Russian Social Science Reader: The Commonwealth and International Library of Science Technology Engineering and Liberal Studies

By E. L. Johnson and R. E. F. Smith

Russian Social Science Reader is one of a series designed for non-linguists who need knowledge of the Russian language in order to pursue their interests in fields other than language or literature. The purpose of this book is to provide real assistance to the trained social scientist who, having already mastered his own discipline, is willing to devote a little time to mastering the Russian language for the purpose of reading specialist material in his own field. The book begins with discussions of Russian syntax and word formation, and Russian political, economic, and legal terminologies. Separate chapters then provide extracts from the Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and Constitution of the USSR in Russian with English translations; and extracts dealing with wide range of topics that illustrate a range of linguistic usage. Topics covered include housing and education, employment of the disabled, industrialization, collectivization of agriculture, and the Soviet economic and legal systems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Oct 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483136615

Book preview

RUSSIAN SOCIAL SCIENCE READER

E.L. JOHNSON, M.A., LL.M. (Cantab.)

Reader in Soviet Law in the University of London

R.E.F. SMITH, M.A. (Lond.)

Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham

OXFORD · LONDON · EDINBURGH · NEW YORK · TORONTO · PARIS · BRAUNSCHWEIG

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

THE COMMONWEALTH AND INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY

Copyright

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction

Publisher Summary

Chapter 2: Reading Russian

Publisher Summary

Chapter 3: Russian Social Science Terminology

Publisher Summary

Chapter 4: Russian Text with English Translation

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

Chapter 5: From the Russian Bible

NOTES

Chapter 6: Extracts

(A) ASPECTS OF SOVIET SOCIETY TODAY

HOUSING

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

A WORKSHOP FOR THE DISABLED

NOTES

FEEDING-STUFFS AND FARM LEADERS

NOTES

NOTES

HOLIDAYS AND SPORT

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

IDEAS AND SOCIETY

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

(В) THE INDUSTRIALISATION CONTROVERSY

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

(С) COLLECTIVISATION OF AGRICULTURE

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

(D) THE SOVIET ECONOMIC SYSTEM TODAY

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

(E) THE SOVIET LEGAL SYSTEM TODAY

FAMILY LAW

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

CONTRACT AND TORT

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

SUCCESSION ON DEATH

NOTES

LABOUR LAW

NOTES

CRIMINAL LAW

NOTES

NOTES

NOTES

ECONOMIC LAW

NOTES

NOTES

(F) THE OLD ORTHOGRAPHY

NOTES

THE COMMONWEALTH AND INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY

Joint Chairmen of the Honorary Editorial Advisory Board

sir robert robinson, o.m., f.r.s., london

dean athelstan spilhaus, minnesota

Publisher: robert maxwell, m.c., m.p.

PERGAMON OXFORD RUSSIAN SERIES

General Editor: c. v. james

RUSSIAN SOCIAL SCIENCE READER

Copyright

Pergamon Press Ltd., Headington Hill Hall, Oxford

4 & 5 Fitzroy Square, London W.1

Pergamon Press (Scotland) Ltd., 2 & 3 Teviot Place, Edinburgh 1

Pergamon Press Inc., 44-01 21st Street, Long Island City, New York 11101

Pergamon of Canada, Ltd., 6 Adelaide Street East, Toronto, Ontario

Pergamon Press S.A.R.L., 24 rue des Écoles, Paris 5e

Vieweg & Sohn GmbH, Burgplatz 1, Braunschweig

Copyright © 1966 Pergamon Press Ltd.

First Edition 1966

Library of Congress Catalog No. 65-27363

Printed in Great Britain by Shield Press Limited, Amersham, Bucks.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise disposed of without the publisher’s consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

(2339/66)

Foreword

The present volume is one of a series designed for non-linguists who need a knowledge of the Russian language in order to pursue their interests in fields other than language or literature. Other volumes are Russian Grammar for Scientists (A. G. Waring), Russian Science Reader (D. M. Cooper) and Concise Russian-English Scientific Dictionary (Dr. A.Blum). Each is based on detailed study of modern usage in an attempt to facilitate the acquisition by scholars and research-workers of one of the most important tool languages in the world to-day. We do not believe that there is a painless way to learn a language; but we hope that by making available judiciously chosen material, attractively and clearly presented, we shall encourage students to persevere with a language, the difficulty of which is too often exaggerated.

