1. A. M. Rumiantsev, “Vstupaiushchemu v mir nauki,” Pravda, June 8, 1967; “Kogda otstaiut ot vremeni” (editorial), Pravda, January 27, 1967; and Latsis, O., “Novoe nado otstaivat',” Novyi mir, 1965, no. 10, p. 255.Google Scholar The theme of innovation versus tradition has been the subject of endless polemics since 1953; it also runs persistently through Soviet fiction, from Vladimir Dudintsev's Ne khlebom edinym, published in 1956, to Zinov'ev, Aleksandr's Svetloe budushchee (Lausanne, 1978).Google Scholar

2. For critical discussion of these habits in Soviet studies, see Stephen F. Cohen, “Bolshevism and Stalinism,” in Tucker, Robert C., ed., Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation (New York, 1977), pp. 3–29;Google Scholar Linden, Carl A., Khrushchev and the Soviet Leadership (Baltimore, 1966), pp. 1–9 Google Scholar; and William, Taubman, “The Change to Change in Communist Systems,” in Morton, Henry W. and Tokes, Rudolf L., eds., Soviet Politics and Society in the 197ffs (New York, 1974), p. 369–94.Google Scholar

3. Among the most interesting studies are Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The Soviet Political System: Transformation or Degeneration?,” in Zbigniew, Brzezinski, ed., Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics (New York, 1969), pp. 1–34 Google Scholar; Hough, Jerry F., The Soviet Union and Social Science Theory (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), chapter 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; George W., Breslauer, “Khrushchev Reconsidered,” Problems of Communism, 25, no. 5 (September-October 1976): 18–33 Google Scholar; and Breslauer, George W., Five Images of the Soviet Future: A Critical Review and Synthesis (Berkeley, 1978).Google Scholar

4. My categories derive from, but do not fully correspond to, the following firsthand accounts: Medvedev, Roy A., On Socialist Democracy (New York, 1975), chapter 3Google Scholar and passim; Alexander, Yanov, Detente After Brezhnev: The Domestic Roots of Soviet Foreign Policy (Berkeley, 1977)Google Scholar; and Igor Glagolev, “Sovetskoe rukovodstvo: Segodnia i zavtra,” Russkaia mysl', August 31, 1978. Considerable information on trends in the party is available in Politicheskii dnevnik, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1972-75).

5. Mayer, Arno J., Dynamics of Counterrevolution in Europe, 1870-1956: An Analytic Framework (New York, 1971), chapter 2.Google Scholar

6. There are important exceptions: see Ploss, Sidney I., Conflict and Decision-Making in Soviet Russia: A Case Study of Agricultural Policy, 1953-63 (Princeton, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Linden, Khrushchev and the Soviet Leadership, which includes an excellent discussion of this spectrum on pp. 18-21; and Moshe, Lewin, Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates: From Bukharin to the Modern Reformers (Princeton, 1974).Google Scholar

7. Alexander Yanov, Essays on Soviet Society, which appeared as International Journal of Sociology, 6, no. 2-3 (Summer-Fall, 1976), especially pp. 75-175; Kozlov, G. and Rumer, M., “Tol'ko nachalo (Zametki o khoziaistvennoi reforme),” Novyi mir, 1966, no. 11, p. 182 Google Scholar; F. Chapchakhov, “Pod vidom gipotezy,” Literatnrnaia gazeta, August 16, 1972, which is an attack on, and an inadvertent confirmation of, Yanov's two “types “; and Molotov, quoted in Giuseppe, Boffa, Inside the Khrushchev Era (New York, 1959), p. 108.Google Scholar The word conservative (konservator) is commonly used in the Soviet Union. Various words or expressions are used to express “reformer,” though the English word (reformist) is coming into use (see Valentin, Turchin, Inertsiia strakha [New York, 1977], p. 5).Google Scholar Soviet writers often use these concepts, with obvious implications for the reader, in analyzing other political societies (see, for example, Mchedlov, M. P., Evoliutsiia sovremennogo katolitsisma [Moscow, 1966]).Google Scholar

8. Lakshin, V, “Ivan Denisovich, Ego druz'ia i nedrugi,” Novyi mir, 1964, no. 1, p. 230 Google Scholar; Medvedev, On Socialist Democracy, p. 41.

9. For the range of factors (fear, self-interest, philosophy) that animate conservative opposition to economic reform in the Soviet Union, for example, see the series of articles by A. Birman in Novyi mir between 1965 and 1968, and especially his “Sut’ reformy,” in Novyi mir, 1968, no. 12, pp. 185-204.

