¹ An early attempt to confront the problem was the series of articles in Problems of Communism during 1966–68, subsequently reprinted, under the editorship of Zbigniew Brzezinski, as Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969).Google Scholar See also Johnson, Chalmers, ed., Change in Communist Systems (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; and Taubman, William, ‘The Change to Change in Communist Systems’, in Morton, Henry W. and Tökes, Rudolf L., eds., Soviet Politics and Society in the 1970s (New York: Free Press, 1974). pp. 369–94.Google Scholar

² Friedgut, Theodore H., ‘Citizens and Soviets: Can Ivan Ivanovich Fight City Hall?’, Comparative Politics, X (1978), p. 464.Google Scholar

³ ‘Ob uluchshenii deyatel'nosti Sovetov deputatov trudyashchikhsya i usilenii ikh svyazei s massami’; text reprinted in KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s”ezdov, konferentsii i Plenumov TsK., 8th edn, Vol. 7 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1971), pp. 237–48.Google Scholar

⁴ Ukrainets, P. P., Partiinoe rukovodstvo i gosudarstvennoe upravlenie (Minsk: Belarus', 1976), p. 56.Google Scholar

⁵ These and other specific points referred to in this article are fully documented in my book, Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform (London: Martin Robertson, 1980)Google Scholar; on electoral reform literature, see my article, ‘Soviet Literature on Electoral Reform: A Review’, Government and Opposition, XI (1976), 481–95.Google Scholar

⁶ See Hill, , Soviet Politics, Chaps. 3 and 4.Google Scholar

⁷ Starovoitov, N. G., Nakazy izbiratelei (Moscow: Yuridicheskaya literature, 1975), p. 110, fn. 1.Google Scholar Electors' ‘mandates’ are specific requests given to candidates in the course of an election campaign by the constituents at a public meeting, which it is their duty to strive to have implemented when elected.

⁸ For example, Kotok, V. F., Nakazy izbiratelei v sotsialisticheskom gosudarstve (imperativnyi mandat) (Moscow: Nauka, 1967), p. 96Google Scholar; Sukhanov, N. Ye., ‘Rabota mestnykh Sovetov s nakazami izbiratelei’, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo 1 pravo (1969), No. 6, p. 79.Google Scholar

⁹ See Hill, , Soviet Politics, pp. 164–6, 188–9.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Hough, Jerry, ‘Reforms in Government and Administration’, in Dallin, Alexander and Larson, Thomas B., eds., Soviet Politics Since Khrushchev (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968), p. 25Google Scholar; Little, D. Richard, ‘Soviet Parliamentary Committees After Khrushchev: Obstacles and Opportunities’, Soviet Studies, XXIV (1972), 41–60, p. 60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Minagawa, Shigo, ‘The Functions of the Supreme Soviet Organs, and Problems in their Institutional Development’, Soviet Studies, XXVII (1975), 46–70, esp. pp. 57–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹ See Vanneman, Peter, The Supreme Soviet (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1977), pp. 214–18 and Chap. 6.Google Scholar

¹² Gak, G. M., ‘Obshchestvennye i lichnye interesy i ikh sochetanie pri sotsializme’, Voprosy filosofii (1955), No. 4, pp. 17–28.Google Scholar

¹³ See, for example, Shabanov, Yu. V., Problemy Sovetskoi sotsialisticheskoi demokratii v period stroitel'stva kommunizma (Minsk: Naukai Tekhnika, 1969), p. 261Google Scholar; Glezerman, G. Ye., ‘Interes kak sotsiologicheskaya kategoriya’, Voprosy filosofii, (1966), No. 10, pp. 25–6.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See in particular the statements to that effect in the work of Georgii Shakhnazarov: for example, his English-language booklet The Role of the Communist Party in Socialist Society (Moscow: Novosti, 1974), pp. 29, 42Google Scholar; this short work is extracted from his lengthier treatment, Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya (nekotorye voprosy teorii) (Moscow: Politizdat, 1972).Google Scholar See also Kim, V. A. and Nechitailo, G. V., Otrazhenie interesov naseleniya v deyatel nosti mestnykh Sovetov deputatov trudyashchikhsya (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1970), p. 3 and passimGoogle Scholar; Il'inskii, I. P. et al. , eds., Sotsialisticheskoe gosudarstvo: suchchnost', funktsii i formy (Moscow: Mysl', 1976), p. 16Google Scholar; Ukrainets, , Partiinoe rukovodstvo, p. 83.Google Scholar

