Abstract
Soviet political culture is rooted in the historical experience of centuries of autocracy.1 Isolated from the major trade routes and located in a territory which offered little potential for agricultural development, the early Russian state was not one in which powerful and autonomous social formations were likely to take root; and at least since medieval times the country has typically been ruled by a strong, autocratic monarch, with countervailing institutions—parliamentary, legal or whatever—remaining weak and undeveloped. ‘If there is one single factor which dominates the course of Russian history, at any rate since the Tartar conquest’, writes Professor Seton-Watson, ‘it is the principle of autocracy.’2 It would be a mistake to suppose that the country’s pattern of political development held no other potential. The early Russian state, on the contrary, was characterised by the emergence of popular assemblies (the veche) which were similar in character to city governments elsewhere in Europe at this time and which similarly exercised important prerogatives with respect to the choice of a ruler, legislation, the imposition of taxes, and questions of war and peace.3 But in most Russian towns the Tartar invasion of the thirteenth century brought this pattern of development to an abrupt end; and the expansion of the Muscovite principate in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries led to the termination of city self-government in its last remaining outposts, Novgorod (in 1478) and Pskov (in 1510).4
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Notes
H. Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire (Oxford, 1967) p. 10.
E. P. Eroshkin, Istoriya Gosudarstvennykh Uchrezhdenii Dorevolyutsionoi Rossii (2nd ed., Moscow, 1968) pp. 34, 64, and 79; D’yakonov, Ocherki pp. 356–60.
Eroshkin, Istoriya, pp. 37, 53–4 and 104; Fedosov, Vo prosy Istorii, 1971, no. 7, p. 54.
D’yakonov, Ocherki p. 390; R. Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime (London, 1974), p. 108.
Eroshkin, Istoriya pp. 266–7; Istoriya Gosudarstva i Prava SSSR (Moscow, 1972) vol.1, p. 587.
M. Szeftel, ‘The representatives and their powers in the Russian legislative chambers (1906–1917)’, in Studies presented to the International Commission for the History of Parliamentary and Representative Institutions vol. 27 (Louvain-Paris, 1965) pp. 219–67, makes this case strongly.
Istoriya Gos. i Prava SSSR vol. r, p. 583; S. M. Sidel’nikov, Obrazovanie i Deyatel’nost’ Pervoi Gosudarstvennoi Dumy (Moscow, 1962) p. 73.
P. A. Berlin, Russkaya Burzhuaziya v Staroe i Novoe Vremya (Moscow, 1922) pp. 243–4 and 269.
M. Cherniaysky, Tsar and People (New York, 1969) p. 83.
P. Longworth, ‘The pretender phenomenon in eighteenth-century Russia’, Past and Present 66 (February 1975) pp. 61 and 70;
P. Avrich, Russian Rebels (London 1973) pp. 257 and 269–70.
V. Dal’, Poslovitsy Russkogo Naroda (Moscow, 1862) pp. 244–7;
V. K. Sokolova, Russkie Istoricheskie Predaniya (Moscow, 1970) pp. 55–80.
Etimologicheskii Slovar’ Russkogo Yazyka ed. N. M. Shanskii (Moscow, 1972) tom I, vyp. 4, p. 150; M. Fasmer, Etimologicheskii Slovar’ Russkogo Yazyka (Moscow 1964) vol. I, p. 448; D’yakonov, Ocherki PP. 322–3.
A. Levin, The Second Duma (2nd ed., Hamden, Conn., 1966) pp. 63 and 234.
O. Radkey, The Elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly of 1917 ( Cambridge, Mass., 1950 ) pp. 57–63;
and A. Levin, The Third Duma ( Hamden, Conn., 1973 ) p. 89.
Chermensky, Voprosy Istorii, 1947, no. 4, p. 35.
S. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, 1968) p. 1.
J. Walkin, American Slavonic and East European Review, April 1954, pp. 174 and 183; Sidel’nikov, Obrazovanie, p. 62; Istoriya Gos. i Prava SSSR, vol. 1, p. 607.
M. Kovalevsky, Russian Political Institutions (Chicago, 1902) p. 257.
D. M. Wallace, Russia (London, 1912) pp. 120ff.;
G. T. Robinson, Rural Russia under the Old Régime (London, 1932 ) pp. 117–28.
G. I. Klyushin and S. N. Mostovoi, KPSS — Vospitatel’ Novogo Cheloveka (Moscow, 1970 ) p. 25.
Yu. M. Khrustalev, Lektsionnaya Rabota — Vazhnaya Forma Kommunisticheskogo Vospitaniya (Moscow, 1973 ) p. 7;
E. Shagalov, Vospitatel’naya Rabota po Mestu Zhitel’stva (Moscow, 1974) passim;
A. L. Unger, The Totalitarian Party: Party and People in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia (London, 1974.) pp. 122ff.
