Communism and Political Culture Theory

Author(s): Gabriel A. Almond

Source: Comparative Politics, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Jan., 1983), pp. 127-138
Published by: Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New York
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 Communism and Political Culture Theory
Gabriel A. Almond

A Test of Political Culture Theory

The success or failureof communistregimes in transformingthe attitudesand

behaviorof populationsmay constitutea test of the explanatorypower of po-
litical culturetheory.' We may view communistregimes as "naturalexperi-
ments" in attitudechange. Such regimes seek and usually succeed in estab-
lishing organizationand communicationmedia monopolies, as well as pene-
trative police and internalintelligence systems. Ideological conformityis re-
warded; deviation is heavily penalized. Communities and neighborhoods
come under the surveillance of party activists. Children of all ages are or-
ganized in party-relatedformations,and school instructionplaces emphasison
appropriateideological indoctrination.In additionto this powerfularrayof in-
stitutional and communication controls, the communist movement has a
clear-cut,explicit set of attitudes,beliefs, values, and feelings that it seeks to
inculcate.
Political culturetheory imputes some importanceto political attitudes,be-
liefs, values, and emotions in the explanationof political, structural,and be-
havioral phenomena-national cohesion, patterns of political cleavage,
modes of dealing with political conflict, the extent and the characterof par-
ticipation in politics, and compliance with authority. Political culture has
never seriously been advanced as the unidirectional "cause" of political
structureand behavior, althoughpolitical culture theorists have been repre-
sented as taking such a position by some critics.2 The relaxed version of po-
litical culturetheory-the one presentedby most of its advocates-is that the
relationbetween political structureand cultureis interactive,that one cannot
explain cultural propensities without reference to historical experience and
contemporarystructuralconstraints and opportunities, and that, in turn, a
prior set of attitudinalpatternswill tend to persist in some form and degree
and for a significant period of time, despite efforts to transformit. All these
qualificationsand claims are parts of political culture theory. The argument
0010-4159/83/0115-0001$06.00/1
@ 1983 The City University of New York
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ComparativePolitics January 1983
would be that however powerful the effort, however repressivethe structure,
however monopolistic and persuasive the media, however tempting the in-
centive system, political culture would impose significant constraintson ef-
fective behavioraland structuralchange because underlyingattitudeswould
tend to persistto a significantdegree and for a significantperiodof time. This
is all that we need to demonstratein orderto make a place for political culture
theory in the pantheonof the explanatoryvariablesof politics.
The communistexperience is particularlyimportantas an approachto test-
ing political culturetheorybecause from one point of view it representsa gen-
uine effort to "falsify" it. The attitudesthatcommunistmovementsencounter
in countries where they take power are viewed as false consciousness-
whetherthey be nationalism,religious beliefs, liberal-pluralisticviews, ethnic
subculturalpropensities, or attitudes toward economic interests. These at-
titudes are viewed as the consequences of preexistingclass structureand the
underlyingmode of production,as transmittedby associated agents of indoc-
trination. Communistmovements either eliminate or seek to underminethe
legitimacyof these preexistingstructuresand processes and replacethem with
a quite new and thoroughlypenetrativeset. If they succeed in some reasonable
length of time-let us say, a generation-in transformingattitudesin the de-
sired direction, we might conclude that political culture theory has been fal-
sified, that it is a weak variableat best.
Surely communisttakeoversare the best historicalexperimentswe have for
these purposes. In addition,thereare quite a few of them; they have occurred
in different cultural-developmentalsettings; and most of them have been in
operationfor a generation.The principalproblemwith this approachto testing
theory is that it leaves much to be desired as an experimental test. The
"laboratories"are not open to investigators;the data are spotty and in large
part inferential.And finally the scale and the intensityof the efforts underta-
ken to change attitudeshave varied from one countryto another.The experi-
ences of Poland, Hungary,and Czechoslovakiaare quite differentfrom those
of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Yugoslavia.
One furtherintriguingpoint about this topic is that it representsa good il-
lustrationof a payoff for theory derived from area case studies. From this
point of view the reader should not expect a contributionto the depth of
knowledge about an area but an exploitation of findings in an effort to de-
velop theory.

