Forms of Social Solidarity in Russia and the Soviet Union

Traditional interpretations of Russian society rest on a contrast between Russian authoritarianism and the liberties of Western societies. According to these interpretations, Russia right up to the twentieth century was a ‘patrimonial monarchy’ in which there was no distinction between sovereignty and ownership, so that the tsar's subjects were literally his slaves. There is no denying the highly authoritarian nature of the Russian state, and, in its twentieth-century hypostasis, its unique capacity to penetrate and affect the lives of ordinary people. But the image of slavery is overdone and partly misleading. At the base of the Russian power structure throughout the tsarist centuries was the village commune. The basic concept underlying the functioning of the village commune was krugovaya poruka, literally ‘circular surety’, but perhaps better translated as ‘joint responsibility’. This chapter discusses forms of social solidarity in Russia and the Soviet Union, focusing on the enterprise and the communal apartment as twin arenas of the daily lives of the majority of the country's townspeople.

Trust and Distrust in Old and New Democracies

Research on the transition of countries in post-Communist Europe towards democracy mostly indicates that there is more political and institutional trust in Western democratic countries than in the post-Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Questions about citizens' trust and distrust in the newly formed institutions and about the trustworthiness of these institutions seem to be just as compelling today as they were in the early 1990s. In the context of the rapid socio-political and economic changes that influence citizens' daily lives, political trust and distrust appear to fluctuate alongside the rise and fall of optimism and pessimism. Among the unquestioned consequences of totalitarianism, the profound demoralization of citizens, learned helplessness, undemocratic thinking, and distrust of institutions have been generally diagnosed as being the most significant. Research on trust and democratic transition in post-Communist Europe has involved, over a number of years, into the exploration of both public opinions and social representations. This chapter examines trust and distrust in old and new democracies as well as the link between political revolutions and human psychology.

Trust in Building Multicultural Democratic Societies: Estonia, Moldova, and Kazakhstan

After the implosion of the Soviet Union, democratization processes in all the post-Soviet republics took their specific paths. This chapter highlights the particular characteristics of these processes, focusing on three examples: Estonia, Moldova, and Kazakhstan. It demonstrates that the concept of trust has different meanings in the democratization processes in each of these republics, whether it refers to trust in political institutions, in inter-ethnic relations, or in interpersonal relations. All these meanings and kinds of trust have contributed to the stabilization of political systems in the post-Soviet republics and to coping successfully with the hard path of democratic transition. This chapter explores how to establish democratic systems and institutional trust in the post-Soviet republics and peacefully manage the demographic and cultural heterogeneity in building a democratic nation. Consequently, this involves the respect of minority rights that conform to the standards of the Helsinki agreements.

The Genealogy of Krugovaya Poruka: Forced Trust as a Feature of Russian Political Culture

Russia is characterized by a high degree of interpersonal trust, reflected in the fundamental divide between us/insiders (svoi) and them/outsiders (chuzhie), with a consequent gap in ethical standards. If the lack of an impersonal system of trust in post-Communist Russia is often explained by the imperfection of newly built institutions that are not trusted for a good reason, the prevalence of strong interpersonal ties is normally linked to Russia's political culture. This chapter argues that imposed forms of cooperation, whether within a peasant community, work collective, or personal network, have produced a form of interpersonal trust associated with a rather compelling form of solidarity–krugovaya poruka–which is most commonly associated with the peasant communes of pre-revolutionary Russia. This chapter examines the origins of krugovaya poruka, taxation and krugovaya poruka, legislation on krugovaya poruka, the abolition of krugovaya poruka, Soviet bureaucracy and krugovaya poruka, and krugovaya poruka in the post-Soviet context.

Trust as a Psychosocial Feeling: Socialization and Totalitarianism

Georg Simmel, who is well known for his study of the emerging social conditions of sociality and its forms, developed the analysis of psychosocial feelings and emotional categories in order to grasp the phenomenology of socialization. His ideas on trust, more than those of any other scholar, are pertinent to the study and understanding of trust/fear in totalitarian and post-Communist societies. More specifically, Simmel's concept of trust is based on the self/other dialogical interdependence and psychosocial feelings; multifaceted meanings of trust/distrust in their cultural, historical, and political historical conditions; secrets as reciprocal relations and secret societies; and inductive knowledge gained through different forms of socialization. Totalitarian and semi-totalitarian political regimes thrive on distrust and promote a socialization that displays itself in psychosocial feelings of fear and suspicion. This chapter discusses social relations rather than economic relations, trust and language, socialization of distrust, socialization and totalitarianism, and secrecy in the Soviet bloc.

