Introduction: Mapping Out the Theme

Abstract

Any discussion of the process of transition in the post-communist lands is bound to raise problems of definition. The concept of the ‘post-communist lands’ is in itself not particularly problematic. No one doubts that over a large geographical area covering the eastern part of Continental Europe and the northern part of Asia the communist experiment came to an end at the turn of the 1980s (though there is still room for discussion about the political and economic persistence of communist structures over much of the former Soviet Union, particularly Central Asia). But problems arise with any attempt to subdivide the area. The term ‘Eastern Europe’ has traditionally been used for the western part of the communist world. It would be very convenient if we could divide the area neatly in two, defining ‘Eastern Europe’ as the part which came under indirect Soviet rule after 1945, as opposed to ‘the former Soviet Union’, which was directly ruled from Moscow.¹