¹ Four recently published books provide a good illustration of the numerous problems arising from the application of the concept of legitimacy to the analysis of Soviet-type societies: Lane, C., The Rites of Rulers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Rigby, T. H. and Feher, F., eds, Political Legitimation in Communist Stales (London: Macmillan. 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rigby, T. H., Brown, A. and Reddaway, P., eds, Authority, Power and Policy in the USSR: Essays dedicated to Leonard Schapiro (London: Macmillan, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zaslavsky, V., The Neo-Stalinist State: Class, Ethnicity and Consensus in Soviet Society (London: M. E. Sharpe/Harvester, 1982).Google Scholar

² See Sartori, G., ‘Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics’, American Political Science Review, LXIV (1970). 1033–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Weber, M., Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978) p. 36–7.Google Scholar

⁴ Weber, , Economy and Society, p. 214.Google Scholar

⁵ There is one additional confusion. In the same paragraph (p. 214), Weber turns to the discussion of claims to legitimacy. He suggests that such a claim ‘is to a significant degree and according to its type treated as “valid”; that this fact confirms the position of the persons claiming authority and that it helps to determine the choice of means of its exercise’ (my emphases). The first part of this sentence is not clear. If it postulates a link between a leader's claims to legitimacy and the ‘validity’ of such claims in the eyes of the ruled, it seems to be false.

⁶ Weber, , Economy and Society, p. 264.Google Scholar

⁷ Weber, , Economy and Society, p. 265.Google Scholar

⁸ Weber, , Economy and Society, p. 263.Google Scholar

⁹ See Rigby, T. H., ‘A Conceptual Approach to Authority, Power and Policy in the Soviet Union’Google Scholar in Rigby, , Brown, and Reddaway, , eds, Authority, Power and Policy in the USSR.Google Scholar

¹⁰ For criticism of this aspect of Weber's methodology, see Grafstein, R., ‘The Failure of Weber's Conception of Legitimacy’, Journal of Politics, XLIII (1981), 456–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Spencer, M. E., ‘Weber on Legitimate Norms and Authority’, British Journal of Sociology, XXI (1970), 123–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹ Weber, M. (ed. by Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. W.), From Max Weber (London: Routledge, 1948), p. 79.Google Scholar

¹² See Turner, B. S., ‘Nietzsche, Weber and the Devaluation of Politics: The Problem of State Legitimacy’, Sociological Review, XXX (1982), 367–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³ See, for example, Meyer, A. G., The Soviet Political System (New York: Random House, 1965)Google Scholar; Moore, Barrington Jr., Terror and Progress USSR (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brzezinski, Z., Between Two Ages (New York: Viking, 1970)Google Scholar and Hough, J., The Soviet Prefects (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ Weber, , Economy and Society, p. 218.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Rigby, T. H., ‘The Need for Comparative Research on Clientelism’, Studies in Comparative Communism, XII (1979), 204–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘Early Provincial Cliques and the Rise of Stalin’, Soviet Studies, XXXIII (1981), 63–86Google Scholar; Nove, A., The Soviet Economic System (London: Allen & Unwin, 1977)Google Scholar; Grossman, G., ‘Gold and the Sword’ in Rokossovsky, H., ed., Industrialization in Two Systems (New York: Wiley, 1966)Google Scholar; and ‘The Second Economy in the USSR’, Problems of Communism, XXVI (1977), 25–40Google Scholar; Hough, , The Soviet PrefectsGoogle Scholar; Conquest, R., The Great Terror (London: Allen & Unwin, 1968).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Bendix, R., ‘Bureaucracy’, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan/Free Press, 1968).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Rigby, , ‘The Need for Comparative Research on Clientelism’Google Scholar; Rigby, , ‘Early Provincial Cliques and the Rise of Stalin’Google Scholar; Willerton, J. P. Jr., ‘Clientelism in the Soviet Union’, Studies in Comparative Communism, XII (1979), 159–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hough, , The Soviet Prefects.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Grossman, , ‘The Second Economy in the USSR’Google Scholar; Nove, , The Soviet Economic SystemGoogle Scholar; Kemeny, I., ‘The Unregistered Economy in Hungary’, Soviet Studies, XXXIV (1982), 370–86Google Scholar: Lewin, M., Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates (London: Pluto Press, 1975).Google Scholar The size of the ‘unplanned’ economic activities in Soviet-type societies has been estimated at 10–25 per cent of Gross Domestic Product, and the ‘grey’ sector has been regarded by some economists as an essential factor in the adequate operation of the whole state socialist economy.

