Soviet Attitudes toward Authority

This book is a commercial reprint in England of a study originally published in the United States in 1951 by the Rand Corporation?a research organisation whose Social Sciences Division at that time supported several projects concerned with Soviet behaviour and resources. Among them was the one here reported on, of which Dr. Mead was the director, assisted by an inter-disciplinary team. Its purpose is to further the West's understanding of the relations between the Soviet Top leadership, the Party rank and file and the masses, in terms of enduring attitudes and of recent changes in the values and perceptions of authority discernible in the Russian mind. Its method is an adaptation of techniques used during the second War : to make inferences at second hand from the published or broadcast material of the culture under scrutiny, supported by as many interviews as could be mustered of inform-ants once part of that culture. This method?the best available where direct access to the population concerned was barred?has its limitations, and it forces Dr. Mead into a long defence of it. Students of comparative social anthropology and psychology will find this preliminary statement full of interest.