The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-05-28
ESCAPE FROM THE sOVIETs-Bl

ESCAPE FROM THE SOVIETS-By
Tatiana Tchernavin. Translated
from the Russian by n. Alexander
800 pages. New York, E. P. Dut-
ton, Inc. $3.50.
Reviewed by ARLINA MCMAHON
THIS vitriolc attack on the Soviet
l Union would be hardly worth
the space taken to review we're it
not for the sinister motives that
seem to lie behind the publication Of
this book. The capitalist press has
taken it fondly to its bosom and
altho a few reviewers have suggested
that the account is highly colored
by prejudice and possibly not en-
tirely truthful. the New York Times
critic in the Sunday Book Review
section, May 90, 1894. declares 1T
will be read when the present
KremIin dictatorship is an episode
in history" BY this provocative
statement against the Russian peo-
pie the critic J. Donald Adams,
above quoted, brazenly discards his
role as literary critic and openly
shows his face as a war monger
whipping up the flames Of hatred
against the Soviet Union.
The book, itself purports to be
written by one Tatiana Tchena-
win. a bourgeois intellectual who
was by profession a museum expert
and at one time assistant curator
of the Hermitage Museum in Lenin-
grad. She describes her experiences
in the Soviet Union from 1918 to
1888. Even she is forced to admit
that both her talents and those Of
her husband "a scientisD we're uti-
lied by the workers state for q
number of years after the revolu-
ton, along with the other intel
lectuals and scientists whose priv
ilege it was to help build the new
Socialist state. However, unlike the
great Pavlov, Kolt7ov and other
famous Russian scientists who are
still carrying on their work in the
Soviet Union, this couple chose an
other road. The details of their ar
rests are extremely vague. Names
and places are conspicuous by their
absence, leaving the reader with the
suspicion that they cannot be givenl
This brings us to a series Of ex-
traordinary self contradictions on
the part of the author, Ter husband
was sent to KEN, a penal camp on
the White Sea. She is very careful
not to play up this great White Sea
Canal, constructed by political pris-
oners. many Of whom won their
freedom in recognition of their
valuable work. Here in spite Of all
the oppression and difficulties that
she would impress on the readers
mind, she naively recounts how not
only was she enabled to have an in
terview with her husband but that
this interview was so private and
protracted, that she and he were
able to discuss and plan fully, their
escape to Finland
To anyone with the slightest
familiarity with prison routine in
America, it is obvious that such
private and extended visit would be
utterly impossible here. Nine.
Tchernavin here presents, I'M
consciously, the act that Soviet
prison camp extends to its inmates
the rights and privileges Of human
beings and not the overcrowded cells
of American jails or the intolerable
conditions of Southern chain gangs.
This fact is further borne out in
the act that part of their plan of
escape included having the husband
ask for transfer to work further
north. near the Finnish border This
request was granted by the Soviet
authorities. Once again, let us
draw another parallel. Can any
American worker imagine Sing
Sing prisoner requesting a transfer
to prison on the Canadian border
and getting itP
However, aside from the actual
errors contained, the sinister pur-
pose of this book is embodied in the
authors concluding words: I'VE
have been spared so that we might
tell of the terrible plight of our
country, once so prosperous, and
remind those who, have not been