Comparative research on communism: Some observations on editing Studies in Comparative Communism, 1970–1980

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Comparative Research on Communism: Some Observations on Editing Studies in Comparative Communism, 1970-1980"

The editorship of Studies in Comparative Communism for more than a decade has stimulated me to reflect on what we mean by the term comparative Communism, and on the kinds of research that fall within this field of study (and where to find the research product). In this brief report, I touch upon these matters, develop a taxonomy of the field, and analyze first the content of Studies, 1970-1980, and then, of doctoral dissertations in the field of comparative Communism, 1974-1980.

DEFINITION OF COMPARATIVE C O M M U N I S M

I do not see the field of comparative Communism as exclusively part of a broader field of comparative politics, nor do I see it as a

*This report was prepared for and presented at the panel on "Comparative Com- munism: Update and Evaluation" organized by Professor R.V. Burks of Wayne State University, the last chairman of the Planning Group on Comparative Communist Studies, at the Twelfth National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies held in Philadelphia, November 5-8, 1980. The report was also circulated among a dozen members of the journal's International Editorial Board and the University of Southern California Advisory Committee, most of whom have felt that the content analysis of the journal was useful and merited publication. Since requests for the report have also been received from a number of scholars who were not present at the annual meeting, the journal cadres are responding both to the "directions from above" as well as the "spontaneous demand of the masses." Comments from the readers, especially from Paul Langer, have been most helpful and they were greatly appreciated in the process of revision and updating. Needless to say, final responsibility rests with the writer. This report is of necessity descriptive; critical evaluation of the journal and its contents, and suggestions for its improvement, are welcome. [Ed.]

STUDIBS rN COMP̂ R̂ TIVE COMMU~qSM VOL. XIV, NOS. 2 & 3, SUMMER/A~ 1981, 246-271

COMPARATIVE RESEARCH ON COMMUNISM 247

distinct, parochial field of intra-Communist comparative studies. To me, the more important word is comparative, and Communism simply defines the subject matter to be studied by the comparative method. Of course, the very subject matter, Communism, seems to be responsible for the classification of Studies in Comparative Communism among political science journals in the various guides to periodical literature and other bibliographical compilations.~ Nevertheless, this comparative enterprise should not be unduly skewed to the study of political phenomena. I see comparative sociological research, comparative economic research, comparative philosophical research (especially that of ideology), as well as comparative studies of education, literature, law, and so on, as integral parts of the field of comparative Communism.

Some years ago Robert Tucker identified four levels of scholarly inquiry for comparative Communism ranging from the simplest "aggregative" comparison, through "empirical" and "generalizing" comparisons to model building3 I have set myself a somewhat different task of classifying the content, rather tha~n the level, of comparative Communist studies. But before launching into this classification and subsequent analysis, it is useful to categorize the research product of comparative Communism.

RESEARCH CATEGORIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

In the field of comparative Communism, five categories of research products stand out.

The first category is books: comparative books and monographs by individual scholars, collaborative ventures by two or three specialists (here Political Power: USA/USSR 3 immediately comes to mind), and symposium volumes built around a single theme and consisting of contributions by a number of specialists on different Communist countries. The latter, often the result of conferences or panels at scholarly conventions, seems to be the most popular vehicle for what passes as comparative research in Communist affairs. Sometimes these symposia end up as special issues of journals. These include journals that specialize in Communism or in

1. It is so listed in the definitive Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory: A Classified Guide to Current Periodicals, Foreign and Domestic, and the contents of Studies are regularly listed in ABC POL SCL A l~'bliography o f Contents: Political Science and Government. It is also one of the relatively select journals included in the coverage of United States Political Science Documents.

2. Robert C. Tucker, "On the Comparative Study of Communism," World Politics, XII, 2 (January 1967), pp. 242-257.

3. New York: Viking, 1964. See also William Taubman's review, "Ten Years Later," in Studies in Comparative Communism, VIII, 1 & 2 (Spring/Summer 1975), pp. 192-203.

248 STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

relevant area studies, as well as journals that are not known for their systematic coverage of Communist affairs. For example, the Spring 1980 issue of Worm Affairs 4 is devoted to the transfer of power in Communist systems, while Legislative Studies Quarterly has recently put out a special issue on Communist legislatures. 5

The second category is Studies in COmparative Communism, the sole international interdisciplinary journal which concentrates on our topic.

The third category is other journals which can be subdivided into (1) comparative journals, 6 (2) journals that specialize in Com- munism or in areas under Communist rule (such as Eastern Europe or East Asia), 7 and (3) other journals rooted in a single discipline, especially political science. 8

The fourth category is unpublished papers presented at scholarly conventions (especially area studies associations, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies [AAASS] or Communist area specialist groups attached to professional organizations, such as the Conference on Communist Studies of the American Political Science Association IAPSA]).

The fifth category is doctoral dissertations. It is not possible here to survey all five categories of comparative

research on Communism. Although I have made a preliminary survey of comparative journals, this report will concentrate systema- tically on only two categories: Studies in Comparative Communism and doctoral dissertations, with occasional comments about the other three categories. Indeed, a systematic review of one or all of the remaining categories by a reader would be considered for publication in these pages.

4. Vol. 142, No. 4. 5. Vol. 5, No. 2 (May 1980). 6. One would want to start with the following, even though some of them will not

yield much material: Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Government and Opposition; Comparative Urban Research; Journal of Comparative Economics: Studies in Comparative International Development; International Journal of Compar- ative Sociology: American Journal of Comparative Law, The International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Comparative Labor Law, Comparative Judicial Review; Comparative Studies in Society and History; Studies in Comparative Religion: Comparative Education, Comparative Education Review: Comparative Literature, and Comparative Literature Studies.

7. Problems of Communism, Survey, East European Quarterly. Slavic Review. Soviet Studies, East Central Europe, Osteuropa, China Quarterly, Asian Survey, and Pacific Affairs, among others.

8. Current History, Orbis, World Politics. Foreign Affairs, International Affairs, International Security, American Journal of lnternational Law, Political Science Quarterly, American Journal of Sociology. International Studies Quarterly. and The Journal of Developing Areas, to name a few.


