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An Organizational Approach to the Study of Political Culture in Marxist-Leninist Systems*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Kenneth Jowitt
Kenneth Jowitt
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Abstract

This paper is addressed to three tasks and the analysis operates at three levels. First, there is an attempt to specify an analytic approach to Marxist-Leninist sociopolitical systems that integrates regime and sociocultural units. This approach rests on a structural conception of political culture, a conception that stresses the informal adaptive quality of political culture, and that includes behavioral as well as attitudinal patterns. The second task consists of analyzing the paradoxical character of development in Soviet-type systems; development that simultaneously reinforces and undermines traditional-peasant political cultures at the community, regime, and elite levels. Finally, this pattern of development is examined in the context of a single Soviet-type regime and society, the Romanian.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , September 1974 , pp. 1171 - 1191
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1974

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References

1 I have in mind Barghoorn's, FrederickPolitics in the USSR (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1966)Google Scholar; Brzezinski, Zbigniew and Huntington's, Samuel chapter on “The Political System and the Individual,” in Political Power: USA/USSR (New York: Viking Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Fagen's, Richard, The Transformation of Political Culture in Cuba (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Solomon's, Richard, Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Pye's, Lucian, The Spirit of Chinese Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1968)Google Scholar; and Tucker's, Robert “Culture, Political Culture, Communism” published in the Newsletter on Comparative Studies of Communism, 4 (May, 1971), 3–12Google Scholar.

2 Schwartz, Benjamin I., “Continuity and Discontinuity in Contemporary China: Some Methodological Questions,” Bucknell Review, 19 (Spring, 1971), 115–124, at p. 121Google Scholar.

3 An exception to this was the study by Bauer, , Inkeles, , and Kluckhohn, , How the Soviet System Works (New York: Vintage Books, 1956)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In certain respects the argument to be presented in this article consciously builds on the work initiated in that volume.

4 It is not surprising that the first formulations of the political culture approach preserved the existing and rather crude paradigmatic distinctions made between totalitarian and liberal-democratic regimes. Just as the “system theorists” responded to the changes after Stalin with the fallback concept of “rational totalitarianism,” so students of political culture came up with the distinction of pragmatic and ideological cultures. (See Brzezinski and Huntington's, contrast of Soviet ideology and American political beliefs; and Verba, S., “Conclusion: Comparative Political Culture,” in Political Culture and Political Development, ed., Pye, Lucian W. and Verba, Sydney (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 544–550Google Scholar. There are a number of problems connected with this type of distinction: (a) it is ethnocentric and obstructs through definition a concern with the complexities of all cultures; (b) it is unnecessarily static (it might for example prove more useful to consider both the United States in 1776 and the Soviet Union in 1917 as ideological and both in 1972 as pragmatic); (c) it fails to sensitize the analyst adequately to comparison of different ideological cultures, i.e., the U.S. in 1776 and in 1948, the Soviet Union in 1917, 1928, and 1957.

5 On this point see Jowitt, Kenneth, “Political Integration and Political Identity in Eastern Europe,” in East Central Europe in the Seventies, ed. Sinanian, Sylvia, Deak, Istvan, and Ludz, Peter C. (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972), pp. 180–184Google Scholar.

6 In recent years the Romanian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Hungarian, and Albanian regimes have all directed their attention, in the form of Central Committee discussions and resolutions, to the realms of education, ideology, and culture. The Chinese case is clear to all in the form of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution; for the Romanians see Scinteia July 7, 13, November 4, 1971; for Bulgaria see the article by Marin V. Pundeff, “Bulgaria Under Zhivkov,” and for Albania the article by Pano, Nicholas C., “Albania in the Sixties,” both in The Changing Face of Communism in Eastern Europe, ed. Toma, Peter A. (Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 1970), pp. 89–121 and pp. 243–281Google Scholar. For Hungary see the comments of Racz, Barnabas in “Political Changes in Hungary After the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia,” Slavic Review, 29 (December 1970), 638–639CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kovrig, Bennett, The Hungarian People's Republic (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1970), pp. 131–183Google Scholar.

