Adam B. Ulam

Official anniversaries are for the Soviets not merely occasions to celebrate and eulogize a famous man or event. They are also-if not mainly- occasions for that self-congratulation of which the Soviet régime has made such a rite, and against which the most uninhibited patriotic oratory on a similar occasion in the United States would appear a pallid understatement. In fact, the U.S.S.R. celebrates its thanksgiving several times a year. In speeches and editorials the pretext for the celebration is usually disposed of in the first few sentences and perhaps reverted to again at the very end. In between (and it is usually at length) the listener or reader is treated to production figures then and now, to assurances about the invincible might of the Soviet Union, and yet of its peaceful intentions, of the startling achievements of Soviet science. . . .