Les Systèmes Politiques des États Socialistes. by Patrice GelardReview by: Alfred G. MeyerSlavic Review, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Dec., 1977), p. 692Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2495286 .

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692 Slavic Review

LES SYSTi<MES POLITIQUES DES RTATS SOCIALISTES, 2 vols. By Patrice Gelard. Paris: editions Cujas, 1975. Vol. 1: LE MODRLE SOVI:TIQUE. xii, 372 pp. Vol. 2: TRANSPOSITION ET TRANSFORMATIONS DU MO- DALE SOVI1-TIQUE. xxiii, 335 pp. (pp. 373-708). Paper.

The two-voltume textbook reviewed here offers a comprehensive view of all socialist political systemns adhering to the Marxist-Leniinist faitlh. Thus it treats the USSR. all of Eastern Europe ilncluding Albania alnd Yugoslavia, as well as Chilla, Cuba. North Korea, North Vietnam, and Mongolia, but olmiits the socialist republics of Africa. Because it was published before the end of the Indoclhina war, it also fails to consider the changes wrought there sinice then. Even with these olmissionls, tllis is far too lal-ge a topic to be treated with alny degree of adequacy in 600 or 700 smiall pages. Hence the books are deplorably superficial. Too many complexities are dis- mllissed in a sentence or two or left out altogether; and many of the brief summaries are so capricious that it might have been better to omit them also.

The atutlhor discusses these political systems primarily from the point of view of constitutional law, though he does adduce a bare minimum of hiistorical context and occasionial observations about the contrast between legal or institutionial fictions and the actual ftunctioning. But there is far too little of such realism; thus the reader lear ns primarily about the constitutional and legal framework of socialist political systemiis. This is an arid aand fruitless approach which American political scienltists abandoned decades ago, havilng learned from Weber, Marx, aand others to suspect this fraimiework as an ideological screen, behind which informal relations of a very dif- ferent kind go on. These books, therefore, are not likely to find adimirers aamong Amlericani students of socialist political systems. Whlether they are useful to students restricted to reading Frenclh may be doubted as well.

The general tone of this survey tends to be uncritical. While the author expresses hlis awareness of numierous flaws in socialist systems, on the whole lhe appears ready to accept much of their own self-image at face value. Thus, he can regard the Stalin conistitutioni of 1936 as a democratizationl and Westernizatioin of the USSR, justify tlhe puirges of the Lenin and Stalin periods, ackniowledge the Soviet Unlion as the "guide anid indispensable counselor of all rievolutionary movements," and, in little mlore thIani1 a page, suggest, wvith somlle reservationls, that one-palty systemiis are demo- cratic. Few of his Americanl readers are likely to be convinlced. But he is sufficiently critical of the socialist systems that their reviewers will dislike his books also.

The book does supply useful data abotut the organizational structure of these reg?imies. It provides the names of those wlho fill top positions in parties and govern- mlenits. But tlis informnationl tends to be out of date as soon as it is printed. Indeed., muctich of this work already is outdated. Moreover, there are numerous factual and typographical errors, and many fatilty transliterations. The book, thin- in substaance, has been put together sloppily.

ALFRED G. MEYER

University of Michigan,

IDEOLOGIEBEGRIFF UND MARXISTISCHE THEORIE: ANSATZE ZU EINER IMMANENTEN KRITIK. By Peter Christian Ludz. Opladen: West- deutscher Verlag, 1976. xviii, 337 pp. Paper.

Peter Chlristian Ludz, professor of political sociology at the University of Munich, has writtenl what he calls "starting points to ain immanent critique" of "European Marx- ismll." Somiie years ago, Herbert Marcuse attempted an "immanent critique" of Soviet Marxism (Soviet Marxismi: A Critical Anialysis [New York, 1958] )-that is, he began with the theoretical premises of Soviet Marxism and attempted to develop their

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