C.V. JAMES

Sussex, 1965

Preface

This book has been compiled under the influence of a number of beliefs:

(1) that there are persons who wish to acquire as adults a reading knowledge of Russian sufficient for their limited purposes as social scientists, and who are in the middle position of not being natural linguists but, while finding the task of learning a language troublesome, do not give it up in despair;

(2) that while grammar, being, exceptions apart, more or less logical and systematic, requires for its mastery understanding rather than memory, the learning of vocabulary, however much the study of word-formation may be systemised, contains a very considerable hard core of pure memorising;

(3) that in all highly developed languages the total vocabulary can be divided into a number of specialised or semi-specialised vocabularies, and that an adult should be enabled to choose to start learning the language through the vocabulary that suits him most;

(4) that the words, especially the nouns and adjectives, found in elementary manuals and phrase-books, being too exclusively designed for young people or travellers, are often names of ordinary objects which hardly ever occur in the literature of social science, and fail to include the complex and abstract nouns and the adjectives and verbs related to them, which are the stock in trade of the social scientist;

(5) that whereas such words are commonly the same in the English and the Romance languages, and in German they are composed of elements which are already familiar enough to be easily acquired by the English reader, in Russian they are almost always quite unfamiliar;

(6) that, although the lawyer, the economist, the social psychologist and the political scientist have each his own apparatus of technical terms, they have an extensive common vocabulary; and

(7) that it should be possible to bring together in one small volume a number of passages which should tempt all alike to persevere with the task of ascertaining their contents.

The book has a strictly limited object, that of enabling social scientists to get as rapidly as possible over the hump to the stage where they can get the sense of a printed passage of Russian without excessive and tiresome recourse to a dictionary. If they then find room enough in their memory for the common nouns of everyday life, so much the better. If they also acquire a taste for an exceedingly efficient and beautiful language, such that they wish to pass on to the great poets and novelists, better still. And there is nothing to prevent them from becoming proficient in spoken Russian.

Russian is at first sight forbidding. It takes time to become thoroughly at home with the alphabet, though recently the founts of type have come to distinguish the letters more clearly than formerly. The grammar is full of inflexions. The verb has many peculiarities, which are at first difficult to understand. However, the grammar presents no insuperable obstacles to those who have had a training in Latin or Greek, nor indeed to anyone with a linguistic sense and experience. Moreover, in spite of some inversions, the word order is generally close to that of English. Russian has neither the peculiar French placing of pronouns in relation to verbs nor the German postponement of participles and infinitives to the end of a sentence. Finally, the reader, especially if he need not periodically satisfy a teacher as to the accuracy of his knowledge, need not worry much about the various inflexions until he realises their practical importance. He need not advance from one limited and elementary perfection to another; he can content himself with the loose approximation to perfection that he requires for his own business.

The book contains neither a grammar nor a glossary. Anyone who reads Russian needs a grammar and a dictionary; and indeed one of the purposes of this book is to enable him to use both.

In Chapter II the reader will find an explanation of one of the most remarkable characteristics of Russian, its ability to develop an enormous vocabulary, of great subtlety, from a relatively small number of roots, almost all of them monosyllabic in character. Once the reader has thoroughly memorised between one and two hundred of those roots, and learnt to recognise the ways in which they are modified, by prefixes or suffixes or otherwise, he has acquired a substantial freedom from the dictionary. He would be well advised, from the start, to make progressively his own list of the essential roots, and to have it beside him on a card for constant and ready reference.

The extracts in this book are almost all modern and commonly deal with matters which, while they are the subject of topical controversy, are likely to remain live issues. They seem to me to fulfil the prime purpose of drawing the reader on by the interest of their subject, and to serve the needs of economists, political scientists, sociologists and lawyers alike. I wish the book every success.

F.H. LAWSON

CHAPTER I

Introduction

Publisher Summary

Knowledge of the Russian language is becoming important to those who wish to understand the developments in the contemporary world. The economist, the sociologist, the political scientist, and the lawyer concerned with international or comparative law are at a disadvantage if their accomplishments do not include the ability to read the language. Russian is an Indo-European language, and its general grammatical structure should present little difficulty to those who have studied Latin or German at school. Its main peculiarity lies is in its elaborate system of word-formation with which a large number of words with varying meanings may be built from a single root, a factor of particular importance in connection with abstract nouns. The other special feature of Russian lies in its verbal aspects, the correct use of which is very subtle. Once the general meaning of the verb is known, the context will usually show its precise significance. Even if it does not, little will be lost by failure to distinguish a perfective from an imperfective past tense.

More and more a knowledge of Russian is becoming important to those who wish to understand developments in the contemporary world, and the economist, the sociologist, the political scientist, and the lawyer (particularly the lawyer concerned with international or comparative law) whose accomplishments do not include the ability to read Russian are already at some disadvantage, and one which is likely to increase in the years ahead.

