Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)
BOOK REVIEWS - John C. Chalberg: Lehel Vadon: Upton Sinclair in Hungary. Eger, Hungary: College Press, 1993. 125 pp
countries. More than that, fascism was on the rise in the form of the Horthy police and the California police force. Hungarian and American workers were both learning "first hand" about the consequences of reactionary "terror." Despite his outspoken opposition to fascism Upton Sinclair consistently refused to align himself with communists. Unlike many American liberals who became enchanted with Soviet communism, Sinclair remained a democratic socialist who was suspicious of communism. He could be accused of faddism in that he could be seduced by any number of "quack cures" for what ailed society in general and its members in particular. Vegetarianism, prohibitionism, spiritualism, and sex hygiene campaigns did at various times have a devotee in Upton Sinclair. But never was the fad —or the reality —of communism attractive to him. At the same time it must be said that Sinclair was quite capable of shutting the horrors of Soviet communism out of his mind. And if, for example, the facts of Stalin's purges did penetrate his defenses, he refused to criticize Soviet Russia publicly. Having made a long private practice of ignoring family responsibilities and emotional commitments, he made a lengthy public career of ignoring the consequences of idealism and power run amok in Lenin's and Stalin's Russia. Why? Perhaps his first wife put it best: "He (Sinclair) is a Conservative by instinct and a radical by choice." His second wife, Mary Craig Kimbrough sized her husband up a bit differently: "Upton Sinclair knows nothing about human nature, except that he is determined to change it." What may be even more relevant to the question at hand is that Sinclair was, according to biographer Leon Harris, an "American romantic." As such, he was emotionally incapable of embracing or condemning communism. But Upton Sinclair was never hesitant to condemn American Capitalism, whether it had run amok or not. And Hungarians, notes Vadon, were anxious to read those condemnations. His barely fictionalized attack on John D. Rockefeller and lesser American petroleum barons, Oil!, was translated into Hungarian within a year of 171
