1. "Survival" is here used ironically: as contemporary anthropology convincingly demonstrates, the notion of "survival" breaks down under the simple question: what makes a survival survive? - The investigation into the conditions of reproduction of a "survival"-feature is one of the privileged inroads into the problematics of the immanent heterogeneity of any society. Cf. the works of Maurice Bloch.

2. I am using this lukewarm formulation on purpose: it might be good for everybody to keep for a while open the question about how communism disintegrated. Some preliminary analyses indicating the direction where I would look for answers may be found in : "Der 18. Brumaire Ostlichen Fruhlings", in: Der Krieg in Europa, Graz 1993; and in: "Die Machtmechanismen des Ubergangs", in: Jugoslawische (Sch)Erben, Probleme und Perspektiven, Alida Bremer, Hrgb., Osnabruck, Munster: fibre, 1993; "Penser, aujourd’hui", in: Lignes, no.20, 1993, Paris.

3. If not otherwise indicated, the paper treats the developments in the Slovene language. - In contrast to Slovene and Croatian, the expression partija is being used in Serbian both specifically (as in names) and generically; this usage, being favoured in certain non - or even anti-Communist formations, obviously attempts to emphasize the will to reaffirm and to recuperate the pre-mono-party political tradition.

4. This distinction between a primary (linguistic) and secondary (ideological) systems is, of course, highly suspect. It may eventually be acceptable upon the background of a radical theory according to which language generates well-formed strings (sentences), capable of having meaning when uttered in a specific speech-situation; in such a theory, meaning is a property of utterances, not of sentences.

4a. While I have been typing this paper, another mis-translation of this same type occured. Adrian Lyne’s film Indecent Proposal is being shown in Slovenia under the title Nespodobno povabilo /...Invitation/: this proves that the neo-liberal ideology has not yet submerged all areas of life - but also shows the nature of resistance.

5. We could say that the C-type imposes a limited inferential framework upon the communicational community (v., e.g., J.D. Halloran et al., Demonstrations and Communications, Harmondsworth, Penguin: 1970). Still, this is a particularly severe limitation, since it does not operate on the level of argumentational assumptions, forms of argument etc., but on the level of the lexical material and the structure of the semiotic universe. It imposes a specific vocabulary as the general lexicon. In another context, it has metaphorically been said: "This translation of a theoretical ideology into a populist idiom was a major political achievement.". (S. Hall, "The Great Moving Right Show", in: S. Hall and M. Jacques, eds., The Politics of Thacherism, London, Lawrence & Wishart: 1983, p. 28); C-type operations come much closer to the literal imposition of an "idiom". This seems to be a particulary strong hegemonic strategy: if an ideology achieves hegemony when it is capable to determine the field, the horizon or the background, within and upon which the ideological discussion is being carried out, then para-linguistic determination is an especially powerful mode of hegemonic domination. (V. our "Ideology and Fantasy", in: Althusserian Legacy, A. Kaplan and M. Sprinker, eds., London, New York, Verso: 1993). This shift in the hegemonic strategies from the determination of belief-background to the overdetermination of language is closely related to the "national" constitution of a society, a topic we cannot discuss here.

6. The necessity of corpus change may itself be the result of a political decision: e. g., the change in the status of a language (its becoming an official language); standardisation procedures are likewise ideologically motivated, while certain decisions among linguistically indifferent options have quasi necessarily to be made on ideological grounds. Cf. Glynn Williams, Sociolinguistics, a sociological critique.

7. We use the term elaborated by Emmanuel Wallerstein. Under different wordings ("Europe", "free world economy", "international trade system" etc.), it is the modality of the inclusion of the peripheral societies "in transition" that is at stake.

8. For some tentative analyses, see our articles quoted in note 3.

9. "L'usage, ce tyran des langues, y opere souvent des merveilles que l'autorite de tous les souverains ne pourrait jamais y operer". (DuMarsais, Traite des Tropes, 1730).

10. The two dimensions - the self-degrading servility and the "orientalisation" of the enemy - are two faces of the same "neo-orientalist" ideology. It is fascinating how readily the Eastern Europe has accepted the Western image of itself; it is worrying that orientalist prejudice seems stronger than the present war-alliances: in Slovenia, for instance, it presently applies more to the refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina than to what is semi-officially "the enemy". The rapid revival of orientalist ideology in Western Europe, and quite overwhelmingly in Slovenia and Croatia, is definitely a phenomenon that will determine our future, and has to be analysed. We need to re-read Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), and Alain Grosrichard's Structure du serail.