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To regard Socialism and Communism as Siamese twins is an error, wilful or genuine, which rarely troubles American thinking on foreign politics now. It cannot be said, however, that the shadow of the confusion has been entirely dispelled. Some groups, influential in the making and execution of American foreign policy, appear to be gravely disturbed by what they term the development of the welfare state in western Europe. At a time—they argue—when the United States requires strong partners in the common attempt to defend large parts of the non-Soviet world against Communist expansion, the spread of welfare-state practices weakens western Europe economically as well as politically. The development of the welfare state is said to lessen the capacity of countries for raising productivity and hence for standing on their own feet in their economic dealings with the outside world and also for mounting substantial defense efforts. Since a less progressive and adaptable economy will frustrate expectations of income and economic security, political stability and morale are alleged to suffer. This effect, as well as the abridgment of democratic freedoms perceived to follow from abandoning the liberal economy, is believed to make such countries more susceptible to Communist subversion. These misgivings are not aroused by the behavior of all the western European nations. It is rather the United Kingdom, the three Scandinavian countries, and the Netherlands which are identified with the evolution of the welfare state, while economic liberalism is perceived to have a more abiding hold in Belgium, France, Italy, and western Germany.

For the political scientist in America there can scarcely be a more fascinating or more elusive study than the Soviet Union. The first enticement is the menacing importance of Soviet power. Then there is the miracle which in a single generation has changed a defeated and disintegrating agrarian society into one of the two greatest industrial and military States of our day. But these are claims to everybody's attention. The peculiar challenge to the professional student of social phenomena is another matter. For him Russia now is an enormous but dimly lighted laboratory in which doctrine is tested by experience, where the strain between ideology and reality is carried to a pitch never previously attempted, where techniques are developed by which a small elite secures a steady ninety-nine per cent of formal acquiescence from a population of two hundred millions, where political and economic strength is accumulated by processes in which what we consider normal human reactions are choked off by fear or concealed in the trite responses of an authorized litany.

In the Soviet Union, views on all intellectual subjects—the social sciences, philosophy, and even the biological and physical sciences—are frequently regarded as expressions of political views. As a consequence, all intellectual fields are considered appropriate arenas for the struggle against "reaction" and other supposed manifestations of "bourgeois" ideology. To consider science a-political and supra-national, or to speak approvingly of "world science" or "world culture," is to subscribe to the "bourgeois" ideology of "cosmopolitism"—an ideology which is assumed by virtue of its universalist emphasis to deprecate the contributions to culture made by individual nations.

Probably the most consistent feature of the policy of the three Western powers—the United States, Great Britain, and France—towards the defeated Germany, from the time of Potsdam until a few months ago, was the emphasis on the need for the disarmament and demilitarization of the Germany of the future; and when it was decided, in 1949, to establish the Federal Republic of Western Germany, this policy was endorsed once more.In June 1949, the Foreign Ministers of the three powers met in Paris, and on the twentieth of that month the High Commission charter was signed. At a second meeting held early in November of the same year, also in Paris, it was agreed that certain wider powers should be granted to the Federal Republic through the High Commissioners. Nevertheless when, on November 22, the definitive Occupation Statute, sometimes known as the Petersberg agreement, came to be signed by Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of the new Republic, and by the three High Commissioners at the Petersberg Hotel in Bonn, the headquarters of the High Commission, it contained the following significant clause:

Among the constitutional devices sometimes recommended as remedies for the ills of present society, federalism has come to play a consistent, if not a major, role. A rapid glance at the balance sheet of Western European intrastate federalism over the last three decades might therefore be of some usefulness.The uncertainty over the continued existence of federal states is shown by the difficulty in defining their distinguishing features. Assertions in constitutional documents do not help much, as they are political assertions rather than guiding principles of interpretation. Some constitutions have even tried to square the circle. Thus, the Spanish Constitution of 1931 in the same breath called Spain an "integral state" and defined it as consisting of provinces as well as regions formed according to the "principle of autonomy." The Bonn Basic Law of 1949 dodges the issue elegantly by affirming in its preamble that it is the German people in the eleven states who have enacted the basic law.

