The two chapters in this part of the book provide a sketch of the context from which politics would reappear in Russia. Our aim, therefore, is to set out those aspects of the context most relevant to that reappearance and to develop certain concepts for analysing them. Accordingly, the first chapter begins with a model of ‘politics’ that articulates the concept across three spheres (state, political society and civil society) and along two dimensions (organization and communication). The discussion then turns to a consideration of the Soviet state that highlights from a structural perspective its relatively ineffective capacity for domination – despite certain appearances to the contrary, such as its arsenal of repressive practices. Our attention turns next to the ways in which this weak (yet repressive) state articulated with society. Its actions along the dimension of communication produced systematic distortions that had disrupted the formation of social identities and restricted their circulation to the narrow confines of face-to-face encounters. Thus, that singular exception to the Soviet state's weakness – its capacity physically to penetrate society – rendered society weak as well. This discussion then yields a number of problematics that serve as the book's principal themes.

These themes are first explored concretely in the second chapter. In contrast to the synchronic approach employed up to this point, the narrative in this chapter is organized diachronically in order to tackle the issue of how the structures of domination conditioned those of action. The time frame involved here is roughly bounded at one end by Stalin's death and, at the other, by the regime's inauguration of ‘perestroika’.