Political Culture Theory in Marxism and Leninism

This utilization of communistexperience to test political culture theory fits

congenially into the great themes of Marxistand Leninist ideology. The term
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 Gabriel A. Almond

has come into increasingusage in Soviet and East Europeansocial science.

StephenWhite notes that Lenin employed the term and that Brezhnev used it
also.3 Georgi Shaknazarov,the presidentof the Soviet Political Science Asso-
ciation, in an articlepublishedinPravda on January17, 1979, announcingthe
meeting of the InternationalPolitical Science Association in Moscow, listed
political cultureas one of the threemajorsubjectsof political science. He de-
fined political cultureas "the participationof diverse social opinions in poli-
tics, the political cultureof the people and political culturetraining,the regu-
lation of social-political attitudes." He presentedthis topic as being at the
same level of importanceas the studyof the state and the political system and
the study of foreign policy and internationalrelations.
Aside from such indicationsof terminologicalreceptivity, the phenomena
of political culturehave been accordedan importantplace in communistthe-
ory, although the terms employed by Marx, Lenin, and contemporarycom-
munist scholars are ideology, consciousness, spontaneity, economism, and
the like. In the works of Marx and Engels, political culture phenomenaare
importantintervening variables; in Lenin's political culture-in particular,
elite political culture-is the independentvariable. Indeed, an elite possessed
of a particularpolitical culture in the sense of an indoctrinatedcommunist
partyand an "objective revolutionarysituation" very broadlydefined are the
necessaryand sufficientconditionsof communistrevolution.No one can read
Lenin's organizationaltext, WhatIs to Be Done, without becoming aware of
how much importancehe attachedto the proper indoctrinationof the com-
munistparty, the unambiguousexplicationof beliefs, procedures,and appro-
priate affective modalities.
For Marx, a changed political consciousness was a consequence of under-
lying structuralalterations-it developed gradually at first and changed its
cognitive content and affective tone as the means of productionand class
characteristicsand relationschanged. Marx predictedthat at certainpoints in
the historicalprocess, for example, at the point of extreme proletarian"im-
miseration," the culturaltransformationwould be more rapid. Althoughthe
concepts of political socialization and elite political culture are present in
Marxism,they are not weltdeveloped. Accordingto Marx, capitalistideology
gradually loses its force as its deviation from reality becomes increasingly
plain. Men are rationalactors;the leaders "catch on" first, the followers soon
after. The transformationof political cultureoccurs in burstsand is congruent
with major structuralchanges-the dictatorshipof the proletariat,the intro-
duction of socialism and of communism. The learning process may be slow,
but it is sure.
Marxismis thus a structuraltheory. Marx would probablyhave sided with
Brian Barry, Carole Pateman, and Ronald Rogowski about the priority of
structurein the causal interactionwith attitude,belief, and feeling. Changesin

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ComparativePolitics January 1983

