The Novel the Soviets Feared

Zamyatin, Yevgeny. We. (1993).translated and with an introduction by Clarence Brown. NY: Penguin Books.

Reviewed by John J. Miller in WSJ on 26 July 2006.

Authors sometimes gripe about the long wait between the completion of a book and its publication. Perhaps the sad case of the Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin will help them put things in perspective: He finished his novel "We" in 1921, but it didn't appear in print in his native land until 1988.

The problem wasn't that Zamyatin and his manuscript were obscure or unknown. Rather, it was that they offended communist censors, who correctly understood "We" to be a savage critique of the totalitarianism that was starting to take shape in the years following the Russian Revolution.

While there is no denying the horrors and evil perpetrated by Lenin, Stalin and their heirs, it is worth pointing out that the reviewer, John J. Miller, writes for the National Review, William F. Buckley's media outlet. A look at Miller's bio is telling; this is from the NR's website's bio of him: John J. Miller is National Review magazine’s National Political Reporter, based in Washington, D.C.

Miller is the author of three books: A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America, Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America’s Disastrous Relationship with France (co-authored by Mark Molesky), and The Unmaking of Americans: How Multiculturalism Has Undermined the Assimilation Ethic.

Just for the sake of full disclosure.