CLASSIFICATION OF CONTENT OF COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

Since I include under the rubric comparative Communism comparative studies across political and social systems, I have developed taxonomies for these two broad divisions: general comparative studies and intra-Communist comparative studies. These two basic divisions of our comparative field can be hierarchically divided into further subcategories:

General Comparative Studies (1) East-West comparisons (2) Soviet-American comparisons (3) The divided countries (4) Other Communist /non-Communist national comparative

studies (5) Intrastate, subnational comparative studies

Intra-Communist Comparative Studies (1) International Communist movement (comprising both Party-

states and the nonruling Communist Parties) (2) Communist states (3) Eastern Europe (including or excluding the Soviet Union) (4) Regional nonruling Communist movements (5) Comparisons of ruling Communist systems (6) Comparisons of nonruling Communist- Parties (7) Intra-Communist state, subnational comparative studies (8) Intra-Communist movement comparative studies

In describing these categories, I shall primarily give examples of originalcomparative work appearing in the journal at Tucker's second and third levels. I shall make no attempt to list the topics where the original contribution was noncomparative, but to which we have added comments from the perspectives of other Communist states or Parties or cross-system comparisons. In some instances, though, we were able to go beyond what Tucker has called "artful juxtaposition" (in describing his first "aggregative" comparison level), 9 and commissioned comparative-synthesizing comments which have been built upon several noncomparative contributions.

After describing these essentially empirical contributions, I shall touch upon nonempirical studies, first treating theoretical, methodological, and policy pieces, and then analyzing the somewhat different categories (essentially the various departments of the journal) of documentation, surveys of literature, review articles, reappraisals of seminal works, dissertation abstracts, and teaching notes. I thought that it would also be useful to add a rough geographical and temporal

9. Tucker, "On the Comparative Study of Communism," p. 246.


analysis of the substantive contributions to the journal. The temporal analysis introduces my concepts of "horizontal," "vertical," and "diagonal" studies (explained below). All these ways of looking at our record should highlight areas of relative neglect.

These descriptions and analyses have dealt only with the product. The next step is to survey the producers - - our contributors - - in terms of their discipline, profession, rank, and nationality.

ANALYSIS OF STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

The following analysis covers the decade 1970-1980 of my tenure as editor of Studies.

CONTRIBUTIONS/THE PRODUCT

Empirical Studies

Before discussing comparative studies which involve Communist societies, Parties, ideologies, and so on, a few preliminary remarks on comparative studies in general are in order.

General Comparative Studies

It is my impression (and it is just that) that cross-societal comparative studies not involving Communist systems and concen- trating on the advanced industrial societies are coming along nicely. I think that in part this is the result of greater availability of data on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and the gradual acceptance of the idea behind the formation of the Trilateral Commission that the U.S. (and Canada) have much in common with Western Europe and Japan. For example, American, European, and Japanese funding organizations have recently sponsored a multinational research team project on political and administrative relations between national and local levels in Italy, France, and Japan. t0 I might add that in Japanese studies with which I am familiar, leading American and British scholars have produced cross-societal studies comparing Japan with either Britain or the United States. Examples here would be the work of the prominent British sociologist Ronald Dore on British and Japanese factories II or the recent study by Robert Cole on work

I0. This project is being sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies-- Social Science Research Council Joint Committee on Japanese Studies, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and European funding organizations.

II. Ronald P. Dore, British Factory--Japanese Factor),: The Origins of National Diversity in Employment Relations (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973).


mobility, and participation - - a comparative study of American and Japanese industry, t2 Of course in Communist studies we have, among others, comparable work by Jerome Gilison on British and Soviet politics and, most recently, Marilyn Rueschemeyer's study of work and family life in capitalist and Communist countries, especially in the United States, the Soviet Union, and East Germany. 13 Also larger cross-societal projects involving initially Yugoslavia (as the most accessible of the socialist countries), Poland, and later even the Soviet Union have been initiated in the urban research field.

Such sponsorship of comparative research is obviously beyond our financial capabilities. Yet in a modest way we have consistently promoted cross-societal comparative studies by commissioning comments on a given topic from the perspective of non-Communist societies. For example, with the aid of Harry Rigby, a symposium was recently built around a graduate student paper on clientelism in the Soviet Union. The symposium included comparative comments on political clientelism not only in Eastern Europe and China, but also in advanced Western societies, Japan, and Israel (Summer/- Autumn 1979 and the present issue). But such projects are enormously time-consuming, and the final product does not convey the difficulties encountered, nor the scope of endeavor. For instance, a recent issue on urban affairs in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, France, and Japan (put together by Carol Lewis, Winter 1979) does not begin to show the work that went into this project over a period of over two and a half years: the number of scholars approached, the number of manuscripts commissioned and handled, the number of rejected or otherwise unsuitable manuscripts, and the number of manuscripts promised but not delivered, including some by scholars in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

East-West Comparisons. This important category is almost absent from the journal. It is difficult to get comprehensive East- West comparative studies because typically they are best written by a generalist or a non-Communist-area specialist in response to one or several studies on a similar topic by specialists in Communist affairs. One such example is an essay, "Civil-military Relations East and West" by David Segal (Sociology and Government, University of Maryland, a specialist on civil-military relations in the United

12. Robert E. Cole, Work, Mobility and Participation: A Comparative Study of American and Japanese Industry (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979).

13. Jerome M. Gilison, British and Soviet Politics: A Study of Legitimacy and Convergence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972) and Marilyn Rueschemeyer, Professional Work and Marriage: An East-West Comparison (New York: St. Martin's, 1981 ).


