Democracy Under Fire: Memoirs of a European Socialist

Durham: Duke University Press, 1989. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Hardcover. Adolf Sturmthal (1903-1986) was Austrian-born and earned a PhD in Political Science in 1925 at Vienna University. He became an assistant to Friedrich Adler, the secretary of the Labour and Socialist International, in 1926. Adler, also Austrian, was known for having assassinated the repressive Austro-Hungarian Prime Minister Count Sturgkh in 1916. In the early days of Hitler's rise to power, Sturmthal organized international aid for German and Austrian socialist refugees. He was prosecuted for passport abuse, whence he emigrated to Belgium, then Great Britain, and finally the United States. He began a long career in academia in the US, specializing in labor relations and economic development, teaching at Columbia, Yale, Chicago, Cornell, and the University of Illinois. This book is his personal memoir of that turbulent period prior to his emigration, edited by his daughter, Suzanne Sturmthal Russin, and published posthumously. It includes chapters on Adler, the Labor and Socialist International, Italian Antifascists, and Stalin's Trials, among other topics. An interesting firsthand recounting of this period. Octavo. Blue cloth-covered boards with title in gilt to spine. Olive dust jacket with photograph to front panel and title in red to front and spine panels. Pages are bright and clean. 207 pages, including index. POLSCI/11031.