Radical Intellectuals Research Articles

Failed nerves and the problem of religion on the american left, the partisan review, 1935–1962

Abstract ‘What must we do to be saved?’ asked critic Dwight MacDonald after the fall of France, in the late spring of 1940.1 MacDonald was one of the most prominent of the ‘New York Intellectuals’ a name given to a group of left-wing radicals associated with the journal Partisan Review. In the 40s and 50s it was the leading modernist journal of literature and ideas in the US. Often between the 40s and 50s these Intellectuals posed the Philippians jailer's question, this was because the Second World War and the Cold War had reopened questions they thought had been resolved. Again they questioned the possibility of socialism, the problem of religion, and the future of Western civilisation itself. In this situation of fundamental crisis, American radical intellectuals struggled to defend an embattled West and at the same time work for a just and progressive moral order.

Leslie Bodi (review)

576 Reviews of a great composer. Hans Rudolf Vaget provides a fascinating counterpoint to the implication of cultural decline in the nineteenth century in his study of Thomas Mann's development from a negative view of Hamburg's modernity in Buddenbrooks to an appreciation of its liberal Hanseatentum (as the birthplace of Hans Castorp) in The Magic Mountain. Finally JenniferJenkins explores another aspect of Hamburg's modernity around 1900, showing how Frederick Law Olmsted's New York Central Park influenced the development of the innovatory Winterhude Stadtpark. The old Burgerrepublik may have failed to survive into the nineteenth century, but its ideals were constantly invoked in response to the challenges of national integration and industrialization. On the other hand that did not prevent Hamburg, including its elites, fromsuccumbing to National Socialism. This volume is strongest on the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. For the rest, it raises interesting questions that challenge Schramm's rather self-satisfied vision without, however, providing an alternative. Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Joachim Whaley Literatur, Politik, Identitat? Literature, Politics, Cultural Identity. By Leslie Bodi. (Osterreichische und internationale Literaturprozesse, 18) St. Ingbert: Rohrig. 2002. 606 pp. ?39. ISBN 3-86110-332-x. Leslie Bodi's great achievement is Tauwetter in Wien: Zur Prosa der osterreichischen Aufklarung, ij8i-iyg$, firstpublished in 1977 and recently reissued with an updated bibliography (Vienna, Cologne, and Weimar: Bohlau, 1995). Not only does it display unrivalled familiaritywith a fascinating and little-known subject, the literaryresponse to Joseph H's ill-starred attempt at enlightenment from above, but it is written in a natural, easy style that makes it a delight to read and reread. This generous selection from Bodi's occasional essays now reveals the intellectual and biographical context from which Tauwetter in Wien developed. An autobio? graphical preface recounts his upbringing amid the assimilated, multilingual Jewish bourgeoisie of inter-war Budapest, and also mentions several years of school in Mi? lan. Since leaving Hungary in 1956, he has been an exceptionally active presence in German studies in Australia, with links to the Hungarian intellectual diaspora around Agnes Heller. His essays reveal a constant preoccupation with the role of intellectuals in dictatorships. The early 1780s in Austria, when Joseph's relaxation of censorship unleashed a vast pamphlet literature from which serious social criticism developed, are presented as a paradigmatic 'thaw', in which the authorities try to modernize an anachronistic-order by allowing limited freedom of expression which they soon retract when writers demand structural changes. Analogies are drawn not only with the Soviet thaw of the early 1960s but with Gorbachev's glasnost. Other essays deal with German revolutionary writers, including Georg Forster and his wife Therese Huber, who reveal the ambivalences of radical intellectuals entangled in a revolution that goes savagely awry. Three essays on Heine, which deserve to be widely known, look closely at his complex imagery of revolution, while other essays show how closely Bodi followed the fates of writers in the GDR and in the new landscape created by the opening of the Stasi files. It was fortunate that, while still in Hungary, Bodi worked on an edition of Forster, the firstGerman to visit the Pacific; Therese Huber wrote the firstGerman novel set in 'Neu-Holland'. Essays on these writers introduce a series concerned with references to Australia in German literature (surprisingly many: Friedrich Gerstacker, Anton Wildgans, and Egon Erwin Kisch all travelled there) and with German-language cul? ture in Australia. These illustrate Bodi's interest in Australia's multicultural society MLR, 100.2, 2005 577 (supported by his colleague Michael Clyne, whose work on pluricentric languages he often cites) and in the place of Austria within German language and culture. As features of Austrian identity Bodi singles out an intense linguistic consciousness and a fondness forparody. Both are illustrated from the Austrian Enlightenment, the for? mer in an important essay entitled 'Sprachregelungals Kulturgeschichte. Sonnenfels: Uber den Geschaftsstil (1784) und die Ausbildung der osterreichischen Mentalitat', the latter by a study of Paul Weidmann's astonishing Der Eroberer (1786), which anticipates Joyce's 'Oxen of the Sun' in its resourceful parody of innumerable styles. Generally, the reflections on identity are welcome in suggesting how to liberate one? self...

