Book Reviews : On Stalin and Stalinism, by Roy A. Medvedev. Oxford University Press, 1979, £6.50, 205pp
| Author | M.R. Brett-Crowther |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711787900600410 |
| Date | 01 October 1979 |
| Published date | 01 October 1979 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
716
It
is
important
to
note
that
Amin
does
not
attack
the
fundamentals
of
the
faith
of
Islam.
He
never
cries
against
a
repressive
theocracy,
a
male
dominated
society,
a
power-adoring
religion.
These
are
things
to
which
a
Western
critic
would
seek
to
draw
some
attention.
In
his
violence
against
what
he
considers
to
be
Eurocentric
history
he
produces
an
’Arab’-centred
account.
Those
Westerners
who
use
the
word
’Eurocentric’
readily
and
with
shame
should
beware.
For
Amin,
no
internalist
explanation
is
valid
unless
it
is
covered-not
to
say
suffocated-by
his
theory.
The
question
for
the
West
is
how
Islam
can
be
made
modern,
self-
critical
and
resistant
to
the
forces
of
affluence
and
false
ideology
alike
in
a
period
of
unique
opportunity,
owing
entirely
to
oil.
The
West
has
shown
not
the
least
interest
in
the
matter;
for
it
is
a
religious
question
with
deep
political
implications,
and
the
West
has
tried
to
do
without
religion.
It
has
become
more
than
ever
before
urgent
to
reconstruct
religious
and
social
life
in
the
Islamic
world
in
the
spirit
of
Sir
Muhammad
Iqbal.
—M.
R.
Brett-Crowther.
On
Stalin
and
Stalinism,
by
Roy
A.
Medvedev.
Oxford
University
Press,
1979,
£6.50,
205pp.
Roy
Medvedev
has
written
his
study
without
access
to
’Public
re-
cords’.
He
has
had
to
analyse
the
’official
accounts,
he
has
had
to
infer
from
omissions,
and
he
has
had
to
supplement
with
the
testimonies
of
survivors’.
Roy
Medvedev
has
applied
historical
method
nevertheless.
This
book
should
be
read
together
with
that
by
Zhores
A.
Medvedev
(Soviet
Science,
Oxford,
1979).
Roy
and
Zhores
Medvedev
are
scrupulously
con-
cerned
to
establish
what
happened
and
how.
Both
men
show
a
rare
understanding
of
the
links
between
the
sciences
and
the
humanities,
the
Two
Cultures,
and
what
each
implies
in
a
society
whether
closed
or
open.
Together,
these
books
speak
to
the
Soviet
Union
of
the
opportunity
for
new
life.
It
is
very
doubtful
whether
those
outside
Russia,
the
great
aberration
of
the
modern
world,
can
know
what
are
the
effects
of
the
absence
of
freedom
to
think
and
publish,
the
distortion
of
meaning
by
the
institu-
tionalised
lie,
the
ambiguities
of
a
national
system
based
on
these
and
on
a
false
notion
of
science
and
truth.
Naturally,
dissidents
in
the
Soviet
Union
and
6migr6s
can
give
us
a
good
indication;
but
the
real,
present
perversion
of
normal
thought
and
social
processes
is
something
which,
for
scarcely
any
merits
of
our
own,
the
West
so
far
does
not
know
existentially.
Roy
Medvedev
is
a
man
whose
bravery,
like
Sakharov’s,
deserves
the
tribute
of
tact.
Let
it
be
said
simply
that
this
book
is
written
so
as
to
show
any
Russian
who
wants
the
best
for
his
country
that
some
real
know-
ledge
of
the
past,
some
real
criticism
of
its
effects,
and
some
real
changes
for
the
future
will
have
to
be
made.
Together,
these
books
speak
to
the
Soviet
Union
of
the
opportunity
for
new
life.
Among
the
most
significant
words
in
Roy
Medvedev’s
book
are
these
about
Krushchev,
that
’he
man-
aged,
to
a
greater
extent
than
any
of
the
others
in
Stalin’s
entourage,
to
retain
a
capacity
for
doing
good
and
for
repentance’
{p.166).
Equally,
Roy
Medvedev
shows
the
motivation
which
led
to
Krushchev’s
risky
disavowal
of
the
past,
and
goes
on
to
show
what
stresses
Krushchev
had
to
cope
with
because
his
denunciation
had
touched
so
many
officials
and
their
self-
loves.
Among
the
most
crucial
references
is
that
to
Berdyaev,
Shestov,
N.
O.
Lossky,
and
S.
L.
Frank
(p. 187).
These
were
men
who,
though
largely
socialist,
repudiated
Marxism
before
1905,
having
seen
its
inutility
and
falsity,
and
who
gave
to
the
West
a
world
view
responsive
to
the
crises
of
the
Russian
Revolution
and
valid
for
a
true
reconstitution
of
thought
and
conduct.
Solzhenitsyn
and
other
recent
dissidents
have
de-
pended
much
on
them.
When
it
is
realized
that
a
Commissariat
of
Enlightenment
was
set
up
(1920)
to
restrict
access
to
books
which
enlighten,
the
critic
may
well
ask
how
the
character
of
Stalinism
can
be
separated
from
that
of
Leninism
or
Marxism.
Subtle
distinctions
cannot
overcome
the
problem
that
a
tyrannous
dialectic
gathers
impetus
by
its
own
success,
and
when
it
is
tied
to
an
idolatry
of
one
view
of
history,
it
makes
all
time
and
all
action
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