Abstract / Description of output
Ernest Gellner’s many writings on the Soviet socialist project sought to come to terms
with one of the key sociological and ideological arcs of the 20th century: the rise and fall
of a utopian experiment, one that for some served as a kind of proof of principle, whose
modern intellectual origins were more than 170 years old at the time of its demise.
Gellner loved Russia and spent much time there. And he engaged with its 20th century
very deeply, although I think from a very distinctive position outside of the Soviet
experience. His analyses of the socialist bloc included attention to Soviet Marxism as a
developmental ideology, as a secular religion that sacralized the everyday, leaving no
room for a certain kind of civil society; and he offered the outlines of an account of its
failure – from its revolutionary heroism through the cynicism of its stagnation to the
possibilities and constraints of so-called post-socialist space. Along the way, Gellner’s
insistent critiques of Soviet Marxism – of both its theoretical and actually-existing
varieties – were powerful, sometimes polemical, and latterly self-critical. So what can
we now make of Gellner’s rich analyses of the utopia that failed? This paper offers
relative departures from pieces of Gellner’s intellectual trail, in the hope that at least part
of the significance of the 20th century lies within the lessons that we draw from the
utopia that failed.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 100-112 |
Journal | Thesis Eleven |
Volume | 128 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 30 Jun 2015 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- Civil society
- Ernest Gellner
- Marxism
- Soviet Union
- utopia
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Liliana Riga
- School of Social and Political Science - Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Person: Academic: Research Active