7 See Richard Solomon, Mao's Revolution, also Solomon, , “Mao's Effort to Reintegrate the Chinese Polity: Problems of Authority and Conflict in Chinese Social Processes,” in Chinese Communist Politics in Action, ed. Barnett, A. Doak, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969), pp. 271–365Google Scholar; and Crozier, Michel, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), chapters 8 and 9Google Scholar.

8 Crozier, , Bureaucratic Phenomenon, p. 164Google Scholar.

9 With regard to (a) see the very important article by Pateman, Carole, “Political Culture, Political Structure and Political Change,” in the British Journal of Political Science, 1 (July, 1971), 291–305CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Barnard, Chester, The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 120Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., p. 115.

12 To date most studies of political culture have been made at the community level. Recently Robert Dahl has commented that “although students of political culture call attention to differences between elite and mass political cultures … up to now they have paid a good deal less attention to the beliefs of political elites.” See Polyarchy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), p. 167Google Scholar. For a perceptive analysis of elite culture, see Putnam's, Robert “Studying Elite Political Culture: The Case of Ideology,” in the American Political Science Review, 65 (September, 1971), 651–682CrossRefGoogle Scholar. To date, however, no one has argued for or analyzed a third arena, that of the regime in contrast to the elite and community levels. Among system oriented studies there is of course Easton's differentiation of the regime from the elite and community arenas. See Easton, David, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1965), pp. 154–247Google Scholar.

13 An argument and analysis of changes in Marxist-Leninist systems based on different tasks is currently being written by the author with the title “Stages of Development in Marxist-Leninist Systems: A Comparative Analysis.”

14 See Jowitt, Kenneth, Revolutionary Break-throughs and National Development: The Case of Romania, 1944–65 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), pp. 8–9, 107–108Google Scholar.

15 Leadership competences refer to an elite's ideological acceptance of the political membership credentials of the mass of society. Nonparty members are considered bona fide participants rather than unreconstructed inhabitants of the national community. Tenets such as “state of the whole people” and “party of the whole people” are illustrative of this shift (which of course can be reversed or modified). Structurally, the shift from command to leadership competences involves the shift from coercive to manipulative skills from a pattern of regime exclusivity to one of greater complementarity vis-à-vis society. Such a shift is illustrated by the decreased role of the secret police and the at least formal attempts to upgrade party activists in comparison to full time party functionaries (apparatchiks). Behaviorally, the shift in competence is reflected in new styles of leadership, greater emphasis on leadership visibility (i.e., Khrushchev vs. Stalin, Gierek vs. Gomulka, Dubcek vs. Novotny), direct contact with diverse social constituencies, and attempts to elicit social response to and confirmation of policy initiatives before the latter are given official status by the party.

16 Selective recognition refers to the regime's willingness to expand power by allowing greater functional autonomy in various organizational settings; managed acceptance refers to the regime's organizational pre-emption of social strata with recognition aspirations or demands. An instance of managed acceptance in Romania is the recently formed Front for Socialist Unity, an instance of selective recognition is the emphasis on collegial decision making in factories.

17 Harry Eckstein, “Memorandum to Participants in Conference on Political Culture and Communist Studies.”

18 For a vivid description of this exchange relationship see Fainsod, Merle, Smolensk Under Soviet Rule (New York: Vintage Books, 1963), pp. 85 and 151Google Scholar. While there are variations in the format over time and between countries the essentials of this relationship persist in many Soviet-type systems.

19 See Jowitt, Kenneth, “Time and Development Under Communism: The Case of the Soviet Union,” in Temporal Dimensions of Development Administration, ed. Waldo, Dwight (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1970), pp. 233–264Google Scholar.

20 Simon, Herbert, Administrative Behavior (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1961), p. 148Google Scholar.

21 See Stalin, J. V., The Foundations of Leninism (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), pp. 42–43Google Scholar. “The bourgeoisie has its grounds for making attempts at restoration, because for a long time after its overthrow it remains stronger than the proletariat which has overthrown it.” See also the passages from Lenin that Stalin quotes.

22 Scinteia, July 23, 1971. The title of this article was, “Let us wipe out Bakshish: A practice incompatible with the ethical climate of our society.”

