HANS KOHN (Ed.). The Mind of Modern Russia: Historical and Political Thought of Russia's Great Age. Pp. xii, 298. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers Univer sity Press, 1955. $5.50

• Author: Arthur Prudden Coleman
• DOI: 10.1177/000271625530000164
• Date: 01 July 1955
• Published date: 01 July 1955
• Subject Matter: Articles

167

Russia

was

the

only

real

victor

of

World

War

II.&dquo;

This

kind

of

writing,

justified

as

it

may

seem

for

text

book

purposes,

which

is

essentially

what

this

work

is,

character-

izes

so

much

of

the

book.

In

the

last

ten

years,

Soviet

studies

in

the

United

States

have

burgeoned

so

fast

that

a

large

num-

ber

of

excellent

monographs

and

special-

ized

works

on

different

aspects

of

the

So-

viet

Union

have

been

published.

To

sum-

marize

these

monographs

and works

and

incorporate

their

distillate

is

no

small

task

for

a

panel

of

specialists.

Except

for

the

provocative

USSR

a

Concise

Handbook

edited

by

Ernest

J.

Simmons

and

published

in

1946

and

the

very

informative

issue

of

THE

ANNALS

on

The

Soviet

Union

Since

World

War

II

edited

by

Philip

E.

Mosely

and

published

in

1949,

and

notwithstand-

ing

the

excellent

collection

of

papers

in

The

Threat

of

Soviet

Imperialism,

edited

by

C.

Grove

Haines

and

published

in

1954,

there

has

not

been

until

de

Huszar’s

book

as

extensive

a

compendium

of

political,

economic,

and

foreign

policy

articles

on

the

USSR.

The

main

value

of

the

book

is

that

it

is

a

handbook

of

current

data

concerning

the

USSR.

Material

on

land,

population,

eco-

nomic

development,

transportation,

foreign

trade,

political

and

administrative

struc-

ture,

ideology,

Communist

party

organiza-

tion,

the

system

of

controls,

armed

forces,

and

foreign

policy

are

all

discussed.

The

latter

part

of

the

book

is

concerned

with

Soviet

expansion

in

Eurasia,

preceded

by

a

discussion

of

the

strategy

and

tactics

of

Soviet

expansion,

written

by

the

editor.

Separate

chapters

are

written

on

Western

Europe,

Eastern

Europe,

the

Near

and

Middle

East,

and

Northeastern

Asia.

The

book

is

concluded

with

a

chapter

by

de

Huszar

on

the

geopolitical

position

of

the

USSR

and

Soviet

position

toward

the

United

States.

Since

so

many

different

writers

con-

tribute

to

this

volume

on

so

many

differ-

ent

topics,

there

is

an

unavoidable

uneven-

ness

in

the

style

and

contents

of

the

vol-

ume.

Some

of

the

articles

are

filled

with

masses

of

data

such

as

in

the

economic

and

transportation

chapters

while

those

on

politics,

administration,

and

controls

are

characterized

more

with

broad

analysis

than with

detailed

description

of

facts.

If

the

reader

will

go

through

these

six

hun-

dred

pages

of

information

on

the

USSR,

he

will

receive

a

very

extensive

exposure

in

one

volume

to

the

basic

information

on

the

USSR,

critically

presented.

WILLIAM

B.

BALLIS

University

of

Washington

HANS

KOHN

(Ed.).

The

Mind

of

Modern

Russia:

Historical

and

Political

Thought

of

Russia’s

Great

Age.

Pp.

xii,

298.

New

Brunswick,

N.

J.:

Rutgers

Univer-

sity

Press,

1955.

$5.50.

Not

long

ago

I

was

talking

of

small

and

inconsequential

matters

with

a

Russian

when

suddenly

he

broke

off

the conversa-

tion

to

put

the

question,

despairingly

and

as

it

seemed

to

me

with

childish

naivet6,

&dquo;Why,

oh

why

is

it

the

Poles

hate

us

Russians

so?&dquo;

In

Professor

Kohn’s

useful

and

compact

compilation

we

can

find

a

rather

good

answer

to

the

question.

Although

not

stated

in

so

many

words,

the

answer

is

there

by

implication,

not

only

as

to

why

there

is

ill

feeling

between

the

Russians

and

their

immediate

neighbors

on

the

west,

who

happen

to

be

the

Poles,

but

be-

tween

themselves

and

the

West

generally.

The

volume

is

not,

as

might

be

imagined

from

its

title,

a

study

or

expose

of

&dquo;the

mind

of

modern

Russia&dquo;

at

all,

but

a

gathering

together

of

writings

by

various

Russians

of

the

nineteenth

and

twentieth

centuries

on

the

single

theme

of

&dquo;Russia

and

the

West.&dquo;

Always

the

question

asked

by

my

friend,

though

here

not

in

reference

to

the

Poles,

is

just

beneath

the

surface.

&dquo;Why,&dquo;

we

hear

Danilevsky

phrasing

it

in

his

important

study

of

Russia

and

Europe

(1869),

&dquo;why

doesn’t

Europe

love

Russia?&dquo;

If

all

those

speaking

in

this

compilation

for

the

mind

of

modern

Russia

were

of

the

Chaadayev-Herzen-Soloviev

stripe,

Europe

would

love

Russia

perhaps

better

even

than

she

loves

herself.

All

these

were

harmo-

nizers,

who

saw

in

Europe

not

only

the

evil

which

we

all

know

exists,

but

the

noble

and

the

exalted

as

well,

and

in

their

own

country

the

same,

the

bad

along

with

the