« The motion picture is potentially one of the greatest weapons for the safeguarding of democracy » : activisme et censure dans le monde hollywoodien des années 1930

This paper addresses the issue of political commitment within the Hollywood community during the most partisan decade in the history of the film industry, when social-minded artists and anti-fascist émigrés came together in the cultural front. With its growing body of liberal and radical intellectuals, Hollywood had become a potentially rich source of anti-fascism ; while in the early and middle 1930s the activism of film industry employees had focused on domestic issues, in the latter part of the decade the defense of the Spanish Loyalists galvanized them as had no other single cause. Off-screen activities (consciousness-raising, fund-raising, petitions and telegrams sent to President Roosevelt) were effectively organized but the politically-aware film artists wondered whether they could also hope to affect the form or content of studio productions. Their desire to attune story material to contemporary concerns was however thwarted by the political limitations imposed on them by their employers, pressure from both within (self-regulation) and without (local and state censorship boards as well as national interest groups) and by America’s traditional isolationism.

Territoriality, social justice and gendered revolutions in the speeches of Malcolm X

Geographers have, in recent years, attempted to develop an anti‐racist research and teaching agenda. Critical to this endeavour has been an engagement directly with the theories and philosophies of key activists and scholars, such as W. E. B. DuBois and Richard Wright. Contributing to this effort, I provide a study of Malcolm X. As an activist and outspoken member of the African American Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s, Malcolm X re‐articulated Black radical thought in significant ways. In particular, Malcolm X placed a territorial dimension at the heart of the Civil Rights Movement and in so doing re‐conceptualized the theoretical and practical linkages between the African American movement and other ‘Third World’ movements. The immediate purpose of this paper therefore is to delineate the territorial dimensions of the revolutionary thought of Malcolm X. Heuristically, this paper is situated within four broad areas of inquiry: revolutions and social movements; the thinking of space; anti‐racist geographies; and the imbrication of gender and revolutionary thought. More broadly, however, this paper reiterates the call for a more sustained engagement by geographers on the theories and philosophies of Black radical intellectuals.

Franz Schubert's music in performance: compositional ideals, notational intent, historical realities, pedagogical foundations

In this book, David Montgomery challenges many operative myths about the music of this great, but often misunderstood, Viennese master. Chief among them is the lingering notion that Schubert was poorly-trained but still managed to turn out brilliant, if often flawed, scores. Modern adherents of this view believe that Schubert could not notate his own musical wishes accurately, and that he was principally a creature of intuition. Accordingly, musicians might allow themselves wide intuitive leeway in the interpretation of his music. Another myth challenged by Montgomery is that Schubert was a conservative, or perhaps even a chronological throwback. Opposing recent attempts to legitimize performer-generated embellishment of Schubert's music in the style of the eighteenth century, he clarifies Schubert's contributions to the radical intellectualism of nineteenth-century romanticism. The book offers six informative chapters ranging from aesthetics and acoustics to the specifics of tempo and expression, plus an appendix of pertinent Viennese pedagogical sources. In addition to many years of musicological research, Montgomery brings long experience as a concertizing pianist and conductor to this engaging and controversial work.

TPLF: reform or decline?

