Stalinist System Research Articles

Reviews of Books:Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism: Labour and the Restoration of the Stalinist System after World War II Donald Filtzer

Reviews of Books:Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism: Labour and the Restoration of the Stalinist System after World War II Donald Filtzer

The Soviet Archival System from the Russian Revolution to the 1930's

Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 resulted not only in the establishment of the Socialist regime, but also in the critical changes in the Russian archival system. Soviet government issued On the Reorganization and Centralization of Archival Affairs in the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, which prepared the ground for the archival administration in USSR. After having been revised and supplemented in the 1920's, the decree, signed by V. I. Lenin, was changed into The Decree on the Archival Administration of Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, by which the Bolshevik government was able not only to develop the conception of the State Archival Fond with the Single Archival Fond, but also to enlarge the archival collection. Besides, it was remarkable that the archival decree of 1929 provided the justification for actual developments of the archival institution. And from the practical point of view, the decree improved the archival affairs by means of the defining of the conservation period. It was at the beginning of the Stalin's period that the decree of 1929 was issued. Therefore, it may be said that the decree was one of the proofs as well as the agricultural collectivization and the industrialization that Stalin gained the overall control of the Soviet government. It was confirmed when the Second Conference of Soviet Archivists was held from 25 May to 1 June in 1929. After this meeting, M. N. Pokrovskii, who was the director of the Archival Administration in the course of the 1920's, lost the influence over the Soviet archival organizations, which meant that the autonomy of the Soviet archivists was reduced in a great degree. Central Archival Administration of the Bolshevik regime experienced the analogous changes. It was changed into the Central Archival Agent in 1929 when the Stalinist system became strengthened. At the same time, it was significant that the Central Archival Administration of USSR was established. However, the Soviet archival affairs became under the direct control of the N. K. V. D. in the period of the Great Purge.

Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin by Karen s> Petrone (review)

