Eugene Lyons
Encyclopedia
Eugene Lyons was an American journalist
and writer. A fellow traveler of the Communist Party
in his younger years, Lyons became highly critical of the Soviet Union
after having lived there for several years as a correspondent
of United Press International
. Lyons is remembered by many as a biographer of President Herbert Hoover
.
, now part of Belarus
but then part of the Russian empire
. His parents were Nathan Lyons and Minnie Privin. He grew up on the East side of New York City
among the teeming and odoriferous tenements of Sidney Kingsley
’s Dead End
.
"I thought myself a 'socialist' almost as soon as I thought at all," Lyons recalled in his memoirs. As a youth Lyons attended a Socialist Sunday School on East Broadway, where he had sang such socialist hymns as "The Internationale
" and "The Red Flag." He later enrolled as a member of the Young People’s Socialist League, the youth section of the Socialist Party of America
(SPA).
In 1916, Lyons enrolled in the College of the City of New York
before transferring to Columbia University
the next year. During his school years he worked as an assistant to an English teacher in an adult education course.
During World War I
, Lyons was enlisted in the Students Army Training Corps, an adjunct of the United States Army
. With the end of the war in November 1918, Lyons was demobilized and honorably discharged. He later recalled that on the day he removed his uniform wrote his very first story, a piece for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
and the Workers Defense Union which she organized on behalf of the Industrial Workers of the World
. Lyons worked for the Workers Defense Union for some time, composing news releases for the socialist daily newspaper, The New York Call
and other left wing publications. "It was a time of raids on radicals, 'Treat-'em-rough!' hooliganism, and mass deportations," Lyons later recalled.
Lyons then went to work as a reporter for the Erie
Dispatch-Herald
. He also worked briefly for the New York paper Financial America and writing copy in the publicity departments of two motion picture companies.
In the fall of 1920, with revolution in the wind in Italy
and dreaming of becoming the next John Reed, Lyons made his way for Naples
bearing credentials of the Federated Press
news service and the monthly magazine The Liberator
. En route he met another aspiring correspondent bearing identical credentials, Norman H. Matson, and the pair decided to spend the next six months sharing expenses in pursuit of their common goal. Versed in the ongoing case against the Italian anarchists
Sacco and Vanzetti
, Lyons made the pilgrimage to Nicola Sacco' native village of Torremaggiore
, a town in which Sacco's older brother Sabino governed as mayor. Lyons' Italian experiences would later be put to use in his first book, The Life and Death of Sacco and Vanzetti
, published in 1927 by the Communist Party-affiliated International Publishers
, in which he argued the case for the pair's innocence.
An attaché
of Soviet Russia's new Italian embassy approached Lyons with a suggestion that he might be used as a secret courier to Moscow owing to the greater likelihood that an American could traverse the dangerous frontier unmolested, but before this plan could be put into action, Lyons' radical predilections drew the attention of the Italian police. Lyons was arrested, escorted to the French
frontier, and expelled from Italy.
Home in America, Lyons spent 1921 and most of 1922 in Boston working on behalf of the Sacco and Vanzetti defense effort, meeting with the pair frequently at their prison cells.
In the fall of 1922, Lyons became editor of Soviet Russia Pictorial, the monthly magazine of the Friends of Soviet Russia
, an organization closely connected with the then-underground Communist Party of America. Lyons later recalled that "unhesitatingly, I cast my lot with the communists. I devoted the next five years largely to Soviet activities." Following the termination of Soviet Russia Pictorial in 1924, Lyons moved to a position writing for TASS
, the official news agency of Soviet Russia.
as its Moscow
correspondent — instead of reporting from the United States for the Soviet press, now he would write on Soviet events for an American audience. While Lyons never joined the Communist Party USA
(CPUSA), he had close ties and was considered a fellow traveler of the organization. UPI thought that Lyons' political background and the close contacts it implied would give him and it an edge over its competition in delivering news from the Soviet Union. Lyons remained the UPI's man in Moscow from 1928 until 1934, years which gradually transformed him from a friend of the Soviet state and communism
into a tireless and fierce critic of both.
Lyons was initially supportive of the Soviet regime and found the actions it took against its internal opponents to be credible. In his coverage of the 1928 Shakhty Trial
of mining engineers, regarded by historians today a precursor to the show trials of the late 1930s, Lyons could not rid himself of his belief that those charged must be guilty of something even as he recognized the trial to be an unequal contest in which those accused were denied an opportunity to fully defend themselves.
