Soviet Communism by Sidney Webb; Beatrice WebbReview by: Bosworth GoldmanThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 15, No. 44 (Jan., 1937), pp. 467-469Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4203253 .

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REVIEWS. 467

Soviet Communism. By Sidney and Beatrice Webb. (Longmans.) 2 Vols. 35s. net.

THE authors of this monumental work have long been known in the capacity of social scientists; and have indeed been best sellers (with the exception of Shaw) for the last two generations in this sphere. Now, when husband and wife are both nearing their ninth decade, the Webbs have found the civilisation which in the modern world approximates most closely to that they have laboured so pertinaciously to create. It is possible therefore that the observations so painstakingly recorded are tinged with an inherent favouritism sponsored by 50 years devotion to a similar though divergent faith. Otherwise those twelve hundred pages are as thorough as an ignorance of the Russian language permits and are backed by an unrivalled record of social study.

The broad purpose of this work may be said to be to record (so far as its rapid changes allow) the Soviet constitution as it stands, together with a detailed survey of the administrative methods employed in putting the implied philosophic and economic structure into effect. After a brief outline of the astonishingly short written constitution, the authors pass at once to detail. No citizen in the USSR " reaches manhood without having incurred a considerable personal debt to the community in which he has been born and bred for the expense of his nature and training. That debt he is held bound to repay by actual personal service by hand or brain. Moreover, he is required throughout his able-bodied life to employ in the services of the community the faculties he has derived from it." Here stands the new philosophy: not, one might think, differing, except in a single fundamental point, from the citizen's obligation in a Western democracy. That factor is of course the inducement offered to the citizen by private profit to obtain and hold property of one kind or another. It is an index to this philosophy's permanence that at least for those comparatively few million members of the Communist Party, really hard work is not only done but done willingly and with enthusiasm. Personal ambition among members of the Communist Party has dis- appeared, and there seems reason to suppose that this significant lack is spreading among other sections of the population. The ambition now (in Gorky's phrase) is to be a participator in great deeds. Human nature in this important respect has been profoundly modified and perhaps even changed. If this can be accomplished, those theorists who have held Utopia unattainable on account of human nature's constancy, are by this metamorphosis discredited. Thus it becomes possible to envisage, as do the Webbs, that something in the nature of a new civilisation is arising in the USSR. This new order should, in present world conditions, have as great an effect, and more rapidly, as the impact of Christianity on the Roman world.

It might be thought that this discovery, if it may be so termed, and the arguments dependent upon it, would occupy a large proportion of these stolid volumes. However, the concluding chapter alone suffices, and the

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468 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

remainder is devoted to the multifarious activities which every individual (or cog) is obliged to undertake.

Man has essentially three separate yet connected functions in the Soviet State. First, his duty as a citizen to take a part (however ineffective) in Government; secondly, to assist in producing what the State requires; thirdly, to consume that part of the State's production not ear-marked for export or other purposes. Each function demands a separate organisation to control the plans thus entailed. Each organisation is built upon the same model: an elaborate pyramid, working upward from the elected group representatives by indirect representation to an All-Union Congress. Here at once is shown the method by which, under democratic appearances, a virtual dictatorship is established. The greater the number of steps, so to speak, from bottom to top, the greater the proportion of the majority on the final committee. This same process can of course be observed both in this country and the U.S.A. in a modified degree. One of the most die-hard of living British pro-Consuls was once heard to say that had he been allowed to remain in Egypt a few years longer he would certainly have introduced there Soviet electoral methods. There is, however, one important difference in this apparently similar electoral practice: that is, the existence of the Communist Party.

The authors aver that the mainspring of the Communist Party activity lies in their self-conceived vocation of leadership. Here is the modern parallel to the activity of the Jesuit order in medieval Europe. Indeed, through the whole hierarchy of planning, production and consumers' organisations (as is well known) the Party has the initiative, though nominally without the control. The Webbs may hazard the opinion that it is principally example which the members of the Communist Party provide for their more backward co-citizens. In fact, that example is crudely but practically enforced by the GPU (now re-named). Many readers of the Slavonic Review have no doubt read the books by Professor and Mme. Chernavin; others will recall the contributions of the former to the Slavonic Review, in which he clearly set forth the methods and often the commercial purpose of the GPU. On the other hand White Sea Canal by a group of Soviet authors, gives another picture of the same scene. The Webbs have preferred to depend rather upon the latter rendering for their view-point of this aspect of Soviet Communism.

It is in the second volume that the more contentious parts of the authors' interpretation are to be found. It is probably fair to say that few will quarrel with the Marxists' wish to re-distribute the benefits which labour and knowledge combined have given to the world as a whole. The methods by which this desirable end can be achieved are, however, a most debatable subject. That misery and starvation followed the second Revolution of I917 no one can deny, and it would be unjust to attribute this entirely to White activities coupled with foreign intervention. Here,

* clearly Bolshevik method should receive its fair share of blame. An objective study similar in treatment to Mr. Chamberlin's The Russian

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REVIEWS. 469

Revolution, dealing with the decade I920/30, might at least prevent young revolutionaries elsewhere from repeating the errors of their Bolshevik

predecessors, thus perhaps saving the world some measure of the horror predicated by the seemingly inevitable social and economic unrest.

The following five chapters covering more than five hundred pages, deal admiringly with the undoubted achievements of the Soviet Government for the majority of its citizens. The planning of production for community consumption must, experience has shown, be impossible for a democratic-

ally constituted capitalist country; hence involuntary unemployment presents an insoluble problem to such governments except in time of war. It is the elimination of unemployment (whether go per cent., more or less, does not affect the issue) which challenges the discerning critics of democracy in the Western model. It is agreed by most economists that unemployment, as such, may not be wholly eliminated even by a revival of world trade. It would appear therefore that the factor of private profit, lying between the producer and consumer, must be the principal factor preventing the absorption of the unemployed into the economic structure throughout the world. If world opinion is agreed that unemploy- ment is the greatest single cause of human misery, then these volumes should go far to convince (if prejudice be not too deep) that a planned socialism of this kind had better be inaugurated forthwith.

It is only fair to admit, however, that those who regard the differences of race and geographical circumstance as of importance would find in any kind of socialism the destruction of their interests. Perhaps the worst that can be said of any kind of Marxian theory is that its application must necessarily make for instance the Khirgiz and Moscow factory worker as alike as possible. And materialism, if logically followed (which the Bolsheviks do not), must ultimately destroy the cultural background of two thousand years. All this, however, is as nothing, if the one premiss be admitted: that human happiness can be achieved by. the culturally ignorant if they are comfortably fed and comfortably housed.

It cannot be suggested that the remarks above are anything like a complete survey of the Webbs' volumes. The remarks are in fact primarily intended to raise a few of those questions which must arise from a study of these books. Within the limitations already given (to which must be added the inordinate length) the work is com- prehensive and as objective as the authors' principles permit. But, as they say themselves, Soviet Communism is changing daily-since the books were written some of the leaders have been shot; others may be expected to share this fate. More important perhaps, world affairs are changing and there seems some reason to suppose that in due course an armed issue may be the end of the ideological struggle. It is reasonable to suppose that so great would be a disaster of this kind that no civilisation now known to man would be likely to survive.

BOSWORTH GOLDMAN.

G G

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