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From International Socialism (1st series), No.29, Summer 1967, p.37.
Thanks to Ted Crawford & the late Will Fancy.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Liberals and Communism
Frank Warren
Indiana University Press, $6.95
Freedom House is the ideological home for the Lovestonite version of American reality. At intervals the group offers support for American Foreign Policy. In short if is the worst collection of social chauvinists one can find anywhere. Included in this collection is the name of Max Lerner. Lerner supports American policy anywhere. It is progressive. In 1937 he thought another country progressive. Let us all take two guesses. Italy? No, Fascism was kosher in 1927. The choice of 1937 was of course Russia. It was the hope of mankind just like America today. It is no accident that this man and others like him are the subject of a seamy piece of acadamese called Liberals and Communism.
The major question of this book is why some liberals were so dumb about Russia. The author thinks he knows why; the great depression, the rise of Fascism, the usual shtick. He spends almost all of this book probing the minds of such theorists as Stuart Chase and the above-mentioned Max Lerner. To be sure the study of such minds for a prolonged period might require the use of an anti-nausea drug at least for readers of this journal. For this author these are major figures.
From these few asides you may draw your own conclusions.
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Last updated on 6 May 2010