Ismail
3rd July 2015, 16:09
https://archive.org/details/PoliticalPowerInTheUSSR
Scanned by me.
To quote from Andrew Rothstein's review in The Anglo-Soviet Journal's Autumn 1949 issue:
Professor Towster—a Pole by origin, and with a record of work in several United States Government departments, including the Department of State—makes a detailed and documented study of the theory and structure of the Soviet State—Marxist views on the subject, the development of the Soviet Constitution, nationalities in the Soviet Union, the Party, the Soviets and the judicial system—which is critical enough to arouse some disagreement, but yet transparently sincere in its effort to be fair...
It is all the greater pity that it is marred by a number of unnecessary errors. The period in the U.S.S.R. which ended in the elimination of exploiting classes, of which Stalin spoke at the XVIII Party Congress, by no means finished in 1932 (p. 38): 1936/7 would be nearer the mark. The reference to Stalin's speech in January, 1918, on the subject of self-determination for the working people, not the bourgeoisie (p. 61), ought to have given Stalin's explanation that it would be "completely senseless" to ask for power to the workers only where there was no Socialist revolution yet, as in Lithuania or Poland. The author seems to suggest (p. 84) that the Mongolian People's Republic is not called "Socialist" only because of its ties with the U.S.S.R. are less "fully perfected"—when the reason is simply that its economy is not yet Socialist. He follows the Webbs in their erroneous suggestion that, between meetings of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U., there is a "presidium" which is "supposed to represent it" (p. 154)—when in reality the Political Bureau, Organising Bureau and Secretariat do so. It is quite wrong to date the principle of a "monolithic" party, with a leadership which leads, and is not merely "the mediator between opposing currents," from 1917 (pp. 174-75). Trotsky was fighting Lenin and the Bolsheviks on this as long ago as 1904.
Professor Towster is again at sea in suggesting (p. 194) that "a total scratching of the candidates' name by all the voters in the area" is necessary under the Stalin Constitution to defeat him: if less than 50 per cent. of the voters go to the poll, or if over 50 per cent. of those who do go to the poll strike out his name, the candidate cannot be elected. He is also quite wrong in stating (p. 316, footnote) that "strikes are illegal in the U.S.S.R.": there is no ground whatever for this frequently repeated assertion, and in the years when strikes occurred in State factories—1923-5, 1928—it is well known that it was managers and party secretaries who were blamed for letting matters come to such a pass, rather than the workers. It is not justifiable to state, because separate secondary schools for boys and girls have been introduced in the larger towns, that the U.S.S.R. "has abandoned co-education" (p. 363).
Yet, in spite of these and some other blemishes, and of an extremely indulgent eye for the peculiarities of "Western democracy" when giving the U.S.S.R. the inevitable lecture on liberty, Professor Towster's book is well worth reading. He gives a wealth of material, in particular, showing that in the U.S.S.R. there is no inherent antithesis between society and the individual, and that "the people are actively associated in the propagation and execution of policy, and are instilled with a growing sense of participation in government" (p. 400).
Scanned by me.
To quote from Andrew Rothstein's review in The Anglo-Soviet Journal's Autumn 1949 issue:
Professor Towster—a Pole by origin, and with a record of work in several United States Government departments, including the Department of State—makes a detailed and documented study of the theory and structure of the Soviet State—Marxist views on the subject, the development of the Soviet Constitution, nationalities in the Soviet Union, the Party, the Soviets and the judicial system—which is critical enough to arouse some disagreement, but yet transparently sincere in its effort to be fair...
It is all the greater pity that it is marred by a number of unnecessary errors. The period in the U.S.S.R. which ended in the elimination of exploiting classes, of which Stalin spoke at the XVIII Party Congress, by no means finished in 1932 (p. 38): 1936/7 would be nearer the mark. The reference to Stalin's speech in January, 1918, on the subject of self-determination for the working people, not the bourgeoisie (p. 61), ought to have given Stalin's explanation that it would be "completely senseless" to ask for power to the workers only where there was no Socialist revolution yet, as in Lithuania or Poland. The author seems to suggest (p. 84) that the Mongolian People's Republic is not called "Socialist" only because of its ties with the U.S.S.R. are less "fully perfected"—when the reason is simply that its economy is not yet Socialist. He follows the Webbs in their erroneous suggestion that, between meetings of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U., there is a "presidium" which is "supposed to represent it" (p. 154)—when in reality the Political Bureau, Organising Bureau and Secretariat do so. It is quite wrong to date the principle of a "monolithic" party, with a leadership which leads, and is not merely "the mediator between opposing currents," from 1917 (pp. 174-75). Trotsky was fighting Lenin and the Bolsheviks on this as long ago as 1904.
Professor Towster is again at sea in suggesting (p. 194) that "a total scratching of the candidates' name by all the voters in the area" is necessary under the Stalin Constitution to defeat him: if less than 50 per cent. of the voters go to the poll, or if over 50 per cent. of those who do go to the poll strike out his name, the candidate cannot be elected. He is also quite wrong in stating (p. 316, footnote) that "strikes are illegal in the U.S.S.R.": there is no ground whatever for this frequently repeated assertion, and in the years when strikes occurred in State factories—1923-5, 1928—it is well known that it was managers and party secretaries who were blamed for letting matters come to such a pass, rather than the workers. It is not justifiable to state, because separate secondary schools for boys and girls have been introduced in the larger towns, that the U.S.S.R. "has abandoned co-education" (p. 363).
Yet, in spite of these and some other blemishes, and of an extremely indulgent eye for the peculiarities of "Western democracy" when giving the U.S.S.R. the inevitable lecture on liberty, Professor Towster's book is well worth reading. He gives a wealth of material, in particular, showing that in the U.S.S.R. there is no inherent antithesis between society and the individual, and that "the people are actively associated in the propagation and execution of policy, and are instilled with a growing sense of participation in government" (p. 400).