WRITERS IN EXILE
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and about what you saw after the parting tears and embraces in
Kiev, the new things, expected and unexpected, still not under–
stood, often exasperating, but which sometimes bring joy. I just
wish I could show it
to
my dour messenger Valega or to Vanka
Fishchenko, a brave fellow near Stalingrad. He 's probably gotten
into trouble by now and is behind bars....
For them, unattainable, I write, although I will never know
whether they liked it or not. And for a handful of friends on both
sides of the detestable Berlin Wall; well, let's say for fifty, no
more than a hundred dear friends, whose opinion I value. I won't
be inundated with readers' letters any more, and there won ' t be
even any small articles on me in the
Literary Gazette
or a little
black box around my name when I set off for another, better
world. (Even the great Varlam Shalamov, who was a slave in the
camps for decades, got his little black box.) So
I'll
have to get
along without that.
There is a Russian proverb: " Living your life is harder than
crossing a field." But we, each in his own way, stumbling perhaps
at places, have crossed it, even with its mines.
DANIEL BELL: Thank you, thank you very much.
Our next speaker is Dr. Eugen Loebl , who comes from
Czechoslovakia. He is, probably in the most literal sense of the
word, a survivor. H e is a man who had been an official in the
Czechoslovak government, who was arrested and brought
to
trial
during the Slansky trial. He and only one other person, Arthur
London, survived. Professor Loebl came here twelve years ago.
He is an economist and taught at Vassar College until recently,
when he retired. It 's my great pleasure
to
present Dr. Eugen
Loebl.
EUGEN LOEBL: Mr. Chairman , ladies and gentlemen, I'm
very very sorry to disappoint you. I'm not really a writer, but you
will see I am writing about a very dismal science, economics, and
an even more disma l science, political science.
My career as a dissident started, actually, when I opposed
capitalism during the Depression. As you remember, there was
tremendous unemployment, a great economic crisis in Europe
and here. And, like today, the economists had no idea why the
Depression occurred, what was its cause, how
to
overcome it.
And a lthough there was no inflation as far as money was con–
cerned, there was as much inflation as there is today in regard to
