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.

 

An Optimistic Tragedy? An Optimistic Tragedy?

For years, if they wished to be honest, observers of the Soviet Union had to work like archeologists, digging below the political surface to discover real social changes takin...

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Czechoslovakia’s Quiet Revolution Czechoslovakia’s Quiet Revolution

"Havel to the castle": In the doubly festive mood just before Christmas the heart of Prague was full of posters bearing that slogan and a picture of Vaclav Havel, the famous pl...

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Braving Bush’s New World Order Braving Bush’s New World Order

The Soviet Union can no longer act as a brake on US. expansion, and Western Europe cannot do so yet. That is the bitter, bloody and understated lesson of the current crisis.

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

Turncoats and Scapegoats Turncoats and Scapegoats

Boris Yeltsin, the former chief apparatchik in Sverdlovsk, and Gennadi Burbulis, the former professor of Marxism-Leninism in the same town, are the men behind the prosecution in ...

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

GATT & the Shape of Our Dreams GATT & the Shape of Our Dreams

Maastricht, NAFTA, GATT....

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

‘Solidarity Will Never Die’ ‘Solidarity Will Never Die’

If Polish law supposes that a huge social movement can be voted out of existence, then, as Mr.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Handicapping the French Elections Handicapping the French Elections

All the ingredients are apparently there, but somehow the mayonnaise does not bind.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Looking for a ‘Historic Compromise’ Looking for a ‘Historic Compromise’

Four drunken Polish youths, four distant, misty figures, acrobatically avoid a fall, then vanish mysteriously into the fog.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Communism’s Great Debate Communism’s Great Debate

"Is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union still the ruling party, the political vanguard of the people? . . . Should there be a multiparty system? Does the C.P.S.U.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

The Treason of the New Intellectuals The Treason of the New Intellectuals

The jingoist euphoria that followed a successful one-sided war may not last as long as the Republicans now assume.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

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