Khrushchev’s Russia, by Edward Crankshaw

[p023] Khrushchev’s Russia. By Edward Crankshaw. Penguin Books, 1959. 2s. 6d. Crankshaw’s reputation as an in- terpreter of Russia to the British intelligentsia and other readers of ‘The Observer’ and the publication of this book at a Penguin price will ensure that it enjoys a wide public and some influence. Unquestionably he has a fluent pen and knows how to assume the manner of unimpeach- able authority. Included in this volume are some interesting data

[p024] 58 and numerous points which are valid or, at least, ingenious. Too often, however, the impression is that the whole construction rests on flimsy foundations: and it is into those that we must probe. Crankshaw is intelligent; he knows Russia—but not exactly with the in- timacy that he wishes to convey. What vitiates his writing is a method and approach which is based upon ill-assorted scraps of second-hand sociology; it is ‘literary’, speculative, eclectic—superb stuff for the better- class Sunday newspaper. One has only to look at his characterization of the Russians, which explains at the same time why they had Stalin and now have Khrushchev. ‘Most Russians’, he says, “ nave a deep hankering after a stern, remote father-figure, standing high above the hurly-burly of ordinary life. If he is terrible and cruel they will respect him... ., etc., etc. Here we have the ‘Slav soul’ in modern psychiatric terms! With the heavy hand built into Russian society in this way it is not surprising that Stalinism was taken for granted (except by those— and Crankshaw mentions them with- out seeing the contradiction—who went to Siberia or to the execu- tioner). Vv For Crankshaw the main line of development in Russian political life since Stalin’s death has been a clash of interest between the men of the party apparatus and the ‘industrial bureaucracy’, also described as ‘tech- nocrats’ and the ‘managerial class’. Although the latter were naturally also members of the Party, ‘they were not all Communist ideologists’. The distinguishing mark of this species was that it stood for world revolu- tion and really believed in Commun- ism. But having made this distinc- tion, it is clear from Crankshaw’s text, if from no other source, that there weren’t many of those around either (Stalin laid low all those that he could lay his hands on). As for the ‘industrial bureaucrats’-—who hankered after Malenkov as a more indulgent father-figure—‘they were interested in production and in making the great industrial machine work—in preserving their own privileges and in turning the Soviet Union into a better place for their children and ‘the great LABOUR REVIEW — June-July, 1960 their grandchildren’. The party men, though presumably not immune from such human failings, were very jea- lous of the ascent of these new bosses who had not been through the party mill. Unfortunately, Crank- shaw writes them off as a poor lot: they were ‘careerists and moral dead- beats’ but still they formed ‘the governing class’ as opposed to the rest of the elite, ‘the new Soviet bourgeoisie’. Then came Khrush- chev—he clumped in, a grass-roots man from the Ukraine (where they don’t have such pronounced father- images), to clear up the chaos of the 1950s. He didn’t give the low-grade, middle-aged, chair-warmers in the Party offices the chance to choose their father-image. He just imposed himself by strategic cunning in the struggle for power, earning from Crankshaw a curious kind of ad- miration. Crankshaw must at some time have read a hook by Djilas because he talks about ‘the New Class’. It seems to be a gratuitous detour be- cause he does so with so little dis- crimination that it could be taken (page 68) to include all the classes— upwards of six-—-which he finds in the Soviet Union. He does this with- out worrying about what determines ‘class’. At one point it is apparently based on income. He mentions the privileged well-to-do who speak of the masses -vith such contempt that it even makes Crankshaw’s blood run cold and whose pampered off- spring form the jet-set. It is never clear who these people are; and pre- sumably they include not only the highest party functionaries and _ poli- ticians but also the leading ‘indus- trial bureaucrats’, not to speak of scientists, successful authors and so on. At other times he is trying to distinguish ‘classes’ by functions. It is no accident, however, that struggles in post-Stalin Russia were fought out in the Com- munist Party, and primarily inside its Presidium and Central Commit- tee. It was a struggle within the same order of society, not a struggle between different ‘classes’. No doubt there were real differences: but they concerned not only a struggle for personal dominance, but also the choice of means to conserve the social power and privileges of the whole order; and the inconveniences and demotions which ensued were largely subordinate to this. Thus the struggle over the industrial ‘decentral- ization’, to which Crankshaw attaches such importance as_ signalising Khrushchev’s victory over the ‘in- dustrial bureaucrats’, was not a struggle between classes. Before one could accept that Khrushchev ‘took control of industry away from the new managerial class’ it would be necessary to prove that such a class existed and that it did have control. Then who, or which class, had con- trol when it had lost it? At times the answer seems to be simply— Khrushchev; and the title of this book is not accidental, for Crank- shaw Khrushchev personally provides the key to the Russian enigma, which merely indicates that he has overlooked the real problems al- together. Vv Even on Crankshaw’s own show- ing, Khrushchev scattered the ‘in- dustrial bureaucracy’, then wooed it away from Malenkov to make it one of the main supports for his system, especially in the Communist Party it- self. Now who is ‘the governing class’? Is it still the middle-aged relics of Stalin’s regime in the party offices? Or has ‘the new Soviet bourgeoisie’ (itself divided by Crank- shaw into a sort of upper-upper, middle-upper, etc., grading accord- ing to the best traditions of Ameri- can sociology) taken over? Perhaps Khrushchev has selected his own governing class? Or perhaps the whole analysis, which looked so smart, is only a shallow thing after all. Whether he is dealing with these economic and political changes, or trying to fit the literary Thaw into the picture, the general impression is that Crankshaw has not thought out in any consistent way the nature of the Soviet social structure or the forces which have propelled the changes of recent years. These seem either to be impersonal and ‘inevitable’ (perhaps Russians are becoming more discriminating about whom they identify themselves with) or to be the result of pressure from the younger generations. Without wishing to deny the importance of the clash of generations—which the peculiarities of recent history have sharpened to an abnormal de- gree—this clearly evades considera-

[p025] SUMMER BOOKS ‘tion of the main source of pressure. Crankshaw permits himself some paragraphs on the Russian (N.B— not Ukrainian) peasantry—‘slovenly and inefficient’, ‘a vast dark mass ‘distorting the whole economy’, ‘rid- den with superstition, inveterate -drinkers of potheen’ which suggest that he must have had some un- fortunate personal experience in the Russian countryside. But there is scarcely anyhing in this book, which purports to analyse social forces in Russia, about the working class. Yet this class, in whose name the Revo- lution of 1917 was made, has grown tremendously in size and social im- portance in the last three decades of pianned industrialization. With- jut this class nothing which has happened in recent years, nor the changes of the future, can be under- stoud, That is why, underestimating its importance, Crankshaw’s charac- ters evolve in a social vacuum and his whole analysis is incomplete and one-sided. TOM KEMP. Russian Writings