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

Lankina traces the origins of Russia's inequalities over the past two centuries from the Tsarist institution of estates, through communism, to the present day.

Tomila V. Lankina (Author)

9781316512678, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 December 2021

496 pages, 37 b/w illus. 1 map 26 tables
23.5 x 15.8 x 3.1 cm, 0.84 kg

'The Estate Origins of Democracy in Russia is the most inspiring book in Russian studies I have read in the course of the past 10 years or more … There is a wealth of information in the text, and one is often carried away by conjectures or ideas concerning Russian development popping up while reading. ' Simo Mannila, Eurasian Geography and Economic

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.

1. Theorizing post-revolutionary social resilience
2. From imperial estates to estatist society
3. Mapping society and the public sphere in imperial Russia
4. The professions in the making of estatist society
5. Education, socialization, and social structure
6. Market values and the economy of survival
7. Family matters: looking back – and forward – in time
8. Society in space
9. The two-pronged middle class: implications for democracy across time and in space
10. The bourgeoisie in communist states: Comparative insights charting a comparative foreword
Afterword
Supplementary appendices: A. Archival sources
B. The 1897 census
C. District matching
D. Interview questionnaire
E. Illustrative Genealogies.

Subject Areas: Marxism & Communism [JPFC], Comparative politics [JPB], Political science & theory [JPA], Sociology [JHB]