114 SEER, 82, I, 2004 fails to pursue these topics in more ambitious or original directions. The editors acknowledge that they cannot offer a comprehensive survey of all aspects of the subject described in the book's title. This may partiallyjustify their failure to consider any forms of cultural self-representationor practice otherthan architectureand philanthropy(and,perhaps,religionand politics). But this does not excuse the fact that only one contributor (West) engages theoreticallywith crucial definitional and interpretativeproblems of cultural history. PartTwo, in particular,will disappointreadersinterestedin cultural approaches to studying architecture and the built environment. While the authorsof these chaptersexpertlydescribethe history,constructionand style of buildings, they make little attempt to explain their formal, aesthetic or representationalinnovations, still less to interpret these attributesor contextualize them in wider historiesof Russian and European modernity. Ruble's paper, while deeply engaging, fits awkwardlyinto the overall conception of the volume. Nevertheless, the editors are correct to assertthat the novelty of this body of research into Russian business and architecturalhistoryjustifies the attention of specialists,who will certainlywelcome itspublication. Department ofHistogy NICK BARON U'niversity ofM7anchester Petrone,Karen. LifeHasBecome Morejoyous,Comrades. Celebrations intheTimeoJ Stalin.Indiana-Michigan Series in Russian and East European Studies. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2000. X+ 266 pp. Illustrations . Notes. Bibliography.Index. [28.50. THE end of 1935 marked the beginning of an upswing in official Soviet celebrations:the promotion of the New Year'stree;the Stalin Constitutionof I936; the PushkinCentennial of 1937; and the twenty-yearanniversaryof the October Revolution. This waspreciselythe period when the terrorreachedits apogee. According to Karen Petrone,the studyof celebrationsis criticalto an understanding of the Stalinist I930s, for it can illuminate the interplay of officialideology, the various practices and discoursesof governance, and the forms of popular participation and resistance. Situating herself within the historiographicalframeworkof social history, Petrone opposes the other key current in contemporary scholarshipthat privileges the role of ideology and assertsthe inability of ordinarySoviet citizens to fashion identitiesoutside of this framework.She thus stressesthe fracturesand contradictions of official discourses and the myriad ways ordinarypeople interacted with them at times appropriatingthem fortheirown, more subversiveuses.The statecould not control the way officialdiscourseswere used, she stresses,nor could they eliminate alternativeworldviews. This volume is the first comprehensive study of celebrations during the 1930$ and contributes to a growing literature on the history of festivals, parades, holidays and public rituals. As scholars have documented, official celebrationsare importantmechanismsof politicallegitimizationandpopular mobilization. While celebrationsand festivalshad played an importantrole in REVIEWS 115 Bolshevikpolitical culture since i 9 I8, the late I 920s witnessed the centralization and tightening of political control over them. NeverthelessPetroneis not satisfiedwithjust 'reading'the totalizingrepresentationsof officialideology in these stage-managedperformances,though she does analysethe way categories and concepts were used to promote the legitimacy and authority of the state. Using a wide variety of published and archival sources, she instead reveals the disputes and jockeying for position among officialsas well as the responsesof both institutionsand individuals. This volume is divided into two parts with six topical chapters (plus introductoryand concluding chapters).PartOne examines three case studies that illuminate the nexus between popular culture and mass mobilization. Chaptersare thus devoted to parades,the celebrationof the heroic exploits of Soviet aviatorsand polar explorers,and the festivitiesof New Year'sDay. In her analysisof parades, for example, Petroneshows how the parade provided a powerfulimage and enactment of the officialorder.Hierarchywas displayed most fundamentallyin the distinctionsbetween the elite spectators(withStalin at the symbolic and physical centre) and the slightly less elite participants. Likewise,the orderof precedence within theparade enacted otherhierarchies of identity involving geography (Moscow-periphery),nation (Russian over non-Russian), class (workersover peasants), and gender (men over women). Behind the facade of order,however, reigneddisorder,confusion, indiscipline and rivalry.As Petroneshowsin othercontexts aswell, the parade often could not mask the gaps between discourse and social reality. Indeed, in the realm of celebration as in almost all others spheres of politics and the economy, failures of communication intentional and unintentional limited Moscow's rule in the provinces. Part Two is then organized around the theme of cultural and political enlightenment,withchaptersdevotedto thePushkinCentennial,thetwentieth anniversary of the October Revolution, and the celebrations of the Stalin Constitution. Although culturedness was a central aspect of the Stalinist system,each of these case...

Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism. Labour and the Restoration of the Stalinist System after World War II. By Filtzer, Donald. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2002. xviii, 276 pp. £45.00; $60.00

<i>Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism. Labour and the Restoration of the Stalinist System after World War II</i>. By F<scp>iltzer</scp>, D<scp>onald</scp>. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2002. xviii, 276 pp. £45.00; $60.00

Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland by Jan T. s&gt; Gross (review)

