№ 3 - 2000
Derluguian G.
The Process and Prospects of Soviet Collapse: Bancruptcy, Segmentation, Involution

In this second part of the article (for the furst part see «Polis», 2000, No.2, p. 19-29), its author analyzes the process and the prospects of Soviet collapse. Critically commenting on the generally accepted view of the aftermath of Soviet collapse as the period of transition from state socialism to capitalist market economy and liberal democracy, he, instead, argues that the main vector of the post-Communist drift appears rather an involution. The post-Soviet States exhibit the familiar irrationalities and pathologies of state socialism, only in an exacerbated form. In the author’s opinion, a different regime can be introduced only by extraordinary political upheaval amounting to another revolution. At the same time he stresses that reverting the Russian involution depends not only on the radical change from within, but also on the invitation to join the capital flows and commodity chains from without. The trajectory of Russia will be critically conditioned by the emergent configuration of geopolitics and geoculture. In its turn, Russia remains a pivotal area whose trajectory will indicate whether the world-system is evolving along the lines of exclusion and violent challenges or it shifts in the direction of global reformism.