The Nature of Work in the Future Communist Society

Editor's Note. The article by Academician N. M. Druzhinin, "Reminiscences and Thoughts of a Soviet Historian" [Vospominaniia i mysli sovetskogo istorika], published in the "Creative Experience of Soviet Historians" section of Istoriia SSSR. 1961, No. 6 [see The Soviet Review, Volume IV, No. 1], attracted the attention of Italian historians (Rivista storica italiana, 1962, No. 1). Druzhinin addressed an open letter (Istoriia SSSR, 1963, No. 4) in response to one of these reactions, that of the prominent Italian historian Franco Venturi.

The letters we are publishing by Venturi and Druzhinin are a continuation of the polemical exchange of opinions between Italian and Soviet historians. The important questions posed in this correspondence will doubtless excite the attention of participants in the Italo-Soviet symposium of historians soon to be held in Moscow. [Editor, Istoriia SSSR.]     

Democracy

Democracy (Greek demokratia - rule by the people, from demos, the people, kratos - rule). The term "democracy" is employed: 1) to denote government by the people, 2) to describe governments distinguished by certain legal characteristics (recognition of majority rule as the source of authority, and proclamation of freedom and equality for citizens), and 3) as a synonym for the rights and freedoms of citizens. However, no matter what the sense in which democracy is defined, it is always one political form of class dictatorship, an instrumentality in class struggle.     

Anna Akhmatova in the Last Years of Her Life

I have known her name and lines from her poems for as long as I remember myself. In the early 1920s writers would gather in my parents' house and read their own and others' poems; my sister and I would doze off to the sound of voices declaiming on the other side of the door.… Later, among my mother's books I discovered two thin little white books, The Rosary [Chetki] and Anno Domini. In The Rosary there was the portrait by Al'tman: broken lines throughout. In Anno Domini there was Annenkov's: the swanlike neck, the comb, the bangs.     

The Wooden Reindeer: From a Journalist's Notebook

I came to Timofei Aleksandrovich Kononov's brigade with a red iaranga (wigwam). (a) The chief, a tall, stooped Even (b) of about sixty, had slaughtered for his guests a small doe that had recently gone lame. While we brewed the tea until it was strong and thick as tar and exchanged news, the brigadier's wife, Agrafena Ivanovna, bent by the years but still a nimble and concerned housekeeper, made supper.     

Justice and Public Opinion

One of the key questions of justice has become the subject of a discussion that has developed in Izvestia. It can be said that its kernel is the matter of the independence of the judiciary. It is this question that underlies the article by Korenevskii and Sukhodolets, "A Cause of Errors" [Otchego byvaiut oshibki] (Izvestia, No. 61), against which Galkin wrote in his article "The Court and Public Passions" [Sud i ob-shchestvennyestrasti] (Izvestia, No. 91).     

On Promulgation of the Principles of Correctional Labor Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics

The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics orders:

Article 1. Promulgation of the Principles of Correctional Labor Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics and that they go into effect as of November 1, 1969.     

Dialectics

Dialectics (Greek dialektike [tekhne] - the art of conversation, from dialegomai - I conduct a conversation, I reason) is the theory and method of cognition of reality, the science of the most general laws of development of nature, society and thought. The term "dialectics" has had different uses in the history of philosophy. Socrates regarded dialectics as the art of revealing the truth through the clash of opposing opinions, a means of conducting scholarly conversation leading to true definitions of concepts (Xenophon, Vospominaniia o Sokrate [Memorabilia], IV, 5, 12). Plato termed dialectics a logical method which, when employed in the analysis and synthesis of concepts, provides knowledge of that which truly exists - the idea - the movement of thought from lower to higher concepts. The Sophists put the word "dialectics" in bad odor, calling it the art of presenting the false and dubious as the true (Aristotle, Rhetoric, II 24, 1402 a 23), while the Megarians called dialectics the art of dispute (Plato, The Sophist, 253 DE). In Aristotle's philosophy, dialectics is a means of proof when one begins from propositions that are obtained from others, and the truth of which is unknown. Aristotle distinguished 3 types of inference: apodictic, which is suitable for scientific proof; dialectic, which is employed in argument; and eristic. In dialectical proof the point of departure is probable judgments, from which one arrives at probable conclusions. It is only by accident that truth may be found by dialectical inference. Eristic inference is inferior to dialectic, for it leads to conclusions that are only apparently true (Topika, II, 100 a 27). In medieval philosophy the term "dialectics" was employed in the widest variety of meanings. Duns Scotus called dialectics a special teaching on the real; while Abelard called it the art of distinguishing between truth and falsehood (Dial., p. 435). The term "dialectics" was employed in the sense of "logic" and sometimes it was understood to be the art of discussion.     

