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bjectives, and has been repeatedly,
itossly humiliated, into the bargain.
The less dependence we place in
raited Nations, Mr. Gilbert thinks,
lie more advantaged we are, as a
-ation.
What about friendship and diplomatic relations between Communist
tad non-Communist nations? Don't be
1 dupe, scoffs "Heptisax." "The road
t> lasting peace is over the corpse of
lie international Communist appa-
Wus."
As these few excerpts indicate, we
lave here a robust book for red-
Wooded readers. It sets down a stark
record of the appalling mistakes
which we have already made, yet
leaves us with the deep conviction that
America can, must, and will accept
the truth, ancl go fonvard along paths
of wisdom and rectitude.
This is no time for patriots to sit at
ease on the side-lines, letting the
other fellow make all the decisions
ancl do all the work. Khrushchev himself has described the struggle as
"competitive coexistence." America,
concludes the author, had better learn
"to distinguish between a petting
party under the moon ancl a challenge
to a duel." end
THE WHITE NIGHTS
By Bon's Soleo/off
The Devin-Adair Co., 23 E. 26th St., New
'°rk 10, N. Y., 19S6, 294 pp., $3.75.
Thrill-packed, adventure-crammed,
is book lifts you right out of your
*fmchair and deposits you in old St.
■"etersburg, the City of White Nights,
•'here summer mists from the Neva
■tiver used to wrap the landscape in
pearly dream-like cloud.
Dr. Sokoloff, physician anel scientist
"f international renown, now living in
*lorida, writes brilliantly of his youth
Jnd education in Russia, where he was
Jorn in 1893. He recalls memories of
■Vorld War I, the fall of the Romanoff
'ynasty, the brief and vacillating Ker-
^sky government, its trend toward
•ocialism, its capitulation before the
-tirious onslaught of communism.
At age fifteen, Boris, while in
Switzerland on vacation, met Lenin;
J"as unfavorably impressed when he
teard the man explode: "Class war,
ed between rich and poor, be-
'■veen capitalists and workers, is the
Moving force in the social progress of
jftankind." Fortunately for Boris, he
tad been well grounded by his be-
•°ved history teacher, Chaskolsky, in
democratic ideals and principles
^hidi were to guide him through life.
"To a foreigner visiting Petrograd
*-. October, 1917, the city gave the
appearance of living a full, normal,
.Animated existence. . . . But the calm
l^as deceptive. A grave political crisis
■"as menacing . . . the newly-horn
democratic state. . . . Lenin demanded
. an energetic fight against the
bourgeoisie,' meaning the Socialist
'•berals and moderate Socialists. By
■took or crook the Bolsheviks had filtered into the various Soviets, particu-
I^acts Forum News, December, 1956
larly the soviet of Petrograd, steadily
ine leasing their influence. . . . There
was a strong underlying trend of
appeasement, and this was soon to
become the source of tragedy for Russian democracy."
Stirring events of January, 1918,
marked the end of the All Russia Constituent Assembly, headed by earnest
but unrealistic statesmen who forbade
any armed demonstration against the
Bolsheviks.
"There was no publication in exist
ence which was free to raise its voice
against Soviet propaganda," laments
the author — save The Soldier's
Capote. This four-page sheet, edited
and published by Sokoloff ancl two
daring associates, was immensely popular during its life-span of three
weeks. The people did not want communism.
"One regiment would have been
sufficient to throw the delicate balance
of power in favor of democracy. This
was admitted by many Communist
leaders in private conversation." Lenin
was fearfully biting his nails, shaking
in his boots; daily he risked assassination. In fact, on several occasions he
was shot at. Once, four bullets (out of
five, fired by a girl, at close range)
entered his body; he was with difficulty patched up at a hospital. One of
those bullets is still in his embalmed
remains in the mausoleum on Red
Square (if it really is Lenin on display, not merely a wax figure).
One girl is, however, not a regiment. The talk-talk-talk of statesmen
in conference could not prevail against
the crack-crack-crack of machine guns
in action. Lenin forged ahead.
"Democracy was at his mercy. . . .
The fate of the left-wing Socialists
was pathetic. Although admitted to
the Soviet of People's Commissars, in
which they received a few seats, they
were mercilessly liquidated as soon as
their usefulness as appeasers had
ended."
Young Dr. Sokoloff visited Pavlov's
laboratory. Pavlov talked of "neurism."
which assigns to the brain, and to the
brain only, the seat of higher nervous
activity, of man's mental processes,
moods, and emotions — personality-
being regarded as the end result of
man's adaptation to the outside stimulus, or environment.
Lenin called on Pavlov in October,
1919. Their conference "was the takeoff point for the Soviet government's
gigantic project of controlling human
behavior. It was actually a war on
that Russian individualism of which
we had been so proud in the past.
Several of Pavlov's disciples were
appointed as heads of institutions in
other cities, where work was at once
directed along the line of neurism,
with financial support from thc Soviet
goxernment.
"Scientists, physiologists, and psychiatrists who disagreed, even slightly.
xvith 'superneurism,' were denounced
as 'enemies of communism' and 'bourgeois lackeys.'"
Over and over again, the dissident
Dr. Sokoloff escaped death by a hair's
breadth, and, naturally, spent some
time in prison. He says:
"Paradoxically, I was in the midst
of left-wingers. Out of twenty men in
Cell 17, fourteen were men who only
two years before had ardently promoted and defended communism. . . .
All were filled with hatred for the
Soviet government. They claimed they
hael been betrayed, by Lenin and his
comrades, in the most outrageous
manner.
" 'Without us,' they reiterated, 'the
Communists would never have been
able- to overthrow Kerenskv's government or disperse the Constituent
Assembly. We believed them. We
trusted their honesty, their integrity.
their promises to adhere to democratic
principles and respect freedom. We
(Continued on page 63)
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