a date Committee of the Soviet Com- munist Party—continued to pop up, they were faced once again By -PHILIP BONOSKY The award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Alexander Sol- zhenitsin is an obvious political provocation in the spirit of the Cold War. The quality of Solzhenitsin’s works, judged solely from a lit- erary standard, does not warrant such august recognition. His tales of life in a Soviet work camp during the 40’s and 50’s does not have the same burning interest to the world that they apparently have for the members of the committee who made the award. There is every reason instead to believe that the publicity at- tached to these: novels was in- tended not so much to highlight wrongs or document one man’s journey through purgatory as to associate these phenomena, which were part of an admitted- ly abnormal period finished in Soviet life, with the Soviet so- cial system itself. That it was blatant political provocation is borne out by the affidavit from Dr. Karl Ragnar Gierow, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, who cer- tified Solzhenitsin purity as “a son of the Russian revolution, of Lenin’s revolution!” Thus, those opposed to Solzhe- nitsin’s ideas — which are any- thing but Leninist—are declared anti-Leninist. This of course, is impudence, but it also represents a distinct political line—one that operated in Czechoslovakia late- ly. ~ It comes at a time when Presi- dent Nixon is poking a stick here and there in any bundle to see what hornets he can scare out; we are referring to the cry Nixon raised about “atomic sub- marine bases” in Cuba which were visible to no one but the scribblers in the State Depart- ment. It comes at a time when the question of working class power is on the agenda in Chile. In short, the award is a signal to the world that the Cold War is not ended; in fact, that an- other chapter is about to begin. We can infer how the commit- tee arrived at its present deci- sion by returning to the story— many details of which have leak- ed out—of how it decided to award the same prize to Boris Pasternak in 1958. First, about the Academy it- self. The Swedish Academy came into being by regal act of King Gustav III in 1786, and has ever since been the conservative, not to say the reactionary bastion in Swedish literary life. Restricted to 18 members, it can renew it- self only though the death of one of them; then the remaining members elect a replacement. These infrequent “replacements” have historically been profes- sors, writers, bishops and others of a marked conservative cast. - Their choices tended to reflect their own narrow “European” view of world literature, which their class view made even nar- rower. When, in the post-war period, the name of Sholokhov—a candi- member of the Central with . their familiar dilemma: How to satisfy the demand for a “Russian”? So they gave the prize to Pasternak! But the award was not limited to this role alone. What evidence PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 30, 1970— ee. exists suggests entirely different motives for giving the award to a “dissident” Soviet writer at a . time of intense’ Cold War. By the Prize rules, a candi- date’s name has to be submitted to the membership by February of the year the prize is award- ed. In February, 1958, there was in existence only one published edition of Dr. Zhivago, and that in Italian. One of the members of the Academy had read it; only one or two others knew Italian, but there is no evidence they got the book in time. A Swedish edition, it is true, was in the mill and appeared a few days after the award to Pasternak was made, Oct. 23. If the members read it at all—600 pages of it—they had to read it hurriedly in galleys. No other works of Pasternak existed in Swedish except his poems, which are notoriously untranslatable from the Russian. There were, however, even that year and certainly before, many nudges from the literary world to name Pasternak — in- cluding a most influential one by Prof. Ernest J. Simmons in the Nation, which was then promptly broadcast to the world by the U.S. Information Agency. There was other bush-beating by still other forces, openly and covertly, all of which converged on the notorious decision to award Pasternak a prize for a book which most of the mem- bers of the Academy had prob- ably never read! - Pressure to namé Solzhenitsin aS an attempt to “embarrass” the USSR had been mounting in the U.S. (and abroad) for a considerably longer period than it had for Pasternak. Solzhenit- sin’s manuscripts all “accident- ally” fell into the hands of West- ern publishers, who immediately turned out huge editions of his books jobbed off — in most in- stances — to the Book-of-the- Month machine, which guaran- teed, with their automatic sales of umpteen thousands to passive book club members, that the sales would appear enthusiastic. But truth to tell, like the ear- lier Dr. Zhivago which also got the full book club treatment, and was dubbed later the “most ‘unread book of the century,” average American readers did not “get” in Solzhenitsin what all the fuss was really about, and why the novels were sup- posed to be so explosive. They had been brought up on a species of “spy” books, or books with lurid tales like Jan Valtin’s Out of the Night” (now totally forgotten though canon- ized in its day). But these stories of Solzhenitsin, anti-climaxes. Most readers plac- ed the books on the shelves— half-read. But this didn’t stop the book factories from publishing. And the machine is bound to go into higher gear now, for in addition to pushing the ‘books themselves —with all their internal, purely Russian impediments—down the throats of readers, adapters bet- ter schooled in domestic anti- Soviet folkways will cut up, re- shape and remodel the basic works for the movies, as indeed has already been done, or for the stage, as has also been done. (More