Over Thin Ice

In 1960, in his book The Unfinished Revolution, Adam Ulam gave promise of being a rising star in the field of Soviet studies. To be sure, his interpretation of Lenin suffered seriously from being a mere paraphrase of a book published in 1941 by a disillusioned and embittered emigree, whose quotations Ulam did not take the trouble to check against Lenin’s collected writings and speeches. (Even in his present work he on occasion cites as his authority for a quotation from Lenin a...