''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 The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Maoist China Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

, and Communist Cuba seeking to find utopian societies enacting their brightest hopes for the human future.SimonCottee> Reviewing the book on publication,

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 ...

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, a great transformation which had triumphed over the wholly black and deplorable past, and, particularly, a humane and progressive penal system. Observations on this last aspect of Soviet life, incidentally, date mainly from the period when literally millions were rotting to death in the concentration camps on trumped-up charges. The travelers whose journeys and written reports Hollander follows include,

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 Ca ...

, Beatrice and Sidney Webb,

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 ...

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 Loui ...

, all famous in their day. According to Schapiro, Hollander asks how, "educated men and women, with trained minds, could throw critical judgment to the winds and come up with such grotesquely misleading findings." He answers that part of the reason lies in the ability of Soviet authorities not merely to produce elaborately faked areas for show, but to welcome Western writers, house them comfortably, feed them well, and "above all," flatter them. Among the ideas put forward by Hollander in his exploration of the "sources of and reasons" for the estrangement of Western intellectuals from their home countries, Schapiro is particularly persuaded by Hollander's arguments that it can be traced to "the decline of authority in most Western countries; emotional discontent within the individual, which expresses itself in rejection of society; and, above all, the vested interest of the mass media in publicizing the defects of society in the most colorful manner."

References

{{authority control 1981 non-fiction books Sociology books Political science books