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Political Pilgrims
''Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba 1928–1979'' (later ''Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society'') is a book published by American political sociologist Paul Hollander in 1981. Summary ''Political Pilgrims,'' is a book is about 20th-century Western intellectuals who travel to the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and Communist Cuba seeking to find utopian societies enacting their brightest hopes for the human future. Reviewing the book on publication, Leonard Schapiro wrote that Hollander goal was, "to discover the motivation of the travelers." Hollander details the "trek of pilgrims" to the Soviet Union, "during the terrible years of forced collectivization, famine, terror, and show trials," of the 1930s, where they discovered utopia in Soviet society. Here were all the desirable things that they believed their own societies lacked—social justice and equality, a sense of purpose and community ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Hollander
Paul Hollander (; 3 October 1932 – 9 April 2019) was a Hungarian-born political sociologist, communist-studies scholar, and non-fiction author. He is known for his criticisms of communism and left-wing politics in general. Background Born in 1932 in Budapest, he lived in Hungary with his Jewish family. When the Nazis persecuted Jews throughout the city, he had to hide from them when he was 12. His family was deported to work, after the communists came to power. He fled to the West during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was bloodily put down by Soviet forces. First he escaped Austria and then to England. Career Hollander earned a Ph.D in Sociology from Princeton University, 1963 and a B.A. from the London School of Economics, 1959. He was Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Center Associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. The anti-communist scholar wrote many books and articles. He is best know ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonard Schapiro
Leonard Bertram Naman Schapiro (22 April 1908 in Glasgow – 2 November 1983 in London) was the leading British scholar of the origins and development of the Soviet political system. He taught for many years at the London School of Economics, where he was Professor of Political Science with Special Reference to Russian Studies. Schapiro was best known for his magisterial study, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, though his early work on the rise to power of the Bolshevik Party, The Origins of the Communist Autocracy, was his most intellectually ambitious and innovative contribution to the field of Soviet studies. Because of his prominence in the field and his insistence on viewing the USSR through a normative lens, Schapiro accumulated his share of detractors, including those who were uncomfortable with his embrace of totalitarianism as a descriptor of Soviet rule and those who alleged that his reputed ties to British intelligence services made him little more than a p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1981 Non-fiction Books
Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensive, gaining control of most of Morazán and Chalatenango departments. * January 15 – Pope John Paul II receives a delegation led by Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa at the Vatican. * January 20 – Iran releases the 52 Americans held for 444 days, minutes after Ronald Reagan is sworn in as the 40th President of the United States, ending the Iran hostage crisis. * January 21 – The first DeLorean automobile, a stainless steel sports car with gull-wing doors, rolls off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. * January 24 – An earthquake of magnitude in Sichuan, China, kills 150 people. Japan suffers a less serious earthquake on the same day. * January 25 – In South Africa the largest part of the town Laingsburg i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna Louise Strong
Anna Louise Strong (November 24, 1885 – March 29, 1970) was an American journalist and activist, best known for her reporting on and support for communist movements in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.Archives West,Anna Louise Strong papers, 1885-1971" deriving frothis page, accessed January 26, 2018. Archived here.The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica,Anna Louise Strong: American journalist and scholar accessed January 26, 2018.John Cory, ''The New York Times'', March 22, 1986.Today in history: Anna Louise Strong is born, changes worlds " , November 24, 2015. She wrote over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Laski
Harold Joseph Laski (30 June 1893 – 24 March 1950) was an English political theorist and economist. He was active in politics and served as the chairman of the British Labour Party from 1945 to 1946 and was a professor at the London School of Economics from 1926 to 1950. He first promoted pluralism by emphasising the importance of local voluntary communities such as trade unions. After 1930, he began to emphasize the need for a workers' revolution, which he hinted might be violent. Laski's position angered Labour leaders who promised a nonviolent democratic transformation. Laski's position on democracy threatening violence came under further attack from Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the 1945 general election, and the Labour Party had to disavow Laski, its own chairman. Laski was one of Britain's most influential intellectual spokesmen for Marxism in the interwar years. In particular, his teaching greatly inspired students, some of whom later became leaders of the newly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield
Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, (13 July 1859 – 13 October 1947) was a British socialist, economist and reformer, who co-founded the London School of Economics. He was an early member of the Fabian Society in 1884, joining, like George Bernard Shaw, three months after its inception. Along with his wife Beatrice Webb and with Annie Besant, Graham Wallas, Edward R. Pease, Hubert Bland and Sydney Olivier, Shaw and Webb turned the Fabian Society into the pre-eminent politico-intellectual society in Edwardian England. He wrote the original, pro-nationalisation Clause IV for the British Labour Party. Background and education Webb was born in London to a professional family. He studied law at the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution for a degree of the University of London in his spare time, while holding an office job. He also studied at King's College London, before being called to the Bar in 1885. Professional life In 1895, Webb helped to found the London Sch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beatrice Webb
Martha Beatrice Webb, Baroness Passfield, (née Potter; 22 January 1858 – 30 April 1943) was an English sociologist, economist, socialist, labour historian and social reformer. It was Webb who coined the term ''collective bargaining''. She was among the founders of the London School of Economics and played a crucial role in forming the Fabian Society. Early life Beatrice Potter was born in Standish House in the village of Standish, Gloucestershire, the last but one of the nine daughters of businessman Richard Potter and Laurencina Heyworth, a Liverpool merchant's daughter; Laurencina, was friends for a time with the prolific Victorian novelist, Margaret Oliphant during the 1840s. Both women were campaigned in Liverpool at the time (See Margaret Oliphant Autobiography Edited by Elizabeth Jay, page 25-26). Her paternal grandfather was Liberal Party MP Richard Potter, co-founder of the ''Little Circle'' which was key in creating the Reform Act 1832. From an early age Webb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hewlett Johnson
Hewlett Johnson (25 January 1874 – 22 October 1966) was an English priest of the Church of England, Marxist Theorist and Stalinist. He was Dean of Manchester and later Dean of Canterbury, where he acquired his nickname "The Red Dean of Canterbury" for his unyielding support towards Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union and its allies. Early life Johnson was born in Kersal as the third son of Charles Johnson, a wire manufacturer, and his wife Rosa, daughter of the Reverend Alfred Hewlett. He was educated at The King's School, Macclesfield and graduated from Owens College, Manchester, in 1894 with a BSc degree in civil engineering and the geological prize. He worked from 1895 to 1898 at the railway carriage works in Openshaw, Manchester, where two workmates introduced him to socialism, and he became an associate member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. After deciding to do mission work for the Church Mission Society, he entered Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, in 1900 and later attende ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, as ''The Atlantic Monthly'', a literary and cultural magazine that published leading writers' commentary on education, the abolition of slavery, and other major political issues of that time. Its founders included Francis H. Underwood and prominent writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and John Greenleaf Whittier. James Russell Lowell was its first editor. In addition, ''The Atlantic Monthly Almanac'' was an annual almanac published for ''Atlantic Monthly'' readers during the 19th and 20th centuries. A change of name was not officially announced when the format first changed from a strict monthly (appearing 12 times a year) to a slightly lower frequency. It was a mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange which allocates products to everyone in the society.: "One widespread distinction was that socialism socialised production only while communism socialised production and consumption." Communist society also involves the absence of private property, social classes, money, and the state. Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance, but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more vanguardist or communist party-driven approach through the development of a constitutional socialist st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communist Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both the American state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of both Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. The official area of the Republic of Cuba is (without the territorial waters) but a total of 350,730 km² (135,418 sq mi) including the exclusive economic zone. Cuba is the second-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti, with over 11 million inhabitants. The territory that is now Cuba was inhabited by the Ciboney people from the 4th millennium BC with the Guanahatab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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