ABSTRACT
The Soviet experiment is too young to permit a final appraisal. However, some successes and failures have already been registered which bid fair to stand for the long term. Some policies can be judged as successful or unsuccessful, as short-term developments. Again, some of the results represent clear gains, long range and permanent, such as the adoption of social insurance, the reduction of illiteracy, and freedom for minority national, racial, and cultural groups. There are also some clear losses—individual initiative has been suppressed, the advantages of competition have been lost. These in part seem to be long-range and apparently permanent losses. On the other hand, certain features of social life which are the very breath of our nostrils in the west, such as individual freedom, may be short-term losses of the Soviet. But by and large most of the results are in the doubtful area and it is difficult, even for the short term, to appraise and predict. To maintain an impartial attitude in a situation so large and with so many conflicting intellectual and emotional interests is difficult. However, errors cannot be condoned and progress cannot be denied.
