Soviet Attitudes Research Articles

Soviet Marxism and population policy.

American demographers have maintained that Marxism, notably Soviet Marxism, is consistently pronatalist. The Soviet view is said to be that population growth is not a problem and that birth control policies in either developed or developing societies are to be rejected; the "correct" (i.e., socialist) socioeconomic structure is the true solution to alleged population problems. Such representations of Soviet thought greatly oversimplify the Soviet position as well as fail to discern the changes in Soviet thought that have been occurring. Since the 1960s Soviet writers have increasingly acknowledged that population growth is, to a considerable degree, independent of the economic base of society and that conscious population policies may be needed to either increase or decrease the rate of population growth. Even socialist societies can have population problems. And where population growth is too rapid, as in the developing countries, policies to slow such growth are needed because of the threat to economic development. However, the Soviets continue to stress that birth control policies must go hand-in-hand with social and economic development policies if they are to be effective.

Soviet Society and the World Systems Analysis

Abstract In his review of The Neo-Stalinist State, Luke reproaches me for neglecting both “the new importance of the USSR's and Eastern Europe's niche in the world economic system” and the use of the East-West economic exchange by the Soviet regime to “sustain its ‘neo-Stalinist’ state.” These criticisms are well taken. Yet, I deliberately concentrated on the inner workings of the Soviet state in its mature form without going into the problems of the Soviet position in the global system. After pointing to these weaknesses, Luke suggests his own interpretation of Soviet developments in the past decades. They can be summarized as follows.

Cognitive Development and the Utilization of Memorization Strategies in Middle Childhood

Summary The relationship between cognitive development and the use of memorization strategies in a free recall task was assessed in first, third, and fifth grade children. The results indicated a prerequisite relationship in which changes in underlying cognitions proceed in advance of the spontaneous and deliberate use of memorization strategies. In addition, the results indicated that multiple mnemonic activities do not emerge concurrently at the same rate of development. The results are discussed in terms of the issue of homogeneity in cognitive development. Conclusions are drawn with respect to the Soviet position on the subordination of cognitive activities to the goal of memorization.

The Soviet Position on Questions of Normalizing Political Relations and of Developing Economic Relations in the Pacific Ocean Region

In discussions about the prospects of a Ocean Association it is evident that the possible international consequences connected with the creation of a regional intergovernmental institution and its possible influence on the political climate in the region cannot be ignored. Regional tendencies are developing in concrete historical and political circumstances in complex and unstable international conditions in the Pacific Ocean, which bring to the fore issues concerning the political atmosphere in which the system of economic relations develops and takes shape.

The Third World in Soviet Military Thought, by Mark N. Katz

First published in 1982, this study traces the development of Soviet military thinking on the Third World and assesses its importance for the conduct of Soviet foreign policy. Changes in Soviet military thought often reflect changes in Soviet attitudes towards and expectations from involvement in Third World conflicts. This work from Dr. Katz meditates upon the changing role of the USSR in post-war Third World conflicts, with particular emphasis upon the Brezhnev era and the way in which US setbacks in the Third World impacted upon Soviet foreign policy and changing attitudes to the Third World.

The Soviet Calculus of Nuclear War

This book presents papers on nuclear weapons policy in the USSR. Topics considered include contemporary Soviet military policy, Soviet strategic planning, ballistic missile defense, Soviet arms control decision making since Brezhnev, Soviet positions on strategic arms control, negotiating with the Soviets, the slowdown of Soviet defense spending, weapons acquisition in the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union and the East European militaries.

Soviet and American Childbearing Experiences and Attitudes: A Comparison

In 1951, and again in 1955, Dr. Fernand Lamaze, a French obstetrician, traveled to the Soviet Union to study “psychoprophylaxis,” a method designed by Soviet psychologists, obstetricians, and neurologists to help women overcome pain and fear during childbirth. The method, which was rooted in the medical use of hypnosis and suggestion to alleviate pain, involved training women to take their minds off uterine contractions by concentrating instead on other bodily functions, such as breathing. Lamaze refined the method and brought it to the West.Lamaze's account of his indebtedness to Soviet scientists suggests that it may be useful to learn more about Soviet women's experiences during pregnancy and childbirth. Perusal of the literature, however, indicates that, while general descriptions in English of Soviet obstetrical care are available, very little is known about Soviet women's perceptions of and attitudes toward pregnancy and delivery.

La logique de l'URSS au Moyen-Orient

Soviet policy in the Middle East, by Marie Mendras The Soviet position in the Middle East has not deteriorated as much as certain commentators daim. Policies should be judged according to the goals pursued. At présent, the USSR's policy is one of realism and prudence. The break with Egypt demonstrated the limits of « spécial relationships ». The USSR no longer seeks to establish this kind of alliance in the region, and it remains very cautions in its relations with progressive movements. Its policy does not consist of exclusive support for socialist regimes. Its direct economie interests in the Arab world should not be overestimated and it is not seeking économie domination of the region. From this perspective, the post-Lebanese war situation does not seem unfavourable to Soviet interests.

