Table of Contents

Political culture and the failure of sovietology; constrained autocracy in Russian history; orthodoxy's symphonic ideal - the Russian church in search of tradition; the "Russian idea" - forging an alternative national identity; Russia's alternative political organizations - the re-emergence of civil society; back to the future of Russian politics.

Reviews

[This book is] extremely precise and excellently documented both from the point of view of western...as well as Russian language sources, even brilliant in its capacity (at times perhaps a bit daring) to place into sequence and proper focus both personalities and movements.--Anton Maria Raffo "Europa Orientalis "

[This is a] useful contribution to the history of Russian political thought...Petro also provides a concise history of organized dissent in Russia and of the emergence of the rudiments of a civil society in the second half of the 1980s.--Archie Brown "Comparative Politics "

An intelligent and well-written book which will be widely read and discussed.--Jeffrey Hahn "Russian Review "

This book provides a critique of the mainstream application of political culture to the Soviet Union, and makes the case for the persistence of democratic values in Russian society which provides an optimistic prognosis for the future of democracy in that country...It is a thought-provoking study, and a valuable contribution to the literature.--Jennifer G. Mathers "Political Studies "

prognosis for the future of democracy in that country...It is a thought-provoking study, and a valuable contribution to the literature.

sequence and proper focus both personalities and movements.

ÝThis book is¨ extremely precise and excellently documented both from the point of view of western...as well as Russian language sources, even brilliant in its capacity (at times perhaps a bit daring) to place into sequence and proper focus both personalities and movements. -- Anton Maria Raffo "Europa Orientalis"

ÝThis is a¨ useful contribution to the history of Russian political thought...Petro also provides a concise history of organized dissent in Russia and of the emergence of the rudiments of a civil society in the second half of the 1980s. -- Archie Brown "Comparative Politics"

A well-organized, well-documented argument for the presence of an alternative political culture' throughout Russian history...Essential in any evaluation of contemporary Russia and the development of its political system.