Founded and led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) came to power in 1991, after a sixteen-year armed struggle against the military regime that had ruled Ethiopia since 1974. While not formally a marxist-leninist party, the TPLF nonetheless was devoted to these ideals and they figured prominently in the structure and functioning of the organisation. While the TPLF's base represented the peasantry of Tigray, its leadership was dominated by young, radical intellectuals. Itself representing an ethnic group of relatively modest size, the TPLF formed a coalition of ethnically based organisations, the EPRDF, in 1989, to give itself Ethiopia-wide political scope and legitimacy. Once it came to power, the Front faced serious problems of adjustment, but managed to overcome them thanks to the coherence of its programme, the commitment of its cadres, and the cohesiveness of its leadership. In the face of dramatically changed international circumstances, the EPRDF moderated its policies, abandoning marxism and embracing the free market. It weathered an insurrection by the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) in 1992-93, contained Islamist incursions from Sudan and Somalia, won the war against Eritrea (1998-2000), achieved a measure of economic progress, and took large steps towards state decentralisation and smaller ones towards democratisation.

El fin del imperio español y la generación del 98: nuevas aproximaciones

This article is based upon the premise that there existed in nineteenth-century Spanish culture a consciousness of empire that has gone largely unnoticed by literary criticism and historiography. The article sets out to define that consciousness and propose a new framework for the study of turn-of-the-century Spanish culture; to this end, it examines texts by three authors in which the complex question of empire is clearly documented. Eduardo López Bago, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and Miguel de Unamuno exemplify the plurality and variety that existed among writers in Spain with regard to the colonial question and, in their turn, demonstrate the complexity that marks references to and writing about the empire. Insofar as El separatista by López Brago is a clear example of what may be called 'the literature of empire', the analysis of this novel reveals the way in which the imperialist imagination functioned in the last third of the nineteenth century. Blasco Ibáñez's articles opposing the Spanish colonial wars illustrate the complexities and ambiguities that existed in Spain with regard to the colonial project, even among the most radical intellectuals of the time. The only voice in the literary world that denounced Spanish colonialism was that of Unamuno in his 'Epilogue' to Vida y escritos del Dr José Rizal de Wenceslao Reatana. The reading offered in this article of these three authors' texts suggests new approaches to the study of the cultural production in turn-of-the-century Spain.

El fin del imperio español y la generación del 98: nuevas aproximaciones

This article is based upon the premise that there existed in nineteenth-century Spanish culture a consciousness of empire that has gone largely unnoticed by literary criticism and historiography. The article sets out to define that consciousness and propose a new framework for the study of turn-of-the-century Spanish culture; to this end, it examines texts by three authors in which the complex question of empire is clearly documented. Eduardo López Bago, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and Miguel de Unamuno exemplify the plurality and variety that existed among writers in Spain with regard to the colonial question and, in their turn, demonstrate the complexity that marks references to and writing about the empire. Insofar as El separatista by López Brago is a clear example of what may be called 'the literature of empire', the analysis of this novel reveals the way in which the imperialist imagination functioned in the last third of the nineteenth century. Blasco Ibáñez's articles opposing the Spanish colonial wars illustrate the complexities and ambiguities that existed in Spain with regard to the colonial project, even among the most radical intellectuals of the time. The only voice in the literary world that denounced Spanish colonialism was that of Unamuno in his 'Epilogue' to Vida y escritos del Dr José Rizal de Wenceslao Reatana. The reading offered in this article of these three authors' texts suggests new approaches to the study of the cultural production in turn-of-the-century Spain.

The Fall: A Comparative Study of the End of Communism in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland by Steven s> Saxonberg (review)

