Kaatoivatko kuluttajat Neuvostoliiton?

Authors

• Jukka Gronow

Abstract

In his interesting article Communism: a post mortem, Zygmunt Bauman argued that the socialist states could not possibly cope with the problems caused by the rapidly increasing demands and needs of the modern consumer. In fact, in his opinion, socialism was incompatible with a consumer society. The results of several studies conducted before the August revolution by the opinion research institute led by the academician T.I. Zaslavskaja in the Soviet Union in many ways seem to support Bauman’s interpretation. The Soviet citizen supported the market economy but rejected the private ownership of firms. In other words, he preferred to work in socialism, but liked to go shopping in capitalism. In shortage economies consumers have to be members of networks which support them with consumer goods. As members of these networks consumers tend to be conservative. One could thus seriously doubt the critical potential of a consumer revolution in the former socialist countries. As evidenced by the rapid development of new social movements, however, not even socialist societies consisted of such networs alone.