ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the uncertain process of transition under way in the USSR. The goal is to bring a comparative perspective to bear in order both to provide new insight into the dynamics of the disintegration of the communist order and to consider the prospects for successful Soviet democratization. Comparing the Soviet case and other instances of post-communist transformation with transitions from non-communist authoritarian regimes raises the problem of conceptual stretching on several different levels. The fact that there were similar political dynamics at work in post-Franco Spain and in the post-Brezhnev USSR does not mean that Spain’s present is the Soviet Union’s future. Compared with a return to harsh Stalinist rule, which for most Soviet citizens must have been seen as the only possible alternative, Brezhnev’s comparatively mild dictatorship might even have gained some relative legitimacy.
