ABSTRACT
Politics and social life in general are too complex and too unpredictable to lend themselves to rigorous “scientific” analysis. Politics and methodology inevitably are intertwined. The best guard against that kind of politicization of Soviet studies is an approach that combines institutional or behavioral analysis with cultural empathy. The hermetic isolation of the Soviet Union from Western visitors was aggravated by the scarcity and unreliability of printed information. Research on the Soviet Union was conducted in an atmosphere that was indeed highly charged with partisan politics—the politics of the cold war. The well-rounded student of Soviet society necessarily deals with more information than one discipline can properly digest and order; and since nobody can be expected to master the methodologies of all the several disciplines, some of the work of the Soviet specialists is bound to be found dilettantish.
