To the Editors

To the Editors:

Passing off personal defamation as substantive debate was an all too frequent feature of Cold-War American Soviet studies. That repugnant practice did not end, alas, with the Cold War or the Soviet Union.

Thus, Peter Kenez writes of me (Kritika 4, 2 [Spring 2003], 372): "Stephen Cohen ... shows a hostility to contemporary Russia which, if anything, even surpasses his hostility to the United States." Both allegations-- pro-Sovietism, as implied in the first, and anti-Americanism-- comprise the standard defamation in our profession. They are flagrantly untrue, and I deeply resent them.

I don't know what Kenez means here by "Russia," but I feel only compassion for the tens of millions of Russians, probably the majority of the nation, whose lives have been degraded in essential ways, even shortened, by "reforms" that have benefited a small minority since 1991. (Presumably his sympathies lie elsewhere.) Nor have I ever felt the slightest "hostility" to my own country (certainly not to Kentucky, where I grew up; Florida, where I spent part of my youth; Indiana, where I went to college; New Jersey, where I taught for 30 years; or New York, where I now reside)-- unless Kenez means by that my public dissent from some U.S. policymakers and specialists on Russia. If so, it is he who is hostile to fundamental American values.

In that respect, the fitting reply to Kenez and others who persist in this reckless practice is a heartfelt statement made many years ago, in a different time, which he presumably will recognize: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?"

Stephen F. Cohen
Dept. of Russian Studies
New York University
19 University Place
New York, NY 20003 USA

P.S. It is doubly unfortunate that Abbott Gleason, commenting in the same issue of Kritika (379) on Kenez's libel, finds it to be "amusing and restrained" and admires its "tonic quality." Considering that senior scholars are supposed to set standards for younger ones, toxic is surely the right word. It is also telling that while both Kenez and Gleason earnestly chastise other scholars for failing "to scrutinize their pasts for errors"-- another formulation familiar to students of the Soviet Union-- neither acknowledges here any mistakes in his own work prior to 1991.

Professor Kenez responds:

Instead of "Russia" and "the United States," I should have written "the existing social political system in Russia and the existing social political system in the United States." I am sorry.

I have no doubt about Professor Cohen's love for Kentucky, Indiana, etc., nor do I have reason to question his good will toward the long-suffering Russian people.

His rather hysterical allusion to McCarthy, however, is unjustified. I do not have the power to jail him or even to fire him. Indeed, I fully share his dismay concerning current U.S. domestic and foreign policies. Pointing to the consistency of his thought is neither meant nor likely to harm his considerable scholarly reputation. If Professor Cohen is really interested: I, too, have not changed my mind concerning any major aspect of Soviet history.

Peter Kenez
Stevenson College
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA
kenez@cats.ucsc.edu