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MAX HAYWARD
condemning the conduct of trial. PEN expressed "shock and horror."
The Swedish Nobel Prize committee sent a telegram to President Pod–
gorny urging clemency. Rarely has there been such unanimity, cutting
across political boundaries, in the expression of international concern at
the outcome of a trial.
What of reaction inside the Soviet Union? Official response to
foreign criticism has been muted. There has been no direct reference
to the protests of foreign communist and left-wing circles, but
Pravda
(February 22) has spoken vaguely of "some progressive figures" in the
West having been mislead into thinking that Sinyavsky and Daniel had
been tried for their writings, whereas in fact they had been tried for
"crimes against the Soviet regime and its Revolution." They were not
punished for the "critical spirit" of their writing, but for "slander."
Pravda
was also insistent that the trial had been fair, the proceedings
correct and the verdict just: "... the careful and objective conduct of
the case was a graphic proof of the democratic nature of the Soviet
regime. It would
be
strange
if
the courts were expected to display a
'liberal approach' to the enemy's ideological scouts who were caught
redh'anded." The use of the word "ideological" here is interesting. It is
tantamount to saying that Sinyavsky and Daniel were tried and sen–
tenced for "ideological" deviation, or, to put it in other terms, for
heresy.
Unofficial reaction in the Soviet Union naturally varies, but it
appears that even among the sort of members of the establishment
who are licensed to consort with foreigners, the reaction is much the
same as in foreign Communist circles--one of embarrassment and regret
that the matter was handled in this way. The foreign editor of the
London
Sunday Times,
Frank Giles, who was in Moscow during
Wilson's recent three day visit, reports:
No one I talked to approved of what the two writers had
done-publishing abroad under assumed names-but many of
more liberal tendencies regretted the trial and the harsh sen–
tences. It could have been handled so much better, said one
middle-aged intellectual, they could have been attacked in the
newspapers for their twofacedness and then left to languish
in natural disgrace.
This view probably reflects wiser counsels that must have been
urged in official circles, among the judiciary and even perhaps among
a section of the police, during the five months in which the matter
was under preliminary investigation. More liberal officials must have
pointed out that the virtually closed trial of the two men, proceeded
