NEW NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200800005-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 14, 2004
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: March 29, 1970
• Content Type: NSPR

CJ
Approved For Releas 001~ G-CI\- P,88-01350R0 0200800005-1
BOOK WORLD
29 March 1970
1905-07 and in 1917. Now, ' a war with China will do it'
New notes frOM' again, Amalrik says, speaking not as Jeremiah or Mar-.
shall McLuhan but as a cultural descendant of the Tsar-
ist mini!,+cr of the Interior of 1914 or of the President
of the Durna in 1916, both of whom saw that war would
WILL TILE SOVIET UNION SURVIVE UNTIL 1984? By
Andrei Amalrik. Preface by Henry Karam. Commentary
by Sidney Monan. Harper & Row. 93 pp. $4.95.
mean al"J"Ctdtural and industrial collapse, ruinous in-
flation, ;' .vernmental loss of control, and finally violent
overthrow of the government:
Something of an apocalyptic tone lies in his sense of
the end of the Russian Empire. The revolution of 1917
By F. D. Reeve
Sandwiched between a friendly foreword and a pre-
tentious afterword are fifty-two pages of intense spec-
. ulation about the consequences of current political
non-activity in the Soviet Union. Andrei Amalrik sup-
poses that Russia and China will be at full-scale guer-
rilla war by 1980 and that by 1985 the Russian Empire
will have at last collapsed, either by violent revolution
or by peaceful federation - or there may be a third
possibility, "namely, that none of these things may
happen."
"My may is based not on scholarly research but only
on observation and reflection," Amalrik states candidly.
Whoever has spent some time in Russia during the
Sixties or who has closely read Message from Moscow
by "An Observer" will be pleased by the aptness of
Amalrik's eye and intelligence. Ilia basic assumption
is that Russia, a land full of ignorant, selfish people
whose sole ideal is some vague notion of "justice," is
inefficiently operated by a militaristic, stagnant regime
which has no purposeful plan in mind and a strong
having failed, he looks back over Russian history as,'
one vast stretch of imperialist expansion. The Revolu-
tion merely replaced an effete government, prolonging
the life of the'empire sixty years. Now, the whole thin-
must. be rebuilt. War is inevitable; moreover, because
-internal change is impossible without it, war is desir.'
able. On the other hand, it will be long and costly. "The
,~.pnly real hope for a better future" lies in a irapproche-'
ment between the United States and China.
The U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A., according to Amalrik,
are bound together only by respect for each other's,
power. Until and unless the Soviet Union is democra-
tized, he says, there is no point in pressing for a deeper
relationship. Pessimistic? Very. Although he idealizes
America, he well knows American political stupidity:
"By pursuing a policy of encouraging Communism'
where the people do not want it and opposing it where
they do want it, the United States has not only contri-
buted to the division of Europe but also damaged its
relations with China.... If r .. [it] had supported Mao
Tse-tung during the Civil War, this would have averted
the rapprochement between China and the Soviet Union,,
avoided the Korean War and helped considerably in
softening the Communist regime in China." This, which
might well have been written not by a young Soviet Rus.
desire to change nothing (including its own position).'
So-called liberalization or humanization, like mini.
skirts and jazz, are no more than false fronts for a so
ciety in ,which the village - especially "the `village' of., sign historian kicked out of college for political devia,
the subconscious" - dominates the city and the pre., lion but by an intelligent American or European with
vailing ambition, fed by "hatred of everything that is i the same vigor. and integrity, says much about the rea-'
outstanding," is that "nobody should live better than I ; on and reality of international politics.
do." The middle class, which wants comforts and needs' But who will read this tart little book? Will you? Or,
more 'political and economic freedom to develop the. 'will the review do? 'You probably feel you know how
country, is frustrated by compromises with the govern?, 'tough life in Russia is, but do you realize how con-
ment. As a result, relative well-being masks absolute' servative America, too, is becoming, how internally stag-
- ' nant how ruinously inflationary, how dgmoralized by'
F. D. Reeve's most recent novel is Just Over the Border. 'war and brutality, how sundered by national animosi-
ties? The two most powerful countries on 'earth arctry
? ;,
stagnation. Propaganda invents enemies against whose
'
imagined violence the state's security must be always
vigilant. Searches, trials, excoriation keep every man
scared to death.
Amalrik does not discuss the fear thrt pervades all
Russian life. He marshals little sociological data and no
economic material. In that sense, his book is impres.
sionistic, but the impressions are those of an alert, pru
'dent mind. His sense of what will happen.is not fashion-
'ably apocalyptic. Having garnered memories from his-
tory, lo! and behold, he says, here comes the wheel
round again: "a cast-ridden and immobile society, a
rigid governmental system which openly clashes with'
the need for economic development, general bureaucrat.,
Ica -these
condi ions that, ex a 3'I ERV Of
.' !t of t 3i~
s ,terrifying
ing to stop,.change. It
.....
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