See especially M. Weiner, ‘Political participation: crisis of the political process’, in L. Binder et al. Crises and Sequences in Political Development (Princeton, 1971 ).
Two good general accounts are B. Bociurkiw and J. W. Strong, eds, Religion and Atheism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (London, 1975 )
and M. Bordeaux, ‘Religion’, in Archie Brown and Michael Kaser (eds), The Soviet Union since the Fall of Khrushchev (London, 1975 ).
V. N. Ermuratsky, Sotsial’naya Aktivnost’ Rabotnikov Promyshlennogo Predpriyatiya (Kishinev, 1973), p. 105; Molodezh’ Sela Segodnya (Moscow 1972 ) p. 117.
M. Matthews, Class and Society in Soviet Russia (London, 1972) pp. 232–3 and 240.
A. Inkeles and R. Bauer, The Soviet Citizen ( Cambridge, Mass., 1959 ).
J. A. Ross, ‘The composition and structure of the alienation of Jewish emigrants from the Soviet Union’, Studies in Comparative Communism 7 (spring-summer, 1974) pp. 113 and 117.
S. Jacoby, The Friendship Barrier (London, 1972) pp. 42–3, 82, 196–7 and 212; ‘An Observer’, Message from Moscow (London, 1969) pp. 214 and 210.
A. G. Kharchev in Voprosy Filosofii 1965, no. 1, pp. 49–50; Nauchnye Osnovy Partiinoi Raboty (Leningrad, 1972) pp. 55 and 84.
S. G. Strumilin, Byudzhet Vremeni Russkogo Rabochego i Krest’yanina (Moscow-Leningrad, 1924) pp. 24–6.
Strumilin, Byudzhet Vremeni p. 24; G. E. Zborovskii and G. P. Orlov, Dosug: Deistvitel’nost’ i Illyusii (Sverdlovsk, 1970) p. 220.
M. Sh. Tselishcheva, Politicheskoo Vospitanie Trudyashchikhsya v period Stroitel’stva Kommunizma (avtoreferat kand. diss., Leningrad, 1972 ) p. 17;
V. Kh. Belen’kii, Aktivnost’ Narodnykh Mass (Krasnoyarsk 1973 ) p. 202.
Trud i Lichnost’ pri Sotsializme (Perm’, 1972) p. 34; L. N. Kogan et al., Dukhovnyi Mir Sovetskogo Rabochego (Moscow, 1972) p. 174.
R. Rose, Governing without Consensus (London, 1971) p. 35. Two interesting recent discussions of the theme of generational change in Soviet politics are P. Frank, ‘The changing composition of the Communist Party’, in Brown and Kaser, Soviet Union, pp. 96–120;
W. D. Connor, ‘Generations and Politics in the USSR’, Problems of Communism 24 (September—October 1975 ) pp. 20–31.
Alfred Meyer, in D. Treadgold (ed.), The Development of the USSR (London, 1964) p. 24.
B. A. Grushin and V. Chikin, Vo Imya Schast’ya Cheloveka (Moscow, 1960) p. 66, found that only g8 of a total of 1399 whose opinions were polled thought that their standard of living had declined in previous years; see also the opinion of recent emigrés quoted in n. 58 above.
See, for instance, V. Chalidze, To Defend These Rights (London, 1975 ) p. 170;
N. Mandel’shtam, Hope Abandoned (London, 1973) pp. 94, 401 and passim.
E. M. Kuznetsov, Politicheskaya Agitatsiya, Nauchnye Osnovy i Praktika (Moscow, 1974 ) p. 9.
N. S. Afonin, Sotsial’no-politicheskie Aspekty Povysheniya Effektivnosti Partiinoi Propagandy (avtoreferat kand. diss., Moscow, 1973) p. 19; Usloviya Povysheniya Sotsial’noi Aktivnosti Rabochego Klassa v period Stroitel’stva Kommunizma (Rostov on Don, 1974 ) p. 88.
