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previous: Acknowledgment   This webpage reproduces a section of The Nationality Problem of the Soviet Union by Roman Smal-Stocki published by The Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee, 1952 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 1

 p. xiii  Introduction

It is rather difficult for our American colleagues to picture the tragic fate of academic freedom in the Soviet Union; it is also difficult for them to imagine the thorny way of the scholars of the non‑Russian nationalities, who since the establishment of the Soviet Union have refused to capitulate before Russian Communism.

First after 1920‑1922 we had to retreat from our mother countries, which were forced into the Soviet Union by Russian Communist aggression, we had to take refuge in Poland, Czecho­slovakia, Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, and France, continuing there as figures in the public eye and as teachers in the universities our fight against the Russian Communist dictator­ship over liberal arts and sciences, and mobilizing all moral forces for the defense of academic freedom in the Soviet Union; academic freedom is synonymous for us with personal and national freedom, because freedom is a general idea.

The second phase began after World War II. Poland, Czecho­slovakia, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, East Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, suffer the same fate previously undergone in the years 1920‑22 by Ukraine, Byelo-Ruthenia (Byelo-Russia), Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, North Caucasus, the Cossack, Tatarian, and Turkestan peoples. All academic freedom was suppressed in these countries also. Together with the DPº professors of these new victim-countries of Russian Communism who refused to capitulate before Stalin, we again had to retreat to the west and finally reached the last line of defense, the U. S. A. In the still free remainder of Europe these academic and national freedoms are at present in mortal danger, and their final fate completely depends on the real force commanded by the Atlantic Pact nations. Thus since the year 1920 we have heard the hoofs of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — and we hear them still in the U. S. A.

All European scholars are rather well acquainted with the ideological background of the U. S. A. and the principles of the American Declaration of Independence, but we had not anticipated how deeply these principles have been undermined in some universities by some influences in philosophy, education, and political theory which deny that the individual possesses any rights at all as against the almighty State, any rights which the State may not take away, as actually happened in the Soviet Union. Therefore, we regarded this great nation as the natural moral leader in the present great ideological world war between Russian Communist dictator­ship and Democracy, in this war which for us, the non‑Russian nationalities of the Soviet Union, has already lasted without intermission for one third of a century. It is true that some of us, professors, were deeply suspicious of the U. S. A. and its academic world, because in the course of the past decades we had not received, in our  p. xiv fight for academic freedom in the Soviet Union, one single spontaneous word of encouragement from the American universities; on the contrary, many books of American scholars glorified the regime which killed academic freedom, independent thought and all free intellectual creation. In recent times we were astonished at what a tiny impression had been made on the American academic world by the fate of the oldest universities in Central Europe: Prague, Leipzig, Cracow. . . .

Our destiny soon brought us face to face with the American realities. What did we find here, we fanatics of academic freedom?

First, we found an amazing discrepancy between the professed American principles of freedom, democracy, and self-determination, and their theoretical and practical application to the non‑Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union — and that includes for us also our academic freedom. American official policy readily defends these principles for the nationalities of Asia and the tribes of Africa, but regarding the non‑Russian nationalities of the Soviet Union these principles dare not even be used as lip service for the observance of elementary democratic decency. The American official policy regarding the right of self-determination of the non-Russian nationalities is up to the present moment scrupulously made to conform with the nationality policy of the Russian Communist Party. It is hostile to their liberation movements, their national ideas and freedom.

Second, we found here, in the U. S. A., a scientific Iron Curtain, with the emblem of a "red herring," regarding all matters connected with the Soviet Union, and a very active staff of a "Soviet-Russian Occupation Zone" in American intellectual and academic life. These facts explain for us that kind of censor­ship and thought control which exists especially in the American liberal press and converts this country into an intellectual colony of the Soviet- or Pan‑Russian ideology. Some of the DP professors, after a couple of months in the U. S. A., had the feeling that they were trapped here by Stalin's "second front" against the fight for academic freedom and the liberty of the non-Russian nationalities behind the Iron Curtain. Only the moral integrity, courage, and patriotism of the American "man in the street" who sentenced the "American" Communist Party Board — in reality a Communist Army staff — and the encouragement we receive from some few American scholars and some Catholic universities restored their confidence in this nation which started to clean house only two years ago.