culturefollow inevitablyfrom changes in structure;culturalpropertieshave a

consequentialrelationto structure.Attitudinalvariablesexplain lead and lag
in the processes of historicalchange and hence may be viewed as intervening
ratherthan independentvariables.
It is clear from the Leninist strategyof elite and mass political socialization
that Lenin understoodthe interactivecharacterof structural-cultural relation-
ships. He believed in the possibility indoctrinating revolutionaryelite, in
of a
other words, transformingits political culture. But he did not believe thatthe
revolutionaryindoctrinationof the masses was possible. Ordinaryworkers
and peasantshad to be manipulatedinto revolutionby appealingto their im-
mediate values and interests;that is, the revolutionaryelite would have to
adapttheirrevolutionarytactics to the culturesof the masses. Lenin expected
that once a revolutionhad been attainedthese subculturaltendencies among
the workers, peasants, ethnic, and religious groups would persist for some
unknown length of time until the communist millennium, which would be
broughtabout by fundamentalstructuralchanges.
In the Marxism-Leninismcurrentlyexplicatedin the theoreticaland "social
science" literatureof socialist countries, the full conceptual frameworkof
political culture theory is employed. It is easy to see why the term has been
adopted by socialist social scientists. Although the termsubculture was not
employed until recently, it has always been assumed that each class under
capitalism has its own subculture, which, in turn, imposes a constrainton
communist strategy and tactics. The peasantry under capitalism can be
mobilized for land reform but not for socialism. Even under socialism, re-
sidual peasant proprietaryattitudespersist and impose limits on policy. The
working class is inclined toward"bread and butter" economic goals, not so-
cialist ones, and the persistenceof such residualattitudesundersocialism af-
fects productivityand public policy. An incentivesystem inconsistentwith the
egalitarianvalues of communismmust be continuedto take account of these
propensities.Professionalsand technicalspecialists continueto be seduced by
the values and special interestsof theirprofessions;these culturalpropensities
persist undersocialism andexplain the continuousstrugglesbetweenthe party
and various specialists in the bureaucracyand the society.
Ethnicityas an ineradicablebasis of subculturemanifests itself, according
to Marxist-Leninistdoctrine, in secessionist and autonomist tendencies.
Under capitalism, ethnicity can be mobilized in the form of liberationmove-
ments affiliated with or led by indoctrinatedcommunists. Under socialism,
ethnicity persists, justifying federal governmentalarrangements.Ethnic sub-
cultural identities as expressed in linguistic, literary, and cultural forms, as
well as cuisine, costumes, festivals, and the like, are acknowledgedas legiti-
mate and reconcilable with socialist univeralism. Religious subculturesare
viewed as basically reactionaryformations fostering vestigial attitude pat-
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 Gabriel A. Almond

terns. Accommodationsto religious communitiesundersocialism, in contrast

to ethnicity, are expedient and are entered into only on tactical political
grounds.
The theme of political culturechange is a powerful one in Leninisttheory.
Certainattitudinalchanges are assumedto occur in the transitionfrom feudal
forms of the political economy to capitalist forms and from early capitalist
forms to laterones. After a communistrevolutiontakes place, certainattitude
changes are supposedto accompanythe shift from the period of the proletar-
ian dictatorshipto the period of socialism, and a set of related structuraland
culturalchanges is assumed to be associated with the shift from socialism to
communism.
Marxist-Leninisttheory has well-articulatedviews on the agents and the
processes of political socialization. All the agents of socialization treatedin
the Western socialization literatureare to be found in the socialist literature.
Family, church, school, work place, interestgroup, political party, the media
of communication, local government, and government output and perfor-
mance are all recognized as having some impact on political attitudes and
culture. The principaldistinction made in Leninist theory is between those
agents of socialization that foster traditionalpatternsof political culture and
those that foster rational and appropriateones. Families, religious bodies,
ethnic communities, professional groups, and face-to-face communication
mediaoutside the Communistpartyand relatedorganizationstend to foster re-
sidual culturaltendencies, whereas schools, the Communistpartyand related
organizations,and the mass media of communicationare the principalagents
of appropriatepolitical socialization.

Political Culture in Communist Reality

If we turn from ideological formulationsto the political reality of Eastern

Europe, the picturewe get of political attitudesand values is a complex and
varied one. We may perhapsdistinguishthree versions of political culture in
communist countries:(1) the official or ideological political culture that is a
mix of exhortationand imputation,(2) the operationalpoliticalcultureor what
the regime is preparedto tolerateand believes it has succeeded in attaining,
and (3) the real political culture based on evidence such as opinion surveys
and otherkinds of researchor on inferencesdrawnfrom the media or official
statements. The distinctions among these three versions of political culture
need to be elaborated. All communist regimes have some version of the
Leninist ideological culture, although in those countriesthat made their own
revolutions (e.g., Yugoslavia, China, and Cuba), the political culture may
deviate fromthe ideal model, fromthe Soviet version, and fromthe versionsin
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ComparativePolitics January 1983