States) in the special issue of the journal devoted to civil-military relations in Communist countries (Autumn 1978). Another example is a short comment on clientelism in advanced industrial societies, specially commissioned for a symposium on the topic (Summer/- Autumn 1979). Again, the contributor is a non-Communist-area political scientist, Keith Legg, of the University of Florida and the author of Patrons, Clients, and Politicians: New Perspectives on Political Clientelism. 14

Soviet-American Comparisons. The importance of the United States and the Soviet Union in world affairs, their superpower status, and their perceived posifion as the most developed (or oldest) prototypes of their respective sociopolitical systems, assures them comparative interest in the scholarly community. Indeed, the Brzezinski-Huntington volume (Political Power: U S A / U S S R published in 1963) has undoubtedly served as a model for studies comparing a variety of political, economic, military-strategic, social, and cultural topics. Over the last decade, seven articles in Studies have directly compared the Soviet Union with the United States. Examples in this category representing different disciplines are: American and Soviet reactions to "the new economic togetherness" (by Nathan Leites, Autumn 1974), a survey of Soviet and American sociology by the late Alex Simirenko (Spring/Summer 1973), Leninism and Lovestoneism (Harvey Klehr, Spring/Summer 1974), American and Soviet versions of containment (by the late William Welch, Autumn 1973), and the goals of citizenship training in American and Soviet schools (to which we have added comments from the Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Chinese perspectives, Autumn 1977).

It will be noted that several of the articles deal not so much with comparisons of concrete developments in the two countries, as with a comparison of perceptions, reactions, and ideological concepts.

The Divided Countries. Comparative studies of the divided countries were high on our list of priorities ten years ago. Here you have political, economic, and social phenomena, which can be comparatively studied in a single cultural-historical-linguistic setting. In fact, we have announced that the journal will have a regular department entitled "Comparative Analyses of the Divided Countries." In spite of this, almost all of the ten articles that appeared in the journal were actively solicited or commissioned by the Editor. Four articles dealt with the two Germanys (including education and agricultural modernization, Spring 1972 and Autumn 1973 respectively), two with Communist and Nationalist China

14. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1975.


(leadership roles and elite conflicts, Spring/Summer 1974, and science and technology policies, forthcoming) and three with North and South Korea (ideology and politics, Spring/Summer 1974). Comparative studies of certain aspects of North and South Vietnam were commissioned but never completed.

We have also published "Communist Revolutions, National Cultures, and Divided Nations," Robert Tucker's address to the conference on North Korea and East Germany organized by a former student of mine, Dr. Young Hoon Kang, then Director of the Research Institute on Korean Affairs in Washington (Autumn 1974).

Other Communist~Non-Communist National Comparative Studies. Although a few manuscripts comparing institutions and other topics in Communist and non-Communist societies have been received over the years, none was published. In this category interest seems to lie more in Soviet-American comparisons and in the divided countries. It should be mentioned, though, that we published a comparative psycholinguistic study of Mao Tse-tung, Liu Shao-ch'i, Stalin, and Hitler (Winter 1974).

Intrastate, Subnational Comparative Studies. The way a Com- munist Party operates in an open political environment and the policies it pursues can be illuminated by a comparative study of several political parties (including the CP) in a given political system. In this important category we have presented a comparative study (by Martha Good) of the Italian political parties (Summer/- Autumn 1980). This seems to be a promising category of research. And comparative research need not be restricted to legal parties: a comparison of the modus operandi of illegal parties and groups (including the CP) in a restrictive setting might also be fruitful, although here the lack of data might be an obstacle.

Intra-Communist Comparative Studies International Communist Movement. No articles have been

published on the entire Communist movement; the closest is an account of the 1976 Conference of European Communist Parties (Winter 1978). Another contribution was an interesting attempt to compare the coverage of Watergate and d6tente in the five ruling and nonruling Party organs (from Pravda to the Daily World, Autumn 1976). We have also published articles on relationships within the Communist movement. See, for example, accounts of the break between the Communist Parties of China and Japan; the training of Australian Communists in China (both in the Winter 1978 issue, which we devoted to "European and Asian Communism"); or the


tangled relationship between the CPSU and PCI (in the Summer/- Autumn 1980 special double issue dcvotcd to the Italian Party.)

Although we have received several manuscripts which have dcalt in comparative fashion with the Communist movement, none has been accepted for publication. Since all incoming manuscripts are juricd, this record underlines a structural difficulty of publishing broadly comparative studies. It is easier to pass thc review process with a relatively narrow comparative topic; it is very difficult to do so for a broad comparative study of such a heterogeneous entity as the entire or significant parts of the international Communist movement.

Communist States. The more than a dozen Communist nation- states have enough common characteristics to provide meaningful loci for comparative study. Yet, in practice, scholars frequcntly include the nonruling Parties and extend their analysis to the international Communist movement in general (scc the preceding section), or limit their treatment to Eastern European states (including or excluding the Soviet Union, see next section). Where Communist Party-states arc treated together, the articles as a rule deal with thcoretical or methodological questions. For cxample, one symposium of ten articles on the comparative study of the foreign policies of Communist states addressed itsclf to the pros and cons, and the whats, whys, and hows of comparative study (Spring/- Summer 1975). In this connection, perhaps, it is instructive to remember how fcw comparative monographs or textbooks cover all Communist nation-states. Richard Gripp's pioneering textbook The Political System of Communism comes to mind as unique in its coverage of all fourteen (at the time of publication) Party-states. ~5 Also deserving of mention is Gary Bertsch's Power and Policy- making in Communist Systems, which discusses all ruling Party- states while focusing on the Soviet Union, China, and Yugoslavia. 16 But by far the most ambitious and comprehensive project is the recently published three-volume work edited by Bogdan Szajkowski, Marxist Governments: A Worm Survey, which, in addition to the sixteen Communist regimes, describes nine other "Marxist" governments, ranging from Angola to the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. 17 (Afghanistan, the Malagasy Republic, and San Marino are scheduled to be added in the next edition.) The problem is, however, that only the first two chapters by the editor, Michael Waller, and Neil Harding are comparative; every one of the other

15. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973. 16. New York: Wiley, 1978. 17. New York: St. Martin's, 1981.


twenty-five chapters, each by a specialist, describes a single country. Eastern Europe (Including or Excluding the Soviet Union). More

than twenty articles have dealt with Eastern Europe as a whole, a category that also includes studies of Comecon and the Warsaw Pact? 8 Many of the contributions in this category, however, have been theoretical, methodological, or bibliographical (surveys of literature). Empirical comparative studies have dealt with such topics as foreign political leadership (Farrell, January 1971); political succession (Korbonski and Beck, Spring/Summer 1976); organs of state arbitrations (Feuerle, July/October 1971); agricultural remunerat,on (W[idekin, Spring/Summer 1978); housing policy (Morton, Winter 1979); and strikes, riots, and other disturbances (Montias, Winter 1980), the last four articles including coverage of the Soviet Union.