i66 SEER, 8 i, I, 2003 Waras essentiallyfoughtby Moscow and Washingtonin, and over, Europe:a common enough conceptualizationbut not comprehensive. Department ofHistory SUSAN L. CARRUTHERS RutgersUniversity, Newark,A Saxonberg, Steven. 7The Fall: A Comparative Studyof theEnd of Communism in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary andPoland.International Studies in Global Change, Ii. Harwood Academic Publishers,Amsterdam, 200I. xvii + 434 pp. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $56.oo: C37.00: ?62.00. THIS studysetsitselfvery ambitioustargets.It aimsto examine the theoretical frameworksfor explaining the fall of communism in EasternEurope in I989 as well as the empirical detail on the course of events in four of the main countries. Saxonberg'sprimaryfocus is on the establisheddistinctionbetween the elite-led negotiated type of revolution in Poland and Hungary and the mass movement People's Power form in Czechoslovakia and East Germany. He attempts to explain their respective courses by overviewing the whole range of democratization theory. He then examines the economic crisis, the blockagescausing the failureof economic reformand Gorbachev'sdecentralizing policies, both in the USSR and in the running of the Soviet bloc. These factors, which he regards as providing the general causes for communist collapse, led to the loss of ideological legitimacy and, in turn, provoked systemicfailure.Saxonberg'sgreatmerit is that he produces a clear, although unexceptional, examination of the specificelite policy choices and interaction with civil society in each of his four cases in order to elucidate the differences in the process of revolutionary change between the individual countries. Saxonbergcontendsthatthe degreeof liberalization,ratherthanthe influence of civil society, proved to be the determiningfactor. The conclusion does not seem fully borne out by his subsequent explanation why social movements, notably Solidarity and the radical intellectuals, were so much stronger in Polandthan in Hungary. Saxonberg has little new to say, beyond what has been long establishedby J. F. Brown,Jon Elster,Judy Batt and othersabout the mechanismsof power transferin I989. The analysisissharpenough;so aremany of the observations on the differences in detail between the Polish and Hungarian eliteinstitutionalcompromises , for example the former'spreference for a proportional (and eventually contractual)and the latterfor a majoritarian,electoral arrangement.I am not convinced by the characterizationof the East German and Czechoslovak cases as 'non violent', rather than the more widely used 'People's Power', revolutions. The former term obscures the central role of sudden, unexpected and uncontrollablemass action in achieving the systemic rupture. This in my view, was the key factor rather than the subsequent tedious and long drawn out elite-opposition negotiations and manoeuvrings, such as those of the Adamec period in Czechoslovakia in the run-up to the firstfreeelection. REVIEWS I67 Saxonberg does not reallysucceed in developing a middle range model, as defined by Robert Merton, which elucidates the East-Central European collapse of communist systems. He compiles an exhaustive and thorough compendium of approachesand builds up an edifice of 'partialexplanations'. This is most noticeable in the conclusion which is little more than a summary of the ground covered earlier in the study along with a favourablereview of Linz and Stepan. This, as well as the empirical examination, is admirably comprehensive in terms of detail, dimensions and time periods covered. The book has undoubted solid merits, and yet, despite all the hard labour which has clearly gone into it, the study, although argued well enough, section by section, stillhas a referencebook feel about it. One is hardlysurprisedto learn that this studystartedlife as an Uppsala Universitydoctoral dissertation.The positive side, though, is that it draws on extensive documentation, albeit, mainly secondary sources, apart from interviews with some actors and participants,which are utilizedvery sensiblyby the author. Althoughthepublishershave produceda glossyand attractivepublicationit is deplorable that this academic publication has been so poorly proof-read. This clashesparticularlybadlywith the sweepingencomiums and enthusiastic endorsementswhich the publishershave collected on the author'sbehalf.The appearance of a certain 'Seymore' Martin Lipset in the forewordwould, by itself,raiseno more than an academic chuckle!But the text is litteredwith an annoying set of typographicalerrorsand linguisticinaccuracies,especiallyas faras names are concerned, which undermineconfidence in the analysis.I do not demurfromthe greatman's (Lipset's) judgement that 'Saxonbergpresents a highly ambitious and complex analysis of the downfall of communism' (p. xiii). This work certainly provides a useful and detailed synthesis of the...

