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ity and past behavior. He certainly goes much further and deeper
than, for instance, Corliss Lamont, another upperclass American of
similar political affinities who also took the trouble to give us his
autobiographical reminiscences. The parallel is all the more tempt–
ing, since they both are of roughly the same generation and early in
life made a major political-emotional investment in left-wing causes,
and the Soviet Union in particular. While Lamont failed to grasp
that Soviet repression was more than a transient aberration in the
service of a basically good cause - as indicated by his autobiography
and other public statements - Straight was able to confront the full
range of his political and moral misjudgments.
Straight's story is more than yet another account of how a well–
educated, rich Westerner was sucked (or drifted) into the veneration
and service of a political system claiming to be socialist. While this
book falls into the category of what might be called the sociology (or
social psychology) of the politics of being rich, it has certain distinc–
tive elements to it. They include Straight's willingness to provide
assistance to a Soviet spy ring which consisted of such celebrities as
Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, and Donald McLean. Also unusual is
that Straight's involvements remained generally unknown to the
Western public (if not intelligence services) until the appearance of
this book. At last, Straight's "long silence" proved compatible with an
apparently authentic change of heart rather than conducive to a
nostalgic rationalization of youthful political errors.
At the same time and contrary to the claims of the dust jacket,
this story does not explain,
"perhaps jor the jirst time,
why the com–
munist idea appealed so strongly to the best and brightest of Michael
Straight's generation." (My italics.) In fact, many explanations have
been around for a long time, and whatever information and insights
this book offers, they are not entirely novel. Indeed, "the appeals of
communism" for Straight's generation (and others) have been
reasonably well established and highly patterned. The least they
have to do with is genuine economic disadvantage and deprivation.
What they most typically feed on is a diffuse rejection of Western
societies and especially their decayed sense of purpose and commu–
nity, as well as their social inequalities. Such critiques are in turn as–
sociated with a resounding ignorance of the proposed (or attempted)
alternatives to such evils elsewhere. The most intriguing issue has
remained that of differential susceptibility: why some educated and
affluent Westerners came to be attracted to the Soviet Union (or to
