POLITICS IN RUSSIA
Stratton, Owen S.
Politics in Russia SOVIET POLITICS—The Dilemma of Power, by Barrington Moore, Jr. Harvard University Press. 503 pp. $6. Reviewed by Owen S. Strafton SINCE the Russian Revolution there has been a...
...Reviewed by Owen S. Strafton SINCE the Russian Revolution there has been a steady stream of books and articles about Russia, but their major effect has been to make that country comparable to sex as a subject about which there is a great deal of misinformation...
...Even the goals have shown a tendency to shift...
...3) few writers about Russia have known the language well enough to make wide use of Russian materials...
...Moore's book deserves high praise and a fuller description than there is space to give it here...
...The problem of reconciling the need for central control and the need for enthusiastic mass support is a perennial dilemma of the regime and is met in virtually every area of Soviet affairs...
...Four things appear to be chiefly responsible for this state of affairs: (1) the Soviet regime has pursued a policy of extreme secrecy...
...Although all the social sciences are presented at the Center, anthropology, psychology, and sociology have been emphasized...
...Most of these dilemmas of Lenin, Stalin & Co...
...In the course of answering these questions and many others of equal interest and importance, Moore has outlined the background of the Revolution and most of the critical political and economic problems the regime has faced subsequently...
...Ideology, in Moore's view, is only one of a member of important factors influencing Soviet conduct at home and abroad...
...As the title indicates, the book focuses on the dilemmas confronting the Soviet rulers and the way the regime has dealt with them...
...Again, there are good reasons of a non-ideological nature for adoption of most of the foreign policies of the Soviet regime...
...Much of the information he gives has not, so far as I know, been available in English...
...He believes neither that ideology decides everything nor that Russian ideology is only a screen for cynical rulers...
...On the other hand, ideology has its limits in explaining Russian actions...
...But there is one dilemma of the Russians that is not encountered to the same degree in Western democracies: the cultural and economic backwardness of Russia, the demands of the ideology for a socialist industrial economy, and the painful-ness of forced-draft industrialization —when the capital is, so to speak, taken out of the hides of the people —have created a need for extreme centralization of policy-making and control...
...he has made discriminating use of concepts from all the social sciences...
...do not seem to differ essentially from those met in democratic countries...
...The dilemma has repeatedly been solved with at least tolerable satisfaction by the device of "democratic centralism," which means in this connection a freedom to criticize the way policies are carried out, but implies no freedom whatever to criticize the policies themselves once they have been adopted...
...The Center, under the direction of Clyde Kluckhohn, a leading anthropologist, was to "study Russian institutions in an effort to make for better understanding of the international actions and policy of the Soviet Union...
...Moore's book is sub-titled The Role of Ideas in Social Change, and in conformity with this he gives much attention to the ways in which Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist ideology has influenced the conduct of the Soviet regime...
...Secondly, what can we learn from this historical experience about ideas in general...
...and his conclusions are restrained, objective, and full of good sense...
...and, as an overall description of the Russian political system, the book is unexcelled...
...In this distinguished contribution to an understanding of Russia, Barrington Moore, Jr...
...The question is a difficult one, and Moore's answers are modest and tentative...
...Moore points out that ideology creates many of the dilemmas the regime encounters...
...Some such analysis was behind the Carnegie Corporation's 1949 decision to grant funds for a Russian Research Center at Harvard University...
...The regime has shown a willingness, for instance, to modify or shelve elements of the official ideology when they did not appear to conform to the facts...
...Winston Churchill's famous remark to the effect that Russian policy is a riddle wrapped in an enigma reflects the ominous truth that Russia has not been much better understood by the rulers of the Western democracies than by their people...
...His information on Russia is wide...
...and (4) only a small percentage of those who have known the language have also known much about anthropology, psychology, or sociology—social sciences that presumably have much to offer in understanding Russia...
...Soviet Politics—The Dilemma of Power is the most recent of four studies that have been published by the Center...
...2) most people who have written about Russia have done so, not to arrive at conclusions, but to support beliefs already held...
...On the other hand, it is not enough in an industrial economy to have a slavish attitude on the part of the population: enthusiastic cooperation is required...
...has tried to answer two central questions: "Which of the pre-revolu-tionary Bolshevik ideas have been put into effect in the Soviet Union, which ones set aside, and why...
...The book ought to have a wide appeal, not only for these reasons, but also because Moore writes so well that his extraordinary scholarship is never obtrusive...
Vol. 15 • February 1951 • No. 2