Renewing socialism: democracy, strategy, and imagination

Renewing Socialism opens with an exploration of the contemporary meaning of revolution and reform, beginning by stressing the appropriation of both terms into the rhetoric of the political right. Panitch examines the failure to realize socialisms revolutionary promise through an analysis of social democratic parties and the politics of compromise they advanced and their loss of radical vocation today. Panitch turns to an examination of the limitations of the Communist regimes and offers an account, based on personal observations in 1990, of the demise of Communism in Russia. The failure of Radical intellectuals in the West failed to take sufficient responsibility for the improvement of Marxist political theory, and especially of its theory of the state in any transition to socialism. Indeed, one of the greater ironies of the socialist experience is that the remarkable relevance of the Manifesto for developing an agenda for the renewal of socialism in our own time really became clear after the demise the Communist regimes. Panitch argues the salience of class will have to be brought more centrally back into the analysis and strategy of the left. The capacities of working people, so stunted under capitalism, must be allowed to develop to the furthest extent possible through their own organizations that incorporate both the diversity and issues represented by the new social movements. The first the challenge before any process of socialist renewal is that of getting people to think ambitiously once again. This ambition means not abandoning Marxism, but rather reviving what Bloch called its visionary warm stream alongside the cold stream of political economy. It means adding a new layer to Marxist theory to help socialists appreciate that we need to figure out how to foster the accumulation of capacities in addition to analyzing the accumulation of capital.

The Novels of Origenes

One intriguing aspect of the Orígénes phenomenon in Cuba is the emergence in the late seventies of a peculiar subgenre in that nation's post-1959 narrative: the Orígenes novel. With the Orígenes phenomenon I mean the process of rectification that has occurred within the cultural officialdom of the Cuban Revolution whereby a pre-Revolutionary aesthetic ideology belligerently stigmatized in the sixties as "vacuous," "hermetic," "formalistic," [End Page 201] "anesthetized," "evasionist," and "ineffectual"—as was Orígenes—becomes rehabilitated in the eighties and nineties as a symbol of a socially progressive Cuba and of a nationalist teleology of emancipation. 2 The nominally "apolitical" high modernist literary and cultural journal Orígenes that José Lezama Lima and José Rodríguez Feo edited from 1944 to 1956, as well as most of the Cuban poets in the so-called Grupo Orígenes associated with this editorial enterprise, have now gained great iconic power and institutional prestige in today's Cuba. This rectification thus corrects and atones for an early phase of silencing and denunciation of the Orígenes enterprise orchestrated by succeeding journals and cadres such as Ciclón (1956-59), Lunes de Revolución (1959-61), and Casa de las Américas during its first decade (1960-70). 3 A secluded, independent literary project, Orígenes arose and flourished during the corruption-ridden years of Ramón Grau San Martín's Auténtico Party constitutional regime (1944-52) and drew to a close during General Fulgencio Batista's second dictatorship (1952-58). Orígenes was first neglected, derided, or resented by its contemporaries; antagonized by the radical intellectuals and apparatchiks of the first years of Castro's Revolution; officially ignored in the seventies; and finally fully canonized in 1994 in one of the most important international conferences held that decade in Cuba. 4

Radical Intellectuals: What Happened to the New Urban Sociology?

This article is about the rise and fall of radicalism among ‘new urban sociologists’ during the 1960s and 1970s. First, I analyze the social and theoretical developments of that time and demonstrate the novelty of the questions that the new urban sociologists posed. Second, I examine the features of the practical engagements and motivations of the members of this group and show how they changed over time. Finally, I discuss the processes of institutionalization of this group. The story of the new urban sociologists is the story of members of the same generation who, dissatisfied with the development of theory in their field, developed a distinct approach to urban problems. The project that they developed combined elements of both intellectual and political projects. I consider both aspects of this project in light of Gouldner’s sociology of intellectuals, and show that de‐radicalization was a consequence of a peculiar combination of political disillusionment, theoretical triumph and a successful project of professionalization.

Love and friendship: Ethical socialism in britain and australia*

The restoration of a British context to Australian historical writing has been a significant trend of recent years, but it has so far had little impact on Australian labour history, and even less on the history of radical political thought and organisation. This paper analyses one strand of Australian radical thought—ethical socialism—and seeks to illuminate the manner in which British radical ideas have been received and adapted in the antipodes, shaping radical intellectuals’ conceptions of the social and the self in late‐nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century Australia.

