THE IRON CURTAIN: Where Freedom's Offensive Begins

The highest conceivable degree of lucidity has been achieved by this, the Overstreets' third book about Communism and the cold war. In late summer of 1959, they paid a visit to the Berlin Wall; the experience stimulated them to try to analyze why the Communists need an iron Curtain and what the fortified perimeter discloses about the nature of the Communist system. Not only have they answered these questions with specific illustrations, but in doing so they have traced the parallel course of Soviet history and the development of Communist Ideology with reference to the ""two things which the whole Iron Curtain system had been designed to rule out: an alternative to submission, since was still possible (before the erection of the barrier), and a chance to compare life under Communism with life in the free world."" Many others have written on the subject: psychologists on the stress-systems of repressive ideologies, foreign policy experts on matters of satellite relations, escapees on conditions within the subjugated countries. An extensive bibliography here lists a wide range of studies. But for a compact, forthright statement of internal Soviet problems, the nature of bloc schisms and the temporary patches applied to them from time to time, the prospects for Sino-Soviet coexistence, and other pertinent information, this discussion ranks with the best. Its scope is just broad enough to classify it as a text from which the fundamentals of Communism might be appropriately taught to an audience desiring to understand the diabolical truth.