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The New Face of Soviet Totalitarianism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Adam B. Ulam
Adam B. Ulam
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Nothing pricks one's curiosity more than the inner operations of a power system. And in the case of Russia the incentive to speculate on “what really goes on” in the councils of the Kremlin is enhanced by the supersecrecy in which the highest level of Soviet politics is enveloped, by the dramatic shifts of policy and sudden displacements of leading personalities, and by a natural apprehension about the operations of a totalitarian regime which may at any moment threaten or transform our daily lives.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , April 1960 , pp. 391 - 412
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1960

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References

1 Plenum TSK KPSS 15–19 Dekabra 1958, Stenograficheskii Otchet (Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, December 15–19, 1958, Stenographic Report), Moscow, 1958; hereinafter cited as Plenum of 1958. The practice of publishing minutes of the Plenary meetings of the Central Committee is now very likely to become the rule rather than the exception. Thus, we have the minutes of the June 1959 Plenum (concerned largely with problems of automation and industrial development), and the more interesting Plenum of December 1959 is also likely to be published.

2 Ibid., p. 232.

3 Ibid., p. 234.

4 Ibid., p. 13; italics added.

5 Ibid. One pood equals 16.3 kilograms.

6 Ibid., p. 12. State reserves apparently had to be used during 1959 in view of the unfavorable harvest.

7 The Plenum took place on September 3, 1953. The decisions were reported in Pravda on September 13, and Khrushchev's report was published on September 15 in the same place.

8 Plenum of 1958, p. 41; italics added.

9 Ibid.; italics added.

10 J. Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.SS.R., quoted in Current Soviet Politics, ed. by Leo Gruliow, New York, 1953, 1, p. 19.

11 After several bumper crops, 1959 was a disappointing year in Soviet agriculture and particular troubles appeared in Kazakhstan.

12 Plenum of 1958, p. 337.

13 Ibid., p. 340.

14 Vneocherednoi 21 Zyezd Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soiuza, Stenograficheskii Otchet (The Extraordinary 21st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Stenographic Report), Moscow, 1959, 2 vols.; hereinafter cited as Extraordinary 21st Congress. Pervukhin's speech and recantation, 11, pp. 140–43; Saburov's speech, 11, pp. 289–92.

15 Istoriia Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soiuza (History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), Moscow, 1959. The list of those who supported Khrushchev does not include Voroshilov; see p. 655.

16 Ibid., p. 657.

17 Extraordinary 21st Congress, 11, p. 21.

18 Ibid., 11, p. 103; italics added.

19 Ibid., p. 105.

20 Ibid., p. 107.

21 Pravda, December 29, 1959.

22 Speech by Poliansky reported in ibid., December 23, 1959.