Regional Nonruling Communist Movements. One would guess that studies of the characteristics of groups of nonruling Communist Parties (as well as ruling Parties for that matter) in various parts of the world might bring out regional differences of, say, Communist movemeats in Asia vs. Latin America or Western Europe. A survey of published articles as well as manuscripts submitted to the journal does not seem to indicate much work in this important area. The kind of comparative study I have in mind is Robert Scalapino's introductory comparative chapter entitled "Communism in Asia: Toward a Comparative Analysis" in his edited volume The Communist Revolution in Asia: Tactics, Goals and Achievements in which he discusses Marxism and the Asian intellectual and develops typologies of Asian Communist leaders and of stages in Asian revolutions. The other twelve chapters in the book written by specialists are country studies dealing with Communism in twelve Asian countries from China to Nepal? 9

In our experience only a few manuscripts have trickled in, mostly dealing with the Communist movement in Western Europe. Of these only one, on Communist leadership in Western Europe, was published.

Comparisons of Ruling Communist Systems. Just as comparisons of the Soviet Union with the United States predominate in general comparative studies, comparisons of the Soviet Union with China

18. According to Ronald Linden's recent survey, Studies leads all journals in its coverage of Eastern Europe. ("East European Studies: Towards a Map of the Field and Its Needs," unpublished paper presented at the Thirteenth National Convention of the AAASS, Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, California, September 20-23, 1981, p. 39.)

19. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965.


account for more than half of all comparative studies involving two Communist societies. In addition, a special series in the journal entitled "The Sino-Soviet Conflict and the 'Problem' Parties" has explored the positions of various Communist states and Parties (such as Romania, Yugoslavia, and Laos, among others) vis-a-vis the two Communist superstates. These studies have naturally also provided explicit or implicit comparisons of Soviet and Chinese perceptions of the policies toward the Party or Party-state in question. Topics treated in Soviet-Chinese comparative studies have ranged from theories of development, Central Committee membership, agricultural payments and incentives to child socialization, the military, health care, show trials and thought reform, socialist realism, and foreign policies. Other comparative studies have paired the Soviet Union and Cuba (conceptions of revolution and approaches to Latin America), the Soviet Union and Poland (dissent), Poland and Romania (attitudes toward European d6tente), and Poland and East Germany (civil-military relations).

Comparisons of Nonruling Communist Parties, Comparative studies of two or more nonruling Parties are another neglected area. Over the years only a few manuscripts in this category have come in, and an article on nonruling Parties and political adaption (Thomas Greene, Winter 1973) and four articles, all dealing with the PCI and the PCF, were published. (The well-known Blackmer-Tarrow volume on Communism in Italy and France may have been responsible for stimulating interest in these Western European Parties. 2°) Of the PCI-PCF articles, only one, by Heinz Timmer- mann, is a comparative study of the national strategies and international autonomy of the two Parties (Summer/Autumn 1972). The other articles concern themselves with PCI-PCF relations or with U.S. policy toward these Parties when they were participants in government coalitions, rather than compare the policies, ideologies, or leadership of the two Parties.

Paradoxically, the recent interest in Eurocommunism (including U.S. policy implications) is not reflected in the pages of the journal, perhaps precisely because funding was available for conferences with resultant publication of the papers in book form.

Intra-Communist State, Subnational Comparative Studies. A standing invitation to prospective contributors appears on the inside back cover of every issue of Studies. It states, inter alia, that the journal would like to promote the comparative study of the various republics, autonomous regions, and nationalities within a given

20. Donald L.M. Blackmer and Sidney Tarrow (eds.), Communism in Italy and France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975).


Communist state (or the comparative study of a single nationality, across state frontiers, such as the Uighurs in Central Asia). A few manuscripts in this category have been reviewed over the years, but only one, George Zaninovich's piece on ethnic politics in Yugoslavia (January 1971) has so far appeared in the journal and one on perceptions of nationality power in the U.S.S.R. is scheduled for publication in 1981. I believe that multiethnic Communist states, such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, particularly lend themselves to comparative study across subnational units. Recently such studies have been discussed with and invitations have been extended to Yugoslav scholars.

lntra-Communist Movement Comparative Studies. The Sino- Soviet conflict has led to the splintering of a number of nonruling Parties. Wherever there is more than one Communist Party, a comparative study of the two or more Parties in one society in terms of their ideological position, personalities, and the like is often very illuminating. We have published a few articles on the several Parties in the Indian and Israeli Communist movements, analyzing their differing ideology, tactics, and ethnicity. Depending upon the political situation, such comparative studies should also include other leftist parties and splinter groups such as the Trotskyists (which we have explored in the case of Sri Lanka, Lerski, Spring/Summer 1977).

Nonempirical Studies

It is perhaps a sign of a new field that many contributions shy away from empirical research and instead concentrate on theory and methodology, survey and review existing literature, and report on teaching. This category also includes policy pieces and documentation.

Theory

A dozen contributions to the journal have dealt with theoretical issues and a few of these have often been cited in the literature: John Kautsky's "Comparative Communism Versus Comparative Politics" (Spring/Summer 1973); Alfred Meyer's "Communist Revolutions and Cultural Change" (Winter 1972); Robert Tucker's "Communist Revolutions, National Cultures, and the Divided Nations"(Autumn 1974); and Richard Lowenthal's "On 'Established' Communist Party Regimes" (Winter 1974). To these we should add Paul Godwin's "Communist Systems and Modernization" (Spring] Summer 1973); Bradley Scharf's "Environmental Determinism and Communist Leadership Behavior" (Spring/Summer 1976); and Oskar Gruen-


wald's "Comparing Socialist Cultures: A Meta-Framework" (Spring/Summer 1978). An entire issue devoted to civil-military relations in the Communist countries was subtitled "First Steps Toward Theory." This issue (Autumn 1978) tested certain theoretical propositions regarding the stages of development of civil-military relations against empirical evidence in a number of Communist societies.

