Selected Problems of Communism
ROBERTS, HENRY L.
Selected Problems of Communism RUSSIA UNDER KHRUSHCHEV Edited by Abraham Brumberg Praeger. 660 pp. $8.75. Reviewed by HENRY L. ROBERTS Professor of History, Russian Institute, Columbia...
...The book then turns to a series of articles, by Jane Degras, Lowenthal and Fainsod, on the struggle for power within the post-Stalin leadership: from Khrushchev's attack on Stalin in 1956, through the 1957 ouster of the Anti-Party Group and the rapid withering away of "collective leadership," to the dramatic events of the 22nd Party Congress in the fall of 1961...
...Each of the authors is persuasive, given his terms and premises, and yet each comes to quite divergent and apparently incompatible conclusions...
...It speaks very well for the journal, and its editor Abraham Brumberg, that such outstanding analysts as Merle Fainsod and Richard Lowenthal-to mention only two prominently represented here-are frequent contributors...
...Unlike most anthologies, it hangs together and has a cumulative impact...
...Moreover, it tells one a great deal about the present Russian scene and the difficulties in mapping it...
...The section on the Soviet economy, while containing several nice articles, is less satisfactory in providing a general survey of trends in the last decade...
...The connecting thread in most of these pieces is the relation, whether seen as impact or interplay, between the regime and its purposes, and the impulses and interests of the inhabitants: the status and treatment of the various social and national groups, the fluctuating vicissitudes of writers, historians and the theater, the uncertain progress of "Socialist legality...
...in between are sandwiched nourishing sections on a variety of political, social and cultural themes...
...For his organizational frame, Brumberg opens and closes the volume with wide-ranging discussions of the nature and prospects of the Soviet system...
...As with the introductory symposium, the very diversity of these commentaries, while leaving the reader with a number of loose ends and unresolved issues, has the value of conveying a real sense of the necessarily problematic quality of our understanding of social and historical processes...
...An essay by the British economist Alec Nove on social welfare has produced a series of commentaries concerning the meaning and likelihood of a Communist welfare state...
...It is odd, but demonstrably the case, that for all the obscurities of the Soviet situation we aspire to a degree of certain knowledge-with respect to function, motivation and outcome-that we quite easily grant as unachievable when it comes to our own society, which we know so much more intimately...
...While no reconciliation is provided, the reader will be tempted to try his own triangulation from these well articulated base points...
...About half the book is devoted to articles on Soviet society and culture...
...The basic ingredient for this happy outcome is, of course, the caliber of the authors and their individual contributions...
...On the contrary, over the years since 1952 it has proved to be exceptionally stimulating and on occasion provocative...
...It might be thought that such a magazine, under explicit Governmental auspices, would be unlikely to have intellectual bite and originality...
...In addition to having enlisted a superior group of writers, Brumberg has done an admirable job in arranging and ordering the material to give the book form and cohesion...
...On the whole the book is remarkably up-to-date and only occasionally shows those signs of mildew that characteristically afflict the writing of contemporary history...
...While this involved story has been covered at greater length in other recent books, the treatment here is surefooted in dealing with the major turning points...
...The final section, inevitably titled "Whither Russia," is introduced by two articles, by Raymond Aron and Sidney Hook, estimating the prospects for change, diversity and possible liberalization...
...The combination of perspectives represented by this debate (which first appeared in a single issue of Problems of Communism in 1958) is still one of the most illuminating approaches to this long-suffering subject...
...Most of the articles date from 1956 or later, and the authors have been given the opportunity to add new information or append postscripts...
...Reviewed by HENRY L. ROBERTS Professor of History, Russian Institute, Columbia University This book is both a pleasure and a surprise...
...Here, too, there is a perhaps surprising refutation of a commonly held view...
...The multiple perspectives offered by this anthology help us to see these limitations as they pertain to our comprehension of the Soviet Union today...
...This is a pity because the general reader remains in need of an overall appraisal of Soviet economic performance and shortcomings in the years since Stalin's death...
...All the pieces are taken from the bimonthly journal Problems of Communism, published by the United States Information Agency...
...The first offering is a notable three-way discussion by R. N. Carew Hunt, Samuel L. Sharp and Richard Lowenthal on the role of ideology in Soviet behavior...
Vol. 45 • October 1962 • No. 21
