Work in Progress
P., S.
A HISTORY OF SOCIALIST THOUGHT, by G. D. H. Cole. Vol. I, "The Forerunners, 1789-1850"; 346 pages. $5.00. Vol. 11, "Marxism and Anarchism, 1850-1890"; 482 pages. $6.00. St. Martin's Press,...
...Watts, who has probably done more for the civil rights of dissidents during the past several years than any other American, has dug up vast quantities of material showing how the Attorney General's "Subversive List," presumably intended as nothing more than a guide in government hiring, has been used by the army as a means of penalizing draftees on account of their pre-induction political activities...
...The tone of the charges brought against these defenseless soldiers is at times unbelievable—even to those with a long unhappy experience with the military mind...
...The second volume, describing the socialist movement from the defeat of the 1848 European revolutions up to the emergence of the Marxian Social Democracy of the 1890's, contains a central theme of the struggle between Marxism and Anarchism...
...THE DRAFTEE AND INTERNAL SECURITY, A STUDY OF THE ARMY, MILITARY PERSONNEL SECURITY PROGRAM—by Rowland Watts...
...The first volume, covering the period since the great French Revolution to 1850, deals with the development of socialist ideas, particularly its utopian phase and early socialist economies...
...In this respect, it is considerably livelier and more energetic than the previous volume...
...Martin's Press, Inc., 103 Park Avenue, New York, N. Y. G. D. H. Cole has undertaken the exceptionally difficult task of preparing a general history of socialist thought as distinguished from a history of the socialist movement...
...Oxford University Press...
...This massively documented study is one of the most valuable and important pieces of research into the problem of civil liberties that has yet appeared...
...The final volume is to round out this project by bringing the history of socialist thought up to date...
...Some of the most informative chapters are on Bakunin and Prince Kropotkin...
...and also had copies of The New Republic and one of The Nation...
...In this volume, Cole varies considerably his method in that the lives and ideas of the princi pal characters unfold against the background of revolutions and conflicting movements...
...I, "The Forerunners, 1789-1850...
...Professor Cole treats the individual thinkers (Babeuf, Saint-Simon, Owen, Proudhon, etc...
...The author has taken several incidents from the career of Jackson and traced their transmutation in American thought...
...separately, justifying this by the absence of organized movements...
...Among them are that "Subject's political beliefs were such that many people would accuse him of being 'pink...
...In general, the author sketches a brief outline of a particular thinker, then summarizes his particular contributions to socialist theory and practice and ties this in with the development of the movement...
...This work, to run to four volumes when complete, is presently at the half-way mark and it is therefore impossible to evaluate it as a whole or even to indicate its general trend or conclusions...
...The evidence collected here is enormous and, even to hardened dissenters, rather frightening...
...subject possesses a copy of The Reporter dated 29 September 1953...
...his father is a member of the National Lawyers Guild...
...In--, while in high school, you wrote a biography of Lenin in which you extolled the efforts of Lenin and Stalin...
...BOOKS RECEIVED ANDREW JACKSON, SYMBOL FOR AN ACE— by John William Ward...
...Does Your Library Subscribe to Dissent...
...Watts' work...
...Any judgment of Cole's larger contribution to a study of socialist thought must await completion of this "work in progress...
...The result is an important study, written with flair and imagination, of the gradual diffusion of Jacksonism into American society and culture...
...The third volume is to portray the struggle between revolutionary and reformist wings of the movement, from the birth of the Second International through the Russian Revolution...
...This book, far from being orthodox history, is an effort to see how the events of history gradually become transformed into popular myth...
...11, "Marxism and Anarchism, 1850-1890...
...Questions asked by a hearing board in regard to "Case 30" include: "did he do a lot of reading...
...4.75...
...There cannot be too high praise for Mr...
...Workers Defense League...
...These two volumes are written in Cole's lively and familiar style and, while adding nothing particularly new or startling to men or subjects which have been handled in more scholarly detail (particularly by the Germans), certainly provide a worthwhile reference and source...
Vol. 2 • September 1955 • No. 4
