The Socialist Sixth of The World
Johnson came to public prominence in the 1930s when he contrasted the economic development of the USSR under the First Five Year Plan to Britain during the Great Depression. He toured the Soviet Union in 1934 and again in 1937, reporting on each occasion the health and wealth of the average Soviet citizen and that the Soviet system protected the citizens' liberties. He collected his articles in the book The Socialist Sixth of the World (Gollancz, 1939; published in the USA as Soviet Power in 1941) which contained a preface by the renegade Brazilian Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa. His observations and views have drawn extensive criticism from commentators who point out that the Soviet Union in the 1930s was actually an oppressive totalitarian society with few or no redeeming features. Yet Johnson defended his positive accounts of life in the Soviet Union, emphasizing that he had visited "five Soviet Republics and several great Soviet towns," that he had wandered on foot "many long hours on many occasions and entirely alone," and that he saw "all parts of the various towns and villages and at all hours of day and night." It later emerged that much of the book was copied word for word from pro-Soviet propaganda material produced by organisations such as the Society of Cultural Relations with the USSR.
Read more about this topic: Hewlett Johnson
Famous quotes containing the words socialist and/or sixth:
“Men conceive themselves as morally superior to those with whom they differ in opinion. A Socialist who thinks that the opinions of Mr. Gladstone on Socialism are unsound and his own sound, is within his rights; but a Socialist who thinks that his opinions are virtuous and Mr. Gladstone’s vicious, violates the first rule of morals and manners in a Democratic country; namely, that you must not treat your political opponent as a moral delinquent.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The real dividing line between early childhood and middle childhood is not between the fifth year and the sixth year—it is more nearly when children are about seven or eight, moving on toward nine. Building the barrier at six has no psychological basis. It has come about only from the historic-economic-political fact that the age of six is when we provide schools for all.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)