Pluralism and politics in an Urban Soviet: Donetsk, 1990-1991

Pluralism helps keep the power structure honest by enabling small groups faced with injury to remind both society and government of "how the world ought to be." The task of understanding the nature of any given political system will be complicated by the possibility of both pluralism and fragmentation existing simultaneously. A pluralism in the elements of pluralism, all of them joined by common values but each jealous of its own particularities, appears to be a hopeful model for democracy. David Nicholls places the relation between unity and diversity at the head of his list of questions regarding the nature and consequences of pluralism. In Soviet society, under the rule of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), all politics outside the party framework were regarded by the authorities as fragmenting, and, therefore, illegitimate. At the Donetsk municipal level, the only organized party that appeared for the 1990 elections was the CPSU.