Expressionism in Music—Real and Imagined

At the Congress of Soviet Musicians in April, 1960, there was considerable heated debate on modernist—and more specifically expressionist—tendencies in Soviet music. The debate was sparked by critical discussion of the recently published Volumes II and III of A History of Russian Soviet Music. During the debate Iosif Ryzhkin, musician, critic and musicologist, took sharp issue with the author of this article over the latter's defense of Prokofiev, whose work at one time was under indictment as "Western-influenced" and "decadent." Specifically the clash centered around the last opera written by the dean of Soviet composers, the monumental War and Peace. Ryzhkin and Danilevich disagreed sharply on the way this work was evaluated in Volume III of the History.     

A Visit to the USA

A leading Soviet novelist (The Train) and member of the Presidium of the Union of Soviet Writers presents her impressions of a trip to the United States. Literaturnaya Gazeta, January 17, 1961.     

A Word About the Change of Title

With the final disintegration of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the title Soviet Review suddenly belonged to history. After considering all the unsatisfactory alternatives, we have decided to rename the journal Russian Social Science Review, which at least has the merit of conveying more clearly the journal's editorial profile. Although most of the articles appearing in the journal will, as in the past, be drawn from Russian-language sources, translations from other languages will certainly not be excluded, and we will make a positive effort to present work from, and about, all areas of the former Soviet Union.     

Abstract Humanism and Socialist Humanism

This article, taken from a leading Soviet literary journal, elaborates the concept of "social humanism" as applied to literature. It is also concerned with a frequently discussed question in Soviet literary criticism — the nature of the hero in Soviet and other modern literature. The authors are researchers at the Gorky Institute of World Literature. Voprosy Literatury (Problems of Literature), 1960, No. 12 — slightly abridged.     

Film Trends: East and West

A leading Soviet film director (The Young Guard) recounts his discussions with Hollywood film executives and directors, indicates some aspects of the organization of the Soviet film industry, and presents his views of recent French, Italian and American films. ("Films and Man in the 1960's," Izvestiia, August 12-14, 1960.)     

Publisher's Note

Beginning with this volume (Vol. 30), The Soviet Review will be published in six issues per volume on the basis of the calendar year. This change has been made to enable us to expand our coverage of the Soviet social science literature.     

A Soviet View of Group Therapy

The author, who is Chief of the Department of Psychiatry at the S. M. Kirov Institute of Medicine at Gorky, compares the theory and practice of group therapy in the West and in the Soviet Union. This article appeared in a recent issue of a Soviet psychiatry journal. All citations from American and English sources have been retranslated from the Russian and footnote references deleted. ("On the Theory of Soviet Collective Psychotherapy," Zhurnal Nevropatologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S. S. Korsakova, 1960, No. 10.)     

Activities of Soviet Psychologists

These announcements suggest the kinds of studies which Soviet psychologists are engaged in. They appeared in the leading Soviet psychology journal, Voprosy Psikhologii, 1960, No. 1 ("In the Psychology Society") and 1960, No. 3 ("An Industrial Psychology Laboratory in the A. A. Zhdanov Leningrad State University").     

In This Issue

As this issue of The Soviet Review goes to press the Soviet Union and its constituent republics are struggling with the most basic issues of constitutional order and the parameters of civil society. All of the articles selected for inclusion here shed light on these questions.     

A Critique of Critics

In recent months a number of articles in the Soviet press have appealed for a change in the tone and function of literary and cultural criticism. Two examples of such appeals are printed below. The first is a brief statement by outstanding members of the Soviet musical, theater and film worlds and by its leading physicist ("For Effect," Izvestia, September 7, 1960). The second article is directed to literary critics (Searchingly But Without Prejudice," Izvestia, September 19—abridged).     

In This Issue

In the first article in this issue of The Soviet Review two economists square off against conservative forces and institutional arrangements that are retarding the progress of economic reform. They call for a pervasive democratization of decision making in Soviet society, for extension of the principle of enterprise "self-management to social self-government" (including referendums, and election and recall of higher-level public officials).     

A Soviet View of American Higher Education

Despite abundant criticism of the American educational system in United States publications, Soviet educators are apparently favorably impressed with some of its features. This article in a Soviet higher education journal by the Deputy Minister of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education reports on a visit to American colleges earlier this year. ["Some Problems of Higher Education in the United States," Vestnik Vysshei Shkoly, 1960, No. 5—abridged.]     