UPI's choice of Lyons paid dividends when on November 22, 1930, he was summoned to the Kremlin
for a surprise interview with Joseph Stalin
, a move to eliminate rumors circulating in the West about the Soviet leader's demise. Lyons thus became the first Western journalist to interview Stalin and his report of the encounter represented a major "scoop" that was widely reported throughout the American press. Lyons later recounted his meeting with the Soviet leader, a conversation which was conducted in Russian with the occasional help of a translator:
Lyons' interview with Stalin ran two hours in duration, joined midway by Commissar of Defense Kliment Voroshilov
. Lyons' cable detailing the interview was widely reproduced across America and was hailed by an editorial in the New York Daily News
as "the most distinguished piece of reporting of this year, if not the last four or five years."
On the heels of his journalistic coup, Lyons returned to the United States for a brief visit in March 1931, making a lecture tour to 20 Northeastern cities organized by UPI. While he already had begun to harbor doubts about the myriad of problems and violence associated with the Russian revolution and was torn between "looming doubts and waning loyalties," Lyons found himself engaged to speak mostly before businessmen's luncheon clubs. "Looking into their self-satisfied faces, I could forget my doubts," Lyons later recalled. He delivered a blinkered
defense of the revolution to his assembled audiences.
"Had I remained in America permanently I might have evolved a new, if badly scarred and patched, enthusiasm," Lyons wrote in his memoirs. "I might have ended by contributing high-minded lies to the New Masses
and slept happily ever after." But Lyons did return, where he found an ever-increasing level of terror exerted by the GPU
against recalcitrant peasants, anyone suspected of secretly holding gold or foreign currency, and those accused of economic crimes such as sabotage
:
Doubts gradually overwhelmed revolutionary faith.
Lyons was among the earliest writers to harshly criticize New York Times Moscow reporter Walter Duranty
for journalistic dishonesty. Writing about Duranty in 1941, Lyons would say, "Of all his elliptical writing, perhaps his handling of the famine
was the most celebrated. It was the logical extreme of his oft-repeated assertion that 'you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.' Now he made his omelet by referring to the famine
as 'undernourishment.'"
Ironically, Lyons himself had earlier played a role in the concealment of the 1932-33 Holodomor
in Ukraine
when he denounced journalist Gareth Jones
as a liar for his initial reports of the famine. Jones had published the first significant reports of the massive famine in the Manchester Guardian, only to have the veracity of his reporting denounced by Lyons, Duranty, and others in the Moscow press corps. Lyons later self-critically recalled that "throwing down Jones was as unpleasant a chore as fell to any of us in years of juggling facts to please dictatorial regimes — but throw him down we did, unanimously and in almost identical formulas of equivocation. Poor Gareth Jones must have been the most surprised human being alive when the facts he so painstakingly garnered from our mouths were snowed under by our denials."
One of those directly influenced by Lyons' writing was George Orwell
. In his seminal novel Nineteen Eighty-Four
Orwell borrowed a chapter title from Assignment in Utopia, "Two Plus Two Equals Five." Lyons recalled that this was a common slogan in the USSR during the drive to complete the first Five-Year Plan in just four years; Orwell adapted it as a metaphor for official totalitarian
lying.
Following his return from the Soviet Union, Lyons very briefly flirted with the Trotskyist movement. Leon Trotsky
himself initially praised Assignment in Utopia but later became quite critical of Lyons as the journalist moved to the political right.
After completion of his two thick books of his Moscow experience and a biography of Stalin, Lyons set to work on a full length study of CPUSA influence on American cultural life during the 1930s, entitled The Red Decade. The book did not prove popular at the time it was published in 1941, however, since soon after it saw print the Soviet Union was invaded by Nazi Germany
and became an American ally in World War II
. The book's fame came only later, during the era of McCarthyism
, when its title became a byword for the popular front
alliance between communists and liberals during the 1930s.
In later years Lyons' political views shifted to the right, and for a time he was editor with Reader's Digest
, Plain Talk
and National Review
. He was also involved with Radio Free Europe
.
During the early 1940s and the Second Red Scare which followed World War II
, Lyons was a frequent contributor to the popular press on anti-communist themes, targeting liberals whom Lyons deemed inadequate in their denunciations of the Soviet regime. In The American Mercury
Lyons was critical of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt
for lending her prestige to a gathering of the American Youth Congress
, a united front
joint organization bringing together communist and socialist student groups. In 1947, Lyons attacked former Vice President
Henry Wallace
as an appeaser
of the Soviet dictatorship
who refused to face up to the true nature of the regime.
Writing for the American Legion
in 1950, Lyons accepted the premise that American government agencies had been infiltrated with Soviet spies. He also lauded the work of the House Committee on Un-American Activities for its work investigating the activities of the Communist Party and exposing communists in the government employ.
