REDS DECEIVED HIM, UPTON SINCLAIR SAYS IN SPECIAL STATEMENT
SINCLAIR, UPTON
Reds Deceived Him, Upton Sinclair Says In Special Statement By Upton Sinclair I HAVE BEEN ASKED BY THE NEW LEADER to elaborate on my statement concerning Russia which was embodied in...
...If anyone in Russia dared to criticize ^e evils of the present Russian system, as I have criticized those in my own country, he or she would be shot...
...The Communists themselves make it impossible for an honest man to defend anything they do...
...I HAVE DEFENDED THE RIGHT of the people of Russia to choose their own form of government, as long as I could hope they were choosing it...
...They take advantage of any such defense by pretending that he approves of everything Russia does, just as Mr...
...It began in the48S0's when Willi Miinzenberg in Berlin took to signing my name to manifestos which I had never seen...
...I have spent my life in upholding American democracy by criticizing its imperfections in order to help all of us to continue improving it...
...Fadeyev did...
...I warned him twice in letters, and when he did it again I exposed him in an article in Voru>drts, the Social-Democratic newspaper of Berlin...
...and countless thousands have been shot...
...I told Mr...
...For that reason we must unite wholeheartedly with the other free peoples of the world in the Atlantic Pact...
...On January 6 1 wrote Professor Counts the reply which he published in the above-mentioned article...
...Incidentally, this is the only thing we can do to help the people of Russia...
...can answer all the falsehoods and misrepresentations made about him by individual Communists...
...It would take a staff of translators and secretaries and a small fortune, none of which I ever possessed...
...For the past twelve^ years I have devoted myself to waiting s series of historical novels depicting the world in our time...
...The Russian people were given a constitution which proclaimed their freedom, but it is never made effective in practice and is nothing but camouflage...
...But no writer whose.books are published, as mine are, in most of the countries of the world...
...Fadeyev's kind of misrepresentation had become an old story to me...
...Reds Deceived Him, Upton Sinclair Says In Special Statement By Upton Sinclair I HAVE BEEN ASKED BY THE NEW LEADER to elaborate on my statement concerning Russia which was embodied in an article by Professor George Counts, published in the March 19 issue of that paper...
...But I have been forced to realize that it does not happen...
...Fadeyev that either he "had not read my books" or that "they have been incorrectly translated in the Russian editions...
...Russia's brutal Communist regime has made it all too easy for Fascism to proclaim that all brandsioi liberalism are dangerous and lead to despotism...
...For this right to openly criticize, I thank my God and those great American revolutionists who gave us our freedom and the Constitution under which we enjoy this right...
...Indeed it turned out to be one of those many devices by which the Communist leaders have, throughout the years, misled the liberals outside of Russia into believing that Russia was building a free state...
...y It is necessary for the world outside of Russi» to show up ^the Russian rulers and keep ihem from expanding their power...
...I could only hope that they were honestly translated...
...I have tried in these books to give all sides a hearing, as an honest historian should...
...In this reply I called Russia "a reactionary, nationalist imperialism" and said that "the present Party line is bound to lead to another World War...
...Mr...
...e THE FAILURE OF THE SOVIET LEADERS to improve upon the inhuman regime of Czarist Russia has brought all the truly liberal forces of the world into danger...
...Last January, Professor Counts kindly wrote me that Alexander Fadeyev had included me in a published list of the "finest writers, artists and scientists of the capitalist world" who "invariably have become friends of the USSR"—the "whole flower of world culture...
...The free peoples everywhere must be saved from the war of world conquest which Russia's leaders are fomenting...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 22