people saw the movie Dr. Zhivago than read the book. It’s amazing how well-timed these productions are—they are ready to harvest the world-wide publicity which the Nobel prize always Carries with it.) Preceded by critical acclaims, now forti- fied by the Prize itself, new paper-backed editions of Sol- zhenitsin’s works are ready to roll from the printing presses of - not one but several publishing firms, for those who “have seen the movie.” : One last word. It’s useless to waste sympathy on Solzhenitsin himself. We are not privy to the reason he was originally impris- oned. There is no evidence, how- ever, in anything he has written since leaving prison that he has anything but the profoundest ha- tred for socialism. In his actions past and present he has done nothing to stop the use of his personality for Cold War purposes. He cannot be so naive as to believe that publish- ers of a country neck-deep in the blood of the innocent of the world and plotting other blood- lettings can have any interest in his books except to promote that same bloody policy to even far- ther corners of the world—and to his own country, too. : Books are weapons too—and the real question is: for whom and against whom? compared to | what they expected, came as | CHAMPION OF JUSTICE. BEHIND PRISON BARS Abraham Fischer, Q.C., a pro- minent South African jurist, was sentenced to life imprison- ment on May 9, 1966, and is now in Pretoria prison. Mr. Fischer, an outstanding opponent of apar- theid, was defense counsel in the “Treason Trial” of 1956-61 and the “Rivonia Trial’ of 1963-64 in which leaders of the African people and other opponents of apartheid were charged. He him- self was charged subsequently with membership in the banned Communist Party, of conspiracy to commit sabotage and of es- treating bail. The Special Committee on Apartheid and other United Na- tions organs have condemned the imprisonment of Mr. Fischer. Here are excerpts from an ar- ticle on Mr. Fischer: Superficially he is a paradox. He is an Afrikaner who Afri- kaners call traitor and Africans ‘revere. He might have been Minister of Justice in South Africa. He could easily have been a respect- able and respected Judge-Presi- dent. He is a brilliant lawyer— in prison for deliberately defying the law. His name is Abram (‘‘Bram”’) Fischer and he dramatizes—per- haps as no other man in South Africa dramatizes—the price of conscience in a racist state. . Six years ago when he was part of the legal team defending Nelson Mandela and other Afri- can leaders, and radical whites, accused of trying by violent means to overthrow Dr. Ver- woerd’s apartheid regime, Bram SOUUEEUEAUUUEQUGUUGEQGUUGEOUUUGUSUUCUUGEEEROUGUGECUURUCEEOCUGGGECQOGULUCEEOEOUGUUREOOUUREOCUEUROCUREOCOUTIGGULOUQOGUESOGDUQEQOQREOOODOUROOUOOEOGODHE ‘Nobody ever helped me into carriages or over mud puddles...’ “That man over there says that a woman needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helped me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me a best place... And ain't | a women? Look at me. Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me... And ain’t | a women? | could as much and eat as much as a man when | could get it, and bear the lash as well... And ain't | a woman? | have borned thirteen children and seen them most all sold off into slavery. And when | cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard... And ain't | a woman?” ie —Sojurner Truth: Speech before the Woman’s oe Rights Convention at Akron, Ohio in 1851. SUUNUNNAOULOUADAUUSUUGODEDUUDOUGUOULOOUOUDUOUOOOOUSUOUSEDOUGUSUOOUOUGUOUDOUONDELOGOUOUOUOOOOOGEOESUOOARUGUDUSUONUGOGUOOUEOOUNSDEDODUUOUOUDOOUEOUOEONS: PAGE 10 lk ee * Fischer was a man at the top of his profession: a Queen’s Coun sel widely respected for his bril- liant work in both civil and criminal trials. Two years later he was facing similar charges to those face by Mandela and the other men of Rivonia, his trial following te” grim months underground while South Africa’s secret policé hunted the country for him. Today, a man of 62, suffering from dangerously high blood- pressure, he serves a life sen- tence in Pretoria Prison with @ few other courageous white men who dared to ally themselves with Africans struggling for their human rights. The trial’ and conviction of Bram Fischer shocked the South African nation. They posed the harsh question of what decent men were to do if a man like Fischer, whose integrity, respect- ability and service in the law were incontestable even among whites, was driven to say, as he said from the shadows of the underground: ' “I can no longer serve justice in the way I have at- tempted to do in the past 30 years—I can only do it in the way that I have now chosen.” His forebears fought in both the first and second Wars of In- dependence in 1881 and 1899- 1901. He married an Afrikaner, his wife being related to the late Mrs. J. C. Smuts. Fischer was for many years a Nationalist—it is typical of his integrity that once he saw the horror of apar- theid he bypassed intermediate positions of opposition and join- ed the Communist Party of — South Africa, bravely remaining — a member when it was banned in 1950. Speaking as an Afrikaner, Fis- cher sorrowfully noted the es- trangement of the Afrikaner and the African, an estrangement compelled by apartheid policies. “That is why ... when I gave an African a lift during a bus boycott, he refused to believe that I am an Afri- kaner.” And to close his speech to the court, Fischer quoted the words of the famous Afrikaner, Paul Kruger, speaking in 1881 on the eve of the Transvaal Republic’s rebellion against British over- lordship, words inscribed on the base of Kruger’s statue outside the court where Fischer was on- trial: “With confidence we place our case before the whole world. Whether we are vic- torious or whether we die, freedom will arise in Africa like the sun from the morn- ing clouds.”