Thus the DP emigration here in the U. S. A. is confronted with a double task and mission: (a) We must continue the fight for academic freedom behind the Iron Curtain, making sure that the united public opinion of the free world and the UN could, by courageous acts of condemnation — if not bring real relief for the scholars, at least surely stimulate the will and spirit of all academic institutions, staff and youth of the U. S. S. R., to continue their effective intellectual opposition against Russian Communist dictator­ship and give them the assurance of being not isolated in their fight but backed by the whole free world. (b) In 1947 we had immediately to begin a dirty job: to remove that Iron Curtain in American public life and in the academic field, and to challenge to a public discussion  p. xv the operators of the intellectual "Soviet Russian Occupation Sphere," often commanded by American colleagues.

Do these American colleagues think that we, who for decades refused to capitulate before Russian Communist and Stalin, will in the U. S. A. capitulate before them and their Soviet Russian, open and hidden, allies? What kind of people do they think we are? They are badly mistaken. No special "job policy" will break the overwhelming majority of the DP scholars and close their mouth.

We are warned by our American friends that the fight for academic freedom and liberty behind the Iron Curtain is rather unpopular among some influential professors. We were warned also by our American colleagues before the fellow-traveler smear and terror, operating through broadcasting, news­papers, and academic pressure, which have intimated or disgusted many honest American intellectuals and created such an impression on the DP's that they asked one another: Does academic freedom in Slavic and Soviet matters still exist in the U. S. A. also for non‑Marxists and non‑fellow travelers or only for Marxists and fellow-traveling "liberals"?

Despite all the smear, terror, and character assassination which the author of this book has to anticipate from the Russian bolsheviks and mensheviks, and their American protectors, he has decided to publish it. Why?

(a) He feels a moral obligation to the memory of all the thousands of colleagues of all the nationalities of the Soviet Union who were murdered by the Communist dictator­ship in the previous decades because of their defense of academic and national freedom; he feels the moral duty to honor the thousands of writers, poets, and journalists who were "liquidated" for their defense of free creative thought. (b) He feels a moral obligation toward all colleagues and "men of the pen" of all nationalities of the Soviet Union presently imprisoned and persecuted for their defense of free thought and research. (c) He feels it a duty to publish these pages as an "outline of the history of the struggle for liberty of the non‑Russian nationalities, enslaved in the U. S. S. R."º This outline is at the same time also an "outline of the history of Slavistics and linguistics in the Soviet Union" for the last third of a century, the saddest pages of Slavic liberal arts since the Tatar invasion. (d) He feels also a moral duty, now as an American professor, to warn his colleagues, the American youth and public opinion against Soviet Russian infiltration into the academic sphere, and publicly to denounce all the dogmas of the Russian bolshevik and menshevik propaganda in the U. S. A., which aims at the realization of the thesis: Soviet Russia first, the interest of the truth and of the U. S. A. second.

Thus by this book our fight against the scientific Iron Curtain in the U. S. A., its academic operators and their rather numerous pupils, enters a new stage, and we have to make it clear again to our American colleagues and friends against what and whom we were and are fighting this ideological war, and for what world outlook: we have to formulate our attitude toward a certain group in the American academic world in which some of us DP professors and scholars are already included on  p. xvi the one hand, and on the other from which others of our group are systematically excluded.

