THREE YEARS OF SUPPORT FOR A THEORY: TWO-GENERATION CYCLES IN THE TRANSITION FROM A PREINDUSTRIAL TO A MODERN SOCIETY

Historical data show that the countries that made their transition from a preindustrial life and economy to modern ones first (i.e., the West,) have experienced 70–year or two–generation cycles in the process. The latecomers (e.g., Yugoslavia and the Soviet Bloc countries) passed through the same stages later on. In such a perspective the period from the 1920s to the 1990s can be viewed as a two–generation cycle with essentially the role of enlightened absolutism, under the name of communism, in Central and Eastern Europe. The feudal style of living and ruling was replaced by it, and preconditions for the transition to a modern market economy were created. One can conclude that the falling apart of communism and its empires was primarily an organic economic development process, not an incidental nationalistic issue. Our predictions from 1987 and 1989 have been confirmed over the past few years by the real events in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Bloc.