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Human Nature, Social Engineering, and The Reemergence of Civil Society*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

Zbigniew Rau
Affiliation:
Government, University of Texas at Austin

Extract

There is not much disagreement that the recent spectacular establishment of parliamentary democracies and market economies in Eastern Europe and the even more breathtaking events in most Soviet republics – which should culminate in the reemergence of the Baltic nations as independent states – may be convincingly conceived of as the triumph of civil society over the Marxist-Leninist system. Both the collapse of the Marxist-Leninist system and the reemergence of civil society may be discussed in terms of theories which deal with the relationship between human nature and sociopolitical systems.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1990

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References

1 By civil society in this context, I mean various groups and movements which were established outside the structure and independent of the Soviet-type system. I will elaborate on this point in the last section of this essay. For different conceptual and ideological approaches to the phenomenon of the reemergence of civil society in Eastern Europe, see Szelenyi, Ivan, “Socialist Opposition: Dilemmas and Prospects,” ed. Tokes, Rudolf L., Opposition in Eastern Europe (London: Macmillan, 1979), pp. 187208CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Arato, Andrew,” Civil Society Against the State: Poland 1980–81,” Telos, vol. 50 (1981), pp. 2347CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rau, Zbigniew, “Some Thoughts on Civil Society in Eastern Europe and the Lockean Contractarian Approach,” Political Studies, XXXV (1987), pp. 573–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pelczynski, Zbigniew A., “Solidarity and ‘The Rebirth of Civil Society’ in Poland 1976–81,” ed. John, Keane, Civil Society and the State (London: Verso, 1988), pp. 361–80.Google Scholar For attempts at an analysis of civil society in the USSR, see Lapidus, Gail W., “State and Society: Toward Emergence of Civil Society in Russia,” ed. Seweryn, Bialer, Politics, Society, and Nationality inside Gorbachev's Russia (Westview Press: Boulder & London, 1989), pp. 121–47Google Scholar, and Gray, John, “Totalitarianism, Reform, and Civil Society,” ed. Ellen, Frankel Paul, Totalitarianism at the Crossroads (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1990).Google Scholar See also Sakwa, Richard, The State and Civil Society in the USSR (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar For a discussion of civil society as the force overcoming the Marxist-Leninist system, see Zbigniew Rau, “Four Stages of One Path Out of Socialism,” in Totalitarianism at the Crossroads.

2 Compare the argument structure of Stevenson, Leslie, Seven Theories of Human Nature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974).Google Scholar

3 I owe the following discussion to Duncan, Graeme “Political Theory and Human Nature,” ed. Ian, Forbes and Steve, Smith, Politics and Human Nature (London: Frances Printer, 1983), pp. 519.Google Scholar

4 Genesis 1:26.

5 Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, ed. Macpherson, C.B. (London: Penguin Books, 1968)Google Scholar, ch. XIII.

6 Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. XVIII.

7 Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, ed. Bottomore, T.B. (London: Penguin Books, 1963), p. 83.Google Scholar I refer to Marx as the representative of these theories, since I will go on analyzing Marxism-Leninism as the theory of potential human nature which was implemented in political practice. Of course, Marx was not the only representative of such theories; Rousseau before him and Marcuse after also fit into this rubric.

8 Karl Marx: Selected Writings, p. 177.

9 ibid., p. 249.

10 For a very similar argument structure, see Duncan, “Political Theory and Human Nature,” p. 15.Google Scholar I extend his argument, substituting my own terminology (‘normative’, ‘analytical’, ‘empirical’) for his (‘moral’, ‘logical’, ‘sociological’).

11 See Heller, Mikhail, Cogs in the Wheel: The Formation of Soviet Man (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1988), p. 7.Google Scholar Heller's book offers the best possible introduction to this subject.

12 See Schapiro, Leonard, “Lenin's Intellectual Formation and the Russian Revolutionary Background,” in Russian Studies, ed. Ellen, Dahrendorf (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986), pp. 188252.Google Scholar

13 Quoted in Schapiro, , “Lenin's Intellectual Formation,” p. 196.Google ScholarRéglementation, a French term, means “strict regulation by system.”

14 Quoted in Schapiro, , “Lenin's Intellectual Formation,” p. 241.Google Scholar

15 Bukharin, N. and Preobrazhensky, E., The ABCs of Communism (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969), p. 113.Google Scholar

16 Krupskaia, Nadezhda, Pedagogicheskie sochineniia v desati tomach. (Moscow, 1959), vol. VII, p. 12.Google Scholar

17 Lenin, V.I., State and Revolution (New York: International Publishers, 1932), p. 74.Google Scholar

18 Lenin, V.I., Selected Works (London: Lawrence & Wishart Ltd., 1946), vol. 9, p. 148.Google Scholar

19 In a now classic experiment, Pavlov trained a hungry dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, which had previously been associated with the sight of food. He developed a similar conceptual approach, emphasizing the importance of conditioning, in his pioneering studies relating human behavior to the nervous system. See Encyclopedia Britannica 1990, vol. 9, p. 215.

20 I owe the discussion of this issue to Jovorsky, David, “The Construction of the Stalinist Psyche,” ed. Sheila, Fitzpatrick, Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), pp. 105–28Google Scholar, esp. 120–27.