those countriesdominatedby the Soviet Union. The operationalpolitical cul-

ture consists of values, attitudes, and feelings that the regime is preparedto
tolerate at least in the short run, given the universal shortfall from the
ideological model in all communist countries. This operationalmodel may
encompassthe extreme of Hungary,where Kadar'sslogan of the 1960s, "He
who is not againstus is with us," representsa substantialadmissionof defeat
in efforts undertakento producepositive culturetransformation,to the situa-
tion in the Soviet Union, where the operationalexpectationsare a good deal
more positive and are in part supportedby reality.
The difference between what is sometimes called the operationalpolitical
culture and the real political cultureis defined in a sense by the battleground
between the regimes' immediatecampaigns and efforts to change attitudes,
behavior, beliefs, and the affective tone of the population.From this point of
view we can arguethat Kadar'sslogan is an acknowledgementthat the Com-
munistpartyof Hungaryhad failed to falsify political culturetheoryor thatthe
"Czech Spring" is dramaticevidence of a similarsort that a score of years of
organizationaland media monopoly, repressionand terror,and powerful in-
centives had failed to alter in any significantdegree the civic propensitiesof
the Czechoslovakpopulation.Insofaras the operationalpolitical cultureitself
acknowledges the resistance it is encounteringand in the degree that it has
lowered its sights from some reasonableapproximationof a Marxist-Leninist
culture, we can argue that political culturetheory survives unfalsified. If in
additionevidence of a direct sort points to the fact that attitudesand beliefs
among the population fall significantly short of this official operational
political culture, then we have even strongerconfirmationof the validity of
political culturetheory.
The ideologicalpolitical culturein every communistcountryposits an ideal
communistman who is both the builderof the new society and a productof its
institutionsand practices. The fullest elaborationof the qualities of this ideal
communistman is to be found in the Progamof the Communistpartyof the
Soviet Union adopted by the 22nd Congress in 1961, in a section entitled
"The Moral Code of the Builder of Communism." Some version of this
moral code (or somethingvery similar in the values and qualities stressed) is
to be found in a centralplace in the most importantideological formulations,
trainingmanuals, school books, and the like of all the communistcountries.
The qualities stressed include "dedicationto the Communistcause; love for
the socialist motherlandand other socialist countries;conscientious labor for
the good of society; a high consciousness of social duty; collectivism and
comradelymutualassistanceand respect;moral integrityin public and private
life; intoleranceof injustice, dishonesty or careerism;friendshipand brother-
hood with the otherpeoples of the USSR, and solidaritywith the workersand
peoples of othercountries;and firm oppositionto the enemies of communism,
peace and freedom."4
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 Gabriel A. Almond

