SURVEY OF SOVIET POWER

...Though Stalin's influence is great, all of the members of the Politbureau take part in the consideration of questions before it, and their votes are of equal value...

...POLITICAL POWER IN THE USSR has three major divisions...

...And in his survey of the political forces of the USSR Towster lists only the party, the Soviets and the army...

...In his first chapter, Towster stresses the extraordinary importance of Marxism for the theory and practice of Soviet politics...

...His insecurity, due in part to a methodological ambivalence, in a deeper sense is caused by a lack of any clear understanding of the type of society he is investigating...

...But subsequently he follows contemporary Soviet procedure and treats Marx as * venerable if somewhat embarrassing museum piece...

...Nevertheless, Towster is not without competence...

...It harbors also a not inconsiderable number of political Hamlets who, as the victims of utterly inadequate scientific concepts, are genuinely and pathetically unable to free themselves from the ideologies and values of the most oppressive and aggressive power system of bur tjme...

...ONCE AWARE of these shortcomings, the reader may consider it a Waste of time to occupy himself further with Towster's book...

...In view of this, Towster's book is remarkable not only because of its many open and hidden biases, but also because, at the same time, it contains a fair amount of realistic and critical information...

...Towster's peculiar evaluations become readily understandable if we realize that he reached the peak of his public career at a time when officials dealing with Soviet affairs were expected to consider the USSR as "a real friend...

...Visninsky is given prominence in the evaluation of this and other highly political issues...

...Is it true that "the majority of the Soviet citizens are not laboring under any undue sense of deprivation of freedom...

...Leading personalities of Soviet history receive equally inadequate treatment In saying that Bukharln's discussion of the state in 1916 was "bitterly resented by Lenin," Towster tells only half the story...

...He points to the lowering of the status of the workers and .peasants and to the rising power of the Soviet "intelligentsia...

...The friendly fringe of the Soviet world is peopled not only "by fellowtravelers and critical allies of many kinds and colors...

...But his tendency to belittle the specific interests of Russia's new ruling class and his desire to see quasi-democratic trends in institutional arrangements which in the Orient for thousands of years have been the cornerstone of despotism, carry him close to those modem political theoreticians who excuse autocratic regimes by calling them benevolent...

...Towster presents a number of critical facts which rarebfc,if ever, appear in the writings of "insistent fellow-travelers, it would be incorrect to place him in this category...

...good will...

...In both cases his generally well-documented study gives no sources for these extraordinary claims...

...This belief induced men of great influence to suggest the establishment of "the general policy throughout all US departments and agencies that Russia must be considered as a real friend and be treated accordingly and that personnel must be assigned to Russian contacts that are loyal to this concept...

...According to information printed by his publishers, he served "during the war years as a political analyst with the Department of Justice and the .Office of Strategic Services in Washington, later becoming chief of a political research and analysis section in the State Department...

...He refers to the trials of 1937-88 only in passing, and explains neither Stalin's nor Vishinsky's role in these grim events...

...The role of the Communist party, which in Vishinsky's compendium is buried in an ocean of legalistic detail, is discussed at length in Part II of Towster's study...

...Lenin's reaction to the article in question was indeed sharp, but the word ^resentment" far more appropriately characterizes the' Visbinsky of the trials than Lenin who criticized Bukharin as an erring friend rather than as .a hated enemy ("Bukharin i» much better than Kautsky...

...and his new study en Russia and Oriental^ datpetism will be publishe shortly...

...Part I follows thematically, though- not in detail, The •Law of the Soviet State, edited by Visninsky...

...Lacking an adequate conceptual frame, Towster was bound to err in his institutional analysis and to arrive at utterly problematic conclusions...

...The reader who has searched in vain for concrete information in Towster's book on the role of the police in the Soviet power system will be equally disappointed if he consults Vishinsky's compendium...

...They were, for obvious reasons, vigorously propagated by politicians who, as fellow-travelers or in an even more sinister capacity, promoted the cause of the Soviet Union within the top echelons of the American government...

...His book is described as "an outgrowth of many years of serious study of the USSR in all of its aspects and especially its political process...

