The Importance of Being Djucashvili

The writer had the good fortune to be on March 6, 1963, at the Institute for the Advanced Contemplation of Human Affairs in Fordograd. The annual self-criticism meeting in the Explanation Division was slightly expanded in view of its decennial character, and a visitor unknown to me was permitted to help the self-criticism along by simply making criticism—after all, said the Fellows of the Institute, it’s supposed to be “criticism and self-criticism” anyway, isn’t it?

The visitor made a strange impression on me. Initially he seemed to be of the type that, following Professor Lord David Cecil, one might call a flat-brow, or, following the late Lord Berners, a dry blanket. After he left, however, the Fello...