Book Review: Peter Shearman, Rethinking Soviet Communism
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929917712907 |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsEurope |
660 Political Studies Review 15(4)
different phases of post-war history, Diamond
succeeds in developing a plausible explanation
of why Crosland’s framework has endured. By
emphasising the role of liberal progressivism
within Crosland’s thinking and its attraction to
Labour moderates, Diamond advances an inter-
pretation of Croslandite revisionism which
highlights an additional defining characteristic
as well as Crosland’s core distinction between
‘ends’ and ‘means’. This offers a distinctive per-
spective on Labour’s ideological development.
Diamond’s study was finished before the
outcome of the EU referendum was known,
meaning that chapter 8 (concerning the future
of social democracy) may already seem out
of date in light of further policy and political
challenges stemming from the result. In assess-
ing how Crosland’s ideas can chart a way
forward for the centre-left, one would also
have perhaps expected a more in-depth discus-
sion of the implications for progressives of
Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to the Labour leadership,
which is referenced only briefly. Nonetheless,
Diamond is sufficiently engaged with issues
relevant to Labour’s strategic dilemmas from
the 1950s to the present day for this work to
merit attention from non-specialist audiences
in addition to scholars in the field.
Ben Whisker
(University of York)
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929917713458
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Europe
Rethinking Soviet Communism by Peter
Shearman. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
320pp., £75.00 (h/b), ISBN 9780230507869
In this impressive compact volume, Peter
Shearman puts Soviet ideology in a historical
perspective, giving it a central place in the narra-
tive and analysis of the rise, decline and fall of the
Soviet Union. His book is written as a synthesis
offering an alternative analysis to that provided
by the Realists, who completely downplayed the
role of ideology and that of the generation which
followed and who wrote from an ahistorical point
of view. Indeed, Shearman’s book is the story of
the ‘twin forces of communism and nationalism’
(p. 1). According to the author, ‘it was the national
idea that was largely responsible for the ultimate
crisis of Soviet Communism, linked to a failure
of the Soviet economic system’ (p. 3).
Chapters 1 and 2 are rather introductory in
nature. The first chapter provides an historical
overview, while the second chapter focuses on
the role of ideology in Soviet decision-making,
politics and society. Next, Shearman turns to
discuss specific issues in the light of ideology:
the International Communist movement, the
USSR and the Third World, the USSR and the
West, the National Question in the USSR, and
the question of international security. Each
issue is surveyed chronologically, connecting
ideology and practice, and accounting for adap-
tations of ideology to meet the changing reality.
One concern for me, being a historian, is
the somewhat dated historical perspectives
reflected in the analysis. In many ways, the
book relies on rather old monographs, usually
dating back to the seventies and eighties.
However, this does not severely deduct from
the quality of the argument.
While the approach represented in this
book is definitely a turn from the Realist
approach that firmly governed international
relations and Sovietology until, at least, the
early eighties, it is not entirely ‘revolutionary’.
Starting in the eighties, scholars like Ken
Jowitt and Jacques Rupnik critically and mas-
terfully analysed the role of ideology, its turns
and its realisation in practice.
Indeed, as far back as 1991, Oded Eran
published a textbook on the foreign policy of
the USSR, written in Hebrew for the Open
University of Israel, whose premises and
analysis are in accordance with the present
volume. The major advantage of the present
volume, however, is its readability and rela-
tively limited scope, making it a valuable
teaching aid in the undergraduate and non-
specialist classroom.
Orel Beilinson
(Harari College Worldwide, Israel)
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929917712907
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