Sibirica, the Journal of Siberian Studies by Alan WoodReview by: David N. CollinsThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 72, No. 4 (Oct., 1994), pp. 763-764Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4211686 .

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REVIEWS 763

republics when locked into the economic system of the former USSR and at listing the formidable tasks facing them as they approached the restoration of their independence. It has excellent statistical information but this does not go much beyond i988-89 in most instances. The book's chief value is as a sort of economic snapshot of the Baltic republics on the eve of escaping the former USSR. Its professed aim to be of use to governments and businesses will be realized in only limited fashion now, one suspects. Although published in I 992, the study notes, for example, that 'Oil and coal production is likely to fall by up to 20% in I99I' (p. 337). The book suffers in numerous places from such 'predictions' and betrays its origins as a commissioned survey by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Although not its original intention, the volume has in fact become a useful historical document in its own right. Department of European Studies JOHN HIDEN

University ofBradford

Sibirica, the Journal of Siberian Studies. Edited by Alan Wood. Vol. i, no. i. I993-94. Ryburn Publishing, Keele, I994. 87 pp. Individuals: (UK) ?7.00, (international) ?9.oo; Institutions: (UK) ?9.oo, (international) LI I.00.

IT is really a pleasure to see the above periodical in print. Alan Wood, founder and chief inspirer of the British Universities Siberian Studies Semiuar, began publishing papers presented at Seminar meetings in a hand-to-mouth way in Sibirica, printed at Lancaster University between 198I and I989. In an attempt to broaden the readership by producing a more sophisticated journal within the larger market of the USA, Oregon Historical Society's North Pacific Studies Center undertook to publish its second incarnation: Siberica, a Journal of North Pacific Studies, two numbers of which appeared between i 990 and I99I. Hit by recession, the journal ceased publication. Alan Wood's indefatigable efforts to revive it have only now received their reward; the phoenix has been reborn with its original name, and is to appear twice a year.

Apart from a timely report on the resurgence of regionalism in Siberia since I 985 contributed by the Editor, the articles are by Americans. All four relate to the Russian Far East or North Pacific. Two involve railways: the first provides a very useful analysis of the debates and issues surrounding the construction of the Russians' Amur Railway from I906 to I9I6; the second depicts the contents of a lavish two-volume work about the Chinese Eastern Railway, published in Moscow in I904 and lately discovered in New York Public Library. The third article presents a brief analysis of the Russian seizure of the Amur-Ussuri region in i 858-6o. This is followed by an English translation of extracts from a rare travel account published in St Petersburg in I 826. Achille Schabelski, employed as an interpreter for the voyage of the Apollo to the Russian colonies in I82I-23, wrote his account in French. The sections translated refer to Kamchatka and New Archangel.

Sibirica has been produced in a very pleasing font, with clear illustrations. It is to be hoped that there will be many more issues over the years, and that scholars researching into the wide range of academic disciplines subsumed

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764 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

under the term Sibirevedenie will produce high quality contributions for the community served by the journal. I am already looking forward to the next issue, which will contain papers presented at a conference about the plight of Siberia's indigenous peoples held in London in early I994. Department of Modern Slavonic Studies DAVID N. COLLINS

University ofLeeds

Buschfort, Wolfgang. Das Ostburo der SPD. Von der Grundung bis zur Berlin-Krise. Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, 63. Oldenbourg, Munich, I99I. I42 pp. DM 3 I .00 (paperback).

THE Ostbiuro of the SPD was an organization of the Cold War, about which little has hitherto been written. Originally founded to aid Social Democrats following the forced merger of KDP and SPD to form the SED in the Soviet Zone of Germany, the Ostbiiro rapidly developed a range of functions in the 1950s.

At first, Social Democrats thought that the main aim should be to maintain contacts and links with their beleaguered comrades in the East, in the hope of surviving through a period of hibernation pending eventual all-German elections. It gradually became clear, however, that the division of Germany was not so soon to be overcome, and the contacts developed a new character. Couriers not only sustained human friendships and personal links, but began amateurish spying functions. A wave of arrests in I947-48, and the betrayal of contacts by counter-agents, brought the Ostbiiro into a new era of more sophisticated spying and improved organization. Buschfort traces clearly the lines of development, and the personal and factional rivalries which inevitably beset the growing organization. In the early I950s, propaganda became more important, as leaflets were distributed, even dropped from air balloons, in the attempt to influence public opinion in the GDR. Help was also given to Social Democratic refugees from the east. InJune I953, the Ostbiuro was - contrary to the East German theory of Western imperialist agents - taken as much by surprise at the Uprising as everyone else; but Social Democrats continued to try to influence opinion in the GDR, and even had some small contact with the reform Communist group around Wolfgang Harich in 1956.

Fronm the late I950s, the functions and purpose of the Ostbiuro began to change. Particuarly as personal contacts became more difficult and the flow of refugees dried up after the building of the Berlin Wall in I 96 I, and as the mass media of radio and television became more important means of influencing public opinion than leaflets or periodicals, the Ostbiuro's functions began to shrink to that of monitoring and information collecting. The rise to influence in the SPD of the ex-Communist Herbert Wehner also appears to have curbed the Ostbiiro's sphere of action somewhat, for a combination of reasons of personal animosity and political tension. Effectively losing its role in I 966, the Ostbiiro led a shadow existence until its formal abolition in the heyday of Ostpolitik in I97I. At a time of increased openness and dialogue between the two German states, this product of the Cold War appeared something of an embarrassment to the ruling SPD.

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