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39 Foreign Aff. 341 (1960-1961)
Soviet Myths and Realities

handle is hein.journals/fora39 and id is 351 raw text is: FOREIGN AFFAIRS Vol. 39 APRIL 1961 No. 3 SOVIET MYTHS AND REALITIES By Philip E. Mosely T may be useful, on the eighth anniversary of Stalin's death, to review some of the misconceptions and mirages that have plagued Western efforts to interpret the changing Soviet scene under his successors. A stock-taking, even though brief and incomplete, may help Americans to understand better the inter- national environment in which a new Administration will have to cope with old and new challenges to its hopes and purposes. One persistent theme of Western analysis has been the concept of a debilitating and perhaps fatal struggle for supremacy within the Soviet apparatus of dictatorship. One widespread view runs somewhat as follows. A totalitarian system, by its very nature, cannot be legitimate. It cannot provide for the orderly trans- mission of absolute power. It is bound to be caught in a dog-eat- dog struggle for supreme control. On this premise, the top Soviet leadership is inevitably riven by a continuing and desperate rivalry among competing leaders and cliques. Hence, it is as- sumed, Khrushchev is constantly engaged in a struggle against multiple challengers within his own apparatus, and the function of Kremlinology is to identify his rivals for power by reading the obscure portents of personnel changes and turgid ideological hints. One extreme interpretation of this alleged instability was cur- rent in May and June 196o. Supposedly, Khrushchev's vehement behavior at the abortive summit conference was dictated to him by unseen forces within the top Soviet hierarchy, perhaps by a ganging up of military leaders and Stalinist ideologues. Suppos- edly, Khrushchev had initially been willing to overlook the affront of the U-2 flights, with its drastic violation of the Soviet passion

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