SCRUTINIZING THE INSCRUTABLE

...When Hedrick Smith is actually shocked to hear some Moscow youths teasing the guards at the Lenin Mausoleum, or is exhilarated by the mildly anti-establishment poetry of Andrei Voznesensky...

...He has interviewed hundreds of people and transcribed, it seems, every word they said...

...Both of them are at their best when relating their personal impressions of leading dissidents...

...One of the great advantages of a planned economy, they note, is that it can channel vast human and material resources into top-priority projects and institutions (a number of research centers, music and ballet schools, hydroelectric plants and all military installations fall into this category), while many sectors of the economy, as well as the quality of daily life, remain well below the much-coveted "world standard...

...Smith's many anecdotes about indolent laborers, bungling bureaucrats and corrupt officials prove just how patently false the propaganda image of the intrepid Soviet worker is...

...In the late fifties, when the whole world marveled at their space technology and the New York Times speculated that "the Soviet Union might be using some new form of rocket propellant unknown in the West," Russian scientists were actually using engineering sleights of hand to cover up for their lack of spage-age fuels...

...Our two reporters are particularly illuminating on what one of them calls the "Central Music School" approach to economic and cultural development...

...Are such books-can they ever be-more than compendium of sharp observations and predictable conclusions...

...But the very audacity of the two authors, their desire to explore every facet of Russian life, tempts us to apply those more rigorous standards...

...The two reporters can nevertheless be more flexible and receptive, rediscover old truths and enjoy ancient political jokes with greater relish, than veteran Russian-watchers...

...A certain amount of overlapping was inevitable, of course...

...The Russians and Russia: The People and the Power may lack the intuitive insights, as well as the literary distinction, of classic portraits of nations, but more often than not, the results of several years of systematic, relentless probing of Russia compensates for an inability to evoke Russia...

...The editors of the New York Times Book Review tell us that both authors were vying for the title The Russians...

...Even in areas they excel in, Russians often find it necessary to improvise...

...when Robert Kaiser begins to understand how an enlightened Moscow intellectual could believe in spiritualism, we know they are in tune with Russia...

...Propagandists would have us believe that the drive toward excellence is sustained by faith in a superior social system...

...The Russians have been boasting for decades about the emergence of the hardworking, selfless "socialist man...

...Are we ready for yet another attempt by nimble newspapermen stationed in Moscow to solve the "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma...

...The amassed material is impressive even if one does grow weary of all those "keen-eyed" intellects, and women biologists with "classic Slavic features...

...Kaiser is less precise, less organized, but often more reflective...

...the real impetus, however, is the Russian people's formidable ethnocentrism which in turn masks an age-old sense of inferiority...

...Their responses to the country are invariably those of inquisitive American visitors...

...And for all their fervid patriotism and deep-seated xenophobia, they keep yearning for Western goods, Western know-how, and have nothing but contempt for Russian-made products...

...after all, Hedrick Smith, Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times, and Robert Kaiser, correspondent of the Washington Post, were stationed in the Soviet capital during the same years, covering the same events, talking to many of the same people, dodging the same secret police, bickering with the same bureaucrats...

...Hendrick Smith has a nostalgic appreciation of a Russian lifestyle that is "less affected, less belittling, more human," while Robert Kaiser remarks that unpretentious meals in tiny Moscow flats were "usually more fun than any dinner party in Washington or London...

...Interestingly, their view of these men differs considerably from the image conveyed by their newspapers-Andrei Sakharov comes across as a timid, absent-minded, kindly soul, Solzhenitsyn as a tyrant...

...The Soviet Union," writes Robert Kaiser, "has been first in space, first in tanks, far behind in computers and last in ladies' lingerie...

...Yet occasional naive formulations do not necessarily detract from the value of these highly informative, workmanlike books which for all their puzzling duplications reveal significant differences in approach...

...But what is startling and often disturbing is that many of their reactions and value-judgments-on the dissident movement, central planning, Soviet officialdom, detente, etc.-also tend to be the same...

...Indeed, one can't help feeling after a while that two young American journalists today are bound to have the same opinions on Russia...

...The longer I stayed in Moscow, the less impressed I was by how Communist the country was and the more I thought how Russian it was," writes Hendrick Smith at the end of his book, realizing that the Russian people's dependence on iron-fisted rulers, their un-Western sense of justice, their system of privileges, their distrust of foreigners and fierce patriotism are the result of hundreds of years of historical conditioning which has simply been reinforced by Communist rule...

...Curiously enough, these books on Russia indirectly raise questions about our own values and freedoms...

...One of the things that makes an American's life radically different from a Russian's, writes Kaiser confidently, is "the opportunity to change jobs, change careers, change political affiliations, drop out or move on...

...One of these rediscovered truths is that we believe propaganda even when we know that's what it is...

...At times they even betray the parochial reflexes of such visitors-Kaiser for instance looks in vain for "men in eyeshades and shirtsleeves shouting for a copyboy" in the editorial offices of Pravda: Smith is appalled by the "vile" tube cigarettes Nadezhda Mandelshtam, widow of the famed poet, chainsmokes...

...it's not that they are gleeful, only relieved that half a century of harsh regimentation and mind control has not produced a race of steely-eyed men and women bent on burying us...

...SCRUTINIZING THE INSCRUTABLE IVAN SANDERS The ltuttton HEDRICK SMITH Quadrangle, $12 JO Jtw"si": The People und the Power ROBERT G. KAISER Atheneum, $12.95 It is so easy to have misgivings about books written by journalists...

...Though convinced that there is something special about their country, Russians are ashamed to show half of it to foreigners...

...But what about Russia's industrial might, her supremacy in the sciences, her metamorphosis from slumbering giant to world power...

...In fact, compared to Russians who are as uninhibited about their gruff manners as they are about their deepest emotions, it is we Westerners with our synthetic smiles and stern work ethic who seem conformist and soulless...

...Surely, bunglers and shirkers and soulful poetry-lovers couldn't have brought off all that...

...Other reviewers have already commented on the close resemblance between Smith's and Kaiser's books...

...that our culture with its subtler means of persuasion is as capable of producing intellectual uniformity as a society that defines propaganda as "the spreading and profound explanation of some ideas, theory or knowledge...

...Yet they don't claim to be experts, not even after a three-year tenure in the Soviet capital...

...A man like Nikita Khrushchev baffled us because he was, in Kaiser's words, "proud yet fearful, boastful but timid, desperate for respect and admiration...

...Which is true if we judge these books by standards not normally applied to popular nonfiction...

...Even visitors who ought to know better look for this new breed and discover that they exist only in pamphlets and posters...

...Soviet successes-be they in outer space, in a steel foundry or in a sports arena-are always aimed at impressing outsiders...

...Both Hendrick Smith and Robert Kaiser took up Russian and immersed themselves in the history and culture of the host country before assuming their posts...

...In his Harper's review George Feifer writes that "Smith and Kaiser's very diligence often depletes the atmosphere of Russian life...

...For both Smith and Kaiser there is something heartening about Soviet inefficiency and slovenliness...

...Can a journalist's image of a country capture its soul...

...Of the two authors Smith is evidently the more assiduous note-taker and conversation-recorder...

...One wonders...

...But the description, we come to realize, fits many of Khrushchev's more temperate compatriots as well...

...In rare moments the two journalists become part of the world they are observing...