Fetr. NEW BOOKS What Russian democracy can teach us THE SOVIET IMPACT ON THE WESTERN WORLD, by Edward Hallett Carr (Macmillan, past, with its emphasis on the community $1.75). and the collective nature of rights and French tradition, and its claim to superi- ority rests on the assertion that the obligations in social and political life and its failure to work out an effective bourgeoisie falsified and betrayed the democratic tradition and that only Soviet By Robert S. Lynd integration of freedom and authorty, Pro- Professor of sociology at Columbia University, co-author of the Middletown books fessor Carr turns principally to the West democracy has gone on to complete the unfinished revolution. and author of Knowledge for What? for the ideological source of Soviet democ- Professor Carr discusses ably the four racy. (He rightly dismisses the lazy ten- W dency to dissipate serious discussion of heads under which Soviet democracy AMERICANS don't know the difference between Yankee ingenuity and charges Western democracy with failure: intelligence. If we did, we would be trying our level best to get informed Soviet institutions by treating Bolshevism "(1) that it remains purely formal and in- answers to the following three questions: as an "Oriental" ideology, alien to West- stitutional and that the class content of (1). What do people mean who call this "a world revolutionary epoch," and ern civilization.) the state is ignored, (2) that it remains what is the evidence for such a statement? But it was not the English tradition of purely political and does not extend to (2). What innovations anywhere in the world should an alert, enterprising democracy that Bolshevism followed, and the social and economic plane, (3) that nation be studying hospitably and constructively at a time like this? therein lies a major obstacle to our un- it lacks positive belief in itself and is (3). Which are the lines of change that we, in common with all industrial derstanding Soviet democracy. therefore dangerously tolerant of oppo- Both the English Civil War and the societies, must follow, and where do we sition and (4) that it makes no provision French Revolution were middle-class re- for the participation of the masses in ad- have options to follow our own Amer- volts, and both employed revolutionary ministration." ican versions of the future? commonplace to say that democracy had dictatorship to bring middle-class democ- Exhibit A: the Soviet Union. It pre- failed to solve social and economic prob- racy to birth. But, in England, the out- Four charges of failure sents the greatest number of alterna- lems and that political democracy was come under James II was a compromise As regards the first of these charges, tive ways of doing important things, in not enough." We were uncertain what the in which, politically and religiously, the Professor Carr says, "In the Western con- comparison with our own ways, to be democracy was for which we stood. main reliance was placed upon toleration ception of democracy, institutions are all- found in any industrial nation on this It was the United States that sounded of the rights of dissent, which was condu- important, and the antithesis of democracy planet. the democratic note in World War I, but cive to a theory of "weak government." is dictatorship. In the Soviet conception, Some Soviet ways of doing things be- "the sequel provided little incentive be- The ideological heritage of the French class content is the first consideration, and gan by being radically different from our tween the two wars to invoke the slogan Revolution, on the other hand, fostered the antithesis of democracy is aristocracy own, but they are coming to resemble our of democracy in international affairs." on the Continent a theory of the surrender or plutocracy." American ways, while others remain tough- And, in the second war, not only did the by the individual of his rights against so- His discussion of the third charge should ly different from ours and even suggest Atlantic Charter "make no mention of ciety. Rousseau became "the father of be pondered here in the United States, major directions of change which we must democracy," but it was Stalin who "once modern totalitarian democracy." where Associated Farmers tactics, Mo- learn to follow. Yet, quite characteristically more placed democracy in the forefront By 1848 the frightened British middle- hawk Valley formulas, American Legion and despite our boast that our "American of Allied war aims," recurrently from the class had ceased to be revolutionary, and and business censorship of textbooks and way" makes us the sole possessors of "en- Stalin-Sikorski declaration of December, thereafter liberal democracy and social the influence of advertising on news col- 1941, to Potsdam. The initiative passed to umns increasingly belie our professed terprise," our basic attitude towards the democracy "were to be found throughout Soviet Union is a combination of Yankee the Soviet Union. Europe on opposite sides of the barri- complete tolerance of dissent. The Rus- While bowing briefly to the Russian cades." Soviet democracy stems from the sians are incredulous at the naiveté of a effort to outsmart the Russians sight un- liberal democracy's 'exclusive preoccupa- seen and of middle-class condemnation of tion with voting at elections." things that are different because they are The chapter on The Ideological Im- different and might, therefore, be danger- pact emphasizes the role of Bolshevism in ous. forcing upon the attention of the West the Middle-class optimism neglected problem of the individual in Our American formula is to keep the mass society and the significance of the door closed against the future by bluff fact that the statement of this problem and horsetrading, while we reassure our- comes from a society which stresses the selves by shouting, "If any good thing responsibilities, as well as the rights, of ever happens to any nation on earth, it citizens. will happen to us first." A way of life The British, no longer having much, it Bolshevism is not merely a political any, basis for middle-class optimism, are program, but a whole way of socialized several leaps ahead of us in realism. Pro- life aimed at the new conditions of a mass fessor Carr's book is the second to come industrial society. Professor Carr suggests from England that asks, in effect, the di- that "the advantages of individualism per- rect question; "At what point does the haps never impressed themselves at all Soviet Union reveal our future to us deeply on the consciousness of the Westerners?" masses" and that the emphasis of the Neither book is by a Communist, and Soviet Union on knitting the person into both include sober criticism of the Soviet society may carry an appeal today far un- Union. The first book, The USSR-Its Sig- derestimated by middle-class societies pre- nificance for the West, published in Lon- occupied with individualistic liberties. don in 1942, is an altogether admirable The discussion in this chapter of the effort by a left Labour Party group to efficacy of social relativism as a critical answer the question: "What should Brit- weapon used by the Soviet Union to dis- ish socialists accept, and what reject, about credit the theories and values of bour- the Soviet Union? geois society is illuminating and important. And now this wise, trenchant little book It demonstrates how, one by one, "the by Professor Carr, whom many will re- supposed absolute values of liberal de- member for his notable Conditions of mocracy are undermined by the corrosive Peace, brings together six lectures deliv- power of the Marxist critique: what was ered by him at Oxford University in the thought of as an absolute turns out to be spring of 1946. (It may seem curious to relative to a given social structure and to American readers that the author of such possess validity only as an adjunct of that a book is a former First Secretary to the structure." Foreign Office and a leader writer for the Thus "the gravemen of the Marxist London Times.) revolution is that it has called in ques- Most penetrating analysis tion the moral authority of the ideals and The opening chapter is the most pene- principles of Western democracy by de- trating analysis I have yet seen of the claring them to be a reflexion of the in- Soviet conception of democracy, in con- terests of a privileged class." trast to our own. It blows like a fresh Obviously Professor Carr here claims too breeze across this murky controversy. Ac- exclusive an "impact" for Marxist and cording to Professor Carr, the challenge Soviet ideas, overlooking the influence of of the Soviet Union's claim to be "a new Freud, comparative anthropology, gestalt and more progressive form of democracy,' psychology and similar evidences of the came at a time of crisis in the fortunes of modern Western temper. Elsewhere he exhibits the same tendency Western liberal democracy: "Outwardly triumphant in 1918, the to imply too exclusive a strength to "the high tide of democracy ebbed with be- Soviet impact." He states that "the eco- wildering rapidity, and the period be- nomic impact of the Soviet Union on the tween the two wars was one of disappoint- ment and discouragement. It became a Edward Hallett Carr, author of The Soviet Impact on the Western World (above). Continued on next page m13