Disinterring Edward Dahlberg

In Do These Bones Live (1941), his eccentric critical history of American and European literature, Edward Dahlberg praises Randolph a prophetic guide whose subversive writings retain the potential to lead the nation out of the political and cultural wilderness into which it had stumbled. Bourne conceived such homely and radiantly mortal errors; this was his desperado impossibilism, and for this we remember him. We recall him to guide us ... through the infernal limbo of American culture. A fierce social critic who fell out of favor when he protested American involvement in the First World War, Bourne's dissenting opinions had caused him, however, by the end of the 1930s to suffer the grim and repetitious fate of other equally committed radical intellectuals. He too now in oblivion . . . unknown, his decidedly marginal writings buried beneath the highly esteemed canonical death monuments of more respectable political figures. power of the State lies in the majesty of oblivion, in crypts, catafalques and mausoleums. The vaults which the remains of the Presidents, those sacral ciphers of public chronicles lie, evoke no tears and laments. One will have to dig deeply to catch sight of those unseemly yet impassioned creatures responsible for the nation's tradition of populist radical culture, a powerfully moving tradition whose existence is hidden by bureaucratic commemoration odes. It is below the magnificently constructed resting places of our past leaders that one encounters the challenging, assertive writings of those who have become far official history is concerned frighteningly repugnant and unbearable to look at a dreadful mythological entity, as horrible to behold Medusa.1

Intellectuals, Ideology and Revolution: The Political Ideas of César Vallejo

This article traces the influences that shaped Vallejo's understanding of the nature and role of radical intellectuals in society and their potential to engage in a revolutionary socialist process. It is argued that Vallejo's formative experience in Peru as a member of the 'Generación of 1919' was vital in this aspect of his political development, not only through his interaction with figures like González Prada and Haya de la Torre but also the Peruvian Marxist Mariátegui. Indeed it was above all Mariátegui's ideas that continued to influence Vallejo in Europe, along with his own experiences of the contentious political environment of the interwar years. By the time the Civil War broke out in Spain Vallejo had a complex and highly developed understanding of the function of intellectuals and it is claimed that these perceptions are represented and put to the test in his last book of poetry España, aparta de mí este cáliz.

At Home in Exile: The Living Paradoxes of Moyshe Nadir's Early 20th-Century American Yiddish Satire (Discussion and Translation)

Moyshe Nadir [Itskhak Reiz] had been editing and contributing to humorous newspapers, Der yidisher gazlen, Der kibitser and Der groyse kundes [The Jewish Robber, The Kibitser and The Big Prankster] for several years when three-volume collection, Humor un satire, appeared in New York in 1912, containing Nadir's earliest satires. Nadir wrote at least thirty of sketches appearing in collection, under names Itskhok Rayz, Moyshe Nadir, Itskhak Ben-Meyer and Rinaldo; some of other pseudonyms may be his as well. This fertile exuberance and clowning, even at supposedly authoritative level of declaring authorship, reflects young Nadir's cheerful, iconoclastic attitude towards hybrid nature of American Yiddish-speaking community at time, and complexities of writing for such community. The audience for American Yiddish satire between 1905 and 1914 was an unprecedented mixture of rural peasants, urban workers, small shopkeepers, and radical intellectuals who had once been spread out across old European continent and who therefore spoke numerous variant forms of Yiddish, but who were now crammed into shared space of North American cities. Using laughter as means of simultaneously criticizing and easing assimilation into American culture, Yiddish satirists writing for new urban American audiences were attempting to fulfill diverse roles, including those previously played in European Yiddish folk culture by Purim players, trickster tales, and badkhn's [wedding jester] parodies. But they also used laughter to teach immigrant population and to guide them in their dealings with complex problems of their newly adopted society. In Bakhtinian terms, ambivalent laughter of folk satire, directed at Jews entering U.S. society, also reaffirmed their participation in it.(1) This article will discuss four of Nadir's early satires in relation to two distinct traditions of Yiddish and American humor. It will explore how this immigrant literature represents and mediates interrelation of two cultures and how it contributes to development of American Jewish identity within American popular culture. Jewish humor has been an especially successful contribution to American literary and popular culture; indeed, one study found that 80% of most famous American comedians were Jewish (Janus). In contrast to Hobbesian belief that humor is largely matter of dominating and belittling butt of joke, Jewish humor, from Sigmund Freud onward, has often been viewed as being self-critical and therefore an indication of self-hatred, or as pseudo-masochism serving to deflect or deflate hostility, as internal corrective ... and as ironic reversal (victory through defeat, virtues out of supposed vices) (Mintz 4). would like to collapse these divergent definitions into following: Laughter, even allegedy self-critical laughter, can be one of most efficient and subversive forms of attacking one's oppressors. Laughing at yourself is laughing at others because subtext is, If can laugh this hard at myself, imagine how loud can laugh when think of A strong parallel can be found within African American humorous folklore, in which principal figure is the weaker individual, who uses superior cleverness to overcome stronger opponents, often through use of satire (Cook 111). For many slaves, deception was only successful form of resistance (Osofsky 26). In modem era, ability to turn Jim Crow laws into joke, often through gallows humor, like Dick Gregory's definition of Southern moderate as a cat that'll lynch you from low tree (Watkins 502),(2) bears more than passing resemblance to similar tradition in Jewish humor that even allows one to joke about charge of having crucified Jesus. This charge has resulted in centuries of persecution, torture, and death, yet one is able to joke: Little Gerda [says] to little Moishe: I am no longer allowed to play with you. …