...These totalitarian New Dealers, -of whom Henry Wallace is an outstanding example, were—and in many cases still are—fascinated by the managerial activities .of the Soviet rulers, whose dictatorial methods they deplore, but whose presumably benevolent intentions they admire...

...Since Dr...

...His Inability to pose sharply the problem of class structure in a bureaucratic society of the Soviet type makes him the victim of the official Soviet m?th concerning state, class and society...

...Memorandum by Major General Burns, reproduced by Robert E. Sherwood as "an excellent statement of [Huffy] Hopkins' own views on the subject of relations with the Soviet Union") Mr Hopkins himself believed "that Russia's Interests, so far as we can anticipate them, do not afford an opportunity for a major difference with us in foreign affairs...

...Towster, however, does not confine .himself to the legal and formal aspects of Soviet power...

...TOWSTER'S ANALYSIS is hampered again and again by an inclination to mix facts and interpretation and by an attempt to hide his own evaluations behind those of leading Soviet authorities...

...If Towster means what he says, then he is one of very few Americans—perhaps the only one — who has precise data concerning the number of slave laborers in the USSR...

...Opinions of this kind were held by a great many persons of...

...Part I describes the Soviet theories that underlie Russia's constitutional order...

...He fails to explain Marx's and Engels' pluralistic persepctive concerning modern society...

...Part II deals with the structure and operation of government, and Part III, with the dynamics of political power...

...Neither publication faces seriously the problem of the bureaucracy as a ruling class...

...Towster's investigation thus reflects not only the development of an individual but of an entire ideological climate in which certain of our top-ranking political advisors basked during the war years and for some time thereafter...

...Mentioning the correctional labor camps, he says "the number of • their inmates has been exaggerated abroad...

...Karl A. Wlttfofel is director of she Chinese History Project of the University of Washington and CotosxMa UnWeetlry...

...The Hopkins papers, Stimson's memoirs, and General Deane's record of our efforts at war-time cooperation with Russia reveal an uncritical, if temporary, belief in the possibility of a more or less harmonious cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union...

...And, following the precedent set by Stalin in 1938, he disregards Marx's ideas of functional (managerial) government and despotic (Oriental) state slavery...

...and he is similarly unique in knowing the actual workings of the Politbureau...

...But Towster presents essentially as a learned authority ("Academician Vlshinsky," "Professor Visninsky...

...He compensates for his omissions by volunteering positive information of a highly problematic nature...

...He is ediier-ineMef and ce-anthor of "The History of Chinese Society...

...In describing the state apparatus of Tsarist Russia, Towster speaks of the army and officialdom, but omits the police, ah institution which both Marx and Lenin included in their definition of the traditional class state...

...And he asserts that the decisions of the Politbureau "in practice . . . are collective...

...Here as elsewhere, Towstef*obscures important negative features of Soviet development...

...After all, a writer allergic to cops is obviously not the best person to study a police state...

...He also hints at the reduced influence of the national minorities and the corresponding increase in the importance of the Russians proper...

...In Part III he offers valuable data on the position of the various social and national groups...

...TOWSTER*S STUDY OF SOVIET POWER puzzles the critical reader because of its queerly assorted omissions, distortions and assertions...

...How real are "economic rights-' in a society whose decisive means of production are controlled and managed by an organized and highTy privileged ruling bureaucracy...

...He mentions the GPU as a major institutional factor only in"his "Conclusions," where it is summarily dealt with in a twelve line paragraph of a sub-chapter on "The Essence of Individual Liberty...

...These are staggering assertions...

...A similar attitude was taken by certain totalitarian New Dealers (as juxtaposed to the democratic New Dealers...

...Throughout his analysis, and particularly in his concluding chapter, Towster consistently disregards the work ©f political scientists who, tentatively or systematically, discussed government despotism, its structure, dynamics and , class system...

...This fact, as well as Towster's numerous footnotes, shows the American author strongly influenced by Vishinsky's ideas...

...His remarks on the development of Soviet Marxism fail to underline the differences between the official Soviet ideology and the classical concepts of despotic government, managerial and otherwise, invoked in the writings of Marx, and, to a point, also in those of Lenin...