It is rarely contested that the political process of Soviet-type governments was not democratic, as it was characterised by a power monopoly, a lack of accountability, fake constitutionalism, and the absence of meaningful elections. The normative imperative of establishing political democracy, however, has made analysts disregard the social foundations of democratisation. The formal distinction between a previous ‘non-democratic’ period under communism and an ensuing ‘democratic’ period after its demise illustrates the political conflict of the Cold War but explains little about the emergence of democracy. It would be shortsighted to assume that democracy ‘failed’ with the victory of the October Revolution in 1917 and ‘won’ with the collapse of communism in 1989 and 1991. Historically, any politically useful conception of democratic transformation requires connecting the meanings, representations, and expectations of people and elites under communism. Experience is thus not simply the dead hand of the past but a living and creative process of social reordering.

This chapter examines the epistemological basis of the mirrored opposition between communism and democracy. The determinism of consolidating liberal democracy has purged the subjectivity of actors and the formative influence of political symbolism on the emergence of democracy. Confined to a positivist focus on the functional, procedural, and legal-normative aspects of political systems, much social inquiry has pre-empted the political struggle over their foundations.