THE SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION PROVIDES AN opportunity to draw up a balance-sheet. It is even more appropriate as the Soviet leaders have used the occasion to adopt a new constitution, and have thus implied that a new stage is about to begin for Soviet society and for the system of government which emanates from it and embodies it. This stage, called advanced socialism, has several characteristics: ‘the formation of a new historic community - the Soviet people, the development of the dictatorship of the proletariat into the state of the whole people, the transformation of the CPSU from a revolutionary party of the workers into the party of all the people, the strengthening of the homogeneity of Soviet society’. The phrases ‘homogeneity and cohesion of society’ are probably those which recur most frequently in the presentation of the new constitution, especially when its national implications are described. ‘The constitution of the USSR is at the same time a constitution of a state of the whole people — the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — and of the fifteen sovereign republics which compose it and finally of the thirtyeight national-state formations with differing forms of autonomy. The new historic community — the Soviet people — numbers 250 million citizens, representing more than one hundred nations and nationalities of the USSR. But it is also a single social monolith, a single historical phenomenon with a single economy, a single culture, a single Soviet way of life, a single ideology’

CONTEMPORARY WEST GERMAN FEDERALISM IS FACING A DILEMMA generated by the transformation of the party system after the second world war. Since the late nineteenth century highly complex political and administrative structures have developed in Germany and for most of the time federalism has been one of their important elements. Because of their complexity effective policy-making depended largely upon strategies of accommodation, bargaining and repartition of influence between rival groups and organizations. This has been the rationale of federalism as well as of multi-party coalition government.

THERE HAS RECENTLY BEEN A SPATE OF WRITING ON THE CONCEPT OF corporatism as part of the interpretation of contemporary British politics, and a series of articles by J. T. Winkler has provided a comprehensive and detailed frameword for the analysis of certain features of political practice. One of the purposes of this writing is to rescue the term ‘corporatism’ from its Italian and fascist connotations to permit a dispassionate examination of the central features of corporatist thought and practice.

OVER THE LAST TEN YEARS, ECOLOGY HAS MADE ITS ENTRANCE INTO politics. At first the main concern was with pollution; but soon it broadened, and today the watchword is energy. In both cases the underlying phenomenon is that of economic growth. Not that all growth is incompatible with ecological balance; but over the last few decades normally there was a conflict, and industrial and urban growth in particular have led to a significant deterioration of the environment. Hence the importance of the controversy surrounding industrialization and economic growth, which has taken on an increasing importance in the politics of several Western European countries.

THERE ARE THREE REASONS WHY THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN. FIRST, the Centre Parties, with their origins in rural interests, have provided a natural channel for the articulation of issues difficult to accomodate within the framework of a two-party system. These issues include decentralization, environmental protection and a questioning attitude to growth. Secondly, these parties provide an interesting study of attempts to adapt from a traditionalist base to the modern world. In the process they have come to play an important part in coalition formation in their respective countries. The Norwegian Centre Party, for example, provided the Prime Minister for a coalition from 1965 to 1971 in the person of Per Borten, while the Centre Party of Sweden achieved power in 1976 at the head of a three-party coalition under the premiership of Thorbjörn Fälldin. Finally, they have been little explored academically either in their own countries or in English-language source literature.

EVERY YEAR IN EARLY JANUARY A GREAT GET-TOGETHER TAKES PLACE called the North of England Education Conference. It continues for three days and it brings together teachers, administrators, inspectors, professors, educational publishers - the lot. Usually it is addressed by the Minister of Education. Last year Mrs Shirley Williams gave the presidential speech, this year Lord James presided; he is better known to many of us as Eric James, formerly High Master of Manchester Grammar School. Looking back I notice that I had the privilege of presiding over two earlier conferences, at Scarborough as Minister in 1938 and at Morecambe as a university Member of Parliament in 1947: between these two dates a coalition government passed the famous 1944 Act.