The Eye of the Whirlwind
Russian Identity and Soviet Nation-Building. Quests for Meaning in a Soviet Metropolis

Finn Sivert Nielsen

Oslo, Tromsř, Copenhagen, St. Petersburg
Aletheia (Russian edition)

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Index: Citations

Anderson, Perry
Perry Anderson argues that European evolution originated in the Early Middle Ages. Europe was a hybrid society, a melting pot where two contradictory institutional orders met and worked out an equilibrium. These orders were the West Roman city-state, based on slave labor and absentee landownership, and kinship-based Germanic tribes, governed by petty chiefs dominating the countryside ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
It has been pointed out that nomads may go through explosive bursts of evolution, only to reach a "ceiling" they cannot pass. The reason lies in the nature of nomadic production. Flocks of animals must be kept in constant movement to avoid over-grazing. This impedes the development of cities, crafts, literacy and bureaucracy. It sets absolute limits to population growth, ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Bateson, Gregory
Bateson has defined this quality as Flexibility, and exemplified it with the body's reaction to hunger. Food consumption fluctuates between lethal limits of starvation and overeating. But if these limits were the only rules to turn eating "on" and "off", the body would constantly be poised on the verge of destruction, ... Flexibility, in Bateson's definition, is "uncommitted potentiality for change" ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Bateson illustrates this in an analysis of the therapy of Alcoholics Anonymous. The "bottle" is a symbol congealed out of an area of Texture that the alcoholic does not perceive as part of his Self, though in fact it is. He has "projected" part of himself into it and thereby turned it into an ungovernable external force, an enemy he fights. But in fact he is fighting himself ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
This complementarity corresponds to the more general view voiced by Bateson that it is impossible to describe "national character" as a list of isolated "traits". One must at least make use of "bi-polar adjectives", denoting paired character traits interrelated by complementarity: e.g. "dominance-submission" ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Birman, Igor
Boym, Svetlana
Djilas, Milovan
As Milovan Djilas pointed out in 1957, this "New Class" was in a sense an "instrument" created by the Stalinist regime to further its own ends ... As the New Class grew and the state still insisted on treating it as an "instrument", more and more of its growth slipped silently out of the state-controlled public sphere and into the burgeoning Limbo of the Second Economy and Culture ...  [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
The party thus built its own class basis. In Djilas's terms, it transformed itself into a "New Class": "In earlier epochs the coming to power of some class..., was the final event resulting from its formation and its development. The reverse was true in the U.S.S.R. There the new class was definitely formed after it attained power" ...  [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
"There were no set rules for which members of the Politburo or others in high positions were to be present at [Stalin's] dinners. The participants were usually people who worked on projects that at the time were in the foreground, or concerned some specific guest. The circle was clearly very limited" ...  [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Dumont, Louis
Fardon, Richard
Gerschenkron, Alexander
Kerblay, Basile
Khrushchev, Nikita
Nowak, Stefan
Ries, Nancy
Shlapentokh, Vladimir
Shukshin, Vasilii
Once I watched the film The Red Snowball Tree (Kalina krasnaya) with the two of them. This masterpiece by Shukshin portrays the life of a criminal after finishing his sentence ... The film is old, but had (in 1983) never before been shown on TV. Vitya's mother was shocked: "Just look at their faces. You can see they're criminals!" Vitya fired back that lots of them had done no more wrong than she ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
... Vasilii Shukshin's film Kalina Krasnaya ...Briefly, this is a story of a man who is excluded from the collective and sent off to prison camp for a serious offense. As the film opens, he has completed his sentence and is released from camp. He tries to locate a woman he has exchanged letters with, and ... moves in with her in a small village. As a former criminal, the village does not accept him, but ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Stalin, Joseph (Iosif)
Stalin's state therefore had no unitary basis of legitimacy. Policy was a charismatic "balancing act" between bureaucratic and various traditional legitimacies, one taking over when the others failed. Thus, Fairbanks shows that each member of Stalin's inner circle built his power on a personal Island, an extensive network of clientage based on mutual support and loyalty. These networks ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
"People had unlimited faith in Stalin. Obviously, there were some bad deviations, but they were mostly committed by his subordinates. Stalin's person was blameless. He was the perfect master (khozyain) in every way ... Stalin let the people breathe. Now, they're suffocating. They live for the present, not for the future, as they used to" ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Stalin as an ideological prototype: When my friend stated that "there must be a leader", he was not alluding to some abstract principle of governance, but to a person with sufficient harshness, fairness and strength to put his personal will into practice. Like many of my informants, this man chose Stalin as the prototype of such a person. To understand his reference to Stalin, however, ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris
Stalker is based on a book by the Strugatsky brothers: for unknown reasons an alien civilization makes its appearance in a small town in a country reminiscent of Russia. The area becomes uninhabitable, full of dangerous "traps". It is cordoned off and entering it is made a capital offense. The Stalker makes a living by leading people into the zona (zone), or - in the novel - by ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
A Snail on the Mountain - a novel by the brothers Strugatsky - is a ... parable of a world split in two, and of the Quest of two people for a road to unity. The story is told in two parts, in alternating chapters. One part takes place in the Forest, an enchanted swamp, seething, decaying, fermenting. People live in little villages and are totally dominated by the woods. Everything around is alive ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Tarkovsky, Andrey