23 While the dictatorship of the proletariat is still an operative concept in Romania, the current regime's structure and policy in many respects depart from our working definition of this principle. When I use the term dictatorship of the proletariat I am referring primarily to the time period 1948–1964.

24 Scinteia, July 23, 1971.

25 The nomenclatura is a party listing of politically critical posts and the personnel eligible for them.

26 Scinteia, November 5, 1971. See in this connection the article by Staats, Steven J., “Corruption in the Soviet System,” Problems of Communism, 21 (Jan.-Feb. 1972), 40–48Google Scholar.

27 Scinteia, November 13, 1971.

28 Scinteia, November 30, 1971.

29 Scinteia, November 10, 1971.

30 Scinteia, November 17, 1971.

31 In this connection see the arguments presented by Price, Robert in “The Social Basis of Administrative Behavior in a Transitional Polity: The Case of Ghana” (doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1971), particularly chapters 1 and 5Google Scholar.

32 Stalin, , Foundations of Leninism, pp. 45–46Google Scholar.

33 One can of course argue that a Marxist-Leninist regime cannot simultaneously maintain its political identity and incorporate legal-rational norms and institutions. In fact this assertion is one of the “proverbs” in the field of Communist studies. It may be a correct one but has not been demonstrated convincingly. Arguments about the incompatibility of Marxism-Leninism and Modernity often fail to recognize that all modern political communities are to varying degrees characterized by a conflict between several of the imperatives associated with modernity and the imperatives associated with the particular ideology of a given regime. Viewed in this light, Liberal as well as Leninist communities are characterized by persistent conflict between ideological commitments and commitment to a legal-rational ethos. One can identify one ideology (i.e., liberalism) with a particular ethos (modernity) and then conclude by definition that because Leninists aren't liberal they cannot be modern, or can only be modern if they become liberal; but it would be more productive analytically (a) to establish the range and type of conflicts that are typical of modern or modernizing societies with different ideologies, (b) to scrutinize more critically the varying dimensions of modernity and then attempt to establish what aspects of modernity different regimes are likely to stress and what institutional definitions of modernity they are likely to posit.

34 Foster, George M., “Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good,” American Anthropologist, 65 (April, 1965), 293–315, see 296–297CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 One index of the modification of a Marxist-Leninist regime's character is its approach to internal party criticism. It is significant that since assuming power Ceausescu has repeatedly stated that criticism is not tantamount to disloyalty; however, the resistance to implementing this nondogmatic (though authoritarian) and nonlimited good notion of criticism is still widespread. See Ceausescu, Nicolae, “Adunarea activului de partid al municipiului Bucuresti,” in Romania Pe Drumul Desavirsirii Constructiei Socialiste, vol. 3 (Bucuresti: Editura Politica, 1969), pp. 199–200Google Scholar.

36 See the recent article by Bauman, Zygmunt, “Social Dissent in the East European Political System,” in the European Journal of Sociology, 11 (1971), 25–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a much needed and very useful discussion of the importance of the “peasant factor” in the development of Marxist-Leninist regimes.

37 Turczynski, Emanuel, “The Background of Romanian Fascism,” in Native Fascism in the Successor States, 1918–1945, ed. Sugar, Peter F. (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC Clio Inc.), p. 109 and passimGoogle Scholar.

38 Collins, Barry E. and Raven, Bertram H., “Group Structure: Attraction, Coalitions, Communication, and Power,” in The Handbook of Social Psychology, vol. 4, ed., Lindzey, Gardner and Aronson, Elliot (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1969), p. 181Google Scholar.

39 Scalapino, Robert, and Lee, Chong-Sik, Communism in Korea, vol. 2 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p. 847Google Scholar.

40 In this connection see Bernstein, Thomas, “Leadership and Mass Mobilization in the Soviet and Chinese Collectivisation Campaigns of 1929–1930 and 1955–1956: A Comparison,” The China Quarterly, 31 (July–September 1967), 1–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 See the article by Ivasiuc, Alexandra in Scinteia, December 30, 1971Google Scholar, “Republica Muncii” (The Republic of Work); see also “Distractii inofensive care afecteaza grav destinele unor tineri,” Scinteia, September 18, 1971Google Scholar; “Parazitul cu blazon,” Scinteia, September 13, 1971Google Scholar; and “Acolo unde educatia si echitatea erau doar teme de sedinta …,” Scinteia, December 14, 1971Google Scholar.

