Rebecca West on communism's allure for the intellectuals
An appraisal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4938579 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter Baehr (0000-0001-7921-7162, University of South Florida, Tampa, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 168 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3-20 |
| Publication date | 2022-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Thesis Eleven (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0725-5136 • E-ISSN: 1461-7455 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/07255136211053388 |
| OpenAlex | W3209241139 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 12 |
Feminist activist, novelist, literary critic, bio-ethnographer, legal autodidact, and political writer: Rebecca West (1892-1983) was a 20th-century phenomenon. She was also a lifelong critic of communism's appeal to the intelligentsia. Communism, West claimed, was attractive to three groups of intellectuals outside the Soviet bloc: a minority of scientists who viewed politics as merely a sum of technical problems to solve; the emotionally devastated for whom communism was a means of mental reorientation; and a déclassé segment of the middle class who envisaged communism as a means of material and status advancement. I examine West's three explanations for communism's allure, and then proceed to evaluate her account. My assessment is both empirical, using sociological data on American and European communist parties, and methodological, examining the techniques of West's style, a mix of novelistic empathy and unmasking political partisanship. This mixture I consider fatal because while the novel, like historical interpretation, allows a generous understanding of human agents, unmasking tends towards caricature and denunciation
Aesthetics · Communism · Intelligentsia · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Law · Media, Communication, and Education · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |