Book Review: Verdict of Three Decades
| Date | 01 March 1951 |
| Author | Simon Paynter |
| Published date | 01 March 1951 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205100600112 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
60
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
VERDICT
OF
THREE
DECADES.
Ed.
Julien Steinberg.
1950.
New
York:
Duell,
Sloane
&
Pearce.
Toronto:
Collins.
vi,
634 pp.
$6.50,
mem-
bers
$5.20.)
"This
book," says
the
editor,
"represents
an
attempt
to
depict
the
progress
of
the
Soviet
state
from
infancy
to
maturity
as
reflected
in
the
literature
of
three
decades
of
individual
revolt
against
Soviet
Communism."
The
purpose
thus
stated
is
self-contradictory.
The
anthologist's
function
is
not
the
historian's;
nor
can a
reliable
historical
account
of
so
emotionally
charged
a
period
be
drawn
from the
writings
of
the
disenchanted.
The
attempt
to
make
the
book
something more
than
what it
is-an
anthology
of
the
literature
of
disillusionment-
has
induced
the
editor
to
obtrude
himself
at
unnecessary
length,
in
introductions
which
come
close
to
outweighing what
they
introduce.
Nor
has
he
been
able to
confine himself to
the
disillusioned,
for
the
stumbling prose
of
Stalin
himself
is
here.
Here,
too,
is
Eisenstein's
recantation-or
is
it
after
all
not
a
credo
but
a
satire,
with its
in-
credible
eulogy
of
the
progressiveness
of
Ivan
the
Terrible's
bodýr-
guards?
This must
be
considered,
then, not
as
a history
but
as
an
antho-
logy.
Every
reviewer
is
an anthologist
manqui,
and
I
shall spare
the
reader
the
usual
dissertation
on
how
much
better
I
would
have done
it.
Assume
that
I
find
some
of
the
selections odd, some dull,
and
some
superfluous, and
the editing
slovenly.
That
settled,
let
me
describe
what
makes
this
a book
very desirable
to
own
and rewarding
to
open.
The
best
of
it
is
in
the first
third,
where
Mr.
Steinberg
aims
at
at
exploding
the attractive and reputably
held
notion
that
Stalinism
is
simply
a wicked
perversion
of
Lenin's
work.
This
misconception
arises
from
a
logical
confusion.
The
individual
who
embraced
and
then
abandoned
Bolshevism
has
very
often
not
changed
his
funda-
mental
principles
in
the
process.
The hatred
of
injustice
and
the
vision
of
liberty
that
led
him
into
the Communist
Party
were
precisely
what
led
him
out
again.
Therefore,
it
is
concluded,
Bolshevism
was
once
just
and
libertarian and
is so
no
more;
and
the
conclusion
is
backed
by
the purge
of
the
Old
Bolsheviks,
the crude
falsification
of
history,
and
the certainty
we
now
have
of
Lenin's
shrewd
estimate
and
ultimate
hatred
of
Stalin.
But
it
will
not
do.
Lenin
was a
sincere
and
attractive
person;
but
tyranny,
cynicism,
and
falsehood
were
implicit
in
the
wholly
unjustified
October Revolution
and
soon
pervaded
the
r~gime
built
thereon.
Now
Mr.
Steinberg
revives
for
us the pungent
criticisms
of
the
clearer
heads on
the
left
who saw
at
the
time
what
was
happening.
Kautsky's
brilliant
analysis
was
to
be
expected;
was
not
the
October
Revolution
in
a
very real
sense
a
gigantic
effort
to
refute
Kautsky?
But
Rosa
Luxemburg's
essay
comes
almost
as
a
new
revelation:
"freedom
is
always
and
exclusively
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