Jacqueline Ellis, Silent Witnesses: Representations of Working-Class Women in the United States. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Press, 1998. ix + 259 pp. $32.95 cloth; $15.95 paper.

Among the radical intellectuals of the thirties devoted to depicting the lives of the American working class were women who paid special attention to the lives of their working-class sisters. Few, if any, were able to overcome their own middle-class perspectives, their gendered assumptions, and, ultimately, the reality of political and economic inequality in order to truly render agency to their female subjects. Jacqueline Ellis's study examines some important efforts to represent working-class women: first, the works of Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographers, Dorthea Lange, Marion Post Wolcott, and Esther Bubley; then, writers, Meridel Le Sueur and Tillie Olsen. Ellis leaves the reader with an appreciation of their attempts and an understanding of the vast limitations of their endeavors.

The Class War Continues

G. Marshall, A. Swift and S. Roberts, Against the Odds: Social Class and Social Justice in Industrial Societies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997, £40.00, paperback £14.99, xiii+265pp. ISBN 0-19-829239-2 pbk and 0-19-829240-6 hbk.F. Devine, Social Class in America and Britain. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997, £16.95 pbk, xi+303 pp. ISBN 0-7486-0666-1.P. Mahony and C. Zmroczek (eds.), Class Matters: 'Working Class' Women's Perspectives on Social Class. London: Taylor and Francis, 1997, £39.000, paperback £12.95, 210 pp. ISBN 0-7484-0541-0 pbk and ISBN 0-7484-0540-2 hbk.

Proletarian power: Shanghai in the cultural revolution

Introduction Radical Intellectuals: Red Guards and Literati Rebels Rebels: The Workers General Headquarters Conservatives: The Scarlet Guards A Cry for Justice: The Wind of Economism Renegade Rebels: Regiments and Lian Si Institutionalizing Rebel Gains Conclusion

The Long War: The Intellectual People's Front and Anti-Stalinism, 1930-1940.

In the early 1930s, the American Communist Party attracted support from a wide range of liberal and radical intellectuals, partly in response to domestic politics, and also in opposition to the growing power of fascism abroad. The Long War, a social history of these intellectuals and their political institutions, tells the story of the rift that developed among the groups loosely organized under the umbrella of the Party-representing communist supporters of the People's Front and those who would become anti-Stalinists-and the evolution of that rift into a generational divide that would culminate in the liberal anti-communism of the post-World War II era. Judy Kutulas takes us into the debates and outright fights between and within the ranks of organizations such as the League of American Writers, the John Reed Clubs, the Committee for Cultural Freedom, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners. Showing how extremist views about the nature and value of communism triumphed over more moderate ones, she traces the transfer of the left's leadership from one generation to the next. She describes how supporters of the People's Front were discredited by the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact and how this opened the way for a new generation of leaders better known as the New York intellectuals. In this shift, Kutulas identifies the beginnings of the liberal anti-communism that would follow World War II. A book for students and scholars of the intersection of politics and culture, The Long War offers a new, informed perspective on the intellectual maneuvers of the American left of the 1930s and leads to a reinterpretation of the time and its complex legacy.