ABSTRACT
The formation of the Soviet-type system can be interpreted as the proof of two things. Firstly, it was a practical vindication of the exceedingly ambitious projects which the double strangers (the legislators of modernity) occasionally created for themselves and for history. Secondly, the system could be read as an illustration of the ability of the double strangers to achieve their most desired ends, if the social and historical conditions were right. But the imposition of blueprints of qualitatively better and morally improved social relationships rarely involved a simple, or a single, leap from pre-modern reification. Rather the opposite. Whilst the narratives of modernity might have recognized no immutable no-go areas, it was frequently the case that the ideals had to exist and operate in a social context which did indeed constitute so many obstacles to what might be done.
