Russian Terror/ism and Revisionist Historiography

Interest in the violence of the Soviet regime has been a concern primarily of more conservative historians, while those on the Left have either been discomforted by the excessive brutality of the Russian Civil War and Stalinism or have looked for rationalizations for the necessity of violence. One tendency in the historiography has been to see violence as deeply embedded in the Bolshevik project, part of the Marxist or Leninist effort to transform the world or perfect the human being. Revolutionary and Stalinist violence are seen as similar or intimately linked, and differences between them have been largely effaced. This essay argues that the violence and terror of the Civil War years is best understood as part of wartime exigencies as well as choices made by the Bolsheviks and their enemies, while Stalinist violence was much more the product of the will of Stalin and his closest collaborators in their consolidation of autocratic power, and was far more gratuitous and irrational than the violence of the fledgling Soviet regime.     

Metropolitan Planning Organizations and the New Regionalism: The Case of Louisville

This article outlines the new regionalism movement and its metropolitanagenda, reviews federal efforts to promote new regionalism underISTEA and TEA–21, considers how the new federal policieschanged the role of metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs)in transportation planning by examining the MPO for the Louisvillemetropolis, and assesses the MPO process in Louisville. Thelocal decision of whether to build a new bridge across the OhioRiver was a major test of the enhanced MPO process. Federaltransportation policies enhanced regional coordination and cooperationin transportation planning in the Louisville metropolis resultingin a consensus plan to build two bridges across the Ohio River.However, the MPO process did not lead to the development ofa metropolitan-wide interest or perspective. Moreover, the newregionalist agenda was not advanced because sprawl was not afactor in the decision on whether and where to build the bridges.     

The incidence of alleged sexual abuse in 603 family court cases

The conflict and animosity that sometimes accompanies child custody disputes can give rise to the propagation of allegations of child sexual abuse. To characterize the magnitude of the problem, the present study attempted to determine whether and to what extent child sexual abuse allegations predominate in family court litigation. The entire one-year caseload of a county family court docket was systematically reviewed and coded. Methodical evaluation of 603 family court files yielded base rates of pertinent allegations and other information profiling the cases. The findings did not support the contention that sexual abuse allegations are commonplace in child custody disputes. Sexual abuse allegations were made in 2% of cases in which custody or access was contested and in only 0.8% of the cases overal. Implications of the findings for future research were discussed.The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Honorable William R. Campbell and Barbara Scott, Clerk of Court for the South Carolina Fifth Judicial Circuit, as well as the contributions of Angie Newton, Frank Robinson, and Kimberly Ellis in the data collection process.     

The age of death: Appraising public opinion of juvenile capital punishment

Despite its original purpose to protect and rehabilitate wayward children, the juvenile system has grown more punitive and has embraced the use of harsher punishments, including execution, for juvenile offenders. Relatively little is known, however, about public attitudes toward the use of capital punishment for juveniles. This research explored the determinants of death penalty opinion, identified the minimum age at which respondents were willing to allow a juvenile to be put to death and examined the willingness of respondents to support an alternative sentence of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP). The results suggested that, while one-quarter of the sample was willing to execute juveniles who were fifteen and under at the time of the crime, there was less support for the execution of juveniles than of adults. In addition, of those who supported the use of the death penalty for juveniles, almost one-half would support LWOP as an alternative to the death penalty.     

The effect of authority and social influence on eyewitness suggestibility and person recognition

This study investigated the influence of an authority figure on eyewitness identification. Participants watched a staged crime and then were administered a photo lineup by either an authority (policeman) or non-authority figure (civilian). Participants in the authority condition were more likely to choose a lineup member than those in the non-authority condition. There was no effect of authority, however, on the accuracy of the identification decisions. The lack of a deleterious effect suggests that the presence of a police officer during identification procedures does not create an unduly suggestive situation or have undesirable effects on eyewitness identification decisions. Although witnesses' choosing behaviors did not increase the rate of identification errors, the effect of the administrator's authority on choosing was reduced when unbiased instructions (vs. biased instructions) were presented to the witnesses. Thus, support was found for the use of neutral instructions during eyewitness identification procedures.     

