Miłosz: A Biographyby andrzej franaszektranslated by aleksandra parker and michael parkerbelknap, 544 pages, $35 The impression left in the mind of an American reader, after he finishes Andrzej Franaszek’s exhaustive new biography of Czesław Miłosz, is the absurdity that this man was ever . . . . Continue Reading »
Trying to really believe in Communism now would be like trying to believe in Moloch or Anubis. The willingness to give up everything, which animated previous generations of revolutionaries, has vanished. Continue Reading »
The miniseries Comrade Detective ridicules the buddy cop genre, communist propaganda, and communism itself. Continue Reading »
Somehow, communist bloodbaths have never drawn the continuous and deserved condemnation visited upon other tyrannies. Continue Reading »
Why are so many inclined to sentimentalize the Russian Revolution, one of the most murderous chapters in human history? Continue Reading »
The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societiesby ryszard legutko encounter, 200 pages, $23.99 In The Old Regime and the Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville described the French Revolution as a religious movement: The ideal the French Revolution set before it was not merely a change . . . . Continue Reading »
China’s unexpected economic vibrancy almost masks its authoritarianism—but after a few days, the authoritarianism is plain to see. Continue Reading »
Slavery is what Fidel’s revolution was about. Brooking no dissent, he enslaved a nation in the name of eternal class warfare, creating a new elite dedicated to suppressing their neighbors’ rights. Continue Reading »
It’s only in retrospect that I fully understand Fidel’s allure for the West: He reassured us that we had real and profound political choices to make. Continue Reading »
The Swedish Academy has a strange idea of what “the great American song tradition” is. Continue Reading »
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