42 See Citrin, Jack, “Political Disaffection in America, 1958–1968,” (doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1972), pp. 66 and 73Google Scholar.

43 Dumitriu, Petru, Incognito (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964), p. 53Google Scholar. Stress in the original.

44 Scinteia, September 15, 1971.

45 Price, “The Social Basis of Administrative Behavior,” pp. 72–86.

46 Scalapino, , Communism in Korea, vol. 2, p. 777Google Scholar.

47 Apter, David E., The Politics of Modernization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 31Google Scholar.

48 Berliner, Joseph S., Factory and Manager in the USSR (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957), pp. 318–329 and passimCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 For a recent analysis which points out differences between the Romanian economic structure and the Soviet economic structure see Granick, David, “The Orthodox Model of the Soviet-Type Firm Versus Romanian Experience,” (International Development Research Center Working Paper, Indiana University, 1972)Google Scholar.

50 Berliner, p. 230.

51 According to Berliner, blat “implies the use of personal influence for obtaining certain favors to which a firm or individual is not legally or formally entitled,” p. 182.

52 A number of phrases in contemporary Romanian parlance refer to different forms of complicity. Recently in Scinteia an article dealing with certain illegal practices in a factory found “un spirit de ‘amabila,” ingaduinto reciproca, de ‘binevoitoare’ toleranta, de ‘delicata’ inchidere a ochilor” (November 30, 1971). All of these phrases refer to semilegal or illegal covert cooperation.

53 Radulescu-Motru, C., Cultura Romana si Politicianismul (Bucuresti: Cultura Nationala, 1904), p. 56Google Scholar.

54 Scinteia, February 20, 1972, p. 2.

55 Berliner, , Factory and Manager in the USSR, p. 114Google Scholar.

56 Price, “The Social Basis of Administrative Behavior,” pp. 72–86.

57 Scinteia, November 22, 1971.

58 In this “area” one can find many instances of what Fred Riggs has termed “prismatic behavior.” See Administration in Developing Countries (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1964)Google Scholar.

59 Nye, J. S., “Corruption and Political Development: A Cost-Benefit Analysis,” American Political Science Review, 61 (June, 1967), 417–427, see p. 419CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 See for example Mazilu, D., “Socialismul—orinduirea cinstei si dreptatii,” Scinteia, September 3, 1971Google Scholar.

61 Radulescu-Motru, , Cultura Romana si Politicianismul, p. 97Google Scholar.

62 Harnack, Adolf, “On Eastern and Western Christianity,” in Parsons, Talcott et al. , Theories of Society, vol. 2 (New York: The Free Press, 1961), pp. 1114–1115 and passimGoogle Scholar.

63 In novels such as Zaharia Stancu's Barefoot (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1971)Google Scholar, one can find very insightful portrayals of the clergy's place in the community, and the community's perception of the clergy.

64 To suggest that Dej was influenced by the Orthodox milieu of his society does not imply that he was religious or accepted the substantive tenets of Orthodoxy; only that certain formal attributes of Orthodoxy were important in shaping the way in which he approached and interpreted his own beliefs.

65 The Chinese model of transformation and consolidation differs from the Stalinist precisely in giving lesser weight to the production mentality. Some scholars in effect combine the Leninist-Stalinist models and view Chinese development as a deviant case. I would view both Stalin and Mao as Leninists who have emphasized and partially revised the major elements of the Leninist political-ideological paradigm. As these revisions have drawn on different elements of the paradigm the resulting models do differ in significant respects. One can still argue, however (though for various reasons an argument of that order is not feasible at this point) that both models are in the political tradition of Lenin (just as Bendix and Parsons with all their real differences may be said to be in the intellectual tradition of Weber).

