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ReplyAuthor(s): Victor ErlichSource: Slavic Review, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Sep., 1964), pp. 437-440Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2492682 .

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REPLY

BY VICTOR ERLICH

As a part-time observer of the Soviet literary scene, I am gratified to see my tentative generalizations endorsed by men as knowledgeable and authoritative in the field of Soviet literature as George Gibian and Max Hayward. I am also glad that my attempt at diagnosis has pro- vided an occasion for an illuminating companion piece and a thought- ful reassessment of what is undoubtedly one of the most significant works of recent Soviet fiction.

I have no quarrel whatsoever with the main body of Professor Gibian's perceptive and amply documented analysis, which supple- ments admirably my sketchy survey of trends and issues. The only por- tion of his article which may call for a brief rejoinder or clarification is the extended footnote. To take issue with what Professor Gibian himself calls "minuscule objections" is a somewhat picayune under- taking. But, just to be conversational, let me offer a few counter-cavils.

1. Re Russian "puritanism": I am afraid Professor Gibian and I got our signals crossed. I fully agree that Russians qua Russians tend to be "prudish" rather than "puritanical." In fact, I don't think I would insist on their prudishness either. (I have been looking at some Bunin lately.) What I was talking about was not the Russian cultural pattern, but the official Soviet code. It seems to me that, in this context, "puritanism" is a precarious metaphor but not an altogether misleading one. Soviet ethos, to paraphrase Professor Gibian's definition, is "averse to and distrustful of" anything that cannot be easily controlled, chan- neled, or streamlined, and this includes sensuality. To an apparatchik, "excessive emphasis" on sex is not wicked but "demobilizing," since, in a tedious cliche, "it tends to divert the attention of the masses from things that really matter."

2. While we clearly see eye to eye on the literary worth of A New Year's Tale, we seem to disagree on its literary importance. I suppose I find it difficult to disengage the two. (That the political importance of the story and its literary texture need not be correlated is obvious to all students of Soviet literature.) Granted that, in view of its genre, A New Year's Tale manages to bypass the crippling taboos of socialist realism. Yet, in my estimation, it is much too slight or, to use Mr. Gibian's term, much too "sophomoric" a work to be adjudged a significant departure from, or challenge to, the canon.



438 Slavic Review

3. I certainly did not mean to suggest that Khrushchev's bombshell was primarily a matter of personal impetuosity or of emotional self- expression. It is more than likely that the harangue pursued specific political objectives such as (a) to intercept and channel the swelling tide of exposure, (b) to restore the party morale by reassuring the activists that the reign of terror was over, and (c) to tar the rival faction with the "Stalinist" brush. There is no reason to assume that the speech failed to perform these functions. Yet I believe that it did so at a considerable, if not staggering, price-at the cost of confusing, shock- ing, indeed traumatizing, many believers in Russia as well as abroad, and thus materially contributing to the crisis in international commu- nism. It is not necessary to assume, however, that the ferment ever presented a serious threat to Khrushchev's power position. In this sense I would tend to agree with Mr. Gibian that the burns on Mr. Khrushchev's fingers are either nonexistent or easily healed.

4. As for the permissibility of criticizing the Soviet bureaucratic Establishment, perhaps I did not make myself clear. We all knowv that criticism of individual bureaucrats and agencies is not only tolerated but often encouraged by the party "v poriadke samokritiki." What I had in mind was something more objectionable to the powers-that-be, notably a fundamental distrust of, and alienation from, the top eche- lons or, to put it differently, the notion that, as Mr. Gibian phrased it himself in a recent discussion of taboo works and attitudes,' "injustice in high places . .. [is] very widespread."

5. I couldn't agree more with Professor Gibian's strictures on the finale of Not by Bread A lone. Though the ending was unacceptable to the bureaucrats, it is indeed ambiguous and inconclusive.

Max Hayward argues cogently for an estimate and an interpretation of Solzhenitsyn's novel which are, admittedly, somewvhat different from mine, though actually we are not very far apart. We both find One Day definitely superior to the "common run of present-day writing." We both regard it as a moving and potentially explosive document, as well as a solid literary accomplishment. What remains, I suppose, is a residual difference of opinion and personal response bearing upon the exact scope of Solzhenitsyn's nonconformism and the stature of his achievement, matters which are indeed difficult to adjudicate and pin down.

