The Role of Informal Groups and Independent Associations in the Evolution of Civil Society in the Soviet Union

Extract

There has been a tremendous proliferation of informal groups in the Soviet Union, by which I mean any organization that comes into being that is independent of the state, where citizens come together, create a group, promote their various intersts, be they political or nonpolitical. Pravda estimates approximately 60,000 of them this year alone; it gave a figure of 30,000 just one year ago. This phenomenon is hard to measure and most Soviet commentators, writers and sociologists basically throw up their arms and say that there are thousands and thousands of these various groups popping up everywhere: some small, some obviously larger with greater networks. I would like to sketch out some of the problems that I found, some of the areas that are worth investigating, and put forward some proposals that we may want to tackle in the discussion subsequent to this panel presentation.