Evening star., 1937-10-02

should take such a course and suffe,
! under it for 18 mortal years, is some
thing beyond this reviewers credence
1t just simply would not occur. L
is impossible to accept it.
The jacket blurb accommodatingl,
ascrlbes all of Mr. Stegners ingenjou!
torture to John Calvin. The sever,
tenets of that martyrs faith. it saws
are responsible for the hell-on- earth
which Margaret and her sister devised
for themselves. But If that is so /,
would seem that Mr. Stegner nigh
have mentioned it himself. On the
contrary. he says little or nothing
about the sisters religion. Elspett
is indeed shown to be distinctly pagan,
she takes delight in insulting the
visiting preacher. Margaret is on.
posed. in wifely manner, to her hys.
bands habit of getting drunk occa
sionally, but that, certainly. does not
indicate an unnatural degree of re-
liglous ferver. And as for Alec he is
shown to be a simple savage. So the
introduction of Calvin as demon ey
machna hardly convinces. Whatever
mlseries the old martyr NAV be re.
Sponslble for. he cannot be indicted
mere. Instead, the reviewer holds thai
Mr.. Wallace Stegner in Youthful zeal
TO be pessimistic, has simply strained
possibilities. He can write nicely
however No doubt he will grow
out OF his despair.
ASSIGNMENT IN UTOPIA. By
Eugene Lyons. New York: Har-
court Brace and Company.
HIS Is yet one more autobiography
OF a newspaperman, being one CT
that category which lies to the we'll
known Left. Its author is-or was-a
Communist; he believed passionatelv-
or, perhaps it would be better to saw.
on the evidence of his own description
OF ms bellef, frantically-in the expert
ment which the world has seen carried
out in Russia. and by far the greater
part OF this work is given over to his
experience as Russian correspondent
he went out there for the United
Press in 1928 and stayed six years. Dur
ing that period he saw the working out
OF the first Five Year Plan and became
acquainted with the methods used bv
Communist officials to garner those
radiant progress reports which 50 edi-
fed the radicals of the world at the
time. Mr.. Lyons summing up of the
WhOIp har ~ t-1l l..
his own words. Here 1t is:
Taken together, their meaning (the
meaning of recent developments in
Russia) seems TO me beyond dispute ::
evident to the naked intelligence not
blinded by fanaticism The central
1act of these last Russian years has
been the intense intrenchment of the
new ruling political and economic
groups on a basis OF thorougheoine
conservatism. There mas been a con-
stantly growing reaction against mod
ernlsm in every department of Soviet
life. The status quo of socialism IN
construction. with its bureaucracy. its
sharply stratified population, its con-
trasts of poverty and ease, its renunci-
alton Of that mood and temper which
may be called, for lack of better
word, advanced. has emerged as fixed.
static. one Of the great forces for con-
servatism in the present-day world
Other impulses may hammer down this
system, but every ounce of the Krem-
Inns energy is now invested in estab-
fishing and maintaining a world equi-
librium. The logic of Russia's struggle
for survival as state, coupled with
absolutist government, has landed It
in the camp of desperate and militant
conservatism.
And again. of Stain and the offici-
ally commanded Stalin- worship;
When I left Russia, I was sure that
the exaltation of mortal creature
could not be carried any further. I
was mistaken. The Soviet press bulges
with proofs that the human animals
capacity for groveling sycophancy is
literally boundless
Powerful beyond any medieval tsar
in his own domain. the great and
beloved (StalinJ is also acknowledged
pretender to an international throne
@ as dictator OF the Comintern .
Thus the collectivist idea has come
to fruition in the apotheosis of an IN
dividual Absohtism reigns in the
name of a collectivist philosophy. One
man is regent for Demos-which, come
TO think of it. was precisely the role
Of the 'tyrants' in ancient Greece
History has again played one of its
gruesome jokes and the cosmic belly
laugh will echo through endless gene
rations"
Well, somehow, one doubts that last
statement. To those who never shared
the frenetical faith of such as Mr..
Lyons in the new Utopia-that is, TO
the ajority of the worlds thinkers
the denoument in Russia is Just about
what was TO be looked for, neither bet
ter nor worse. Such people as these
have no inclination to indulge in melo-
dramatic laughter over the ruination of
the hopes of millions Of poor peasants.
Such people too have feeling thai.
while the Russian revolution did not
bring about state of perfect justice
(Which. incidentally. has been hitherto
lacking in human history 1t still has
done some good.
Mr. Lyons denunciation is much
in the character of the pronounce
ments of praise which he made in
his e-disillusion days; that is. it
is extremist. Either Russia was to be
the scene of heaven earth. or it
must be an inferno. Well, Russia.
when its revolution did come. WAS
the most backward country of the
Western World; its people had the
highest per cent of illiteracy and its
soul and mind were conditioned by
centuries OF submissive slavery Just
why any one with good sense should
have believed that such a popula-
ton could achieve unblemished liberty,
equality and fraternity overnight
when some Of the most enlightened
nations of the world have been strug-
Cling in vain toward those goals for
III