“Bertrand Russell is not a clear thinker. The chief value of this book lies in the fact that it is a condemnation of the spirit of Bolshevism by one whose prejudices for its avowed principles would naturally make him its apologist if not its defender.”
− + Outlook 126:767 D 29 ’20 180w Socialist R 10:30 Ja ’21 120w
“Mr Bertrand Russell’s book is likely to remain the most damning criticism of Bolshevism, whether that strange delusion be considered as a faith or as a political institution. Although Mr Russell seems to us to be no more practical than a Russian Bolshevik, he is beyond doubt a brilliant philosopher, and often one cannot help finding fineness in his thought, even when he seems to us least to understand the ways of the ordinary man. Among the most interesting things in the book are the accounts of Mr Russell’s meetings with Lenin and Trotsky.”
+ − Spec 125:705 N 27 ’20 1900w
“Not the least interesting chapters are those on ‘Revolution and dictatorship’ and ‘Mechanism and the individual,’ in which Mr Russell reveals his own views as to the future industrial system which is to replace the present. Mr Russell himself is sanguine as to a new economic order emerging from the present chaos. But his grounds of faith are unconvincing.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p747 N 18 ’20 1200w
RUSSELL, CHARLES EDWARD. Story of the Nonpartisan league; a chapter in American evolution. il *$2 Harper 329
20–11024
Altho covering practically the same ground as Herbert E. Gaston’s “Nonpartisan league” this book goes more fully into the conditions out of which the league movement developed, bringing together much illustrative material and documentary evidence to show the workings of the system under which the farmer was exploited. The author says in beginning, “I have no idea that in the succeeding pages I can remove the fixed belief of the dwellers in cities that the farmer of America is becoming clog-footed with wealth, but it has occurred to me that a plain record of the tragic struggles of a large body of American farmers for bare justice and a chance to live ... might have some interest as a human as well as a social and political document of facts.” The part devoted to the rise and present organization of the league is correspondingly less complete than Mr Gaston’s, but the main facts are sketched. The book has been carefully indexed.