Revealing how the quest for independence and challenges of democratization created a contest between nationalists and Europeanists, two powerful forces in domestic politics, after the collapse of communism, Fisher sheds light on the nationalism and post-communist transitions.

To what degree has political, social, and economic change been stimulated by the impact of the past and present policies of Communist political systems? Perhaps more important, to what extent has the momentum for change, stimulated by past policies, been frustrated by the nature of these systems? This volume, an interdisciplinary and international work based on a symposium presented at the October 1976 Annual Conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, addresses these questions. The contributors collectively assess the extent of change generated by the policies of social mobilization as they are channeled and contained within the Communist political systems. Clearly and perceptively, they analyze selected aspects of change—or its absence—in the political, social, and economic life of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

This is a book about political values - socialist, nationalist, liberal and democratic values - in five former communist countries: Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Based on eleven surveys involving extended interviews with 7350 members of the public and 504 Members of Parliament it provides an authoritative account of the extent to which politicians and the public in East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union have rejected communist ideals and adopted nationalist and/or liberal democratic values.