On Understanding Russia
RUSSIA AND POST-WAR EUROPE. By David J. Dallin. Yale University Press, $2.75.
A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA. By B. H. Sumner. Reynal and Hitchcock, $3.75.
THE RUSSIAN ENIGMA. By William Henry Chamberlin. Scribner, $2.75.
THESE three books, written by a Russian émigré scholar, an English academician, and an American journalist, illustrate, in complementary fashion, the thesis that Soviet policy today is dictated less by Marxian or Communist doctrine than by nationalistic considerations.
Professor Sumner’s book is an admirably concise introduction to Russian history. Its major virtue to understanding present-day Russia lies in its organization, for instead of the conventional chronological treatment, this Oxford scholar treats Russian development in terms of seven basic institutions which shape its history, economy, and cultural growth: the frontier, the state, the land, the church, the Slavs, the sea, and the West. While Professor Sumner’s treatment results in the comparative slighting of the 1917 revolution, and of the internecine struggles within the Bolshevik Party culminating in Stalin’s triumph, the value of the book lies in the author’s remarkable sense of continuity of Russia past and present.
Mr. Chamberlin approaches the “Russian enigma” drained of the emotional heat that usually colors discussions of it. His closely written book surveys the basic changes in the Soviet state since the revolution, the nature of its economy, and the political absolutism that prevails. His concluding chapters, dealing with Russia’s wartime position and foreign policy, are a plea for coöperation based on understanding the dictatorial character of Russia and on a respect for our own national dignity.
Dr. Dallin’s book is a more intensive analysis of Russian foreign policy, continuing his earlier Soviet Russia’s Foreign Policy, 1939-1942. Based almost entirely on Soviet sources, Dr. Dallin’s book advances the notion that the Russians are fighting not a coalition war with England and America against Germany, but a parallel war. He outlines Russia’s ambitions in the Baltics, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans. If Russia is able thus to dominate the “middle zone” of Europe, the plain meaning of its foreign policy is hegemony over the continent for the next decades. This trend is understood by several British statesmen, whose fears were voiced openly by Jan Smuts, after the Moscow Conference, when he called for stronger ties between Britain and the small European states.
Russia is now at the crossroads where she can choose a policy either of the political mobilization of Eastern Europe and a strong Germany in an independent role of her own, or coöperation with the other big powers in the demilitarization of Germany and an international police force. History picks up the threads from here.
DANIEL BELL