In this connection we regard it necessary to state openly our attitude regarding the Russian nation in order that there may be no misinterpretations. We have stated it publicly many times, have printed it in Europe and are repeating it here, in the U. S. A.: we are not fighting the Russian nation and all its legitimate rights; we are fighting Russian imperialism and intolerant chauvinism, merged together with Russian Communism into a messianistic dynamic force aiming at world conquest. Thus, as we fought Pan‑Germanism of the Nazis and their German imperialism and chauvinism, so we are opposing Pan‑Russian imperialism and its allies, open and secret, in the U. S. A. We regard it as an exclusive business of the Russians themselves to organize their own political, national, and cultural life according to their own convictions; we only defend the just claim of all these rights also for all non‑Russian nationalities behind the Iron Curtain and in the Soviet Union. We regard as the worst enemy of the Russian nation itself anybody who fosters Russian imperialism and intolerance, because that is the way into a Russian catastrophe on the same scale as the German catastrophe. Only justice, equality, and freedom can build up a peaceful world of the future and lead us to an organized humanity. Therefore every true friend of the Russian nation should appeal to the Christian conscience and political wisdom of the Russians voluntarily to grant all enslaved people liberty for that cause and to cease to discriminate and murder the non‑Russian peoples. Therefore it is with moral shock and horror that we witness how in the land of Washington and Jefferson the Menshevik Dallin has joined the Bolshevik Stalin in a common front against the liberty of the non‑Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union. Godless Russian Marxism also in the U. S. A. has dropped its "humanitarian" mask forgetting even Marx's thesis that "a nation which oppresses other nationalities can never be free itself."

We have too great a respect and feel too great a gratitude to such Russians as Soloviev, Herzen, Fortunatov, etc., to lose the ultimate hope that the Russians as a whole will embrace the Christian and democratic principles regarding their near and far neighbors. We were and are friends of the Russian nation, to the culture of which Ukrainians have contributed much, but we will never give up the member­ship of the Ukrainian nation in the Western European cultural sphere, in the European family of nations, and renounce our cultural heritage connected with Rome and not only with Constantinople. To the Russian and the "American" admirers and worshipers of force, terror, and slavery we answer with the quotation from a work of the poetess Lesya Ukrainka, who wrote over half a century ago, "Kill me — but I will never surrender to Russian absolutism!" The same attitude toward Russia proper is professed also by Finno-Karelians, the Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Byelo-Ruthenians, the Cossacks; the Caucasus is also oriented to Europe.

We repeat once again in very clear terms that we observe a distinction between the historically absolutist, bloody and undemocratic Russian leader­ship and the victimized common Russian people, in spite of  p. xvii the fact that Russian Communism is backed at present by millions of Russians who are fascinated by Communist Pan‑Russian imperialism, and are profiting by it. We are conducting our fight against this Russian imperialistic Communism realized in the Soviet Union, which according to the great Russian thinker Berdyaev is the third form of Russian imperialism, having succeeded its first and second form, the Muscovite Tsardom and the Russian Empire. This Pan‑Russian imperialism is also rather prevalent amongst the Russians in the U. S. A., who instead of accepting the American principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence, are attempting to Russianize the U. S. A. For many anti-Communist Russian political leaders in this country the territorial conservation of that new Russian Slave Labor Camp Empire is more important than the defeat of Russian Communism, and they, often as naturalized American citizens, demand full subordination of the American foreign policy to that aim of Russian imperialism and colonialism, reserving for the American Democracy the honorable post of a junior co‑jailer of the oppressed non‑Russian nationalities in the new Communist prison of nations. Against these phony "democrats" and "Americans," who often like to pose as "new leaders," we will also continue to fight, proving in regard to them how right was the thesis of Lenin, proclaimed only for "tactical" reasons, that "any Russian Socialist who refuses to recognize the freedom of Finland and Ukraine is bound to degenerate into a chauvinist."

By the way, we are not without allies in this fight amongst the true Russian patriots themselves. In the Russian paper Nasha Strana (Argentine), No. 48, 1950, in the editorial "What About Tomorrow?" there is given a good picture of the present ideological plight of the overwhelming part of the Russian émigrés:

Now we have to state our general world view from which our opposition to Russian Communism and imperialism springs, in order to make it clearly understood whom we regard as our allies and friends in the U. S. A. Not all anti-Communists here are our true friends.

 p. xviii  The DP professors and intellectuals represent a whole scale of political programs, from the left to the center, which have one common basic element; that is freedom, which as academic freedom is the basis of our research, teaching, and educational activity. We all agree that without this a nation cannot live, youth cannot be educated, research cannot be promoted, and our Jewish-Greek-Latin-Christian cultural heritage cannot be preserved. This freedom under the rule of the Moral Law we have defended and are defending. Consequently, anyone who believes in God and freedom, in human dignity, based on this freedom, feels the responsibility for these foundations of our culture and civilization against which Soviet Moscow has proclaimed the "inevitability of its Communist dictator­ship," based on its special moral code, which subordinates human beings to its new god: the Russian Communist State, the nucleus of the World Soviet Union.