Changes in the Social Characteristics of Workers under Developed Socialism

The past decade has witnessed ever-increasing interest in problems of the development of our country's working class. The growth of knowledge in this field is proceeding at accelerated rates. Not only articles but monographs on various topics in the history of the Soviet workers have been published. Historiographers have published a number of analyses of this literature. (1) Studies in historical sociology have become established in recent years as one of the many forms this takes. (2)     

Enhancing Collaborative Leadership in Palliative Social Work in Oncology

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Report—Cancer Care for the Whole Patient: Meeting Psychosocial Health Needs—provided recommendations for meeting the palliative care needs of our growing population of older Americans. The IOM report highlights the demand for social work leadership across all aspects of the health care delivery system. Social workers are core interdisciplinary members of the health care team and it is important for them to be well prepared for collaborative leadership roles across health care settings. The ExCEL in Social Work: Excellence in Cancer Education &; Leadership education project was created as a direct response to the 2008 Institute of Medicine. (2008). Cancer care for the whole patient: Meeting psychosocial health needs. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. [Google Scholar] IOM Report. This article highlights a sampling of palliative care projects initiated by outstanding oncology social work participants in the ExCEL program. These projects demonstrate the leadership of social workers in palliative care oncology.     

The Logic of Authoritarianism

The episode is the polemic occasioned by A. I. Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich [Odin den' Ivana Denisovicha], which has become a factor in the international ideological struggle. Two things are responsible for the very acute nature of this debate. The first is the open offensive mounted by the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party against the world communist movement (primarily against the CPSU), and their effort to employ today the very "arguments" which yesterday were the monopoly of the anti-Communists. Secondly, there is the exposure in the novel of certain extreme manifestations of what has come to be known as "worship of an individual."     

Ethnic Identity and the Population Count (How the State Carried Out the All-Russia Census)

Soviet justice has the function of assuring a just trial [sud], and of administering justice in accordance with right and the law.     

Basic Directions in the Activity of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR

The resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the basic directions in the activity of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (1) is a document of the very greatest importance to pedagogical science and to the entire system of public education.     

State-Monopoly Capitalism and Bourgeois Political Economy

The point of departure in a critical analysis of current economic theories of monopoly capitalism is the undisputed fact that they reflect objective reality and that this objective reality is distorted and often deformed in these theories because bourgeois science is inherently incapable of understanding the real essence of social development. (1)     

Using the Rational Consumption Budget in Planning the Standard of Living

The present stage of economic and social development of Soviet society is characterized by the heightened orientation of national economic plans toward raising the people's living standard. "At the present time," L. I. Brezhnev emphasizes, "the highest goal of socialist production is directly becoming the focal point of the Party's practical policy." (1)     

Soviet Jazz Awaits Its Composers

More than forty years ago, in speaking of the effect of socialism in transforming man, Vladimir Il'ich Lenin noted that the new social system for the first time opened to workers and peasants the possibility of "revealing themselves, of developing their abilities, of displaying their talents," of which the people constitute "an as-yet untouched… source of infinite wealth." (1)     

The Nature of the Cutaneous Optical Sense in Man

The first data on the sense that might be termed cutaneous optical appeared in the Russian scholarly literature at the end of the 19th century. (10) A Tambov physician, A. I. Khovrin, studied a patient who read ordinary printed and written text with her fingers and was able to identify colors of papers and fabrics in the same way.     

Notes about the Authors

Stanislav Gustavovich Strumilin (born in 1877) is a ranking member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He is the author of about 200 books and articles in the fields of economics, theoretical statistics, planning, and labor productivity. THE SOVIET REVIEW has previously translated his "Family and Community of the Future" (February 1961) and "The Effectiveness of Education in the USSR" (September 1962).     

On Public and Governmental-Legal Measures for Improving Conservation in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

Nature and its resources constitute the natural basis for the development of the economy; they serve as the source of continuous addition to material and cultural values, and provide the conditions for the people's work and leisure. Therefore the Communist Party and the Soviet government ascribe great importance to the conservation of nature. The constant attention of party and government agencies to the proper exploitation of the country's natural wealth is shown by the joint resolutions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, "On Large-Scale Expansion of Land Reclamation so as to Obtain High and Stable Yields of Grain and Other Crops" (June 16, 1965), and "On Urgent Measures to Protect Soils Against Erosion by Wind and Water" (March 20, 1967) (1); by the decisions of the 4th Session of the 7th Supreme Soviet of the USSR (June 1968), "On the State of the Medical Services, and Measures to Improve Public Health in the USSR"; by its law, "Fundamental Land Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics" (December 13, 1968), and the decree of the USSR Council of Ministers, "Measures to Prevent Pollution of the Caspian Sea" (September 23, 1968) (2); and by many other legislative documents.     

Outstanding Work on Problems Pertaining to the Development of Psychology

This year the representatives of pedagogical science note with satisfaction a happy event: the Lenin Prize was awarded to Professor A. Leont'ev for his Problems Pertaining to the Development of the Psyche [Problemy razvitiia psikhiki], published by the RSFSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences in 1959. Professor Leont'ev is a Member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the Russian Federation and a prominent Soviet psychologist.     

The Movement for Communist Labor and the Improvement of Social Relationships

The movement for communist labor is an outstanding phenomenon of Soviet life today. The CPSU Central Committee has observed that "the appearance of this movement, at a time when our country has begun the all-out building of a communist society, is natural and necessary. The ground for it was prepared by the entire course of the building of socialism, the tremendous triumphs of the socialist economy, the unprecedented rise in the education and culture of the Soviet people, and the improvement in its wellbeing." (1)