and 1988, wl~ichproduced the data I report hcre.
The volume i s wlliclt this chapter was initially publisl~edhad made the relation khvcrn
"structure" and "intpution" itr organizing theme, hence the centrality of there notiotls here.
Reprinted horn The Politics of ljnle, ed. Hen? Rutz. American Ethnological Society Monograplr S e k s no. 4 (Washington,D.C.: American Antl~ml~logical
A5rociation. 1992).by pelmission of the American Aslhmpologival Associalinn Not lor ludrer rrpmdnrtion.