¹⁵ For example, Brezhnev's encouragement of letters from the public to the party organs, made at the twenty-fifth party congress: see XXV s”ezd Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovelskogo Soyuza: Stenograficheskii otchël (Moscow: Politizdat, 1976), Vol. 1, p. 92.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See Schapiro, Leonard, ‘The Party and the State’, Survey, No. 38 (1961), p. 111Google Scholar; Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, p. 76.Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Diorditsa, A. F., Deyalel' nost sel' skikh i poselkovykh Sovetov Moldavii – na uroven' novykh zadach (Kishinev: Kartya Moldovenyaske, 1967), p. 13Google Scholar; Naida, S. F. et al. , Sovety za 50 let (Moscow: Mysl', 1967), p. 9.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Paskar', P. N., Sovety deputatov trudyashchikhsya v sistemepoliticheskoi organizatsii obshchestva (na materialakh Moldavskoi SSR) (Kishinev: Shtiintsa, 1974), p. 79.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Cited, for example, in Naida, et al. , Sovety za 50 let, p. 10.Google Scholar

²⁰ Veselov, N., The Communist Party and Mass Organizations in the USSR (Moscow: Novosti, 1973). pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

²¹ Barabashev, G. V. and Sheremet, K. F., ‘KPSS i Sovety’, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo (1967) No. 11, pp. 31–41.Google Scholar

²² On these points, see, for example, Ukrainets, , Partiinoe rukovodstvo, p. 72Google Scholar; Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, pp. 80–2.Google Scholar

²³ As reported in Pravda, 6 10 1976.Google Scholar

²⁴ As quoted in Ukrainets, , Partiinoe rukovodstvo, p. 72.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ukrainets, , Partiinoe rukovodstvo, pp. 63, 66.Google Scholar

²⁶ Barabashev, and Sheremet, , ‘KPSS i Sovety’, p. 34Google Scholar; Shabanov, , Problemy Sovetskoi sotsialisticheskoi demokratii, p. 24.Google Scholar

²⁷ For example, Ukrainets, , Partiinoe rukovodstvo, p. 73Google Scholar; Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, p. 102.Google Scholar

²⁸ This point is obliquely referred to by Peter Frank in his contribution to Brown, Archie and Kaser, Michael, eds., The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1978), p. 97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Soviet writers who have mentioned it include the contributors to Yudin, I. N. et al. , Nekotorye voproxy organizatsionno-partiinoei raboty (Moscow: Politizdat, 1973), pp. 68–9Google Scholar; and Topornin, B. N., writing in Tikhomirov, Yu. A., ed., Demokratiya razvitogo sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva (Moscow: Nauka, 1975), p. 108.Google Scholar

²⁹ Calls for intra-party democratization have been made by, among others, Topornin, in Tikhomirov, , Demokratiya, p. 100Google Scholar, and Kulinchenko, V. A., in Kadeikin, V. A. et al. , eds., Voprosy vnutripartiinoi zhizni i rukovodyashchei deyatel' nosti KPSS na sovremennom etape (Moscow: Mysl', 1974), p. 160.Google Scholar On the question of the ‘scientific’ study of the party, see in particular a series of articles on the theme of sociology in party work, that appeared in the journal Voprosy isiorii KPSS during 1969–70; also the work of a Bulgarian scholar, published in Russian translation, Byrdarov, G., Sotsiologiya i partiinaya rabota (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977).Google Scholar

³⁰ For further elaboration, see Hill, , Soviet Politics, Chap. 7.Google Scholar

³¹ Topornin, B. N., Sovetskaya polilicheskaya sistema (Moscow: Politizdat, 1975), p. 91Google Scholar; Safarov, R. A., Obshchestvennoe mnenie i gosudarstvennoe upravlenie (Moscow: Yuridicheskaya literatura, 1975). pp. 67–8.Google Scholar