The purpose of this book is to provide real assistance to the trained social scientist who, having already mastered his own discipline, is willing to devote a little time to mastering the Russian language for the purpose of reading specialist material in his own field. The difficulty that such a person encounters at present is that while there are excellent Russian grammars and readers available, these are written primarily by philologists interested especially in the nicer grammatical peculiarities, and the vocabulary employed in the exercises and examples is concerned mainly with physical objects such as furniture, animals and flowers, with elementary tourist conversation, and with literary phraseology, most of which is of little use to the lawyer, economist or sociologist, whose professional material deals so largely in abstract terms. The social scientist is concerned with Russian as a tool, not as a linguistic phenomenon, and the ordinary Russian grammar provides him with little help in understanding the abstract Russian terms used by his Soviet colleagues, a point which is important in view of the fact that Russian, like German, tends towards the use of abstract terms more than English does.

Russian has the reputation of being a difficult language. This reputation may be justified if one thinks of the ordinary Englishman with no knowledge of any foreign language endeavouring to acquire fluency in spoken Russian. The user of this book, however, is assumed to be a well-educated adult whose formal schooling included at least some instruction in living or dead languages, and to whom ordinary grammatical terms present no difficulty. Such a person should be able to learn to read Russian by the use of this book and a dictionary after having spent a few weeks in the study of some elementary Russian grammar such as the Russian Grammar for Scientists published in this series. The present book does not profess to teach anyone to speak Russian, but the Russian words are accented as is usual in beginners’ texts as a knowledge of their pronunciation will help the student to remember them. The purely practical purpose of this book is to enable the social scientist to acquire a reading knowledge of Russian in the shortest possible time, and for this reason perfectionism has been strictly avoided. This has involved neglecting a number of finer points, but it is hoped that with this qualification the book is accurate and will not mislead anyone.

Russian is an Indo-European language, and its general grammatical structure should present little difficulty to those who studied Latin or German at school. Its main peculiarity is in its elaborate system of word-formation, in accordance with which a large number of words with varying meanings may be built up from a single root, a factor of particular importance in connection with abstract nouns. The other special feature of Russian lies in its verbal aspects, the correct use of which is very subtle; but this matter is not likely to confuse the user of this book, for once the general meaning of the verb is known, the context will usually show its precise significance, and even if it does not, little will be lost by failure to distinguish a perfective from an imperfective past tense, and, as in English we often use the present tense with a future meaning, little harm will come if a student occasionally mistakes a perfective future for an imperfective present form.

The user of this book, who is assumed to have an elementary knowledge of Russian grammar, should first examine the translated extracts from the Constitutions of the U.S.S.R. and the R.S.F.S.R. and not leave them until he is sure that he understands why each Russian word has been translated as it has. He can then proceed to tackle the Russian text from the Acts of the Apostles, looking up unfamiliar words in the dictionary and using an English Bible as a crib when necessary. The Russian biblical language is very simple but far less archaic than that of the English Authorised Version, and this particular extract contains so many simple legal and other terms that are still in current use that the student will not be able to proceed far until he has made himself familiar with them. This having been done, the student can proceed to the extracts from Russian books and periodicals; these are not arranged in order of difficulty but by subject matter, and the student is advised to start with an extract dealing with topics within his own particular speciality. One extract from a book published before the Revolution is provided for the benefit of those who would like a little practice in reading material printed in the old orthography. The notes supplied to the extracts are thought to explain any difficulties that the student may find in them. Reference may also be made to A Russian-English Dictionary of Social Science Terms (R. E. F. Smith), Butterworths, 1962.

CHAPTER II

Reading Russian

Publisher Summary

The order of words in a Russian sentence is so similar to the word order employed in English that only three points seem worthy of mention in this case. In Greek and German, an adjectival phrase will often precede a noun; in English, a relative clause is used. Words or phrases referring to a place are usually introduced into a sentence as early as possible. In English, There are many criminals in London and In London there are many criminals are used indifferently; in Russian, the second alternative would normally be adopted. In Italian and many other languages, placing of the direct object before the verb with the subject following is very common. This chapter discusses word-formation in Russian and presents a list of some words along with their meanings. The purpose of the list is to help the student acquire a basic reading knowledge of Russian.

1 Syntax

The order of words in a Russian sentence is so similar to the word-order employed in English that only three points seem worthy of mention here:

сана инженéром, the book that we are reading was written by an engineer, literally, the being-read by us book was written by an engineer.

2. Words or phrases referring to place are usually introduced into a sentence as early as possible. Whereas we would say indifferently There are many criminals in London or In London there are many criminals in Russian the second alternative would normally be adopted, B Лóндоне мнóго престýпников.

3. As in Italian and many other languages inversion, that is, the placing of the direct object before the verb with the subject following, is very common; e.g. Большóе значéние имéет для нас учéние Лéнина, Lenin’s teaching has great significance for us, literally, Great significance has for us the teaching of Lenin.

2 Word-formation in Russian

Certain general permutations occur so regularly that it is desirable to have some knowledge of them. An acquaintance with the spoken language will