Silviu Brucan - Böcker

Unless the socialist societies of the East adapt their system to the scientific-technological revolution, as the West has done, they will remain caught in the twentieth century. This is the theme of Silviu Brucan's book on the crisis of world socialism. He contends that these countries are at the crossroads and must make some changes in their political ideology or they will perish. This insightful book written by a veteran communist living in the East, will interest anyone concerned with Soviet studies, Slavic studies, political economy, Marxism, Communism, political sociology, and East-West relations.

This pioneering study focuses on an area of Soviet and socialist studies until now largely neglected in the literature: social change. The author contends that while most standard analyses of communist regimes purport to be about social change, they are in fact analyzing economic and political developments rather than transformation in the class structure of society. Because economic and political factors are the least stable, Brucan argues, they are therefore the least explanatory and predictive factors if we are to understand long term trends in the evolution of socialism. Brucan instead explores the social forces at work in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe--classes, professional groups, and so on--tracing the evolution of class and class policy from the time of the 1917 revolution through the present leadership of Gorbachev. Students of international affairs and sociology will find in Brucan's work important new insights into the likely future direction of the world's major communist societies.Beginning with a detailed historical analysis of class and class policy in the East, Brucan examines issues such as forced collectivization, the new working class, wage policy, the state take-over, and Khruschev's openings. Turning to a discussion of the relationship between social structure and the scientific-technological revolution, the author shows that communist regimes in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China have demonstrated a deliberate and systematic pattern of overvaluation of manual work and undervaluation of scientific and technical work--explaining their lack of preparation for rapid scientific and technical change. Brucan relates the historical analysis of social change to questions about whether reforms in the East can be achieved, arguing that no analysis of the East's economic and political history can be fully understood without considering social structure. In the final section, the author addresses the current period of perestroika, suggesting that Gorbachev's real challenge will be to dislodge the current social structure that was consolidated in the late 1970s. He concludes that a new class alignment in socialism has led to a crisis of the communist party itself.

Brucan, a former Romanian ambassador to the United States and the United Nations, provides the first social history of the remarkable transition from communism to capitalism in Russia and Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He begins with an examination of the old social structure in communist societies, which used to be cosmetically advertised by the party and officialdom, paying particular attention to the nomenklatura, who have miraculously transformed themselves into big businessmen and bankers. A chapter is devoted to the decline of the working class, whom Brucan shows to be the big loser in the revolution.He then examines the new social stratification, illustrating how the new classes are taking shape under the conditions created by market reform. The symbiosis between capital and power is analyzed in depth, and Ambassador Brucan concludes his study with a look at the direction the social transformations are pushing these societies, particularly the separate paths being followed by Russia and Eastern Europe. This is an important study for researchers, scholars, and policy makers involved with Russia and Eastern Europe.

My generation in Eastern Europe was caught in the middle of two revolutions (1944 and 1989), which instead of moving history ahead pushed it backward. We thus at first made a U-turn-a tortuous one, to be sure-from underdeveloped capitalism to underdeveloped socialism, but because socialism and underdevelopment are strange bedfellows,we have since discovered we were on the wrong path and are trying now to return to where we started. The drama of that generation is what this book is about.