"Full of Apocalyptic Visions"

"In 1941, he argued that Germany was sure to defeat the Soviet Union. In 1943, he predicted that 'there will almost certainly be a terrific economic crisis after the end of the present war.' Throughout the Cold War he claimed that the failure to roll back communism would lead the Soviet Union to get the upper hand. In 1953, he wrote that the Marshall Plan had failed to create 'a situation of socioeconomic strength' in Western Europe. He adamantly opposed the decolonization of Asia and Africa, arguing that the world was best served by a continuation of European domination. He justified the war in Vietnam on an extreme version of the domino theory, saying a loss there would lead America to retreat back to Hawaii. He also wanted America to use biological and chemical weapons in Vietnam.
"From the late 1950s until 1977, Burnham refused to accept the reality of the Sino-Soviet split, thinking it instead an elaborate ruse to fool the West into complacency. Burnham's root error was that he had a childish view of communism as a monolithic global conspiracy. He was not capable of realizing (as figures like Kennan and Walter Lippmann did) that communist leaders were often guided by national interest more than ideology."

Jeet Heer at The New Republic revisits James Burnham.

Four Legs Good

"In Zimbabwe, as the rule of Robert Mugabe's kleptocratic clique became ever more exorbitant, an opposition newspaper took the opportunity to reprint Animal Farm in serial form. It did so without comment, except that one of the accompanying illustrations showed Napoleon the dictator wearing the trademark black horn-rimmed spectacles of Zimbabwe's own leader. The offices of the newspaper were soon afterwards blown up by a weapons-grade bomb, but before too long Zimbabwean children, also, will be able to appreciate the book in its own right."

In The Guardian, Christopher Hitchens revisits George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Poison Summer

"In Mexico, settled near the capital in the small town of Coyoacán, in a house owned by the painter Diego Rivera (who was married to the radical artist Frida Kahlo), Trotsky and his wife Natalia maintained a bizarre imprisoned court. Unable to go out much because of fear that the NKVD would kill him, Trotsky welcomed a regular supply of visitors, was supported by loyal Trotskyist secretaries and guards, and played on a world stage by writing ferociously trenchant articles about Stalin and the character of the deformed workers' state that the Soviet Union had become. The avant-garde artists and writers who flirted with Trotsky form a sparkling backdrop to the political narrative, and Patenaude provides a series of fascinating pen portraits of a motley crew of believers and fellow travellers (a term invented by Trotsky for those who were happy to join the journey but reluctant about the destination). The most famous was Frida Kahlo, who came quickly under Trotsky's spell and indulged in a brief affair until she tired of it. Hovering a little further out on the ring of friends and colleagues were Soviet moles and agents, waiting for Trotsky to drop his guard."

In Literary Review, Richard Overy reviews Bertrand M Patenaude's Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky.