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 …
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 …
The events set off by Mikhail Gorbachev were welcomed by some and caused vexation to others. Among the latter were politicians, journalists, and scholars for whom the external fixity of communism was something of an article of faith. Gorbachev’s reforms, …
Poland today is the classic home of “anti-Semitism without Jews.” More than twenty years after the frenzied anti-Semitic campaign of 1968, which brought about the exodus of nearly all remaining Polish Jews, hardly a week goes by without some anti-Semitic …
On the morning of August 28, 1968, I left my Washington home and headed by car for the seaside resort of Rehoboth, Maryland. I remember starting out in high spirits: there was not a cloud in the sky, and I …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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, …
Long before the election took place in Nicaragua, the Reagan administration dismissed it as “sham” and “Soviet style.” After the election took place on November 4, 1984, President Reagan pronounced it a “farce.” To anyone familiar with the kind of …
The document below is a somewhat abridged translation of a report on the meeting of Solidarity’s highest body, the National Coordinating Committee (KKP), which took place in the western Polish town of Bydgoszcz this year on March 23-24. The report …
“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 …
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 …
