On Misperceiving the Dangers of LaRouche  

In the last two years Lyndon LaRouche and his followers have published articles claiming that the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust never happened, that international Zionism controls part of the drug traffic in America, that the B’nai …



Letters  

Editors: I am replying to the fundraising letter that I received today. Dissent is probably one of only a few causes that I support without reservation but I lack the means with which to back up my ideological support. I …



Food Assistance and the Left  

Liberals and leftists often find themselves in the uncomfortable position of either defending welfare programs they know to be insufficient or running the risk of losing the modest benefits those programs provide. This was the situation last spring when the …



England: Dead End of Liberalism?  

Modern Britain is, I shall argue here, the victim of orthodox liberalism carried to extremes. I use “liberalism” to connote economic doctrines idealizing laissez-faire and the free market together with political doctrines of maximum freedom under law and minimal government. …



How It Feels to Be Hit by a Truck  

Nothing could be more foolish than to blink the extent of the defeat we have suffered in the recent election. By “we” I have in mind both the larger “labor-liberal” community and the smaller “democratic left.” If Carter’s defeat can …



What Next in Poland?  

Imagine for a moment that our railway system, whose timetables all are determined by one central authority, suddenly has to cope with an influx of trains whose schedules are to be worked out jointly by passengers and railway workers. Much …



Abel’s Exegesis from Malicious Gossip  

There is no contemporary figure of international public life more closely associated with a thorough, rigorously elaborated political economy than I am. Hence when Lionel Abel writes [in Dissent, Fall 1980], “… the lack of foundation for LaRouche’s position in …



Mean Things  

For years, H. L. Mitchell worked at the center of the farm labor movement. In the early 1930s Mitchell earned a local reputation by collaborating with the Tennessee Socialist party in an investigation of sharecroppers and by organizing a union …



Schadenfreude  

My German dictionary says that Schadenfreude is a feeling of malicious delight in the discomfort of others. The element of Schadenfreude was especially strong in the recent sad election, especially among some of our liberal friends. And almost all of …



Communists’ Role in the Unions  

As a participant and survivor of the labor and radical struggles of the 1930s and 1940s, Bert Cochran has substantial credentials for undertaking this major study. The result is a fascinating, controversial, and important book. Cochran knows politics, trade unionism, …



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 …



Food Assistance and the Left  

Liberals and leftists often find themselves in the uncomfortable position of either defending welfare programs they know to be insufficient or running the risk of losing the modest benefits those programs provide. This was the situation last spring when the …





Why UAW Members Didn’t Support Reagan  

DETROIT — The nation’s auto workers did not rush to join the 1980 blue-collar “revolt” against Democrat Jimmy Carter. Instead, there was early evidence that the UAW rank and file “came home” to the Roosevelt-Democratic coalition and, in the end, …



The Prague Spring  

The Prague Spring of 1968 remains one of the traumatic experiences of the left. It revealed both the tensions at work beneath the surface of the Soviet-dominated world and the Russians’ determination to maintain their control regardless of cost. Zdenek …