REVIEWS 58I Gross, Jan T. Neighbors.TheDestruction of theJewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland.Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ and Oxford, 200I. XX + 26I pp. Map. Illustrations. Notes. Index. $19.95: 712.95. A QUICK visitto the internetwill reveal that thousandsof articles,printed and electronic, have been generated by this smallbook, which was publishedin a Polish edition in 2000. To be sure, its revelations are shocking: on i0 July 1941, part of the Catholic Polish population of Jedwabne, a small town of approximately3,000 personsin Lomza county in the Podlasieregion of northeastern Poland, attacked, tortured and murdered most of the town's Polish Jewish population, perhaps i,6oo in all. The culmination of the day-long killingspreecame when all the survivingJews were driveninto a barn, locked in, and burned to death. There is a lingering dispute about German involvement in the instigation of the atrocity, but there can be no question that the murdererswere Poles. The book has strucka nerve among Poles andJews because Grossdoes not shy away fromthe implicationsof thisevent. His researchaddsto the growing literature about the 'ordinary men,' to use Christopher Browning's phrase, who servedas the foot-soldierswho enabled the ideological fanaticsof Nazism to carryout the massmurderof EuropeanJewry. In thiscase, thevictimswere neighbours who had lived for decades side by side with their murderers in apparentpeace and amity. Even more unsettling although Grossdoes not dwell on this point the Jedwabne massacrewas not an isolated event, but partof a seriesof massmurdersin the region. Some of thevictimsinJedwabne wereJewish refugeesfleeingsimilarattacksin nearbytownslikeRadzilow and W,sosz. Although he does not comment in detail on this phenomenon, Gross includes a map of the '"Bermuda Triangle" of July I94I massacresof Jews by theirneighbors'(p. 203). Self-justifyingeffortshave been made in the past to explain both occasional acts of Polish collaboration with Nazi anti-Semitism, and the more common phenomenon of popular apathy toward the Final Solution. In particular, alleged Jewish collaboration with the Soviet occupation and sovietization of eastern Poland in the period I939-4I iS often used to explain, if not excuse, such actions and attitudes. Gross demonstrates that, despite retrospective claims, Jedwabne Jews could not in any way be linked to the stereotypical 'zydokommuna'.Grosslocated the impetusin the basestof human motives:it was 'thedesireand unexpected opportunityto robtheJews once and for all ratherthan, or alongsidewith, atavisticAntisemitism'(p. I Io). The heated response to Gross'sbook in Poland has served to demonstrate another point made by the author, the extreme difficultyfor Poles to cede the role of 'victim' to others. As Gross provocatively asks in one chapter, 'Is it Possible to Be Simultaneously a Victim and a Victimizer'. The answer is, of course, 'yes'. This has made the realities of Polish-Jewishrelations before, during and after the Second World War so difficult even for conscientious scholarsto address,to saynothing of the broaderpublic. Grossarguesthat the construction of a usable past that can serve as a foundation for a modern Polish identity must include a recognition of the 'dark past' as well as the episodes of martyrdom and glory. At least some segments of contemporary Polishsociety have ralliedto Gross'scall. 582 SEER, 8i, 3, 2003 Lost in the heat of theJedwabne controversyis a hypothesisthat arisesout of Gross' research, dealing not with the Holocaust, but with the subsequent Communist takeover in post-war Poland. Besides the dedicated ideologues who moved this process forward,he notes, was manpower of a differentsort. 'Amongtheir most valuable operativesand confidantsthere were also people devoid of all principles'. These were precisely the types of people who had been compromised during the German occupation. In other words, those willing to kill their neighbours for their cows or clothing, were also willing to benefit from serving the Stalinist system. His contention that 'communities whereJews had been murderedbylocal inhabitantswereespeciallyvulnerable to sovietization'(p. i66) is a hypothesisworthtestingby scholars. Gross's book is significantnot just for the light it sheds on Poland's 'dark past',but forthe many unansweredquestionsthat it raises. Department ofHebrew andJewishStudies J.D. KLIER University College London Jones, Derek (ed.). Censorship. A WorldEncyclopedia. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers , London and Chicago, IL, 200I. lXii + 289 I pp. (in four volumes). Illustrations.Bibliographicalreferences.Index. ?265.oo. THEfirstand most importantpoint to make about thisencyclopaedia is that it is a magnificentachievement. Covering...

Soviet workers and late Stalinism: labour and the restoration of the Stalinist system after World War II

Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism is a study of labour and labour policy during the critical period of the Soviet Union's postwar recovery and the last years of Stalin. It is also a detailed social history of the Soviet Union in these years, for non-Russian readers. Using previously inaccessible archival sources, Donald Filtzer describes the tragic hardships faced by workers and their families right after the war; conditions in housing and health care; the special problems of young workers; working conditions within industry; and the tremendous strains which regime policy placed not just on the mass of the population, but on the cohesion and commitment of key institutions within the Stalinist political system, most notably the trade unions and the procuracy. Donald Filtzer's subtle and compelling book will interest all historians of the Soviet Union and of socialism.