I am fully prepared to concede that some analogies between life in camp and life outside do occur in the text. The quotation adduced by Mr. Haywvard is suggestive if not conclusive. One could cite another relevent passage: "As time went on he understood that they might let you out but they never let you home. And he didn't really know where

1 "Soviet Literature during the Thaw," in Literature and Revoluttion in Soviet Russia, 1917-62. p. 136.



Reply 439

he'd be better off. At home or in here."2 Clearly there is an implica- tion here that for decent, hardworking, "simple" people-in a word, for narod-life on both sides of the barbed wvire is a grim and grimy business, that all "a little man" can expect from "them" is moral cal- lousness and arbitrariness. This is candid and damning enough, but not necessarily tantamount to the proposition that the forced labor camp is a natural outgrowth or epitome of the Soviet system or that the Soviet Union is a police state. As I was suggesting, this kind of moral was doubly impossible-both because it would not have gone past the Soviet censor and because it represents a level of generalization which is incompatible with the story's point of view.

To say this is certainly not to deny or play down the "objective" moral-political import of Solzhenitsyn's novel. It is simply to suggest that the absence of an articulated political verdict makes the task of defining the author's implicit ideological position rather tricky. One of the dangers to guard against in this connection is that of ideological "projection," of casually attributing to Solzhenitsyn inferences from his tale which "come naturally" to many a Western reader of One Day. I am sure I don't have to remind Mr. Hayward of that tortuous moral dialectic, that anguished oscillation between intransigence and evasion which often prevents even a truly heterodox Soviet intelligent from an unequivocal inward repudiation of Soviet totalitarianism. In his book, Riissia Revisited, Louis Fischer comments thus on some conversations which he held shortly after Khrushchev's secret speech: "One would think that they must hate the political system which is responsible for the massacres and reign of terror. Some do. But most of them are grateful for the neew moderation."3

As for the literary caliber of One Day, I find myself in substantial agreement with Mr. Hayward's conclusion that Solzhenitsyn's main importance might well lie in having "broken through a barrier as an interpreter of the 'popular' mind." But if I may be allowed a quibble, I would prefer to rephrase this assertion. For all its empathy, One Day does not purport to take the reader too far into anybody's "mind," to probe too deeply any individual consciousness. Much of the strength of Solzhenitsyn's narrative lies in its credible and compassionate ac- count of an adjustment to an extreme situation made by its sturdy, hardworking, "simple" peasant-carpenter hero. Ivan Denisovich's pattern of response is compounded of a dogged struggle for physical sur- vival and a characteristic determination to do even here, in the concen- tration camp inferno, an honest day's work, not only as a matter of keeping out of troulble btit also as one of salvaging somne of his self- esteem. (Incidentally, the documentationr of this latter attitude occa-

2 One Day in. the Life of Ivan De??isovich., p. 206. 3 Qlloted in Wolfgan-g Leon-ard, The Kremlin since Stalin (New York: Frederick A.

Praeger, 1969), p. 190.



440 Slavic Review

sions, in the bricklaying phase of the story, a descriptive sequence whose inevitable monotony reminded at least one reader of the all too familiar tedium of the Soviet production novel.)

To sum up, I had never meant to deny that the narrative strategy of One Day, obviously a "consciously chosen device," had its solid re- wards. All I was urging is that it has its inherent limitations as well.

Finally, a word about "rating." Mr. Hayward's undoctrinaire ap- proach to literary values has a great deal to recommend it, but, on balance, I find his criteria a bit too subjective and statistical. To be sure, there is no formula for spotting a masterpiece. Still, many of us will be reluctant to use the phrase, or, more broadly, to speak of a work as a major literary achievement unless we find in it elements of transcendent moral illumination, of formal brilliance, or of an aes- thetic breakthrough which we tend to associate with great moments in literary history. Such moments, admittedly rare in any body of literature, have for years been conspicuously absent from Russian letters. In this respect, Solzhenitsyn's novel is no exception. To say that it falls short of being great literature is not to demean its integrity or to ques- tion its craftsmanship. In contradistinction to so much slipshod and dishonest Soviet writing, it is genuine literature, and this, under the circumstances, is a great deal to be thankful for.



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