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What happens to a country's genetic/cultural pool when more than fifty million of its citizens—over a fifth of its present population—die unnatural deaths or emigrate over sixty years? What happens when many of these people are among the country's most talented individuals—entrepreneurs, army officers, party leaders, successful farmers, leading writers, and the intelligentsia? And what happens to a country's capacity for critical analysis when, in addition to physical disasters on the scale indicated, it has been sealed off from the rest of the world and severe limits have been placed on discussion within the country?

Last month I described eleven “successes” of Soviet foreign policy since the October, 1917. Revolution. Now it is time to turn to Soviet ““failures” and to the underlying factors that have shaped Soviet policy in the past and that should be weighed by Western policymakers in the years ahead. Partially by coincidence and partially with un eye to symmetry, I again come up with the number eleven.These assessments of success and failure are based on my own research, stimulated and refined by a survey (both written and oral) that tapped the views of other Soviet specialists visiting the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The “balance sheet.“” of course, represents my own judgment. Readers will no doubt make their own distinctions, thus reducing or expanding the list; some may quarrel about whether a certain.event ought to be rated a failure or a “ success given Moscow's apparent objectives; but I think the following represents a fair account in accord with the facts as we know them.

Kto kovo? according to Lenin, is the fundamental question of politics. "Who's going to do in whom?" Lenin and others plotting against the czar came steadily to this zero-sum conception of politics. One side or the other could win—not both. Though Americans tend to expect a harmony of interests among nations, the zero-sum conception also exists in this country; it is, in fact, a prominent factor in the ongoing debate about Soviet strategic objectives and capabilities—for instance, in statements by the Committee on the Present Danger.

Plitics is our national sport,'' a Puerto Rican lawyer warns, "but it sometimes gets too lively. That's why many bars post signs prohibiting discussions of politics or religion."This sport is mirrored in another Island passion: music. In the Miami Beach-type hotels along San Juan's Condado strip, for example, a faceless continental music regales not only North American tourists but dolce vita from the present economic and social system. Behind the Folies Bergeres night club acts flashes the subliminal message: Things are fine as they are.A few miles inland, past a boulevard with high-rise, air-conditioned buildings in the commercial section of Hato Rey, past a Sears and several shopping malls, the rooftops get lower and the housing denser and a wild and exciting beat rises from a street corner opposite the headquarters of the Puerto Rican Independence Party.

As Moscow and Washington move toward a second round of SALT, analysts in both capitals raise serious questions—not only about the accords concluded in 1972, but, with still greater concern, about the agreements that will be considered in the years ahead. Communists may well ask: If revolution is the stepchild of war, should we welcome conditions that make international stability more likely? Western skeptics, for their part, ask whether Soviet leaders will not exploit a nuclear stalemate to advance the Communist cause through subnuclear diplomacy or nonmilitary means in which the West is generally at a disadvantage. Some U.S. strategists, for example, contend that there is a basic asymmetry which turns the SALT agreements to Moscow's favor. Since Moscow's objectives are unlimited, they contend, they may be effectively pursued as long as the USSR enjoys at least rough equality with the United States. For America to deter Soviet probes, overwhelming superiority is needed, both in strategic and other arms.

I first heard of V. S. Naipaul in 1977. Preparing for a Fulbright lectureship in Trinidad, I asked State Department experts what to read. Their answer: V. S. Naipaul. Today, if a student were to ask me what author to read to learn about the Third World, my answer would be the same: Naipaul.What is the Third World? Political sociologists and economists proffer definitions and statistics. Naipaul gives us vivid images and stories about people who live there. His purposes have been literary and reportorial. They have also been deeply personal, for Naipaul has sought to escape and transcend the Hindu-Trinidad milieu in which he was raised.