The Demise of the Soviet Union: Analysing the Collapse of a State by Jan s> Hallenberg (review)

Abstract

584 SEER, 8i, 3, 2003 'internal contradictions'.Just to give two examples, we are told on p. 2015 that Radio Liberty started broadcasting in 1951, whereas p. 20I8 states (correctly)that this station, then called Radio Liberation from Bolshevism, began to operate on I March I953 (a few days before Stalin'sdeath);and on P. 1568 it is claimed that Khrushchev's'secretspeech' was never publishedin the Soviet Union, whereas p. 2084 informs us that it was published in the USSR in I990. Such blemishesapart,however, thisis a most impressivework which should be acquired by all large self-respecting general libraries throughout the world. The encyclopaedia is very reader-friendly, as the alphabetical list of entries and the thematic list (entries by category) are printed in each volume, and there is an extremely detailed index (pp. 2727-849) in volume four, so it is easy to chase up articles on similar subjects even though they are not specifically cross-referenced within the entries themselves. All in all, a tremendously valuable contribution to our knowledge of a phenomenon whose importance in the future may well increase,ratherthan diminish. Department ofSlavonic Studies MARTIN DEWHIRST Universitjof Glasgow Hallenberg, Jan. TheDemiseof theSovietUnion.Analysing theCollapse ofa State. Ashgate, Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2002. Xi + 322 pp. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography.Index. ?45.??. THIsbook is a resultof a rathercuriousenterprise.Jan Hallenberg setsout to examine how three types of observers in four countries (France, Britain, Sweden and the USA) perceived and analysedthe collapse of the Soviet state. The observersare:politicians as office-holderswith constitutionalresponsibility for the conduct of their states'foreign policy; editorialistsin two 'elite' newspapers in each of the four selected countries;and four Sovietologists in Britain, France and Sweden and six in the USA. The chosen Sovietologists are Archie Brown, John Erickson, Alec Nove, Alex Pravda, Alexandre Bennigsen, Alain Besancon, Helene Carrere d'Encausse, Pierre Hassner, Seweryn Bialer, Zbigniew Brzezinski,Alexander Dallin, NMarshall Goldman, JerryHough, RichardPipes,AndersAslund,KristianGerner,StefanHedlund and LenaJonson. Hardly surprising,as Hallenberg himself admits, his study of the Sovietologists 'shows a very considerable amount of disagreement on fundamentalpoints' (p. 6). Hallenbergdepictsthesethree typesof observeras characterizing 'each studied country's public analysis of Moscow's foreign policy'. The Sovietologists may be amused or flattered that they are so labelled. Hallenberg's method in approaching his observersis as follows:a study of the speeches of president or prime minister and foreign minister from each state;scrutinyof editorialsin two newspapersin each state, fromrightand left of the ideological spectrum(LeFigaro, Leillonde,TheTimes,Guardian, Nezw Flork Times,IJashington Post,Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nvyheter); and examination of Sovietologists' writings from I982 to 1992. Hallenberg considers his w-ork to be inspired by scholars in the field of perception and foreign policy such as REVIEWS 585 RobertJervis,YaacovY. I. Vertzberger,ErikBeukeland others.He alsoviews his research as assessingtwo of the 'great issuesin the social sciences and the humanities'(p. I4) how to explain complex politicalprocessesand whether it is meaningfulto attemptprediction. What Hallenberg does not mention, however, is a lesson drummed into many of uswho passedthroughthe rigorousmethodological doctoraltraining programmes in the USA. The philosophy of science teaches us that even in the natural sciences prediction is a tricky business. Only when 'perfect knowledge'is obtained (i.e. when allvariablescan be identifiedand measured) can predictionbe possible. Within classicalphysics, this is deemed obtainable in celestial mechanics and non-atomic thermodynamics,but is the exception ratherthan the norm in science. Elsewhereat best, probabilisticexplanation and 'rules of thumb' are followed. As far as the 'soft' social sciences are concerned, voting studies is really the only area in political science where probabilitiescan be estimated and even then there has to be the assumption that pastpatternsstillhold (andin unstablesystemsthey do not). The methodologically bizarre mantra that 'Sovietologistsfailed to predict the collapse'is both misplacedand not an issueworth regretting.Multivariate explanationsof complex historicalphenomena belie confidentprediction and rely best upon detailed knowledge and intuition. Hallenberg's thesis is that concepts of 'state' and 'superpower'are the two factors that made it difficult to get the prediction 'right'(p. 252). This is because they imply stabilityand longevity respectively. He does not address, however, the methodological question of: is stability measurable and what are the necessary criteria for collapse? If these are...