New Soviet Elite

To find out which personal traits help Soviets scale the hierarchical ladder of success, Klugman, a New Haven, Conn., psychiatrist, interviewed 20 Soviet emigres--party and trade union officials, managers, journalists, a diplomat. He concluded that successful apparatchiks tend to fit in with their bosses, practice teamwork, curry relationships with higher-ups, avoid disagreement and act in calculatingly manipulative ways. In other words, Ivan the Climber is patently similar to the Western ``organization man,'' although, according to the author, Soviet leaders are more social- and group-oriented than their U.S. counterparts and tend to think in limited, black-and-white terms. Although Klugman quotes supporting literature, he over-generalizes from skimpy evidence and draws his conclusions from the observations of those at a clear remove from the area under study. The writing is repetitious and frequently pretentious. (May)