The social debate on the problems of the information society has a specific feature in Russia and Eastern Europe. This feature is related to the dramatic social and political changes in the countries of the Central and Eastern Europe within the last ten years: downfall of the communist regimes, formation and consolidation of democracy, transition from planned system of economy to the free market. These social and political changes are the focus of attention up to now, while the transition to the information society is considered as an concomitant or background process. However, there is good reason to believe that the anticommunist revolutions in Eastern Europe and Russia were the consequences of the first steps towards information society, which is incompatible with the totalitarian one-party system.