[Smolenskoe graveyard] is truly symbolic, strongly evocative of the zona in Tarkovsky's film Stalker ... I have mentioned Tarkovsky and will do so again, because to my mind no one else has succeeded so eminently in portraying the simultaneous decay of culture and frontal attack on nature which is so typical of Soviet society as I have learned to know it ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Tarkovsky's films are superb illustrations of the resulting uneasiness and fear: the research station suspended over an inexplicable, distant planet, which turns out to be a single organism, benevolently but blindly driving the scientists insane one by one by confronting them with living replicas of their unconscious guilt ("Solaris"). The man trying to free himself from ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
The zona - in Tarkovsky's definition - is a "system of traps... where everything is constantly changing" ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
I had wondered why so many people disapproved of Tarkovsky's art. Ira and Edik said he tried to impress you with effects and ruthlessly used people ... I don't know if Vitya liked Tarkovsky. But he found his imagery descriptive, and in this factory, with its bleak human prospects and weird, "impersonal" beauty, I think I understood why so many others didn't approve ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
In Tarkovsky's words from Nostalgiya: "I no longer exist for my own country. They have canceled me, forced me to feel that I am nothing, only an image in the imagination, only a handful of air" ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Verdery, Katherine
Katherine Verdery, whose monograph describing life in a Transylvanian village was published in 1983. Early in the next decade, Verdery published a second monograph on urban Romanian intellectuals and a number of theoretical studies that detail a complex model of the inner workings of "socialist society". This model draws in part on the work of Hungarian and Romanian scholars ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
"In a supply-constrained system [...] everyone scrambles for access to the pot. At all points in the system, jobs or bureaucratic positions are used as platforms for amassing resources ... This sort of behavior goes on throughout the society but is especially important for bureaucrats, whose entire reputation and prestige rest upon their capacity to amass resources" ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Verdery emphasizes the systemic centrality of the "second economy" in Soviet-type societies, and the peculiar role played by "culture", as a battleground between state and oppositional legitimacy. The importance attached to "culture" ... is linked, in her theory, to the pivotal role played by the intelligentsia in Soviet-type societies, as well as to the sudden eruptions of nationalism that ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Verdery, for example, bases her model of "socialism" on a generalized, abstract description of the type of power wielded by the socialist state, and from this derives the parameters of daily life - rather than proceeding from daily experience to the structure of society as a whole. This approach may leave us with the impression e.g. that Russian "culture" was not primarily a lived reality ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
The second (and related) point on which I differ from Verdery is in the surprising lack of historical depth in her discussion. Her theory is, as she puts it, an "ideal-type model [...] especially suitable for the highly centralized, 'command' form of socialism, best exemplified by [Romania and] the Soviet Union under Stalin and Brezhnev" (1991, p.420). But this equation of Stalin and Brezhnev ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Vysotsky, Vladimir
Weber, Max
The first point was realized already by Weber: The market is not anarchic, but "...a regulated economic life with the economic impulse functioning within bounds." ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Weber has described three ideal types of legitimacy, which I interpret as follows: Bureaucratic legitimacy is found in modern, Deep societies, where specialized roles and institutions are integrated by a standardizing general rule, which motivates for and governs competition for "offices" in a mediated hierarchy. Traditional legitimacy - typical of small-scale, Flat societies - rests on ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]
Max Weber compares the ethics of the Protestants with the "economic impulse within bounds" of capitalism, and cites the former as a condition for the emergence of the latter. Often in my association with Vitya and Vera I thought of this theory ... They might represent complementary sides of a developing bourgeoisie. But the comparison may only be stretched so far ... [Chapter/Section] [Entire text]

Index: Themes

Adaptation
(Chapter 1.B. Adaptation and Evolution) - General theoretical discussion of adaptation as a complementary process to evolution: in the course of evolution, ever Deeper hierarchies of power are built up; adaptation, in contrast, harmonizes and consolidates Denser social relations and meanings (cf. Sahlins's distinction between general and specific evolution).
(Chapter 1.B. The Center and its Boundaries) - General theoretical discussion of the formation of sociocultural units (meanings, roles, institutions, nations etc.), as a result of the interplay of adaptational and evolutionary processes.
(Chapter 3, introduction) - Theoretical discussion of role formation as a result of adaptational processes ("splitting" and "sorting" of actions into roles). 
(Chapter 6.B.) - Historical discussion of the adaptation of the Russian state to the warrior nomads of Central Asia.
(Chapter 6.D.) - Discussion of the adaptational processes underlying the "Paradigm" of Russian identity.
Authority and freedom
(Chapter 3.A.) - Russian concept of freedom as "informality", "pouring out your soul", (prostotá).
(Chapter 3.B.) - Russian concept of freedom as "intimacy" (prostotá), and freedom of expression (prostór); Russian concept of authority as an "outside rule".
(Chapter 4.C.) - Russian freedom and authority related to Stalin's "new class" and the concept of kul'túra ("culture").
(Chapter 5) - A comprehensive, empirically based discussion of Russian ideas of "inner" freedom vs. "external" authority, and their relationship to ideas of "self-defence", "objectivity", "faith", the "closed circle", "guarding the heart". Authority as the basis of - but also the opposite of - charismatic freedom. The weakness of authority. Traditional vs. modern versions of freedom and authority.
(Chapter 6, introduction) - Russian freedom and authority contrasted to Western concepts, related to Bateson's theory of national character. The recursiveness of the Russian value-pair.
(Chapter 6.A.) - External authority as a Western import (historically).
(Chapter 6.C.) - Mostly theoretical discussion of "Freedom-Authority" as a historically constructed, recursively structured "Paradigm" of Russian identity.
(Chapter 6.E.) - Discussion of the "balancing act" between freedom and authority, on the background of the discussions above, and a reading of a novel by the Strugatskie brothers.
(Appendix 2) - A summarizing discussion of the Russian freedom and authority, relating it to boundary maintenance, ideological geographies, Stalin as an ideological prototype, and Dumont's concepts of hierarchy and egalitarianism. 