Methodology Writings on methodology in the journal have ranged from broad

theoretico-methodological and epistemological articles to research notes and comments which are limited, recipe-like discussions of specific methodologies. Let me single out two of the broad approach type: Michael Montias' "Modernization in Communist Countries: Some Questions of Methodology" (Winter 1972) and the late Peter Ludz's "Comparative Analysis of Divided Germany: Some Problems and Findings in Theory and Methodology" (Summer/Autumn 1979), which provides extremely useful insights into the conception and execution of his monumental documentary series of studies of systemic comparisons between East and West Germany. ~

We need more contributions in both categories, especially a sharing of innovative methodological approaches, which could be applied to comparative study of Communist and non-Communist systems.

Po//cy

It has been our policy to deemphasize policy pieces, because of a personal conviction that most such contributions are advocatory and do not properly belong in scholarly journals. Such essays should be placed in journals that specialize in presenting different policy options, where they are also likely to have a greater impact.

Sometimes, however, policy recommendations are either implicit or form only a part of a study, and over the years we have published three articles which can be loosely placed in the policy category. All of them, strangely enough, deal with Soviet-American trade. (See, for example, "New Options for the United States in East-West Trade," April 1971.)


Documentation

It has always been journal policy to publish significant documentation on the phenomenon of Communism, past and present. To this end a standing invitation is extended to prospective contributors "to accompany their articles with a list of primary documents, some of which may be reproduced in the journal's documentary section." Extensive primary documentation, for example, accompanied articles on education in China and East Germany, China's policies in Southeast Asia, and the Communist movements in India and Australia. Over the years, however, rising production costs have forced us to decrease the annual number of printed pages, and not wishing to cut down on original contributions, we had to make the cuts at the expense of documentation. Nonetheless, documentary sections still accompany studies in our series on "The Sino-Soviet Conflict and the 'Problem' Parties," providing our readers with the most significant documents that illustrate Moscow and Peking's position vis-a-vis, for example, Romania, and of course the evolution of a "problem" Party's policy toward the two Communist superparties.

Surveys of Literature

While some scholars downplay the importance of bibliographical essays and surveys of literature, we have always felt that timely stocktaking of the state of the art is important, especially in a new field like comparative Communism. In addition, we have also encouraged publication of comparative surveys of academic disciplines in the East and West (see, for example, the state of sociology in the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s by the late Alex Simirenko, Spring/Summer 1973) and surveys of selected subfields (such as Chinese foreign policy and Chinese elite studies against the backdrop of comparative foreign policy studies and comparative elite studies respectively, Spring 1980, and politics in East Germany, Winter 1976).

The most ambitious survey, however, was a "consumers' guide" to political science textbooks on the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China developed by our Associate Editor Rudolf T6k6s who not only provided a thoughtful "specialist's" introduction on comparative Communism textbooks, but also capped this special issue of the journal (August 1975) with a concluding essay by a "generalist" (Joseph LaPalombara, author of Politics Within Nations21).

21. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974.


In my view we should have ongoing reviews of comparative studies in all disciplines and subfields, as well as a general review of comparative Communist studies every five years--our own piatiletka.

Reappraisal of Seminal Works

A few seminal works affect a field of study in both teaching and research, and often it is prudent to review their impact a decade or so later. Such reappraisals should also provide handy summaries of the original reviews, i.e., the scholarly community's initial reaction to a given work, as well as a critical follow-up from a long-range perspective. Only one work, the Brzezinski-Huntington Political Power: USA/USSR was accorded such treatment, although the review "ten years later" was confined to comparative foreign policy aspects (William Taubman in the special issue on foreign policy, Spring/Summer 1975).

There is a definite need for thoughtful retroactive reappraisals, and prospective views on important works.

Review Articles

Like Worm Politics, Studies publishes review articles covering a number of books on a given topic. Ideally, this presents another vehicle for comparative work, but the cooperation from the scholarly community has been spotty. On occasion, literally years have gone by between the discussion of a topic (and the books to be reviewed) with a potential contributor and publication. And a number of review articles have never been delivered. Nevertheless, over the past decade we have published some 40 reviews and review articles covering about 200 volumes. The selection of the books, however, depends more on the interests of the reviewers, and we cannot claim to have covered all the important contributions to comparative Communism.

Given the difficulty inheren t in comparative Communism that few reviewers are qualified to review books dealing with several societies, we have resorted to cross-reviewing. For example, a review of several books on history and traditional culture in Communist China was accompanied by comments from the perspective of Soviet historiography (Summer/Autumn 1972); a book on French Communism was reviewed by a specialist on Italian politics (Norman Kogan, Spring/Summer 1973); a book on Chinese policy in Asia was reviewed by a specialist on Soviet policy in Asia (Charles McLane, Spring/Summer 1973); two books on Chinese and Soviet

COMPARATIVERESEARCHONCOMMUNISM 261

policy in Africa were sent to the two authors to comment on each other's work, and this was supplemented by a review of both books by an Africanist (August 1973); four books on Japanese, Cypriot, Venezuelan, and Australian Communist Parties in Jan Triska's Hoover Institution series on "Comparative Communist Party Politics" were each reviewed individually by a specialist, and supplemented by a review of all four studies by a specialist on Western European Communism (Thomas Greene, Winter 1973). Also noteworthy are a bibliographical review symposium entitled "On Reading and Rereading Trotsky" which consisted of four reviews covering Trotsky's writings published in the Soviet Union and in exile, his collected works and bibliographies, and writings by his followers in the United States, augmented by abstracts of American doctoral dissertations on Trotsky and Trotskyism (Spring 1977); a review by Susan Bridge of nine books on the Prague Spring, accompanied by the authors' comments on the review (Winter 1975); two reviews of Chalmers Johnson's collection Change in Communist Systems 22 by John Kautsky and S. N. Eisenstadt of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Spring/Summer 1973).

Dissertation Abstracts

Since 1976, we have annually published abstracts of American doctoral dissertations in comparative Communism. At that time an attempt was made to update the listings provided to the profession by the Newsletter on Comparative Studies of Communism, which ceased publication in 1973. This is the responsibility of the Associate Editor Richard Farkas, who also provided the service to the readers of the Newsletter.

