Dear Editor
Dear Editor French Sexiness 1 enjoyed R;iy Alan's piece ("The Unsen-suous Frenchman," NL, May 28) tremendously, but thought him wrong on his most fundamental point. While it is true that "sex is...
...For years the Soviets have counted on importing more in the way of scientific articles than they exported in the way of literature...
...1 see the USSR's action as a historic first...
...On the subject of relations between the Yugoslav Communists and the Croatian nationalists, the Ustashi, Djilas states: "We Communists did not blame the Ustashi for their reliance on Italy and Hungary, although we didn't approve either...
...Djilas met Tito for the first time in 1937...
...Because the basis of clothing in that country is attraction, not, as in Britain, functionalism, nor, as in America, "fashion"—in the sense of following the mob...
...Many New Leader readers may be equally interested in Djilas' revelations about Yugoslav Communist politics in the years 1929-39...
...Less fortunate writers have been suppressed...
...To take a single-albeit important— example: If Alan had been watching French women instead of the movie marquees, he might have discovered why France continues to dictate style to the rest of the world...
...Washington Abraham L. Kaminstein Former Register, IKS...
...In truth, the terrible consequence of 45 years of So.iet censorship is the loss of literary skill...
...Congratulations to The New Lfader and to Mrs...
...American authors are puzzled by Moscow's move, and they are not alone...
...Tito impressed me," he writes, "as a strong man...
...However, expressions such as 'Stalinist strength' and 'Stalinist clarity' were often used to define something positive and ultimate...
...the Balkan federation...
...We believed that each one of these independent state units would join the Soviet Union, which is to say...
...in New York, said that most bureaucrats in Moscow were surprised too— and, I would imagine, opposed...
...Today I refer to 'Stalinists' and 'Stalinism,' but at the time such usage was considered improper...
...We had already trained ourselves to have absolute confidence in the Soviet Union and in the decisions of its government...
...In the USSR, where w riters are either salaried or paid a percentage of production instead of a royalty on sales, copyright is not so much a means of guaranteeing income as a means of licensing or a commercial extension of censorship...
...Djilas explains: 'The Ustashi wanted a series of independent states, whereas we Communists had a somewhat vaguer concept...
...If Western publishers ("and readers) insist on supporting the UN Declaration of Human Rights and on dealing with Russian authors individually (as they do with those from all other countries), they may somewhat impede Moscow from extending its censorship...
...Copyright Office...
...Alan's mistake was to treat matters too literally-a paucity of pornographic paraphernalia doth not a puritan produce...
...It was simply a question of how useful a certain country could be to us at a certain moment in history...
...to enable us to join the Berne Union, As I said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on August 2. 1972: "To have two international conventions in any field is absurd and it is my hope that in the future all nations will be parties to one convention [Berne...
...New York City Cornelius Davknport The Young Djilas Thomas J. Butler's review of Milovan Djilas' Memoir of a Revolutionary ("Remembrance of Politics Past," NL, May 14) confines itself mainly to the author's personal life...
...But we both contended that Yugoslavia, as an 'artificial creation of the imperialist Versailles Peace Treaty," should and must disappear...
...Under the Universal Copyright Convention, their access to foreign works may be less easy, but their control over their own citizens' writing will be extended...
...The expression 'Stalinism' was not used because it would have implied a separation of Stalin and Lenin...
...Devotion to Stalin was for us the same as devotion to Lenin, the revolution and Communism...
...Tcancck...
...is superb...
...Now Soviet police will even more readily harass authors who assign powers of attorney to foreigners, and I doubt that world opinion can do much about it...
...On the other hand, if the West must now pay hard currency for translations of contemporary Russian writing—from science and science fiction to poetry and propaganda— perhaps some of the junk will be eliminated and the really good work will be able to shine through...
...The moral and patriotic aspects of the problem were inconsequential...
...For example, regarding the Soviet-German Pact, he confesses: "I actually approved of the Soviet-German Pact, as did most of the leading Communists...
...About Stalin and Stalinism, Djilas recalls: "In Yugoslavia in that era, Stalinism—devotion to Stalin personally, his ideology, and the Soviet Union—was synonymous with revolutionary spirit...
...Bogdan Radits<Professor of History, Fairleigh Dickinson University Soviet Censorship Rhoda F. Garrison's essay, "Moscow's Copyright Maneuver" (NL...
...we must remember that he has always had in his own country a few very respectable, very influential friends...
...As for the essential difference between the Communists and the Ustashi...
...Gamson's article was good...
...We thought of Stalin as the sole heir to Lenin and the sole representative of the only kind of Communism we recognized as right...
...F. D. Reeve 1 thought Mrs...
...While it is true that "sex is certainly less of a public obsession" in the land of Bardot than elsewhere, it does not follow that "by comparison with most other northwestern societies, France is not an outstandingly "sexy" country...
...he and the members of the Yugoslav Central Committee agreed with Moscow's decision to liquidate Sima Markovic, M. Gorkic and Petko Miletic -all former secretaries general of the Yugoslav Communist party...
...That emphatic Francophile Friedrich Nietzsche knew better: He wrote that sex lies at the very heart of French culture (and any other culture worthy of the name), an observation as true today as it was in the 19th century...
...Think of the impact of this maneuver on the writers, composers, producers, publishers, and others engaged in producing books, music, plays, and motion pictures, not only here, but in more than 60 member countries of the Universal Copyright Convention, including Czechoslovakia and Hungary...
...Yuri Matveev...
...May 14...
...We saw no fundamental difference between Hitler's Germany and the Western democracies...
...there is no point in copyrighting that...
...but not a careful listener.'1 Before Tito took over, Djilas tells us...
...vintage 1909...
...Gamson for her cool, clearly written article, and for the tone of independence (hat rings through it...
...Higgonion, Conn...
...Though public pressure may have helped Alexander Solzhenitsyn...
...Only an Englishman would think to measure sensuality in terms of public prurience...
...We instinctively felt that the Ustashi action could only help further our own aim: the destruction of Yugoslavia...
...I suggest that we also concern ourselves with efforts to revise our own ancient copyright law...
Vol. 56 • June 1973 • No. 12
