THE
EYEWITNESS REPORT
By
Albert Maltz
Alma
Books. 185 pages. £14.99. ISBN 978-0-7145-5096-1
Reviewed by Jim Burns
Albert
Maltz was a well-established novelist, playwright, short-story writer, and
screenwriter in the 1930s and 1940s. His 1938 collection of stories, The Way
Things Are, and his 1940 novel, The Underground Stream, placed him
firmly on the Left in terms of his political commitments and his writing. That
Maltz was a member of the American Communist Party was never in any doubt. He
joined the Party in 1935 and was fervent in his belief that communism had the
solution to many of the world’s ills.
He went
to Hollywood early in the 1940s and, though he always saw screenwriting as a
means to an end (it was well-paid and allowed him to buy time for his novels),
he proved to be adept at producing screenplays for a variety of films. Among his
credits during his Hollywood years were screenplays for This Gun for Hire,
Destination Tokyo, Cloak and Dagger, and The Naked City. It was also
during this period that he wrote his anti-fascist novel, The Cross and
the Arrow, and the script for a short documentary film, The House I Live
In, which featured Frank Sinatra making a plea for racial tolerance.
Everything seemed to be going reasonably smoothly, apart from a brief but
bruising encounter Maltz had with Party bureaucrats when he wrote an article,
“What Shall We Ask of Writers?”, which questioned how far the Party should be
allowed to influence a writer’s work. If he had worries regarding his
relationship to the Communist Party, there was worse to come from a different
direction. In 1947 the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began its
investigations into communist infiltration of the film studios, and Maltz was
one of those summoned to appear before it to answer questions about his
membership of the Party. This is not the place to tell the whole story of how
the Hollywood Ten decided on a policy of defying the Committee, and suffice to
say that Maltz, like the others, was cited for contempt of court, fined, spent
time in prison, and was blacklisted from further employment as a screenwriter.
It would be a number of years before he could again work openly in films.
I’ve
given that brief account of Maltz’s activities as a way of indicating the
background to the writing of The Eyewitness Report. It wasn’t just a
commercial venture, designed like so many novels to capitalise on Cold War
themes. Maltz, it’s true, did hope that it would bring his name some attention
and help to confirm that he wasn’t just someone with links to the past. But it
must have pained him when the book was consistently rejected by various
publishers. The problem, according to Patrick Chura, who has written an
insightful and informative introduction to the novel, was that by the time it
was being circulated in manuscript (1973), accounts by Russian dissidents of
their treatment at the hands of the authorities were available in Europe and
America. In the circumstances, editors asked, why would people want to read a
fictionalised version of communist repression in Russia by an American writer?
And one with his own history of loyal Party membership.
Chura
had access to Maltz’s journals and, from what he says, it does seem that, to a
degree, Maltz did see some parallels between what happened to him during the
blacklist years, and what had been happening to those who spoke out against
injustices and censorship in Russia. I think it’s obvious that he was too
intelligent to think that there was a direct connection between the two examples
of state repression in America and Russia, but he was right to think that what
had taken place in his own country had left a scar on its reputation as the land
of free speech and assembly. What happened in practice didn’t always accord to
what its constitution promised. The same was true of Russia, but even more so,
and the price to be paid for speaking out was much
higher.
Maltz’s
novel has, as its central character, Daniil Petrovitch Barkov, a successful
writer of novels, plays, children’s books, and other material. He’s been given
awards, won prizes, and like others in his position he has a comfortable flat, a
dacha outside Moscow, and access to foreign currency shops where goods not
available to most Russians can be obtained. In other words, life is fairly good
for him. His one concern is his wife, Anna, who is in hospital dying from a
diseased liver, her condition caused by the malnutrition she experienced during
the war. He has been conducting an affair with another woman, Lidia, a colleague
of Anna’s from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations.
Barkov
is not unaware of shortcomings in Russian society with regard to questions of
human rights. He knows some dissidents associated with “the newly formed Human
Rights Movement” and sees their samizdat publications, but he’s not in any
danger of being harassed by the authorities. Or so he thinks until one day he
witnesses a small demonstration against the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, and
the brutal way it is dealt with by the KGB. One of the demonstrators, an obvious
Jew, is kicked in the face and dragged away, leaving some broken teeth on the
ground. Barkov picks up two of the teeth. It’s of interest to note that Maltz
mixes real people with his fictional ones, and names several dissidents from the
period concerned. The demonstration that Barkov witnesses did actually take
place. The useful notes that Chura provides have the necessary information about
events, dates, and participants.
Later,
disturbed by what he has seen, Barkov determines to write about it and submit
his report to Pravda, though he’s aware it may not be published there. If
it isn’t he’ll try to circulate it elsewhere. After all, he reasons, he’s a
well-known writer, had a good war record, and is not known for anything, in his
writing or his life, that could be described as anti-Soviet. People, Including
the authorities, will surely view his concern for the human rights of the
demonstrators in the best possible light.
Barkov
is shocked when he is visited by KGB agents who search his flat, take away his
typewriters, documents, letters, photographs, and other items, and ask him to
accompany them for further questioning. It begins to dawn on him that he has,
after all, been under surveillance and that his intentions with regard to the
report on the demonstration have always been known to the authorities. What then
happens is a frightening account of his being held in a psychiatric unit, where
he is subjected to interrogation by doctors and forcefully injected with various
drugs which have the effect of numbing the senses and making him docile and
receptive to suggestions that the authorities are always right and know best.
Only someone who is mentally ill would want to question their decisions.
He is allowed to return home provided he
agrees not to take part in any dissident activities or questioning of official
policies. There is the threat of permanent incarceration in a psychiatric
hospital if he doesn’t conform.
Back in
his flat Barkov broods on how the KGB knew so much about him. Was his flat
bugged, was the hospital room when he visited his wife bugged? What about
Lidia’s flat, and was she a KGB operative acting under orders to cultivate a
relationship with him? And is there any way he can outwit the authorities?
Despite the assurances he gave to secure his release from the psychiatrist unit
he is determined to carry on writing what he wants to write and circulating it
through underground channels, if necessary. But he is aware of the risks
involved and what the penalty will be if the KGB discover what he is doing.
It’s
easy to understand why Maltz was concerned about how his novel would be received
had it been published when it was written. He was used to being attacked by
right-wingers for having been a communist, and therefore anything he wrote was
suspect, and he knew that left-wingers would probably look on the book as the
work of a one-time communist who was now prepared to reject his earlier beliefs
and criticise the Soviet Union. Because publishers were reluctant to take on his
novel he never had to experience the reaction to it.
Now, at
a later date, we can, perhaps, take a more-detached view. In doing so it strikes
me that it is a book that tells an important story in a brisk, efficient way.
The mixture of fact and fiction is skilfully handled, and the characters seem
believable in their attitudes and behaviour. Has it dated? Not necessarily,
because dissident voices are still being suppressed in various ways in Russia
and elsewhere.
As
someone who has been a reader of Maltz’s books for many years I welcome the
appearance of The Eyewitness Report, and that Alma Books are making
available most of his other books. There is one exception, his first novel,
The Underground Stream, but that has recently been republished in the USA by
1917 Books. Alma Books will publish a collection of Maltz’s stories later this
year.