ABSTRACT

A common error in the Soviet instance is to assume that ideology represents a set, unchanging cultural force. The key to understanding the role of Russian political culture under Stalinism and after is to recognize that the operative meaning of ideology has in many respects been changed radically by pragmatic responses to events and by high-level reinterpretation. However compelling all the apparent associations of ancient and political culture in Russia, there remains the question of explaining how the folkways could persist through the revolutionary cataclysm of the twentieth century. The revolution releases forces for change that have been generated beforehand by the nation's social evolution and it can rapidly shift what are recognized to be the prevailing political and cultural norms. The intensity and persistence of Soviet totalitarianism invites a cultural explanation, as the congruence of the revolutionary occasion and the underlying bent of political folkways.