Abstract
Does ideology matter in the Soviet Union? This is a question that naturally comes to mind when reviewing the preceding chapters. In a basic sense, ideology clearly matters inasmuch as it figures importantly in Soviet political life.1 The Soviet party continues to devote considerable resources to keeping ideology visible and conveying its content to a mass domestic and international audience. But visibility is not what most have in mind when asking whether ideology matters. What is really meant is: does it make a difference, and if so, how great a difference? Who believes in what elements of the ideology and, perhaps most pertinent, what role does it play in politics? The central concern of most posing such questions is the effect of ideology on the making of Soviet policy at home and abroad.
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Notes
See J. P. Scanlan, Marxism in the USSR. A Critical Survey of Current Soviet Thought ( Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985 ), pp. 12–13.
A classic study is N. Leites, The Operational Code of the Soviet Politburo ( New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951 ).
The essentialist/mechanistic/cybernetic typology of approaches to the study of Soviet foreign policy — also applicable to the domestic sphere–is discussed in W. Zimmerman, ‘Choice in the Post-War World (1): Containment and the Soviet Union’ in C. Gati (ed.), Caging the Bear: Containment and the Cold War ( Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974 ), pp. 85–108
and by R. N. Cutler, Soviet Debates on the Conduct of Policy Toward Western Europe: Four Case Studies 1971–75 ( PhD thesis, University of Michigan, 1982 ), pp. 3–6.
For instance, H. G. Skilling and F. Griffiths (eds), Interest Groups in Soviet Politics (Princeton University Press, 1971 )
and W. Zimmerman, Soviet Perspectives on International Relations 1956–68 (Princeton University Press, 1969 ).
B. Parrott, Politics and Technology in the Soviet Union ( Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press 1983 ), p. 4.
also see T. Gustafson, Reform in Soviet Politics: the Lessons of Recent Policies on Land and Water (Cambridge University Press, 1981 ).
This is exemplified by Z. Brzezinski; see his ‘The Soviet Union: Her Aims, Problems, and Challenges to the West’, in R. F. Laird and E. P. Hoffmann (eds), Soviet Foreign Policy in a Changing World ( New York: Aldine Publishing Company, 1986 ), pp. 3–15.
For instance see R.F. Staar, USSR: Foreign Policies after Detente (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1985)
R. Judson Mitchell, Ideology of a Superpower: Contemporary Soviet Doctrine on International Relations ( Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1982 )
and C. Linden, The Soviet Party-State: The Politics of Ideocratic Despotism ( New York: Praeger, 1983 ).
Interesting discussions of the relationship between ideology and Soviet foreign policy include L. Labedz, ‘Ideology and Soviet Foreign Policy’, in C. Bertram (ed.), Prospects of Soviet Power in the 1980s (London: Macmillan, 1980), pp. 22–30; and H. Adomeit, ‘Ideology in the Soviet View of International Affairs’, in Bertram, Prospects of Soviet Power, pp. 103–10.
For methodological criticism of H. Adomeit, Soviet Risk-Taking and Crisis Behaviour. A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis ( London: Allen and Unwin, 1982 )
one of the more sophisticated studies stressing ideology, see J. Snyder, ‘Richness, Rigor and Relevance in the Study of Soviet Foreign Policy’, International Security, Winter 1984/85, pp. 89–108, at p. 102.
G. Sartori, ‘Politics, Ideology, and Belief Systems’, American Political Science Review, vol.63 (1969), pp. 398–410, at p. 398.
Cf. D. Bell, ‘Ideology and Soviet Politics’, Slavic Review, vol. 24 no.4 (December 1965), pp. 398–410, at p. 595
and Z. Brzezinski and S. P. Huntington, Political Power: US/USSR ( New York: Viking Press, 1964 ), p. 19.
See M. Seliger, Politics and Ideology (London: Allen and Unwin, 1976), esp. pp. 120, 175.
George, ‘Ideology and International Relations’, pp. 18–20. For an earlier and fuller description of what he then called the operational code, see A. L. George, ‘The “Operational Code”: A Neglected Approach to the Study of Political Leaders and Decision-Making’, in E. P. Hoffmann and F. J. Fleron (eds), The Conduct of Soviet Foreign Policy ( London: Butterworths, 1971 ), pp. 165–98.
See, for instance, R. Putnam, ‘Studying Elite Political Culture: the case of Ideology’, American Political Science Review, vol. 65 (September 1971), pp. 651–81.
For a recent statement of this view, see A. Nove in evidence submitted to the Foreign Affairs Committee, quoted in UK—Soviet Relations. Second Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, vol. I (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1986), p. xii.
S. Bialer distinguishes between doctrine, historical experience and cultural heritage; see his The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline (New York: Knopf, 1986), pp. 262–4. For a lucid discussion of ‘irreducible’ values, ideology and national interest, see George, ‘Ideology and International Relations’, pp. 14–16.
