Stalin’s Grandchildren Stalin’s Grandchildren
“At the burial of communism too many people want to jump from the coffin into the funeral procession.”
Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer
Fact or Fiction? Fact or Fiction?
Jacques Attali cannot be too happy with the reason he is hugging the headlines.
Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer
Three on Poland Three on Poland
In August 1980 the Gdansk shipyard workers astonished the world by winning the right to set up a genuinely independent labor union.
Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer
Dancing on the Grave of Revolution Dancing on the Grave of Revolution
1789 and all that.
Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer
The Revolution Seen Through a Glass Darkly The Revolution Seen Through a Glass Darkly
Letter From Europe
Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer
Communism and the Left Communism and the Left
Susan Sontag’s controversial speech at the February 6 event at New York City’s Town Hall event honoring Solidarity, and responses from writers on the left.
Jan 2, 1998 / Feature
The Sound and the Furet The Sound and the Furet
The public is still under the spell of the counterpoint in Francis Fukuyama's famous exercise in propaganda: Capitalism is eternal because there is no alternative.
Jan 1, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer
Allen Weinstein’s Docudrama Allen Weinstein’s Docudrama
Let's start with the Random House press release, replete with "Praise for Perjury"--a reissue of Allen Weinstein's book on the Hiss-Chambers case.
Oct 16, 1997 / Books & the Arts / Victor Navasky
The Marching Saint The Marching Saint
Staughton Lynd, although he would never admit it, is one of the visible saints of the modern American left.
May 22, 1997 / Books & the Arts / Paul Buhle
Last Night in Havana Last Night in Havana
Editor’s Note: Nation contributor Dan Wakefield alerted us to our role in helping to launch the poetry career of Richard Blanco, selected by the White House as the 2013 inaugural poet. Dan writes: “When I went to teach at Florida International University in the spring of 1994, I went to a student reading and was especially impressed by one of the poets, a young man named Richard Blanco. I asked if he would give me copies of the poems he read that night, and I picked out three of them I thought were worthy of publication and suggested I submit them to The Nation, where I have been a long-time contributor. Rick said none of his work had been published yet, and was happy for me to send the poems to Grace Shulman, the poetry editor. To my delight and to Rick’s, Shulman selected his poem “Last Night in Havana,” and eventually published it in The Nation (March 31, 1997). So The Nation was the first periodical to accept for publication the work of our new inaugural poet. (To thank me, Rick gave me my first guided tour of Little Havana, Miami’s legendary Cuban neighborhood.)” The palms sink willingly into the saffron ground. All I can map now is the marble veins of static rivers, the island coastline retreated like a hem from the sargasso patches of Caribbean. I think of you primo hermano, huddled on the edge of an Almendares curb last night your Greco shadow spilled over the street, and over the tracks stapled to the weeds below your bedroom window. Shawled in cobwebs of wind, we slapped at unreachable mosquitos as Havana’s tenements collapsed around us, enclosed us in yellow like the pages of old books or the stucco walls of a hollow chapel. You confessed you live with one foot ankled in the sand of a revolution, one Viking sole on the beach testing an unparted sea for the stag tide, the gulf wind, a legible puzzle of stars, the perfect moon that will increase your chances through the straits to my door, blistered, salted, but alive, to cry—Llegué hermano, llegué! And silence the sweep of labor trains in your window, the creak of your father’s wheelchair in the hall searching for a bottle of pills he will find empty, the slam of your eyelids forcing sleep. The bus tires are ready, bound with piano wire, and the sail will be complete with a few more scraps of linen Tia Delia will stitch together after midnights when the neighbors are asleep. Last night in Havana, your words bounced from your knees bent against your face and drowned with the lees in an empty bottle of bootleg wine you clutched around the neck and will keep to store fresh water.
Mar 31, 1997 / Books & the Arts / Richard Blanco