Seventy-five abstracts were published for the seven years 1974- 1980, although 1975 seems to have been the peak year with eighteen successfully defended dissertations.

Every three years we also publish a list of relevant noncomparative dissertations of interest to specialists in comparative Communism. Some 150 such dissertations were listed in 1976 covering 1973 through 1975 (including some for 1971 and 1972) and 100 were listed in 1979 for the years 1976-1978. (See also our analysis of the dissertations in comparative Communism, below.)

Teaching Notes

Teaching Notes is a brand-new department in the journal to complement Research Notes. This is the place to exchange ideas, as

22. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970.


well as concrete experiences, in teaching truly comparative courses (both intra-Communist and comparative across political and social systems). My instructions to our first contributor to this department were to share with our readers:

(1) the planning, objectives, and rationale behind the course; (2) the organization of the course, including the schedule of

lectures (with the syllabus appended), the textbooks, and other reading assignments and why they were chosen; and

(3) the evaluation of the course on the part of both the students and the instructor, and thoughts on how to present this and other comparative courses in the future.

The course on leftist parties and movements in Italy and Japan was taught by Ellis Krauss at Western Washington University, and his very useful and thought-provoking presentation appears in the Summer/Autumn 1980 issue.

I hope that this presentation will stimulate an exchange of ideas, information, and descriptions of other courses in comparative Communism, both in the United States and abroad.

Geographical Analysis

A look at the geographical coverage of contributions to Studies is instructive in the sense that it will reveal areas of relative inattention.

Forty six (or 15%) of the journal articles, reviews, research notes, and comments (hereinafter referred to as "articles") deal with the entire international Communist movement, an additional 22 (or 7%) with Eastern Europe as a whole, and four with nonruling Communist Parties in general.

The relative power and importance of the two Communist superstates (and the resultant strength of Soviet and Chinese studies, especially in the United States) is easily reflected in the fact that 94 (or 30%) of the articles deal wholly or in part with the Soviet Union, and 51 (or 16%) with China. Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Yugoslavia, and Cuba are next in frequency (from 14 to 9 articles each), followed by Poland, Hungary, Romania, and North Korea (4-5 each). Mongolia is the only Communist state that was not the subject of a separate article.

Among the nonruling Parties, not unexpectedly the PCI ranks first with 10 articles (in part due to a special double issue devoted to the Italian Party), followed by 5 articles each on the Communist Parties of France, India, and Japan. Also treated are the Communist Parties of Australia, Finland, the United States, Turkey, Cyprus, Venezuela, and Israel.

The United States is the subject of 12 articles (largely because of


Soviet-American comparative studies); West Germany, 5 (reflecting interest in research on the divided countries, especially comparisons between the two German states); and Africa, 5 (primarily because of the activities of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and China on that continent). Other articles cover Latin America, the Middle East, and South, East, and Southeast Asia.

Temporal Analysis

In classifying comparative studies, I have used the words "horizontal," "vertical," and "diagonal" to distinguish three types of research.

Horizontal or lateral refers to comparative analysis of some phenomena during the same period. This category in turn can be subdivided into (1) historical studies, dealing with the pre-World War II period, and (2) contemporary studies, covering the postwar period. Needless to say, all Communist states except one (if the Outer Mongolians will forgive me) emerged during or after World War II and the bulk of our ~ontributions deal with the contemporary scene.

Vertical or longitudinal refers to historical studies of a single society where the comparative angle is change over time, rather than differences between two or more societies.

The time required for the acquisition of power by Communist Parties in different countries has ranged from a few years to sixty- three. Communist Party-states also represent widely differing levels of economic development, while their political leadership belongs to different pre and postrevolutionary generations. As a result, it is often more instructive to draw comparisons between Communist societies at similar levels of political or economic development, but occurring at different historical periods. Another example of what I call "diagonal" studies would be analyses of the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions.

"'Horizontal" Analysis

As mentioned above, most contributions to Studies deal with the postwar period. The only exceptions to this general observation are the many comparative studies of ideology, which cover the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Of course, our special issue on Trotsky and Trotskyism (Spring/Summer 1977) was largely historical. Some articles have in part dealt with the pre-World War II period. Of those primarily historical, mention should be made of Joan Urban's "Italian Communism and the 'Opportunism of Conciliation,' 1927-1929" (accompanied by commissioned comments


from the perspectives of the Finnish, Turkish, and Hungarian Communist movements, Winter 1973) and Gail Bernstein's "The Russian Revolution, the Early Japanese Socialists, and the Problem of Dogmatism" (Winter 1976).

Clearly, more comparative studies are needed for the prewar Communist movement.

"Vertical" Analysis

Hardly any studies in the journal have explicitly pursued the comparative historical approach. A few exceptional examples of "vertical" analysis include Jack Bielasiak's "Lateral and Vertical Elite Differentiation in European Communist States" (Spring/- Summer 1978), and the comparison of Soviet decisionmaking preceding the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan (Valenta, Winter 1980). But on closer examination, these pieces have been written by political scientists and they deal with the postwar period.

Here is an obvious area of neglect, for comparative historical studies can be most illuminating.

"Diagonal" Analysis

Relatively few scholars are engaged in comparative analysis which pairs two or more societies in different historical periods but presumably at similar stages of political, economic, or social development. Here are three examples of such comparative studies published in the journal: the Chinese and Soviet officer corps during their respective civil wars (Winter 1977); the role of ethnic politics in the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968 and the Yugoslav crisis of 1971 (Winter 1975); the Soviet show trials of the 1930s and the post-1949 Chinese thought reform (Autumn 1976); and prewar Stalinist and post-1949 Maoist varieties of socialist realism (Autumn 1976).

THE CONTRIBUTORS/THE PRODUCERS

From the product, let us turn to the producers. Who are the contributors to the journal? Our goal has been to make Studies (I) a multi and interdisciplinary journal, and (2) an international scholarly endeavor. We have also engaged in our own kind of affirmative action: to promote the publications of younger scholars, including advanced graduate students. Have we succeeded in achieving these goals? Let us take a look at the professions and nationalities represented, as well as the disciplines and ranks of academic contributors.