Not only theoretical thinking but the practical experience of one third of a century have persuaded all European scholars to subscribe to a thesis which makes many of our American colleagues "nervous." It is the thesis that there exists a fundamental and uncompromising conflict between Communism-Leninism and freedom. Only an "American professor in Sovietland," like an "Alice in Wonderland," can teach the "peaceful coexistence" of Marxism-Leninism and Democracy. That is an impossible assumption, contrary to all basic principles of Leninism-Stalinism, and the only professor who was compelled by the Western Powers to believe in it and made a practical experiment, E. Benesh,º paid for it with the enslavement of his mother country. Therefore from the 1920's on we have learned, the hard way, the truth that the essential difference between these two world conceptions concerns not Eastern Europe only, but the entire world; this is not a simple struggle between two socioeconomical systems for the owner­ship of the means of production but is a fundamental struggle over man's soul and its freedom, a struggle of two moral systems, of two ways of life, of the ideas of free society and a slave society. Freedom, the lifeblood of the one is poison to the other; the lifeblood of the other, Russian absolutism, is poison to the first one. The first view respects human liberty and the dignity of the individual of all nationalities and their religions, and embraces them in a free humanity under God; the second kills liberty and the dignity of individuals and nationalities, proclaiming as it does only the Russians as the chosen people of the Communist caliphate and their Communist police State as the realization of the godless and classless society, of that Russian brand of "humanity" which will conquer the whole world and thus "finally put in order" the senseless chaos of the universe.

The first view, so deeply impressed upon us by T. G. Masaryk's philosophy, clearly stresses the paramount importance of the nationality problem in constructive politics; the relation between nationality and mankind is not understood in such a way that mankind as a whole and internationalism are something different from, against, or above the nations and nationalities, but that nationalities are "the natural organs of mankind." The other view regarding the nationality problem is  p. xix practically a Russian Communist Murder Inc. for all non‑Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union, under the glamorous propaganda slogan of a "federal and voluntary union of equal Soviet Socialist Republics."

From our point of view the interpretation of the history of the past decades, as well as the analysis of the roots of the present world crisis is different from popular academic thought in the U. S. A. We do not demand that American scholars and columnists accept uncritically our way of thought, but we demand in the interest of truth that our voice be heard and not silenced by the Russian Soviet racket. We regard it as a fact that history clearly put the nationality problem in the very center of international politics with World War I, and this nationality problem dominates the international situation until the present day.

It is therefore very shortsighted to look for the reasons of the present world crisis in the events of the last few years. These years belong to a historical cycle which began in 1905 and 1917 with the revolutions in the old Tsarist Empire, the notorious prison of nationalities. This designation already shows what problem is on the agenda of history — the freedom of nationalities. Thus let me briefly present my main thesis.

