WRITERS IN EXILE
29
writers most influenced their views of the West, both before and
after they left the Soviet Union.
VIKTOR NEKRASSOV: One book is by Evgenia Semenovna
Ginzburg. Her son, Vassily Aksyonov, is sitting in front of me. It
has been many years since I have read a book with such truth, sin–
cerity, and incredible goodness .
It
made a tremendous impression.
Your mother preserved what should be the pride of every human
being- goodness.
EFIM ETKIND: The book that has made the most powerful im–
pression on me in the past several years is a novel by Vasilii Gross–
man,
Life and Fate.
This book, completed in the beginning of the
1960s, was confiscated by the KGB, and it turned out that not one
copy was preserved, except for those that were in the safes of the
KGB. Thanks to the sacrifices of our friends, the manuscript was ex–
tracted from the depths of the police files, microfilmed and sent to
the West. I would like to say that this is a wise book. Grossman's
main idea was to analyze the development of mass movements and
the different forms of fascism, such as class fascism and racial fas–
cism: he doesn't see any difference between these two curses of man–
kind. I think that every person who wants to understand genuinely
and deeply the reality of the Soviet Union and how the Soviet Com–
munist regime differs from and is similar to the Nazi regime should
read this book. In it there are answers to many of the questions we
have discussed, for example, the danger of nationalism, the demo–
cratic possibilities and perspectives in the development of the Soviet
Union.
WILLIAM PHILLIPS: Does it exist only in Russian?
EFIM ETKIND: For the present only in Russian.
NAUM KORZHAVIN: I am impressed by a Russian book too. I
am referring to a book by Petr Grigoryevich Grigorenko, who is
present here, which is inaptly titled
In the Underground You Meet Only
Rats.
This book is especially important today, when attempts are be–
ing made to substitute and replace history with the philosophy of his–
tory. It's important to know who created the Soviet regime and what
it is. Here before us is Grigorenko, an honest man, honest not only
today, but in his whole life. The friends who surround him in the
book also are all good people.
The psychological history of our society is the main ingredien t
necessary for understanding Russia, and this is impossible today
without an understanding of this book. It's possible to hate and to
