The Estate Origins of Democracy in Russia: From Imperial Bourgeoisie to Post-Communist Middle Class - Hardcover

Lankina, Tomila V.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1316512673 ISBN 13: 9781316512678

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2022

Synopsis

A devastating challenge to the idea of communism as a 'great leveller', this extraordinarily original, rigorous, and ambitious book debunks Marxism-inspired accounts of its equalitarian consequences. It is the first study systematically to link the genesis of the 'bourgeoisie-cum-middle class' – Imperial, Soviet, and post-communist – to Tzarist estate institutions which distinguished between nobility, clergy, the urban merchants and meshchane, and peasants. It demonstrates how the pre-communist bourgeoisie, particularly the merchant and urban commercial strata but also the high human capital aristocracy and clergy, survived and adapted in Soviet Russia. Under both Tzarism and communism, the estate system engendered an educated, autonomous bourgeoisie and professional class, along with an oppositional public sphere, and persistent social cleavages that continue to plague democratic consensus. This book also shows how the middle class, conventionally bracketed under one generic umbrella, is often two-pronged in nature – one originating among the educated estates of feudal orders, and the other fabricated as part of state-induced modernization.

About this title

About the Author

Tomila Lankina is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has previously authored two books and has published widely in top disciplinary journals on democracy, authoritarianism, mass protests, and historical patterns of human capital and democracy in Russia and other states.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1316512673
• ISBN 13: 9781316512678
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 496