Specialistes, Bureaucratie et Administration dans l'Empire Russe et en URSS, 1880-1945.Review by: Hugh D. Hudson, Jr.Slavic Review, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 646-647Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2499770 .

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646 Slavic Review

to ponder in this book. Coopersmith's analysis of the vastly different responses of the tsarist and early Soviet regimes to the challenge of electrification contains convincing evidence of strong cultural impediments to technological diffusion, at least in the half- century prior to the first five-year plan.

THOMAS C. OWEN Louisiana State University

Specialistes, bureaucratie et administration dans l'Empire Russe et en URSS, 1880-1945. Cahiers du moude russe et sovietique XXXII, no. 4, Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1991. viii, 222 pp. Paper.

The role of the Russian intelligentsia and the nature of the bureaucracy changed significantly in 1917 when the old tsarist establishment, with whom the radical and even the liberal intelligentsia had sustained a prolonged war against the government's coordinated efforts to control society, collapsed. Or did it? Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique has republished here a special edition of the journal (32, no. 4 [October- December 1991]), a collection of articles presented by young Italian and French schol- ars at a colloquium held at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris in May 1990. Although the title suggests a broad sweep through the history of the relations between non-government specialists and government bureaucrats, the focus of the articles is on stalinism, in particular the formation of the stalinist system. A central argument that emerges from the varied problems addressed is that beginning in the 1880s the central state administration (in both the imperial and Soviet guise) decided that it must control social and economic development in the country. Having arrived at that conclusion (twice) the administration(s) quickly discovered that within itself there was no agreement on what it actually desired to do, beyond making certain that "outsiders" (specialists) did not have the power to control social evolution. Neither tsars nor commissars could achieve coordination within the bureaucracy. Despite its lack of control over itself and the various "families" (un systeme archaique d'allegeance per- sonnelle) that in actuality comprised the government, and irrespective of the fact that no autocratic or socialist economic theory existed (both the imperial and the Soviet bureaucracy, these scholars argue, were responding to specific problems, not ideolog- ical imperatives), the administration continued to believe in and desire "system." But whereas the bureaucrats loved system, the intellectuals tended to desire more openness and experimentation, at least initially. For both groups the central problem hindering the creation of an improved country was the same-the people, that is, the peasantry. What exactly was wrong with the peasantry was interpreted differently; for some they were impoverished by virtue of the evil of the landlords; for others they were disloyal to the new regime by virtue of class evil. But regardless of one's interpretation of the root cause of peasant troublesomeness, one fact stood out-they were very difficult to change, reform or improve. To paraphrase former Georgia Governor Lester Maddox, what Russia needed was a higher class of peasant.

Confronted with a hostile population and an absence of a single theory (for a new army, a new economy, a new urban environment, or much of anything else), and confronting mounting problems of military defense, economic development, urban- ization and a host of others, the government took its cure from the very group it distrusted, the peasantry. When confronted by a problem, blame an outsider and, if possible, drive him/her from the village. "La haine spontanee des masses plebeiennes contre ces specy" was used by the administration as a mechanism to avoid confronting the true nature of the emerging, peasant-cum-worker-cum-bureaucrat-dominated bu- reaucracy, and to blame the old intelligentsia for the bureaucratic phenomenon that was overtaking the revolution. However, these articles further point out that no single policy of class warfare dominated in the formative years of stalinism; contradictions in policy initiatives were not resolved and "the implementation of contradictory and disruptive industrial [and social] policies . . . unleashed violent political and social

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Book Reviews 647

conflict from the upper reaches of the administrative apparatus to the shop floor of the factories." Violent social conflict and instability became institutionalized in the stalinist system. At the same time, faced with mounting economic and social chaos, accelerated by the state's own economic policies, the intelligentsia itself split, some of its members seeking stability and order through greater social control and thus coming into alliance with the stalinist system.

The overall picture one draws from these essays, and a persuasive one, is of a society groping for solutions to concrete problems, adapting to circumstances with no clear theoretical orientation, and using violence when efforts at persuasion threatened to leave the state in an exposed position vis-a-vis foreign or domestic "enemies." Depending on circumstances, not theoretical principles, these struggles found bu- reaucrats and specialists either at loggerheads or manning the same barricades against these "enemies," who, from 1880 to 1945, most often proved to be the Russian people themselves.

HUGH D. HUDSON, JR. Georgia State University

United Government and Foreign Policy in Russia, 1900-1914. By David MacLaren Mc- Donald. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. 276 pp. Index. $39.95, hard bound.

In this compact monograph Professor McDonald traces the two-fold impact of the Russo-Japanese War on the formulation of Russian foreign policy in the nine years preceding the outbreak of the First World War. For one thing, the first three chairmen of the Council of Ministers or prime ministers (S. lu. Witte, P. A. Stolypin and V. N. Kokovtsev) nurtured a fundamentally new relationship between ministers and the tsar in order to prevent a repetition of the governmental disarray that had preceded, and in large measure caused, the war withJapan in 1904. Before late 1905, each minister reported individually to the ruler and policies were decided upon without much re- gard to their bearing on other ministers' spheres of interest. At the time of the internal crisis in October 1905, when the country was on the verge of collapse, Witte insisted on the creation of a united government. Henceforth, ministers would report on all issues "of general significance" to the entire cabinet and the chairman of the Council of Ministers would then report to the tsar. The new procedures worked especially well under Stolypin, a strong-willed leader who during much of his time in office enjoyed the confidence of Tsar Nicholas. There was no repetition of the adventurism in foreign affairs by individuals close to the tsar that had proven so disastrous for Russia in 1904.

Secondly, state officials and many members of "society" took to heart the rever- berations within Russia of the defeat in the war against Japan. Time and again Mc- Donald points out that in grappling with international crises Russian statesmen shunned assertive policies for fear of embroiling the country in another war that might provoke domestic strife. Kokovtsev, who occupied the office of prime minister from 1911 to early 1914, had opposed the notion of united government when it was intro- duced, but he had become persuaded of its desirability and effectiveness. He was, however, a rather weak leader and could not resist Tsar Nicholas's reassertion of his personal authority. Increasingly, Nicholas ignored the principles of united govern- ment and assumed an active role in formulating national policies. The consequences of this change in direction became evident over the next three years as Russia adopted an assertive foreign policy and then plunged into war and revolution.

In substantiating his central themes Professor McDonald analyzes several com- plicated issues and international crises. His command over the relevant literature is impressive. He has read widely in Russian, German, French and, of course, English sources. Although he could not consult the archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry, he did work in other Russian archives and in those of the Austro-Hungarian, French and English foreign ministries, where he located fresh material that enabled him to

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