What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next?

by Katherine Verdery

Among the first anthropologists to work in Eastern Europe, Katherine Verdery had built up a significant base of ethnographic and historical expertise when the major political transformations in the region began to take place. In this collection of essays dealing with the aftermath of Soviet-style socialism and the different forms that may replace it, she explores the nature of socialism in order to understand more fully its consequences. By analyzing her primary data from Romania and Transylvania and synthesizing information from other sources, Verdery lends a distinctive anthropological perspective to a variety of themes common to political and economic studies on the end of themes such as "civil society," the creation of market economies, privatization, national and ethnic conflict, and changing gender relations.


Under Verdery's examination, privatization and civil society appear not only as social processes, for example, but as symbols in political rhetoric. The classic pyramid scheme is not just a means of enrichment but a site for reconceptualizing the meaning of money and an unusual form of post-Marxist millenarianism. Land being redistributed as private property stretches and shrinks, as in the imaginings of the farmers struggling to tame it. Infused by this kind of ethnographic sensibility, the essays reject the assumption of a transition to capitalism in favor of investigating local processes in their own terms.

Genres: Anthropology, History, Nonfiction, Economics, Politics

298 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Katherine Verdery is Julien J. Studley Faculty Scholar and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Since 1973 she has conducted field research in Romania, initially emphasizing the political economy of social inequality, ethnic relations, and nationalism. With the changes of 1989, her work shifted to problems of the transformation of socialist systems, specifically changing property relations in agriculture. From 1993 to 2000 she did fieldwork on this theme in a Transylvanian community; the resulting book, The Vanishing Hectare: Property and Value in Postsocialist Transylvania, was published by Cornell University Press (2003). She then completed a large collaborative project with Gail Kligman (UCLA) and a number of Romanian scholars on the opposite process, the formation of collective and state farms in Romania during the 1950s. The resulting book, Peasants under Siege: The Collectivization of Romanian Agriculture, 1949-1962, was published by Princeton University Press (2011).

Reviews

[Pavel Nedelcu · Rating 5 out of 5]

East European Societies in the 90s: an Anthropological View



An essay much closer to the large audiences than one might think at a first glance - and being an academic monograph, therefore quite dense and challenging.

The book deals with the post-communist period in Eastern European countries, and in particular in Romania, where the author lived and did research for many years. It analyzes cultural concepts of great importance (from an anthropological perspective), such as nation, gender, identity, time, etc. in what concerns the chaotic and mostly harmful changes that shaped post-communist societies from 1989 onwards.

Having been published in the mid-90s, certain observations are to be considered in the light of the changes (or not!) that have occurred since then. However, as a pioneering work in this field of research, I couldn't NOT remark how amazingly accurate some of the chapters are even today!

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was assigned reading for several classes I've taken and I definitely found it useful, insightful and the writing style enjoyable. Especially combined with thinkers such as Kornai, Verdery is an essential tool to deep thinking on the tenants of socialism.

[Saima · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays speaks to some of the most critical questions of the twentieth century for sure. Really easy to read and understand the main issues after Soviet period.
The first anthropologists to work in Eastern Europe! Katherine Verdery had built up a significant base of ethnographic and historical expertise when the major political transformations in the region began to take place. In this collection of essays dealing with the aftermath of Soviet-style socialism and the different forms that may replace it.
Basically, she explores the nature of socialism in order to understand more fully its consequences.
I find a few drawbacks in the materials. The main is the question of generality. Most of the essays, many published previously, were written with Romanian issues in mind. I believe, that the lack of information about the parts of Soviet Union, and examples, can cause some difficulties for readers who are not familiar with this era.