UTOPIA IN POWER The History of the Soviet Union From 1917 to the Present
Mikhail Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich
New York: Summit Books
The publication of this book is a major event. It is written by two émigrés, one a historian, the other a literary critic, each of whom has an intimate acquaintance with the society whose evolution they describe. It draws upon a range of materials unprecedented for a one-volume general history of USSR. Official documents, journals, and newspapers alternate with émigré memoirs, literary works (Soviet novelists are, as Heller and Nekrich know, the best historians of their own country), and monographs by Western and Soviet historians to provide a rich and varied mosaic of sources. The book is in some respects poorly organized and leaves important questions tantalizingly unanswered, but nothing I say below is intended to detract from the achievement represented by such a panoramic compilation.
A New Human Species
According to Heller and Nekrich, a new kind of human species has been formed in the Soviet Union. Homo sapiens has become homo sovieticus. The founding fathers of the October Revolution took upon themselves the creation of this new man, and they have succeeded by a mixture of coercion, education, and propaganda. "At first this process meant that citizens were pressured into believing the official doctrine. Later they were taught to regard their condition as natural and to believe that change would only make matters worse" (p. 680).
What does homo sovieticus look like? The authors depict a population submitting uncomplainingly to shortages of material goods, putting up with gross social inequalities, enduring the arbitrary behavior of the authorities, failing to speak out, and sometimes even gloating dissidents. "A new human community has come into existence in which no one has rights, but each possesses a tiny share of power: he can work poorly, mock the customer if he is a sales clerk, denounce his neighbor, and be arrogant toward little people if he is a civil servant" (p. 681).
The whole organism is dominated by "one political party which runs everything and is responsible to no one, [and] a police network that penetrates every fiber of the social fabric" (p. 679). Why does the population accept it? The minority because they occupy privileged positions that ensure them a secure and reasonably comfortable lifestyle. The majority from fear, hopelessness, and concern with preserving the minimal advantages the regime extends to them. "The regime's stability is explained by a new kind of 'social contract': the citizens surrender their freedom to the state, and in exchange the state gives them the right (under its supervision) to abuse their positions and violate the law" (p. 681).
In a way, this is quite persuasive. Every observant visitor who has spent any time in the Soviet Union knows that most unprivileged individuals adjust to the rigidity and unproductiveness of the official system by improvising their own private arrangements, depending on graft, bribery, mutual favors, or personal connections to secure the basic essentials of a civilized life: food supplies, housing, services, children's education, and so on. In the absence of a more open society, such devices are
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