10. For a summary of the extensive literature on modern conservatism, see Clinton, Rossiter, “Conservatism,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 3 (New York, 1968), p. 290–95.Google Scholar

11. See, for example, Turchin, Inertsiia strakha; Medvedev, On Socialist Democracy; Yanov, Essays on Soviet Society; Andrei, Amalrik, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? (New York, 1970)Google Scholar; and note 9 above.

12. In addition to the titles cited in note 6, see Michel, Tatu, Power in the Kremlin: From Khrushchev to Kosygin (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; and Skilling, H. Gordon and Griffiths, Franklyn, eds., Interest Groups in Soviet Politics (Princeton, 1971).Google Scholar

13. See Lewin, Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates, pp. 262 and 298.

14. Alexander, Yanov, The Russian New Right: Right-Wing Ideologies in the Contemporary USSR (Berkeley, 1978), p. 15.Google Scholar

15. Politicheskii dnevnik, 1: 123; Chapchakhov, , “Pod vidom gipotezy”; Politicheskii dnevnik, no. 66 (Moscow: Samizdat, March 1970), p. 36 Google Scholar; A. Iakovlev, “Protiv antiistorizma,” Literaturnaia gazeta, November 15, 1975.

16. See Linden, Khrushchev and the Soviet Leadership; and Breslauer, “Khrushchev Reconsidered.”

17. In addition to the titles cited in notes 6 and 12 above, see the sections on the 1950s and 1960s in the following works: Heer, Nancy Whittier, Politics and History in the Soviet Union (Cambridge, Mass., 1971)Google Scholar; Juviler, Peter H. and Morton, Henry W., eds., Soviet Policy-Making: Studies of Communism in Transition (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; Juviler, Peter H., Revolutionary Law and Order; Politics and Social Change in the USSR (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; Lapidus, Gail Warshofsky, Women in Soviet Society: Equality, Development and Social Change (Berkeley, 1978)Google Scholar; Katsenelinboigen, Aron, Studies in Soviet Economic Planning (White Plains, N.Y., 1978)Google Scholar; Timothy, McClure, “The Politics of Soviet Culture, 1964-1967,” Problems of Communism, 16, no. 2 (March-April 1967): 26–43.Google Scholar

18. This included men such as Alexander Tvardovskii in literature, A. Birman, V. G. Venzher, and G. S. Lisichkin in economics, A. M. Rumiantsev and F. M. Burlatskii in the social sciences, M. D. Shargorodskii in law, V. P. Danilov and M. la. Gefter in history, and so forth. One samisdat writer has suggested that “it would be truer to call the epoch of Khrushchev the epoch of Tvardovskii,” because of his editorship of the reformist journal Novyi mir.

19. An article in Pravda (January 27, 1967) discussed the reformist journal Novyi mir and the conservative journal Oktiabr1 in terms of the “two poles” in Soviet politics. Soviet intellectuals sometimes spoke of them privately in the 1960s as the “organs of our two parties.”

20. To give a few more cryptic examples of code words in the conflict, reformers and conservatives, respectively, emphasized the following: bureaucratism as the main danger, anarchy as the main danger; the Lenin of 1921-23, the Lenin of 1918-20; the importance of the intelligentsia, the importance of the worker and the soldier; the Twentieth and Twentysecond Party Congresses, the Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-fifth Congresses; modernism in art, traditionalism in art; internal problems, external threats; women's rights, the stability of the family; innovation, discipline; renewal of cadres, stability of cadres; social interests, the organic unity of society.

21. See, for example, Rasvitoe sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo: Sushchnost', kriterii zrelosti, kritika revisionistskikh kontseptsii (Moscow, 1973); P. M., Rogachev and M. A., Sverklin, Patriotism i obshchestvennyi progress (Moscow, 1974)Google Scholar; and the editorials in Pravda, February 5, February 24, and October 17, 1978. For discussion of important aspects of these conservative policies, see T. H., Rigby, “The Soviet Leadership: Towards a Self- Stabilizing Oligarchy?,” Soviet Studies, 22, no. 2 (October 1970): 167–91 Google Scholar; T. H., Rigby, “The Soviet Regional Leadership: The Brezhnev Generation,” Slavic Review, 37, no. 1 (March 1978): 1–24Google Scholar; and Breslauer, “Khrushchev Reconsidered.”

