The turbulence in Communist Eastern Europe, which culminated in the dramatic events of 1989, brought forth a powerful revival in the interest in the notion of Civil Society. Whilst ideology impelled the system in this direction, the technical means available to an industrial, technologically more or less modern society also allowed this centralization to go further than had ever been feasible in heavily centralized, despotic agrarian societies. Such societies generally tolerated local kin productive communities, if only because the means of communication and administration available made it hard or impossible to turn the entire state⁄society into one single bureaucratically run farm. The modern colonial and post-colonial state possesses the means, military, administrative etc., for controlling its own territory, and does not need to tolerate the survival of those local self-administration units (`tribes') which felt such a strong need of a Durkheimian religious style. It erodes these units and atomizes society. The direct transition from communal to transcendent religion does not favour liberty. But the fact that this transcendent faith encourages no soteriological expectations from the economy does seem to help it retain its vigour under modern conditions.