The evidence does not suggest that any of the communistregimes has suc-
ceeded in inculcatingthese values among significantpartsof the population.
Even in the Soviet Union, where the regime has been in substantialcontrolof
the populationfor two full generationsand wherethe revolutionwas led by an
indigenouselite, the extent of success in remodelingman has been relatively
modest. Samuel Huntington'sclaim that the Soviet Union is a dramatically
successful case of plannedpoliticalculturechange would seem to be exagger-
ated.5This is not to arguethattherehave been no positive accomplishmentsin
culturechange. The Soviet regime has widespreadlegitimacy;its centralized,
penetrating,and relatively unlimited institutionsare accepted. A diffuse no-
tion of socialism has widespreadvalidity, and the acceptanceof the obligation
of sociopoliticalactivism in the sense of participatingin campaignshas strong
and widespreadsupport.But these limited successes in the centerof the com-
munist world hardly extend into the countryside, into the blue-collar, rela-
tively uneducatedworkingclass, or into the non-Europeanpartsof Russia. It
can be arguedthat particularlyin Asiatic Russia, where traditional-religious
attitudesand ethnic nationalismdisplay considerable staying power, Soviet
indoctrinatorshave had to come to terms with stubborntraditionalismof vari-
ous kinds.6 Much of the legitimacy of the Soviet regime, one writer argues,
results from the fact that the structureof the Soviet system is very much like
the preexistingtsaristone in the sense of centralization,the extensive scope of
government,and its arbitrariness.The acceptanceof socialism as well as the
obligation of sociopolitical activism is the success story of communistpoliti-
cal socialization, but these attitudestend to be concentratedin the European
center and among the educated, professional, and white-collar strataof the
population.7Political activism in this context should not be confused with
civic and political participation;instead, it takes the formof mobilizedactivity
and voluntarypublic service. One writerhas describedSoviet participationin
the following terms: "The many political and administrativeactivities in
which Soviet citizens participatetake place within a dual frameworkof con-
trol. The hierarchicalstructureof the Soviets, andof the Soviet politicalsystem
in general, serves to coordinatethe agenda and prioritiesof the participatory
organs at any given moment, concentratingthem on centrally determined
goals, while the supervisionof Communistparty organs provides control of
staffing, leadershipselection, and auditingof the quality of activities.''8
This contrastbetween the ideological and the operationalpolitical culture
creates a certaintension among communistideologists and studentsof public
opinion and the media of communication. With the introductionof public
opinion research in the Soviet Union and EasternEurope in the 1960s, the
problemof opinion and attitudedifferences had to be confronted, for it pro-
duced a polemic of modest proportionsamong "monists" and "pluralists."
A. K. Uledov, a Soviet interpreterof public opinion who presents a monist
point of view, argued that deviations in opinion from the ideological model
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ComparativePolitics January 1983

reflect a lag between the old and the new, between progressiveand backward
forces. Proponentsof a pluralist point of view, reflected in the writing of
Grushinand to a much greaterextent in the work of Polish, Czechoslovak,
and Yugoslav scholars, argue that under socialism, nonconformingopinion
may contributeto social progress. Thus the pluralistattemptto legitimateop-
positional and critical tendencies, thereby reducingthe tensions between the
ideological, the operational,and the real political culture, tends to reducethe
ideological model to thatof a credoby adoptingan operativenormativemodel
more reconcilable with reality. This treatmentof pluralism as legitimate,
however, is distinctly a minor theme in the more conservativecommunistre-
gimes, having surfacedprimarilyin such countries as Poland, Czechoslova-
kia, and Yugoslavia.9
In testing political culturetheory in communistcountriesit is useful to sort
them into three categories: (1) the Soviet Union itself where the communist
"experiment" began and was carriedthroughby an indigenous communist
elite; (2) other countries such as Yugoslavia, China, Cuba, and Vietnam
where the communistrevolutionwas importedand carriedout by indigenous
elites; and (3) countriessuch as Poland, Hungary,Czechoslovakia, Romania,
and East Germanywhere communistregimes were imposed from the outside.
For our purposes in this paper we will examine briefly the experience of (1)
the Soviet Union, (2) Yugoslavia and Cuba, and (3) Poland, Hungary, and
Czechoslovakia. If political culturetheory is to be falsified, we would expect
to see majorchange in politicalculturein the desireddirectionin all threecat-
egories and to a largerdegree in the case of the Soviet Union because its rev-
olution was indigenous and has been in operationmore than sixty years; to a
substantialdegree in Yugoslavia and Cuba because their revolutions were
made by indigenous elites; and to a lesser degree in Poland, Hungary, and
Czechoslovakiabecause their communistregimes, which have been in exis-
tence for only a single generation,were imposedon them from the outside and
have been maintainedby the threator the actualityof Soviet militaryoccupa-
tion.

