“Sickness” and Rebellion: East and West

Ward 7
by Valeriy Tarsis
E.P. Dutton, 159 pp., $3.50

The chaos and bestiality, some of it under medical auspices, that characterized Nazi totalitarianism has been rather thoroughly documented. Having lost the war, Germany was exposed to the scrutiny of outsiders; and anyway, the Germans have always been passionate archivists. In contrast, the crimes of Joseph Stalin and his state are more notorious than precisely realized. With the death of Lenin and the removal of Trotsky, the more rational and humane traditions of Communist ideology were destroyed by a canny despot the extent of whose arbitrary cruelty has yet to be appreciated.

The refinement...