American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite: A Case Study of the Ukrainian Apparatus by John A.ArmstrongReview by: Joseph S. RoucekThe Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Autumn, 1959), pp. 304-305Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European LanguagesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/305034 .

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304 The Slavic and East European Journal

fluent and vivid enough. But his version is not so much a translation as an adaptation, and an abridged one at that. Some excisions were fully justified, as many passages would have been meaningless to a reader who was not familiar with Rus- sian history or literature. Other omissions, however, were not at all justified. As a result, the book has lost most of its flavor and intellectual richness. The English version is shal- low and flat; it reminds one too much of the superficially excit- ing, less than accurate historical writing one meets with in popular books.

Some of the inaccuracies and blemishes of translation, editing, and proof reading can be forgiven and disregarded (though it should have been easy to avoid writing Podgio for Poggio or Loebzeltern for Lebzeltern). Other errors, on the other hand, illustrate ignorance of rather elementary things and are quite annoying. For instance, not only is the transla- tor confused by the existence of the two Turgenev brothers, Alexander and Nicholas, but he makes matters worse by imag- ining a non-existing family relationship between them and the novelist Ivan Turgenev. And what are we to make of the asser- tion that Alexander Turgenev was the father of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev?

More serious than these technical defects is the fundamen- tal unevenness in tone of the English version. The first part underlines the unpleasant personal traits, foolishness, and out- right stupidity of the young conspirators. The reader takes a superior and sneering attitude towards them. In the second part, however, their arrest and subsequent trial and suffering are depicted with great feeling and much sympathy. From un- pleasant fools they become martyrs worthy of our admiration. This is not a very convincing picture. This is a picture which M. Zetlin never intended to give. While he did not cover up the inadequacies of his heroes before 1825, he did point up those features of their thought, position, and action that made of their failures and consequent punishment a real human and historical tragedy with which we can-and should--sympathize. In con- trast, the English version does not even give a satisfactory picture of the events and is hardly more successful in clarifying the meaning and import of the Decembrist movement, both in terms of Russia's history and in terms of the personal fate of a generation of Russia's elite.

This is a great pity, indeed. There is such a crying need for reliable but well written books on Russian historyl Mikhail Zetlin's work might have been an answer to this need; the pres- ent English version, alas, is not.

M. Raeff Clark University

John A. Armstrong. The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite: A Case Study of the Ukrainian Applaratus. New York: F. A. Praeger [c. 1959]. 174 pp., $6.00.

During recent years, there has been growing interest in

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Reviews 305

the spread and diffusion of the bureaucratic mode of organiza- tion in modern life (especially under the impact of Max Weber's ideas regarding this field). While, until recently, public ad- ministration has been traditionally the prerogative of political scientists, sociologists have been contributing lately definite studies on administration. Armstrong's "Case Study of the Ukrainian Apparatus" is definitely a valuable addition here. Using numerous individual examples combined with detailed statistical analyses, he describes the background characteris- tics, the career patterns, and the rate of turnover of officials within many categories of the Soviet bureaucracy. His gener- alizations are based on the scattered information from the Ukrainian press and a considerable amount of comparative, ma- terial from general Soviet publications and from the local press in other areas. Evidently he obtained also access to a number of unpublished academic dissertations dealing with the Ukrain- ian and the Soviet apparatus during his two recent visits to the U.S.S.R. The sociologist must especially appreciate Arm- strong's ability to describe the frictions and divergencies among various career groups of the Party, as well as between the Party and other power elements, in addition to the "conflict of generations" between the officials who secured high posts after the Purge and those who comprise the newer group. From the standpoint of contemporary events, we learn here how the Ukrainian role has been a reservoir from which XrugEev has been drawing his lieutenants, his operational methods, and his managerial abilities.

An original and a dynamic work I

Joseph S. Roucek University of Bridgeport

Le Livre de la genbse du peuple Ukrainien. Tr.,Georges Lu- ciani. (Collection historitque de 1'Institut d'Etudes slaves, XVII.) Paris: Institut d'Etudes slaves, 1956. 149 pp.

After La L6gende historique de 1'Ukraine by E. BoriEak, this is the second volume concerning Ukrainica in the excellent Historical Collection of the Tnstitut d'Etudes slaves in Paris, headed by Andrd Mazon. Georges Luciani in his work renders the first complete translation of the famous Knhy bytija ukra- jingkoho narodu by M. Kostomarov, published for the first time in its original Ukrainian version by P. Zajcev in Na.e Mynule, Vol. I, No. 1, 1918. The author of the French translation gives a photostatic reproduction of each page of this edition and, on the right side, the French translation of it. Numerous footnotes on each page refer to the contents of Knyhy as well as to their language.

The value of the book under review lies not only in the translation and explanatory remarks of Luciani. The most im- portant part of the book is a thorough study of the origin,

ideol.- ogy, and literary affiliation of Knyhy. In the first chapter, the author discusses the Ukrainian circle of Xarkiv and its leader M. Kostomarov. The second chapter offers a detailed study of

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