A Judgment on Revolution

By devious stratagems and ruses we are getting a worthwhile modern Russian literature. It goes without saying that it is not being published inside Russia itself.

The first break in the ice jam came when Igor Gouzenko, a short story writer of great talent, got himself accepted as a cipher clerk by the Soviet Union’s foreign service. One day in 1945 Gouzenko calmly walked out of the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, carrying with him a hundred or more documents bearing on the operations in Britain and America of a Communist spy ring. More important for the long run, however, was the novel which Gouzenko carried in his head—an unforgettable story of the calculated destruction by the Stalinist apparatus of a great man of letters who bore more than a faint resemblance to Maxim Gorki. Gouzenko got his story on paper as The Fall of a Titan while living under the protection of the “Mounties”—the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It was the nearest thing to a big novel that had come out of Russia in decades.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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By devious stratagems and ruses we are getting a worthwhile modern Russian literature. It goes without saying that it is not being published inside Russia itself.

The first break in the ice jam came when Igor Gouzenko, a short story writer of great talent, got himself accepted as a cipher clerk by the Soviet Union’s foreign service. One day in 1945 Gouzenko calmly walked out of the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, carrying with him a hundred or more documents bearing on the operations in Britain and America of a Communist spy ring. More important for the long run, however, was the novel which Gouzenko carried in his head—an unforgettable story of the calculated destruction by the Stalinist apparatus of a great man of letters who bore more than a faint resemblance to Maxim Gorki. Gouzenko got his story on paper as The Fall of a Titan while living under the protection of the “Mounties”—the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It was the nearest thing to a big novel that had come out of Russia in decades.