22. Quoted in Subotskii, Iu, “Upravlenie, khozraschet, samostoiatel'nost',” Novyi mir, 1969, no. 7, p. 265.Google Scholar

23. Lev Kopelev, quoted in the New York Times, December 3, 1978, p. 14.

24. The controversy began with the rival journals Novyi mir and Molodaia gvardiia, but it has since spread to many publications. For an excellent survey and analysis, see Frederick C. Barghoorn, “The Political Significance of Great Russian Nationalism in Brezhnev's USSR With Particular Reference to the ‘Pseudo-Slavophiles, '” paper delivered at the AAASS Conference, Washington, D.C., October 1977.

25. Yanov, Essays on Soviet Society, p. 124. For similar protests, see Dement'ev, A., “O traditsiiakh i narodnosti,” Novyi mir, 1969, no. 4, pp. 215–35Google Scholar; Iakovlev, “Protiv antiistorizma “; and the running objections in the samizdat journal Politicheskii dnevnik. Though the idiom is plainly Russian, it is sometimes universally conservative, even Burkean. See, for example, the eulogy of “social authority” and the “continuity of generations” in S., Semanov, Serdtse rodina (Moscow, 1977), p. 92–93.Google Scholar

26. See note 11 above.

27. See Cohen, Stephen F., Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888-1938 (New York, 1973), p. 132–38.Google Scholar Soviet reformers have been eager to identify NEP as “the first reform” (see, for example, Birman, A, “Mysli posle plenuma,” Novyi mir, 1965, no. 12, p. 194).Google Scholar

28. See, for example, Lewin, Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates, chapter 12 and passim; Lisichkin, G. S., Plan i rynok (Moscow, 1966)Google Scholar; Kim, M. P., ed., Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika: Voprosy teorii i istorii (Moscow, 1974)Google Scholar; and A. Rumiantsev, “Partiia i intelligentsia,” Pravda, February 21, 1965.

29. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, pp. 341-47; Ploss, Conflict and Decision-Making in Soviet Russia, pp. 28-58.

30. This was also the case in foreign policy (see Tucker, Robert C., The Soviet Political Mind, rev. ed. [New York, 1971], chapter 4).Google Scholar

31. For a cultural approach to Stalinism, see Robert C. Tucker, “Stalinism as Revolution From Above,” in Tucker, Stalinism, pp. 77-108. For the conservative aspects of Stalinism, see note 33 below

32. This is argued by Moshe Lewin in “The Social Background of Stalinism,” in Tucker, Stalinism, pp. 133-35.

33. See Dunham, Vera S., In Stalin's Time: Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction (Cambridge, 1976)Google Scholar; Leon, Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed (New York, 1945)Google Scholar; Timasheff, Nicholas S., The Great Retreat (New York, 1946)Google Scholar; and Barghoorn, Frederick C., Soviet Russian Nationalism (New York, 1956).Google Scholar

34. Lewin, “The Social Background of Stalinism,” pp. 133-35; and Robert H., McNeal, “The Decisions of the CPSU and the Great Purge,” Soviet Studies, 23, no. 2 (October 1971): 177–85.Google Scholar The quote is from Khrushchev, Nikita S., Khrushchev Remembers, trans. Talbott, Strobe (Boston and Toronto, 1970), p. Toronto.Google Scholar

35. For the fearful atmosphere surrounding these decisions, see Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, pp. 315-53.

36. See Breslauer, “Khrushchev Reconsidered.”

37. For a critical discussion of Khrushchev's inadequacies by two dissident reformers, see Medvedev, Roy A. and Medvedev, Zhores A., Khrushchev: The Years in Power (New York, 1978).Google Scholar

38. This does not mean that there are no special bastions of Soviet conservatism such as the elites of the KGB, the Komsomol, the trade unions, and the political sector of the army. It does mean, however, that we should not assume that the division between reformers and conservatives is a function of generations. Older people played a major, even leading, role, for example, in the struggles for economic and cultural reform in the 1950s and 1960s. More generally, there is evidence that Soviet youth is no less conservative than its elders. For a discussion of this question, see Walter D., Connor, “Generations and Politics in the USSR,” Problems of Communism, 24, no. 5 (September-October 1975): 20–31.Google Scholar

39. See Tucker, Robert C., The Marxian Revolutionary Idea (New York, 1969), chapter 6.Google Scholar

40. This does not mean that the revolution must be repudiated. Often it is simply reinterpreted in a conservative fashion, as has happened in the Soviet Union and the United States (see Michael, Kammen, A Season of Youth: The American Revolution and the Historical Imagination [New York, 1978]).Google Scholar

41. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, p. 186.

