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From Fourth International, Vol.13 No.5, September-October 1952, p.130.
Transcription & mark-up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Our magazine was ready to go to press as election returns of the Eisenhower victory were being announced. What is lost in timeliness, in not being able to have a review of the results in this issue, will be more than compensated by the added time given us to weigh all the factors that contributed to the demise of the last of the “New Deal” administrations and to survey the new political and class relationships in the country. We promise a thoroughgoing analysis. Watch for it.
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The next issue will also contain full treatment of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, treating its significance in international politics and what it reveals of the internal situation in the Soviet Union. We can say in advance that the facts at hand are already a salient confirmation of the Trotskyist analysis of the Soviet Union, sharply revealing its contradictory sides in the tremendous power of the nationalized and planned economy, and in the hampering, parasitic role of the ruling bureaucratic caste.
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We also have on hand an extremely interesting study by Ernest Germain of discussions in Soviet academic circles of the class nature of the Chinese Revolution. The article is based on original sources that have not as yet been available in this country.
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We would like to call special attention of FI agents and student readers of the magazine to the debate on Marxism and the present world situation contained in this issue. The circumstances and participants of the debate should make it particularly attractive to campus audiences throughout the country. We believe that organized sales can assure an excellent sale of this issue, and gain us many new readers and friends. Please write us your experiences in selling this issue; they are certain to be of interest to others.
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Many readers have inquired about the plans announced some time ago for various changes in the FI. Unfortunately we have been held up by many financial and technical obstacles and are obliged to postpone their realization somewhat longer than we had hoped. Readers can take advantage of this period of waiting by formulating their ideas of suggested improvements and changes. What do you like about the FI, what do you think the readers.like? What don’t you like? And what do you think should be done to make the FI a better magazine? We have already stated some of our thoughts. Let’s hear from you.
Propaganda against socialism and Marxism has become as regular a feature of the newspapers as baseball scores and crime reports.
Marxism is portrayed as totalitarianism, regimentation, Anti-Christ — as everything except what it really is.
Have you ever asked yourself why the 100-year old doctrine of Marxism should suddenly, have aroused such concern among the wealthy and powerful?
Have you ever wondered why socialism should have become so great a threat to the country where capitalism supposedly has achieved near-perfection?
You can never understand why until you find out for yourself what Marxism and socialism really stands for.
For that you must go to the proponents and not the opponents of socialism. You have to read the writings of the creators and masters of socialist theory, and of its supporters who explain the theory in terms of the present-day world.
You have to read the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, V.I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky and many others.
A full stock of these publications is available at Pioneer Publishers. Write to us for our complete catalogue — and take the first step toward an understanding of the biggest problems of our times.
Pioneer Publishers, 116 University Place, New York 3, N.Y.
Main FI Index | Main Newspaper Index
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Last updated on: 26 March 2009