Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR DJILAS It is amusing and instructive to observe how people unwittingly read their own prejudices and preferences into other people's words. This profound thought comes to me as I read...
...The catastrophic waste caused by the slate as monopoly-owner, the canceling out of supply-and-demand influences, the dominance of political over economic motivaThe New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...Take, for instance, this passage on the position of the wage-earner under Communism: "The worker finds himself in the position of having not only to sell his labor...
...The "praise for democratic socialism" is the part that touched off this letter...
...In the brief preface to The New Class, Djilas writes: "As I became increasingly estranged from the reality of contemporary Communism, I came closer to the idea of democratic socialism...
...New York City Frank R. Crosswaith...
...Perhaps Djilas does consider himself in a vague way a democratic socialist—that is usually the next stage in the process of disillusionment with Communism and then with national Communism...
...Djilas's entire analysis of the Communist economy, too, will hardly fortify the position of socialists...
...But he certainly does not in his book make any forthright argument for that stage...
...But it does seem to me useful to make clear the simple fact that Djilas neither praises nor (except by implication) knowingly attacks that alternative to Communism...
...And that's the end of that subject...
...I don't, in this letter, want to spark a controversy on the merits of democratic socialism...
...He simply doesn't deal with the subject...
...Bohn true to form in the skill with which he told his story, but he rekindled my memory of the many occasions when I visited Upton Sinclair on trips to California to address student groups and labor unions...
...Or consider the passage in which Djilas shows that "in Communist systems, thefts and misappropriations are inevitable...
...Pleasantville, N. Y. Eugene Lyons UPTON SINCLAIR After reading "A Morning with Upton Sinclair," by William E. Bohn (NL, August 5), I could not resist the urge to write a few lines of appreciation...
...The universal poverty, he explains, is not the sole or the main reason for this, but the fact that "the property does not seem to belong to anyone—all valuables are somehow made valueless, thus creating a favorable atmosphere for theft and waste...
...His faith in it, at the time he wrote, presumably was not intense enough to induce him to explain and defend that alternative...
...The courageous Yugoslav is being kept in jail, Thomas says, "because he has dared to think out loud—and brilliantly—in criticism of Communism and praise for democratic socialism...
...There is only one employer, the state...
...This argument surely would apply under socialism generally...
...he must sell it under conditions which are beyond his control, since he is unable to seek another, better employer...
...This profound thought comes to me as I read the splendid letter by my friend Norman Thomas in your August 12 issue urging free-world pressures to save Milovan Djilas...
...On the contrary, most readers will interpret his analysis of Communism as applicable, except in the matter of degree, to socialism as well...
...Not only was Dr...
...find extreme expressions under a Communist dictatorship...
...Would not roughly the same atmosphere prevail in socialism...
...My thanks to him for reminding me of those days...
...The worker has no choice but to accept the employer's terms...
...I have read the Djilas book carefully, several times...
...There is in it no such praise...
...tions, etc...
...But if Djilas really believes that such factors would not produce approximately the same results under so-called democratic socialism, he fails to say so...
Vol. 40 • August 1957 • No. 34
