Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR The new leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, hut letters should not exceed 300 words. 'THE ANARCHISTS' The one merit I can detect in Max Nomad's review of The...
...His "excuse" for this exotic procedure is that as "a very, very old man . he cannot afford to waste what little time is left to him on reading all the printed matter that lands on his desk," Very old men apparently have very special privileges...
...He points out effectively the degeneration of the quality of teaching which results from the increasing respect given to research work...
...But a statistical fiction such as this deserves a place in the history of the Berkeley revolt...
...At any rate, I admire Horowitz's chutzpah...
...Feuer's explication of Clark Kerr's view of the role of student, teacher, and administrator in the Multiversity is admirable...
...I also like the Free Speech Movement and the ideals which they hold which have resulted in the unfortunate display of misunderstanding in Sproul Hall on December 2. But, if one subscribes to the guilt-by-association tactics which some vehicles of mass communication have done in the Berkeley area, r have suddenly become a revolutionary Maoist-Trotskyite-Goldwaterite dupe who has also succumbed to Nazi propaganda and, as a result, have developed into a hopelessly depraved maniac, willing to stop at nothing in order to attack some unsuspecting library employe...
...the utopian Kropotkin insisted upon completely "free" communism under which everybody gets what he needs regardless of his contribution or non-contribution to the community...
...Rather, his embarrassment at his own past seemed spontaneous...
...Wasn't the libretto of one of his early one-act operas about a nun who fell carnally in love with a statue of Jesus...
...New York City JAMES HENLE As a student at the University of California and, at best, an interested bystander to the events on campus of October through December, I find Feuer's article thoughtful, provocative...
...A fiction, maybe...
...Certainly, Feuer realizes the frustration among the students which has resulted from their alienation from indifferent pools of administrative power...
...In his second article he labels as "fiction not history" Stephen Weissman's description of the December 7 student strike as being ·'81 per cent successful...
...This incident post-dates the era of McCarthyism, and I hardly imagine that fear of McCarthyism would ever have been a motive of Paul Hindemith's...
...Louis, Mo...
...Actually, this figure was arrived at by a careful study of class attendance that day...
...Feuer observes that, because of the sheer size of the Multiversity, "the ties of informal association and community linkage become weaker...
...In the months ahead, Radio Liberty will rebroadcast many of Professor Denike's programs because of their particular relevance to our audience in the post-Khrushchev era...
...All I could extract from him by way of comment was a refusal to comment...
...How could "the professor" not have read anything of Kropotkin's other than an article in the Encyclopaedia Brittannica (11th edition), when my introduction makes three explicit references to three separate works, and when the selection is itself drawn from yet a fourth...
...the instance of violence on campus becomes more prevalent, and the presence of murderers and rapists thereabouts becomes more evident...
...A few years ago I wrote Hindemith asking what his side had been...
...Horowitz also has the temerity to deny that Malatesta was a communist anarchist even though Kropotkin mentions his name among the "better known exponents" of that trend (see p, 917-918 of Vol...
...So do I. HINDEMITH A footnote in confirmation of Dika Newlin's thesis concerning the late Paul Hindemith (NL, December 21, 1964...
...There is a profound difference not only in the terminology but also in the essence of these two concepts...
...However, Feuer runs into problems when he attempts to explain the actions of the Free Speech Movement in light of his observations on the function and problems of the Multiversity...
...apparently he has heard that the two friends had fallen out on the question of supporting the Allies during World War I. But any serious history of anarchism could have told Horowitz that both Kropotkin and Malatesta had been champions of communist anarchism ever since the late 1870s-------despite some minor theoretical and tactical differences...
...Not only that...
...One of these essential things is the fact that Bakunin's views are always referred to as collectivist anarchism in contradistinction to those of Kropotkin, which are known as communist anarchism and are explicitly so designated in all of Kropotkin's writings...
...A random sample of the classes actually held determined that attendance at these classes was 44 per cent of the normal turnout...
...What will my future employers say...
...Nomad, why not admit it...
...Yet, in the same breath, he resorts to thoughtless labelfixing of the involved student groups...
...Therefore...
...It seems that the Free Speech movement is not only Maoist, but it has colorings of Nazism...
...was the embarrassment just that of any middle-aged "square" or something more peculiar and complex...
...One apology for such omissions in the Preface should be sufficient, even for Nomad's venomous appetites...
...Finally...
...That the collection has omissions is inevitable...
...Berlin ERIC BENTLEY Y. P. DENIKE I would like to add a few lines to Boris Nicolaevsky's obituary of Yurij Petrovich Denike (NL, January 18...
...but my poor father has become an ogre...
...The actual attendance therefore was 18.7 per cent (44 per cent of 42.5 per cent...
...If Horowitz has not grasped this basic distinction after having allegedly studied the subject, then I can well imagine what kind of knowledge he has acquired from his other readings...
...Letters from the Soviet Union, especially from young people, confirm Yurij Petrovich's success in stimulating them to think independently and make judgments based on facts...
...I of the 11th edition of the Britannica...
...Finally, the emotional misery of the review is made plain when he asserts that The Anarchists is a potential vehicle for upward mobility (of moving from an associate to a full professorship...
