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Paper short abstract:

The article interrogates the continuous imposition of liberal-plural ideologies and ontologies on communist (post)modernities that leads to both scholarly and geopolitical wrongs. We suggest approaching the monist specificity of these 'vulgar' modernities through the relational theories of value.

Paper long abstract:

This article takes as a starting point the current popular and scholarly interest in ‘bad’ and deficient forms of modernity, particularly the multiply flawed historicizations of twentieth-century communism. Inspired by the long history of relational anthropology, we argue for recognizing and engaging meaningfully with the specificity and significance of Soviet modernity as a totalizing, even ‘monist’ social order. We see this as an important scholarly imperative, but also argue that to do so helps address the spectre that silently looms over our present historical conjuncture: crises that threaten a transition from democratic pluralism to post-democracy and populist authoritarianism. Both poststructuralist and liberal thinkers cannot get past a flawed perspective on Soviet-type modernity as an ‘inhuman’ ontology. We reappraise that modernity, building on the insights of Keti Chukrov on delibidinized relations under communism with ethnographic examples that help 'humanize' it after all.