TERROR AND PROGRESS

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 31, 1954

An honest, scholarly inquiry into the state of the Soviet Union since Stalin's death, confessedly more speculative than factual, since the Iron Curtain intervenes. His basic question is whether the economic and social progress has reached a point where Terror, as a tool of government, can be abolished. He feels this likely. To him there are basic, contradictory and self defeating motives at work in the Soviet, which require rule by Terror with its attendant periodic purges. Among these elements are the traditional drives of the peasantry, the technical rationality of the scientists, and the drive for world power among the party elite. He hazards the guess that if peace continues for another decade, the traditionalist and the rationalist forces in this complex society might gradually erode the edifice of ""monolithic"" totalitarianism that now prevails. Sound speculation for the already well-informed inquiring mind.

Pub Date: March 31, 1954

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harvard Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1954

Categories: NONFICTION