Political Culture in Yugoslavia and Cuba

In the case of Yugoslavia it may be inappropriateto speakof threeversions of

political culture. The Leninistideological version is not seriously propagated.
The operationalversionis a relativelyloosely formulatedset of normsand ex-
pectationsthaton the basis of empiricalevidence are not too far from the real-
ity of opinion and attitude.These normsinclude an acceptanceof ethnic iden-
tity and of political autonomy of the various ethnic components, an accep-
tance of private land ownership among the peasantry,and of religious free-

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 Gabriel A. Almond

dom. The two new elements in Yugoslav political culture are political ac-
tivism and participationand enterpriseself-management,which ideologically
is supposedto representthe fulfillmentof the ideal of participationand the es-
sence of Yugoslav democraticsocialism. Here one can distinguish a differ-
ence between the official political culture and the real political culture. The
official political culture sanctions "classlessness" in participatorypatterns;
but much evidence thathas been gatheredfrom studiesof political recruitment
and opinion surveys demonstratesthat political participationin the sense of
officeholding and other forms of activism is biased toward the upper social
and economic groupings in the populationand is dominatedby membersof
the League of Communists.Enterpriseself-managementappearsto be effec-
tive. It involves all levels of workers in matters having to do with wages,
hours, conditionsof labor, and similartradeunion issues but not in production
and other managementdecisions.10Thus the political leadershipof Yugosla-
via has settled for a set of operationalpolitical culturalnormsthat accommo-
date prerevolutionaryethnic, religious, and economic propensitiesand the so-
cialization agencies that tend to perpetuatethem. The novel elements of par-
ticipation and decentralizedsocialism have been accepted in a limited way,
particularlyamong the educated, advantaged,and politically mobilized strata
of the population.
In contrastto Yugoslavia, anothercountrythat made its own revolution-
Cuba-has been subjectedto concentratedindoctrinationdesigned to produce
a new "Cuban socialist man." This ideological political culturediffers from
the Leninistone in its lack of emphasison the "party" and its greaterempha-
sis on heroism, selflessness, personalismo, and the propagandaof the deed. It
appearsto draw on a Latin Americanrevolutionarytraditionas much as on
specifically Leninist ideological norms. In two decades of Cuban commu-
nism, these ideals have been propagatedin connection with majorcampaigns
of mobilizationfor purposesof defense, literacy, sugar cane harvesting,and
revolutionary-militaryactivities abroad. Such evidence as we have from re-
ports and surveys of one kind or anothersuggests that these campaignshave
had moderate success in creating regime legitimacy, the acceptance of the
norm of activism in the implementationof goals, and the acceptance of so-
cialism in the diffuse sense of that term. In recent years there is evidence of
growing bureaucratization,less stress on utopian ideals and mass mobiliza-
tion, and more stresson efficiency and regimentation.A patternsimilarto that
in the Soviet Union, in which the utopiancultureof the socialist man takes on
the proportionsof an eschatology and the operationalpolitical culturestresses
compliance with the regime's policies and programs, may emerge. Real
popularvalues and attitudesmay increasinglytake the form of adaptionsto
constraintsand incentives as well as accordinglegitimacy to the new institu-
tions.11
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ComparativePolitics January 1983

Thus our three cases of indigenous communist revolutions-the Soviet

Union, Yugoslavia, and Cuba-fail to falsify political culture theory. The
revolutionaryaims of creatinga "socialist man" have been practicallygiven
up in the Soviet Union and Cuba and were never seriously pursuedin Yugo-
slavia. The Soviet Union has settledfor popularlegitimacy, a generalbelief in
socialism, and a willingness to participatein campaigns initiatedby the re-
gime. The Yugoslav political elite has tended to accommodateitself to pow-
erful ethnic commitments, peasant proprietaryvalues, and religious beliefs
and has successfully inculcated a sense of legitimacy, an acceptance of de-
centralizedsocialism, and an obligation to participate.
In the case of Cuba, a personalistversion of Leninism seems to be giving
way to a more bureaucratic,apatheticrelationshipbetween elite and mass,
with positive culturechanges taking such forms as regime legitimacy, a belief
in "socialism," and an acceptancein some sense of the obligationto take part
in campaigns.
The changes that have taken place under these relatively favorable cir-
cumstancesare of a limited sort, not of sufficient magnitudeand characterto
falsify political culturetheory and accord validity to a structuralone.

