Communists: And Quiet Flow the Words

In the Soviet Union, "no one is being prevented from writing anything he wants," said Russian Novelist Mikhail Sholokhov. "The only problem is how to write it and for what purpose." With that, Sholokhov headed for Stockholm, where last week he received the $56,400 Nobel Prize for literature—and a plea from 18 free-world writers who would like him to put his mouth where his money is. The writers* are incensed over the recent arrests of Soviet Critic Andrei Sinyavsky and Translator Yuli Daniel for smuggling manuscripts of satirical anti-Soviet works to the...