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The Soviet Concept of Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

N. S. Timasheff
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Extract

The cold war—now aggravated by shooting war in Korea, —is being waged on many fronts. One of these fronts is ideological, reflecting the incompatibility of the social ideals of the opponents. The ideological war is being conducted in many ways; and among the weapons used by the foe there is perhaps none more irritating to the Americans than the assertion that the Soviets enjoy real democracy while American democracy is but a ridiculous fake.

From the very first day of their rule over Russia the Soviet leaders have insisted that their democracy is the best, or the highest ever achieved in history. This insistence they have made both before and after the enactment of the Stalin Constitution (1936)—in other words, both when their democracy excluded from the exercise of political rights the members of the former “bourgeoisie” and its servants (for example, clergymen and Tsarist policemen), and after their shift to universal suffrage.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , October 1950 , pp. 506 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1950

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References

1 Cf. Timasheff, N. S., The Great Retreat (1946), p. 95.Google Scholar

2 Sokoloff, A., “Democracy,” War and the Working Class, April 15, 1945.Google Scholar

3 Bryce, J., Modern Democracies (London, 1929), vol. I, p. 761.Google Scholar

4 Unwarranted statements about die democratic character of the seizure of power by the Communists appear in Schuman, F., Soviet Politics at Home and Abroad (1946), pp. 62, 67, 168.Google Scholar

5 Lenin, , The State and the Revolution (in Russian, 1917), pp. 73–4.Google Scholar

6 Stalin, J., Leninism (London, 1946), p. 579.Google Scholar

7 Piaskovsky, A., The Soviet State—the Most Democratic State in the World (in Russian, Moscow, 1947), p. 3.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., pp. 6, 9. In another lecture by K. Kostaradze (Moscow, 1947) bearing exactly the same title as that of Piaskovsky, this “information” appears: “In the bourgeois states the upper chambers consist of hereditary members, or members appointed by the government.”

9 Piaskovsky, A., op. cit., pp. 25–28.Google Scholar

10 The meaning of this puzzling statement is probably this: in Eastern Europe, the survival of feudal institutions precluded the formation of a “pseudo-democratic” tradition of the Western type. This made it easier to jump to the higher level of Soviet democracy.

11 Oleschulc, E., The Democratic Transformation of the Liberated Nations of Europe (In Russian, Moscow, 1946), pp. 5, 10, 11, 24.Google Scholar

12 Lenin, , “Elections to the Constituent Assembly and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat,” Collected Works, 2nd Russian edition, vol. 24, pp. 639 ff.Google Scholar

13 Ibid.

14 Piaskovsky, A., op. cit., p. 25.Google Scholar

15 Baltiiski, N., in War and the Working Class, January 1, 1945.Google Scholar

16 Statement by the Soviet representative Morozov, A. P. at a meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, New York Times, August 2, 1947.Google Scholar

17 Pravda, May 5, 1948.Google Scholar

18 Same statement as quoted in footnote 16.

19 Baltiiski (see footnote 15).

20 Ibid.

21 Statement of the Soviet Representative, Professor Pavlov, Alexei, New York Times, August 9, 1948.Google Scholar

22 Pravda, September 24, 1945.Google Scholar

23 Cf. Counts, G. S. and Lodge, N., The Country of the Blind (1949),Google Scholar and Inke-Ies, A., Public Opinion in Soviet Russia (1950).Google Scholar

24 Timasheff, N. S., The Great Retreat (1946), pp. 76–7, 95–7;Google ScholarTowster, J., Political Power in the Soviet Union (1948), 187–198.Google Scholar

25 It is noteworthy that for Lenin, democracy even in the meaning he ascribed to the term was not the ultimate end in politics, the ultimate end was anarchy, or absence of government. His belief in the possibility of reaching anarchy as a form of orderly and peaceful coexistence of men was based on the acceptance of the Lamarkian idea of the inherita-bility of acquired traits, in the particular case, of the gradually acquired trait of following, without coercion or subordination, patterns of behavior adequate to socialism. This is perhaps the background of the tenacity with which the Communist leaders insist on the Lysenko variation of the Lamarkian theme.

26 Oleschuk, , op. cit., p. 24.Google Scholar

27 Kostaradze, , op. cit., p. 24.Google Scholar

28 Korovin, E., American Economic Policy and National Sovereignty (in Russian, Moscow, 1947), p. 16.Google Scholar

29 Varga, E., The Marshall Plan (in Russian, Moscow, 1947), pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

30 Timasheff, N. S., “Definitions in the Social Sciences,” Am. Journ. Sociol., 11, 1948.Google Scholar

31 It is interesting that, in Soviet literature, the same reproach is made to those who use the term democracy in the political meaning: How can it be explained that the most antidemocratic forces try to appear most democratic? The answer is this: in the 20th century, it is no longer possible to oppress the people overtly; oppression is possible only under disguise, by deception. (Piaskovsky, A., op. cit., p. 4)Google Scholar

32 de Tocqueville, A., Democracy in America (English translation, 1947), pp. 41 ff.Google Scholar

33 An attempt to formulate an objective theory of interests was first made by Ratzenhoffer, G., Soziologische Erkentmsse (Leipzig, 1898).Google ScholarIn this country, he was imitated by Small, A., General Sociology (1905).Google ScholarFor a while, RPound, oscoe made of the concept of interest the foundation of his sociological jurisprudence; see in particular “Theory of Social Interests,” Publications of the American Sociological Society (1920).Google ScholarIn Germany, a brilliant school called Interessenjurisprudenz arose under the leadership of Heck, P. (see especially Gesetzesauslegung und Interessejurisprudenz, 1914). None of these enterprises resulted in anything tangible.Google Scholar