Red Novel, Uncensored

During the temporary thaw of destalinization, some fascinating literary floes have broken loose from the icecap of Soviet culture and drifted into open water. Last year Moscow allowed the serialization of Not by Bread Alone, Vladimir Dudintsev's harsh novel of genius frustrated by Red bureaucracy (TIME, Oct. 21), later condemned the book but could not prevent publication in the West. Now another furor is brewing over the appearance in Italy of a novel by distinguished Russian Poet-Translator Boris Pasternak. Reason why the Italian publication is "unauthorized"' by Moscow is evident from lines such as these: "Marxism is not sufficiently master of itself to be a science ... I know no current of thought that is more isolated and farther from the facts than Marxism."

A year ago Pasternak arranged with Italian Publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli for the simultaneous publication in Russia and Italy of Dr. Zhivago, a vast (710 pages), panoramic novel of life in Russia from 1903 to 1929. Feltrinelli's agent brought a manuscript to Italy, and a translation was made. Meanwhile the powerful Union of Soviet Writers got hold of the novel, decided that its "cumulative effect" was to depict the Bolshevik revolution "as if it were the great crime in Russian history." Extensive rewriting was "suggested."

Essential Values. Pasternak dutifully wrote Feltrinelli to get his manuscript back. The publisher, himself an Italian Communist, refused on the grounds that the decision had been forced on Pasternak. In spite of a visit from Alexei Surkov, secretary of the writers' union, Feltrinelli went ahead with plans to publish the book "as a service to the author." (U.S. publication is expected next spring.)

By most accounts a literary work of the first order, Pasternak's novel leads his physician-hero, Dr. Yuri Andreevich Zhivago, through World War I and the revolution to his death in 1929. It deals harshly with Communism's first years. Says one character: "I think that collectivization was a wrong measure and that it failed, though the error could not be acknowledged. To conceal the failure by every means that terrorism can suggest, it is necessary to make people learn not to think and to judge, forcing them to see things that do not exist and proving the contrary of what everyone can see."

Pasternak is a poet, and it is not merely such blunt statements of opposition that make his novel stick in the Communist crop. The book attempts a subtle defense of individualism, and of the individual's search for meaning in life. While nursing wounded in a service hospital, the heroine muses: "One needs to believe in essential values, in life's force, in beauty, in truth so that they--and not human authority--may lead you up sure paths."

General Phariseeism. Despair and religious yearning pervade a group of poems, supposedly written by the hero, which Author Pasternak effectively uses as the novel's epilogue. Sample: "I catch the distant echo of the happenings of my century. In the darkness of the night a thousand flaming binoculars are focused on me. If only it is possible, God, remove this chalice from me. I love your obstinate plan, and in agreement, I will play my part. But now a new drama has arisen. This time at least, relieve me of taking part in it . . .1 am alone and everything sinks in the general Phariseeism."

What effect the bootleg publication of his novel will have on Author Pasternak, 67, is questionable. Probably he will survive; he has been out of favor before (in 1946 for bourgeois tendencies), presumably knows how to bow to "human authority" as well as his colleague, Novelist Dudintsev. When asked at a recent diplomatic cocktail party what would become of irksome Author Dudintsev, Dictator Nikita Khrushchev replied blandly: "I intend to see him. He will continue to write, but there will be nothing for which world capitalists will sing his praises."

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