Book Review: U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe: The U.S.S.R. and the Future
| Author | Robert H. McNeal |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900135 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
114
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
from
militancy
to
peaceful
coexistence:
before
Stalin
died
or
in
conjunction
with
his
demise?
We
are
told,
without
any
survey
of
the
relevant
scholarly
or
popular
literature,
that
the
second
of
these
interpretations
is
"prevailing"
at
present. Perhaps
the
measurement
of
prevalence
is
too
tricky
to debate
in
this
case,
but
at
least
one
must
note
that
many
earlier
writers
have
noted
that
a moderation
of
Soviet
foreign
policy
occurred
before
Stalin
died.
This
reader
is
of
the
opinion
that
the
chief
problem
is
not
to
show
that
the
shift
toward
"peaceful
coexistence"
predates Stalin's
death,
but
to
place
it
in
a
valid
perspec-
tive
in
relation
to
the
whole
of Soviet
foreign
policy.
This
Mr.
Shulman
has
attempted
with
erudition
and ingenuity.
His
heavy emphasis
on
Soviet
anxiety
over
military
security,
based
on
deep
suspicion
of
the
"imperialists",
is
persuasive
up
to
a
point.
But
one
may
doubt
that
the
Soviet
strategic
position
in
1949-1950
was as
gloomy
as
Mr.
Shulman
describes
it.
The
efforts
of
the
capitalist
adversary
to
rearm
and
to
contain Communist
expansion were
no
doubt
meeting
with
appreciable
success,
but
this
fell
short
of
any
serious
roll-back of
Communism,
and
the
developing
NATO
shield
as
late
as
1952
surely
would
have
done
well
to
hold
the
Rhine,
much
less
cross
the
Volga,
even
with
SAC
behind
it. In
his favourable
appraisal
of
the
anti-Communist
strategic
position in
this
period
Mr.
Shulman
seems
to reflect
a
degree
of
personal
commitment
to
the
policies
of
Secretary
of
State
Acheson,
whom
he
served as
special
assistant
at
this
time.
Although
this
study
is
not
an
explicit
refutation
of
McCarthyite
criticism
of
the
Democrats' foreign
policy, one
detects
an
echo
of
the
debate
in
Mr.
Shulman's
enthusiasm
for
the
thesis
that
American
strength
in
1949-1950
obliged
the
Soviets
to
desist
from
openly
offensive
tactics.
Finally this reappraisal
says
all
too
little
about
the years
immedia-
tely
preceding
1949.
Was
it a
time
of unqualified
Communist
militancy,
as
Mr.
Shuiman
often indicates?
Or
was
it
a
time
of
complex
integra-
tion
of
defensive tactics and
flexible
expansionism
(similar
to
1949-
1953),
as
he
suggests
in
his
conclusion?
Did
Stalin
and
colleagues
think
that
their strategic
position
was
stronger
in
1946-1947
or
in
1949-1950?
Such
problems
are
intimately
related
to
Mr.
Shulman's
argument
but
are
never
adequately
discussed,
much to
the detriment
of
his
theory
of
periodization
and
its
dynamics.
McMaster
University
ROBERT
H.
McNEAL
THE
U.S.S.R.
AND
THE
FUTURE.
An
Analysis
of
the
New
Program
of
the
CPSU.
Edited
by
Leonard
Shapiro.
1962.
(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger.
Toronto:
Burns
&
MacEachern.
xix,
324pp.
$7.75)
The
Institute
for
the
Study
of
the
U.S.S.R.
is
essentially
an
anti-
Communist
intellectual
centre
and
it
is
quite
natural that
it
should
have
chosen
to
support
publication
of
a critical
book
about
that
vulnerable
Khrushchevian
monument,
the
Programme
of
the
Communist
Party
of
the
Soviet
Union.
Since
this
document
purports
to
be
a
world-historic
work
of
genius,
the first
practical
plan
of
approach
to
the
ideal
society,
It
is
indeed
justifiable
for
non-Communists
(and
non-Khrushchevian
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