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The Anti-Communist Manifestos: Four Books That Shaped the Cold War
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About The Anti-Communist Manifestos: Four Books That
Product Description The books altered the course of history; the lives behind them have the dark fascination of fiction.The subject of The Anti-Communist Manifestos is four influential books that informed the great political struggle known as the Cold War: Darkness at Noon (1940), by Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian journalist and polymath intellectual; Out of the Night (1941), by Jan Valtin, a German sailor and labor agitator; I Chose Freedom (1946), by Victor Kravchenko, a Soviet engineer; and Witness (1952), by Whittaker Chambers, an American journalist. The authors were ex–Communist Party members whose bitter disillusionment led them to turn on their former allegiance in literary fury. Koestler was a rapist, Valtin a thug. Kravchenko, though not a spy, was forced to live like one in America. Chambers was a prophet without honor in his own land. Three of the four had been underground espionage agents of the Comintern. All contemplated suicide, and two of them achieved it. John V. Fleming’s humane and ironic narrative of these grim lives reveals that words were the true driving force behind the Cold War. 4 photos About the Author John V. Fleming taught humanistic studies at Princeton University for forty years. He is the author of The Anti-Communist Manifestos: Four Books That Shaped the Cold War. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey. From The Washington Post From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Matthew Shaer a staff writer at the Christian Science Monitor In 1946, a Ukrainian defector named Victor Kravchenko published for American audiences a visceral account of the failings of the Soviet system. "I Chose Freedom" was received happily by critics here and rapturously in France, where the tale of slave labor, starvation and collectivization sold by the tens of thousands. Proof that he had struck a nerve came from a series of vicious and sustained attacks from the Parisian liberal press; in 1948 Kravchenko decided to sue the journal Les Lettres françaises for libel. He won, and he returned to the United States a vindicated man. As John V. Fleming notes in his expansive new book, "The Anti-Communist Manifestos," in many ways Kravchenko's life story is also the story of a widespread shift in political sentiment. "I Chose Freedom" presented the "clearest possible dichotomy between the suffering millions and the small clique of Communist tyrants who torture them," Fleming writes. Thus were the horrors of the Soviet experiment brought to the world's attention. "The Anti-Communist Manifestos" takes as its subject "I Chose Freedom" and three other titles that altered the course of the Cold War: "Out of the Night," by Jan Valtin; "Witness," by Whittaker Chambers; and "Darkness at Noon," by Arthur Koestler. Each of these authors had first-hand experience of the Soviet system, and each attracted a sizable -- and influential -- readership. (None of the men, however, was particularly likable.) Fleming, a medievalist by trade, splits his book into quarters, analyzing both the text in question and the historical background. There is something a little forced about the grouping -- after all, the Cold War was a sprawling conflict, and its course was influenced by thousands of variables. But Fleming is a strong writer and a generous guide, and he emerges with a spectacularly nuanced portrait of a pivotal period in world history. Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
