Book Review: Revolutionary Social Democracy: Working-Class Politics Across the Russian Empire (1882–1917)

Abstract

European civilizing process for ongoing research on state formation. Major figures in that field such as Tilly, Mann, Skocpol and Giddens did not engage with Elias’s study of the civilizing process (which was not available in a complete English translation until the early 1980s). A central question is why students of state-building who typically begin with publications by the authors just mentioned should now pay close attention to Elias’s earlier writings. In a short review it is possible to make only one observation about the relationship between this work and influential writings on state-formation that have appeared in the recent period. The volume does not mount a challenge, in line with Elias’s original perspective, to the dominant literature. Studies of state-formation have provided a macrosociological investigation of the transformation of political organisation. As Kaspersen argues on page 51, Elias constructed an intricate discussion of interwoven sociogenetic and psychogenetic processes (on the metamorphosis of state structures and on evolving personality traits centred on the emotions of shame and embarrassment). Kaspersen refers on p. 127 to the manners books that Elias used to discuss what he later called ‘people in the round’, but the relevant chapters do not develop the point in order to underline the originality of Elias’s approach. Nor do they consider one major implication which is that students of state-formation can raise their game by exploring evidence of movements at the level of basic human emotions as well as in the realm of material interests that typically dominates empirical inquiry. Kaspersen’s discussion of webs of prerogatives and obligations is a major contribution to process sociology. But the exclusion of psychogenetic forces from that part of the analysis may lead some readers to conclude that War, Survival and Citizenship could have done more to defend and build on the bold changes of direction which were at the heart of Elias’s exploration of the European civilizing process. War, Survival Units and Citizenship could usefully have pointed the way to a more comprehensive examination of evolving patterns of privilege and responsibility in state-organised survival units. Elias emphasised the role of court ritual and ceremony in the formation of the modern European state. More recent reflections on court figurations have shown how public ritual and ceremony, monumental architecture and elite grand narratives contributed to the psychogenetic dimensions of power structures. Also crucial for Elias were the relations between the ‘established and the outsiders’ – between ruling groups that were convinced of their social superiority, and members of the lower strata who were persuaded to internalise feelings of inferiority with clear implications for the uneven distribution of prerogatives and obligations. Those overlapping research areas have much to contribute to the process-sociological perspective on survival units which is significantly advanced by Kaspersen’s book. Eagerly awaited is the next stage in the process – the promised volume (co-authored with Norman Gabriel) with the provisional title, A World of Survival Units.