Abstract
I summarize what the constitution and related discussion tell us about politics and society. Discussion of the constitution failed in its major goal—to consolidate society around socialist values. In citizens’ comments, we find diverse values—liberal, democratic, and conciliatory discourse coexisting with revolutionary, confrontational, and intolerant views of the world, with elements of a traditionalist outlook. Despite strong authoritarian and traditional dispositions in popular opinion, elements of civic culture speak in favor of much greater flexibility of political culture, which may evolve under the pressure of modernizing circumstances—social mobility, mass education, mass communication, and urbanization.
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Notes
- 1.
Prishvin, a writer, thought the discussion was a kind of a test for Sovietness after which freedom would be allowed. “[The government] … expects real hosannas [praise] … from the people, and then, after they [the government] are confident of the genuineness of the hosannas, [they will] say: … speak, write whatever you want freely” (Prishvin 2010, pp. 298, 382).
- 2.
“First, the civic culture emerged in the West as a result of a gradual political development—relatively crisis-free, untroubled, and unforced. Second, it developed by fusion: new patterns of attitudes did not replace old ones, but merged with them” (Almond and Verba 1965, pp. 368–70).
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Velikanova, O. (2018). Conclusion. In: Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78443-4_14
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