This issue of DISSENT is devoted to reports and interpretations—mostly reports—of the American scene. We have asked a number of writers to describe those aspects of our national life with which they are most familiar. What they wrote, we have …
During a press conference held last January by the Hungarian writer Ignotus, a French surrealist poet (politically Marxist but anti-Stalinist) asked him what was the theoretical platform of the Workers’ Councils during the October uprising. It seemed that he needed …
SEGREGATION, THE INNER CONFLICT IN THE SOUTH, by Robert Penn Warren. Random House. The publisher’s wrapper speaks of this little book as a “sympathetic, fair, and honest report.” And so it is. Yet it is disingenuous and not disinterest. ed, …
What attitude should democratic Socialists, who reject Communism and abhor the abuses of which Communist Governments have been guilty, take up towards Communist Parties and towards individual Communists in the light of recent developments in the Soviet Union and in …
There are many criticisms to be made of Stanley Diamond’s “Eruption in the Middle East” in the Winter 1957 DISSENT. Two main points, however, seem to illustrate the failure of his argument. 1. Mr. Diamond says that “The indicated immediate …
One of Harold Laski’s best essays concerned the dangers of being a gentleman. His own career, by contrast, is in great part a demonstration of the dangers of being a radical. For Laski was always a radical, even in the …
The appearance of 52 Poujadists in the French Chamber of Deputies came as a shock to all parties. Some of these deputies have since been turned out by deft parliamentary maneuvering and others have resigned; but the reality of their …
The AFL-CIO, troubled by moral decay and a deep conflict of union philosophies within its ranks, has adopted a “code of ethics” to rid itself of such practices as milking health and welfare funds, accepting bribes and granting charters to …
Back in the age of innocence (November 1903 to be exact) the International Socialist Review devoted a leading article to “the Negro problem.” It was signed by Eugene V. Debs. Writing from deep in Louisiana, Debs had some colorful observations …
If it is true that we live in a mass society, we must immediately admit one fact: there are some individuals who are more affected by it than others, but there are not, nor can there be, privileged persons. There …
Events in Hungary, The Manchester Guardian has written, have “slightly weakened the Communists, without rallying the nonCommunist left.” The words were intended to describe the French political scene, where the cry “Algeria!” greets any socialist attempt to express sympathy with …
Someone, clearly not a press photographer, snapped my picture as I entered the Chateau Gardens on Houston Street and Second Avenue in New York’s lower East Side. If I shuddered that Saturday morning, it was not entirely due to the …
roots. It is a State, but not yet a nation. There is an Israeli idiom. But a culture remains to be created in the teeth of, among other things, a massive diffusion of money, machines, and modes of thinking from …
In recent years there has been a marked interest in what may be called “literary sociology,” and a good many books and articles on “the situation” of the American writer and of American literature have appeared. To judge by the …
One of the more insidious dangers in political analysis is to name things too soon. Faced with events or situations that are essentially without precedent, we are tempted to pin down their novelty with a phrase. Everyone can provide his …
