Ashley Lavelle

The Politics of Betrayal

Renegades and Ex-Radicals from Mussolini to Christopher Hitchens

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

The radical who becomes a conservative is a common theme in political history. Perhaps the best-known example in the early twentieth century is Benito Mussolini, who distinguished himself as a rambunctious editor of a socialist newspaper only to emerge later as the ruler of fascist Italy. The politics of betrayal examines why several one-time radicals subsequently became part of the establishment in various countries, including the French anti-militarist Gustave Hervé who transformed into a warmonger, the Belgian Marxist cum Nazi collaborator Hendrik de Man, and the British Labour Party politician Oswald Mosley who eventually founded his own fascist movement. Numerous American Trotskyists and Marxists active from the early decades of the twentieth century onwards later became neo-conservatives, anti-communists or, in some instances, McCarthyists. Some former 1960s radicals, too, subsequently found themselves ensconced in parts of the establishment in various countries, including the former Black Panther Party leader, Eldridge Cleaver, who became a Republican and a born-again Christian, the proponent of guerrilla warfare and revolution, and Régis Debray, ended up as a heavily compromised advisor to a French president. More recently in the early years of the twenty-first century, the muckraking journalist and former Trotskyist Christopher Hitchens joined the neo-conservative camp of George W. Bush's administration following the terrorist infernos of 11 September 2001. How and why do so many radicals betray their cause? What implications does it have for left politics? Were the ex-radicals right to become conservatives? This book, the first of its kind, answers these and more questions.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Lund University Press
• Seitenzahl: 272
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. Juni 2013
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 236mm x 155mm x 25mm
• Gewicht: 567g
• ISBN-13: 9780719088162
• ISBN-10: 071908816X
• Artikelnr.: 37744937

Autorenporträt

Ashley Lavelle is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University, Sydney

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction: a road well travelled From radical to renegade Structure and
argument of the book A note on terms and sources Part I: Worlds turned
upside down Introduction to part I 1. Turncoats and collaborationists:
early twentieth century renegades The New York intellectuals and the
anti-Stalinist left 2. 'Turn on, tune in, drop out'...drop back in: '60s
ex-radicals Twenty-first century fox: Christopher Hitchens Conclusion to
part I Part II: The experience of defeat Introduction to part II 3. WWI: a
defeat borne of nationalist bloodshed Mother of all defeats: the tragedy of
the Russian revolution and the rise of Stalinism The post-war political and
economic contexts 4. 1960s radicals and political defeat: a lost cause?
Christopher Hitchens: defeat post-poned? 5. The full force of the law:
defeat by state repression? State repression in the 1960s and 1970s
Conclusion to part II Part III: Flawed radicals Introduction to part III 6.
Flawed early twentieth century radicals: Mussolini, Parvus, and co. 'The
god that failed', and other disillusionments 7. Overstated radicals Flawed
'60s radicals: gulags, radical stuntmen, and other maladies Left
Thatcherite: the flawed radicalism of Christopher Hitchens 8. For thirty
pieces of silver? Mussolini: mercenary for imperialism Parvus, the 'Marxist
millionaire' The New York intellectuals: cold warriors for cash? From
Yippie to Yuppie: Jerry Rubin and other '60s sell-outs Christopher
Hitchens: Oedipal child returns to the establishment? Conclusion to part
III Part IV: The renegade 'mentality' Introduction to part IV 9.
Psychohistory Marxism, structuralism, and psychohistory The mentality of
early twentieth century renegades: Mussolini, Parvus and others Adventurers
to the end? Pankhurst Walsh, Stephensen, and Mosley 10. Arthur Koestler,
the twentieth century 'sceptic', and other cold war pilgrims From
radicalism to fadism: Rubin, Cleaver and fellow '60s searchers
'Hypocritchens' Conclusion to part IV Conclusion References