Book Reviews : Soviet Politics: The Dilemma of Power. The Role of Ideas in Social Change. By BARRINGTON MOORE, JR. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1950. Pp. xviii, 503. $6.00.)

• Published date: 01 September 1951
• Author: Gerhard Krebs
• Date: 01 September 1951
• DOI: 10.1177/106591295100400326
• Subject Matter: Articles

509
of international relations. There is a curious parallel between the problem
of language and nationalism in China and the problem of language and
internationalism.
The book is scholarly, comprehensive, well organized, and clearly
written. It presents all facets of language reform in China, and has been
carefully documented with Chinese, Japanese, and Western sources.
WILLIAM H. VATCHER, JR.
San Jose State College.
Soviet Politics: The Dilemma of Power. The Role of Ideas in Social
Change. By BARRINGTON MOORE, JR. (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press. 1950. Pp. xviii, 503. $6.00.)
For one who has advocated that the institutions and processes of So-
viet government be examined and taught against the background of the
Marxian doctrine, and who has deplored the inadequate treatment of
the relationship between Marxian theory and Bolshevist practice in the
literature on Soviet government, Dr. Moore has performed a most needed
service.
Dr. Moore presents a brilliant and adequately documented compari-
son between the political and economic institutions in effect in the Soviet
Union and the ideals envisioned by Marx, and advances reasons for the
obvious discrepancies between ideals and reality. We find today in these
institutions few traces of the anti-authoritarian and equalitarian doctrines
which Lenin adopted from Marx in 1917. Instead, we perceive a system
of status and organized social and political inequality; authority and dis-
cipline, as between the masses and the elite, and within the elite itself, and
economic rewards made on the basis of &dquo;merit&dquo; rather than need. In Dr.
Moore’s opinion, these changes, legitimized by Stalin’s version of Marxist
theory, point toward the emergence of a new class system not necessarily
toward the return of capitalism.
What has taken place is not so much the discarding of one theory
in favor of another, as it is a shift in emphasis between two aspects of
ideology, a phenomenon in what Dr. Moore calls the &dquo;natural...