Charisma (Weber)
(Chapter 4, introduction) - Charismatic authority introduced, and related to Weber's orginal term.
(Chapter 4.B.) - The concept of charisma applied to the "balancing act" by which the Communist Party maintained its legitimacy through Soviet history. The idea of the "Warrior State".
(Chapter 5.C.) - The charismatic basis of Stalin's "New Class"; charisma and kul'túra ("culture").
Christianity
(Interlude: Father Peter and Tolya) - Detailed description of a meeting with a Russian Orthodox priest; his life-story, his understanding of Soviet society, his humor etc.
(Chapter 5.E.) - Examples of Russian Orthodox inspiration among younger members of the Russian intelligentsia. Description of an Orthodox Easter service.
Class
(Preface F.) - Discussion of Djilas's concept of "The New Class" applied to Soviet history.
(Chapter 1.B. Adaptation and Evolution) - Theoretical discussion of class, as related to "the dialectic of control" (Giddens) and levels of integration.
(Chapter 4.C.) - Djilas's concept of "The New Class" related to Soviet modernization under Stalin.
Culture
(Preface C.) - "Culture" in the Soviet Union, as understood by Verdery; critique of Verdery's view.
(Preface G.) - Discussion of "Ordinary life" and "Culture" in the Soviet Union.
(Chapter 1.A.) - Culture and nature in the Leningrad cityscape.
(Chapter 3, introduction) - The Russian concepts of kul'tura, kul'turny and kul'turnost' introduced.
(Chapter 3.D.) - Kul'turnost' as a system of public roles; kul'tura as state legitimacy. The fragility of both concepts.
(Chapter 3.E.) - Kul'tura and kul'turnost' related to Russian concepts of narod (the people), massy (the masses) and tolpa (the mob).
(Chapter 4.B.) - Kul'tura ("culture") as a charismatic element of Soviet state legitimacy.
(Chapter 4.C.) - Kul'tura ("culture") as a charismatic element of the legitimacy of the Soviet New Class.
(Appendix 1.4. & 1.5.) - Summary of central points of the above discussion of kul'tura, relating it to the broader literature on postsocialism.
Dominant symbols
(Chapter 1.B.) - Turner's definition of dominant symbols, utilized as a theoretical / analytical tool.
Economy, Multicentric
(Chapter 2.B.) - Discussion of Soviet economy as a multicentric system of hierarchically ordered economic spheres.
Economy of shortages (Janos Kornai, Igor Birman)
(Preface C.) - The idea of a "shortage economy" introduced, with emphasis on Verdery's usage of the term.
(Chapter 2.B. & 2.C.) - Comprehensive, empirically based discussion of the Soviet "shortage economy", including an analytical account of its relationship to the "weakness of money" in the Soviet system, and the influence of shortages on social mobility in the Soviet Union.
Economy, Second
(Preface F.) - The role of the "second" (informal) economy in the "privatization" (Shlapentokh) of Soviet society and the growth of the "New Class" (Djilas).
(Chapter 2.B.) - A discussion of the Soviet "second" economy, focusing on shortages, the weakness of money and economic spheres. It is argued that the "second" economy is not a Capitalist economy in embryo.
(Interlude: Vitya) - Comprehensive description of the life and dealings of a medium-scale actor within the Soviet "second" economy, reporting his views on technical aspects of production and exchange under Soviet conditions, as well as his more general views on Soviet society.
Egalitarianism and Hierarchy (Louis Dumont and others)
(Chapter 1.B. Adaptation and Evolution) - Theoretical discussion of the concept of hierarchy, in the sense that it is mostly used in this volume (as a dimension of social integration; no mention of Dumont's concept is made here): Hierarchy as a result of social evolution. Hierarchy is compressed into individual acts.
(Chapter 2.B.) - Empirically based discussion of "unmediated hierarchy" as a prime characteristic of Soviet social integration, and in contrast to Western "mediated hierarchies".
(Chapter 3, introduction) - Theoretical discussion of the effects of an "unmediated hierarchy" of social integration on social roles ("splitting" and "sorting" of acts).
(Chapter 4.C.) - The historical genesis of the "unmediated hierarchy" of Soviet social integration.
(Chapter 5.A.) - "Unmediated hierarchy" splits disparate levels of social integration apart by letting them represent two opposed temporalities (modern and traditional), and furthers an unstable "balancing act" between "two times", rather than a Western-style rational "art of compromise".
(Chapter 5.E.) - Empirically based discussion of hierarchy as inherent in the Russian concept of authority, which simultaneously cannot succeed without denying it.
(Appendix 2.2.) - Discussion of Dumont's concepts of hierarchy and egalitarianism in a Norwegian, Danish and Russian context. Methodological consequences of this discussion for a Norwegian anthropologist studying Russian society.
(Appendix 2.4.) - Empirically based continuation of the above discussion (Appendix 2.2.).
Ethical issues in anthropological fieldwork and research
(Introduction 1986, footnote 22) - Problems attendant on secret ("under-cover") fieldwork.
(Appendix 1.3.) - Empirically based discussion of ethical dilemmas attendant on conducting secret ("under-cover") fieldwork, with emphasis on the self-reinforcing effect of working in secret in a society where secrecy and paranoia pervade everyday life - particularly when in contact with foreigners.
(Appendix 1.9.) - "The lesson to be drawn from this is perhaps that ethical dilemmas in anthropology should be viewed in terms of the cost of the clean-up, rather than in moral terms."
Everyday life
(Preface D. and E.) - Discussion of Russian (Soviet) everyday discourse as described by Ries and Boym. An argument is presented against Ries's idea of the self-defeating fatalism of everyday discourse, while Boym's "distinction between everyday life itself (byt) and the ideal of everyday life (bytie)" is supported, and further distinction is made between byt in public and intimate contexts.
