America Faces Russia: Russian-American Relations from Early Times to Our Day by Thomas A. Bailey (review)

212 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY Further, Hardy's dialogue is scarcely the dialogue of the stage if, indeed, it is human speech at all. Nor does the substitution of stage tricks-as in the Stoddard version-make up for what is of necessity lost. Dr. Roberts has, therefore, presented what can be described as little more than curiosa of the stage and has demonstrated, at least negatively, the fascination of a book that led many actresses and writers into a vulgar pitfall. MELWYNBREEN America Faces Russia: Russian-American R elations from Early Times to Our Day. By THOMAS A. BAILEY. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press [Toronto: Thomas Allen]. 1950. Pp. xiv, 375. $4.60. One of the remarkable features of our times is the great ease with which one can become an "expert" on Russia. Usually the journalistic profession supplies the bulk of these experts and one knows what to expect of them. But when a reputahle scholar and trained historian, such as the author of the book under review who is Professor of American Diplomatic History at Stanford University, enters the field, one becomes more critical and less indulgent. Mr. Bailey writes that he is "less concerned with diplomacy than with American public opinion regarding it" (p. 358) . But it is surprising that while recognizing that "the information that we received about Russia was one-sided, warped, or completely false," he admits that he repeats "a good many lurid reports that were palpably untrue, without always going out of my way to emphasize their falsity." This is certainly a startling admission for a recognized historian, which he excuses with the statement: "In a democracy like ours, where public opinion is such a force, the truth is often less important than what the people think is the truth" (p. vi). This reviewer is still old-fashioned enough to believe that an historian's primary task is to seek and to present truth and truth alone. Hence Mr. Bailey's many pitfalls. To begin with there are many historical errors of fact. It was not England and Austria who intervened to prevent Russian troops from entering Constantinople in 1829 (p. 38), but Prussia. Alexander I did not swear "a solemn oath" to respect the Finnish constitution (p. 169) nor did any of his successors (pp. 170, 171), simply because they were autocratic sovereigns accountable only to God and never did swear any oaths at their coronation. Nicholas II never approved a constitution which included "ministerial responsibility" (p. 206). L. C. A. K. Martens did not establish offices in New York City "for the purpose of opening trade SHORTER NOTICES 213 relations" (p. 248). He was the first Soviet ambassador to the United States appointed by Lenin, but was not recognized by the State Department . The United States was not the first among the great powers to recognize the Provisional Government (p. 232); it was Great Britain. The stories that during the First World War Russian soldiers were sent into battle without boots or guns to pick up arms and footwear from fallen comrades were not true (p. 230). Under the Tsars the Russians had shown relatively little interest in international cooperative ventures especially in the economic field, any more than they do now under the Soviets {p. 329)--simply because there were no such international co-operative ventures then. The United States did not enter "into a formal military alliance with the Soviet Union by the Declaration of the United Nations" (p. 289) ; it was a presidential declaration, and only the United States Senate has the right to make formal alliances. The Ukrainian proverb is not: "To murder a Jew is to remove forty sins from off one's soul" (p. 176 ), but: "To kill a spider, etc." Mr. Bailey states rather illogically that "disquietingly large numbers of Russian-Jewish expellees were becoming labour agitators in the United States, and this development was regarded as a further black mark against the Tsarist regime" (p. 125 ). He also wonders "why American readers should have developed a strong taste for Russian novels in the 1880's" (p. 137) . The answer is: because they were good literature. He also misspells a number...