BOOKS
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sonally disinterested officials but by the very individual who hopes to
gain intellectual and moral credit from the work. This having been said,
let us nevertheless consider this extraordinary work entirely in itself. And
let us consider in the same way, without looking too closely behind the
scenes, two other current books of similar tendency, those by Anna Louise
Strong and Walter Duranty.*
These two books pretend to describe the Soviet Union on the eve of
its entry into the war, but are written specifically, like Mr. Davies' work,
to whitewash Stalin's crimes, from the Moscow Trials and the purges to
the pact with Hitler, the stab in the back of Poland, the aggression against
Finland, the extermination of the three small Baltic nations, and other
exploits equally devoid of risk and glory.
Mrs. Strong's book is harmless in the sense that it is a resume of
official Stalinist propaganda, recognisable at first glance. The author
earnestly recites her well-learned lesson, in . a flat, dull and colorless
style which would discourage the most sympathetic reader. Mr. Duranty's
hook, on the other hand, is lively and clever, and if one finds it rather
nauseating, it is because of the combination of whimsicality and cynicism
with which the author treats the most painful themes, and the sinister
joke_s he makes, with a remarkable lack of tact, about matters not at all
suitable for pleasantries.
For all their agreement on the Trials and the purges, the two authors
show some interesting differences, so that one book to some extent refutes
the other. Thus Mrs. Strong solemnly recites her lesson about the peas–
ants: "Today the traditional bearded, illiterate, superstitious Russian
peasant has practically vanished." The implication is that, thanks to
Stalin, the peasants are shaved, educated and enlightened. But here is Mr.
Duranty, apparently franker but in reality cynical and no less dishonest:
"He [one foreign friend] did not understand the sad but realistic fact
that all those who had opposed collective farming in the villages were
dead or exiled...." Mr. Duranty doesn't say how many were "dead"
(more precisely, executed) or "exiled" (more precisely, condemned to
orced labor under conditions so horrible they died like flies). Nor does
e mention how many women and children suffered the same fate. Never–
eless, the contrast with Mrs. Strong is striking.
Mr. Duranty's technique is to concede a minimum the better to con–
al, in equivocal language, the terrible reality. Mrs. Strong, on the other
and, prefers to avoid all difficult questions and recite unweariedly her
'ttle lesson. She speaks quite seriously of "the Stalin policy of non-inter–
erence by the Soviet Government in other nations' internal affairs." She
forms us that "the foundations of the modern Red Army were laid in
924-5 by Mikhail Frunze and elaborated after his death by Klimenty
oroshilov." This is the classic formula, in Stalinist historifyi:n,g, for
*The Soviets Expected It.
By Anna Louise Strong. Dial Press. $2.50.
The Kremlin and the People.
By Walter Duranty. Reynal
&
Hitchcock. $2.00.