The Cases of Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia

The communist experiences in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia offer

even strongersupportsfor political culture theory. Communistparties have
been in controlin all threecountriesfor over thirtyyears, and Soviet troopde-
ployments and the Brezhnev Doctrine impose constraintson their policies.
Despite these penetrativepressuresand externalthreatsand constraints,pre-
revolutionarynationalist, religious, economic, and political attitudes have
persisted and have resulted in the renunciationof sanguine expectations of
fundamentalattitudechange. Were the Soviet threatto be neutralized,there is
little doubt that liberalregimes, even ones initiatedby the communistparties
(as was the case in Czechoslovakiain 1967-68), would be established. Com-
munist efforts at resocialization might have been counterproductivein the
sense of having createdstrongliberalpropensitiesin countriessuch as Poland
and Hungarywhere those orientationswere relatively weak in the prerevolu-
tionary era.
In Poland after thirty years of revolutionaryexperience, something like a
legitimatepluralistregime emerged in 1981, which allowed the new Solidar-
ity union, the Catholicchurch, and the armyto engage in bargainingrelations
with the Communistparty. As of this writing it is not clear which arrange-
ments will survive the martiallaw regime. On the positive side, there is evi-
dence of an acceptanceof a diffuse egalitariansocialism among a large pro-
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 Gabriel A. Almond

portion of the Polish population. But the evidence is overwhelmingthat the

Polish working class continues to be passionately Polish, Catholic, and
"bread and butter" oriented.12
In Hungary,peasantproprietaryattitudes,reflectedin surveys showing that
private garden plots and household improvementsare the preoccupationsof
most of the agriculturalpopulation, remain strong. Similarly, religious at-
titudes remain strong even among young people. Hungarian nationalism
shows no signs of abating. One writerdescribed the legitimacy of the com-
munist regime in Hungaryin the following terms: "The currentstandoff in
Hungarybetween elites and potentialpublics is tenuous, but it appearsas if
everyone fears the hazards of questioning the situation too closely."'13 Al-
though most Hungariansaccept an egalitariansocialism, there is little accep-
tance of Marxism-Leninismamong the population. In Hungary,the reaction
to ideological indoctrinationtakes the form of a thoroughgoingdepoliticiza-
tion.14
Of all the communistcases, that of Czechoslovakiapresentsthe strongest
supportfor political culturetheory. As one writerobserved of the periodafter
1948, "Neither the new economic base nor the new institutionalstructures
succeeded in changing the political culturesof Czechs and Slovaks in the di-
rection which the holders of institutionalpower desired. If anything, the op-
posite happened.The old values and beliefs were reinforced.... If a Czech
'new man' had been createdby 1968, he was, ironically, one more firmly de-
voted to social democraticand libertarianvalues than the Czech of 1946. In
the interactionsbetween structuresand culturesit would appearthatthe domi-
nant Czech political culture came much closer to changing Czechoslovak
Communismthan Czechoslovak Communismcame to procuringacceptance
of its official political culture."15
Whatthe scholarshipof comparativecommunismhas been telling us is that
political cultures are not easily transformed.A sophisticatedpolitical move-
ment ready to manipulate,penetrate,organize, indoctrinate,and coerce and
given an opportunityto do so for a generationor longer ends up as much or
more transformedthantransforming.But we have to be clear aboutwhat kind
of a case we are makingfor political culturetheory. We are not arguingat all
that political structure,historicalexperience, and deliberateefforts to change
attitudeshave no effect on political culture. Such an argumentwould be man-
ifest foolishness. Major scholarly efforts such as those of Alex Inkeles and
David H. Smith and Herbert Hyman demonstrate the powerful and
homogenizing effects of education, the introductionof the mass media, and
factory employmentin very differentculturalcontexts.16 There is a majorlit-
eratureof experimentalstudies on some of the conditions and possibilities of
attitudechange. What all this seems to demonstrateis that man is a complex
animal who is tractablein some respects and intractablein others. Both the

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ComparativePolitics January 1983

successes and the failuresof our communistcases suggest that there is a pat-
behavior,thatlibertyonce experiencedis
tern to this tractability-intractability
not quickly forgotten, and that equity and equality of some kind resonate in
the human spirit.