De‐Stalinization under Stalin? The case of science

In recent works, Alexei Kojevnikov and David Joravsky have raised three related questions concerning the impact of the post‐war campaign on science in the Soviet Union. Did the intensity of the campaign abate before Stalin's death? To what extent were the national discussions generated by the campaign predetermined? Can the ideological framework within which these discussions occurred be understood purely as a means of political control? Archival evidence reveals a reduction in the intensity of the campaign, primarily in consequence of growing awareness of the technical costs of suppressing science; discussions were orchestrated but not always successfully, or directly, by the party; and while ideology imposed limits on discussion and asserted the party's right to adjudicate them, this was not accorded unqualified recognition by scientists. Science thus suggests that the late Stalinist system was more dynamic and reciprocal than has sometimes been thought with symptoms of de‐Stalinization emerging before Stalin's death.

City of the Devil: Bulgakovian Moscow and the Search for the Stalinist Subject

This article considers the question of the Stalinist subject, i.e. the way the self was constructed under the Stalinist regime, by means of a close reading of Bulgakov's satiric novel The Master and Margarita . Recent work on Stalinist subjectivity has drawn on Foucault to argue for a Stalinist subject that has fully internalised the system's ideology, thus, in effect, proposing a radical Sonderweg for the Soviet self if compared to the western, liberal paradigm. The article critically engages with the philosophical assumptions that underpin such an analysis and proposes an alternative reading of the Soviet self as hyper-liberal, hence as closely related to the western self of modernity. To do so, the article analyses Bulgakov's novel in the light of Thomas Hobbes's and Slavoj Zizek's respective visions of the subject. The Stalinist system of totalitarian terror itself is shown to be remarkably stable because it manages to utilise the self-supervision of its subjects, and because the individuals' strategies for survival and success played on Stalinist terms amount to a daily affirmation of the system. In light of its dismissal of the Sonderweg theory, the article concludes by examining the differences between liberal democracies and totalitarian regimes.

Policy Burdens, Accountability, and the Soft Budget Constraint

In a socialist economy, when a state-owned enterprise (SOE) incurs losses, the government often provides it with additional funding, cuts its taxes, and offers other compensations. Coincidentally, the managers of an SOE also expect to receive financial assistance from the state. Such a phenomenon is called the soft budget constraint (SBC), a term coined by Janos Kornai (1986). Kornai attributes many problems in a socialist economy to the existence of the SBC. To achieve successful reform of both the SOE's and socialist economies, it is imperative to eliminate the SBC. However, the SBC phenomenon continues to exist in transitional economies, even after SOE's are privatized (World Bank, 1996 p. 45). There is a large literature on the SBC. Mathias Dewatripont et al. (1996) and Eric Maskin (1996) provide surveys on the recent literature. According to Kornai (1998), there are two types of explanations for the existence of the SBC: the exogenous and endogenous. Explanations of the first type attribute the existence of the SBC to various exogenous reasons, including the paternalism of a socialist state and the government's aims for job creation or for gaining political support (Kornai, 1986). Explanations of the second type view the SBC as an endogenous phenomenon, arising from a time-inconsistency problem (Dewatripont and Maskin, 1995). For an inefficient, uncompleted investment project, the state or creditor may have incentives to refinance the investment because the marginal benefit of refinancing exceeds the marginal cost of abandoning it. Yingyi Qian (1994) attributed the shortage of goods in socialist economies to the SBC based on such a timeinconsistency argument. In this paper, we provide another explanation for the prevalence of the SBC in socialist and transitional economies. We will argue that the SBC is rooted in the state's accountability problem. The traditional Stalinist system was designed to facilitate the establishment of certain strategic SOE's, which were not viable in a market system. To establish the nonviable SOE's, a socialist government distorted the prices of all kinds of inputs and of outputs and used administrative measures to allocate these inputs and outputs according to plans. However, due to information and coordination problems, the state could make wrong decisions regarding investment/production and fail to deliver necessary materials and inputs in time. Consequently, the state, instead of SOE's, was accountable for the failures and needed to allocate additional credits and other assistance to the SOE's in order to complete the investment and production. As such, the SBC arose. After the transition to a market economy, many strategic firms still remain nonviable in a market economy. For strategic purposes, the state needs to support these finns. Moreover, most firms in a transitional economy carry many types of policy burdens, inherited from the pretransition system (Lin et al., 1998). Because the state is accountable for the losses arising from policy burdens, the SBC phenomenon persists. In a market economy, the state's attempts to build nonviable industry and the state's policy burdens on enterprises will also lead to SBC.

