Daniel Singer

Europe Correspondent

Daniel Singer, for many years The Nation's Paris-based Europe correspondent, was born on September 26, 1926, in Warsaw, was educated in France, Switzerland and England and died on December 2, 2000, in Paris.

He was a contributor to The Economist, The New Statesman and the Tribune and appeared as a commentator on NPR, "Monitor Radio" and the BBC, as well as Canadian and Australian broadcasting. (These credits are for his English-language work; he was also fluent in French, Polish, Russian and Italian.)

He was the author of Prelude to Revolution: France in May 1968 (Hill & Wang, 1970), The Road to Gdansk (Monthly Review Press, 1981), Is Socialism Doomed?: The Meaning of Mitterrand (Oxford, 1988) and Whose Millennium? Theirs or Ours? (Monthly Review Press, 1999).

A specialist on the Western European left as well as the former Communist nations, Singer ranged across the Continent in his dispatches to The Nation. Singer sharply critiqued Western-imposed economic "shock therapy" in the former Eastern Bloc and US support for Boris Yeltsin, sounded early warnings about the re-emergence of Fascist politics into the Italian mainstream, and, across the Mediterranean, reported on an Algeria sliding into civil war.

The Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation was founded in 2000 to honor original essays that help further socialist ideas in the tradition of Daniel Singer.

 

Solidarity Lost Solidarity Lost

On December 9, after a second ballot, Lech Walesa, the former electrician from the Lenin Shipyards, will be the President of the Polish Republic.

Jan 2, 1998 / Editorial / Daniel Singer

Stalin’s Grandchildren Stalin’s Grandchildren

"At the burial of communism too many people want to jump from the coffin into the funeral procession." The Polish author of these lines tried to convey the idea that the former p...

Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

Putsch in Moscow Putsch in Moscow

Capitalism is re-entering Russia dripping with blood. Whether Boris Yeltsin's successful putsch will extend his reign remains to be seen.

Jan 2, 1998 / Editorial / Daniel Singer

Electoral Fun and Games Electoral Fun and Games

This year will be an electoral year in many parts of Europe. In France, François Mitterrand is scheduled to leave the presidency in May.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

The Big Non! The Big Non!

Paris

Jan 2, 1998 / Editorial / Daniel Singer

How the Left Is Helping to Re-elect Giscard How the Left Is Helping to Re-elect Giscard

Suspense without passion is France's strange electoral mood for the moment. President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's advisers are both perturbed and fundamentally optimistic.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Five Davs That Shook the Party Five Davs That Shook the Party

From February 6 through February 10, more than 1,700 delegates to the French Communist Party's twenty-fifth congress met in the roofed-over sports stadium at Saint-Ouen, a suburb...

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

The Mitterrand-Chirac-Barre Show The Mitterrand-Chirac-Barre Show

Most French voters, judging by opinion polls, are bored with the current presidential campaign. No wonder.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Revolutionary Nostalgia Revolutionary Nostalgia

Slogans sometimes succeed in conveying the mood of a period.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

The Last Superpower The Last Superpower

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, held in Paris at the end of November, might best be described by reversing Tolstoy's title. This was Peace and War.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

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