42. See Bohdan, Harasymiw, “Nomenklatura: The Communist Party's Leadership Recruitment System,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, 2, no. 4 (December 1969): 512 Google Scholar; and Mervyn, Matthews, Privilege in the Soviet Union: A Study of Elite Life-Styles Under Communism (London, 1978).Google Scholar

43. The phrase is Yanov's, used in another context (Yanov, Essays on Soviet Society, p. 85). The Soviet press sometimes asks, “Where do the conservatives come from?” (see R. Bakhtamov and P. Volin, “Otkuda berutsia konservatory ?,” Literaturnaia gazeta, September 6, 1967). Although this historical explanation may not be sufficient, it is essential.

44. The sources cited in note 4 relate to the post-Khrushchev period; see also Abraham, Brumberg, “A Conversation With Andrei Amalrik,” Encounter, no. 48 (June 1977), p. 30.Google Scholar Reform proposals, though of a lesser sort, continue to be expressed by responsible officials in the Soviet press.

45. See, for example, Deborin, G. A. and Tel'pukhovskii, B. S., Itogi i uroki Velikoi otechestvennoi voiny, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1975).Google Scholar

46. David, Thomson, Democracy in France (London, 1960).Google Scholar

47. For the importance of this “contract,” see George W. Breslauer, “On the Adaptability of Welfare-State Authoritarianism,” in Karl, Ryavec, ed., Soviet Society and the Communist Party (Amherst, Mass., 1978), pp. 3–25 Google Scholar. Interviews with Soviet emigres over a thirty-year period suggest the great importance citizens place on the welfare provisions of the Soviet state (see Inkeles, Alex and Bauer, Raymond A., The Soviet Citizen [Cambridge, Mass., 1959]CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially chapter 10; and Zvi, Gitelman, “Soviet Political Culture: Insights From Jewish Emigres,” Soviet Studies, 29, no. 4 [October 1977]: 562).Google Scholar

48. Lewin, Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates, chapters 6-9.

49. Iakovlev, “Protiv antiistorizma.”

50. P. Kopnin, quoted in Yanov, Essays on Soviet Society, p. 76; similarly, see Rumiantsev, “Vstupaiushchemu v mir nauki “; and Bovin, A., “Istina protiv dogmy,” Novyi mir, 1963, no. 10, pp. 180–87.Google Scholar

51. My comments here are based on a reading of Starr, S. Frederick, Decentralization and Self-Government in Russia, 1830-1870 (Princeton, 1972)Google Scholar; Wortman, Richard S., The Development of a Russian Legal Consciousness (Chicago, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lincoln, W. Bruce, “The Genesis of an ‘Enlightened’ Bureaucracy in Russia, 1825—1856,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 20, no. 3 (June 1972): 321–30.Google Scholar

52. The connection between East European and Soviet reformers has been very important since 1953. Since the Soviet overthrow of the reform Communist government in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Soviet conservative literature on the dangers of “right-wing revisionism” has grown into a virtual industry aimed implicitly at domestic reformers as well. Nonetheless, reformers continue to make the point (see, for example, Volin, P, “Liudi i ekonomika,” Novyi mir, 1969, no. 3, pp. 154–68)Google Scholar. For the reform movement in East Europe, see Vladimir V., Kusin, “An Overview of East Ejiregean Reformism,” Soviet Studies, 28, no. 3 (July 1976): 338–61.Google Scholar

53. This perspective has been adopted by some dissidents (see, for example, Medvedev, On Socialist Democracy; and, for a more systematic statement, see Okunev, L, “Slovo— tozhe delo,” Politicheskii dnevnik, no. 68 [Moscow: Samizdat, May 1970]).Google Scholar But many dissidents have lost all hope of reform in recent years and now address their activities and thoughts not to Soviet officialdom but to Western governments.

54. See Ryavec, Karl W., Implementation of Soviet Economic Reforms (New York, 1975), p. 299–300.Google Scholar

55. Quoted in Skilling, H. Gordon, Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution (Princeton, 1976), p. 495.Google Scholar

56. Rossiter, “Conservatism,” pp. 292 and 294.

57. For example, journals with different outlooks began to emphasize the same social problems. Novyi mir is of particular interest in this connection. Well-known as a kind of reformist community, the journal published, or favorably reviewed, conservative writers such as Efim Dorosh and Vladimir Soloukhin. It also published many newer fiction writers who identified with conservative rural values, but whose writings depicted a postcollectivization countryside in need of reform. The new samisdat publications Pamiaf and Poiski, which include authors of different political outlooks, may be a sign of similar developments among dissidents.