Power and the Communists:
LAUTER, BEATRICE
Power and the Communists From Lenin to Khrushchev, By Hugh Seton-Watson. Praeger. 432 pp. $6.00. The Soviet System of Government. By John Hazard. Chicago. 272 pp. $4.00. Reviewed by Beatrice...
...The evolution of the Soviet system, in particular, had so significant an effect on the course of Communist movements outside Russia that Seton-Watson spends a good part of his study detailing the main features of Soviet social and political development...
...These principles, however, are effectively counterweigh ted at what he calls "peril points" to prevent their use to unseat the inner circle of the Communist party...
...His suggestions remain inadequate...
...Industry, removed from Stalin's sytem of centralized direction, was placed under regional economic councils...
...John N. Hazard, Professor of Public Law at Columbia University, in his recently revised The Soviet System of Government, describes the startling changes that have taken place in the Soviet Union since 1957—innovations in the very name of greater "freedom...
...The Soviet system, Hazard observes, embodies some of the most publicized forms of democracy...
...Moreover, as he shows, Communist domestic propaganda has been remarkably successful...
...Forces for change there are...
...Reviewed by Beatrice Lauter Critic and student of American and Russian history Hugh Seton-Watson, Professor of Russian History at the University of London, has brought his scholarly and useful study of the world Communist movement up to date in a new volume entitled From Lenin to Khrushchev: The History of World Communism...
...Unfortunately, there is no seething mass in the Soviet Union longing for a freedom that entails a freeenterprise system and multi-party government...
...Like its predecessor, this volume eschews analysis of Communist philosophy or psychology, focusing instead on comparisons between the varying social and political situations in which Communists made successful or unsuccessful attempts to seize power...
...In the preface Seton-Watson defends his re-use of what reviewers criticized as "unoriginal" suggestions regarding future Western policy...
...Arguing that there is no "new solution" to world problems, he urges again that the West can only "be patient and strong," handle its own social and national problems on their merits, watch for every opportunity of influencing the Communist regimes in the direction of freedom, deal fairly with the uncommitted nations, and keep an open mind...
...The machine tractor stations no longer control agriculture...
...And while he devotes considerable space to Communists in office, Seton-Watson is primarily interested in the varied aspects of the Communist quest for power...
...Law codes were revised—as Stalin had so often promised...
...The manner in which minorities may express their views, organize support within Party meetings, and select delegates to the highest Party echelons assures continuation of the basic system...
...And under Khrushchev pressures of a totalitarian society do not bear so heavily or so often on the Soviet citizen...
...Influencing the Communist regimes, particularly the Soviet Union, in the direction of Western freedom is by now a sad shibboleth...
...The majority of Soviet citizens accept as logical many controls...
...Even the judiciary is subjected to the control of the highest policy organ in the state apparatus—the Supreme Soviet...
...Hazard sees little real chance for a fundamental change in the Soviet system...
...but it is unlikely that even the intellectuals (Marxist-trained I desire popular participation in policy making...
...In the factories the trade union shop committees and the Communist party's factory organization subjected the often officious factory manager to new controls...
...Interviews conducted by Harvard University teams revealed that refugees from Stalin's Russia reject Western economy and prefer state ownership of the means of production: They dislike searching for a job under the free enterprise system, and fled from the restraints on their personal—not on their economic—freedom...
...Thus he emphasizes the relationship of Communist movements to social classes and to the balance of political power within a given country...
...His summary of the Russian Revolution, the fighting within the Bolshevik party, the five-year plans and the purge of the 1930s is followed by a comparison of the "Stalinized" East European countries with the Soviet Union...
...The security police operates as another force against change...
...Students graduating from professional schools in the Soviet Union have been amazed to learn that graduates of an American law school do not have assigned employers to whom to report...
...Marshal Georgi Zhukov no longer rules the defense ministry...
Vol. 44 • February 1961 • No. 6