After World War I the British Democracy, with the traditions of the Magna Charta, and the British Revolution, the U. S. A. with the ideas of the American Declaration of Independence and Wilson's principles, the French Democracy with the Rights of Men — betrayed the principle of freedom and refused self-determination to the non‑Russian nationalities of old Russia with the exception of Poland, Finland, and later Armenia. Thus was betrayed the great heritage of freedom, thus was lost the spiritual leader­ship of these nations in the world — and they themselves have contributed to the consolidation of the Russian Communist dictator­ship, competing since Rapallo, in this direction, also with Germany. Since the 1920's the great powers have been learning the hard way that all deviations from the absolute code of honor and decency are political crimes, which also do not pay, and that moral integrity in foreign politics is the only way to peace, justice, and real success in world organization. As in private life the self-seeker and the liar will sooner or later meet bankruptcy, so all similar acts of nations represent the way into the abyss. The last revolution in Tsarist Russia was an act of international importance and represented a crossroad of world history. Fate has spiritually tried the democracies, as if to determine whether they really believed in what they profess: self-determination, liberty, and democracy under the International Law, represented by the League of Nations. The "elder brothers" in democracy could either realize their ideals by means of accepting the non‑Russian nationalities into the great family of free nations — the League of Nations — isolating the Russian Communist pest; or they could refuse to do it. They did refuse, and consequently they also are coresponsible for the rise of Hitler and for World War II, and for the second betrayal of the great heritage of democracy and liberty at Yalta, and finally for the present virtual World War III. The betrayal started in 1920 with the Ukraine, the Caucasus, and Turkestan and finished after 1945 with Poland, Czecho­slovakia and China. . . . And the whole world is standing before the abyss.

 p. xx  Let us sum up: Especially the U. S. A. missed two great chances namely (a) to become after 1920 the leader of freedom for all the non‑Russian nationalities of the former Russian Empire in Europe and the Middle East; (b) to become after 1945 the leader of freedom for the oppressed nationalities in Asia. The responsible statesmen did not see these chances or the whole nationality problem, and they helped to build up the Communist Soviet Union, which with a sphere of influence including nearly 800‑900 millions is now already strangling Uncle Sam himself. And now the "planners" of the U. S. A. foreign policy see (partly) the nationality problem at last, and try to save Greece and Turkey, instead of proclaiming, in 1920, that the historic mission of the nation of Washington and Jefferson was the abolition of slavery and tyranny the world over. And slowly the U. S. A. is beginning to grasp that America is now compelled to fight the second War of Independence — independence from Russian Communism, which developed into the present world menace by the American disregard of the freedom of the non‑Russian nationalities in Europe and Asia; now gradually the "planners" are grasping the thought that only the idea of national liberty can split and liquidate Russian Communism, and they are giving material help to the Communist Tito, after once having refused any moral help to the democratic non‑Russian nationalities of the Soviet Union.

The period of the betrayal of the great heritage is not yet ended. Russian Communism-Leninism, with its ideological armies, the Communist Parties, is everywhere waging a continuous world war against freedom and democracy. How are the democracies defending themselves and their liberty under the leader­ship of the U. S. A.? Instead of accepting the challenge and answering the revolutionary Communist world war against Democracy and Freedom by a similarly firm and revolutionary ideological world war for Democracy and Freedom, supporting above all the non‑Russian nationalities in their struggle for liberty, the "planners" of U. S. A. policy are fighting the dynamism of Russian Communism by a conception of a "half-free and half-enslaved Europe," realized in the Committee for a Free Europe, and by a similar idea of "half-free and half-enslaved Asia" — still tempting Russian imperialism with the "bait" of dividing the world. Thus until now the "democratic" politicians are still betraying the great heritage of freedom and do not understand that the present struggle is far more than a simple struggle for power, but that it is fundamentally a world struggle between human freedom and human slavery, draped with Marxist phraseology. Therefore they are unconsciously the best allies of Russian Communist imperialism, because such a prostitution of the idea of freedom by the democracies undermines any confidence in and the sympathy for them as leaders of the free world, and puts on the lips of all unhappy victims of Stalin the question: Are political ethics a myth? Are the democracies not aware that they themselves have helped building up the Red Empire as a mortal danger to the freedom of the world and to our cultural heritage? Must not the free world defend freedom everywhere against Communist aggression?

 p. xxi  We have given a brief presentation of our way of thought about the present tragic world situation and about the great catastrophe which freedom and democracy suffered. Who is responsible for it?

And that brings us also to the question regarding our attitude to American scholar­ship and to the American teaching profession. What is the place of the American university professor in this world struggle for academic freedom?

