ABSTRACT
No serious and protracted crisis in Sino-Japanese affairs can fail to affect the future of political institutions in both contending states. The present crisis has become acute at a time when civilian institutions are in desperate need of curative years of peace and recovery. If this crisis is long drawn out and tension rises to the breaking point, the first victim, it appears, may be the business elements in Japanese society. If the crisis spreads, the Soviet Union may become involved. Unlike the bureaucratic state of pre-war days, the Soviet state speedily relinquished all compromises with private business, and abolished the free market. The system of party supremacy introduced an important new element into the pattern of the bureaucratic state. The current Sino-Japanese crisis broke out when the skill struggle within the Soviet Union had reached a phase which induced a temporary paralysis.
