Russian Relations

Several weeks ago, the Soviet Union invited the State Department to work out an agreement whereby the University of Moscow and Harvard would trade professors. As yet the State Department has not contacted University Hall, but College officials have already intimated that they are averse to the whole idea of having a Soviet appear as a visiting professor. Since various Russian academic groups recently invited two Harvard professors to participate in conferences, it appears that the Soviet hierarchy is sincerely interested in cultivating some sort of scholarly commerce. If Harvard maintains a recalcitrant attitude, it will only make itself, and the United States, appear stodgy and narrow.

The University's reluctance to meet Soviet offers is rooted in fears of incompetence, Bolshevik indoctrination, and generally unorthodox behavior. While officials do not doubt student's ability to see through an obvious intellectual bias, they do feel that Harvard has little responsibility to waste a course on an unknown quantity.

The fear of incompetence, however, need not be the main criterion for the University's decision. Members of the Russian Research Center and professors of Slavic history and literature are certainly well enough versed in Soviet scholarship to pick an acceptable professor. Nor need the University fear wasting a course on Bolshevik bias. If it invited a professor in any scientific field, except perhaps atomic physics, there would be little opportunity or reason for distortion. And a Soviet professor who taught history or literature would probably attempt to conceal any bias in an attempt to prove that Soviet scholarship is respectable. An American professor in Russia would attempt to prove that he was not blinded by bourgeois capitalism; it would seem that Russian professors, who are even more aware of following a party line, would also do their utmost to appear objective.

Even if a Soviet professor should fail to inspire students' trust in his objectivity, his course would not be absolutely wasted. For, aside from the material he was teaching, the man himself would be intrinsically interesting as a representative of upper levels of Soviet thought.

Although it must be granted that a Soviet teaching Russian history would be the object of some interest, he would, of course, present some problems in administration. He would have to be given at least as much academic freedom as an American professor would expect. This might mean that students would be subjected to unorthodox examinations or some other Slavic peculiarity. A Russian professor, however, as a guest would probably try to accomodate himself to the American system.

The main problems perhaps would not be internal so much as external. The University may feel that its reputation as a welter of Communistic thought has created enough turmoil without establishing an overt relationship with Russia. But because of its independence, Harvard is the most logical institution to initiate cultural trade. State universities, for the most part under the control of conservative state legislatures, are certainly in no position to take up the Russian gauntlet. For Harvard, on the other hand, a visiting professorship from Moscow could prove to be quite a coup, not only as an assertion of a rational approach to the Communistic threat, but as a valuable addition to the Cambridge community.