Is Sovietology in Crisis? Concepts and Methods of Analysis

Abstract

Before addressing the issue whether, as Djilas has stated, the Soviet system itself is now in crisis or, in Gorbachev’s own words, at least in ‘pre-crisis’, a methodological problem has to be tackled: Is Sovietology affected by glasnost’ and, if so, to what extent? Perhaps one might ask even whether Sovietology is ‘in crisis’. Here it is instructive to note the nature of the Soviet data that are more readily available of late; after all, a veritable stream of material, sometimes consisting of mutually contradictory items, is emanating now from Soviet publications — official, semi-official and non-official. While this development is highly desirable, of course, it carries with it a certain price as far as scholarship is concerned.