To the Editors: I read your magazine regularly and find it interesting, informative and also puzzling. What puzzles me is that you advocate socialism and at the same time oppose social reforms. I always thought that socialists saw nothing inconsistent in working for the establishment of socialism while at the same time participating in the fight for immediate demands. I believe democratic socialism can be achieved when and if a majority of the people become convinced that it is a desirable alternative to the present order. But I rather doubt that I shall see socialism in my time. In...
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THE WESTERN SOCIALIST, Jan-Feb 1955 Review of WHERE WE CAME OUT, Viking Press, 1954 Four years ago Richard Crossman edited a work in which six intellectuals, three members, and three sympathizers, of various Communist Parties, elaborated on why they had been attracted to these Communist Parties, and how they had become disillusioned with them. For some reason or other, Granville Hicks, one of the fair-haired boys in the literary circles of the Communist Party of America in the last half of the 1930’s was not included in this “symposium,” participated in by such well-known writers as Arthur Koestler, Andre...
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Once again, in order to “adjust itself to the market,” American capitalism has found it necessary to throw workers out on the street. The latest government figures released (February 11) place the unemployed at 3,078,000, or 5% of the labor force. Even these figures are challenged as too low. Walter Reuther, president of the CIO, cites the Jobless at 3,750,000, while the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (Ind.) added exactly one million to the government figures above. What happened? Simply that the manufacturers produced beyond the effective demand of the consumers, and now the process becomes one of...
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The Western Socialist, July-August, 1953 The workers mill around in small groups. A buzz of excitement sweeps through the room and spreads rapidly. The huge steel-cutting machines lapse into silence. The conveyor lines halt as if struck dead by some unseen hand. Everything is at a standstill. A wildcat strike is being born. The workers await its delivery. A chief steward has been fired. Or perhaps the line has been speeded up, and the workers walk off in protest. Or perhaps. . . rumors. . . facts. . . confusion. . . unrest. . . A group of men...
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Living With Crisis By Fritz Sternberg In this, his latest work, subtitled “The Battle Against Depression and War,” Fritz Sternberg has written another provocative exposition of his theory of the “Progressive Left.” In doing so, he not only again throws down a challenge to revolutionary socialism he also poses the dilemma of social-democracy on an international scale. However one might disagree with Sternberg’s theses, and that we do so strenuously will be shown below, there is no denying that he does an excellent job of accumulating statistics and representing his material. However, a good style...
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