Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR INDIAN 'NEUTRALISM' There exists in Calcutta a Society for the Defense of Freedom in Asia-meaning by freedom genuine and not fraudulent democracy. Allied with it is a publisher, Sita...
...Consider the way these indexes treated three of the leading anti-Communist periodicals, The New Leader, the Partisan Review and the Modern Monthly (which ceased publication in 1940...
...Professor Taft said, quite correctly in my view, that the bibliography "deserves a vote of thanks from the Communist party...
...The Communists are using their agents and political parties throughout Asia now...
...The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...My friend feels that only the mobilization of democratic opinion abroad can save this organization...
...Now that we are aware of Communism's real purpose in the world, let us not commit the same errors as in the past...
...Monrovia, Calif...
...Dallin trials them as correct.By allowing Red China to enter the United Nations, we are virtually coudoning Inning her internal policy of terrorism and inhumanity...
...Sessions has mentioned one, Farrell's Notes on Literary Criticism: others are Perlman and Taft, History of Labor in the United States, 1896-1932, and Norman Thomas, Socialism on the Defensive...
...The New Leader, the Modern Monthly and a host of other periodicals which ran material critical of Communism were covered by Rand...
...He deserves both moral and financial support...
...Upton Sinclair BIBLIOGRAPHY Having read the Fund for the Republic's "Misleading Guide to U. S. Communism," I am impressed by the moderation of the review by John A. Sessions in your October 31 issue...
...It is a known fact that the Soviet and Chinese Embassies in New Delhi have been pressing continuously for this action...
...Nor can I agree with Dr...
...Certainly it is a strange kind of "neutralism" which denies the free world the right to discuss the enslavement of a dozen small nations in Central Europe and the fraudulent nature of that Soviet "democracy'' which puts millions of its own and other peoples in concentration camps for expressing their opinions...
...Allied with it is a publisher, Sita Ram Goel, who has recently brought out translations in both Hindi and Bengali of my latest novel The Return of Lanny Budd, which reveals a good deal of the Moscow intrigues in and about Berlin...
...While major emphasis went to Communism and the labor movement, other articles on the Communist problem were frequently included...
...True, we allied ourselves with Russia during the UN's inception, for we were not aware of her true purpose within that body...
...The articles included in the Bibliography, its compilers state in their introduction, were drawn from six sources: (1) Catholic Periodical Index, (2) Index to Legal Periodicals, (3) International Index to Periodicals, (4) Index to Labor Articles (Rand School), (5) Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, and (6) bulletins of the Public Affairs Information Service...
...He suggests two possible explanations, incompetence or anti-anti-Communism...
...New York City Joseph Tanenitaiis RED CHINA David J. Dallin states, in "Relations with Red China" [NL, October 10], that to recognize Red China and admit her into the United Nations cannot be viewed as "rewards for democratic virtue.'' The writer can certainly agree to the allow premise but must ask what criteria are to be used to admit additional nations to membership in the United Nations...
...He reports, too, that Prime Minister Nehru, during his recent visits to Peking and Moscow, agreed to suppress the organization...
...Before we can achieve real peace in the world, we must eliminate from the United Nations those nations that consciously destroy the human spirit and dignity...
...Now it is important to remember that none of these people's books deals with American Communism and that the Bibliography purports to cover only this subject...
...Certain criteria, such as inhumanity, terrorism and slave-driving (to use Mr...
...Prime Minister Nehru may think that he is protecting his own government by helping to suppress news about such evils, but the free world should let him know what it thinks about such "neutralism.'' It should also warn him of what he can expect when the military roads through Tibet are completed...
...it was planned and executed by lawyers with admirable results...
...Farrell said, with equal truth, that the bibliography gave space to attacks by Communist hatchet-men against anti-Communist writers without giving the latter adequate representation...
...Clinton Rossiter when he charges Philip Taft and James T. Farrell with "irresponsibility'' in their criticisms of the bibliography...
...An afternoon of research has convinced me that "anti-anti-Communism" is not involved...
...The Rand School's publication aside, the Partisan Review alone is indexed, and this only since 1949...
...Dallin's own words), should be used to exclude certain nations from membership...
...Why not make this a condition for Red China's admission to the United Nations, which could supervise free and open elections...
...Louis Sam Lambert...
...While John Sessions is entirely correct that one gets insight into American Communism from these works, any obligation to have included them in the Bibliography is surely 1 debatable proposition...
...The selection from the Rand listings for inclusion in the Fund's Bibliography reflects no trace of "anti-anti-Communist" bias...
...Technically, the PAIS also indexed the Modern Monthly, but reliance on its bulletins for anti-Communist articles in the 1930s is hazardous...
...Sessions also criticizes the Bibliography because it does not cite Angelica Balahanoff's important autobiography My Life as a Rebel and books by Koestler and, by implication, Dallin, Wolfe and others...
...The bibliography as it now stands should not be supplemented or revised...
...Isn't it true that, by recognition of such slave-driving forces, we only delay the day of reckoning...
...A companion volume to this one, A Digest of the Public Record of Communism in the United States, was a job for lawyers...
...Orchard Park, N. Y. David W. Nicklas Can Red China be considered "civilized," to quote David J. Dallin, until she permits open political opposition...
...It must first be withdrawn from the libraries to which it has been presented...
...If military warfare subsides between the two Chinas, it will be replaced by political warfare...
...I do not wish to imply that the absence of certain books can be easily explained away...
...No bibliography on the Communist problem in the United States can be worth very much unless (1) it is based upon a comprehensive survey of all major anti-Communist and pro-Communist periodicals and occasional literature, and (2) it is supervised by specialists on Communism in the fields of labor, literature, sociology, education, religion, politics, etc...
...In the past, we committed grave errors by recognizing the "Soviet Union at the moment when Statin's cruel collectivization drive was at its height" and failing to "sever relations with the Nazi regime in the period before the war.'' Such erroneous precedents can only destine us for further costly errors, yet Dr...
...But why shouldn't we advocate democratic procedures, and at the same time call the attention of Asians??including the mainland Chinese -to the lack of political opposition in Red China and the Communists' apparent fear of the truth...
...Goel's address is 12 Chowringhee Square, Calcutta...
...Only after that has been done will it be time for the Fund to look about for a more responsible group to whom the job of preparing a completely new bibliography might be safely entrusted...
...The glaringly unrepresentative handling of most of the authors Sessions mentioned (Liston Oak, Norman Thomas, William Henry Chamberlin, Dwight Macdonald, James T. Farrell and Max Eastman), and others whom be did not mention, is largely explained in this way...
...But, from 1942 until it ceased publication in 1953, its handling of the Communist question was 'casual at best...
...My point is simply this: The trouble with the Fund's Bibliography is in its conceptual framework...
...Insofar as anti-Communist periodical literature is concerned, it should and does follow, the Bibliography is strongest where the Rand index is strong and especially weak after 1941...
...Is it not fair that Red China itself be equally vulnerable to being overthrown at home...
...Until the end of 1941, the Rand School's index carried a separate subdivision on Communism...
...It is probably unrealistic to hope that Communists would agree to really free elections anywhere...
...A friend of mine who arranged for these translations now writes that "the ruling circles in India and the police have started a whispering campaign against the group, alleging that it is an espionage center for America...
...Flatbrookville, N. J. James Rorty John A. Sessions, in his brilliant review of the Fund for the Republic's Bibliography on the Communist Problem in the United States, points out the omission of a long list of vitally important materials...
Vol. 38 • November 1955 • No. 45
