THE
SOVIET MIND
RUSSIAN CULTURE UNDER COMMUNISM
edited by HENRY HARDY foreword by STROBE TALBOTT
/
j
THE SOVIET MIND
Also by Isaiah Berlin
karl marx the hedgehog and the fox the age of enlightenment
Edited by Henry Hardy and Aileen Kelly russian thinkers
Edited by Henry Hardy concepts and categories against the current personal impressions the crooked timber of humanity the sense of reality the roots of romanticism the power of ideas three critics of the enlightenment freedom and its betrayal liberty
flourishing: letters 1928-1946
(published in the us as Letters 1928-1946)
Edited by Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer the proper study of mankind
THE SOVIET MIND
Russian Culture under Communism
isaiah berlin
Edited by Henry Hardy Foreword by Strobe Talbott Glossary by Helen Rappaport
brookings institution press
Washington, D.C.
about brookings
The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organization devoted to research, education, and publication on important issues of domestic and foreign policy. Its principal purpose is to bring knowledge to bear on current and emerging policy problems. The Institution maintains a position of neutrality on issues of public policy. Interpretations or conclusions in Brookings publications should be understood to be solely those of the authors.
Copyright Isaiah Berlin 1949, 1952, 1956 © Isaiah Berlin 1957, 1980, 1989 © The Isaiah Berlin Literary Trust 1997, 2000, 2004 Introduction © Strobe Talbott 2004 Glossary of Names © Helen Rappaport 2004 Editorial matter © Henry Hardy 2004 Photograph of Stalin copyright James Abbe 1932 Photographs of documents © The Isaiah Berlin Literary Trust 2004
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the Brookings Institution Press, 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 (fax: 202/797-6195 or e-maiclass="underline" permissions@brookings.edu).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data Berlin, Isaiah, Sir.
The Soviet mind : Russian culture under communism / Isaiah Berlin ; edited by Henry Hardy ; foreword by Strobe Talbott. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8157-0904-8 (alk. paper)
1. Soviet Union—Intellectual life. 2. Arts—Political aspects—Soviet Union. 3. Berlin, Isaiah, Sir—Travel—Soviet Union. I. Hardy, Henry. II. Title. DK266.4.B47 2003
700'.947'09045—dc22 2003023297
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials: ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Typeset in Stempel Garamond
Printed by R. R. Donnelley Harrisonburg, Virginia
For Pat Utechin
The American photojournalist James Abbe scored a publishing coup in 1932 by talking his way into the Kremlin for a private photo-session with Stalin. The results included this rare personal shot of the Soviet leader, at a time when he was becoming increasingly reclusive.
The task of a Communist educator is [. . .] principally that of Stalin's engineer - of so adjusting the individual that he should only ask those questions the answers to which are readily accessible, that he shall grow up in such a way that he would naturally fit into his society with minimum friction [. ..] Curiosity for its own sake, the spirit of independent individual enquiry, the desire to create or contemplate beautiful things for their own sake, to find out truth for its own sake, to pursue ends because they are what they are and satisfy some deep desire of our nature, are [...] damned because they may increase the differences between men, because they may not conduce to harmonious development of a monolithic society.
Isaiah Berlin 'Democracy, Communism and the Individual' Talk at Mount Holyoke College, 1949
CONTENTS
Foreword by Strobe Talbott xi
Preface by Henry Hardy xix
The Arts in Russia under Stalin 1
A Visit to Leningrad 28
A Great Russian Writer 41
Conversations with Akhmatova and Pasternak 53
Boris Pasternak 85
Why the Soviet Union Chooses to Insulate Itself 90 The Artificial Dialectic:
Generalissimo Stalin and the Art of Government 98
Four Weeks in the Soviet Union 119
Soviet Russian Culture 130
The Survival of the Russian Intelligentsia 166
Glossary of Names by Helen Rappaport 171
Further Reading 227
Index 231
FOREWORD
Strobe Talbott
Isaiah Berlin believed that ideas matter, not just as products of the intellect but as producers of systems, guides to governance, shapers of policy, inspirations of culture and engines of history. That makes him a figure of iconic importance for the Brookings Institution and others like it in Washington. Whatever their differences, these organisations are dedicated to the importance of ideas in public life. They're in the business of thinking about the hardest problems facing our society, nation and world - and thinking up solutions. That's why they're called think tanks.
Berlin probably would have had something gently teasing to say about these outfits (and their nickname), not least because of his scepticism about the quintessentially Yankee conceit that all questions have answers, and that any problem can be completely solved. But Berlin would have enjoyed an occasional visit to our own building at 1775 Massachusetts Avenue. He'd feel right at home, since from 1942 until 1946 he worked up the street at 3100 Mass. Ave., in the British Embassy. As a prodigious and exuberant conversationalist, he would have found the cafeteria on the first floor particularly hospitable. Every day, from noon to two, it's teeming with Brookings scholars and others from up and down Think Tank Row, who gather regularly to field-test their own latest ideas over lunch. It would have been fun to have Sir Isaiah in our midst, not least because fun was yet another ingredient of life - including the life of the mind - that he both dispensed and appreciated in others. His stepson, Peter Halban, recalls Berlin teaching him to play a Russian version of tiddlywinks. He loved wordplay, storytelling and gossip. His commentary on the human condition was often freewheeling and playful.
Berlin would have spent some time in the library on the third floor as well. He believed that ideas, like civilisations, States and individuals, owe much to their forebears. Those ideas live on in books. He called himself not a philosopher but a historian of ideas. He saw himself not so much as a promulgator of new truths as a student, critic, synthesiser and explicator of old ones. He put a premium on scholarship - on analysing the empirical evidence, pondering work others had done before him, and mastering its implications for their time and our own.
One quality anyone who knew Berlin, whether in person or through his writings, associates with him is open-mindedness. He had respect not just for the views of others but for the complexity of reality - and of morality. 'Pluralism' was one of the rare words with that suffix that, in his vocabulary, had a favourable connotation. Most other isms were somewhere between suspect and anathema. He was a champion of the spirit of openness and tolerance, whereby a community - a university common room, a gathering of townspeople or a nation - encourages different and often competing ideas of what is good, true and right.