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263 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. vii (1949)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0263 and id is 1 raw text is: FOREWORD No question arouses more concern or more controversy today than the problem of the present and prospective role of the Soviet Union in world affairs. The trends of Soviet development, the bases of Soviet economic and political power, and the exercise of this power and influence in many parts of the world, are of more direct concern than ever before to all peoples, including Americans. Before 1941 rela- tions between America and Russia were sporadic rather than continuous. Since then, the problem of their co-operation and rivalry has come to dominate most de- cisions in world politics. Yet it is difficult to form a coherent picture of Soviet developments and policies. The statistical picture of the Soviet economy lacks the refinements and orderly sequence of similar American reporting, and is influenced by important factors whose effects can only be estimated. The most important directing factor in Soviet life, the Communist Party and its highest organs of policy, surrounds its activities with a considerable measure of secrecy. Information about Soviet ac- tivities is available to outsiders only in the degree judged necessary for the pur- pose of exerting control or influence. Students of Russian problems rarely have an opportunity today to visit the Soviet Union. In spite of these obstacles, American and other scholars are continuing, with ingenuity and devotion to factual truth, the effort to inform themselves and the thoughtful public of the trends of Soviet development. Some of the results of this continuing effort are presented in this volume of THE ANNALS. Since Soviet development in all fields is infused with a political purpose and is guided by a centralized authority, it is logical to begin the survey with a review of recent trends in Soviet popular feeling, in the evolution of the state and law, in the Communist Party and the ruling ideology, and in the life of the family, the church, and the various nationalities. The economic bases of Soviet life and policy have been treated in studies of postwar reconstruction and prospective development, the position of labor, and the international economic policies of the Soviet Union. Cultural life and scientific life are guided and planned by the state party and re- flect or announce changes in emphases within the dominant ideology. This aspect of Soviet development has been treated in reports on trends in literature and social sciences, and in some of the fields of mathematical and natural sciences. The final section of the volume is devoted to a survey of Soviet foreign policy in various crucial parts of the world and in the United Nations. Because of the limited space, it has not been possible to include studies of other important aspects of Soviet de- velopment, for example, the enlargement of known natural resources through ex- ploration, development of transportation, new trends in the pictorial arts and music, trends of research in several other fields of science, and trends in the control of public and party opinion. The object of this special issue of THE ANNALS is to present a survey of basic trends in Soviet development since the war. Naturally, frequent reference has been made to earlier Russian and Soviet origins of these trends. The contribu- tions assembled in this issue rest, in each case, upon long research in the Russian field. Each author, needless to add, has been entirely independent in the de- velopment of his topic and in the presentation of his conclusions. PHILIP E. MOSELY Vii

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