Max Weber's Concept of Patrimonialism and the Soviet System

The concept of patrimonial domination was at first underutilized in western social science and then often used without proper clarification of its methodological basis. When the Soviet system was characterized as patrimonial, conceptual analysis was also generally lacking. In the article an attempt is made to fill in the gap between Weberian sociological theory and historical studies of Soviet society. It is argued that, although the concept of patrimonialism is applicable to the Stalinist system, this concept is not sufficient for the description of the Soviet state throughout its history. It is assumed in the article that Weber's concept of Beamtenmherrschaft might be more appropriate for the analysis of the post-Stalinist political regime in the USSR.

Totalitarianism and Detotalitarization: The Case of Poland

The classical theory of totalitarianism provided unequalled insights into the nature of the Stalinist system. Its prevailing interpretation, however, proved grossly inadequate to conceptualize and explain the changes of the post-Stalinist period. Because of this, there appeared a strong tendency to reject the “totalitarian model” and, in addition, to discredit it politically, as serving the aims of the cold war. The present article tries to show that emphasizing the importance of changes did not require a wholesale dismantling of the totalitarian theory. On the contrary: the notion of totalitarianism should be preserved as an ideal-typical construct, adequately explaining the militantly ideological phase in the development of communism; the evolution of the system in its postideological phase should be explained asdetotalitarization, that is, essentially, as a disintegrating process, paving the way for the so-called collapse of communism. The author analyzes the consecutive stages of the detotalitarization process in post-Stalinist Poland and thus explains the collapse of Polish communism not as a sudden, miraculous change, but as the last link in a long chain of events. He rejects the view that Polish People's Republic was “totalitarian to the end” as having no theoretical justification at all—although still being useful in the political struggle against postcommunist forces.

Varieties of Marxist Humanism: Philosophical Revision in Postwar Eastern Europe.

Flourishing in Eastern Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, Marxist humanism helped to delegitimise the communist regimes, and it provided an intellectual basis for the successful assault on European communism in the 1980s. In this comparative study of the movement, Satterwhite focuses on Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia - the four countries where the critical use of Marxist thought as the basis for rejecting the official ideology was fully developed. He draws upon research in the original languages for the most part, as well as on interviews and discussions with the critical thinkers themselves. Included are the critical views of Leszek Kolakowski from Poland, Karel Kosik from Czechoslovakia, Agnes Heller and Ferene Feher from Hungary, and Mihailo Markovic and Svetozar Stojanovic from Yugoslavia. Marxist humanism developed as a response to Stalinism from within Marxism. In their search for a human alternative to the dehumanising experience of Stalinism, certain critical thinkers - philosophers and sociologists - began to re-read and re-evaluate the Marxist texts. They developed a philosophical critique and refutation of the official ideology that led inexorably to a critique of the social, political, and cultural dimensions of the Stalinist system. Satterwhite traces the development of Marxist humanism in Eastern Europe throught a presentation of the key concepts as they were formulated by the various thinkers at different stages in their own intellectual growth. While he brings out the distinct features of each group studied, he finds a remarkable similarity in the end product. The fundamental unity underlying their efforts was not accidental. It derived from their common purpose and shared humanist perspective. Notes and a comprehensive bibliography provide a useful guide to writings by and about these key figures in the post-World War II period, whose thinking has had such a profound influence on our own times.

