TROTSKY’S DIARY IN Exile: 1935. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1958 The general habit of considering Stalinism and present-day Communism as identical with, or at least as a continuation of revolutionary Marxism, has also led to an increasing misunderstanding of …
Let me begin by placing on the record my opinion that Mills has written a sound, brilliant and most timely political tract. In using the latter term I do not mean to put it into a minor category but to …
A soft, round face with a dull and banal expression; a mouth out of which come resounding but hollow words. Haven’t I already come across him on some subway platform or in his home town of Arras? No, I must …
May I add a word to the discussion begun in the last DISSENT on the political climate in America? Essentially, the 1958 vote continued a trend that began after the Korean War in the summer of 1953. The Polish and …
Of my two opponents, Mr. Tumin has put himself outside the scope of discussion and discourse through the tone he adopted in his rebuttal. Mr. Spiti s argument, on the contrary, would deserve a point-by-point analysis if it constituted a …
In publishing this article more than one year after it was written, the editors are most uncharitable to the author. But they may be doing a service to those who shared his illusions during the time of the million flowers. …
The new political thinking of Milovan Djilas is marked by a rather surprising contradiction.
Despite all the claims and complaints to the contrary, it now looks as if the 1950’s will go down as one of the most barren decades in American criticism. For nearly ten years the intellectual energy and artistic commitment of …
Slightly more than thirty years ago, in October 1928, the first Five-Year Plan was launched. For three decades the resources of a vast country, the energies of a large and talented population, and the capacity of a most elaborate and …
It has often been rumoured that Bertolt Brecht, the great German Communist poet, had been severely critical of the East German regime despite his show of Stalinist orthodoxy. The German magazine Neue Deutsche Hefte (No. 52) now publishes an article …
The first industrial revolution began in England, spread to the Continental mainland, and then crossed the Atlantic to the United States. Only generations later did it affect Russia, and even then only in part, whilst the peoples of Asia were …
I went to Cuba at a time when, by the standards of the daily press, nothing important was taking place: there was only the buildup for the crisis expected after the November 1958 election. Not until later did the correspondents …
That we are, as a nation, engaged in a great public debate about education is quite evident. It is equally evident that this debate would be most salutary if it were being conducted with adequate knowledge on all sides, and …
The ownership of the old ruling classes is not a thing of permanence; one can foresee the end of their control of both property and culture. The only difficulty is to identify concretely their successors. Who will inherit the culture …
Politics, as everyone knows, is the art of drawing distinctions. It involves, to be sure, the pursuit and use—as well as the misuse—of power; but we seek that power for the potential good, not the evil, that its possession affords. …