Towards a social history of suffering: Dignity,misery and disrespect

ABSTRACT

This article examines the working-class audience in Soviet Ukraine and the changes in its reading appetites during the 1920s. Under the Soviet nationalities policy of korenizatsiia introduced in 1923, the print-runs of Ukrainian-language literary products increased significantly. Nonetheless, as this article argues, those numerous publications often did not reach Ukrainian readers and if they did, they could hardly satisfy the interest appetites of an ever-growing Ukrainian audience. As the book reviews collected in the second half of the 1920s showed, the worker readers were interested in a certain type of literature – entertaining, easy to comprehend, dealing with contemporary issues and characters – that was not yet available in Ukrainian. Nevertheless, once that literature began to emerge in the late 1920s, the interest in contemporary books in Ukrainian increased. By examining every aspect of reading in Ukrainian – production, dissemination and consumption of the printed word – this article highlights the decisive role of Soviet readership in determining future official Soviet Ukrainian literature. The case of Soviet Ukraine emphasizes regional specifics and introduces an important language component to the Bolshevik reading revolution of the 1920s to early 1930s, largely ignored in the scholarship.     

Empire and Federation

American newspaper and magazine readers have often sought advice on personal and family problems by submitting questions to these publications. Soviet parents, similarly concerned with the proper rearing of their children, also seek expert advice. These questions and answers, taken from a journal published by the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR, reveal the character traits which Soviet educators strive to have parents instill in their children. ("Answers to Parents' Questions," Semia i Shkola, 1960, No. 3.)     

Prognosis for the Novel,East and West

Form and content in art are an all-absorbing subject for discussion among Soviet artists who like all artists everywhere are trying to formulate their thinking and apply it to their work. For the writers the central problem is the novel in its various aspects. M. Kuznetzov, a ranking member of the Soviet Writers' Union, makes the following contribution both as writer and as critic. ["Paths of Development of the Modern Novel," Novyi Mir, 1960, No. 2—abridged.]     

The Organization and Objectives of Soviet Science

This report was delivered before the first USSR Conference of Scientific Workers by the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences. It deals with the reorganization of the work of Soviet scientific establishments in the areas of planning and coordination and discusses the fundamental tasks of science in its major branches. The introduction to the report, omitted here, indicates that the USSR Academy of Sciences has become that country's largest scientific establishment, supplemented by a widely ramified network of industrial research institutes and laboratories and by Republic Academies which have become independent centers of research. Observing that scientific investigation repeatedly results in decisive economic and technical changes, the introduction cites the work of a number of leading Soviet scientists who have made outstanding contributions in their fields. "Soviet Science and Communist Construction," Pravda, June 13, 1961. Slightly abridged.     

Allocation of the Soviet Labor Force in Productive and Nonproductive Areas

An important discussion taking place among Soviet economists deals with the proportions of the labor force in productive and nonproductive spheres. Broadly speaking, productive labor refers to labor which produces material values while nonproductive labor refers to services, selling, cultural work, etc. Neither term has any moral connotation, but is based on the production or nonproduction of value in Marxist terms. The practical import of this question lies in the fact that advanced economies tend to have an increasing proportion of the labor force work in the nonproductive sphere. According to the data and analysis in this article, this process is taking place in the Soviet Union. "Allocation and Utilization of the Soviet Labor Force During the Seven-Year Plan," Sotsialistichesky Trud (Socialist Labor), 1961, No. 3.     

Traditional Features of Russian Political Culture in Their Current Perspective

For about sixty years all Soviet economists and historians have celebrated the demise of NEP as socialism's greatest victory. You could count advocates of the opposite point of view on your fingers. The situation has changed in the last two or three years. The press today is for the most part filled with hymns of praise for NEP as the most successful period in the development of Soviet society. There is admiration for the miraculous recovery of Russia's economy after the civil war, for the economy's high effectiveness during that period, and for the establishment of a hard currency. We look to NEP for lessons that will help us to resolve our current economic problems. The termination of NEP in the late 1920s is bewailed as the turning point in Soviet history that marked the victory of the Administrative System with all its known tragic consequences for the life of Soviet society. Those responsible for the death of NEP are named: Stalin and those around him, members of the party machine [apparatchiki] infected with the ideology of War Communism, and individual social strata (poor peasants, part of the working class, and youth).     

The Surprises in Somerset Maugham

Publication in the French magazine Science et Vie of an article on an alleged series of telepathic experiments conducted aboard the American submarine Nautilus prompted the editors of Znaniye-Sila (Knowledge Is Power) to investigate whether the report had any scientific basis and also what, if anything, was being done in the field of telepathy in the Soviet Union. A number of Soviet scientists were asked to give their views on the subject and a correspondent was sent to cover a series of meetings in Leningrad at which a team of scientists reported their findings. Both the reporter's account of the meetings and the various scientists' comments are taken from Znaniye-Sila, 1960, No. 12 (slightly abridged). This article was recommended for translation by Professor J. B. Rhine, Director of the Parapsychology Laboratory, Duke University.