Book Review: Western Europe: The Independent Satellite
| Date | 01 December 1965 |
| Published date | 01 December 1965 |
| Author | Adam Bromke |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000434 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REvI•Ews
563
are
fascinated
by
Trotsky
the
Marxian
theoretician
will
find
almost
nothing
here
(indeed,
many
of
the
documents
are
from the
hand
of
Lenin
or others).
At
present
very
little
scholarly
attention
has
been
paid
to the
internal
history
of
the
Russian
Civil
War,
despite
the
availability
of
profuse
Soviet
documentary
publications
and
rich
Russian
emigre
collections,
such
as
the
unpublished
archives
of
Generals Denikin
and
Wrangel.
The
Trotsky
Papers,
despite
explanatory
notes,
remains
a
collection
without
an
adequate
context, awaiting
illumination
by
careful
study
of
other
original
sources.
At
best the
publication
of
this
volume
may
stimulate
the
present
sluggish
interest
in
this
field,
and
that
would
be
no
small
contribution
to
scholarship.
And
at
worst
one
would
be
left
with
a
volume
of
historical
materials
that
leans
to
generosity
rather
than
parsimony
in
its
appropriation
of
time,
learning
and
money.
Until
Canadian
scholars
in
Russian
affairs
are
able to
show
that
their
country,
with
its
own
resources,
can
undertake
a
project
of
similar
magnitude,
it
may
be
unbecoming
to
criticize
this
Dutch
masterpiece.
University
of
Toronto
ROBERT
H.
McNEAL
THE
INDEPENDENT
SATELLITE.
Society
and
Politics
in
Poland
since
1945.
By
Hansjakob
Stehle.
1965.
(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger.
Toronto:
Burns
&
MacEachern.
xi,
361pp.
$8.50)
The
Independent
Satellite
is
an
updated
version
of
Nachbar
Polen
which
appeared
in
1963
and
soon
made
the
best-seller
list
in
West
Ger-
many.
It
provides
an
illuminating
glimpse
of
contemporary
Poland.
From
its
very
first
pages,
where
the
author
paints a
vivid
picture
of
Poland's
capital,
it
is
obvious
that
he
is
intimately
familiar
with
life
there.
Apparently
Dr.
Stehle
used well
the
five
years
(from
1957
to
1962)
which
he
spent
in
Warsaw
as
a
correspondent
of
Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung.
He
learned
a
great
deal
about
the
country
and
the
people
and
came
to
understand
their
problems.
In
addition
to
social
and
political
problems, developments
in
the
economic,
cultural
and
religious
spheres
are
reviewed
in considerable
detail.
The
discussion
is
always
informative,
at
times
profound.
The
author
examines
an
uneasy
relationship
between
the pays
legal
(the
Communist
party)
and
the
pays
rdel
(the
Catholic
Church).
He
realis-
tically appraises Poland's
position in
the
Soviet
orbit
as
an
"independent
satellite"-pointing
out
to
the
various
ways
in
which
Warsaw's
autono-
my
from
Moscow
is
manifested.
By
far
the
best
part
of
the
book
is
the
discussion
of
Poland's
relations
with
the
West.
On
the
Rapacki
Plan,
Dr.
Stehle
convincingly
demonstrates
that
the
Plan
was
a
genuine
Polish
initiative
aimed
at
overcoming
the
existing
division
of
Europe.
This
is
particularly
interest-
ing
in
view
of
the
author's
belief
that
despite
its
rejection
by
the
West,
the
proposal
has
lost
none
of
its
pertinence.
"The
fact
that
all
disarmament
proposals
in
recent
years
have
reverted almost
auto.
matically
to Rapacki's
idea of
an
'initial
step',
of
a
partial
withdrawal
of
the
two
blocs,
proved
that,
in
the
long
run,
this
is
the
only
point
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