Volume 15, Number 9 · November 19, 1970
The Bitter Price
By Helen Muchnic
Involuntary Journey to Siberia
by Andrei Amalrik, translated by Manya Harari, translated by Max Hayward
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 297 pp., $6.95
The second book by Andrei Amalrik—written earlier but published later—is different in substance but not in spirit from the first, and is equally remarkable. The first, an essay entitled Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?,[1] is a daring analysis of the Soviet state and a prediction of its doom. When it came out this year, it was generally described as 'apocalyptic'; and yet, however startling the conclusions, its argument proceeds unemotionally and logically, with constant, fair-minded admissions of possible error. The second, an autobiography, bears the same quality of rational detachment, and is exceptionally moving because of its composure.
Review, 3321 words
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