DEUTSCHER'S "IRONIES OF HISTORY"
By Pierre Frank
IRONIES OF HISTORY, Essays on Contemporary Communism, by Isaac Deutscher. Oxford University Press, London. 1966. 278 pp. $5.75.
The book which was recently published under this title is a collection of studies written by Isaac Deutscher between 19543 and 1965. Those who have already read these articles will find nothing new in the book. Nonetheless a collection of items composed as the events occurred facilitates a study in retrospect that is not without interest. It is well known how bewildering the phenomenon of Stalinism was during its rise, not only for those lacking social criteria by which to judge it but also for those who could find an orientation through the criteria advanced by Trotsky on the bureaucracy and the isolated workers state that suffered bureaucratic degeneration.
Today these criteria stand with Marxism in general -- even those who deny their validity cannot help but utilize them in their thinking when they deal with the Soviet Union.
But the disintegration of Stalinism in both the USSR and the official Communist movement now presents aspects that are not less unexpected and not less unforeseen and often bewildering. To reach a profound understanding of these requires "successive approximations." In such a context, going back over the ground, as Deutscher's book compels us to, is instructive. We can even say that it is precisely the points on which events have compelled a modification of the line of thought which are the most interesting.*
Deutscher's earliest articles in this collection were written at the time of Stalin's death. There were very few then who, like Deutscher, understood that
the bureaucratic regime could not, with or
without Stalin, continue to resort to the
methods of repression and terror without
risk of provoking serious explosions. But
what is striking in these articles is the
great hopes which Deutscher placed in the
rate and the outcome of de-Stalinization.
This is all the more noticeable in
view of the fact that later, particularly
after the ouster of Khrushchev, in deal-
ing with its causes, Deutscher came very
close to the Soviet reality. What "de-
Stalinization" meant for the leaders of
the Soviet Union, and the stages in this
"de-Stalinization," is told in a few pithy
sentences:
"They denounced after the event the
rule of the single leader but see nothing
wrong in the rule of the single faction,
which in its turn was rooted in the rule
of the single party." (Page 10.)
"Looking back upon the post-Stalin
era, one can see that it falls into two
distinct chapters; the first, covering
the period from 1953 till 1959, was
crowded with intense reformist activity
and was alive with de-Stalinization; the
second, extending over the remaining
years of Khrushchev's government, was on
the whole characterized by stagnation and
even retrogression." (Page 124. ).
"As a rule the reorganizations
changed the modes in which control over
the bureaucracy was to be exercised from
above; they hardly ever created any open-
ing for control from below." (Page 128.)
Deutscher. does not have the least
illusion about Khrushchev's successors;
he sees them as men of only mediocre
stature, without a future, because they
are incapable of rising to the present
needs of Soviet society, which he defines
in these terms:
*The collection of writings goes even beyond the subtitle. It includes the notable and courageous speech made by the author at the "teach-in" in Washington in 1965 against the American escalation in Vietnam. Also included is a discussion of the philosophy of history held by E.H. Carr, the author of a fine history of the Soviet Union. In this