There can be no discussion about the fact that in this life-and‑death struggle the heaviest responsibility rests on the scholars and university professors. To them, as in all free nations, is entrusted the great mission to seek the truth, to proclaim it fearlessly, and to educate youth so that they become genuine seekers of truth and genuine citizens, to educate the intellectual leaders, teachers, journalists, the experts and planners for the foreign service; therefore the professors are fundamentally responsible for the fate of any nation.

Have some American universities and college professors, especially of the rich institutions of the east which educate the "intellectual elite," fulfilled their duties toward the American nation? We have no right to judge, but we have the right to ask. Because we cannot help having the impression that the American masses and intelligentsia were caught by the present world crisis rather unprepared and that they were awakened, badly disappointed, from the dream of a peaceful co‑operation with Russian Communism and its "evolution" towards Democracy. This was for many years preached by a vociferous group of American professors and their pupils.

In regard to our fight for academic freedom behind the Iron Curtain and in the Soviet Union we found our American colleagues divided into four groups. There exists a very small group of excellent and distinguished personalities, who have welcomed us DP scholars, by word and deed; their scholar­ly achievements, objectivity, and moral courage command our profound respects, and their good will made the U. S. A. a new home for us. This group, compared with the tens of thousands of other academic teachers is so small, that they constitute a most insignificant minority. What is the attitude of the overwhelming majority of the American professors to our ideological war for academic freedom? Generally speaking the situation is this: at least a half, perhaps two thirds (of 95 per cent) of the American teachers (with the exception of the Catholic and Protestant universities) are living in complete "intellectual isolationism." We thought that in this war for academic freedom only the stars were neutral. The rest are divided into three groups; one, we are informed, is reactionary and attempts to infringe upon the academic freedom of a liberal group of professors in American universities; this liberal group, in order to have allies, supports the third group, consisting of very active and vociferous professors with open or hidden sympathies for Russian Communism and of professors of all shades of "liberal" fellow travelers and "fellow-traveling" liberals. This is a  p. xxii very strange alliance of true and honest defenders of academic freedom with the potential killers of academic freedom in the name of the defense of academic freedom. Consequently also this strange alliance could develop only in an atmosphere of American intellectual isolationism, and we have the impression that the fellow travelers intentionally provoked the problems of "loyalty oaths" as a "problem" of academic freedom in the U. S. A. in order to establish by this mock fight for academic freedom an Iron Curtain in the U. S. A. against the academic slavery in the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence, and to isolate the American professors from the true fight for academic freedom against Russian Communism, conducted by the DP professors everywhere.

And to this vociferous group of Communist sympathizers and fellow travelers, their open and secret allies, who have produced together with their pupils, in the U. S. A. such a Niagara of fellow-traveler literature about Russian Communism and the Soviet Union as no other scholars of free nations, to them we should like to direct some pertinent questions.

How could you, seekers of truth, force your pens into the service of the "Big Lie" and write all these eulogies and glorifications, full of lies and distortions about Russian Communism, which has abolished all academic freedoms in the Soviet Union?

How could you become the instrument of Russian Communist propaganda, agents of evil, and confuse and corrupt the American youth by representing Stalin's bloody dictator­ship as democracy?

How could you present to classes of American youths a completely false concept of Russian Communism; how could you silence its corruption of individuals and perversion of national ideals and not warn the academic youth that Russian World Communism means World Slavery?

How, above all, could some specialists in Soviet matters transform their chairs into factories of Russian myths and Soviet dreams, dominated by Pan‑Russian dogmas, preconceived ideas, intolerance of different inspirations, and organize a pro‑Russian discrimination against all other Slavic nations?

How could you systematically suppress or misrepresent our fight for academic freedom and the whole nationality problem in the Soviet Union, the key problem not only to Soviet but to world politics? How could you "experts and professors" appear in the U. S. A. as "objective witnesses" that this problem is "solved" in the Soviet Union, and accuse anyone who dared to disagree with you of reaction, fascism, separation, tribalism, warmongering, etc.?

Have you not largely contributed to the sad situation that some campuses have become hotbeds of Russian Communism, in which loyalty to the American flag was in the name of "progress," changed to the loyalty to Communist ideology, represented by the Soviet Union, as the avant-garde of humanity?