NOTES

1. This is a positionarguedby a numberof Britishspecialistson communistcountries.See Ar-

chie Brown and Jack Gray, Political Culture and Political Change in CommunistStates (New
York: Holmes & Meier, 1977); also, StephenWhite, Political Cultureand Soviet Politics (Lon-
don: Macmillan, 1979). We have benefited greatly from these studies and conclusions.
2. See inter al. Brian M. Barry, Sociologists, Economists, and Democracy (London: Col-
lier-Macmillan, 1970), pp. 48ff.; Carole Pateman, "The Civic Culture: A Philosophical
Critique" in Almond and Verba (eds.), The Civic Culture Revisited (Boston, Mass.: Little,
Brown, 1980); and Ronald Rogowski, A Rational Theory of Legitimacy (Princeton, N.J.:
PrincetonUniversity Press, 1976).
3. Archie Brown and Jack Gray, Political Cultureand Political Change in CommunistStates
(New York:Holmes & Meier, 1977), p. 58. See also White's book-lengthtreatmentof this sub-
ject, op. cit.
4. Stephen White in Archie Brown and Jack Gray, Political Cultureand Political Change in
CommunistCountries (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1977), pp. 35-36.
5. See Stephen White, Political Cultureand Soviet Politics, op. cit., pp. 114ff.
6. Ibid., p. 95; See also GregoryJ. Massell, The SurrogateProletariat:Moslem Womenand
RevolutionaryStrategies in Soviet CentralAsia, 1919-1929 (Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniver-
sity Press, 1974), pp. 322ff.
7. StephenWhite, Political Cultureand Soviet Politics, op. cit., chaps. 3 and 4. For a detailed
analysis of participationin the Soviet Union, see TheodoreH. Friedgut,Political Participationin
the USSR (Princeton, N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1979), chap. 1 and pp. 307ff.
8. Ibid., p. 49. The Soviet regime has succeeded in inculcatinga sense of "participatory-sub-
ject competence" particularlyamongthe educatedstrataof the society. See G. A. Almondand S.
Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1963), and citations and
discussions in Friedgut,op. cit., pp. 319ff.
9. WalterD. Connorand Zvi Gitelman,Public Opinion in EuropeanSocialist Systems (New
York: Praeger, 1977), chap. 1.
10. David Dyker in Brown and Gray, op. cit., chap. 3; Jan Triskaand Paul M. Cocks (eds.),
Political Developmentin Eastern Europe (New York: Praeger, 1977), pp. 158ff.
11. See RichardR. Fagen, The Transformationof Political Culturein Cuba (Stanford,Calif.:
StanfordUniversityPress, 1969);Jorge I. Dominguez, Cuba: Orderand Revolution(Cambridge,
Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978), chap. 12; Francis Lambert,
"Cuba: CommunistState in PersonalDictatorship"in Brown and Gray, op. cit., chap. 8.
12. See ConnorandGitelman,op. cit., chap. 2 and pp. 184ff; Brownand Gray, op. cit., chap.
4; Triska and Cocks, op. cit., chap. 5.
13. Zvi Gitelman in Connor and Gitelman, op. cit., p. 161.
14. See also Brown and Gray, op. cit., chap. 5; and Triska and Cocks.
15. Archie Brown and GordonWightman,"Czechoslovakia:Revival and Retreat," in Brown
and Gray, op. cit., p. 189; see also Connor and Gitelman, op. cit., p. 178.
16. Alex Inkeles and David H. Smith,BecomingModern:IndividualChange in Six Develop-
ing Countries (Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1974); and HerbertHyman, The Eduring
Effects of Education (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1975).

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