³² Reference to ‘the all-round development of the political system of Soviet society’ is made, for example, in Shapko, V. M. et al. , eds., KPSS – rukovodyashchee yadro politichesk oi sistemy sovetskogo obshchestva (Moscow: Mysl', 1977), p. 4.Google Scholar ‘Further perfecting (dal'neishee sovershenstvovanie) socialist democracy’ (a phrase that sounds odd in English) was a term common in Soviet literature in the 1960s.

³³ Manov, G. N., in Tikhomirov, , Demokratiya, p. 277.Google Scholar

³⁴ Manov, , in Tikhomirov, , Demokratiya, pp. 277–8Google Scholar; also in Tikhomirov, Yu. A., ed., Sovetskoe gosudarslvo v usloviyakh razvilogo sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva (Moscow: Nauka, 1978), p. 58.Google Scholar

³⁵ For an excellent brief survey of this literature, see White, Stephen, ‘Communist Systems and the “Iron Law of Pluralism”’, British Journal of Political Science, VIII (1978), 101–17, pp. 101–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁶ Programma KPSS; Russian text reprinted in KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh…, VIII (1972), pp. 196–305Google Scholar; an English version was published in Schapiro, Leonard, ed., The USSR and the Future (New York: Praeger, 1963).Google Scholar The quoted passage appears on p. 301 of the Russian version and p. 310 of the English version.

³⁷ See Brown, A. H., Soviet Politics and Political Science (London: Macmillan, 1974), p. 93Google Scholar; Brown quotes Mandelshtam, Nadezhda's memoirs (Hope Against Hope: A Memoir, 1970)Google Scholar to the effect that ‘fear of chaos is perhaps the most permanent of our feelings’.

³⁸ For instance, Leonard Schapiro's interpretation follows such a line: see his The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 2nd edn (London: Methuen/University Paperbacks, 1970)Google Scholar; this view is most succinctly expressed in his Epilogue to that book, ‘Reflections on the Changing Role of the Party in the Totalitarian Polity’, pp. 619–29.Google Scholar

³⁹ For example, by Matthews, Mervyn, Privilege in the Soviet Union (London: Allen and Unwin, 1978)Google Scholar; Yanowitch, Murray, Social and Economic Inequality in the Soviet Union (London: Martin Robertson, 1977).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See, in particular, Reddaway, Peter, Uncensored Russia (London: Jonathan Cape, 1972)Google Scholar; and Bloch, Sidney and Reddaway, Peter, Russia's Political Hospitals (London: Gollancz, 1977).Google Scholar

⁴¹ See, for example, Nove, Alec, Stalinism and After (London: Allen and Unwin, 1975), p. 159Google Scholar; Brown, and Kaser, , The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, pp. 245, 249Google Scholar; Hough, Jerry F., ‘The Brezhnev Era: The Man and the System’, Problems of Communism, xxv (1976), No. 2, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

⁴² Brown, Archie, ‘Eastern Europe: 1968, 1978, 1998’, Daedalus, Winter 1979, p. 152.Google Scholar