Did you really know nothing about the aims of American Communism? How could it happen that a jury of citizens, men of the street, in New York was in this respect more intelligent than distinguished university pundits?

Have you not used your own academic freedom in the U. S. A. for the glorification of the destroyers of all academic freedom and thus decisively  p. xxiii contributed to this "intellectual climate" which fostered all "seeds of treason" and presented to your mother country such a number of university- and college-educated spies, agents, traitors as have come from no other academic schools of any nation in the world? Have you not contributed to that climate in the English-speaking world which created such escapades as those of Prof. B. Pontecorvo, Prof. L. Infeld, Prof. Margaret Schlauch, Prof. Oscar Lange — of Donald MacLean and Guy Burgess?

Are you not coresponsible, as the educators of the planners of foreign policy, for the present catastrophe of democracy in Europe and Asia? Professors, suppressors of truth, is the blood of the American youths killed by Russian Communism in Korea, the blood of all the youths of the free nations fighting under the banner of the UN, not also on your conscience, who were consciously or unconsciously instruments of Russian propaganda for the moral disarmament of the free world?

Have not your "advices" after 1945 regarding Asia, as after 1920 regarding the non‑Russian nationalities, helped to thwart the development of any effective program of U. S. help to anti-Communist forces?

I am only asking these questions and do not wish to act as a superficial judge. But they are based on a rather large amount of material, indicating how some Soviet band-wagon intellectuals by their pseudo-sophistication created in some classes and campuses this moral and cultural vacuum upon which the Russian Communist pest penetrated, infecting the youth, who in course of time occupied many key positions in public life; these teachers have propagandized in their campuses amongst successive groups of American youth a sloganized "leftist" thinking of a deadening mediocrity with a worship of the authoritarian stars of Marx and Lenin, and of everything "Soviet Russian" as "social progress"; they are still creating that climate of thought, that "Soviet Russia worship" and "Russia mania," barring all objective research, and fostering that opinion amongst American university professors that a certain "fellow travelerism," of many different shades, is an absolutely necessary make‑up for any scholar in the U. S. A. who wishes to be regarded as "progressive" or "liberal." . . . And these "liberals" then dedicate themselves not to fighting the vociferous pro‑Soviet group amongst the American university professors, but to a vociferous defense of all activities of this group in the name of academic freedom. Thus, to rip up for a moment the scientific Iron Curtain in the U. S. A., it was necessary for a courageous woman, Mrs. Oksana Kosenkina, to jump from a fourth-floor window, in order to substitute some truth for all the lies of some professors about the Soviet Union.⁠a

All this happened in the American academic world, in which a well-organized pan‑Russian and pro‑Soviet pressure group was and is active, happened not by chance. For anyone who fought Communism it is clear that it is the result of careful planning because the U. S. A. constitutes for Russian Communism the chief target and last obstacle. And there can be no doubt that this achievement is a tremendous success of Soviet Russian propaganda, aiming at the conquest of American youth by its moral disarmament (against Russian Communism) and at its indoctrination by Soviet political, economic, national, historical, and linguistic  p. xxiv conceptions and interpretations. The "power through ideas" principle has won for Russian Communism and imperialism: Hiss, Wadleigh, Coplon, Dexter White, Chambers, Bentley, Presman, Marzani, Jaffe, Gold, Rosenbergs, Sobell, etc. — a proof of the ideological defeat of the liberal and democratic group among the American professors; they did not effectively criticize and attack the very roots of Soviet Russian propaganda of their colleagues, they had nothing to put forward against the Communist position, did not launch a dynamic counterattack of Democracy which would entrust American youth with a revolutionary world mission. The idea of the Communist world mission can be fought and defeated only by the idea of a democratic world mission.

