Atheistic Education in the School: Theoretical and Practical Issues

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU] has advanced the shaping of a communist world view in the broad masses of working people as the most important task of all educational work, an objective necessity in developed socialist society, dictated by the practical requirements of communist construction.     

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."     

Theoretical Problems of the Economics of the Common Market

Concern for children as the future activist builders of communist society, concern for their health, upbringing, and education and for their all-round development, has always been a focal point in the life of our society and a subject of special interest of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government. Now, this concern has once again been underscored and strengthened by the new constitution of the USSR.     

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.     

Historical Role of the International Communist Movement during the World Anti-fascist War

The relationship between the international Communist movement and the world anti- fascist war constitutes a major historical theme of our times. As a positive force for democracy and peace, the international Communist movement became a solid political cornerstone of the anti-fascist war. Its enormous sacrifices and contributions made it one of the final forces terminating the fascist political order, and its humanity provided mankind with a just direction in the struggle against war terrorism and for peace idealism. It thus became a major force in effectively advancing the development of democracy and peace. Based on the logic of condemnation, the critical reflections upon fascism made by the Communist movement have provided a value dimension for the building of today’s international security system. Based on the logic of construction, the international peace ethics followed by the international Communist movement offer an ideological foundation for the building of the new international order. And based on the logic of development, the new paradigm of world civilization pursued by the international Communist movement has become a political exemplar for the current pursuit of international peace. The political force of the Communist Party of China (CPC), as China’s political backbone and advance guard, cannot be overlooked: it influenced the anti-fascist war, the postwar international Communist movement and the democratization of world order. Of course, both the Soviet Union and the Comintern also offered many historical lessons during the anti-fascist war, lessons that merit profound reflection and consideration.     

Sensuous (Re)Collections: The Sight and Taste of Socialism at Grūtas Statue Park,Lithuania

ABSTRACT

The present paper is about Grūtas, a Lithuanian park—museum featuring recuperated Soviet-era artifacts. This museum is examined as a locus of public memory where the nation's socialist history is invoked through visual representations (recovered statuary) and by implicating the sense of taste (“Soviet” drinks and dishes served at the museum's café). The paper suggests that seeing the Socialist past at Grūtas activates memories of trauma and loss, while tasting that past summons up more nostalgic reminiscences. It is further argued that this museum constitutes a visual and gustatory critique of Lithuania's increasingly commodified and “modernized” present. It is also proposed that collective memory in today's Eastern Europe affords a productive ethnographic site in which to investigate the ongoing systemic transformations in the aftermath of communist rule.     

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.]     

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.     

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).     

Building a movement from scratch: environmental groups in the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic’s transition from communist authoritarianism to parliamentary democracy offers a useful case study of the relationship between environmentalism and democracy. More specifically, this study explores the dynamics of environmental group organization in the Czech Republic from 1989 to the present as a way to reflect upon political scientist Robert Paehlke’s contention that the pluralist democracy enhances the environmental movement and vice versa (1989; 1990; 1998). What is found is that while environmental mobilization and organization did indeed increase in the post-1989 democratic era, the movement still has some serious weaknesses and has suffered from abrupt shifts in public support. Thus, while Paehlke’s thesis is essentially supported by the Czech case, we can also see that it certainly takes much more than the mere existence of a democratic context for a vibrant and influential environmental movement to form and maintain itself. Using the U.S. environmental movement for comparative purposes, this study finds that although some important strides have been made, structural, procedural, economic and sociocultural factors have all played key roles in limiting the success of Czech environmental groups.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

EU Integration and the Transformation of Post‐communist Welfare: Traversing a ‘Quantum Leap’?

While many academic accounts treat post‐communist Europe as just another site of Europeanization with an emphasis on ‘adaptation’ and ‘learning’, this article argues that EU integration and the transformation of post‐communist Europe is a much more complex, volatile and uncertain process; not so much one of adaptation but more a ‘quantum leap’, apparently bypassing the stage of a Keynesian regime. Post‐communist Europe is asked to join an EU agenda that has many features of what Jessop calls the ‘Schumpeterian Workfare Postnational Regime’ (SWPR). In that sense, EU integration of post‐communist welfare is not simply a ‘catch‐up’, it is a complex transformation process whereby, rather than EU Enlargement and Eastern Europe being seen as a threat to ‘Social Europe’, the EU imposes its own ‘social deficit’ and economic hegemony onto Eastern Europe.     

The Trajectory of Post-communist Welfare State Development: The Cases of Bulgaria and Romania

Governments of countries undergoing a post‐communist transition face the dilemma of balancing conflicting demands for greater economic efficiency (to achieve a successful transition to a market system) with demands for enhanced social protection (to legitimize regime change through a visible improvement in living standards which includes vulnerable groups). This paper analyses the transition in Bulgaria and Romania. Unlike other European countries, these countries did not embark on retrenchment policies until the mid‐ to late 1990s, so convergence with policies of spending constraint elsewhere in Europe was belated and partial. The social problems created by strict economic policies, exacerbated by a determination to reorganize the post‐communist welfare states along the lines promoted by international organizations, are now being recognized. Post‐communist governments in South‐eastern Europe have belatedly started to address the social aspects of transition to democracy and the market. This probably reflects the process of regime change in Bulgaria and Romania, which has been characterized as a “two‐step transition to democracy”, with liberal governments only succeeding transformed communist elites in power after a protracted transition.     

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.     

In This Issue

Abel Aganbegian, the author of our lead article in this issue of The Soviet Review, is widely regarded as a key economic adviser to the current Soviet leadership. In "The Program of Radical Restructuring," Aganbegian looks at current reform efforts in the USSR in the light of past, failed reforms. He argues that if radical economic reform is to succeed, it must be accompanied by changes "in other spheres of social life, above all, the political and ideological spheres," noting that reform efforts in the 1960s were undermined by the lack of progress in democratization and continued reliance on "administrative methods."     

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)     

Monitoring the Integrative Complexity of American and Soviet Policy Rhetoric: What Can Be Learned?

Research psychologists cannot tell us the ultimate motives behind Soviet foreign policy or the true causes of the cold war. They can, however, use content analysis methods with records of successful application in other contexts to explore the links between rhetoric and action in American-Soviet relations. This article describes a series of studies on the integrative complexity of American and Soviet foreign policy rhetoric. An ongoing time-series study (1945–1986) reveals a variety of determinants of policy rhetoric: the rhetoric of the other side, impending or current policy initiatives, American presidential election campaigns, and changes in both the American and Soviet leadership. The paper also describes preliminary work on the integrative complexity of statements of key Soviet leaders on economic and foreign policy issues, demonstrating that the current Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, is significantly more complex than either his immediate predecessors or his traditionalist rivals for the leadership. The article considers implications of the "Gorbachev effect" for our understanding of domestic Soviet politics and for designing American policy toward the Soviet Union.