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www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/world/europe/23pirozhkova.html?_r=1&ref=obituaris Fred Feldman comments: Although I vaguely knew there had been a revolution in Russia once, my first direct contact with the event was not the writings of Lenin or Trotsky or Deutscher, but spending an afternoon reading Red Cavalry in my local public library. Already attracted to the worldwide hard-boiled school from Dostoevsky to Film Noir to Van Gogh's Potato Eaters to Dashiell Hammett and Louis Ferdinand Celine, I found that Red Cavalry added a note of inspiration. Ignorant and crude and even cruel human beings fighting to raise themselves out of miserable conditions of oppression and exploitation by any means necessary. When I hear people complain about the Cuban revolution, and the repression and so forth, I always tend to remember what the peoples of the USSR went through to make the gains they did. Compared to that, Cuba has been a walk in the park. Anyway I salute Babel's very productive and determined widow, regardless of what her political views were at the end, for a long life of activities that advanced world literature and human liberation. Worthy causes, to put it mildly. Antonina Pirozhkova, presente! Fred Feldman ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
