The general picture of early Soviet nationality policy has been one in which Moscow embarked on an inexorable path of centralization immediately after 1917. While there is much truth to this portrait it ignores the persistent rivalries within local party organizations and among the non-Great Russian nationalities. Bashkiria in the years 1917-23 is a case in point. The struggles over the creation and development of a Soviet Bashkiria touched off an intense round of acrimonious conflicts there and in Moscow among Great Russian, Bashkir, and Tatar cadres that was only resolved by the imposition of centralized authority during the twenties. The significance of this experience lies not only in its typifying the complex mosaic out of which Soviet nationality policy evolved, but also in the profound impact the question of Bashkiria had for the development of the Sultangalievist national deviation in the middle twenties.

The leader of the Iranian Revolution Āyat Allāh Rūḥ Allāh Khumaynī has strongly condemned what he considers had been a slavish imitation of the West under the overthrown Pahlavī dynasty and coined the neologism Gharbzadagī (literally “Weststrickenness”). He has called for a cultural as well as political emancipation from Western dominance. So far this emancipation has not extended to a purification of the Persian language from the numerous French loanwords which had entered it during the last sixty years. Thus the newspaper Jumhūrī-i Islāmī (“Islamic Republic”) has the subtitle Urgān-i Ḥizb-i Jumhūrī-ī Islāmī (“Organ of the Islamic Republican Party”). Urgān is of course French organe. Even more striking is the use of the term kumītah or komiteh by the revolutionary committees, usually presided by Muslim clergy, which have taken over the functions of local government in Iran. Again, kumītah is the French comité. While not many Iranian mullahs know French, or any Western language, they cannot be unaware of the Western origin of these words. We should not be surprised therefore if in the near future we witness a movement to expel from the Persian language the Western loanwords, most of all from official terminology. Most likely they will be replaced by words of Arabic rather than pure Persian origin in view of the regime's identification with Islam rather than ancient Persian culture.

The concepts of “reform” and “revision” need considerable elaboration before a systematic study of their political ramifications can be undertaken. Common usage in the West seems to indicate that “reform” in communist systems means change towards political pluralism, less ideology, and greater participation by the citizenry in political communication, aggregation, and decision-making. “Revision” and “revisionism,” which are essentially communist concepts, are also interpreted to indicate a process of “loosening up” the autocratic, bureaucratic, and ideological nature of contemporary political and socio-economic systems in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

The purpose of this study is to throw light on the past economic performance of six members of Comecon — Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania — and to assess their prospects for the future. Economic problems of Eastern Europe must be placed in a broad historical perspective containing crucial ideological, political, strategic and technological factors affecting economic functions and processes. Interaction of these factors is expressed within the framework of modernization, the forces of which exert a powerful influence on economic activities.

What happened in Poland in the early 1980s is fascinating in many respects. The possibility of changing the Communist system in a peaceful manner was once again tried without much success, this time by the mass movement of industrial workers, with some additional help offered by intellectuals. The importance of these events should be fully recognized. As Persky states, “For the first time, a workers' state had been forced to concede to its workers, among other things, the ironic right to form their own working class organization to defend themselves from the workers' state.” According to Ascherson, the success of Polish workers in setting up permanent representation beyond the control of the Party was a major achievement. In this respect the events of 1980/81 differed substantially from all previous workers' uprisings in eastern Europe.