¹⁹ Bauman, Z., ‘Comment on Eastern Europe’, Studies in Comparative Communism, XII (1979), 184–9, p. 186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁰ Rigby, T. H., Lenin's Government: Sovnarkom, 1917–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nove, , The Soviet Economic System.Google Scholar

²¹ Weber, , Economy and Society, p. 220.Google Scholar

²² Harasimiw, B., ‘Nomenklatura: the Soviet Party's Leadership Recruitment System’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, II (1969), 493–512CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harasimiw, B., ‘Dokumenty’, Aneks, XXVI (1981), 38–59 (London).Google Scholar

²³ See, for example, Gill, G., ‘Political Myth and Stalin's Quest for Authority in the Party’Google Scholar in Rigby, , Brown, and Reddaway, , eds, Authority, Power and Policy in the USSR, p. 98–117.Google Scholar

²⁴ This may be true, however, before taking power, at the time of revolutionary upheaval or at a time of crisis.

²⁵ In her analysis of Soviet ritualism, Christel Lane suggested that frequent appeals to national traditions and state-sponsored, organized ritualism reflect the weakness of authentic ‘revolutionary’ traditions and traditional legitimacy based on them. See also comments on ‘communist nationalism’ as a ‘centrifugal impulse’ in Miller, R. F., ‘The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: An Introduction’, World Review, XXII (1983), 6–23, pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

²⁶ See Rigby, , ‘A Conceptual Approach to Authority, Power and Policy in the Soviet Union’Google Scholar, and ‘Introduction: Political Legitimacy, Weber and Communist Mono-organizational System’ in Rigby, and Feher, , eds, Political Legitimation in Communist States, pp. 9–33.Google Scholar

²⁷ Rigby, , ‘A Conceptual Approach’, p. 14.Google Scholar

²⁸ Arato, A., ‘Critical Sociology and Authoritarian State Socialism’ in Thompson, J. B. and Held, D., eds, Habermas: Critical Debates (London: Macmillan, 1982), 196–218, p. 212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁹ It is extremly difficult to find a direct evidence of this ‘illegitimacy’ of the central political institutions in Soviet-type societies because such an evidence would contradict the elites' claims to legitimacy and would be suppressed. Some evidence, however, is available. Studies of public opinions and attitudes in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and in Poland in the 1970s and 1980s clearly revealed the absence of legitimacy of party rule (see Piekalkiewicz, J. A., Public Opinion Polling in Czechoslovakia, 1968–69 (New York: Praeger, 1972)Google Scholar; Nowak, S., ‘Cigłość i zmiana w tradycji kulturowej’, mimeo, Department of Sociology, Warsaw University, 1976Google Scholar; Adamski, W. W. et al. , ‘“Poles 80” Results of Survey Research’, Sisyphus, III (‘Crises and Conflicts: the Case of Poland’; Warsaw: IFiS, Polish Academy of Sciences, 1982), 174–222Google Scholar: Kolarska, L. et al. , ‘Polacy 1980’, Aneks, 27 (Warsaw and London, 1982), p. 101–27Google Scholar; Powiórski, J., ‘Polacy 1981: opinia publizna w przededniu stanu Wojennego’, Krytyka, XII–XIV (Warsaw and London, 1983), pp. 40–63.Google Scholar

³⁰ See also Jasinska-Kania, A., ‘Rationalization and Legitimation Crisis: The Relevance of Marxian and Weberian Works for an Explanation of the Political Order's Legitimacy Crisis in Poland’, Sociology, XVII (1983), 157–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Lamentowicz, W., ‘Legitimizacja władzy politycznej w powojennej Polsce’, Krytyka, XIII–XIV (Warsaw and London, 1983), pp. 20–39.Google Scholar These articles present an interesting inventory of legitimacy claims made by the Polish Communist leaders, and analyse the dynamic of change in these claims.