...He thinks he could not get a full professorship on the strength of his book...
...New York City GENE SOSIN Director, U.S...
...Such an idiotic assertion makes it plain that Nomad is so out of touch with what is considered academically respectable, that it merits only wonderment at the degree of his anti-intellectualism...
...IRVING Lours HOROWITZ Max Nomad replies: Irving Louis Horowitz must have a very high opinion of himself if he expects a reviewer who has studied anarchism and written about it extensively for the last 60 years to read more than a sampling of a 600-page book whose author does not know the most essential things about the subject...
...While Bakunin believed in the principle of rewards according to works...
...Rebellion at Berkeley" (NL, December 21...
...I have heard that he was even more embarrassed by his phase of Bohemianism (which preceded the Left-wing episode...
...TERENCE CLARKE I wish to join the chorus and correct at least one more of the incredible series of errors of omission and commission contained in Feuer's articles on the Berkeley upheaval...
...In his letter he blandly repeats his absurd characterization of Saint-Simon as a "utilitarian anarchist," a statement so preposterous that any student of sociology should be flunked for making it...
...Division Radio Liberty BERKELEY I have read the various letters provoked by Feuer's article...
...Berkeley, Calif...
...He insists that Sorel, evidently because of his syndicalism, was a "classical" anarchist...
...2) He thinks that Saint Simon was a "precursor of elitist totalitarian managerialism" while I called him a "utilitarian anarchist...
...and this is a preposterous statement even for a very, very old expert to register...
...he might just as well have insisted that Marx and Lenin were "classical" anarchists because they rejected the State...
...During the last 12 years of his life...
...As far as I can make out, Nomad has the following differences of opinion with me:(I) He thinks that Sorel was not anarchist while I do...
...The Free Speech Movement becomes a Maoist, Castroite, Trotskyite socialist movement with Goldwaterite tendencies, Feuer correctly observes that today's student is a bit more thoughtful than his predecessors in past years...
...I must, however, agree with Horowitz on one point...
...Now while Nomad can't be bothered reading The Anarchists (how could he read what he has not written), this fact does not entitle him to write nonsense...
...Hindemith was at one time associated not only with Gebrauchsmusik: in the utilitarian sense but with Gebrauchsmusik in the political sense, i.e., with Left-wing propaganda in its musical form...
...Professor Denike was a staff member of Radio Liberty and a regular contributor to its Russian broadcasts to the Soviet Union...
...3) He thinks that Nestor Makhno deserves more than one line while I don't, (4) He thinks that Kropotkin and Malatesta have the some point of view...
...Wouldn't it be a good idea to bar the use of the term "red-baiting...
...They remembered the several foreign students who did not have their visas renewed after the 1960 HUAC demonstrations in San Francisco...
...But because of his inability to interpret occurrences of reality according to his credibly motivated philosophical ideals, Feuer's epistolary efforts merely succeed in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...
...But he dresses this alienation up so that it becomes an antifather fixation with death-wish tendencies...
...Old as you are, you could have done the anthology better, now couldn't you...
...As a matter of record, one item not consulted was the Britannica...
...He claims that he never read Kropotkin's article in the Britannica...
...THE ANARCHISTS' The one merit I can detect in Max Nomad's review of The Anarchists (NL, December 21, 1964) is his near admission that he read the index rather than the book, And having satisfied himself that one fact (Bakunin's burial place was in Berne rather than in Rome) was in error, he decided to fashion his review on the index rather than the contents...
...He adds, however, that student talk of the ideal of an "organic democracy" sometimes reminds him "unpleasantly of young German students talking in .1 similar vein in the early '30s...
...The survey determined that 42.5 per cent of the scheduled classes were being held...
...misleading...
...Berkeley, Calif...
...CARLOS E. KRUYTBOSCH Post-Graduate Research Sociologist...
...He broke with Brecht, and Brecht stated his side of the matter in print...
...his repetition, then, of Kropotkin's bizarre misspelling of Chelcicky's name was apparently pure coincidence...
...on occasion...
...The study was designed and executed by a group of foreign students who were sympathetic with the FSMI GCC aims, yet felt that as foreign citizens it was neither wholly legitimate nor worth the risk to participate actively in the demonstrations...
...With understated humor, warmth and incisive reasoning he resumed his former activity as a teacher in Russia, but this time via shortwave radio and for a wider public...
...I reiterate that Feuer's article has its lucid moments...
...His talks offered listeners a unique perspective on internal Soviet developments and Communist bloc affairs...
...Specifically he collaborated with Brecht...
...All classes listed in the University Schedule of classes were visited by teams of surveyors who determined whether any given class was being held...
...In addition, Feuer correctly appraises the "Kerr Dialectic's" slow movement toward student alienation and faculty corruption of ideals...
...Now, r am of voting age and I like to consider myself a fairly reasonable person...
...So far as I can determine, all it means today is that someone has called a Communist a Communist...
...The method of calculation used was as follows...
...And if what I heard was true...
...r like my family, I enjoy my surroundings generally, and I think that the University of California is a fine institution...
...It's true that Feuer recognizes the need for a liberal and reasonable appraisal of the student's needs in the Multiversity...
Vol. 48 • February 1965 • No. 3
