ABSTRACT
The end of the highly centralized, east European socialist state is an accomplished fact. However, though wheat sheaves, oil derricks, hammers, sickles, and stars, have been ripped from the flags of the east European states, the future of the region is by no means certain. Contemporary community life in east Europe has several common features that create the context for the acting out of local life. The delegitimation of the state and its withdrawal from community life particularly affects the tenor of community relations and the development of the local economy. Socialism is also an active principle in the struggle for power in the transitional community. The notion of uncertainty implies movement from one social stage to another and thus generally supports the concept of transition as a way of making sense of current changes in east European life. The decline of the state has also delegitimated policies favoring the equalization of resources and supporting disenfranchised social groups.