Raymond L. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American—Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan ( Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 1985 ), p. 50
contrast Meyer, ‘Assessing the Ideological Commitment of a Regime’, in J.L. Nogee (ed.), Soviet Politics: Russia after Brezhnev (New York: Praeger, 1985), pp. 107–21, at p. 111.
For discussion of the political significance of media material, see L. Dzirkals, T. Gustafson and R. Johnson, The Media and Intra-Elite Communication in the USSR (Santa Monica: Rand, 1982 ).
Garthoff, Détente. p. 20; Judson Mitchell, Ideology of a Super Power, pp. 100–1 ff.; and C. Jonsson, ‘Foreign Policy Ideas and Groupings in the Soviet Union’, in R. F. Kanet (ed.), Soviet Foreign Policy and East—West Relations (Elmsford N.Y.: Pergamon, 1982), pp. 3–28, at p. 6.
A. N. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow (London: Cape, 1985), talks of the basic faith of even the pragmatic Gromyko in the eventual victory of socialism (p. 154) and a shared sense of the general ‘rightness’ of the Soviet system (p. 180).
For discussions of cathetic and other forms of attachment, see P. Diesing, Science and Ideology in the Policy Sciences ( New York: Aldine, 1982 ), p. 10.
R. Legvold, ‘The Nature of Soviet Power’, in Laird and Hoffmann, Soviet Foreign Policy, pp. 29–48, at p. 43; Garthoff, Détente, p. 20; Brzezinski and Huntington, Political Power, pp. 42, 56; and J. F. Triska and D. D. Finley, Soviet Foreign Policy ( New York and London: Collier-Macmillan/Macmillan, 1968 ), pp. 115–6.
M. S. Gorbachev, ‘Politicheskii doklad Tsentral’nogo Komiteta KPSS XXVII s’ezdu Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza’, Pravda, 26 February 1986, pp. 2–10, at p.2.
For a discussion of ideological style, see Putnam, ‘Studying Elite Political Culture’. A discussion of Soviet consultative procedures may be found in E. Jones, ‘Committee Decision-Making in the Soviet Union’, World Politics, vol. 36 no. 2 (June 1984), pp. 165–88.
For educational background and likely effects, see R. Theen, ‘Party and Bureaucracy’, in E. P. Hoffmann and R. F. Laird (eds), The Soviet Polity in the Modern Era (New York: Aldine, 1984), pp. 131–66, at p. 135; and Triska and Finley, Soviet Foreign Policy, pp. 123–4.
See, for instance, R. F. Vidmer and J. C. Thompson, Administrative Science and Politics in the USSR and the United States. Soviet Responses to American Management Techniques 1917—Present ( New York: Praeger, 1983 ).
For a discussion of Gorbachev’s background and likely outlook, see A. H. Brown, ‘Gorbachev: New Man in the Kremlin’, Problems of Communism, vol. 34 no. 3 (May–June 1985), pp. 1–23, esp. p.23.
Cutler, Soviet Debates, pp. 251, 269; and M. R. Beissinger, ‘In search of Generations in Soviet Politics’, World Politics, vol. 32 no. 2 (June 1986), pp. 288–314, at pp. 288–90.
See K. Dawisha, The Kremlin and the Prague Spring ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985 ), p. 260
and P. Tigrid, Why Dubéek Fell (London Macdonald, 1971), pp.96, 127–8.
See, for instance, Parrott, Politics and Technology, pp. 5–6; Jonsson, ‘Foreign Policy Ideas’, pp. 11–13; and E. P. Hoffmann and R. F. Laird, ‘The Scientific—Technological Revolution’ and Soviet Foreign Policy ( Elmsford N Y: Pergamon Press, 1982 ).
See J. DeBardeleben, The Environment and Marxism-Leninism ( Boulder, Col.: Westview, 1985 ) p. 269
and J. F. Hough, The Struggle for the Third World: Soviet Debates and American Options ( Washington DC: Brookings, 1986 ), p. 103.
See Hough, The Struggle for the Third World, pp. 262–4; Gustafson, Reform in Soviet Politics, p. 17; and N. Malcolm, Soviet Political Scientists and American Politics ( London: Macmillan, 1984 ), pp. 163–4.
For problems of ideological ‘indeterminacy’ see D. D. Comey, ‘Ideology and Soviet Policy’, Studies in Soviet Thought, vol. 2 no. 4 (1962), pp. 301–20, at pp. 307–8.
See, for instance, M. Crouch and R. Porter, ‘Ideology and Literary Policy’ (mimeo. paper, Bristol University, April 1985 )
and K. Clark, ‘The Mutability of the Canon: Socialist Realism and Aitmatov’s I dol’she veka dlitsia den’, Slavic Review, vol.43 no.4 (Winter 1984 ), pp. 573–87.