(Chapter 3.) - Comprehensive, empirically and theoretically based discussion of Russian / Soviet everyday life in intimate (private) and public contexts. Starting with a primary distinction between "warm" and "cold" behavior, an analysis of the fragility of public roles is presented, in which the distinction between "absolutist" (rule-supporting) and "animistic" (rule-undermining) behavior types plays a central role.
Evolution
(Chapter 1.B. Adaptation and Evolution) - Theoretical discussion of the concept of evolution, as a process of increasing total social power and deepening social hierachies, leading to increasing standardization, polarization and abstraction.
(Chapter 4.) - Comprehensive, historically based discussion of Soviet history (particularly under Stalin) as a process of "secondary evolution" (Fried), characterized by high degrees of violence and centralization, large-scale economic units, weak political legitimacy and unstable power relations.
(Chapter 6.A. and 6.B.) - Historically based discussion (heavily dependent on P. Anderson's analysis) of the "secondary evolution" (Fried) of the Russian state, as driven by the opposing geopolitical influences of Western "pristine evolution" (Fried) and imperialism, and the "nomadic brake" imposed by Central Asian societies. 
Family, household
(Chapter 2.A.) - Soviet and Leningrad housing problems and their effects on families and households.
(Chapter 3.A.) - Empirically based discussion of intimate, "warm" behavior in Soviet households and the dilemmas attendant on such behavior.
(Chapter 4.D. and 4.E.) - Historically based discussion of Soviet family policies, traditional and modern family relationships, and the effect of these factors on patterns of (primary and secondary) socialization and on gender relations.
(Chapter 5.B.) - Empirically based discussion of traditional and modern conceptions of authority and gender in Soviet / Russian urban families.
(Interlude: Vera) - The story of one Leningrad woman, including her relations to her family and the effect of housing shortages and general lack of state support on her household's life.
(Table 9.) - Statistical data on family size, divorce, population growth and ageing in the Soviet North and South, women in socialization-oriented jobs and male mortality.
Feudalism
(Preface C.) - Discussion of similarities between the Soviet system and feudalism, with reference to Verdery.
(Chapter 4.D.) - Discussion of continuities between the late feudal system of Tsarist Russia and Soviet agricultural policy.
(Chapter 4.D., footnote 95b.) - Discussion that brings together passages from several parts of this volume, which argue that there are essential similarities between power relations under Stalin and a form of run-away feudalism or patron-clientage network.
(Chapter 6.A.) - Historical discussion of Early and Late Feudalism in Western Europe and their effects on the evolution of the Russian state (P. Anderson).
(Chapter 6.B.) - Historical discussion of Central Asian nomadism and its effect on the establishment of a feudal order in Russia (P. Anderson).
Fieldwork: Experience and reflexivity in fieldwork
(Appendix 1.1) - Description of the fieldwork process and the development of research interests under the influence of the field.
(Appendix 1.3.) - Empirically based discussion of ethical dilemmas attendant on conducting secret ("under-cover") fieldwork, with emphasis on the self-reinforcing effect of working in secret in a society where secrecy and paranoia pervade everyday life - particularly when in contact with foreigners.
(Appendix 2.2.) - Discussion of methodological problems for a Norwegian anthropologist studying Russian society, on the background of contrasting Russian and Norwegian attitudes to hierarchy and egalitarianism (Dumont).
Flexibility
(Chapter 1.B. Adaptation and Evolution) - Bateson's concept of "flexibility", discussed as a primary attribute of "adaptation".
(Chapter 3, introduction) - Bateson's concept of "flexibility", discussed as an attribute of legitimacy in mediated hierarchies.
Gender
(Chapter 3.A.) - Discussion of everyday gender relations in a working-class Soviet urban family. 
(Chapter 4.E.) - Historically based discussion of the effect of Stalinist modernization on Soviet gender relations.
(Chapter 5.B.) - Discussion of male and female authority relations in a working-class Soviet urban family.
(Chapter 6.E.) - Discussion of male and female roles, as reflected in a novel by the Strugatskie brothers and in empirical examples.
(Appendix 2.4.) - Discussion of two opposed examples of elder male authority affecting younger females.
(Table 9.) - Statistical data on family size, divorce, population growth and ageing in the Soviet North and South, women in socialization-oriented jobs and male mortality.
History in anthropology
(Preface D.) - General discussion of the significance of Russian and Soviet history for an understanding of Russian identity.
(Preface F.) - Discussion of the historical genesis of the Soviet "New Class" (Djilas) under Stalin.
(Chapter 4.) - Comprehensive, historically based discussion of Soviet history (particularly under Stalin) as a process of "secondary evolution" (Fried), characterized by high degrees of violence and centralization, large-scale economic units, weak political legitimacy and unstable power relations.
(Interlude: Father Peter and Tolya) - Description of the life and work of a Russian Orthodox priest; the importance of historical consciousness for his undertanding of himself, the Church and Russia.
(Chapter 6.) - Comprehensive, historically based discussion of Russian (pre-Soviet) history as a process determined on the one hand by evolutionary pressures from Western Europe, on the other hand by adaptational necessities imposed by Central Asian nomadism, and finally by the indistinct and constantly contested boundaries of the Russian empire. The effects of these geopolitical factors on Russian identity and late Soviet processes of identification.
History of anthropology
(Preface 1999) - Summarizing and critical discussion of anthropological studies of socialism and postsocialism.
Identity
(Preface D.) - Russian identity as a product of Russian and Soviet history.
