"The Knee Jerk Review of Books"

Louis Proyect, Marxmail

In the winter of 1962-63, during a strike of the NY Times, Robert Silvers and a few close friends decided to launch the New York Review of Books, which is considered the premier intellectual print journal outside of academia.

When I first joined the SWP in 1967, I was a regular reader of the New York Review. Once when I was sitting at party headquarters thumbing through its pages, an old-timer named Harry Ring raised an eyebrow and said, "Oh, you're reading the social democratic press." Of course, I practically took the magazine out and burned it after hearing that. As I began shamefacedly apologizing for reading it, Harry reassured me that if he had the time, he'd read it too since it is important to keep track of the social democracy. These words were hardly reassuring. Did I have so much time on my hands because I was one of those half-digested petty-bourgeois elements that James P. Cannon railed against during the Shachtman-Burnham fight?

"Fascist Labyrinths"

Loren Goldner, Break Their Haughty Power

Reviewing Joao Bernardo, Labirintos do Fascismo:
Na Encruzilhada da Ordem e da Revolta,
Porto, Ed. Afrontamento, 2003.

“The victory of the fascist parties cannot be understood without discussing and analyzing the ties, through shocks and convergences, of a considerable number of working-class milieus and sources,  with the radical right…Wiping out leftist leaders and leading masses was only possible because of leftist echoes in the slogans of the new leaders”.

The Portuguese Marxist  and prolific writer Joao Bernardo remains virtually unknown in the Anglophone world, a situation hopefully to be remedied soon by an English translation of his three-volume masterpiece on the Middle Ages, Poder e Dinheiro. Now, only a year after the appearance of the final volume of that book, he has published another sprawling 900-page work, Labyrinths of Fascism: At the Crossroads of Order and Revolt.

"A Black Book of Ultra-Communism"

Loren Goldner, Break Their Haughty Power

Reviewing Christophe Bourseiller, L’Histoire generale de “l’ultra-gauche” [Paris, Ed. Denoel, 2003].

One might be a bit suspicious of any author, such as Christophe Bourseiller, who publishes 25 books, some of 500 pages and more, in 15 years. But logorrhea by itself does not necessarily mean falsehood. Bourseiller’s 1999 biography of Guy Debord already showed that historical accuracy is not the author’s strong suit. People mentioned there, as in the book at hand, have said often enough that everything Bourseiller wrote specifically about them was false, casting serious doubt on the rest. Before turning his hand to writing books, Bourseiller tried a number of venues in the media, including a stint at the pulp weekly Paris-Match. He is neither of the far-left or ultra-left. (1)

"The Birth of Fascism"

Terry Eagleton, New Statesman, May 3, 2004

Reviewing Robert O Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism

Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 336pp, £20
ISBN 0713997206

Nobody knows on which day of the week the Renaissance started, or in what month the Dark Ages came to a halt. The origins of fascism, however, are surprisingly well documented. As Robert Paxton informs us in this lucid, engagingly readable study, the movement began on Sunday morning, 23 March 1919, at a meeting called by Benito Mussolini's supporters in Milan "to declare war against socialism". That, at least, was when fascism acquired its name.