How does one go about describing briefly a large and complex society in the process of rapid change? The problems involved are not only of space but also of conceptualization. To be comprehensive yet succinct one must fall back on generalizations, which always run the danger of concealing the very nuances that make up the richness and diversity of a culture. Moreover, the nature and direction of change in modern societies is a matter of continuing controversy, and a common basis of theory and terminology cannot be taken for granted. No society in modern times has been more subject to conflicting assumptions and interpretations than that of Russia. Under these circumstances, perhaps the best solution is to adopt an approach sufficiently general to do justice to the complexities involved and at the same time definite enough in its point of view to offer a consistent interpretation—as well as a reasonably clear basis for controversy.

My own approach to this subject is very much the same as Professor Black's. Imperial Russia, it seems to me, was the prototype of the “underdeveloped society” whose problems are so familiar a theme in our own age. The study of nineteenth-century Russia is the study of a society in process of modernization, and probably the most useful service which non-Russian historians can render is to try to regard this process as a whole, and particularly to differentiate between those aspects of Russia's modernization process which are common to several known historical cases and those which are peculiar to Russia. The following comments on Professor Black's article are offered from this point of view.

The physical setting, rightly stressed by Professor Black at the outset, may be regarded as a peculiarly Russian aspect. Here human and physical geography are closely interrelated.

Professor Black's analysis of imperial Russian society places him unmistakably with those scholars who treat Russia essentially as an underdeveloped country and its modern history as an attempt, successful or tragic, to catch up with the West, or, in any case, to “develop.” To use the author's own words:

The interpretation suggested here is one which sees die world as composed of well over one hundred politically organized societies, each with its own deep-seated traditional institutions, undergoing at different stages a process of change which has certain universally common features. This process of change, which can be traced to the revolutionary expansion of knowledge originating in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, tends to affect in one degree or another all aspects of human activity….

Russia is one of these societies, differing from others in her traditional culture as others differ from each other, but also undergoing like them the characteristic interaction of the traditional and the modern.

The uniquely Russian form of primary social organization in the countryside known as the peasant household dates from the earliest history of the Slavic peoples. Although some details of its origin have been disputed by scholars, there is no doubt that family households existed during the Kievan period of Russian history, having evolved from an earlier form of clan organization. Commonly uniting three generations of a family under one roof, the household was governed by customary law, which held that its members comprised a joint subject of ownership rights and a joint object of legal obligations. The household was represented by its head, whose authority, however, was circumscribed by the other members, who contributed their labor and earnings to the “common kettle” and took their meals from the “common bowl.“ In short, the household was both a large family and a sort of labor co-operative.

Konstantin Leont'ev is not a well-known Russian writer. For some Russian and non-Russian readers Leont'ev is the most conservative and even reactionary of all Russian ideologists of the nineteenth century— the man who used to say: We have to freeze Russia in order to prevent any kind of progress which might endanger the very existence of the Russian monarchy.

Critics who know Leont'ev better will give a more appropriate characterization of him. They know that his approach to history is based on an aesthetic principle. His main reality is beauty, and nothing else. But what is beauty, and what is beautiful? According to Leont'ev's tastes and principles, the beautiful is life in an underdeveloped societv in a primary stage of civilization.

The prevailing interpretation of recent Soviet foreign policy emphasizes Stalin's death as the great watershed event, from which is charted the shift toward a more flexible and differentiated policy, broadly known by the term “peaceful coexistence.” While this emphasis properly draws attention to the new departures of the more recent period and to the dynamic character of Soviet policy, it gives insufficient attention to significant changes in the Soviet outlook and in Soviet behavior abroad which began to be manifested before the death of Stalin. The issue is not merely one of correctly dating the beginning of a trend in Soviet policy, but, more significantly, of deepening our understanding of the forces which shape Soviet foreign policy. The purpose of this essay is to examine some of the significant implications of these developments in Soviet policy prior to the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952.

During the twenty years between the wars, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was forged as the instrument of eventual Communist rule in that country. In the first decade of its history the CPC was racked with inner crises, often provoked by Comintern intervention in party affairs, and always settled in accordance with the decisions of the Comintern organs of authority.

In 1929 the fate of the CPC was entrusted to Klement Gottwald. Ten years later the Czechoslovak party faithfully mirrored, in leadership and in policy, the desires of the Soviet Union and the International. Gottwald undoubtedly deserves most of the credit for this achievement and for thus molding a movement capable of undertaking the rule of postwar Czechoslovakia. After he had achieved mastery of the party, Gottwald maintained his authority almost unchallenged by serious rivals. Wherever deviations did occur, he was able to dissociate himself from direct responsibility and to overcome the opposition.

It was not surprising that after the death of Stalin, early in 1953, the new regime should take another look at the condition of Soviet agriculture. While agricultural output had probably reached prewar levels, the needs of the state had risen, too, especially since the urban population had continued to grow steadily. Responding to the problem of insufficient supply, the regime introduced a number of projects and reforms designed, if not to solve, at least to alleviate some of its aspects. Millions of acres of little used or unused land were plowed and cultivated; there were attempts to improve the livestock feed base through the wider cultivation of corn; the Machine and Tractor Stations were abolished and the system of procurements was changed; and further efforts were made to increase yields per acre through improved methods of land utilization. Still more comprehensive in its scope was the call for a national inventory of both the natural and economic conditions of crop cultivation and livestock raising, whose objective was the establishment of a more “scientific” scheme of agricultural regionalization of the country in order to ensure more effective planning than had hitherto taken place.

In recent years information has appeared in various Soviet publications which has enabled students of the Soviet economy to compute the average wage of Soviet workers and employees with a considerable degree of confidence. Generally the data provided have been in the form of percentage increases in the average wage above a base year for which the average wage is known or has been reliably estimated. Much of this information has been summarized in an article by Holzman, and he presents there an index of the rise in the average Soviet wage since 1928. This development very likely also contributes to increased accuracy in estimates of the wage bill, as figures are readily available on the size of the nonagricultural labor force for these years. But gaps still exist in our knowledge. Statistics of the type used by Holzman and others in calculating the average wage have not been published for some of the years prior to 1950.

Several months ago the State Publishing House of the Moldavian SSR in Kishinev (Chişinău) published a Russian translation of the historical monograph Ion-Voda Cel Cumplit (Prince John the Terrible) written by the well-known nineteenth-century Rumanian historian Bogdan Petriceicu-Haşdeu. The Russian title is Ion-Voevoda Liutyi, even though Russian writers have in the past, when translating the title of this book, rendered cumplit by groznyi. Since both groznyi and liutyi are only approximate renditions of the word cumplit, it is difficult to judge whether the substitution of the first by the second is purely a matter of the translator's personal preference or whether it is dictated from above by certain policy considerations.

The book is a popular edition illustrated with dramatic pictures that are examples of expressionism rather than of social realism.

The people of Czechoslovakia have gone to the polls four times since the end of the Second World War to elect a national parliament—in 1946, 1948, 1954, and 1960. Although an analysis of the vote in May, 1946, is interesting and important for an understanding of the Czechoslovak situation, such an analysis would be of little value for the elections that were held after the coup d'etat of Prague in February, 1948. The principle of National Front balloting, in practice in 1948 although not codified until 1954, leaves the voter with practically no alternatives. Since the net affirmative vote for the candidates of the National Front is well over 90 per cent of the total vote, a key to understanding the uses of the Czechoslovak parliament must be found elsewhere than in analysis of voting behavior. Therefore, the elected deputies themselves are the subject of this inquiry.

The legal form of the Czechoslovak parliament was not particularly changed by the social and political events of the first postwar years (1945-48).