When the Hundred Flowers Withered  

The Chinese “100 Flowers” or “rectification” episode— heralded as an Asian “thaw” when it was first announced in early 1957 —ended this winter with the fourth of the great purges which the Communist regime has conducted since coming to power …



A Program Modestly Proposed  

MANY of us have been quite concerned about the financial status of college teachers, and the fact that non-academic commissions have been formed to investigate conditions and that citizens committees have been busily examining data with the apparent intention of …



The Pattern of Sociological Theory  

“MANY a traveler has wondered why the Wameriku habitually sacrifice their lives to their curious ideas on traffic and mobility. As is well known, thousands yearly suffer death on the roads for no other reason than an apparent compulsion to …



Diary in Exile-1935  

February 7, 1935 The diary is not a literary form I am especially fond of; at the moment I would prefer the daily newspaper. But there is none available. … Cut off from political action, I am obliged to resort …





Twilight of the Intellectuals  

Much of the potency of contemporary attacks on socialism lies not in the points they score against Marx’s ideas—since these points when valid could be made equally well, and often have been, by Marxists themselves—but in the fact that all …



From Under the Lid  

Evidence of rather widespread disaffection or at least dissatisfaction among Russian writers has been frequently reported in recent years. We have heard of a number of attempts of Russian novelists, playwrights and critics to express in more or less veiled …





Telephone … But No Visa  

READERS OF DISSENT will know Edouard Roditi as an occasional contributor on Islamic problems. Others will remember him as an American poet and critic of literature and art. Born in Paris of an American family that has resided there for …



Sibley At Stanford  

Down on the farm, as Stanford University’s campus is sometimes called, an atmosphere of the leisurely past is carefully cultivated. The campus itself, sprawling across acres of precious Peninsula real estate, seems to argue for days gone by when a …



Letter From Italy  

“Fascism returns in Europe; generals in France, bishops in Italy.” So, a few days before May 25, the radical and anti-clerical weekly L’Espresso summarized the mood which characterized the last week of the election campaign. The election results confirmed this …





Nkrumah  

GHANA, by Kwame Nkrumah. On March 6, 1957, the former colony of the Gold Coast became an independent nation within the British Commonwealth and took the name of Ghana, thereby recalling a West African empire of medieval times. The leader …



The Test Of Torture  

THE QUESTION, by Henri Alleg. Introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre. Translated from the French by John Calder. As one among many thousands, Henri Alleg describes the tortures he underwent at the hands of the 10th Paratroop division in Algeria. Tortures of …



Max Lerner’s America  

AMERICA AS A CIVILIZATION, by Max Lerner. This book is disappointingly bland and inconclusive, an exhaustive balance sheet of American assets and liabilities. As in financial balance sheets, some mysterious alchemy equalizes the two sides; unlike the financial statement, Lerner …