 On the morning of 7 October he was elected to chair the day's proceedings.The morning was dominated by a keynote speech from Melvin J. Lasky who was deeply critical of censorship in the Soviet Union and the persecution of the Soviet writers Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova.This, in turn, drew strong protests from Soviet guest delegates at the congress, in a session choreographed by Birkenfeld.