Sunday 3 August 2008

The Forsaken

A review of a harrowing new book by Tim Tzouliadis that tells the story about how thousands of Depression-era Americans bought into the lies spread by the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Walter Duranty about the glories of Stalinism, emigrated to the Soviet Union in search of Utopia, and ended up dying in the Gulags for their gullibility.

Proof that Champagne Communism is not just a charming Islington eccentricity.

3 comments:

Sergej said...

From the US to the USSR? Funny, but that's just the time when it would have been good for my family to move from the USSR to the US. (We finally had the chance in 1975/6, and haven't looked back!)

To be fair, from what I've heard life during the Depressions wasn't that great. But it was not-so-great by American standards. Old Uncle Joe came up with hardships that not all Americans can imagine now, to say nothing of back then, when they only had Comrade Durante to inform them about life in the Workers' Paradise.

jayessell said...

Jimmy Durante was a commie?
Don't tell McCarthy!

Sergej said...

Geh! Shuold haev prof resd bwefore hutiing "sned'!

But then again, you just don't know, do you? As I hear it, commies were a particularly sneaky bunch back then. Much given to hiding under every bed---yes, even yours!---waiting for their chance to act against the interests of Moose and Squirrel. Maybe J. Durante was also in on the act.