Stones on the Prairie: Acculturation in Texas

In the Crossfire of the Cold War: A Personal Note

Rude & Barbarous Kingdom Revisited: Essays in Russian History and Culture in Honor of Robert O. Crummey. Chester S. L. Dunning, Russell E. Martin, and Daniel Rowland, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2008, 507–10.       In the Crossfire of the Cold War: A Personal Note Samuel H. Baron Thanks  to  a  fellowship  at  Harvard  University,  by  late  1958  I  had  almost  com-­‐‑ pleted  research  for  the  full-­‐‑length  biography  I  intended  to  produce  on  G.  V.   Plekhanov.   In   drafting   the   first   few   chapters,   I   found   myself   lacking   some   data  on  my  subject’s  early  life,  so  I  wrote  to  the  administration  of  Dom  Ple-­‐‑ khanova  requesting  answers  to  a  number  of  specific  questions.  At  about  the   same  time  I  expressed  to  Charles  Gredler  (then  Chief  of  the  Slavic  Section  of   Widener  Library)  my  hope  to  do  first-­‐‑hand  research  in  Dom  Plekhanova.  On   October  7,  he  obligingly  wrote  to  V.  Barashchenkov,  director  of  the  Saltykov-­‐‑ Shchedrin   Library,   with   whom   he   had   a   working   relationship,   inquiring   whether  I  might  have  access  to  Dom  Plekhanova—which  was  then,  as  now,   an  affiliate  of  that  library.1  In  a  letter  dated  October  30,  1958,  from  T.  K.  Ukh-­‐‑ mylova  (then  the  head  of  Dom  Plekhanova),  I  received  very  helpful  answers   to  the  questions  I  had  posed.  And,  in  a  letter  to  Gredler  dated  November  14,   Barashchenkov   pledged   that   both   published   and   manuscript   materials   at   Dom  Plekhanova  would  be  available  to  me.2  On  January  16,  1959,  Mme.  Ukh-­‐‑ mylova  graciously  wrote  to  me  saying  that  she  “would  be  pleased  to  see  you   within  the  walls”  of  the  archive.3  Unspeakably  elated,  I  immediately  applied   to  the  Social  Science  Research  Council  and  was  awarded  a  research  grant  to   enable  me  to  take  advantage  of  this  exciting  opportunity.     I  was  inexpressibly  shocked,  therefore,  to  receive  another  letter  from  Ukh-­‐‑ mylova,  dated  February  25,  1959,  declaring  “as  an  addendum”  to  her  previ-­‐‑ ous  communication  that  it  would  be  unwise  to  plan  a  trip  to  Leningrad.4  Lest   there  be  any  misunderstanding,  she  sent  another  letter,  dated  March  30,  stat-­‐‑ ing  unequivocally  that  no  materials  could  be  put  at  my  disposal.  A  new  edi-­‐‑ tion   of   Plekhanov’s   Sochineniia   was   being   prepared,   she   explained,   so   that   manuscripts  and  other  materials  would  not  be  available.5  Rather  than  acting                                                                                                                             1  C.  Gredler  to  V.  Barashchenkov,  7  October  1958.  Of  course  the  Saltykov-­‐‑Shchedrin   Library  was  renamed  the  Russian  National  Library  in  1992.     2  V.  Barashchenkov  to  C.  Gredler,  14  November  1958.     3  T.  K.  Ukhmylova  to  S.  Baron,  16  January  1959.   4  T.  K.  Ukhmylova  to  S.  Baron,  25  February  1959.     5  T.  K.  Ukhmylova  to  S.  Baron,  30  March  1959.     508 SAMUEL H. BARON on  her  own,  she  was  undoubtedly  following  an  order  given  by  Barashchen-­‐‑ kov,  her  superior.   It  was  impossible  to  believe  the  reason  given  me.  What,  then,  could  have   been  the  real  reason  for  the  about-­‐‑face?  A  close  look  at  the  chronology  and  the   context   of   what   occurred   may   demonstrate   that   I   had   been   caught   in   the   crossfire   of   the   Cold   War—specifically,   the   ideological   combat   between   the   propagandist  Communist  Information  Bureau  (Cominform)  and  the  aggres-­‐‑ sively  anticommunist  Congress  for  Cultural  Freedom.  Allow  me  to  elaborate.   An  article  of  mine  entitled  “Plekhanov’s  Russia:  The  Impact  of  the  West   upon  an  ‘Oriental’  Society”  had  appeared  in  the  June  1958  issue  of  The  Journal   of   the   History   of   Ideas.6   In   that   piece,   I   cited   major   thinkers   such   as   Montes-­‐‑ quieu,  Hegel,  Marx  and  Engels,  and  Max  Weber  who  had  characterized  old   Russia,  along  with  China,  Egypt,  India,  and  Persia,  as  oriental  despotisms.  I   also  called  attention  to  Karl  Wittfogel,  whose  magnum  opus  Oriental  Despot-­‐‑ ism:  A  Comparative  Study  of  Total  Power  had  recently  been  published.7  In  that   work   Wittfogel   too   identified   Russia   as   an   example   of   the   phenomenon   he   had  studied.8  Wittfogel  actually  devoted  a  great  deal  of  attention  to  ideas  on   the   subject   advanced   by   Marx   and   Engels   and   by   Lenin.   But   he   obviously   knew   little   about   the   central   role   that   the   concept   played   in   Plekhanov’s   thought,  which  I  spelled  out  on  the  basis  of  my  study  of  Plekhanov’s  writings   from   the   1880s   and   1890s.   (I   had   not   yet   read   his   subsequently   published,   multivolume   History   of   Russian   Social   Thought.)   Plekhanov   had   gone   far   be-­‐‑ yond   Marx   and   Engels   in   the   development   of   this   idea,   I   asserted,   and   in   many  ways  had  anticipated  Wittfogel.     To  illustrate  Plekhanov’s  conception  succinctly,  I  cited  the  following  pas-­‐‑ sage:   “Old   Muscovite   Russia   was...