University of Glasgow

Soviet Administrative Legality: The Role of the Attorney General's Office by Glenn G.MorganReview by: Roy D. LairdSoviet Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Jan., 1964), pp. 367-368Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/149383 .

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at the time in Burnley and Sheffield and in a letter written on the eve of the war to an unnamed comrade in Switzerland. The conclusion that the 'British proletariat' was 'a giant in chains'-chains which would one day be violently broken-provided the fitting moral. One would have liked more retrospective comment than Mr. Maisky is prepared to give us on the half century which has elapsed since these impressions were recorded.

E. H. CARR

Cambridge

Glenn G. Morgan, Soviet Administrative Legality: The Role of the Attorney General's Office. Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1962. London, Oxford U.P., 1962. X+28I pp. $6.00. 48s.

A generation that learned to identify modern absolutism by the methods of rule employed by Hitler and Stalin is tempted to conclude that terror is an integral part of totalitarian rule. Consequently, many Western intellectuals are prepared to believe that Khrushchev's greatest contribution to history will be the elimination of totalitarianism from the Soviet total administrative state. Western students of the Soviet society are divided in their appraisal of the direction in which the Soviet system is going. Unfortunately, both for Soviet studies and for the general understanding of the public, the great debate that must come as a result of this difference in opinion among the Sovietologists is not yet fully in the open. Professor Morgan has not openly joined the debate in his book. Nevertheless, the evidence offered in Soviet Administrative Legality is of crucial importance for an understanding of the changes being made in the Soviet system.

Older forms of authoritarian rule are characterized by inconstancy and caprice in the administrative and judicial realms. In contemporary Russia, since the promulgation of the Statute on Procuracy Supervision (24 May 1955), significant advances have been made in the stated resolve to achieve 'strict execution of the laws by all ministers and government departments'. However, elevation of the 'status of "socialist legality" ' should not be confused with the advancement of the 'rule of law' (p. 129).

As in the case of other institutions of Soviet authoritarian rule, the Soviet Procuracy also had its roots in Tsarism. The Procuracy of the I8th century served as the 'eyes of the Tsar'. Paradoxically the resur- rection of this tool of Tsarist autocracy in 1922 was 'apparently' for

at the time in Burnley and Sheffield and in a letter written on the eve of the war to an unnamed comrade in Switzerland. The conclusion that the 'British proletariat' was 'a giant in chains'-chains which would one day be violently broken-provided the fitting moral. One would have liked more retrospective comment than Mr. Maisky is prepared to give us on the half century which has elapsed since these impressions were recorded.

E. H. CARR

Cambridge

Glenn G. Morgan, Soviet Administrative Legality: The Role of the Attorney General's Office. Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1962. London, Oxford U.P., 1962. X+28I pp. $6.00. 48s.

A generation that learned to identify modern absolutism by the methods of rule employed by Hitler and Stalin is tempted to conclude that terror is an integral part of totalitarian rule. Consequently, many Western intellectuals are prepared to believe that Khrushchev's greatest contribution to history will be the elimination of totalitarianism from the Soviet total administrative state. Western students of the Soviet society are divided in their appraisal of the direction in which the Soviet system is going. Unfortunately, both for Soviet studies and for the general understanding of the public, the great debate that must come as a result of this difference in opinion among the Sovietologists is not yet fully in the open. Professor Morgan has not openly joined the debate in his book. Nevertheless, the evidence offered in Soviet Administrative Legality is of crucial importance for an understanding of the changes being made in the Soviet system.

Older forms of authoritarian rule are characterized by inconstancy and caprice in the administrative and judicial realms. In contemporary Russia, since the promulgation of the Statute on Procuracy Supervision (24 May 1955), significant advances have been made in the stated resolve to achieve 'strict execution of the laws by all ministers and government departments'. However, elevation of the 'status of "socialist legality" ' should not be confused with the advancement of the 'rule of law' (p. 129).

As in the case of other institutions of Soviet authoritarian rule, the Soviet Procuracy also had its roots in Tsarism. The Procuracy of the I8th century served as the 'eyes of the Tsar'. Paradoxically the resur- rection of this tool of Tsarist autocracy in 1922 was 'apparently' for

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the purpose of protecting the newly extended private rights (in order to ensure that the NEP would work) and yet for providing an eye that would help to protect the regime from over-zealous private entre-

preneurs (p. 28). Although the 'fiction' of the Procuracy acting as the agency of general supervision over the legality of administrative offices was maintained from the beginning, other tasks (aiding in the drive for forced collectivization, helping the pursuance of the war effort, etc.) occupied most of the time and energy of the hierarchy of govern- ment attorneys until I955. Today the Procuracy is an important member of the group of agencies assigned the task of ensuring that local administration conforms to the central will. Even the central Ministries have in recent years come under the critical eye of the Attorney General of the USSR. Of course, the law-making and policy-making bodies of the Soviet Union remain exempt from any such review, since it is the execution of their will that is being guarded.

Many, including leading Soviet legal writers, have asserted that the path to heightened levels of Soviet legality should be found by further extending the activities of the Court into the area now nearly complete- ly monopolized by the Procuracy. Unfortunately, as Professor Morgan reminds us, the Courts too are under 'the domination of the Com- munist Party' (p. 25I). With or without a transfer to the Courts of the task of'general supervision' over the administration, the major changes made in the supervisory role of the Procuracy have been for the good. Unfortunately, however, for the hope that these changes might add up to a fundamental move towards more responsible government, the evidence offered by Professor Morgan is disappointing. Although the new leadership has been far less cruel than its predecessors, and the administration far more responsive, in the opinion of the present re- viewer there is mounting evidence to indicate that the advances in 'socialist legality' have constituted an ever more effective concentration of power in the hands of the few at the top. The material presented in Professor Morgan's work leaves little doubt that the revitalized Procuracy (since 1955) must be counted among a mounting list of more subtle instruments of rule that may well allow the new leadership to achieve a level of conformity to the Party's will that was unattainable under Stalin's crude system of terror.

Although difficulty in keeping one's mind on the book reflects the meticulous attention to minute detail characteristic of the American Ph.D. dissertation, too often at the expense of more imaginative analysis, this book is an important contribution to an understanding of the Soviet political and legal system.

ROY D. LAIRD

University of Kansas

368 REVIEWS

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