Beatrice and Sidney Webb went to the Soviet Union in 1932 and came home convinced they had seen the future. Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? is the report they wrote on their return.
The Webbs (Beatrice, 1858-1943; Sidney, 1859-1947) helped found the Fabian Society, the London School of Economics, and the New Statesman, and between them wrote the standard early histories of British trade unionism. First published in 1935, this opening volume covers what they called the constitution of the USSR: how the ordinary Soviet citizen was governed, organised as a producer through the factory and the union, served as a consumer through the co-operatives, and led by the Communist Party. It closes on the question the authors put to themselves and answered in the affirmative - dictatorship or democracy?
Their verdict has not worn well, and later printings dropped the question mark from the title just as the show trials were getting under way. That is much of the reason to read it now. This is the fullest and most sympathetic description of Soviet institutions written by outsiders in the 1930s: a detailed record of what the system claimed to be, and a case study in how careful, well-meaning people talked themselves into believing it.
This edition features:Volume I in full, containing Part I, The Constitution, together with the appendices that accompany it
First published in 1935, following the authors' two-month visit to the Soviet Union in 1932
The Webbs on the ordinary citizen, on the producer and the consumer, and on the vocation of leadership
A primary source for readers of Stalinism, of Fabian thought, and of 1930s fellow-travelling in Britain
The final chapter sets out the authors' own answer to the question they had posed: dictatorship, or democracy?