For an examination of the ideological basis of taxation policy, see A. Robinson and G. Sandford, Tax Policy-Making in the United Kingdom. A Study of Rationality, Ideology and Politics (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 40. See Garthoff, Détente, pp. 42 ff.; and Judson Mitchell, Ideology of a Superpower, pp. 55–67. Of course, ideology was only one of the elements contributing to misperceptions here just as misperception provides only a partial explanation for the course of détente in the late 1970s.
For an analysis which stresses other factors, see G. Breslauer, ‘Why Detente Failed: An Interpretation’, in A. L. George et al., Managing U.S.-Soviet Rivalry. Problems of Crisis Prevention ( Boulder, Col.: Westview, 1983 ), pp. 319–40.
See R. H. Donaldson, ‘Soviet Intervention in South Asia and the Indian Ocean’, in R. Kanet (ed.), Soviet Foreign Policy in the 1980s ( New York: Praeger, 1982 ), pp. 330–1.
D. S. Papp, Soviet Perceptions of the Developing World in the 1980s. The Ideological Basis (Lexington: D. C. Heath, 1985), esp. pp. 127ff.
See A. Nove, The Economics of Feasible Socialism ( London: Allen and Unwin, 1983 ), pp. 115–6.
For a recent survey of the evidence on income distribution, see A. Bergson, ‘Income Inequality under Soviet Socialism’, Journal of Economic Literature, no.22 (September 1984), pp. 1052–99, esp. p. 1070.
See ‘Programma Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza. Novaya redaktsiya’, Pravda, 7 March 1986, pp. 3–10, at p. 6. Also see P. Frank. Novaya redaktsiya’, Pravda, 7 March 1986, pp. 3–10, at p. 6. Also see P. Frank, ‘Gorbachev’s dilemma: social justice or political stability?’, The World Today, vol. 42 no. 6 (June 1986), pp. 93–5.
See, for instance, Bialer, The Soviet Paradox, pp. 231, 244, 264. For an analysis that plays down the role of ideology, see D. S. Zagoria, ‘Ideology and Chinese foreign policy’, in G. Schwab (ed.), Ideology and Foreign Policy ( New York: Cyrco, 1978 ), pp. 103–16.
See A. J. McAdams, East Germany and Detente. Building Authoriy after the Wall (Cambridge University Press, 1985), ch. 4, esp. pp. 112–15.
See Z. Mlynâr, Mraz prichdzi z kremlu ( Cologne: Index, 1979 ), pp. 202–13
J. Valenta, ‘Soviet Decision-Making on Czechoslovakia, 1968’, in J. Valenta and W. C. Potter (eds), Soviet Decision-making for National Security (London: Allen and Unwin, 1984), pp. 165–84. For a detailed and penetrating study of Soviet decision-making in 1968, see K. Dawisha, The Kremlin and the Prague Spring.
T. Gambling, quoted in G. Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values ( Beverly Hills and London: Sage, 1980 ), p. 160.
T. Gustafson and D. Mann, ‘Gorbachev’s first year: building power and authority’, Problems of Communism, vol. 35 no. 3 (May-June 1986), pp. 119, at p. 16.
This and the following paragraph is based on F. Fukuyama, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Marxist—Leninist Vanguard Party’, Survey, vol. 29 no. 2 (Summer 1985), pp. 116–35
E.K. Valkenier, ‘Revolutionary Change in the Third World: Recent Soviet Reassessments’, World Politics, vol. 38 no. 3 (April 1986), pp. 415–34; E. K. Valkenier, ‘The USSR and the Third World: Economic Dilemmas’, in Laird and Hoffmann (eds), Soviet Foreign Policy, pp. 731–57; and Hough, The Struggle for the Thrid World, esp. pp. 259–61.
See V. Kulikov, ‘Protivorechiya ekonomicheskoi sistemy sotsializma kak istochnik ee razvitiya’, Voprosy ekonomiki, no. 1, 1986, pp. 117–28
and N. Shekhet, ‘Protivorechiya planomernosti i puti ikh razresheniya’, Voprosy ekonomiki, no. 6, 1986, pp. 63–73. This discussion is continuing.
See E. Hoffmann and R. F. Laird, Technocratic Socialism: The Soviet Union in the Advanced Industrial Era (Durham N. C: Duke University Press, 1985), esp. p. 19.
The metaphor is Therborn’s, cited in R. Taras, Ideology in a Socialist State. Poland 1956–83 (Cambridge University Press, 1984 ), p. 255.
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Pravda, A. (1988). Ideology and the Policy Process. In: White, S., Pravda, A. (eds) Ideology and Soviet Politics. Studies in Russia and East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19335-6_11
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