fer it to the outside world. Charles Mansonnis supposed to have requested not tonbe released when he was last in prisonnbefore his involvement in the Tate-La-nBianca murders. He would have beennno less a prisoner had the authoritiesnyielded to his request, though he wasnin prison by choice.nJilizabeth Bentley called her accountnof her years in the Communist Partyn(and as a secret agent) and of her departurenOut of Bondage. It is easy enoughnto understand why, once she had brokennthe connection, she should think of hernformer condition as one of bondage. Asna Party member, she was bound by thenpositions taken by the Kremlin. As ansecret agent, she was bound to carry outnthe orders of those higher in the chainnof command. She was, as she eventuallyndiscovered, a bondservant of the leadersnof the Soviet Union.nSidney Lens’s bondage over the yearsnwas much less palpable but, in importantnways, no less real. He belonged tonno party with a foreign power base. Hendid not serve as a secret agent, engagenin espionage or sabotage. Even his positionsnon issues were not ordinarily dictatednto him by someone in high command.nTechnically, he was free.nYet Sidney Lens could hardly havenbeen more devoted to the success ofncommunism in Russia, China, Cuba andnother places had he been a card-carryingncommunist. That is not to say that hendid not disagree with the communistnrulers from time to time. He did not,nfor example, approve the Soviet invasionnof Hungary in 1956. Nor, for thatnmatter, was he an outspoken defendernof slave-labor camps. Rather he felt, asnsocialists of all varieties do, that communismnmust not fail once it comes tonpower.nIt is not simply a matter of his holdingncertain views; it is rather that thenviews were not his as an individual.nThey were views of the collective, sonto speak, views held and expressed bynall who were of the ideology. His viewsnwere not only void of originality—afternall, most men are not strikingly originaln—but also of personality. Once one hasnbecome acquainted with Sidney Lens’snmode of arriving at conclusions, hisnopinions become predictable in advance.nNot because of the consistency of hisnthought, nor because of his integrity,nbut because his opinions are simply suchnas follow from bondage to socialistnideology. Here, for example, is Lens’sndescription of the Cold War:nThe grand design [of the UnitednStates) as it evolved, was to grantnmilitary help to the imperial powersn—to save them per se and in some instancesnto save their empires—thennto give help to the new nations thatnhad broken away from the old empiresn….nFor all this the Pentagon needed a networknof bases around the world, and anforce ready to jump into any fray anywherenat a few hours’ notice. Evennmore, it needed to immobilize the SovietnUnion, the one nation capable ofngiving substantial aid to peoples seekingnto secede from Pax Americana. Anmilitary machine was fashioned, completenwith nuclear weapons andnlaunchers, to threaten the Sovietsnwith disaster if they became too frisky.nPravda couldn’t have said it better. Andnhere is his judicious appraisal of Mc-nCarthyism:nThere were actually millions, tens ofnmillions of people who believed suchnnonsense, so much so that before longnsome ‘patriotic’ workers were harassingnsuspected ‘reds’; Hollywood writersnwere being fired by the movie mogulsnfor tainted associations; politiciansnand generals were cowering be-nnnfore the McCarthy assault. . . UnlikenNazi Germany, no one was killed ornput into concentration camps, but thenmentality for doing such things wasnin the germination stage, as evidencednby the law passed under the sponsorshipnof Senator Pat McCarran early innthe Korean War, which among othernthings set up detention camps to imprisonn’subversives’ during an emergency.nIf Sidney Lens did not exist, it wouldnbe necessary to invent him. There havenbeen many approximations, of course,nof the socialist ideal, but none, to mynknowledge, fulfills it so completely asndoes Lens. None, over the years, hasnalways held the “right” opinions, joinednthe “right” causes and been on the sidenof the “angels” in all disputes. Almostneveryone wavers and strays from thenpath on occasion. Not Sidney Lens, however,nfor he has been the “complete socialist”nfor five decades.nWhen I was an undergraduate I readna biography of Eugene Debs—by RaynGinger, I think. It was a most effectivenbook; Debs came across as one whonreally cared for the poor and downtrodden,none who devoted his life to improvingntheir condition. If I had been fromna different background, or more susceptiblento the ideology, I might havenbecome a socialist. As it was, I wasndeeply moved but not persuaded. (It isndoubtful that there was any overt effortnmade to persuade anyone of anything.)nThis autobiography of Sidney Lensnmay have a similar appeal for today’snyoung readers. At any rate, the book isnof considerable interest. Sidney Lensnis a competent writer, and where ideologynis not directly involved, he is oftennquite candid and can describe objectively.nIndeed, the book is disarminglynwritten by an apparently modest mannwho gives the impression of trying tontell us how it was, at least as he saw it.nThere is little overt discussion of ideology,nand it is certainly necessary to bringnto the book an awareness of how ideologyncolors things to realize how muchni”29nXovcmbcr/Dccembcr 1980n