Abstract

Russian social and political philosophy of the post-Soviet period continues to be dominated by the vexed question, already featured in the Fall 1992 and several subsequent issues of this journal, of Russia's likeness or unlikeness to the developed democratic societies of the West. The articles in the present issue focus on several closely interrelated aspects of this broad question: Is there a peculiarly Russian route to social reconstruction? What are the prospects, if any, for liberalism and civil society in Russia? To what extent, if any, should Russia remain socialist in some form? Do the doctrines of pre-Revolutionary, non-Marxist Russian philosophers, now widely available to the reading public, have special relevance to Russia's problems?