Reviews

Rajan Menon, Soviet Power and the Third World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986, ix + 261 pp. £18.50.

Georgi Arbatov, Cold War or Detente? The Soviet Viewpoint. London: Zed Books, 1983. xviii + 219 pp. £16.95, $30.00 h/b; £4.95, $8.95 p/b.

Jonathan Steele, World Power: Soviet Foreign Policy under Brezhnev and Andropov. London: Michael Joseph, 1983, xii + 287 pp. £14.95.

Imre Vincze, The International Payments and Monetary System in the Integration of the Socialist Countries, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984, ix + 185 pp. £20.50, $32.00.

M. M. Kostecki ed. The Soviet Impact on Commodity Markets, London: Macmillan, 1984, xl + 271 pp. £25.00.

Gerhard Fink ed. East‐West Economic Relations Now and in the Future: Die Ost‐West‐Wirtschaftsbeziehungen heute und morgen, Vienna: Springer‐Verlag, 1985, 100 pp. DM 34,00.

András Köves, The CMEA Countries in the World Economy: Turning Inwards or Turning Outwards, Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1985, 248 pp. £18.25.

Ger P. van den Berg, The Soviet System of Justice: Figures and Policy, Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster (series Law in Eastern Europe No. 29) 1985, xiii + 374 pp incl appendices, indices and references, £56.95, $71.50.

Eugene Huskey, Russian Lawyers and the Soviet State. The Origins and Development of the Soviet Bar, 1917–1939. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, xii + 247 pp. £19.00.

David Lane, Labour and Employment in the USSR. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books (distributed by Harvester Press), 1986, 280 pp. £28.50.

Martin McCauley and Stephen Carter, eds. Leadership and Succession in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China. London: Macmillan, 1986, xiii + 256 pp. £27.50 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Leslie Holmes, Politics in the Communist World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, xi + 457 pp. £25–00 h/b, £9.95 p/b.

Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. xi + 308 pp. £27.50, $39.50 h/b, £9.95, $12.95 p/b.

Joseph J. Collins, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: a Study in the Use of Force in Soviet Foreign Policy. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1986, xv + 197 pp. £22.50, $31.25.

Leszek Buszynski, Soviet Foreign Policy and Southeast Asia. London: Croom Helm, 1986, 303 pp. £25.00.

William J. Kelly, Hugh L. Shaffer and I. Kenneth Thompson, Energy Research and Development in the USSR: Preparations for the Twenty‐First Century. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1986, xvi + 417 pp. £62.50.

Gregory D. Andrusz, Housing and Urban Development in the USSR, London: Macmillan in association with CREES, University of Birmingham, 1985, xix + 354 pp. £30.00.

Jane Ellis, The Russian Orthodox Church: a Contemporary History, London & Sydney: Croom Helm, 1986. 531 pp. £27.50.

Edward Acton, Russia: The Present and the Past, London and New York: Longman, 1986, xiii + 342 pp. £17.50 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Robert Service, Lenin: A Political Life. Vol. 1. The Strengths of Contradiction. London: Macmillan, 1985, x + 246 pp. £25.00.

Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez and Richard Stites, eds., Bolshevik Culture. Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985, xii + 304 pp., $27.50.

Josef Garlinski, Poland in the Second World War, London: Macmillan, 1985, xxi + 387 pp., £25.00

Andreas Dorpalen, German History in Marxist Perspective. The East German Approach. London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 1985, 542 pp., £24.50.

Walter Parchomenko, Soviet Images of Dissidents and Nonconformists. New York: Praeger, 1986, xv + 251 pp., $33.95.

Soviet Armed Forces Review Annual. Vol. 9 (1984–1985). Edited by David R. Jones. Gulf Breeze, Florida: Academic International Press, 1986. x + 313 pp., $69–50.