One Hundred Years of the Bund  

Of the two Jewish movements that celebrate their centenaries this year—Zionism and the Bund—the first, founded at a glittering ceremony in Basle, Switzerland, in August 1897, can surely boast of greater historical achievements than its coeval, formed by thirteen representatives …



Laying Siege to Lubianka  

ARRESTED VOICES: RESURRECTING THE DISAPPEARED WRITERS OF THE SOVIET REGIME, by Vitaly Shentalinsky. Translated by John Crowfoot. Martin Kessler Books, The Free Press, 1996. 322 pp. $25.00. Vitaly Shentalinsky is a Russian poet, journalist, and historian, now in his early …











An Immensity of Change  

The following dialogue between Abraham Brumberg and Irving Howe took place in early October 1989. Abraham Brumberg is a widely published authority on Soviet and Eastern European affairs and editor of the forthcoming Perestroika: Chronicle of a Revolution, published by …



Poland: State and/or Society  

Warsaw in early September 1988 was a city swept by an air of excitement, hope, and nervous anticipation. The government had just announced a course of action designed—or so it would seem— to set Poland on the road to economic …



Nicaragua: Sending Guns and Sermons  

It was all to be expected: a few days after 221 members of the House of Representatives voted to provide the Nicaraguan “freedom fighters” with $100 million in new aid (plus another $400 million from the CIA’s “contingency” coffers), the …



Nicaragua: The Inner Struggle  

The first part of my report from Nicaragua in the Spring 1986 Dissent ended with a promise that I would deal with some of the countervailing forces that serve to moderate the centralizing tendencies within Nicaragua—what they are, and to …



Nicaragua: A Mixture of Shades  

Anyone who returns to Nicaragua after a two-year absence—as I recently did—must be struck by a marked deterioration in every facet of life in that country. Two years ago, despite the increasing cost of fighting a war on both borders, …







Poland: The Revolt of the Workers  

“Proletarians of all countries, unite—as long as it’s possible!”Attributed, whimsically, to Lech Walesa, Head of Solidarity And so, for the fourth time in three decades, Poland again seems to be teetering on the brink of disaster. A society, held together …



Wheeling and Dealing in the U.S.S.R.  

It is the central thesis of Professor Dunham’s extraordinary book that toward the end of World War II the Soviet regime, weakened by a chain of devastating catastrophes, having lost its revolutionary zeal and with it the loyalty of most …