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period is somewhat wanting. There are some objective reasons for
this. Admittedly, the Brezhnev period is too recent to permit the
necessary historical distance, and the theory of Soviet-type societies
is one of the least developed fields in the social sciences . The main
problem, however, is the authors' constant reliance on the totalitar–
ian paradigm, which works so well in explaining Stalinism but pro–
ves ill-suited to the latest stage of Soviet history . Heller's and
Nekrich's concentration on the party's domination of society leads to
the false impression that in Soviet society proclaiming a specific
policy and achieving the desired results are the same . Sometimes
Heller and Nekrich rely so heavily on official Soviet declarations that
they unwittingly fall victim to Soviet propaganda. Thus , at the end
of the 1970s, one of the grayest
apparatchiks
and ideological chiefs ,
Ponomarev, proclaimed that the capitalist world had become a
besieged fortress , crumbling under the united pressure of socialist
and "progressive" third world countries . Heller and Nekrich accept
his words at face value and base some questionable far-reaching con–
clusions on such declarations . But the boasts and the wishful think–
ing of Soviet leaders documented so well in
Utopia in Power
are only
part of the story.
Heller and Nekrich devote much space to explaining Soviet in–
ternal stability. They especially stress the role of ideology and that of
East-West trade , but here their treatment is so controversial that it
weakens the overall soundness of their argument. "The foundation
of the totalitarian system is ideology ," Heller and Nekrich assert;
being "a technique for conditioning human consciousness and spirit
and for transforming man into Soviet man," ideology is vital for
maintaining internal stability. But as careful observers of Soviet
society, the authors cannot fail to notice the obvious erosion of
Soviet ideology, which by now has lost so much credibility that belief
in it is no longer required of even Soviet citizens. And yet internal
stability does not suffer, according to Heller and Nekrich, because
the ideological apparatus has succeeded in creating rituals which
"arouse in their participants the emotions and reflexes essential to
the party at any given moment." When the authors assert that "par–
ticipation in the ritual alone is adequate for the ideology to penetrate
the brain and the blood ," it sounds more like a self-congratulatory
pronouncement by the Soviet internal propaganda organs than a
realistic observation of Soviet everyday life .
In dealing with East-West relations , especially commercial
