New Book on Soviets Concludes Russian Citizen Values Changed From Family Ties to 'Success'

The incentive for success has replaced the traditional family goals in the Soviet Union according to "The Soviet Citizen," a new book written by two Harvard professors and published by the Harvard University Press. The authors are Professor Alex Inkeles, a sociologist in the Department of Social Relations, and Professor Raymond A. Bauer, a social psychologist at Harvard Business School.

From their day-to-day study of the Soviet citizezn and the "continuity and change in the life experience of individuals and groups," they report that the change in values grew out of the years of deprivation and forced industrialization under Stalin.

The Soviet regime recognizes the transition of values because the regime finds it easier to manipulate the population by rewards in the form of occupational advancement, rather than using the less effective method of force.

"It is a serious error to assume that departure from the Stalinist model means movement toward the democratic constitutional model," they say. For the West, they suggest: "We had better turn our face elsewhere, rest our hopes on other foundations than on the belief that the Soviet system will mellow and abandon its long-range goals of world domination."

Inkeles and Bauer conclude that if Americans are not equal to the task of maintaining freedom, they must leave the Soviets to set the pattern of human existence.