Volume 3, Number 4 · October 8, 1964
The Big Two
By Norman Birnbaum
Political Power: USA-USSR: Similarities and Contrasts, Convergence or Evolution
by Zbigniew Brzezinski, by Samuel P. Huntington
Viking, 461 pp., $7.50
To tell us anything new or illuminating, a comparison of political power in the US and the USSR requires imagination. The authors of this book appear to think that their academic standing precludes using imagination or indeed anything else apart from some very conventional perspectives. In irreproachably leaden prose, they present unexceptionable conclusions. In the USA, society dominates the state; in the USSR, the reverse is true. America's 'pluralism' renders the conduct of government, especially in foreign affairs, difficult and often nearly impossible. The oligarchs of the Soviet Communist Party, by contrast, can and do act with despatch. The book is full of similar commonplaces. The authors rely upon the weight of material rather than upon sustained analysis to make their case, but not all of their evidence is weighty. Oscar Gass has shown in a recent review that their statistics on Soviet economic growth are dubious, their comparison of Soviet and American agriculture faulty, and their account of Kremlin politics at times rather fanciful.
Review, 1729 words
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