Confronted with such a situation in the American academic world we, the DP professors, are forced to say:

a) We must begin here the fight for our academic freedom also against the "friends of Soviet Russia," some self-appointed censors, operating not in the open, but imposing a secret boycott aiming at the suppression of ideas, concepts, interpretations, and attitudes different from their own. These "experts" perform acts of censor­ship and intellectual coercion which are intolerable in a free society; they have established a kind of monopoly over all matters connected with the Soviet Union and Slavic nations.

b) We must demand "permission" from the bosses of the Slavistic Tammany Hall to discuss freely in the U. S. A. all problems of Marxism-Leninism in all spheres of Liberal Arts and to liquidate the systematic discrimination against us in editorial committees.

c) The main goal of the "friends of Soviet Russia" was and is the suppression and misrepresentation of the nationality problem in the Soviet Union. We demand free inquiry and free discussion from our former European and now American tormentors, and we will fight against this bottomless "academic" cynicism which justifies all crimes against humanity in the Soviet Union with a grinning comment: "You can't make an omelet without breaking the eggs" (the eggs being, of course, all those individuals and nationalities who remonstrate against the new slavery); we will demand of these American gentlemen some common decency because "the eggs" are now also American boys in Korea. . . .

d) And we deeply deplore the fact that the "friends of Soviet Russia" are doing everything to keep us from a teaching contact with the American youth, a youth which according to my teaching experience is wonder­ful, and deeply shocked and moved by sympathetic reaction of outrage, horror, and anger after learning the truth about the Soviet Union and her nationality problem. Would not the university presidents break this Slavistic racket and re‑establish also for us the freedom of teaching the history of the non‑Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union? It is a pity that freshmen in all universities know very little of American history, its ideals and traditions, and are rather ignorant of the roots of Western civilization. Therefore they are often unable to grasp or understand what Russian Communism means and why it is a threat to the American nation, and more so, inasmuch as they are getting a glamorized picture  p. xxv  of Russian barbarism and slavery as "social progress." Briefly, we feel now jointly responsible for the education of the American youth. Open for us the possibilities of accomplishing this moral duty in our new homeland.

To sum up: we appeal even to the pro‑Soviet group of American colleagues and ask them if they are really seekers of truth, to grant not only to us the traditional American fair play, founded on the respect for the truth and the dignity of the individual, but also to the underdogs: the non‑Russian nationalities of the Soviet Union that we are representing.

To be plain, as we are against all thought control and authoritarianism, so we respect any honest difference of opinion. (But, as we know how Russian Communism acts, we propose that some American colleagues realize the moral responsibility of their professional activity.) We do not question — we say it again clearly — the right of the pro‑Soviet group to preach their opinions, but we openly question their right to silence our opinion. Is the demand for simple tolerance in the U. S. A. permitted?

We are, in the following pages, fighting not men but ideas. We are not hunting witches, we are not even interested in the exposition of academic turncoats. We make no charges of Communism or subversion against anybody, we are presenting facts; it is not our business to evaluate them. These false ideas about the Soviet Union must be fought now even by the children of the DP in the New York schools, where their American teachers instruct them about "the great social progress" executed by the Russian Communists in the Soviet Union "by giving the soil to the peasants, liberating the workers from exploitation and giving freedom to all peoples."

These facts will prove that the same ideas, which were and are on the scaffold in the Soviet Union, are also banned from Slavistics in the U. S. A. And we would be happy if our pages would activize the true liberal and neutral groups of American professors to a fight for academic freedom in the Soviet Union and behind the Iron Curtain; for in this great ideological battle will be finally decided also the fate of academic freedom of all American universities. Intellectual isolationism and neutralism in this fateful time is a crime — the crusade for freedom must begin by a crusade against the Iron Curtain in the U. S. A.

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Thayer's Note:

a The truth in the case of Oksana Kasenkina (a better spelling of her name), which at the time was extensively turned to propaganda use by anti-Communist forces, and led to the termination of Russian-American consular relations for about twenty years, has never been adequately ascertained. At any rate she did not die of her fall; and despite official Soviet requests, she did ultimately choose to remain in the United States, and eventually became an American citizen; she died in 1960. She published a book, Leap to Freedom, in 1949: the copyright on it was renewed by parties unknown in 1977 and it will not rise into the public domain until 2045.

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