Disciplinary Analysis

What disciplines are represented by the contributors to Studies? Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority (62% or over 160

contributors) are political scientists. To this number one could add the next largest category of scholars, those primarily associated with independent schools of international relations (22 or 8%) and those in law (6 or 2%) who are also mostly political scientists.

Other disciplines represented are: History 17 (or 6%) Sociology 13 (5%) Economics I0 (4%) Area studies I0 (4%) Philosophy 6 (2%) Education 4 (1½%),

as well as a few natural scientists, psychiatrists, agricultural experts, urban specialists, and scholars in classics, literature, German, and other disciplines.

The predominance of political scientists as contributors to Studies is partially a reflection of their relative numerical strength in Communist area studies, and the fact that political scientists are writing in such subfields as political economy, political sociology, and--especially relevant to Communist studies--ideology. The fact that economists, sociologists, and philosophers might and often do disparage such encroachments upon their domains does not discourage political scientists from pursuing their interests in these areas. And who would argue that the political ramifications of almost every facet of life in Communist societies from economics to literature is not worth studying?

The question is what can be done to redress this disciplinary imbalance? A few thoughts are offered in the concluding section.

Profession and Rank

As befits an academic journal, ninety percent of its contributors are faculty members and advanced graduate students. The remaining ten percent represent government analysts (most, though not all of them, American). This is of course not surprising considering the attention given to Communist affairs by various Western governments. The contributors also include four journalists and two of other professions.

A closer analysis of the academic contributors reveals perhaps an unhealthy tilt toward the upper ranks. This has occurred in spite of the editors' deliberate efforts to promote the publications of younger


scholars and students, the latter through the medium of specially publicized Graduate Student Essays.

Full professors account for 40 percent of the contributors and associate professors for 26 percent, a total of 66 percent for the two upper ranks. (Thirty-two contributors were also serving as deans, directors, and department departmental chairmen.) Only 21 percent (50) of the contributors were untenured assistant professors and 6 percent (15) were graduate students. The lecturer category (6%) is a mixed one, since it includes senior scholars in the British academic system.

Nationality In spite of the word "International" in its subtitle and the fact that about a third of the International Editorial Board are scholars from outside the United States, Studies remains primarily an American journal. Over the past decade, more than 240 of its 275 contributors were Americans. Other contributors have included nine Canadian scholars, six each from Germany and Australia, five from Britain, as well as Indian, Belgian, Yugoslav, and Israeli scholars. The American contributors have, not surprisingly, in- eluded more than forty scholars of East European background, almost twenty of West European, as well as immigrants from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Cuba. In other words, almost one-third of the American contributors (or one- quarter of all contributors) were naturalized Americans, mostly from countries which are now under Communist rule.

ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

We have identified seventy-five doctoral dissertations defended at American universities between 1974 and 1980. Four broad categories comprise three-quarters of the dissertations: cross-system comparisons (18, including 7 on Soviet-American comparisons); Communist states (16, including 6 on Soviet-Chinese comparisons); Eastern Europe (l 1), and the international Communist movement (10, including 7 on Western European Parties). Five dissertations deal with the divided countries (Germany and Korea), two are in comparative Marxist ideology, and four in the subnational comparative category (Yugoslavia and France).

Only a dozen dissertations deal wholly or in part with the pre- 1945 period, among them: a comparison of Lenin's and Bogdanov's views on modernization and socialist transformation (with partial


references to Gramsci and Mao); Polish and Ukrainian socialism in Austria during the latter part of the nineteenth century; Russian and Chinese armies during the two decades after their civil wars (a part of this dissertation was published in Studies, Winter 1977); the treatment of the Soviet Union and Communism in selected word history textbooks, 1920-1970; the role of peasantry in the theories of Marx, Lenin, and Mao; a comparative study of political violence in China (1890-1927), Japan (1945-1960), and Korea (1953-1960); the etiology of radicalization among American and British Communist autobiographers; and the relationship between the Communist and Socialist Parties in France in the early 1920s.

Although we do not have the data for academic disciplines, I would estimate that about two-thirds of the dissertations were done in political science departments. A survey of the subject-matter (some dissertations fall in two categories) indicates a preponderance of political topics (26), economic matters (20), international affairs (13), social problems (8), history (7), ideology (6), and a few in military affairs, law, agriculture, education, and music.

Dissertation topics have included social and familial values of professionals in the United States, the Soviet Union, and East Germany; the status of women in Eastern Europe; succession and policy changes among American state governors and first secre- taxies of Soviet Republics; water resource development in the U.S. and the Soviet Union; policy responses in Brazil, Tanzania, the United States, and Yugoslavia with regard to food, energy, and population; East-West interfirm cooperation; and Communist Parties in the European Parliament.

CONCLUSIONS, PROBLEMS, RECOMMENDATIONS

Comparative Communism needs more empirical studies and fewer theoretical and methodological formulations, especially on the grand level This is not to discourage empirical testing of discrete theoretical propositions or hypotheses but to urge that research studies be more explicitly comparative. While specific topics will vary from discipline to discipline, I would like to see research in comparative Communism move in the following directions. Cross-system comparative studies, specifically:

We need comparisons of Communis t and non-Communis t societies (perhaps other than U.S.--U.S.S.R. comparisons) that focus on meaningfully comparable societies; we also need studies of the divided nations, especially mainland China and Taiwan.

We have had too few comparative studies of political parties


in advanced industrial democra t ic societies where the Communist Party is a serious factor;

Studies o f the international Communist movement and its subgroups (perhaps other than the Western European Communist movement).

We need comparative studies of both ruling and nonruling Communist Parties;

Historical studies: We have had hardly any compara t ive studies of prewar

Communist movements; comparative historical studies of a given Communist society,

such as comparisons of performances of the various economic plans; and

"diagonal" studies of two or more Communist societies at different historical periods, but at comparable political, economic, or social stages;

Comparative studies of subnational groups (republics, autonomous regions, nationalities) both within a state and across national boundaries.

