The Politics of Identity in Russia's Postcommunist Transition: The Nation against Itself

Politics in postcommunist societies is in large measure a politics of identity. Central to it seem to be two mutually reinforcing moments through which national communities recreate themselves. One involves the "positive" expression of nation and concerns the recovery of those identity markers—symbols, rituals, anthems, history, literature and so forth—that had been suspended and suppressed during the communist epoch. The other moment is "negative." It appears in the act of purging the nation of like markers associated with the period of communist rule that are now openly regarded as alien. The multitude of images projected from the countries of east Europe and the former USSR at the moment of communism's collapse capture these two moments in concentrated fashion. In the crowds chanting national slogans and waving the national flag, while chiseling communist emblems from the facades of public buildings and toppling statues erected to some member of the communist pantheon, we observe a distilled version of this duplex signification: "We are not communist/communism is not us."