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Soviet Domestic Policy in the Postwar World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

John N. Hazard
John N. Hazard
Affiliation:
Foreign Service Educational Foundation, Washington, D. C.
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Extract

Analysis of the position of the Soviet Union in the postwar world may logically begin with internal policy. Lenin himself invited this approach when he wrote: “There is no more erroneous nor harmful idea than the separation of foreign and internal policy.”

It is audacious for an outsider to predict the future course of Soviet policy. Too many factors which only Soviet leaders can know enter into the decisions. Nevertheless, we Americans are about to enter a period in which the Soviet Union will play a major rôle. Our situation demands that we know our neighbor, and this paper is directed to that end. It will discuss the various aspects of outstanding importance from which internal policy is formulated.

Political Theory. Soviet statesmen have retained their basic thinking as to the character of the Soviet state. Commissar Vyshinsky twice restated it publicly during the war itself. In 1942, he told the Soviet Academy of Sciences that “the Soviet State, as a state of the proletarian dictatorship, must be a new type of democratic state for the proletariat and the propertyless, in general, and a new kind of dictatorship against the bourgeoisie.”

Type
Foreign Government and Politics
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , February 1946 , pp. 80 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1946

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References

1 See leading article published in Pravda, No. 81, June 27 (14), 1917. Also published in Leninskii Sbornik, Moscow, 1935, Vol. 21, p. 66. While the article was unsigned, the editors of the Sbornik have reached the conclusion that beyond a shadow of a doubt Lenin was the writer. See idem, pp. 60–61.

2 See editorial “Know Thy Neighbor,” New York Herald-Tribune, Dec. 27, 1944 and editorial “The Study of Modern Russia,” idem, Dec. 30, 1944.

3 Vyshinsky, A. Y., Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo—Gosudarstvo Novogo Tipa (Moscow, 1943), p. 16.Google Scholar

4 Vyshinsky, A. Y., Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo v Otechestvennoi Voine (Moscow, 1944), pp. 32–34.Google Scholar

5 Stalin, J., Leninism (Eng. ed., Moscow and New York, 1934), Vol. 2, p. 342.Google Scholar

6 Yaroslavsky, E. M., “Tri Voennye Oktyabrskie Godovshchini,” Pravda, No. 282 (9418), Nov. 15, 1943, p. 2Google Scholar, and Aleksandrov, G., “Po Leninskomu Puti Pod Voditelstvom Stalina,” Bolshevik, No. 1, p. 38 (1945).Google Scholar

7 For translation of 1939 revised rules, see American Quarterly on the Soviet Union, Vol. 2, p. 59 (Apr., 1939).

8 For the history of the 1905 meeting, see History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York, 1939).

9 Art. 126.

10 Interview Between J. Stalin and Roy W. Howard, Mar. 1, 1936 (Eng. ed., Moscow, 1936), p. 13.

11 Izvestiya, No. 239 (7925), Oct. 10, 1942. Principle extended to Red Fleet; see idem, No. 242 (7928), Oct. 14, 1942.

12 See decree of August 2, 1940, Ved. Verkh. Sov., S.S.R., No. 28 (91), Aug. 22, 1940, p. 2. The political commissars were restored to full power on July 16, 1941. See Izvestiya, No. 167 (7543), July 17, 1941.

13 “Order of People's Commissariat of Communal Economy,” No. 125, Mar. 10, 1941, printed in Civil Code, R.S.F.S.R. (1943 ed.), p. 171.

14 Decree of May 22, 1940, Collection of Decrees, R.S.F.S.R., 1940, No. 11, Art. 48.

15 Decree of December 29, 1941, Izvestiya, No. 309 (7685), Dec. 30, 1941. With the end of the war, this statute was repealed.

16 See idem, No. 51 (7737), Mar. 3, 1942.

17 For English translation of text and Molotov's speech in explanation, see International Conciliation, Mar., 1944, No. 398.

18 For brief outline of constitutional history, see Hazard, J. N., “The Soviet Constitution: An Introduction,” Lawyers Guild Review, Vol. 3, p. 27 (1943).Google Scholar

19 Art. 14 (u).

20 See Izvestiya, No. 153 (7529), July 1, 1941.

21 See idem, No. 221 (7597), Sept. 18, 1941.

22 See idem, No. 249 (7625), Oct. 21, 1941.

23 See R.S.F.S.R. decree, dated Dec. 24, 1941, idem, No. 304 (7680), Dec. 25, 1941, and decrees for subsequent years, idem, No. 289 (7975), Dec. 10, 1942; idem, No. 297 (8290), Dec. 17, 1943, and idem, No. 303 (8605), Dec. 24, 1944.

24 Art. 132.

25 See lex cit. supra, note 25.

26 See Izvestiya, No. 150 (7526), June 27, 1941.

27 See idem, No. 306 (7682), Dec. 27, 1941.

28 See decree of June 26, 1940, Ved. Verkh. Sov. S.S.S.R., No. 20 (83), p. 1.

29 For an analysis of Soviet population trends, see Notestein and others, The Future Population of Europe and the Soviet Union; Population Projections, 1940–1970. League of Nations, 1944. II.A.2.

30 Law of October 2, 1940, Ved. Verkh. Sov., S.S.S.R., No. 37 (100), Oct. 9, 1940.

31 Decree of July 8, 1944, Izvestiya, No. 162 (8464), July 9, 1944; for translation, see Embassy of the U.S.S.R., Information Bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 84 (July 25, 1944).

32 Decree of November 21, 1941, Pravda, No. 326 (8734), Nov. 24, 1941.

33 See lex cit. supra, note 31, secs. 16–18.

34 See idem, secs. 12–15.

35 For Church pronouncements, see Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov i Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voina, Sbornik Tserkovnykh Dokumentov (Moscow, no date), (c. 1943).

36 See Pravda, No. 249 (9385), Oct. 8, 1943, and idem, No. 157 (9614), July 1, 1944.

37 See Izvestiya, No. 14 (8007), Jan. 17, 1943.

38 See idem, No. 176 (8169), July 28, 1943.

39 See idem, No. 198 (8191), Aug. 22, 1943.

40 See idem, No. 210 (8203), Sept. 5, 1943.

41 See idem, No. 89 (8082), Apr. 16, 1943.

42 See idem, No. 227 (8220), Sept. 25, 1943.

43 See idem, No. 239 (8232), Oct. 9, 1943.

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