ABSTRACT
The basic factors that seem to have accounted for it were: exaggeration of post–Stalin changes in Kremlin politics by some academic Sovietologists; preoccupation with statements of the Soviet leaders as distinct from Telegraphnoye Agentstvo Sovyetskovo Soyuza reportage or Pravda commentary; and too sharp a focus on the subject of policy at the expense of the object. The Soviet rulers’ quest for peace and prosperity, the theory went, is the emergence of “institutional pluralism” in the USSR. The central theme of political philosophy is about a really practical problem: insuring the “leading role” of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in society. The apparatchiki are likely to share with their masters a dislike and maybe even fear of so-called liberal Soviet Communists. The speeches of Jaruzelski and Polish United Worker’s Party resolutions gave one to understand that martial law is the weapon most likely to be used if a decision is made to chastise the contumacy in Poland.
