Writing about recent Soviet literature is a hazardous occupation. A Western chronicler of the post-Stalin literary ferment is as likely to overestimate an ephemeral trend as he is to miss a significant cue. He must be equally wary of premature euphoria and premature impatience. Last but not least, he has to do his best to maintain a viable balance between literary and political considerations.

The latter question was raised sharply by Mr. Andrew Field, a keen if somewhat petulant student of modern Russian literature. Mr. Field deplored the tendency prevalent in the West to discuss recent Soviet imaginative writing sub specie of its alleged ideological heterodoxy rather than of its literary texture.

When I looked over the notes I had made in the margin of Professor Erlich’s article, most of them were check marks and exclamations such as “Yes,” “Very important,” and “Amen.”

His emphases, conclusions, and observations along the way move me to agreement and fill me with admiration and envy. He has said what I should have liked to say. I therefore can only add that this is an excellent and important analysis, and then do two things: sketch in some related areas, not in opposition but in supplementation of what Professor Erlich has written; and make some minuscule objections. As for the last, they will be found grouped below in a long “Ungenerous Footnote of Picky Points.”

I am so completely in agreement with the main points of Victor Erlich's diagnosis—particularly with the lucidly formulated conclusions in the last few pages—that I shall confine myself to the one issue on which I dissent from his judgment—namely, his opinion of Solzhenitsyn.

A few words to begin with about the general approach of Western observers to Soviet literature. Professor Erlich rightly dwells on the question of the relationship between politics and literature, and I would like to reinforce his sagacious plea for the maintenance of a "viable balance between literary and political considerations."

As a part-time observer of the Soviet literary scene, I am gratified to see my tentative generalizations endorsed by men as knowledgeable and authoritative in the field of Soviet literature as George Gibian and Max Hayward. I am also glad that my attempt at diagnosis has provided an occasion for an illuminating companion piece and a thoughtful reassessment of what is undoubtedly one of the most significant works of recent Soviet fiction.

I have no quarrel whatsoever with the main body of Professor Gibian's perceptive and amply documented analysis, which supplements admirably my sketchy survey of trends and issues. The only portion of his article which may call for a brief rejoinder or clarification is the extended footnote. To take issue with what Professor Gibian himself calls "minuscule objections" is a somewhat picayune undertaking. But, just to be conversational, let me offer a few counter-cavils.

It has been said of so-called old English traditions that on closer scrutiny they usually turn out to date back no further than Queen Victoria. Mutatis mutandis, the same observation can be made about the terminology and concepts of modern Russian history. Closer inves- tigation reveals that in a surprising number of instances they are the product of political polemics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and especially those involving the Marxists. They are not only neologisms, as historical terms and concepts often are, but neologisms devised for specific political purposes and never subjected by historians to critical appraisal.

The Russian Old Believer and sectarian movement, as it appears in history, can be thought of, in anthropological terms, as a nativistic movement: that is, a movement of resistance to outside (in this case Western) cultural influence, and a reaffirmation and renewal of the native culture. In this sense, the movement comprised Old Believers, with or without priests, and an assemblage of sects of indigenous origin—Dukhobors, Subbotniki, Molokans, Skoptsy, and others. During the first period of its existence, the Old Believer and sectarian movement, besides being a nativistic movement, was at the same time a focus of resistance to the regime, as any form of religious dissidence must be under an essentially theocratic state.

The overwhelming ascendancy of the Iskra group (before the Bolshevik-Menshevik split) at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1903 has often been noted in the literature. Less attention has been given to Lenin's role in engineering this singular tour de force and to the tensions generated by the intrusion of his unique creed of action into the established patterns of the movement. No episode could be more revealing of the salient traits of Lenin's political personality.

Charges from Peking that Moscow no longer follows the true Leninist position on disarmament are probably among the reasons why Moscow is now publishing new documentary and interpretive material concerning Lenin's views on disarmament and other issues of war and peace. The new materials, coupled with other documents long available, make this an opportune time to review the development of Lenin's views on disarmament and their effect on Soviet policy during his lifetime.

Sometime in the decade between 1826 and 1836 Tiutchev wrote a poem entitled “Son na more” (“Dream at Sea”). A literal English translation would read as follows:

Both the sea and the storm rocked our skiff; Sleepy, I was abandoned to the full caprice of the waves. The two infinities were within me, And willfully they played with me. Around me, like cymbals, resounded the cliffs. The winds replied, and the waves sang. I flew deafened in a chaos of sounds. But above the chaos of sounds my dream was swiftly borne. Sickly bright, magically mute, It blew lightly over the sounding darkness. In the rays of my fever it unfolded its world: The earth shone green, the ether grew bright, Labyrinthine gardens, palaces, columns, And myriads of silent crowds seethed. I recognized many faces unfamiliar to me. I saw magic creatures, mysterious birds. Across the peaks of creation I strode like a god, And under me the world shone motionless. But through all the dreams, like the wail of a magician, I heard the roar of the ocean's abyss, And into the quiet domain of visions and dreams Burst the foam of the roaring waves.

The use of foreign office materials for domestic history is by no means new, but Russian historians have done very little with this kind of research. One reason is that the Russians themselves have not needed to, and in recent years the turn toward social and intellectual history has seemed to make the diplomats' comments on court and society superficial if not irrelevant. This impression is actually erroneous, and non-Soviet scholars will find diplomatic archives a rich resource in themselves and an excellent supplement for published materials. This essay describes materials for Russian internal history from the Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, the Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, and the Public Record Office. The author read these archives for the period 1790-1812 looking for material on Russian reform policies to supplement information collected from published sources. The results were so gratifying that a summary of them should be of value to other scholars engaged on projects in prerevolutionary Russian domestic history.

For the second time in five years, the Russian planners have abandoned a national plan in mid-course in order to substitute a new program which reflects changed priorities and makes less rigorous demands on the country's economic resources. Although no one has announced the official demise of the Seven-Year Plan, it has been superseded, in fact, by the new Two-Year Plan for 1964-65.

Why has the regime found it necessary to draw up this interim plan to replace the last two years of the Seven-Year Plan? What changes does the new plan make in national economic goals? What are the prospects of the new Two-Year Plan, and what problems are likely to be encountered?