№ 4 - 2003
Melville A.Yu.
So What’s Happened to the “Russian Choice”? 161

Joining in the discussion about Russia’s political choice, that has unfolded in the Polis’ pages, the author states that fundamental questions: what is the real freedom of such “choice” like? where are the limits of this choice (including chronological limits) to be detected? has the choice gone through? and if not, what’s happened to it? — haven’t been ever answered. According to his estimate, we don’t yet know with all definiteness (as regards Russia, either), what agency is the optimum one for realizing radical socio-political choice (democratic transit), to what degree environment and circumstances predetermine its parameters, to what extent, if one resorts to sociological discourse, the freedom of choice is determined by “structure”, and to what extent — by the “agency” per se. The author, anyway, is convinced of the necessity to take cum grano salis the very idea of democratic transit, or, to be more exact, the “transitological paradigm”, according to which all countries that have “chosen” the democratic road, will sooner or later achieve triumph of democracy. Pointing to the impossibility of just “choosing” an ideal model and of implanting it into an alien social body, he notes, furthermore, that transitions met with are most various, and not all of them are of a democratic character.