The Aftermath of Communism and the Vicissitudes of Public Trust

The disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the collapse of the Soviet model of legitimate political authority throughout Europe, Africa, and mainland Central America, formed the largest single shift in power, ideology, and political organization since the aftermath of World War II. The societies that have now escaped from communism (and who once found themselves imprisoned within it) have a normatively prescribed destination: a political and economic telos, synthesizing representative democracy with the market, which offers an optimal combination of security, prosperity, legitimacy, and collective public decency. In such a transition, a natural history of the forms and distributions of trust and distrust would surely disclose a powerful and insistent deepening, extension, and consolidation of the former, a progressive subsidence of the latter, and an exhilarating net accumulation of social capital. The drama of attempting to foment distrust and labouring to evoke trust (or credulity) goes on all the time and throughout the politics of this state form.

Diffuse Trust or Diffuse Analysis? The Specificity of Political Distrust in Post-Communist Europe

Political theorists claim that political trust is located on the continuum that runs from blind faith to enforceable contract. Trust ‘as passion’ borders on blind faith, while trust ‘as calculation’ comes close to enforceable contract. More often located between these extremes, political trust is usually a mix of faith and calculation, varying from largely irrational responses to the charisma of political leaders to largely calculated ‘bets on the actions of others’. This chapter discusses political distrust in post-Communist Europe and looks at four broad categories of potential influences (all negative) on political trust: distrustful citizens, untrustworthy institutions, discordance between citizens and government, and hard times. It also examines incompetence, scandal, dishonesty, and corruption; responsiveness and fairness; the untrustworthiness of elected and unelected officials; and the unfairness that citizens perceive or actually experience.

Trust, Confidence, and Social Capital in Poland: A Historical Perspective

Sociologists and other social scientists have attempted to explain differences in economic success and in democratic performance by invoking trust and the related concept of social capital. This chapter examines how historical experience has shaped patterns of trust in Poland in order to see in what ways these patterns affect the process of post-Communist transformation in Poland today. It argues that it is the pre-Communist, indeed even the pre-industrial, past that influences the present situation in Poland, just as much as does the more recent communist experience. In particular, the chapter highlights the extent to which the change from communism to post-communism differs from other types of modernization processes. It also presents a historical interpretation of specific forms of trust and their dependence on social organization, as well as face-to-face relations and the relations between individuals and large-scale abstract systems, and, more specifically, the state. Finally, the chapter discusses the level of trust among family members, friends, and close acquaintances.

The Problem of Trust in Russian Public Opinion

Trust is closely related to other social concepts such as hope, expectations, loyalty, charismatic authority, rational considerations, and the mass imagination. Recently, ‘trust’ and a related concept, ‘social capital’, have become the subject of special interest in Russia and other post-Communist countries. Under the Soviet regime it was forbidden to conduct proper nationwide surveys of public opinion. But even if opinion surveys had been allowed, the researcher would have found it impossible to obtain any measures of public trust or distrust with respect to state institutions or leaders. In the mass mind, such terms as ‘public opinion’ did not exist. This chapter examines the problem of trust in public opinion in Russia. It compares the indices of trust in Russian social institutions (president, political parties, army, courts, church, media, etc.) with those in the United States. The chapter also summarizes the results of a survey that explored Russians' degree of trust in various countries of the world.

Introduction: Trust/Risk and Trust/Fear

It is not so long ago that Niklas Luhmann (1988) wrote that the study of trust has never been a topic in mainstream sociology, and others have echoed this claim with reference to other social sciences. Curiously, deep insights of Georg Simmel (1858–1918) on trust have been largely ignored or have been remembered only in minor references. Since the 1980s and 1990s, the subject of trust has become, quite suddenly, a theme of the day. Social and political scientists have embarked on this topic, posing theoretical and empirical questions. This book is concerned with trust/distrust in post-Communist Europe after the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989. It raises questions about trust and democracy, and how history, culture, and social psychology shape the nature and development of political phenomena. In this introduction, trust and different forms of rationality are discussed, along with trust/risk and trust/fear, mutual distrust and public security, socialization into fear, arbitrariness of decisions in a totalitarian regime, trust and legitimacy, and abuse of common sense.