Once Again on Concepts of Socialism

V. Popov's article must be hailed. Not only because one should not go from one extreme to the other, from the all-powerful state to the infallible market, but also because the time has come to reflect on the meaning of the word There are very broad possibilities here. After all, even Hitler called his party national socialist. Entirely moderate reform parties in France and Spain called themselves socialist until recently. And it is very unfortunate that no one can or should forget that Stalin's totalitarian dictatorship represented itself as a triumph of the socialist idea. Moreover, even some of today's prominent scholars think this way, for example, Janos Kornai, who even in his recent book called the Stalinist system classical socialism.

Chaos on campus: The 1924 studentproverkain Leningrad

IN SPRING 1921 a series of measures relaxing restrictions on trade and production while eliminating grain requisitions marked the introduction of the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP). The Communist Party instituted NEP in the hope of securing civil peace and social stability. This 'retreat' from the miltant days of War Communism and the resulting contradictions of ideology, class and policy have made NEP something of an anomaly for historians. Earlier studies concentrated on the development of the state and party apparatus during NEP, and the internal political battles which the dynamics of change produced. These studies have generally viewed NEP not as a distinct historical period but as an intermediary between a state founded on leninist principles and an emerging stalinist system.1 Recent literature has questioned this assumption. Inherent in most of the recent work is the supposition that NEP itself was a distinct historical period with an amalgam of political forces 'from above' and social forces 'from below' providing for a highly complex and often divided society.2 A recent essay by Sheila Fitzpatrick has noted that a fundamental paradox of NEP society was the fluid nature of class definitions set against the tremendous social and political significance these identities carried for the individual.3 This obfuscation of class identity was critical in defining social and political developments in the 1920s. Delineating the role of class and ideology within a revolutionary state which oscillated between a nihilistic rejection of all pre-revolutionary structures and the grudging acceptance of the use of 'bourgeois specialists' became a painstaking process of compromise, dialogue and confrontation during NEP. The bolsheviks required a fresh generation of young specialists, trained to take control of a burgeoning state apparatus, if they were to address the problem of state-building. In order to create this new cadre of trained youth, an effective higher education system was needed. But the network of higher schools and research institutions, like other organisations within the Soviet political economy, had been weakened by the financial austerity and infrastructural decay experienced during the civil war. This article examines the crisis of higher education in the mid-1920s by looking at the contradictory set of agendas pursued through the student proverka (literally 'verification') in 1924, and the effects this purge had on the higher education system during the remainder of NEP. Discussion here centres on the purge as it was implemented in Leningrad, and in particular at Leningrad State University (LGU), the nation's second largest university.4 The goal here is to explain how central and regional state authority-represented in this case by the Communist Party and

Remaking the Polish Working Class: Early Stalinist Models of Labor and Leisure

The Stalinist revolution began to accelerate in Poland, as throughout eastern Europe, in 1947, with the implementation of multi-year plans, the repression of opposition and the enforcement of unity in the bloc; by the beginning of 1950, the transformation of the bloc was more or less complete. The construction of the Stalinist system did not occur in a vacuum but was shaped in part by societies, and the regimes which emerged were thus more complex than has been generally acknowledged. That complexity stems in part from Stalinist regimes’ interest in transforming society through mobilization and integration, rather than merely subduing it. Active participation in political and economic life was required; mere acquiescence to the demands of the regime was insufficient; and class conflict was to be eliminated, replaced by an alliance between the working class and its former adversaries.

From a Ricardian to a Marxian Ranking of Economic Goals and Means (A Case of the Soviet Union)

Addresses two major problems. Argues first that the Stalinist model of socio‐economic development, with its actual emphasis on production for the sake of production, has been Ricardian in its nature. As a result, its dominant features have been the sellers′ market of shortages. Maintains, second, that the essence of the current transformation of the Stalinist system is its movement from the Ricardian to the modified Marxian model of capitalism. Since the latter′s proclaimed goal is production for the sake of profits, the “reformed” Soviet socio‐economic structure will have to end up as the buyers′ market of plenty.

