686 Slavic Review Schlesinger's history of the post-Stalin and post-Khrushchev periods in party life is less interesting and, more than ten years after completion, holds up less well than the earlier portions. This was expected by the author, and he warned that it would be primarily attributable to a dearth of documentary evidence. In addition, much of the analytic weakness of the last two chapters is surely rooted in the author's eternal optimism about the ultimate future of the Soviet experiment. ROBERT W. CLAWSON Kent State University LENINIZM O SUSHCHNOSTI NATSII I PUTI OBRAZOVANIIA INTER- NATSIONAL'NOI OBSHCHNOSTI LIUDEI. 2nd ed. By S. T. Kaltakhchian. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 1976. 408 pp. This is the second edition of Kaltakhchian's work, which was first published by Moscow University Press in 1969. The author specializes in the nationality question and has published several books and numerous articles on the subject. The only sentimental touch, something of a rarity in Soviet scholarly books, is Kaltakhchian's dedication to the memory of his mother. Otherwise, while admitting that the mere mention of the term "fusion" (sliianie) "horrifies some people," Kaltakhchian insists that the historical process "must be faced squarely." One of his basic aims is to present a clear view of the future so that spontaneity does not replace "the scientific guidance of nationality processes" (p. 401). The other is "the unmasking of bourgeois and revisionist falsifiers of Marxist-Leninist theory" (p. 12). Kaltakhchian's work appears to signal an end to the limited diversity of views on the nationality question to be found in Soviet writings of the 1960s and early 1970s. No longer is there even mention of national dissidents nor even mild criticism of Stalin's nationality policies. The book is divided into two parts. The four chapters of the first part, as Kaltakhchian points out in the introduction, have not been changed much from the earlier edition and present the usual Soviet interpretation of a nation as a temporary historical phenomenon. However, Kaltakhchian introduces significant changes in the usual hallmarks of a nation; his primary features are a common economy, territory, and language, in that order. He emphatically rejects "common psychological make-up" substituting for the fourth hallmark "national self-conscious- ness" and adding a fifth, "a state." He argues that his fourth hallmark, though neglected in Soviet literature, is a reality that requires a materialistic interpretation of its place and role. A state, he contends, is essential for distinguishing between a nationality and a nation. Thus, Poland during the partitions was not a nation, while Germany today is really two completely different nations. Part 2 has been considerably revised in line with "the significant landmarks of Marxism-Leninism"—the Twenty-fourth Party Congress and the celebrations of the one-hundredth anniversary of Lenin's birth and the fiftieth anniversary of the forma- tion of the Soviet Union. In chapter 5, entitled "Socialism and the Development of Nations," Kaltakhchian presents the socialist nation as a totally new and superior phenomenon, while in chapter 6, "The Rise of a New Historical Community of People," he proclaims the Soviet people to be a higher social order. Although they show all five hallmarks of a nation (the common language being Russian), the Soviet people are not a nation but something new and higher than a nation—"a step toward the formation of a wider international community of people, toward the future fusion of nations" (p. 344). In the seventh chapter, "The Struggle of Internationalism with Nationalism as the Chief Condition for the Successful Development of the World Revolutionary Process," the author warns of the "dangers" of nationalism, yet predicts the inevitable victory of internationalism. Finally, in the epilogue, "The https://doi.org/10.2307/2496149 Published online by Cambridge University Press