ABSTRACT
Relationships between the communal settlements and the society around them were of a very special nature; it is doubtful whether their like existed in systems of interrelationships developed between small communities, unique in nature, and the society around them. There was not between them mutual interaction based on an exchange of services, nor were they relationships arising from tests of strength in power struggles or competition for influence. 1 The communes existed as small islands within the American society, viewed by their members as an “outside society,” alien and opposed to their society, culture, norms, and values. Relationships between the communes and the external society, which had been stamped with the mark of strange and foreign, sometimes deteriorated into a sharp opposition, although they never really reached a point of polarized confrontation, except for isolated incidents. In general, we can say that the communes sought continued survival within a regime and a society highly contrasted in its nature to their own. They strove for a modus vivendi that would give them physical existence yet allow them to continue to maintain their socio-ideological uniqueness. 2 The relationships that developed moved between two diametrically opposed extremes: seclusion and isolation at one end, and active involvement at the other. The hesitations as to which of these two extremes to choose assumed considerable importance in the communal experience.
