Book Reviews : The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia. By ROBERT VINCENT DANIELS. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. Pp. xi, 526. $10.00.)

• Published date: 01 September 1961
• Author: Frank Munk
• Date: 01 September 1961
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296101400320
• Subject Matter: Articles

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The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia.
By ROBERT VINCENT DANIELS. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1960. Pp. xi, 526. $10.00.)
This book can be read on a variety of levels: as a well-documented
history of the fission-fusion process which ultimately produced Khrushchev’s
brand of the Communist party, or as a study in the inner dynamics of socialism,
or as rather suggestive model-building for the political scientist.
As history, it presents a convenient narrative of the various controversies
within the Communist party from 1903 on, focusing on the Brest-Litovsk
controversy, the trade-union controversy, the Kronstadt revolt and its back-
ground, the New Course controversy, the Trotsky and related controversies
and many more. More significant for the social scientist is the core argument:
the Communist movement was-and perhaps still is-essentially dualistic. It
is composed of two philosophies and of two currents which Daniels calls the
&dquo;Leninist&dquo; and the &dquo;Leftist.&dquo; The difference between them is one of &dquo;revolu-
tionary pragmatism versus revolutionary idealism.&dquo; The Leninists are assumed
to have sacrificed revolutionary principle to expediency, the pursuit of ideals
to the pursuit of power, the ends to the means, the movement to the party.
Underlying the struggle of the idealists and the pragmatists is the fact
that the Russian revolution supposedly was not the revolution expected by
Marx, but one which falsely claims Marxian legitimacy. This in turn is due
to its timing and location. Instead of taking place in a mature economic system
stressing even distribution, it occurred in Russia as &dquo;the stressful beginnings
of rapid industrialization in imitation of Europe.&dquo; The continuing struggle was
really waged between typically Westernized emigres and Russia-oriented under-
grounders, with the Westerners assimilating a democratically based socialism
and the nativists, led by Stalin,...