The Big Thaw

Based in good part on his Foreign Affairs columns in The New York Times, Mr. Sulzberger's essay is a nice combination of reporting, interviewing and reflection. As the title suggests, this is a survey of post-Stalinist Russia, the Soviet orbit, and Titoist Jugoslavia (the section on the latter is particularly interesting). While Soviet purposes may remain the same--"I came, I thawed, I conquered"--the consequences, in Mr. Sulzberger's view, are more dangerous to the Communist system than to ourselves.