The Russian Russians

A British diplomat early this month told an American in San Francisco: "We are more afraid of the Soviets than you are, but you are more anti-Soviet than we are. You believe that they are fundamentally and basically wicked. We British do not. We simply recognize that the Soviet foreign policy is twice as foreign as any other: it is Russian and it is Communist."

Last fortnight the New York Times's C. L. Sulzberger wrote a piece to the effect that Soviet Russian statesmen act very much like their merely Russian predecessors. For illustration, he told of a prank played by William C. Bullitt when he was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow (1933-36). In the Embassy files, Bullitt found copies of the reports of Neill S. Brown, U.S. Minister to St. Petersburg nearly a century ago (1850-53). Bullitt changed a few names and details, sent the reports back as his own. The State Department took them for what they were: penetrating comments on contemporary Russia.

The Department will not release the Bullitt notes. But Brown's 34 reports are open to inspection. They illuminate many a present problem and indicate that even if the Soviet revolution had not interposed an ideological chasm between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S., the two countries would find it hard to do serious business with each other.

Expediency & Astringents. Minister Brown might have been discussing the twists & turns of the Communist line when he wrote: "The policy of Russia seems not to be based ... on settled principles, or to be guided by any fixed landmarks. Expediency is the great test. And what may be expedient today under a given set of facts, may be inexpedient tomorrow."

Brown knew all about suspicious, dilatory Russian diplomats: "The Russian mind seems naturally distrustful and this is especially so of Government officials. . . . Nothing is attainable but after the most provoking delays."

The rigor of Tsar Nicholas I's police and the general air of repression inside Russia disturbed Minister Brown. So did the Tsar's press censorship:

"And among all the astringents put into requisition for the prevention of peace and order, none is so abhorrent as the censorial power. I may mention that the late message of the President of the United States was not regarded in all its parts as a safe document for Russian readers, and came to their hands scarred by the censor's knife."

Then, as now, the Russians did little or nothing to encourage foreign understanding of their country. Brown noted:

"Access ... by all foreigners is now difficult; it will require but little more to render it impracticable. . . . Secrecy and mystery characterize everything. Nothing is made public that is worth knowing. You will find no two individuals agreeing on the strength of the army & navy, on the amount of the public debt or the annual revenue. In my opinion it is not intended by the Government that these things should be known."

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