ABSTRACT

The letter of resignation, signed by Prof. Georgy V. Morozov and eighteen leading colleagues, was unrestrained and bristled with anger and hostility. The resignation was in a sense their personal responsibility and they obviously felt that the events required a vigorous self-justification. The angry tone of the letter of resignation was matched in turn by the embittered reaction of Professors Prof. Pierre Pichot and Peter Berner. The East Germans had in all likelihood been in close touch with Morozov from the time of the Soviet resignation. But to what extent he had exerted pressure on them to act the way they did we can only conjecture. The Russians had highlighted this communication as evidence of the political pressure to which some national associations had been subjected. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union controls all aspects of the country’s life through an elaborate mechanism of parallel hierarchies.