ABSTRACT
A very important public debate took place in March 1989 in the pages of the “liberal” weekly, Literatumaia gazeta, whose readership exceeds six million. The four installments’ titles are suggestive of the main interrelated themes of the debate: Who Is to Be Blamed; Russia and the Revolution; Crime and Punishment; and What Needs To Be Done? A Communist who dedicated his life to the cause of world revolution, Rubashov was involved in dangerous terrorist activities in several European countries. Agreeing with a Soviet review of the novel, Benedikt Sarnov praised Arthur Koestler for showing that Rubashov, Koestler’s autobiographical character, suffered from the “syndrome” of loyalty to the cause which forced many Communists to abandon all logic and slander themselves during the Stalinist “show trials.” The Jewish contemporaries of the 1917–1922 events understood the role of Jews in the Communist revolution more deeply than either Vadim Kozhinov or Sarnov.
