ABSTRACT
While 1989 swallowed up the USSR and Communism, it also swept away an entire way of representing social change. The old style of representation was substituted by a new one based on the idea of immediacy. Two novel hypotheses were formulated at the time. The first holds the view that transition to capitalism and democracy necessarily go hand in hand, since capitalism is impossible without democracy and democracy is impossible without capitalism. This is the era of ‘capitalist democracy’. The second hypothesis sees such a transition occurring rapidly and immediately: as soon as political elites express the desire to implement the change or they are able to receive decisive external support.
