ZACHAROFF, LUCIEN (Ed.). The Voice of Fighting Russia. Pp. xix, 336. New York: Alliance Book Corporation, 1942. $3.00

Date01 May 1942
AuthorBoris Erich Nelson
DOI10.1177/000271624222100141
Published date01 May 1942
Subject MatterArticles
205
readings
gathered
from
far
and
wide.
Few
sociological
works
of
recent
years
covering
this
field
have
been
so
absorbing.
In
short,
the
book
is
like
its
subject:
huge,
ambitious,
many-sided,
often
dazzling.
It
is
com-
pounded
of
some
weak
selections
and
more
extraordinarily
good
ones.
Against
the
background
of
our
critical
age
it
projects
a
nearly
complete
portrait
of
the
problem
which
is
identified
with
existence
of
con-
temporary
statehood.
JOSEPH
S.
ROUCEK
Hofstra
College
ZACHAROFF,
LUCIEN
(Ed.).
The
Voice
of
Fighting
Russia.
Pp.
xix,
336.
New
York:
Alliance
Book
Corporation,
1942.
$3.00.
What
the
R.A.F.
reports
explained
to
the
earth-bound,
what
the
African
campaign
books
pictured
for
the
headline
readers,
what
French
refugee
journalists
condemned
for
the
disbelievers,
and
what
Churchill
preached
in’
his
Blood,
Sweat
and
Tears,
find
a
new
partner,
a
new
ally,
here.
And
it
is
a
gripping,
often
gory
recital,
sweat
and
blood
and
tears
enough
for
anyone’s
fill,
vignettes
of
fighting
men
endowed
with
herculean
strength
and
endurance,
a
naive
faith,
a
fervent
love
for
the
land,
and
an
adoration
for
its
system.
Perhaps
the
trans-
lation
from
the
original
writings
by
authors,
poets,
journalists,
and
special
envoys-
among
them
such
famous
names
as
Alexei
Tolstoy
and
Mikhail
Sholokhoff-is
not
the
very
best;
to
catch the
quaintness
and
twirl
of
the
Russian
language
is
not
easy
in
Eng-
lish.
Perhaps
there
is
too
much
of
an
early
style
propaganda
effort
in
the
continual
mention
of
the
glorious
red-red
seas,
red
boats,
red
defenders,
red
soil,
red
sky,
and
so
forth.
And
it
makes
for
difficult
diges-
tion
to
see
a
crowd
of
infuriated,
outnum-
bered
Russians
in
a
bayonet
charge
against
tanks
&dquo;in
the
name
of
Stalin.&dquo;
And
in
describing
certain
scenes
one
flyer
relates:
&dquo;...
It
was
a
beautiful
summer
day.
Be-
low,
immense
collective
farm
fields
were
ripening ...&dquo;
(italics
by
reviewer).
Mind
you,
not
just
farm
fields,
they
were
collec-
tive
farm
fields!
When
continuously
re-
peated
in
such
fashion,
it
becomes
stale,
and
sours
what
is
otherwise
a
magnificent
record
of
a
people
surpassing
itself
in
defending
what
it
calls
its
own.
The
stories
and
arti-
cles
are
short,
shot
straight,
unsentimental,
yet
with
a
disarming
naYvet6
typically
Slavic.
Forgetting
the
political
drumming
and
the
often
ungainly
language,
and
looked
at
simply
as
a
fighting
men’s
record,
journal-
istic
dispatches,
individual
sketches,
the
book
is
indeed
a
realistic
mirror
of
the
foaming,
seething,
cauldron
of
hell
that
rages
in
the
snows
and
skies
of
Russia
(or
must
I too
say,
red
Russia!).
What
if
the
Nazis
are
more
strongly
concentrated,
bet-
ter
tanked,
heavier-shelling
&dquo;vultures-bri-
gands-riffraff-carrion
birds-monsters-
marauders-slave
owners-bandits-sneaks
-vermin-etc.&dquo;?
What
if
the
sub-chasing
Baltic
boat
has
&dquo;an
acting
chief
of
the
po-
litical
department&dquo;
at
the
stern
near
the
depth-bomb
racks?
We
are
not
reviewing
the
political
setup
of
Russia
now,
but
wit-
nessing
in
these
pages,
and
are
practically
made
to
smell
the
gunpowder
and
exertion,
to
taste
the
blood
and
the
tears
of
fighting
men
and
women.
The
instances
of
courage,
resourcefulness,
just
plain
fight,
are
numer-
ous,
the
speeches
simple
and
to
the
point,
the
lesson
clear-attack !
attack!
attack!
Get
the
Nazi
out
of
his
tank,
away
from
his
superior
guns,
and
he
too
runs
back-
wards
rather
than
face
a
bayonet
in
the
hands
of
a
desperately
brave
man.
As
such
a
record
it
deserves
to
stand
alongside
the
other
reports
of
endurance
and
indomitable
courage,
adding
its
share
of
weight
unto
the
scale
of
victory
for
our
side.
BORIS
ERICH
NELSON
New
Jersey
State
Museum
American
Economic
Mobilization.
Reprinted
from
Harvard
Law
Review,
Vol.
LV
(1942),
pp.
427-536.
Cambridge,
Mass.;
Harvard
Law
Review
Assn.,
1942.
40¢.
In
this
study,
which
also
appears
as
a
note
in
the
January
1942
issue
of
the
Harvard
Law
Review,
the
editors
of
the
Re-
view
stress
the
legal
and
administrative
as-
pects
of
our
preparations
for
war.
The
title
American
Economic
Mobilization
is
therefore
somewhat
misleading.
There
is
only
a
limited
discussion
of
some
economic
phases
of
the
defense
program.
The
subject
matter
is
discussed
under
four
main
headings:
Procurement,
Priority
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