The Soviet attitude to stress in battle.

The Soviet attitude to stress in battle.

Soviet Peace Efforts on the Eve of World War Two: A Review of the Soviet Documents

'Soviet Peace Efforts on the Eve of World War Two',' is a collection of documents from various countries covering September 1938 to August 1939, which purports to give the Soviet version of the immediate origins of the second world war. Propaganda apart, such publications have an intrinsic value, which lies not only in the additional light shed on past Soviet foreign policy but also on current Soviet attitudes, since, as Pokrovsky once remarked, 'history is politics projected back into the past'. This collection contains many documents published for the first time and also has a curious history which makes it additionally interesting. It was originally published as a two-volume paperback in Moscow in 1973 and in conformity with the Soviet practice of printing, small, limited editions 'to sell out' stocks, rapidly became out of print. It was reissued as a single-volume hardback in 1976 as a second printing, which, however, amounted to a second revised edition since approximately one hundred (mostly Soviet) documents were missing and it contained a different preface, with no reference to the fact that it was a revised, abridged or different version of the first. The theme of this collection is 'the persistent efforts of the Soviet government to create a peace front' and the repeated attempts by

Human Rights - the Property of the Nation State or a Concern for the International Community? A Study of the Soviet Positions Concerning UN Protection of Civil and Political Rights since 1975

Bergesen, H. O. Human Rights - the Property of the Nation State or a Concern for the International Community? A Study of the Soviet Positions Concerning UN Protection of Civil and Political Rights since 1975. Cooperation and Conflict, XIV, 1979, 239-254. The paper analyzes Soviet policy - in general and in concrete cases - as regards the role of UN bodies in the protection of civil and political human rights. The empirical analysis shows that the main Soviet concern is to hinder any development in the direction of independent UN investigations into violations of human rights in specific countries and subsequent UN action to restore respect for those rights. However, the USSR is not opposed to UN bodies expressing their opinion about the human rights situation in specific countries, since resolutions do not unleash an unpredictable machinery of impartial fact-finding. The USSR clearly considers civil and political rights a state property. International organizations, like UN bodies, do not even have the right to inquire into a state's dealings with this property.

Soviet attitudes towards nuclear war: Do they really think they can win?

Soviet attitudes towards nuclear war: Do they really think they can win?

Chinese and Soviet Attitudes toward International Law: A Comparative Approach

Chinese and Soviet Attitudes toward International Law: A Comparative Approach

Reaction to the Shcharansky case

The case of Anatoly Shcharansky, once the barometer of Soviet attitudes towards civil rights as well as an indicator of the current state of detente with the West, is, inevitably, fading from memory. This despite the severity of the sentence he ultimately received.

ANGOLA, NATIONAL LIBERATION, AND THE SOVIET UNION

Abstract : The Angolan Civil War-with the United States and the People's Republic of China supplying aid to the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNIT A), and with the Soviet Union and Cuba supplying aid to the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA)-provides an excellent backdrop to examine the boundaries and limits of detente and peaceful coexistence as defined by the Soviet Union and to study policy toward one national liberation movement during detente. This article will undertake those tasks. Before the Angolan situation itself may be examined, however, it is necessary to understand the general Soviet attitude toward national liberation movements during detente.

Scythian Gold and the Gold-Standard : Soviet Attitudes To Gold and the International Monetary System

The train has stopped in the night. It is the end of winter, 1920; it is very cold, about 25 degress below zero, some hundred kilometers west of Irkutsk. Along the train soldiers mount guard; ahead, a party of the detachment is clearing the track. Many of the soldiers have makeshift bandages around their wrists and feet: the Siberian frost has taken its toll. There is no question, however, of withdrawing the guard or stopping the work. This train is the most precious treasure of the Soviet. Republic, transporting the greater part of the State gold reserves: 355 m. tons. Previously housed in the vaults of the Kazan Bank in Tartary by the Tsarist government, it was removed in 1918 by admiral Kolchak; the greatest coup in history! Not that it brought the admiral any good luck: in Siberia, at the height of the civil war, the richest man in the world was only able to get a few shipments of gold through to Vladivostok, to pay his debts to the Americans and buy arms from them. And then Kolchak died: he was shot on February 7th, the gold now returning to Kazan.

