If the passion with which Russia's intelligentsia once debated the fate of capitalism in Russia has long since subsided, the fascination the problem evoked has been transmitted with little diminution to the student of intellectual history who peruses the dispute at one remove. Hardly a year goes by when some article on this theme does not find its way into the periodical literature. Among the more recent contributions to the discussion have been the essays of Professor Von Laue in these pages and in the Review of Politics on the narodnik and Marxist sides of the controversy respectively. In the latter piece, he concentrates attention upon legal Marxism, a rather neglected episode which, coming at the climax of the great debate, is of obvious significance.

Soviet interest in Sinkiang is a legacy of Tsarist Russia. Although the new Soviet government formally renounced, in 1917, all claims to the Russian spheres of influence in China, it soon reasserted its interest in Sinkiang, and by the mid-thirties, after the construction of the Turksib Railway, it held a virtual economic monopoly there. Soviet attempts to work out a permanent agreement for the "joint" exploitation of Sinkiang's mineral resources date back to October, 1931, and at various times at least four or five agreements were concluded or proposed by Moscow. None, however, ever became fully operative; most of them were short-lived and were concluded without the knowledge of Nanking.

This article is based on data assembled during a thirty-two day visit to Russia in June and July, 1956. Occasionally I supplemented my personal observations by material gleaned from other travelers, and I used data from the Soviet press when this seemed appropriate, to place my personal observations in context.

I was interested in studying "cultural exchange" between Communist Russia and the West. My point of view was that of a proponent of the "open society," anxious to participate in any exchange of ideas that might contribute, despite Communist suspicion, to a beneficial interaction between the two "camps" into which our world is divided. Perhaps this statement seems pretentious.

It is twenty years since the death of T. G. Masaryk, the first President of the Czechoslovak Republic. Only a few years ago, the Communist government in Czechoslovakia celebrated Masaryk's birthday with the whole nation. This was done because of recognition by the Communists of Masaryk's influence on the people of Czechoslovakia. It was not because of a failure of the Communist Party to discern his uncompromising anticommunist views and activities. It was to their advantage in winning favor to be identified early with the strength of Masaryk.

On October 17, 1905, the tsar published a decree establishing freedom of speech and of the press in Russia. Very soon, however, restrictions were again imposed: even preliminary censorship quickly returned. That brief period in the fall of 1905 remains important in the political and literary history of Russia; a moment when two great movements collided over the crucial issue of freedom.

The most vital and most imaginative political group in Russia at that time was Lenin's Social Democratic Party. The most vital and imaginative literary group was the Symbolists, whose activities more or less centered in the magazine Vesy (The Balance).

A pioneer publication in the creation of a popular literature, the Intermediary had a large circulation in Russia in the early nineties. It was founded for the dissemination of Tolstoy's stories among the people and has left its mark on literary history as the one successful practical application of Tolstoy's ideological views. But the total execution of this brilliant and original enterprise has only been revealed since the appearance of the eighty-fifth and eighty-sixth volumes of the Tolstoy Jubilee Edition which consist of some 200 hitherto unpublished letters dealing primarily with Intermediary concerns which Tolstoy wrote to Vladimir Chertkov between 1883 and 1889.

In the study and exegesis of the works of older Asian classical poets and writers the Soviets have made concentrated efforts to publish Marxian interpretations of the literature in a way which will be harmonious with Soviet ideology.

A case in point is Mir Ali Shir Nevai, (1440-1501), who is regarded by Turcologists throughout the world as one of the most important writers influencing the development of Turkic literature and Turkic literary languages. He lived and wrote most of his life in Herat, then the intellectual center and capital of the Timurid dynasty in what is now part of Afghanistan, Iran, and Soviet Central Asia.