(Introduction A.) - Paradoxes of Russian identity as reflected in informant statements and various literary sources.
(Chapter 1.A.) - Russian identity as reflected in the Leningrad cityscape and people's interpretations of this.
(Chapter 4.B.) - War as a prime determinant of Soviet identity.
(Chapter 6.C.) - Summarizing discussion of Russian identity as a recursive product of Russian and Soviet history. Russian identity as a "...'Matryozhka-doll' of 'shell' within 'shell' of external authority governing inner freedom".
(Chapter 6.D.) - Discussion of Russian identity as "adapted to mal-adaptation"; historical shifts between "paranoid" and "receptive" phases of Russian identity; the intelligentsia's role in Russian identity formation.
Ideology
(Chapter 3.D.) - Comprehensive discussion of the scant and incomplete vocabulary of Soviet ideology and its attendant "...fragility and 'explosiveness'. It is 'grey' and meaningless only as long as it is not 'charged' by personal responsibility and secret knowledge."
(Appendix 2.) - Discussion (based on Dumont and on empirical arguments) of Russian ideological concepts of egalitarianism and hierarchy. The discussion touches on methodology, authority relations, boundary maintenance, spatiality, Stalin as an ideological prototype, and ideology as habitus.
Informal organization
(Preface E.) - Discussion of informal organization in socialist societies, as reflected in anthropological and sociological literature.
(Introduction A.) - The relevance of Abner Cohen's theory of symbolism and informal organization for the Soviet situation.
(Chapter 2.B. and 2.C.) - Comprehensive discussion (based on literature, media and field data) of the weakness of crucial elements of formal organization (e.g. money, formal institutions), and the effects of this on the informal economy (exchange, production, work organization, social mobility, the stability of hierarchies and "offices", etc.).
(Interlude: Vitya) - Comprehensive description of the life and dealings of a medium-scale actor within the Soviet "second" economy, reporting his views on technical aspects of production and exchange under Soviet conditions, as well as his more general views on Soviet society.
(Chapter 4.D.) - Discussion of the historical basis of family-, criminal and clientage-based informal networks in the Soviet Union. High-level informal organization in the Stalinist state.
(Interlude: Vera) - The story of one Leningrad woman, including her relations to an informal religious group, where personal values were discussed and developed.
Intelligentsia
(Preface C.) - Brief mention of the role of the intelligentsia in Verdery's model of socialist society.
(Chapter 4.C.) - The role of the intelligentsia in the early stages of Soviet history; its suppression under Stalin; its role in the formation of the Stalinist "New Class" (Djilas); its "dual consciousness" (Kormer).
(Chapter 6.D.) - Discussion of the intelligentsia as a liminal product of Russian history; its internal dynamics.
Legitimacy
(Chapter 3, introduction) - Legitimacy in Western and Soviet society contrasted.
(Chapter 3.D.) - Comprehensive, empirically based discussion of Soviet legitimacy, seen through the lense of the Soviet ideology of materialism. This is compared to Western concepts of materialism, related to the Soviet discourse on labor discipline, discussed theoretically in terms of "charging" symbols with meaning ex nihilo, related to the fragile system of public roles, and to Soviet concepts of kul'túra and kul'túrnost'.
(Chapter 4.) - Comprehensive, historically based discussion of the historical development of Soviet legitimacy, which traces the complementary roles of charismatic, traditional and bureaucratic legitimacy (Weber) in the evolution of the Soviet state from its earliest days through the Stalinist period. 
Magic
(Chapter 3.D.) - Discussion of "magic" as a mechanism through which symbols are "charged" with meaning. This is related to a comprehensive, empirically based discussing of Soviet legitimacy, the fragility of public roles and Soviet concepts of kul'túra and kul'túrnost'.
Masses (of people), Crowds
(Chapter 3.C.) - Empirically based discussion of impersonal relations in the Soviet public sphere.
(Chapter 3.E.) - Empirically based discussion of the dynamics of crowds in the Soviet public sphere. Soviet ideological concepts of narod (people), massy (masses) and tolpa (crowd, mob).
(Chapter 4.D.) - Narod, massy and tolpa (see above) as historical categories.
Mobility, Social
(Chapter 2.C.) - Empirically based discussion of Soviet social mobility, emphasizing the importance of spatial mobility and finding a "place" (e.g. an institution) that gives access to desirable goods and services (as opposed to Western ideas of upward mobility based on position within a formal hierarchy of "offices").
Models, Formal
(Chapter 1.B.) - Extensively developed formal model of socio-cultural organization ("Social Texture"). The model differentiates social systems along two axes: evolution (increase of total social power and hierarchy) and adaptation (increasing social integration and harmonization). Based on the very general concepts of rules and flow, it offers an integrated approach to social practice and symbolic meaning. Units of social organization (e.g. symbols, roles, institutions, states) are seen as emergent epiphenomena, congealing out of social textures of rules. The model is utilized throughout the analysis in this volume.
Modernization
(Preface D.) - Historical theory (Gerschenkron, P. Anderson) that modernization in Russia has consistently followed in the wake of Western European modernization.
(Chapter 4.) - Comprehensive, historically based discussion of Soviet history (particularly under Stalin) as a process of "secondary evolution" (Fried), characterized by high degrees of violence and centralization, large-scale economic units, weak political legitimacy and unstable power relations.
(Chapter 5.A.) - A discussion of Soviet social evolution under Stalin as "selective modernization". Because of the violent, highly centralized and unstable nature of such modernization, it polarizes state and people, and identifies them with two opposed temporalities (modernity and tradition). The prime task of Soviet legitimacy thus becomes to "unify the two times".  