21 Jovorsky, , “The Construction of the Stalinist Psyche,” pp. 124–25.Google Scholar Compare Brozek, Jozeph and Slobin, Dan, Psychology in the USSR: An Historical Perspective (New York: White Plains, 1972).Google Scholar

22 This phrase originally stems from Bukharin's reply to Pavlov's criticism of Marxism in Krasnaia Nov (1924), nos. 1 and 2, quoted by Jovorsky, , “The Construction of the Stalinist Psyche,” p. 125.Google Scholar

23 Quoted by Sapir, I.D., Vysshaia nervnaia deiatel ‘nost’ cheloveka (Moscow, 1925), p. 156.Google Scholar I owe this quotation to Jovorsky, , “The Construction of the Stalinist Psyche,” p. 125.Google Scholar

24 The files of the Party headquarters in Smolensk concerning the socioeconomic and political life of the Smolensk guberiya and Smolensk oblast from 1917 to 1938. During the Nazi occupation, German intelligence discovered the collection and brought it to Germany for examination. At the end of the war, it fell into American hands. For discussion of the collection's contents see Faison, Merle, Smolensk under Soviet Rule (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958).Google Scholar

25 Zinoviev, Alexander, Homo Sovieticus (Boston, New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1985), p. 197.Google Scholar

26 Zinoviev, Alexander, The Reality of Communism (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1984), p. 125.Google Scholar

27 Zinoviev, , Homo Sovieticus, p. 11.Google Scholar

28 Zinoviev, , The Reality of Communism, p. 129.Google Scholar

29 ibid., p. 47.

30 Milosz, Czeslaw, Native Realm (London, Manchester: Sidgewick and Jackson/Carcanet New Press, 1981), p. 281.Google Scholar

31 Milosz, Czeslaw, The Captive Mind (New York: Vintage Books, 1953), p. 6.Google Scholar

32 Milosz, Czeslaw, The Captive Mind (New York: Vintage Books, 1953), p. 6, 12.Google Scholar

33 ibid., p. 11.

34 ibid., p. 11.

35 ibid., p. 3–23.

36 ibid., p. 54.

37 ibid., p. 54–57.

38 ibid., p. 53.

39 Milosz, Czeslaw, The Captive Mind (New York: Vintage Books, 1953), p. 52.Google Scholar

40 ibid., p. 73.

41 Commenting on this issue, Andrzej Walicki writes: “The Captive Mind… is a book about surrendering to ‘mental captivity’, not about defending oneself against it,” Andrzej Walicki, “The ‘Captive Mind’ Revisited: Intellectuals and the Communist Totalitarianism in Poland,” in Totalitarianism at the Crossroads, p. 67.

42 Much of the material in the following discussion is taken from my paper, “The State of Enslavement: The East European Substitute for the State of Nature” forthcoming, in Political Studies.

43 Havel, Vaclav, “The Power of the Powerless,” ed. John, Keane, The Power of the Powerless: Citizens against the State in Central Europe (New York: M.E. Share Inc., 1985), p. 31.Google Scholar

44 I owe this discussion to Wlodzimierz Brus’ illuminating outline of the Soviet and East European economies in the 1960s and 1970s; see his “‘Normalization’ Processes in Soviet-dominated Central Europe,” ed. Zdenek, Mlynar, Relative Stabilization of the Soviet Systems in the 1970s, Study No. 2 (Koln, 1983).Google Scholar

45 For a discussion of bravery and fear understood as psychological categories and courage and cowardice treated as moral categories, and their application in the analysis of the position of the individual in the Marxist-Leninist system, see Kusy, Miroslav, “On Civic Courage,” International Journal of Politics, vol. ix, 1 (Spring 1981), pp. 3951.Google Scholar

46 Havel, , The Power of the Powerless, p. 31.Google Scholar

47 ibid., p. 36.

48 ibid., p. 25.

49 Simecka, Milan, The Restoration of Order (London: Verso, 1984), p. 144.Google Scholar

50 Havel, , The Power of the Powerless, p. 38.Google Scholar

51 Cerny, Vaclav, “On the Question of Chartism,” in The Power of the Powerless: Citizens against the State in Central Europe, p. 131.Google Scholar

52 Havel, , The Power of the Powerless, p. 45.Google Scholar

53 Havel, , The Power of the Powerless, p. 100.Google Scholar

54 Simecka, Milan, “Community of Fear,” International Journal of Politics, vol. ix, 1 (Spring 1981), p. 34.Google Scholar

55 Havel, , The Power of the Powerless, pp. 4445.Google Scholar

56 See Benda, Jan, “Parallel Polis,” ed. Skilling, H. Gordon, Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia (London: Allen & Unwin, 1981).Google Scholar

57 Tesar, Jan, “Totalitarian Dictatorships as a Phenomenon of the Twentieth Century and the Possibilities of Overcoming Them,” International Journal of Politics, vol. ix, 1 (Spring 1981), p. 99.Google Scholar

58 Trojan, S.J., “In Defense of Politics,” International Journal of Politics, vol. ix, 1 (Spring 1981), p. 73.Google Scholar

59 “Ile jest zdobyczy,” Polityka (February 10, 1990).