66 Scinteia, September 29, 1971.

67 I am currently working on a theoretical essay that approaches and interprets the nation-building process from the perspective of the emergence of a public domain that is distinct in character from the state (or official), social and private domains.

68 Radulescu-Motru, C., Romanismul (Bucuresti: Cultura Nationala, 1936)Google Scholar. For students of contemporary Africa and Latin America with their interest in neocolonialism, linkage-politics, and fragmented societies, and for students of nation building in general, Motru's work and the debate that took place in Romania in the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth century are of real comparative value.

69 Scinteia, December 14, 1971.

70 Scinteia, December 4, 1971.

71 It is contradictory because on a number of occasions Ceausescu has explicitly argued that defects can no longer be blamed on the “bourgeois past,” i.e., Ceausescu, Nicolae, Romania Pe Drumul Construirii Societatii Socialiste Multilateral Dezvoltate, vol. 4 (Bucuresti: Editura Politica, 1970), p. 665Google Scholar.

72 Ceausescu, Nicolae, “Expunerea cu privire la Programul P.C.R. …,” Romania Literara, November 4, 1971, p. 6Google Scholar.

73 Pana, Gheorghe, “Conducerea politica de catre P.C.R. a intregii activitati de faurire a societatii socialiste multilateral dezvoltate,” Lupta de Clasa, 12 (December 1971), pp. 3–15Google Scholar.

74 Of course there are some Stalinists in the party who do see the “cultural revolution” in Stalinist terms. More seriously, given the lack of an alternative political tradition in the party, any move away from the recent emphasis on modernization may necessarily and somewhat unintentionally assume a neo-Stalinist cast.

75 For the analytic statement that this argument is based on see the excellent piece by Eckstein, Harry in his Division and Cohesion in Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 225–289Google Scholar.

76 In fact for many sectors of Romanian society, and one may argue for many other societies ruled by Marxist-Leninist parties, the question of legitimacy defined as politically conscious consent was not a major question at all. Defined in this way legitimacy presupposes the existence of a participatory constituency and tradition. The situation was quite different in peasant, patriarchal, and authoritarian Romania. A situation of this order does not remove the issue of regime-society relations; but it should sensitize the analyst to the task of specifying the dimensions of such in light of a specific historic reality.

77 At another point in his recent work, Polyarchy, Dahl notes correctly that political culture studies have focused on “stable and persistent outlooks …” and that “investigation of political cultures may easily neglect sources of change …” pp. 166–167. In this article we are explicitly concerned with conscious and partially successful efforts at creating a new political culture with the resulting conflict between cultures and the attempts to resolve this conflict.

78 An illustration of this “oblique culture” is found in an article in Scinteia (November 14, 1971). While being interviewed the director of a plant “was interrupted by an associate who tried to whisper something in his ear.” “Speak clearly” the director said. But the associate attempted to find a favorable angle to whisper in the director's ear. The director responded, “What you say is of no interest, the law must be applied.” The correspondent asked what all of that was about. The director responded, “Pile, illegitimate pressure, to hire someone without regard to their merit.” In a very real way the conflict of cultures in Romania today is between the “oblique” presentation of demands and the overt or clear presentation of demands, between those who view the public realm fearfully and try to find “the right angle” to approach it from and those who spune tare (speak clearly) who want the public domain to develop a new type of integrity. In connection with the covert presentation of demands see the by now classic statement on crypto-politics in Soviet-type regimes by Rigby, T. H., “Crypto-Politics,” in Survey 50 (January, 1964), 183–194Google Scholar.

79 The Romanian party is quite attuned to the issue of social homogeneity-heterogeneity. See for example the discussion in Lupta de Clasa, 7 (July 1969), 55–79Google Scholar.

80 In connection with the social composition of the Soviet and East European parties see the very valuable contributions by Parkin, Frank, “Class Stratification in Socialist Societies,” British Journal of Sociology, 20 (December 1969), 355–374CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Parkin, Frank, “Yugoslavia,” in Contemporary Europe: Class, Status and Power, ed., Archer, Margaret Scotford and Giner, Salvador (New York: St. Martin Press, 1972), pp. 297–318Google Scholar; Matthews, Mervyn, Class and Society in Soviet Russia (New York: Walker & Co., 1972), pp. 213–255Google Scholar; Kolankiewicz, George, “The Working Class,” in Social Groups in Polish Society, ed. Lane, David and Kolankiewicz, George (London: The Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1973), pp. 88–152CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ludz, Peter, The Changing Party Elite in East Germany (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1973), pp. 187–325Google Scholar.