(Chapter 6.D.) - A discussion of Russian history as a process of repeated waves of "selective modernization", and of the liminal products of this process - notably the Cossacks, the Thieves' World (blatnoy mir), the intelligentsia, and the Bolsheviks.
Money
(Chapter 2.B., 2.C. and 2.D.) - Comprehensive, empirically based discussion of the role of money in the Soviet economy. The weakness of money as a universal currency is emphasized, and the consequences of this situation explored. Lacking a universal currency, the Soviet economy was multicentric. Lacking a univeral measure of the value of salaries, Soviet social mobility became a matter of positioning oneself so as to gain access to desired goods and services. The planned economy of the Soviet Union is seen as a substitute for universally applicable and accessible currencies.
(Interlude: Vitya) - A detailed description of a medium-scale actor in the Soviet informal economy demonstrates the challenges of working in a non-monetary economy in concrete terms: "You don't work for money, but to keep out of jail. If you want money, just stop working. Do anything you like, people will pay. There's money enough. What they need is something to spend it on."
(Chapter 3.C.) - Examples of ways in which money enters into the ritualized interactions of the Soviet public sphere.
Nomadism
(Chapter 6.B.) - Historical discussion of Central Asian nomadism and its effect on the establishment of a feudal order in Russia (P. Anderson).
(Chapter 6.D.) - The role of nomadism along the Southern borders of Russia in the formation of Cossack society, as a major factor of resistance against the empire.
Patronage - Clientage
(Chapter 2.C.) - Soviet enterprises acting as patrons toward their employees.
(Chapter 4.D.) - The Stalinist state as a patron-clientage network run wild.
(Chapter 4.D., footnote 95b.) - Discussion that brings together passages from several parts of this volume, which argue that there are essential similarities between power relations under Stalin and a form of run-away feudalism or patron-clientage network.
(Appendix 2.3.) - Example of patronage as support from a local authority figure in accessing the media and rectifying injustice.
Place
(Chapter 1.A.) - Russian identity as reflected in the Leningrad cityscape and people's interpretations of this.
(Chapter 2.C.) - Empirically based discussion of Soviet social mobility, emphasizing the importance of spatial mobility and finding a "place" (e.g. an institution or city) that gives access to desirable goods and services (as opposed to Western ideas of upward mobility based on position within a formal hierarchy of "offices").
(Appendix 2.5.) - Discussion of ideology as framed by spatial (geographical) metaphors (esp. "inside" / "outside").
(Appendix 2.7.) - Continuation and critique of the above discussion on ideological geographies (spatial metaphors are inverted and bifurcated).
Political anthropology, Power
(Preface C. and D.) - The weakness of the Soviet state (Verdery). Critique of Verdery's model of the redistributive Soviet state, as "...a legacy of the macro-political and macro-economic concerns that dominated Western pre-perestroika sociological work on the Sovietized societies". Further critique of the ahistorical nature of the model, that ignores the violent modernization process (Gerschenkron, P. Anderson) that created the Soviet state. Critique of Ries for ignoring real historical experience of power.
(Preface E.) - Nowak's theory of the dichotomization of public (state) and private spheres in socialist society (social "vacuum"); later Polish criticism of this scheme. Shlapentokh's theory of the privatization of post-Stalinist Soviet society and the "withdrawal of energy and emotion from the State".
(Introduction A.) - Critique of the theory of totalitarianism.
(Chapter 1.B. Adaptation and Evolution) - Theoretical discussion of evolution as a process increasing social power. Definition of power (vs. violence). Discussion of power, class and polarized hierarchies.
(Chapter 2.A.) - General, theoretical description of the Soviet power structure (inefficient governance and lack of meaning).
(Chapter 2.D.) - Discussion of the Soviet governance in practice. Distant state. Sporadic or highly selective control. Weak legitimacy. State reaction e.g. to strikes and cultural opposition.
(Chapter 4.A.) - Political (e.g. feudal and Soviet) and non-political (e.g. capitalist) forms of integration. Growth of power (e.g. in Russia) in the wake of capitalism. Critique of Marx for ignoring power in his utopian vision.
(Chapter 4.B., 4.C. and 4.D.) - The composite legitimacy of the Soviet state: charismatic Warrior State, bureaucratic state of formal offices, and "traditional" state based on informal networks of family and clientage. The violence of this composite when combined with Stalin's modernization program. Its influence on family, ethnic and agricultural policy. State-led formation of the "New Class" (Djilas). Patron-clientage gone wild. 
(Chapter 6.) - Comprehensive discussion of the historical evolution of state power in Western Europe, Central Asia and Russia. The effect of this history on the formation of Russian identity. The state as a recursively "distant" power. Historical forms of resistance stimulated by Russian state power (Cossack society, the Thieves' World, the Intelligentsia, the Bolsheviks). The reflection of this situation in a novel by the brothers Strugatskie.
(Appendix 1.4.) - Summary of central points in the discussion of power and the Soviet state in this volume.
(Appendix 2.1.) - Summary of central points in the discussion of power and the Soviet state in this volume.
Postsocialism, Anthropology of
(Preface 1999) - Summarizing and critical discussion of anthropological studies of socialism and postsocialism.
Private vs. Public
(Preface E.) - Nowak's theory of the dichotomization of public (state) and private spheres in socialist society (social "vacuum"); later Polish criticism of this scheme. Shlapentokh's theory of the privatization of post-Stalinist Soviet society and the "withdrawal of energy and emotion from the State".
(Chapter 1.A.) - The Leningrad cityscape as a reflection of and an arena for public and private (intimate) behavior.
(Chapter 2.B., footnote 54) - The "private plot" in Soviet agriculture and its contribution to the public sector.
