The Secret Betrayal 1944-47 by Nikolai TolstoyReview by: John C. CampbellForeign Affairs, Vol. 57, No. 2 (Winter, 1978), pp. 423-424Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20040156 .

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RECENT BOOKS 423

A DISTANT MIRROR: THE CALAMITOUS 14TH CENTURY. By Barbara W. Tuchman. New York: Knopf, 1978, 677 pp. $15.95.

Popular history, imaginatively researched, that tells us much of the life and

anguish of the fourteenth century, with its wars, social upheavals, and the Black Death. Dramatically written and ably combining narrative with interpretation, the book has already proven its great appeal, though its relation to our own time of troubles is left discreetly implicit.

THE LION'S LAST ROAR: SUEZ, 1956. By Chester L. Cooper. New York:

Harper, 1978, 310 pp. $12.95. An American official stationed at the London Embassy at the time of Suez

narrates the dramatic events of that hapless period, with blunt portraits of the

leading culprits, including John Foster Dulles. A nice mix of historical recon struction and autobiographical recollections.

The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

John C. Campbell LEON TROTSKY. By Irving Howe. New York: Viking, 1978, 193 pp. $10.00.

Not a biography but a political essay with a narrative foundation, to use the author's own description, this study is of more than ordinary interest. Howe draws a portrait of a revolutionary and thinker of heroic stature and also gives a critical analysis of Trotsky's political outlook in the later years. Acknowledging his debt to Isaac Deutschere biography, he makes sure his readers know he does not agree with Deutscher on Stalinism.

STALIN EMBATTLED, 1943-1948. By William O. McCagg, Jr. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1978, 423 pp. $18.95.

Professor McCagg has undertaken an expedition into the dark recesses of Soviet politics and of Stalin's mind and come up with an extraordinary reappraisal of Stalin's policy toward the West in the crucial years of World War II and its aftermath. He finds the basis for much of his interpretation in domestic developments and in the challenges Stalin faced from his colleagues in the Politburo and from Communist leaders outside the U.S.S.R. Some of it seems far-fetched, but the book deserves careful study by all who think they know something about the subject.

CLASS STRUGGLES IN THE USSR: SECOND PERIOD, 1923-1930. By Charles Bettelheim. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978, 640 pp.

The second volume of Bettelheim's sweeping history of social and ideological "formation" in the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin. The approach, Marxist and tied to concepts of class, may be narrow, but the author's erudition and analysis are impressive. (The first volume, on the 1917-1923 period, was noted in Foreign Affairs, April 1977.)

THE SECRET BETRAYAL 1944-47. By Nikolai Tolstoy. New York: Seribner's, 1978, 480 pp. $14.95.

Telling the story, now not so secret, in all its harrowing detail and with undisguised indignation, Count Tolstoy's is the most comprehensive of the recent books on the forced repatriation of Soviet citizens by the Western Allies in 1944-47. He blames British and to a lesser extent American officials for what they agreed to at Yalta and how they carried it out, and reserves his sharpest criticism for Anthony Eden.

SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY: ITS SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDI TIONS. Edited by Egbert Jahn. New York: St. Martin's, 1978, 159 pp. $16.95.

Stimulating essays, originally published in German, on the economic basis for Soviet policy, including the need for trade with the West. In each case the

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424 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

interpretation of Soviet theory and practice is colored by the theoretical

approach of the author.

THE FUTURE OF THE SOVIET ECONOMY: 1978-1985. Edited by Holland Hunter. Boulder (Colo.): Westview Press, 1978, 177 pp. $16.00.

The Soviet economy is hampered by two sets of constraints, one physical and

economic, the other institutional, which give a prospect of very slow growth unless the institutional framework can be reformed. These collected papers dealing with that problem are full of statistical data and sound arguments, although the conclusions, except in the case of Hunter's brief summary, are often hard to dig out.

THE AMERICAN NON-POLICY TOWARDS EASTERN EUROPE 1943-47. By Geir Lundestad. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1978, 652 pp. N. Kr. 89.50.

The fact that the author takes over 600 pages to describe the "non-policy" at least raises a question about the conclusion implied by his title. One might also ask why anyone should write another book on the origins of the cold war, but this one, by the very thoroughness of its coverage country by country and across

the board, was well worth the effort. Ponderous, occasionally off base in its

interpretation, it is nevertheless a balanced book, neither traditionalist nor

revisionist, and very valuable for reference.

FROM STALINISM TO EUROCOMMUNISM. By Ernest Mandel. London:

NLB, 1978, 220 pp. (New York: Schocken Books, distributor, $15.00; Paper, $5.95). TOWARDS AN EAST EUROPEAN MARXISM. By Marc Rakovski. New York: St. Martin's, 1978, 138 pp. $15.95. LE "NOUVEAU COMMUNISME": ?TUDES SUR L'EUROCOMMUNISME ET L'EUROPE DE L'EST. Edited by Harish Kapur and Miklos Molnar. Geneva: Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, 1978, 111 pp.

Further illustrations of the intellectual ferment stirred by the phenomena of Eurocommunism. Mandel, as expected, makes a sharp critique from the Left,

with particular reference to the "neo-reformist" strategy of the Eurocommun

ists, and affirms that the time is ripe for a real socialist revolution in Europe, East and West. Rakovski, "a Marxist who lives and works in Eastern Europe," writes a frank and revealing essay exposing both the orthodox Marxism of the

regimes and the reformism of the dissidents. Along the way he deals with the class nature of Soviet-type societies, the theory of convergence, and other points of interest. The studies on "the new communism" are worth reading but brief and disappointing in their failure to go very far in analyzing the interaction between Eurocommunism in the West and revisionism in the East.

MARXIST HUMANISM AND PRAXIS. Edited by Gerson S. Sher. Buffalo

(N.Y.): Prometheus, 1978, 183 pp. $14.95. A selection of outstanding articles from the Yugoslav journal Praxis, now

suppressed. This is a good companion piece to Sher's recent book on the Praxis

school of Marxist philosphers (noted in Foreign Affairs, April 1978).

POLITICAL OPPOSITION IN POLAND, 1954-1977. By Peter Raina. London: Poets' and Painters' Press, 1978, 584 pp.

A detailed account of intellectual dissidence from the time of the original "thaw." Raina, who knows Poland at first hand, is in full sympathy with the dissidents and dedicates his book to Kuron and Michnik, two of their leaders and symbols.

KATHOLISCHE GRUPPIERUNGEN IN POLEN: PAX UND ZNAK 1945 1976. By Andrzej Micewski. Munich: Kaiser/Mainz: Matthias-Gr?newald, 1978, 356 pp. DM. 28.50.

Relations between the Communist regime in Poland and the still-powerful

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