Problems of Postcommunism: Toward a Civil Economy

Problems of PostcommunismToward a Civil Economy Richard Rose (bio) Postcommunist societies are simultaneously undergoing two massive and closely related transformations: the political shift from totalitarianism to democracy, and the economic shift from central planning to the market. It is widely recognized that these transformations cannot succeed without the development of a civil society. What is not sufficiently understood, however, is that their success also depends upon the development of a civil economy. Democracy presupposes a civil society, a recognition by the state that individuals, informal groups, and formal institutions should be free to pursue their interests and ideals independent of the state in most spheres of life. East of the old Iron Curtain, giant steps have been taken toward sustaining a civil society. These include the introduction of such basic civil rights as freedom of speech and association and freedom from arbitrary arrest, along with free elections and multiparty politics. Even if military coups occurred all across the region tomorrow, the new rulers would find it impossible to resurrect the apparatus of totalitarianism. A Stalinist system is not built easily; to destroy a civil society would require the use of brutal force for a long period of time. While most postcommunist governments have rejected central planning, it is not clear what kind of economy they are heading toward. To chart the possible paths of change, we need a conceptual framework that can do more than just distinguish between the old communist-style command economy and a Western-style market economy; we need to be able to identify other types of economies as well. In addition to the standard distinction between market and nonmarket economies, we must [End Page 13] also keep in mind a second critical distinction-that which divides economies operating within a clear legal framework from those that operate outside the law. By combining these two dimensions, we come up with the typology shown in Figure 1. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. - A Typology of Economies The starting point for every postcommunist society is the command economy, which is both nonmarket and legal. Communist constitutions gave ownership and control of economic institutions to the state, and central planning was the job of an elaborate bureaucracy that decided who produced what, when, and why. Plan quotas were assigned to each enterprise, and progress was monitored through detailed periodic reporting. Planning under communism differed fundamentally from Western-style indicative planning, which seeks to complement the market, not supplant it. The command economy did not need prices; reports of the physical quantities of inputs and outputs were used as accounting and auditing mechanisms. Managers in command economies became expert at using "connections" and other irregular methods to secure the goods and services needed to meet production targets. Because failure to meet plan targets could be considered a crime, managers in command economies became masters of duplicity, cooking the books to make everything appear in order. The command economy could run without signals of demand and supply, but it could not run without the political power needed to replace market incentives with centralized allocation by the state. Communist regimes used their power to dispense with feedback from the marketplace as well as from the ballot box. That power fell with the Berlin Wall. What is to fill the vacuum? One logical possibility is a parasitical economy, which lacks both markets and legality. Goods can be allocated through seizure by force rather than through purchase or property rights. While history provides many examples of brigands, pirates, and border raiders preying on caravans, ships, or neighboring territories, all such freebooters must depend upon others to produce goods and services suitable for stealing, [End Page 14] and they often require markets to sell illegally seized goods. The activities of the "mafia" in Russia provide a current illustration of the expropriation of goods through coercion; the Moscow meat mafia, for example, was strong enough before Christmas 1991 to prevent the delivery of a British relief shipment containing hundreds of tons of meat that would have broken the mafia chokehold on the city's meat trade. But such groups are parasites; they depend upon unwilling producers and consumers whom they can exploit...

The evolution of party systems in Eastern Europe

The Stalinist and neo-Stalinist system of government was imposed on Eastern Europe by the leading member of the Soviet bloc. It was a centralized and authoritarian system that was capable of transf ...

Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel (review)