(Chapter 3.) - Comprehensive, empirically and theoretically based discussion of Russian / Soviet everyday life in intimate (private) and public contexts. Starting with a primary distinction between a closed world of "warm" and an "impersonal" world of "cold" behavior, an analysis of the fragility of public roles is presented, in which the distinction between "absolutist" (rule-supporting) and "animistic" (rule-undermining) behavior types plays a central role.
(Chapter 4.D. and 4.E.) - Selective modernization established a formal, bureaucratic order in the public sphere, "...and suppressed tradition into intimacy, after divesting it of its public (juridical, political and religious) structures. Conversely, under the extreme conditions of the time, people could only survive by upholding tradition in intimate life." The effects of this process are examined for the Northern vs. the Southern regions of the Soviet Union, for patron-clientage networks in politics, for women and men, and for socialization processes.
(Chapter 5.A.) - The intimate (private) sphere as a locus for maintenance of traditional values, representing "the (living) past", while the public sphere represents "modernity". "Tradition is encapsulated en bloc within modernity. It resists 'translation' into modern terms and 'explanation' in terms of rationality."
(Appendix 1.1.) - Summary of central points in the discussion of the public and intimate (private) spheres in this volume.
Propiska (Soviet residence and housing permit system)
(Chapter 2.B.) - Description of the propiska system and its influence on social mobility.
Regional traditions of ethnographic writing
(Preface A.) - The growth of the anthropology of postsocialism as a new regional tradition of ethnographic writing (Fardon).
Religion
(Interlude: Father Peter and Tolya) - Detailed description of a meeting with a Russian Orthodox priest; his life-story, his understanding of Soviet society, his humor etc.
(Chapter 5.E.) - Examples of Russian Orthodox inspiration among younger members of the Russian intelligentsia. Description of an Orthodox Easter service.
(Interlude: Vera) - The story of one Leningrad woman, including her relations to an informal religious group, where personal values were discussed and developed.
Research process, The anthropological
(Introduction B.) - The fieldwork process: Description and contextualization of the informant sample on which the volume is based.
(Appendix 1.) - The research process: Goals, results, limitations and ethical problems.
(Appendix 2.) - The research process: Methods, partial reinterpretation of the orginal results.
Role analysis
(Chapter 3.) - Comprehensive, empirically and theoretically based discussion of Russian / Soviet everyday life in intimate (private) and public contexts. Starting with a primary distinction between a closed world of "warm" and an "impersonal" world of "cold" behavior, an analysis of the fragility of public roles is presented, in which the distinction between "absolutist" (rule-supporting) and "animistic" (rule-undermining) behavior types plays a central role.
Rules
(Chapter 1.B.) - Extensively developed formal model of socio-cultural organization ("Social Texture"), based on the very general concepts of rules and flow, which offers an integrated approach to social practice and symbolic meaning. Units of social organization (e.g. symbols, roles, institutions, states) are seen as emergent epiphenomena, congealing out of "Social Textures" of rules. General rules (integrating rules of power), are opposed to specific rules (of local or situationally specific relevance).
(Chapter 2.A. and 2.B.) - Discussion of the weakness of general, integrating rules of power in the Soviet Union. A prime effect of this weakness is the weakness of (material and meaningful) infrastructures, which allow flow to escape from control, thus creating great systemic inefficiencies. Another important effect is the weakness of money, which, as a universal currency, is a general rule of essential importance. These weaknesses are underlying causes of the Soviet "economy of shortages" (Kornai, Birman). The weakness of money leads to a multicentric economy of hierarchically ordered spheres of circulation, which are not, however, consistently separated, but overflow into each other.
(Chapter 3, introduction) - Discussion of the unmediated polarization of general and specific rules in Soviet society. All rules are, in practice, compressed into individual acts, and the effects of unmediated polarization of this compression are discussed, as are its effects on the "sorting" of acts into more or less consistent units. An essential result of this compression and sorting is a fragile and illegitimate system of public roles (kul'túrnost') and social legitimacy (kul'tura).
(Chapter 3.B.) - The relationship between rules as an analytical idea and as an emic concept ("the rules") is here discussed. The emic "rules" of public communication have an absolutist and insistent quality, which is simultantaneously highly fragile and self-defensive.
(Chapter 3.D.) - The fragility and potential emptiness of the emic "rules" of public communication implies a need to "charge" the rules with meaning. Ways in which such "charging" takes place are discussed in empirical as well as theoretical terms. The consequences for state legitimacy are examined.
(Chapter 4.) - In this chapter, the historical origins of the weakness of general rules and of the unmediated polarization of general and specific rules are examined. The central point is that general rules of state-level integration have been imported from the West, and thus have a "foreign", "external" character. (The discussion is spread out in short passages throughout most of the chapter.)
(Chapter 6.C.) - The repeated imports of "Western" rules throughout Russian history are discussed, in order to examine their effect on Russian identity. It is argued that the repeated imports lead to a recursively constructed paradigm of Russian identity, in which form "...a 'Matryozhka-doll' of 'shell' within 'shell' of external authority governing inner freedom. It is essential to see that when this structure is 'balanced', it is not a metaphor of power."
Rural vs. Urban
(Chapter 2.C.) - Discussion of the competition for labor between the cities and the countryside, which leads to extremes of rural labor shortage.
(Interlude: Vitya) - Description of how a medium-level actor in the Soviet informal economy makes practical use of the discrepancy between urban and rural conditions and of state policies to alleviate these differences.
(Chapter 4.D.) - Discussion of Soviet rural policies and their effects in the North (extreme shortages of labor and resources) and the South (high living standards, stable labor force, lack of urbanization). 
(Table 9.H.) - Statistical data on rural migration – an example from the North.
