Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR GLIKSMAN The article 011 "Soviet Labor Productivity" by Jerzy G. Gliksman in your September 9 issue was a model of its kind, the type of responsible analytic study of Soviet Russia we...
...Both failings of the Djilas manuscript are understandable when one considers that most of it was written in 1955...
...New York City Norman Thomas Reinhold Niebuhr's review of The New Class (NL, September 9) makes several criticisms of Milovan Djilas which should be directed at his publishers...
...Djilas concluded: "The wound which the Hungarian Revolution inflicted on Communism can never be completely healed...
...I hope very much that he will add to it by giving a more detailed history of developments in Yugoslavia, and of the processes of his conversion to democratic socialism...
...Since in your pages I had taken some exception to what I thought was a kind of anti-Americanism manifested by the distinguished philosopher, I want to do him the justice of praising this later statement...
...What it now fails to do is indicate realistic courses of action for the changed situation of 1957—and that is precisely what Djilas's last articles set out to do...
...In other statements, Djilas has said more...
...The modern democratic socialist does recognize that socialization of industries under the state is not of itself a cure-all and does raise problems...
...The book as it stands "exposes" Communism, but the necessity for such exposure has diminished considerably since the events of 1956...
...Washington, D, C. Eliot R, King DJILAS In your August 26 "Dear Editor" column, my friend Eugene Lyons, while praising my letter in your issue of August 12, catches me up for saying that Milovan Djilas is held in prison "because he has dared to think out loud—and brilliantly—in criticism of Communism and praise for democratic socialism...
...There would still be problems, and we would not have Utopia, but we would have lot better system than is possible while private monopolies or near-monopolies can administer prices with small regard for the consumer or for the national economy as a whole...
...Finally, Djilas's New Leader article offered numerous clues to the future of Eastern Europe and helpful hints for Western policy-makers...
...Niebuhr notes, inter alia, a certain pessimism about the possibilities of evolution away from Communism and national Communism, and a failure to do "full justice to the triumph of man like Gomulka...
...No democratic socialist believes in a state greater than society but rather in a state or commonwealth which exists to serve the true interest of individuals who must live and work together...
...Ultimately, however, Gomulka "will have to choose between internal democracy, which has become inseparable from complete independence from Moscow, and the ties with Moscow required to maintain the Communists' monopoly of power...
...I do not think Djilas would have too much difficulty defending his democratic socialism as over against "people's capitalism" —which we Americans allegedly have—or Communism...
...That Djilas's views developed considerably as a result of the events in Poland and Hungary is evident from his New Leader article, written in November 1956...
...the latest event mentioned is Poznan (June 1956), and there are but two or three references to the 20th Soviet Communist Party Congress (February 1956...
...Glen Wild, N. Y. Susanna Adams NOTE The Oxford Conference on "Changes in Soviet Society," described by Melvin J. Lasky in his article, "The 'Sovietologists'" (NL, September 16), was sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom...
...Though Gliksman's own democratic beliefs are beyond dispute, he avoids propaganda speeches and concentrates on the hard facts in the context of Soviet intentions...
...Despite the Soviet repression in Hungary, Moscow can only slow down the processes of change...
...CORRECTION In the August 12 New Leader, David Nelson Rowe, contributor to the discussion on "Mao's '100 Flowers,'" is incorrectly identified as "assistant professor of Chinese history at Yale University...
...Knowing Gomulka, a man who is unusually honest, brave and modest, I am convinced that he himself will not long hesitate if he is confronted with such a choice...
...Had Djilas's New Leader article (as well as other 1956 writings in Indian publications) been reproduced in an appendix or epilogue to The New Class, his viewpoint would have been much more clear and relevant to the contemporary situation...
...it is an intelligent commentary which might be read with profit (and no offense) by Soviet economists...
...Gomulka's accession to power," Djilas wrote, for example, "represented a compromise between Moscow and the turbulent masses of the Polish people...
...Socialist proposals for the advance of society in terms of liberty, equality and fraternity can perhaps best be achieved by a mixed economy, in which there is still a segment of privately owned productive enterprise...
...Lyons says correctly that Djilas's book, The New Class, does not praise democratic socialism but merely refers to it favorably...
...Those who, like Eugene Lyons in your August 12 issue, fail to see that Djilas is a democratic socialist have not pondered this key passage in the New Leader article: "Had the Hungarian Revolution not only brought political democracy but also preserved social control of heavy industry and banking, it would have exercised enormous influence on all Communist countries, including the USSR...
...Lyons is right to a certain extent in saying that Djilas's treatment of Communism does require some further elaboration of his socialism...
...World Communism now faces stormy days and insurmountable difficulties, and the peoples of Eastern Europe face heroic new struggles for freedom and independence...
...In view of what Socialist governments have done in Western Europe, and what has been accomplished even in America by the adoption of idea9 and plans once called Socialist, it borders on the ridiculous for Lyons to say or suggest that the position of the wage worker or the general atmosphere that exists under Communism would necessarily exist under democratic socialism or approaches to it...
...Since the book is now on the best-seller list, it is to be hoped that the publisher can afford to include these important articles in subsequent printings...
...Consumers' cooperatives should have a large part in that economy...
...No pessimism here...
...It would have demonstrated not only that totalitarianism is unnecessary as a means of protecting the workers from exploitation . . but also that this is a mere excuse for the exploitation of the workers by bureaucracy and a new ruling class...
...I am a Social Democrat...
...It may be appropriate in your columns to commend „ recent article by Bertrand Russell in the magazine section of the New York Times Magazine...
...only thus can the devotion of their imprisoned author be properly served...
...He predicted "further changes of great importance" among the Soviet rulers, and emphatically told his U. S. readers: "There is no doubt that the rest of the world —perhaps for the first time since the Bolsheviks took power—can directly and positively influence the direction of these changes...
...DEAR EDITOR GLIKSMAN The article 011 "Soviet Labor Productivity" by Jerzy G. Gliksman in your September 9 issue was a model of its kind, the type of responsible analytic study of Soviet Russia we need most...
...It is simply not true that necessary social controls of economic processes mean a denial of basic human freedoms of the sort that Communism has imposed...
...He said (eight months before the fall of Malenkov and Molotov) : "One can declare with certainty that there is » split within the Soviet leadership, and that even the most reactionary and imperialist (the so-called Stalinist) group is hesitant in its action...
...Now, let me turn to another subject...
...Actually, he is a professor of political science at Yale...
...His article is not only informative...
...His book concentrates on one thing: a picture of Communism which constitutes a. kind of anti-Communist manifesto...
...Where the state as an agent of society assumes ownership of great basic oligarchic or monopolistic industries, they should be operated under public authorities with democratic controls—not like the post office...
...But only to a certain extent...
...it cannot stop them in the long run...
...If Lyons has read The Organization Man, he will recognize that some of the human problems which socialism must face are extraordinarily apparent in the present relation of men to organization writ large...
...Of course, Djilas also proudly told the Yugoslav court which sentenced him: "I am not a Communist...
...In it he analyzes and criticizes certain manifestations of British anti-Americanism...
...Some of this large organization is inescapable in oux modern world...
Vol. 40 • September 1957 • No. 38