270 SAISREVIEW will rise to the surface, a la Gephardt. It is particularly at this point that readers may notice the book's complete dearth offootnotes or bibliography. Also, there are recurring syntax errors which, coupled with a sometimes awkward stylistic approach, affects the readability of the book. Olsen arrives at the amenable though not unique conclusion that the U.S. and South Korea have reached an impasse in shifting from a relationship of dependency to one of parity, and that adjustments are needed to resolve this difficulty. Similarly, Olsen's advocation of a U.S. policy comprised of a firm yet consistent approach to the North Koreans with a concurrent possibility of economic involvement with the flourishing Pacific Rim countries is a solid conclusion. However, the reasoning behind the advocation of this stance is odd. Olsen urges the United States to "emulate South Korea's flexibility toward the U.S.S.R. and [the Peoples Republic of China] by adopting comparable flexibility toward North Korea." But the relative military and economic positions and concerns of the two nations are so different that the comparison is ludicrous. South Korea is merely following the lead of other countries similarly assured of U.S. military protection, such as NATO members, who seek economic relations and overall reductions in tension without having to mediate security concerns. South Korean policy makers are well aware of their situation, and the "chaebol" (South Korean business conglomerates) are moving into the previously forbidden Soviet, Chinese, and Eastern European markets with contracts and joint venture proposals in hand. Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City ofSteel. By John Scott; enlarged edition by Stephen Kotkin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. 306 pp. $27.50/cloth, $9.95/paper. Reviewed by Daniel B. Berg, M.A. Candidate, SAIS. Russia has been through three revolutions this century. We are familiar with the first revolution in 1917 which established Soviet power, because the Bolsheviks were internationalists and their tenuous hold on power could not prevent Western snooping. We have easily followed the most recent, since Gorbachev has opened the Soviet Union with the hope of gaining assistance for his cause. Like Peter the Great, Mikhail Gorbachev is a westernizer. The man who guided Russia through her second great revolution this century, Joseph Stalin, was a Slavophile, and his xenophobia led to an autarkic, isolated Russia. Therefore, our understanding of his revolution is incomplete. It is the legacy of the Stalinist system—the Soviet political, economic and social systems (all ofthem centralized and "taut")—with which today's reformers must deal. To fathom Gorbachev's goals, successes and failures, we must understand Stalin's legacy. John Scott offers one of a few first-hand accounts of Stalin's Russia. Scott, a disillusioned American in the midst of the Great Depression, heard the calls to BOOK REVIEWS 271 "go to Russia" and join in a great socio-economic experiment. He lived with Russian workers, and felt completely at home with their historic task: "While political leaders in Moscow were scheming and intriguing, planning and organizing, I worked with the common soldiers, the steel workers, the simple people who sweated and shed tears and blood." Though a socialist, Scott does not shy away from an honest appraisal of the failures of Stalinism. Simultaneously, he portrays the spirit, determination and true enthusiasm of the Soviet people for their country and their revolution. Scott often witnesses the failures of economic centralization: "The Commissariat of Heavy Industry . . . ran thousands of mines, shops, mills throughout the country. [ItJ was created by a stroke ofthe pen and was expected to begin functioning immediately .... The result was what might have been expected . . . boundless devotion, and hard work; and unbelievable . . . disorder and stupidity." Inefficiency has been built into the system by central planning and subsidies to ensure full-employment. Scott noted that "while an American furnace of one thousand cubic meter volume was tended by seventy to eighty men, in Magnitogorsk it took one hundred and sixty-five." In Stalin's industrialization rush, administrators developed an uncaring attitude for the people, and environmental issues lost significance. Gorbachev faces the impact of past overzealous programs, such as the raping of...

Stalin's Successors: Leadership, Stability, and Change in the Soviet Union, by Seweryn Bialer

Preface Introduction Part I. Stalinism and the Soviet Political System: 1. The mature Stalinist system 2. Stalin and the Soviet Political elite 3. Stalinism and the evolution of the Soviet polity Part II. Succession and Turnover of Soviet Elites: 4. The approaching succession: the top leader 5. The approaching succession: leadership and elite turnover 6. The approaching succession: generational change Part III. The Nature and Extent of Soviet Political Stability: 7. Stability: analytical considerations 8. Soviet stability and its sources 9. Soviet political stability and the question of legitimacy 10. Soviet stability and the national problem Part IV. Soviet Perceptions of International Affairs and Trends in Soviet Foreign Policy: 11. The Centrality of US-Soviet relations 12. The arms race and the correlation of forces 13. The role of the military factor in international relations 14. The Third World and the translation of power into influence Part V. Prospects for the 1980s: 15. The politics of stringency Index.