BOOKS
55
Then, by contrasting the oppressed, hunted, hopeless condition of the
Jews in Poland and Germany-including reference to the rise of anti–
Semitism in the United States, upon which ominous note the book doses-–
with the constantly widening future of all people in the U. S. S.
R.,
Dennen, with little argument, and no need for any, gives double strength
to his thesis. Facts and figures are quoted with a spareness, throughout
this book couched in the mild, discursive vein of a travelogue, that gives
them a vitality not usually connected with cold statistics. And there is
conviction, also, in the refusal to minimize socialist difficulties in the
USSR, or to gloss over the traged ies of those of the older generation who
cannot orientate themselves to the new life. Of the Soviet aims, and some
of the obstacles to be overcome in realizing them, Dennen says, conserva–
tively: "The ghetto J ew is gradually being transformed into a new man.
I say gradually, for it must not be imagined that the settling of the Jews
on land in
~oviet
Russia has already been accomplished. It is only beginnig
... The Soviet Government, it is commonly assumed, is capable of ac–
complishing in a decade what it took other governments to accomplish in a
century. That, in a sense, is true. That is the power of revolution. One,
however, cannot rid himself so quickly of a heritage in which he has been
rooted for centuries and centuries ... For one thing, the Jew is traditionally
· a city man ... Secondly, there is that 'class conflict' within the J cwish race
itself, which, even as among the Russian peasantry, is an obstacle in the
path of Jewish colonization in Russia. In its bro-ader aspect, Jewish colon–
ization is organically linked up with the agricultural revolution that has
been taking place in Soviet Russia-the movement to collective Russian
land. It is this movement which is undoubtedly the outstanding factor in
the Soviet program." Or of the fate of some of the older Jews, there is
a tragic picture of the dying, forgotten city of "S." Bad as it is, however,
it does not compare with the misery across the border, in Poland and in
the one German city touched upon, Hamburg.
"Where the Ghetto Ends" is overwhelmingly convincing in its totality,
not only as a thorough and truthful work of reporting, but also in its un–
derlying conclusions, the revolutionary conclusions by which the events are
interpreted. But there are moments in the book when, the reader feels,
Dennen could have laid aside his mild and inquisitive manner of a tourist,
could have "cashed-in" upon this unpretentiousness, to speak With greater
finality, to give bolder, harsher expression to a theme that is harsh and bold.
KENNETH FEARING
A SELF-PORTRAIT
NoT
I,
BUT
THE \VIND,
by
Frieda Lawrence, The Viking Press.
$2.75.
After all the obscene little soul brides, both male and female, have had
their say about Lawrence, it is good to come on this book of memoirs which
tells simply, honestly, and through the fresh and wholesome vis10n of the
