Book Review: The American as Reformer
| Date | 01 March 1951 |
| Published date | 01 March 1951 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205100600113 |
| Author | G. M. Craig |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BooK
REVIEWS
61
freedom
for
the
one
who
disagrees"-turn
back
from
that
breath
of
fresh
air
to
Lenin's
book
State
and
Revolution,
and
see
how
stuffily
cloistered
the
academic
aridities
of
the
great
revolutionary
now
appear.
Then
there
is
the
anarchist
Alexander
Berkman's
account
of
the
Kronstadt
rebellion,
dispelling
the
delusion
into
which
some
of
our
best
authorities
have
been
trapped,
that
there
was
a
White-Guard
element
among
the
rebels.
In this
section,
too,
the
erratic
Max
Eastman
appears
at
his
best
in
a balanced
and
lively
portrait
of
Trotsky.
The
second
and
third
sections
are
mainly
given
over
to
exposures
of
the much-exposed
evils
of
the Stalin
rigime.
While
we
wait
for
a
scholarly
history,
these
statistical
polemics
and
journalistic
instances
will
have to
serve,
but
they
are
becoming
wearisome-which
is
dan-
gerous,
for
it
is
a
short
step
from
boredom
to
indifference
and
even
disbelief.
But there are
nuggets
in
these
sections.
There
is
General
Krivitsky's
account
of
Stalin's
courtship
of
Hitler
from
1933
on.
The
writer
Peter
Meyer
provides
a
really
profound
and
richly
documented
study
of
the
new
class
structure
of
the
USSR.
(This
incidentally
ren-
ders
superfluous
Rudolf
Hilderling's
superficial
essay
refuting
the
"state-capitalist"
theory-but
I
suppose
Hilderling
had
to
be
repre-
sented
somehow.)
Not
wholly
relevant to
the
main theme,
but
worth
having
in
themselves,
are
an
honest and
convincing
self-analysis
by
the
ex-Communist
Granville Hicks,
and
Arthur
Koestler's
gadfly
lecture
on
the
"Left
Babbitt."
Certainly
this
is
a
disappointing
book.
But
Mr.
Steinberg
is
to
be
thanked
for
restoring
to the
world's
bookshelf
a
number
of
texts
that
should
never
have
been
allowed
to
leave
it.
Toronto,
November
1950.
Simon
Paynter
THE
AMERICAN
As
REFORMER.
By
Arthur
M.
Schlesinger,
Jr.
1950.
(Cambridge,
Mass.:
Harvard.
Toronto:
Saunders.
xi,
127
pp.
$3.00,
members
$2.40.)
At
a
time
when
attempts are
being
made
in
many
parts
of
the
world
to
label
the
United
States
as
the
arch-enemy
of
reform
and
the
reaction-
ary
defender
of
the
status
quo,
it
is of
interest
to have
a
leading
American
historian
sketch
in
broad,
sure
strokes
the
reform
activities
of
American men and
women
since
the
days
of
the Declaration
of
In-
dependence.
Professor
Schlesinger
maintains
that
until
recently
the
United
States
"has
nearly
always
set
the
pace
for
the
Old
World
in
reform
zeal."
He
points
to
early
accomplishments
in
such
fields
as
the
separation
of
church and
state,
freedom
of
the press,
(white)
manhood suffrage,
public
education,
and
prison reform.
There
was
a
restless
innovating temper
in
Americans
that
led
them
endlessly
to
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