In the 1950's, as in the 1930's, there are Congressional efforts to limit executive discretion in the conduct of foreign affairs. Senators Taft and Wherry have generated a debate over the President's authority to send armed forces abroad, which is reminiscent of the debate over the neutrality legislation of the earlier decade. The time has therefore come when a more just appreciation of President Roosevelt's leadership in foreign affairs may be possible and when such an evaluation may be useful.

In studying world affairs we are acutely conscious of the fact that many rivalries and conflicts are carried on with hostility on all sides, but within a framework of mutual respect. We have too many examples of honor among enemy soldiers to regard this as remarkable.At the same time we know that one of the most exacerbated forms of conflict occurs when incompatible respect demands are involved. The "ex-colonials" of the globe are asserting themselves with vindictive passion against "white imperialists." Most of these "ex-colonials" are colored, and they are reacting against the memory of years of humiliation, fancied or real, inflicted by the West. In some states of the "West," notably the Union of South Africa and the United States, internal politics are torn by ethnic hostilities. Many historical cases support the proposition that conflict is peculiarly atrocious when an established system of caste is challenged, or is believed to be challenged. We recall the outrages perpetrated by serfs in revolt against lords, or by masters against revolting (or allegedly revolting) slaves.

Hypotheses regarding differences (or lack of differences) in policy-orientation or in degrees of influence between the various members of the Soviet Politburo have always been of great interest to students of politics. Thus there have been frequent speculations regarding alleged differences in foreign policy lines and on the problem of succession. The absence of confirming or disconfirming data for any of these hypotheses is striking, and obvious in view of the secrecy that enshrouds the internal operations of the Politburo. Published statements of any kind by members of the Politburo have become infrequent in recent years. Such statements as are available for analysis have usually dealt with different subjects and have been made at different dates, so that they were difficult to compare from the point of view of testing hypotheses regarding differences in policy of influence. Through Stalin's seventieth birthday, December 21,1949, however, a rare opportunity for comparative analysis did occur.

Among the increasing number of publications on the Indonesian Revolution the survey of J. W. Meyer Ranneft and the larger studies of H. J. van Mook occupy something of a unique position. It is rather seldom that high-ranking Dutch colonial civil servants are willing and able to put down their recollections and criticisms in fairly extensive form. If one browses through the volumes of such journals asKoloniale Studien, Koloniaal Tijdschrift, De Indische Gids, or Tijdschrift voor Ambtenaren bij het Binnenlandsch Bestuur, one is indeed struck by the number of authors who are members of various government services. But their work in this connection is primarily of a specific and localized nature; their articles may range from vaccination to irrigation problems in the Indies, but they rarely strike the broad, interpretive note that characterizes the studies now under discussion. This fact gives the present publications of Meyer Ranneft and van Mook a specialcachet:both by what is said and what (admittedly purposely in the case of Meyer Ranneft) remains unsaid, their work not only illuminates many aspects of the Indonesian Revolution, but, more significantly, also the mentality of two of the highest ranking officials in the colonial civil service, who helped materially in shaping the course of events in Indonesia since the 1930's. It should also be noted that Meyer Ranneft and van Mook are representative of the chief two opposing factions and schools of thought in the Dutch administration, and their present publications are nothing short of a credo of each of these respective schools. This is particularly evident when their earlier work is examined; both men have a rather extensive bibliography, which throws added light on their present studies.

The two studies under review were issued in the series of the Library of Policy Sciences, edited by Harold D. Lasswell and Saul K. Padover, and are concerned with different areas of knowledge about communications. Sykewar presents the first detailed description of the activities and operations of the Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF. The evaluations may not be definitive, but Dr. Lerner, a former intelligence officer in PWD, has made an important contribution toward codifying the lessons learned in this policy field.