Soviet Policies and Attitudes Toward Israel, 1948–1978—An Overview

Soviet Policies and Attitudes Toward Israel, 1948–1978—An Overview

Alexei Gastev and the soviet controversy over Taylorism, 1918–24

SOVIET attitudes to work are as important for an understanding of Soviet culture as is, for example, the controversy over the so-called Protestant work ethic for an understanding of modern Western culture.1 While the Soviet Union may not yet have found its Max Weber or its R. H. Tawney to argue over the origins of Soviet attitudes to work, when it does a figure of critical importance for an understanding of this aspect of Soviet culture will be Alexei Gastev. Gastev was the founder of the Central Labour Institute and a major figure in the development and popularization of Soviet ideas concerning 'scientific management', or, as that term is rendered into Russian, nauchnaya organizatsiya truda (scientific organization of work), usually abbreviated as NOT. Gastev was originally known as the most popular of the 'worker-poets' in the early Soviet years-the 'Ovid of engineers, miners, and metal workers'.2 His prose-poems celebrated the life of a new, industrial Russia, and caught the imagination of a generation of Soviet young people, who bought six editions of his Poeziya rabochego udara in the first years of Soviet rule and flocked to hear dramatic readings of his work in the studios of the Proletarian Culture movement.3 These poems were written in prison and Siberian exile before I914, when Gastev was unable to continue his trade union and revolutionary activity. While these poems are far from the level of a Mayakovsky, their use of the strong imagery and language of the Petrograd working class won Mayakovsky's praise, and the Futurists excepted Gastev from their

Prelude to Detente: Doctrinal Change under Khrushchev

A fundamental reorientation of Soviet attitudes toward international politics took place during the Khrushchev years (especially 1956–1960), a reorientation which was a necessary—though certainly not a sufficient—condition for the present period of detente. An attempt is made to delineate these basic changes in Soviet perceptions of international politics through an examination of the evolution of Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Although it is fully recognized that the correspondence between private leadership views and the overt public doctrine is far from perfect, it is argued that a study of doctrine and the process by which it changes can serve as an indicator of parallel shifts in elite perspectives. To this end, an attempt is made, first, to set out the central tenets of the Stalinist world view, and second, to contrast these to the major revisions that Khrushchev introduced concerning: disarmament, the nature of “ruling circles” in the West, and the dynamics of international tension. A study of doctrinal revisionism in the Soviet Union provides substantial evidence of a continuing—though far from completed—process of growing Soviet acceptance of the existing international order.

De l'utopie à la société « pragmatique » : conséquences sociales des réformes économiques en Europe de l'Est

The outcome of World War II brought a new political order to the nations of Eastern Europe : an order which, due to its ideological bases and emphasis on transformation of man and society, may be called "Utopian". A primary expression of this Utopia was the Soviet-style command economy, transported from the land of its invention and grafted onto the new socialist states. This essay, which deals with the broad social consequences of economic reform in East Europe, views reform as a process of dismantling the command economy — a process called forth by the recognition that the promised Utopia is false, and that the economic arrangements linked with its attainment fail to meet the contemporary economic needs of the socialist states. Just as the social consequences of the command economy have shaped, to a significant degree, everyday life in East Europe, so do the consequences of reform promise to change that life. The main focus of the essay is on the Hungarian reform — the New Economic Mechanism — in effect since 1968, as a "case" with potential relevance for other socialist states whose reforms have not yet gone so far. The command economy, in Hungary as elsewhere, was marked by low living standards, a certain amount of egalitarianism in economic rewards combined with job security, an underprovisioning of the service and consumer goods sectors, and chronic problems of housing shortage. Perhaps most critically of all its impacts, the logic of reform challenges the egalitarianism (though at low average pay levels) and job security (rooted in a tolerance for disguised underemployment and low labor productivity) which have provided much of whatever working-class support exists for the East European regimes. The threat of increased income differentials, of "efficiency" criteria, confronts a "populist" form of egalitarianism widespread among the working class, to whom equality of opportunity seems not so important as equality of result. These, and other consequences of allowing freer play to quasi-market mechanism (such as increased peasant incomes via higher produce prices, differentiation in housing as it moves toward becoming a "market" rather than a "welfare" item, etc.) imply changes in the hither to relatively stable positions of social strata. Such changes are matters of controversy, and reform has both its defenders (reform economists themselves, the professional intelligentsia and certain other groups who perceive benefits forthcoming) and its opponents. The latter is an especially mixed group, encompassing numerous political functionaries and enter- prise managers who see their positions threatened by the introduction of new demands, and new and unfamiliar performance criteria, as well as rank-and-file workers who see reform as a threat to their relative material and symbolic status, and, perhaps, "New Left" intelligentsia as well, opposed to a pragmatism which seems to aim at a socialist "consumer society". The consequences of reform, in Hungary at least, are real : whether they are, as yet, irreversible is another question. The fate of economic reform, already far advanced in Hungary, less so in the other Warsaw Pact states, depends not only on the internal balance of political forces as it affects the consensus on reform's social consequences, but also on the position of the USSR. The Soviet attitude has thus far been benign, but indications of official discontent with some consequences of the NEM, at the March 1974 HSWP plenum, may indicate not only domestic, but also Soviet, concerns with the potential results of replacing Utopia with pragmatism.