Evening star., 1943-04-25

titude typifies today version of the
perennial anarchist. There is little
physical action in the work. Its pur-
pose is the examination of the minds
of these people and it carries that
purpose out almost altogether by
recording conversations, soliloquies
and thoughts. The authors power
fu grasp of his subject and his
mastery technique, however, pre-
vent the book from tagging. Mr..
Aldanov, in the modern age. OBJ
viously carries on the great tradition
of his country in the novel field.
Sympathetic Type.
He shows us his Russians disinte-
grating in the atmosphere of free
| dom. The ambassador finds the
pageantry of court life irresistibly
delightful; emissary for Socialist
republic, he thrills at shaking hands
with king and revels in the formal
dignities of his office; one sees in
him that naturally slavish men,
tality is not eradicated by po-
litical creed.
The Czarist general is a more
sympathetic type. His mission takes
him to Paris where he has spent
some OF his youth. Gradually his
old tastes assert themselves; he
works faithfully for his govern
ment, but dreams of the gallantries
OF young hussar. Dispatched,
finally, to Spain to observe the
course of the civil war and report
to Moscow which side seems likely
to win, he sees, for the first time,
in the Spanish Communists, the
futility of political revolution. His
diSillusion ends with his death in
street fighting in Madrid.
The old Bolshevik, a former COM
rade of Lenin, is, however, the i'm
portant one OF the three. 1t is into
his thoughts that Mr. Aldanov pours
his most pertinent reflections on the
course of the Communist party,
making him perceive, too late, that
the Fascist regimes were Com
munisms inevitable growth.
Ironic Commentary.
All three officials live in constant
dread OF the Gay-pay-oo and of
summons to return to Moscow, where
the purges are in progress. The
Old Bolshevik is finally liquidated
by party orders, though he has
made no conscious move that is con-
trary to the party line.
AS if in ironic commentary on the
uselessness of political doctrines to
change the human heart, Mr.. Aida
nov has put into his story the
episode of the anarchist clerk, goth
century understudy of Raskolnikov,
who kills his employer in order to
rob him. Such types occur in all
periods, the author seems to say,
and owe their warped beings to
something more profound than the
governmental system under which
they happen to live.
The old French novelist is the
archtype Of the intellectual, the
ndividualist who, detesting re-
straints on human freedom, has
turned toward political radicalism
only to find that the RECOMMENDATION
and lnhumanity of the radicals are
lar more repressive than the vul-
garities of the democracies. His
dilemma comes when, in poverty, he
is offered a tempting contract by
the Russian government on condi-
ton that he indorse the purges.
These are human beings, Mr..
Aldanov seems to say. They are
not political creatures but flesh and
blood struggling in political bonds
OF various kinds. Insofar as they
conform to those bonds they lose
tnelr human virtues; insofar as
they escape them they suffer social
penalties. His doctrine seems to
come back to one especially familiar
to Americans-that the best govern
ment is the one which governs least
He does not labor the point. but it is
there, very plainly, for the per-
ceptiVe reader tn ohserva