81 See respectively, Gheorghiu-Dej, Gheorghe, Articles and Speeches: June 1960–December 1962 (Bucharest: Meridiane Publishing House, 1963), p. 66Google Scholar and Pana, Gheorghe, “Noua structura sociala a Romaniei si cresterea rolului conducator al partidului comunist,” Lupta de Clasa, 2 (February, 1971), 9Google Scholar; ibid., p. 8; Anuarul Statistic al Republicii Socialiste Romania 1970 (Bucuresti: Directia Generala de Statistica, 1970), Table 46, p. 122Google Scholar; Anuarul Statistic Al R.P.R. (Bucuresti: Directia Generala de Statistica, 1960), Tables 42, 43, 50, 51, pp. 114–115, 122–123Google Scholar; Anuarul Statistic al Republicii Socialiste Romania 1970 (Bucuresti: Directia Generala de Statistica, 1970), Tables 56, 58, 59, pp. 136–137Google Scholar; Breviarul Statistic Al Republicii Socialiste Romania 1971 (Bucuresti: Directia Generala de Statistica, 1971), Table 32, pp. 76–77Google Scholar; Trofin, Virgil, “Raport Cu Privire La Modificarile Ce Se Propun A Fi Aduse Statutului Partidului Comunist Roman,” Congresul Al X-lea al Partidului Communist Roman (Bucuresti: Editura Politica, 1969), p. 128Google Scholar.

82 Ceausescu himself may be viewed as an amalgamleader, insofar as he not only represents and leads distinct constituencies that are themselves characterized by conflict-accommodative patterns, but also reflects in his own political personality these partially compatible, partially conflicting tendencies.

83 Eckstein, , Division and Cohesion in Democracy, pp. 262–269Google Scholar.

84 Gerschenkron, Alexander, “Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective,” in Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective: A Book of Essays, ed. Gerschenkron, Alexander (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), pp. 5–31Google Scholar.

85 On patriarchalism see Weber, Max, Economy and Society, ed. Roth, Guenther and Wittich, Claus (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968), pp. 231, 240, 645, 1006–1010, 1112, 1118Google Scholar; Erlich, Vera St., Family in Transition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 31–60Google Scholar.

86 Pavel Apostol has written an excellent article dealing with Fat Frumos titled, “Fat-Frumos si tineretea ca dimensiune spirituala,” in Trei Meditatii Asupra Culturii (Cluj: Editura Dacia, 1970), pp. 19–51Google Scholar. While explicit parallels with Ceausescu are not drawn they are not hard to find. Ceausescu himself in some speeches has identified himself with the youth, while certain of his associates have presented him as a “model” for Romanians to follow.

87 This article was written before I came across two recent articles that are of major significance in Communist studies. One is that by Jerry F. Hough, whose notion of institutional pluralism is very congruent with what I am terming authoritarian compartmentalism (see “The Soviet System: Petrification or Pluralism?” Problems of Communism, 21 (March-April, 1972), 25–46Google Scholar, and the already cited article by Zygmunt Bauman.

88 In the period since this article was written one striking development has occurred within Romania. Mobilization has become the defining emphasis. At the leadership level this is seen in the increasingly patrimonial character of Ceausescu's position. With respect to the Weberian categories that have served as the basis for my characterization of the Romanian regime between 1970 and 1972, the regime in the last year and a half (this is being written in August 1973) has moved from an emphasis on neo-traditional (patriarchal) and legal-relational (executive) considerations to a much greater emphasis on the charismatic qualities of the party.

89 I have attempted to deal with some of the questions connected with the compatibility of Leninism and modernity in an article titled “Inclusion and Mobilization in Marxist-Leninist Systems,” which will be part of a volume edited by Mark Field titled The Social Consequences of Modernization in Socialist Countries.

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