The Prospects for Pluralistic Communism  

The history of World Communism, conceived as a united movement with a common doctrine and strategy formulated from a single center, is at an end. One hundred years after the foundation of the First International and fifty years after Lenin …



Letters  

Editors: May I say a word in reply to Arthur Waskow’s criticism of my criticism of the prevailing trends in peace research? Mr. Waskow tilts at a straw man. The instances he cites in no way rebut my basic criticism …



Briefer Notice  

The Rise of the Soviet Empire by Jan Librach Praeger University Series, 380 pp., $2.50 The following statement appears on page 77 of this book: “It is possible that the Kremlin, fearing the adverse effect a Communist rule in Spain …



Comprehending the Incomprehensible  

Blood from the Sky by Piotr Rawicz, translated by Peter Hays Harcourt, Brace & World, 315 pp., $4.95 The Journey and the Pity by Pawel Mayewski Charles Scribner’s Sons, 178 pp., $1.65 The furor aroused by the publication of Hannah …



On American Labor “Scholarship”  

Democracy in the International Association of Machinists by Mark Perlman Wiley, 1962, 113 pp.  This little piece of work was commissioned by the Trade Union Study of the Fund for the Republic; and it is depressing to think that with …



The Church and the State  

The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany by Guenter Levy McGraw Hill, 1964, 416 pp., $7.50 Both irony and justice attend the world-wide public trial which the Papacy and the German Catholic Church are now undergoing for their conduct during the …



A Major Work in Radical History  

The Making of the English Working Class by E. P. Thompson Pantheon Books, 1964, 848 pp., $15.00 Industrial society was born in Great Britain in the years between 1780 and 1832; E. P. Thompson’s brilliant new work is the best …



Alienation, Community, Freedom  

In his attempt to define an organic “structure of feeling” in 19th century social thought, a structure capable of supporting the political Left and Right alike, Raymond Williams brings together much material that is of deepest interest to anyone who …



Gorky, Censorship and the Jews  

Lenin’s death in 1924 produced in the Soviet Union a flood of apologies, memoirs and eulogies, no less sincere because their author had criticized Lenin on previous occasions. Among them was Gorky, who paid tribute to Lenin in many moving …



The Fabian and the African  

Almost everyone knows that Sidney Webb’s Fabianism was, if nothing else, practical, constructive, and hardheaded, unlike the revolutionary extremists he held in sovereign contempt. Now there is no better opportunity to be practical, constructive, and hardheaded than as a cabinet …



Notebook: Alfred Rosmer (1877-1964)  

On May 6 died in Paris in his 87th year Alfred Rosmer, a revolutionary of irreproachable character. He was not well known to the present generation of radicals, but to those who lived through the events of the First World …



Meeting the Soviet Philosophers  

I make no claim to being an “area specialist” on the Soviet Union, but for many years I have read the literature on Soviet society and ideology. For several years I attended courses in the Russian language, and acquired a …



China, Russia, and the Intellectuals  

The French philosophes, so the schoolbooks usually say, were mighty champions of liberty; they preached the defense of freedom against the arbitrary powers of the state. Did not Diderot write, “Each century is characterized by a specific spirit. The spirit …



Automation and the Unions  

In the first quarter of the 19th century, secret societies of English working men banded together to defend themselves against the machine. Determined to destroy the looms that were displacing them, they roamed through West Riding and Lancashire and Nottingham …



In Praise of 1984  

I envy the Russians. They destroy their discarded leaders. If a Khrushchev has to be deposed, he is utterly done in, made into an unperson, prevented from speaking in his own behalf, rendered incapable of hurling accusations against former associates …