The Totalitarian Squelch

A novel called The Yershov Brothers by one Vselod Kochetov is proving to be one of the most dramatic literary sensations of the decade in Russia. The 75,000 copies of the magazine Neva, in which it first appeared, were sold out almost immediately; a paperback edition of half a million sold out in one day. The Yershov Brothers bears some resemblance to Not by Bread Alone in its plot and its factory setting, but unlike Dudintsev, Kochetov will never have to make apologies to the Central Committee for inaccurate descriptions of Socialist life. His book is a sharp attack on those who tried to "take advantage" of the Party's 1956 leniency; intellectuals in general get a sound thrashing.

At a time when embarrassment is general among Party litterateurs because of the incorrigible Pasternak, the new book seems like the perfect tonic for the authorities. Pravda, Kommunist and other Russian periodicals have given it long, laudatory reviews; but more important, perhaps, the novel's overwhelming success will undoubtedly be taken as the people's mandate to chill the intellectual climate several degrees below freezing. Pasternak's case has already prompted the Kremlin to tighten the reins, not only in Russia, but throughout the Communist world.

Marek Hlasko, whose bitter novel The Eighth Day of the Week was a product of the temporary Polish thaw, has chosen voluntary exile, and he will not be welcomed back should he return. Polish Communist intellectuals, who have been spared some austerities under the Gomulka regime, are dismayed at the implications of the Pasternak case. "For many of them," the New York Times said, "what counted most was the belief that the whole episode would wind up in a much tougher attitude toward intellectuals."

Mindful of international opinion, the Party is trying to give the crackdown a sugar coat by underlining those sections of Communist ideology which stress that freedom for the artist exists under Party discipline too. A faintly conciliatory tone has appeared in Soviet literary magazines as the Party writers, led by Ilya Ehrenburg, insist that the Soviet writer is just as free as his Western counterpart; in fact, a good deal freer, censorship nowithstanding. Of course, this is Socialist freedom: "The writer is free when he understands the nature of the historical process," comments Alexander Karaganov.

But intellectuals cannot forget Khrushchev's dictum: "The question of whether he is free or not does not exist for any artist who faithfully serves his people..." Official criticism of Pasternak is still bitter, despite adverse world opinion, and the hope of another thaw is far off.

Even Party intellectuals are beginning to grow uneasy, however. The virulence of The Yershov Brothers has been noted with disapproval in many quarters. The New Statesman's Moscow correspondent reports that "opinion is being widely expressed that the author has been too sweeping in his attacks on the Moscow literary intelligensia." Most significantly, the Writers Union, which read Pasternak out of its ranks a short time ago, criticized Kochetov sharply for unfavorable distortions of the intellectual's role.

Kremlin authors will be watched carefully, for debate on the book is far from over. Whether or not Communist writers can preserve their remaining privileges is a problem which The Yershov Brothers may help to solve.