I. S. Soltan, Politicheskaya Ucheba i Razvitie Obshchestvenoi-politicheskoi Aktivnosti Rabotnikov Promyshlennogo Predpriyatiya (avtoreferat kand. diss., Kishinev, 1973) pp. 18–19; Afonin, Aspekty p. 20.
G. I. Balkhanov, Ustnaya Propaganda i ee Effektivnost’ (Ulan-Ude 1974 ) p. 66.
N. S. Afonin, Lektor i Auditoriya (Saransk, 1973) p. 73; Soltan, Politicheskaya Ucheba p. 15.
Balkhanov, Ustnaya Propaganda p. 93; Afonin, Lektor i Auditoriya p. 48; Voprosy Teorii i Metodov Ideologischeskoi Raboty 3 (Moscow, 1974) p. 189; P. V. Pozdnyakov (ed.), Politicheskaya Informatsiya (Moscow, 1974) pp. 87ff.
Voprosy Teorii i Praktiki Massovykh Sredstv Propagandy 3 (Moscow, 1970) p. 38; I. P. Rudoi and A. M. Shumakov, Naglyadnaya Agitatsiya — Sredstvo Vospitaniya (Moscow, 1974) pp. 9–10.
XXIV S“ezd KPSS i Problemy Povysheniya Proizvodstvennoi i Obsh-chestvennoi-politicheskoi Aktivnosti Trudovykh Kollektivov (Minsk, 1972) p. 69; A. M. Shumakov, Naglyadnana Agitatsiya (2nd ed., Moscow, 1973) P.191.
No detailed examination of the nationalities question can possibly be attempted here. Two recent accounts may be referred to: Z. Katz (ed.), Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities (New York, 1975); and J. A. Newth, ‘Demographic Developments’, in Brown and Kaser, Soviet Union pp. 77–95.
V. N. Pimenova, Svobodnoe Vremya v Sotsialisticheskom Obshchestve (Moscow, 1974 ) p. 298;
Yu. V. Arutyunyan et al., Sotsial’noe i Natsional’noe (Moscow, 1973) p. 280; Sovetskaya Etnografiya 1974, no. 4, pp. 7–12; A. I. Kholmogorov, Internatsional’nye Cherty Sovetskikh Natsii (Moscow, 1970) passim.
The concept of ‘political stratification’ is discussed in J. A. Brand et al., Political Stratification and Democracy (London, 1972).
B. A. Grushin, Svobodnoe Vremya (Moscow, 1967) p. 78; Ermuratsky, Sotsial’naya Aktivnost’ p. Ito; Belen’kii, Aktivnost’ p. 218.
N. M. Sapozhnikov, Struktura Politicheskogo Soznaniya (Minsk, 1969 ) P. 24.
Voprosy Teorii i Metodov Partiinoi Propagandy (Moscow, 1971) p. 333; B. A. Grushin, Svobodnoe Vremya: Velichina, Struktura, Perspektivy (Moscow, 1966) p. 24;
Yu. V. Arutyunyan, Sotsial’naya Struktura Sel’skogo Naseleniya SSSR (Moscow, 1971) p. 179.
B. A. Grushin (ed.) Gorodskoe Naselenie i Ekonomicheskaya Reforma (mimeo., Moscow, 1973) pp. 67–8.
Aktivnost’ Lichnosti p. 249; Yu. G. Chulanov, Izmeneniya v Sostave i v Urovne Tvorcheskoi Aktivnosti Rabochego Klassa SSSR 1959–1970gg. (Leningrad, 1974) pp. 66–9.
S. Verba and N. H. Nie, Participation in America. Political Democracy and Social Equality (New York, 1972);
Dowse and Hughes, Political Sociology ch. 9; and in M. Rush and P. Althoff, An Introduction to Political Sociology (London, 1971) ch. 3.
This point is strongly made by A. Inkeles and D. H. Smith, Becoming Modern (London, 1974) P. 144ff.
T. Parsons, ‘Evolutionary universals in society’, American Sociological Review 29 (June 1964) pp. 338–57, and Societies ( Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1966 ).
There is a good general discussion in R. L. TŐkés (ed.), Dissent in the USSR (Baltimore and London, 1975 ).
On the notion of a ‘counterculture’ more specifically, see H. L. Biddulph, ‘Soviet intellectual dissent as a political counter-culture’, Western Political Quarterly 25 (September 1972) pp. 522–33.
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© 1979 Stephen White
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White, S. (1979). The USSR: Patterns of Autocracy and Industrialism. In: Brown, A., Gray, J. (eds) Political Culture and Political Change in Communist States. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16182-9_2
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