³¹ Pankow, W., ‘The Roots of “The Polish Summer”: a Crisis of the System of Power’, Sisyphus, III (1982), 33–47, pp. 38–40.Google Scholar

³² There was a clear attempt by General Jaruzelski to create an appearance that the December 1981 takeover was also directed against the corrupted and disorganized party leadership. Some party officials were initially arrested, but most of them were soon released, this time without publicity. A similar tactic was applied by Tito in 1968 when he partly endorsed the criticism voiced by the students (see Pervan, R., Tito and the Students (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1978)).Google Scholar It must also be remembered that Stalin successfully maintained the image of the ‘good batiushka’, defending people against corrupt and egotistic party officials.

³³ Habermas, J., Legitimation Crisis (London: Heinemann, 1979), p. 101.Google Scholar

³⁴ Habermas, , Legitimation Crisis, p. 70.Google Scholar

³⁵ This point was also convincingly argued by Giddens, A., New Rules of Sociological Method (London: Hutchinson, 1977), Chaps. 2–3Google Scholar and Central Problems of Sociological Theory (London: Macmillan, 1979), Chap. 2.Google Scholar

³⁶ With the notable exception of Zaslawski, , The Neo-Stalinist State, esp. Chap. 3Google Scholar, and Feher, F., ‘Paternalism as a Mode of Legitimation in Soviet-type Societies’Google Scholar in Rigby, and Feher, , eds, Political Legitimation in Communist States, p. 64–81.Google Scholar

³⁷ Staniszkis, J., ‘On Some Contradictions of Socialist Society’, Soviet Studies, XXXI (1979), 167–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁸ This was most clearly the case in Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia, where mass protests erupted after the changes in the leadership and partial reforms. The June 1956 demonstrations in Poland followed the election (in March) of a reformist Ochab; the October 1956 demonstrations in Hungary happened after the deposition of Rakosi; the ‘Prague Spring’ gained momentum five months after the removal of Novotny from the position of the First Secretary. The pattern of escalation of mass protests also seems to confirm our interpretation. Inability of the authorities to quash the initial dissent leads to even wider protests.

³⁹ The character and the composition of ‘strategic groups’ seems to vary. Although they are extra-elite groups, they reflect to a certain extent elites' policies, especially the tendency to broaden co-optation and rely on persuasion. The inclusive policies in stage three led to the increasing importance of opinion-shaping categories and ‘ethos groups’. The latter, distinguished by well-articulated and consistent value systems (such as the Catholic intelligentsia and ‘democratic opposition’ in Poland, or the ‘liberal reformists’ in Czechoslovakia), became bases of political mobilization; see Szawiel, T., ‘Grupy etosu w strukturze spolecznej’, Sutdia Socjologiczne, XXXI (1981), 157–78.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Jowitt, K., ‘Inclusion and Mobilization in European Leninist Regimes’, World Politics, XXVIII (1975). 69–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴¹ Arato, , ‘Critical Sociology’, p. 214.Google Scholar

⁴² See Lindblom, C., Politics and Markets (New York: Basic Books, 1977).Google Scholar

⁴³ The label ‘planned’ requires inverted commas because of the mobilizing, rather than predictive, role of the ‘plans’. The fact that ‘plans’ can be ‘fulfilled’ 20 or 200 per cent indicates that they belong to a very specific category of ‘plans’ and ‘planning’.

⁴⁴ See, for example, Feher, , ‘Paternalism as a Mode of Legitimation’Google Scholar, and Arato, , ‘Critical Sociology and Authoritarian State Socialism’.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Habermas, , Legitimation Crisis; pp. 71–2.Google Scholar Although Habermas referred to ‘advanced capitalist’ societies, the fact that he sees increased state intervention as the distinctive feature of advanced capitalism makes his remarks very relevant to the analyses of Soviet-type societies.

According to Arato (‘Critical Sociology…’; p. 204Google Scholar) ‘the problem of state socialist societies is not completely absent from Habermas's critical theory’ and his views can easily be reconstructed, especially from his essay ‘Between Philosophy and Science’. ‘Late capitalism’ on the one hand, and ‘post-capitalism’ or ‘bureaucratic socialism’ (both labels used by Habermas for Soviet-type societies), are the two parallel ‘transitory’ forms of class society whose crisis tendencies (which – according to Habermas – must lead to their ultimate demise) should be jointly investigated (Habermas, J., ‘A Reply to my Critics’Google Scholar in Thompson, and Held, , eds, Habermas: Criticai Debates, 219–83.)Google Scholar

⁴⁶ See, for example, Jasinska-Kania, A., ‘Rationalization and legitimation crisis’.Google Scholar