Book Reviews

The introduction to this collection begins with one of the finer Soviet-era anecdotes: "Annenian radio is asked 'Is it possible to foretell the future?'" The reply is: "Yes, that is no problem: we know exactly what the future will be like. Our problem is with the past: that keeps changing." Commencing on this ironic note, the book unfolds into several nuanced and original studies of how social memory and historical interpretation was managed within various state socialist regimes. The most innovative element of each chapter the emphasis placed upon the ambiguous nature of officiaIly sanctioned historical discourse. In direct conflict with theorists of totalitarianism, who assert that physical repression and fear were the primary elements of state power, the contributors of this book provide a multitude of examples of how official ideologies in many cases carne to discredit the state or even provide the metaphors which could be used to imagine a new order. As Rubie Watson directly states in the introduction, this is a coIlection which examines the meaning of "actually existing socialism" and not the socialism of Cold War ideologues. Rather than presenting chronicles of physical repression, this collection presents a number of contexts in which memory and experience is cautiously repressed by social actors (with the implicit risk that it might slip away and confront the repressors in the future). Among collections which examine the dynamics of state socialism, this collection is one of the best edited and most innovative. The product of a seminar organised in 1991, all of the chapters cross-reference each other producing a work with a high degree of coherence. Perhaps most boldly, the chapters by Watson and Humphrey argue for a theory of social power within state socialist contexts which is distinct from theories of class oppression and colonial oppression. This controversial theoretical approach is supported by a very rich summary of the literature on state socialism world-wide. Although four of the nine chapters focus on China specifically, the reader will find theoretical debates which draw from a rich bibliography of work from Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia. Just as the people of Eastern Europe and the fonner Soviet Union remember and debate the advantages and disadvantages of their fonner political regimes in recent elections, this book provides a concise summary of European, American, and dissident analyses of state socialism. The chapter by Caroline Humphrey on the shifting historiography of the independent Mongolian state under Bogd Khaan is of particular significance to the study of state socialism and for each chapter in this book. Footnoted by almost every contributor, this chapter modifies a theory of politics in peasant societies developed by the anthropologist James Scott to the social context of contemporary Mongolia. While Scott argues that in repressive relationships the oppressed develop coherent "hidden transcripts" which help to focus their resistance to their dominators, Humphrey argues that under state socialism both the powerful and the modest use the same "evocative transcript" with which to discuss their state of being. Through presenting numerous examples of how the fonner ruler of independent Mongolia was