Turning now to Studies in Comparative Communism: An International h~terdisciplinary Journal, I see basically three tasks (two of which are embodied in its subtitle): the journal should become more interdisciplinary and more international. It should also become an indispensable bibliographical tool.

First, Studies should become less dependent on contributions in comparat ive politics and should more aggressively solicit and publish contr ibutions in comparat ive economics, sociology, education, and other disciplines. Certain realities of academic life, however, make it difficult to obtain first-rate, methodologically up- to-date manuscripts in, for example, the field of economics where academic promot ions and rewards come from publication in prestigious economics journals and few brownie points accrue for publishing in area study or interdisciplinary journals. One solution might be the appointment of several associate editors for disciplines other than political science (specifically in economics, sociology, history, and literature). The membership of the In ternat ional Editorial Board includes scholars from fields other than political science, although here, too, political scientists predominate. The addition of several scholars (outside of political science) committed to the development of interdisciplinary comparative Communist studies should be seriously considered. Members of the Editorial Board should actively promote comparative studies and encourage their colleagues and students to submit manuscripts to the journal.


Another stratagem would be to solicit actively comparative papers presented at the annual meetings of professional societies other than those of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), the APSA and its regional affiliates or sister organizations in Great Britain and Canada (which have in the past supplied a good number of contributions).

Second, Studies should become less dependent on the contributions of American scholars and strive to become a truly international journal. It should more aggressively solicit and publish contributions by scholars of many other nationalities. A grant from the Volkswagen Founda t ion was given in part to s trengthen the contributions of West European scholars and to achieve greater d is t r ibut ionof the journal in Europe. The appointment of an Associate Editor (Europe) in the person of Vladimir Kusin, then of the University of Glasgow, was also helpful in identifying promising younger scholars and interesting convention papers in Great Britain primarily, and direct lines to the scholarly communities in other West European countries remain to be strengthened and in some cases to be established.

One problem is the lack of funds to translate foreign language manuscripts into English, or to provide the costly editorial intervention often needed for English language contributions from scholars for whom English is not the native tongue. Moreover, the effort to include such contributions in the journal is extremely time- consuming. The editorial correspondence begins before the submission of the manuscript, continues through several drafts, and often involves bibliographical and documentation problems not easily resolved through library research in the United States (also an additional expense).

Special efforts should be made to publish contributions and expand the evaluat ion process by scholars f rom the socialist countries. Here, international meetings, such as the conventions of the International Studies Association and those of international disciplinary associations, such as the IPSA, and, of course, the world congresses of Soviet and East European studies can be especially productive.

Third, the journa l should serve as a clearing house for information on comparative Communism. It should publish reports on research in progress, including new or forthcoming books and monographs; titles, annota t ions or abstracts of in-progress or recently completed dissertations; announcements of research and field travel opportunities; items on the scope and objectives of planned conferences and workshops; and news of significant


collections or impor tant new acquisi t ions of interest to the profession. We regularly invite such information, but the response has been disappointing. Dissertation supervisors especially should encourage their students to report comparative dissertations in progress, for this might lead to the publication of dissertation chapters in our Graduate Student Essay section (which may also alert book publishers to a work underway).

Studies should provide a current bibliographical service along the lines of the annotated section on new books in Foreign Affairs. The annotations should be more detailed, however, in terms of content and comparative implications. We should also review all important books in compara t ive Communism, occasional ly f rom the perspective of several disciplines and should reevaluate seminal works. We should publish more surveys of literature and more teaching notes, so as to share the experience of presenting comparative Communism in the classroom.

I would also like to raise the issue of standards of evaluating research in comparative Communism. First of all, standards vary from discipline to discipline, especially in regard to theory and sources. Some reviewers demand theoretical relevance; others are satisfied if important findings are juxtaposed in a comparative fashion. What should our position be? Again, there is lack of consensus on what constitutes original research in comparative Communism. Some reviewers insist on pr imary sources, while others are not so strict. (Current practice at Studies is to send manuscripts anonymously to three reviewers: usually one to a local (California or West Coast) scholar, the second to the East Coast or Midwest, and the third often abroad (usually Western Europe) or to a visiting scholar from the socialist countries.)

In the relative absence of scholars who are specialists in more than one Communist society or Party, what sort of standards are we to apply to comparative work? Should we accept manuscripts where only one side is based on primary sources and the others on secondary? Should we accept manuscripts on broad topics in comparative Communism, which are based on a wide reading of secondary sources only? Some consensus on these important issues would be most welcome.

In conclusion, I have a few modest proposals, which I believe would enhance meaningful comparative and interdisciplinary work in Communist studies. I think it is incumbent upon organizers of comparative panels at the AAASS, the Conference on Communist Studies of the APSA, and other scholarly meetings to provide a common framework for panels, with suggestions that all papers on


a panel assess at least a few simple propositions. (Perhaps we should avoid talking about theory and hypothesis testing.) The organizers should also include specialists on Communist affairs from several disciplines and a scholar who is a specialist on the topic of the panel, but who is unencumbered by expertise on the Communist experience. Panels should also have two kinds of discussants: paper discussants, who would be specialists on the same society or Party, and panel discussants, who would make the panel cross-system comparative and interdisciplinary.

Panel papers at scholarly conventions should be circulated, and comments should be solicited from the perspectives of other Communist societies or Parties, as well as other disciplines and other systems. Only then would the papers be ready to be submitted to a journal as a special issue or to a book publisher. Even if accepted, such 'collections of papers or conference proceedings should not be rushed into print without a critical outside review (even if the publishers fail to perform this important service). The same applies a fortiori to conferences. I think a good model to follow is a conference on international trade and central planning organized some years ago by my colleague at the University of Southern California, Alan Brown. Each panel had paper and panel discussants, and the entire meeting had two conference discussants: Abram Bergson for area economic expertise, and another prominent economist, Gottfried Haberler, a theoretician on trade. 23

I think that these simple suggestions will greatly improve the quality of the published product and will help make convention panels and conferences, and ultimately published research, in the field of comparative Communism more theoretically oriented, cross- system comparative, and interdisciplinary.

P.B.

23. Alan A. Brown and Egon Neuberger (eds.), International Trade mid Central Planning: An Analysis of Economic Interaction (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968).