⁴³ See, for example, Brzezinski, , Dilemmas of Change, pp. 22–3Google Scholar; Medvedev, Roy A., On Socialist Democracy (London: Macmillan, 1975), Chaps. 3 and 4Google Scholar; Tökes, Rudolf L., ed., Dissent in the USSR (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), p. 15.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ On these questions, see Armstrong, John A., ‘Party Bifurcation and Elite Interests’, Soviet Studies, XVII (1966), 417–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, and Kaser, , The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, pp. 257 and 273Google Scholar, n. 18; and Nemtsev, V. A., ‘Raionnyi organ vlasti i ego territoriya’, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo (1969), No. 8, pp. 69–73.Google Scholar It has also been argued that resistance by local officials led to the broad failure and subsequent abandonment of the economic Reforms of the late sixties: see Ryavec, Karl W., Implementation of Soviet Economic Reforms: Political, Organizational and Social Processes (New York: Praeger, 1975).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Tucker, Robert C., ‘Culture, Political Culture, and Communist Society’, Political Science Quarterly, LXXXVIII (1973), pp. 173–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁶ See, for example, Tikhomirov, , Demokratiya, pp. 130–1, 183Google Scholar; Chekharin, Ye. M., Razvitie politicheskoi sistemy Sovetskogo obshchestva na sovremennom etape (lektsiya) (Moscow: Mysl', 1977), p. 22Google Scholar; Brezhnev, Leonid, in XXV s”ezd, Vol. 1, pp. 95–6.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ See Pye, Lucian W., Aspects of Political Development (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1966), Chap. 5.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, p. 132.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁰ See, for example, Shabanov, , Problemy Sovetskoi sotsialisticheskoi demokratii, p. 164Google Scholar; Bokarev, N. N., ‘Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya problem partiinogo stroitel'stva’, Voprosy istorii KPSS (1974), No. 1, p. 104Google Scholar; in this connection, note also Manov's references to passivity, consumerism and selfishness, mentioned above in fn. 34.

⁵¹ Not that one should be too sanguine about the availability of information in Soviet society: the censorship system (Glavlit) retains its power to scrutinize every word that is published. So, even though the range of factual information and opinion that does appear in print is far wider than in Stalin's day, Shakhnazarov has argued for far greater freedom of information, so that a competent, informed public opinion may develop: see Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, pp. 136–8.Google Scholar

⁵² Torpornin, , in Tikhomirov, , Demokratiya, p. 86.Google Scholar

⁵³ Ukrainets, , Partiinoe rukovodstvo, p. 51.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Shabanov, , Problemy Sovetskoi sotsialisticheskoi demokratii, p. 22, quoting Lenin.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Pigolkin, A. S. and Rozhko, I. N., Sovetskoe zakonodatel' stvo i ego rol' v kommunisticheskom stroitel'stve (Moscow: Znanie, 1976), p. 62Google Scholar; Tikhomirov, , Sovetskoe gosudarstvo, p. 126.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, p. 86Google Scholar; The Role of the Communist Party, p. 57.Google Scholar See also Utenkov, A. Ya. et al. eds., Vnutripartiinaya demokratiya i povyshenie aktivnosti kommunistov (Moscow: Mysl', 1977), p. 23.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Programma KPSS, pp. 272–7.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Measures aimed at implementing this policy include the statutes on village and settlement Soviets (1968), town and district Soviets (1971), the status of Soviet deputies (1972), and Supreme Soviet elections (1978); and also the USSR Constitution (1977). These legislative measures have been accompanied by the publication of vast amounts of literature, aimed at encouraging selection panels to be more demanding of candidates, and the deputies, once elected, to take seriously their ‘profession’ as ‘empowered representatives of the people’. On the administrative side, measures were announced in March 1971 to strengthen the material and financial basis of local state administrations, and a new statute on the USSR council of ministers was adopted in 1978.

⁵⁹ Programma KPSS, pp. 301–4.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ 1977 Constitution of the USSR, Article 6 – in many ways the key article in the Constitution.

⁶¹ Or a belief, at any rate, that it is both desirable and attainable. I do not necessarily hold that view.

⁶² Tucker, , ‘Culture’, p. 187.Google Scholar

⁶³ The prologue to the party rules defines the party as consisting of ‘the more advanced, politically more conscious section’ of the population: see Rules of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), p. 5.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ On these points, Stephen White makes some perceptive comments, in his article, ‘Contradiction and Change in State Socialism’, Soviet Studies, xxvi (1974), 41–55, p. 49.Google Scholar The point would, of course, be expressed differently in the Soviet Union, in terms of the vanguard's accepting its duty to lead.

⁶⁵ Chkhikvadze, V. M., ‘Pravovaya nauka sotsializma’, Pravda, 10 01 1968Google Scholar, quoted in Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, p. 132.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, p. 132.Google Scholar Shakhnazarov is currently president of the Soviet Political Sciences Association and deputy head of a CPSU Central Committee department.