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Thinking New about Soviet "New Thinking" by V. Kubálková; A. A. CruickshankReview by: John C. CampbellForeign Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 2 (Spring, 1990), p. 182Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20044362 .
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182 FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Are the doctrines and tactics of Soviet diplomacy also changing as the Soviet establishment is shaken up by the Gorbachev revolution? Raymond Smith draws on the experience and writings of others, on his own
dealings with Soviet representatives in the course of his duties as a foreign service officer in Moscow and Washington, and on an exploration into
Russian/Soviet political culture and ideology. Generalizations about na
tional character and mind-set are surely subject to exceptions, but Smith is on solid ground in pointing to the factors of authority, risk-avoidance and control as keys to understanding Soviet negotiating behavior. He does have something new to say, and American diplomats should be
listening.
SOVIET HISTORY IN THE GORBACHEV REVOLUTION. By R. W. Davies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989, 232 pp. $35.00
(paper, $12.95).
Profiting from the relaxation of censorship, Soviet writers have begun to
dig into previously forbidden subjects. Professor Davies gives a brief but
comprehensive account of what has been written, mainly since 1987, on
such hot topics as Lenin's policies and legacy, the collectivization of land and the Great Famine, Stalin's purges and the Stalinist system, and the conduct of World War II. The bulk of these publications, incidentally, come from the pens of journalists and novelists; the establishment's
professional historians have been slow to join in. Davies then goes into
regime policy. How far should the revelations, revisions and rehabilitations
go? After Bukharin and Zinoviev, what about Trotsky? If Stalin's policies were misguided, what about Lenin's? The importance of the current burst of attention to history, and thus the importance of this book, lies in its direct relevance to the present and future.
THINKING NEW ABOUT SOVIET "NEW THINKING." By V. Kub?lkov? and A. A. Cruickshank. Berkeley: Institute of International
Studies, University of California, 1989, 143 pp. $11.50 (paper). The authors believe that most Western (particularly American) Soviet
ologists have missed the boat in their facile interpretations of Gorbachev's "new thinking" on international relations, because they do not relate it to
the Marxist ideology that gives it meaning. They devote the book to
showing what the connection is and how the Soviet leader and his
advisers, far from accommodating to Western norms, have in mind a new
"counter-hegemonic" international order based on Marxism?but not on
Leninism-Stalinism. The argument is stimulating. It also stretches the
imagination.
GORBACHEV AND GLASNOST: VIEWPOINTS FROM THE SOVIET PRESS. Edited by Isaac J. Tarasulo. Wilmington (DE): Scholarly Resources, 1989, 363 pp. $35.00 (paper, $12.95).
Articles translated from the daily, weekly and monthly Soviet press,
illustrating the explosion of public debate on the issues of reform, democ
ratization, self-determination of nationalities, military and foreign policy. With glasnost the Soviet press is now an invaluable source of information on politics and society. The book is inevitably only a sampling, but the selection is judicious, including the views of conservatives as well as
reformers.
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