CULTURAL EXCHANGE: Snarl in the Line

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To Soviet Russia's masters of the mind, cultural exchange does not include much exchange for the artists who perform abroad. They are expected both to win their hosts' hosannas and return with the same dim view of the outside world as they had when they left. The formula: though Americans can be nice enough personally, their culture is starved, purposeless, oppressed, and altogether appalling.

Last week word got out that one Soviet star had daringly snarled the party line. He was no less a personage than Choreographer Igor Moiseyev, whose dance troupe scored a notable triumph in the U.S. last year (TIME, May 12). At home last December he stepped to the podium in Moscow's House of Actors and delivered an amazing travelogue. Said he: Even the most informed Russians are badly mistaken about U.S. culture.

Moiseyev began by saying he would leave discussion of U.S. shortcomings to those ''responsible for such things." i.e., Communist propagandists. Then he spoke glowingly of Broadway's musicals (West Side Story, My Fair Lady), the cornucopia of Manhattan's super-drugstores, the infectious tempo of Manhattan's streets and the variety of its restaurants, the ingenious design of U.S. highways (better than Germany's), the superb discipline of orchestras accompanying his dancers, the "children's land of enchantment" in California's Disneyland. Moiseyev was not without a few gay barbs. He tweaked gaudy American advertisements for stiffening sales resistance; the incessant screaming of fire and police sirens in New York were annoying, and many U.S. movies simply a bore. For 3½ hours, Moiseyev enthralled 600 actors, dancers, musicians and writers. When he finished, he was asked to repeat the talk, this time before Moscow's House of Journalists.

Moiseyev did not keep the appointment. The Ministry of Culture hauled him in for a "reeducation" session that included a sound bawling-out for "lack of balance." According to the reports that got to the U.S. last week, Moiseyev protested, voiced shock and chagrin at the ministry's reaction. But he would be more careful about what he saw and said in future.