Suchergebnisse

Despite the opposition that presumably exists between empirical & authoritarian thinking, there has been in recent yrs some development of soc sci res, including PO surveys, in the USSR, & a striking development of it in Poland. The Polish work shows internal evidence of honest reporting & a genuinely empirical spirit. The Russian work, however, exemplified by 9 recent PO surveys by Komsomolskaya Pravda, is marred by an apparent obliviousness to the self-selection bias in mail surveys, & a complete ignoring of the problem of response bias, which in an authoritarian society might be expected to be acute. Frankness cannot be taken for granted. The generally practical, instrumental character of Communist res raises a question as to whether it may merely make totalitarism a more efficient & formidable enemy. But there are grounds for hope in the thought that an invigoration of the empirical spirit may in the long run tend to erode the mythological elements in Communism. AA.