Some internal characteristics and problems

Abstract

Seen from without, the aspects of that great Socialist experiment, started by the Russian Revolution sixty-three years ago, which absorb the interest of foreign observers, are chiefly its external effects. It is consequently, with its strategy of political expansion, its capacity for attaining its avowed ends by military or other means and the reactions, whether of resistance or accommodation, that this phenomenon provokes, that this book is concerned. But, while it is perfectly legitimate to study the internal affairs of the Soviet Union and its allies or satellites, as well as their economic and financial relations with the rest of the world from the same standpoint, we are, I am sure, likely to have quite an inaccurate picture if we try to apply the criteria of Western democracy to the political and social conditions and outlook of the Soviet peoples.