PAUL HOLLANDER
· . . one of the basic experiences familiar to any citizen of an
Eastern European society-the experience of impotent rage
when confronted with the sheer irrationality of this acclaimed
logic of planning, expressed in the production of waste ... and
in a staggering overdevelopment of the unproductive apparatus
of organization and control. Both are organic features of an eco–
nomic structure where the only connection between consump–
tion and production is realized through the administrative deci–
sions of a centralized and hierarchical bureaucracy.
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In short, these regimes are characterized by the "simultaneous pro–
duction of waste and scarcity"; they "systematically produce and
reproduce artificial shortages."
Full employment, the major accomplishment of these societies,
is also subjected to critical scrutiny:
According to the formulation of the constitution, "right to work"
means guaranteed employment. It entails however something
else too, namely compulsory employment....
· . . the right to work coexists in these societies with the legal
obligation to work enforced through punitive measures . . . it
does not mean the obligation to earn a living through one's own
labor ... but the obligation to earn it in administratively recog–
nized jobs and places of work, and in this way it is an important
element of the general social-political control over the popula–
tion.
Unlike many American commentators on Soviet domestic
problems, our three authors do not believe that the economic
weaknesses observed exert pressure on the Soviet Union to scale
down its global involvements and aspirations:
It
is no exaggeration to say that the Soviet empire's leap forward
has been taken to escape from internally unresolvable prob–
lems.... The real motivating force of Soviet imperialism is the
utopia of Soviet leaders, that by eliminating world capitalism
they could eliminate "dissenting wishes" from the minds of their
subjects....
· .. in the last fifteen years . . . the Soviet Union has launched a
type of foreign politics practically unknown in its preceding
history, that of political imperialism.... The goal is to increase
