Synopses & Reviews
How could the West have better prepared for the fall of communism and gained a clearer picture of Russia's new political landscape? By cultivating an awareness, Nicolai Petro argues, of the deep democratic aspirations of the Russian people since Muscovite times. Petro traces the long history of those aspirations, recovering for us an understanding crucial to our formation of successful foreign policy toward Russia.
Expanding the traditional definition of political culture from single thread to continuous historical tapestry, Petro illuminates a reality previously lost to even the most rigorous Sovietology: the fragility of communism. He portrays an abiding "alternative political culture" that tells us Russia indeed possesses a democratic tradition on which its contemporary democracy rests.
Petro's analysis includes many surprising and incisive observations. In a look at the Russian Orthodox Church, he traces its long history of support for opposition sentiment during both tsarist and Soviet times and its support for democracy today. He also explores the character and power of contemporary Russian nationalism and traces its origins to the neo-Slavophile national identity that took its shape as a challenge to Bolshevik oppression. Delineating Russia's postcommunist political parties, the author reveals their roots in prerevolutionary times and explains how this continuity makes Russian political aspirations far more predictable than is commonly assumed.
Awakening us to Russia's historical involvement in the democratic quest that lies at the heart of Western values, Petro opens a path for a more meaningful, more productive understanding of modern Russia.
Review
A well-organized, well-documented argument for the presence of an `alternative political culture' throughout Russian history...Essential in any evaluation of contemporary Russia and the development of its political system. -- Archie Brown - Comparative Politics
Review
An intelligent and well-written book which will be widely read and discussed. -- E.C. Dreyer - Choice
Review
[This is a] useful contribution to the history of Russian political thought...Petro also provides a concise history of organized dissent in Russia and of the emergence of the rudiments of a civil society in the second half of the 1980s. -- Jeffrey Hahn - Russian Review
Review
[This book is] extremely precise and excellently documented both from the point of view of western...as well as Russian language sources, even brilliant in its capacity (at times perhaps a bit daring) to place into sequence and proper focus both personalities and movements. -- Choice
Review
This book provides a critique of the mainstream application of political culture to the Soviet Union, and makes the case for the persistence of democratic values in Russian society which provides an optimistic prognosis for the future of democracy in that country...It is a thought-provoking study, and a valuable contribution to the literature. -- Anton Maria Raffo - Europa Orientalis
Synopsis
How could the West have better prepared for the fall of communism and gained a clearer picture of Russia's new political landscape? By cultivating an awareness, Nicolai Petro argues, of the deep democratic aspirations of the Russian people since Muscovite times. Petro traces the long history of those aspirations, awakening us to Russia's historical involvement in the democratic quest that lies at the heart of Western values.
About the Author
Nicolai N. Petro is Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, and the author of The Predicament of Human Rights: The Carter and Reagan Policies.
Table of Contents
Preface
Note on Transliteration
Political Culture and the Failure of Sovietology
Constrained Autocracy in Russian History
Orthodoxy's Symphonic Ideal: The Russian Church in Search of Tradition
The "Russian Idea": Forging an Alternative National Identity
Russia's Alternative Political Organizations: The Re-emergence of Civil Society
Back to the Future of Russian Politics
Notes
Index