Socialization, Theories of
(Chapter 4.E.) - Discussion of the effects of Soviet modernization on patterns of socialization, with particular emphasis on the sharp discontinuity between primary and secondary socialization, and the different forms this discontinuity takes for men and women.
State, The
(Preface C.) - The weakness of the Soviet state (Verdery). Critique of Verdery's model of the redistributive Soviet state, as "...a legacy of the macro-political and macro-economic concerns that dominated Western pre-perestroika sociological work on the Sovietized societies".
(Preface E.) - Nowak's theory of the dichotomization of public (state) and private spheres in socialist society (social "vacuum"); later Polish criticism of this scheme. Shlapentokh's theory of the privatization of post-Stalinist Soviet society and the "withdrawal of energy and emotion from the State".
(Chapter 2.D.) - Discussion of the Soviet governance in practice. Distant state. Sporadic or highly selective control. Weak legitimacy. State reaction e.g. to strikes and cultural opposition.
(Chapter 4.B., 4.C. and 4.D.) - The composite legitimacy of the Soviet state: charismatic Warrior State, bureaucratic state of formal offices, and "traditional" state based on informal networks of family and clientage. The violence of this composite when combined with Stalin's modernization program. Its influence on family, ethnic and agricultural policy. State-led formation of the "New Class" (Djilas). Patron-clientage gone wild.
(Chapter 6.) - Comprehensive discussion of the historical evolution of state power in Western Europe, Central Asia and Russia. The effect of this history on the formation of Russian identity. The state as a recursively "distant" power. Historical forms of resistance stimulated by Russian state power (Cossack society, the Thieves' World, the Intelligentsia, the Bolsheviks). The reflection of this situation in a novel by the brothers Strugatskie.
Totalitarianism
(Introduction A.) - Critique of the theory of totalitarianism.
Traditional vs. bureaucratic authority (Weber)
(Chapter 4., introduction) - Introductory discussion of Weber's concepts and their applicability to the Soviet situation.
(Chapter 4.C., 4.D. and 4.E) - The one-sided effects of Soviet modernization led to unstable bureaucratic authority. A bureaucratic system of "examinations" (Foucault) was used to select for Party membership. The Party formed a second, hierarchy, which controlled the workings of the bureaucracy. With the growth of the Party, the groundwork was laid for the state-led formation of "the New Class" (Djilas). Traditional authority was suppressed into the intimate (private) sphere and stripped of its formal hierachical structures, thus forming the basis for the extensive system of informal organization based on kinship and (often ethnically based) clientage. This system in turn undermined the formal bureaucractic structures and coopted them for its own purposes. As a result, no unitary basis of legitimacy was formed; instead the state carried on an unstable "balancing act" between tradition, bureaucracy and charismatic legitimacy.
Trade, Small-scale
(Interlude: Vitya) - Comprehensive description of the life and dealings of a medium-scale actor within the Soviet "second" economy, reporting his ideas and practices on informal exchange under Soviet conditions, as well as his more general views on Soviet society.
Urban studies
(Chapter 1.A.) - Russian identity as reflected in the Leningrad cityscape and people's interpretations of this.
(Chapter 3.) - Comprehensive, empirically and theoretically based discussion of urban Russian / Soviet everyday life in intimate (private) and public contexts. Starting with a primary distinction between a closed world of "warm" and an "impersonal" world of "cold" behavior, an analysis of the fragility of public roles is presented, in which the distinction between "absolutist" (rule-supporting) and "animistic" (rule-undermining) behavior types plays a central role.
War
(Chapter 4.A. and 4.B.) - Discussion of the role of war in the formation of the Soviet state and in its legitimation. War shaped the state as a physical reality, but was also decisive as a unifying common experience for all Soviet citizens, and as a basis for charismatic legitimacy (the Soviet state as Warrior State).
(Chapter 4.E.) - The effect of the experience of war and of the Warrior State legitimacy on gender roles and lifeworlds. 
Work, labor
(Chapter 2.A., 2.B. and 2.C.) - Comprehensive, empirically based discussion of labor inefficiencies, labor conditions, labor morale, labor mobility and various work-related institutions of Soviet society (e.g. the non-monetary trudoden' salary system). Discussion of the Soviet labor shortages and the competition for labor among enterprises and between the urban and the rural sector.
(Interlude: Vitya) - Comprehensive description of the life and dealings of a medium-scale actor within the Soviet "second" economy, reporting his ideas on labor in the official Soviet economy (which he considered a worthless effort) and for his own enterprise (for which he labored assiduously and conscientiously). He also reports on the problems and methods of maintaining labor discipline among the people who worked for him in his enterprise.
(Chapter 3.B.) - Discussion of an empirical example of the problems encountered in maintaining a traditional Soviet respect for one's own labor in the face of the "cold" and rude public communication codes prevailing in the late Soviet period.
(Chapter 3.D.) - An extensive informant's statement on the decline of Soviet work discipline and its ramifications. Discussion of the legitimacy of the Soviet public sphere based on this.
(Chapter 4.E.) - Empirically based discussion of the transition from the protected sphere of Soviet childhood to the world of work, of the disillusionment attendant on this, and of alcohol consumption as a means of maintaining "enthusiasm" after its disappearance from the post-Stalinist Soviet public sphere.
(Interlude: Father Peter and Tolya) - A Russian Orthodox priest gives his views on Soviet labor discipline and work morale; the worthlessness of work in the official Soviet economy and his dedication to his work as a priest.
(Chapter 5.C.) - Empirically based discussion of informants' attitudes to work - as an essential value (an outpouring of the soul), but simultaneously also as an object of disillusionment in practice.