In addition to his work as a free lance journalist, Lyons was engaged as a biographer, publishing a widely-read biography of former President
Herbert Hoover
in 1964 and another on his first cousin, founder of NBC
and chairman of RCA David Sarnoff
, in 1966.
Lyons returned once again to the topic of Soviet communism in his final book, Workers' Paradise Lost, published in 1967.
Lyons' papers are housed in the Special Collections department of Knight Library
at the University of Oregon
in Eugene
.
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and writer. A fellow traveler of the Communist Party
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
in his younger years, Lyons became highly critical of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
after having lived there for several years as a correspondent
Correspondent
A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator, or more general speaking, an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign...
of United Press International
United Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
. Lyons is remembered by many as a biographer of President Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
.
Early years
Eugene Lyons was born July 1, 1898 to a Jewish family in the town of UzlyanyUzlyany
Uzlyany , also known as Uzlany, is a town in Belarus near Minsk .In the past it was a shtetl with a large Jewish population.-External links:* on the synagogue...
, now part of Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
but then part of the Russian empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. His parents were Nathan Lyons and Minnie Privin. He grew up on the East side of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
among the teeming and odoriferous tenements of Sidney Kingsley
Sidney Kingsley
Sidney Kingsley was an American dramatist. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Men in White in 1934.- Biography :...
’s Dead End
Dead End
Dead End is a 1937 crime drama film. It is an adaptation of the Sidney Kingsley 1935 Broadway play of the same name. It stars Humphrey Bogart, Joel McCrea, and Sylvia Sidney...
.
"I thought myself a 'socialist' almost as soon as I thought at all," Lyons recalled in his memoirs. As a youth Lyons attended a Socialist Sunday School on East Broadway, where he had sang such socialist hymns as "The Internationale
The Internationale
The Internationale is a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem.The Internationale became the anthem of international socialism, and gained particular fame under the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1944, when it was that communist state's de facto central anthem...
" and "The Red Flag." He later enrolled as a member of the Young People’s Socialist League, the youth section of the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
(SPA).
In 1916, Lyons enrolled in the College of the City of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
before transferring to Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
the next year. During his school years he worked as an assistant to an English teacher in an adult education course.
During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Lyons was enlisted in the Students Army Training Corps, an adjunct of the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
. With the end of the war in November 1918, Lyons was demobilized and honorably discharged. He later recalled that on the day he removed his uniform wrote his very first story, a piece for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was a labor leader, activist, and feminist who played a leading role in the Industrial Workers of the World . Flynn was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a visible proponent of women's rights, birth control, and women's suffrage...
and the Workers Defense Union which she organized on behalf of the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
. Lyons worked for the Workers Defense Union for some time, composing news releases for the socialist daily newspaper, The New York Call
New York Call
The New York Call was a socialist daily newspaper published in New York City from 1908 through 1923. The Call was the second of three English-language dailies affiliated with the Socialist Party of America to be established, following the Chicago Daily Socialist while preceding the long running...
and other left wing publications. "It was a time of raids on radicals, 'Treat-'em-rough!' hooliganism, and mass deportations," Lyons later recalled.
Lyons then went to work as a reporter for the Erie
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie is a city located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth-largest city , with a population of 102,000...
Dispatch-Herald
Erie Times-News
The Erie Times-News is a daily morning newspaper in Erie, Pennsylvania. It has a daily circulation of about 56,124 and a Sunday circulation of about 75,680...
. He also worked briefly for the New York paper Financial America and writing copy in the publicity departments of two motion picture companies.
In the fall of 1920, with revolution in the wind in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and dreaming of becoming the next John Reed, Lyons made his way for Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
bearing credentials of the Federated Press
Federated Press
The Federated Press was a left wing news service established in 1920 that provided daily content to the radical and labor press in America.-History:...
news service and the monthly magazine The Liberator
The Liberator
The Liberator was an abolitionist newspaper founded by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831. Garrison published weekly issues of The Liberator from Boston continuously for 35 years, from January 1, 1831, to the final issue of January 1, 1866...
. En route he met another aspiring correspondent bearing identical credentials, Norman H. Matson, and the pair decided to spend the next six months sharing expenses in pursuit of their common goal. Versed in the ongoing case against the Italian anarchists
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...
, Lyons made the pilgrimage to Nicola Sacco' native village of Torremaggiore
Torremaggiore
Torremaggiore is a town and comune in the province of Foggia in the Apulia region of southeast Italy.It lies on a hill, 169 m over the sea, and is famous for production of wine and olives.-History:...
, a town in which Sacco's older brother Sabino governed as mayor. Lyons' Italian experiences would later be put to use in his first book, The Life and Death of Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...
, published in 1927 by the Communist Party-affiliated International Publishers
International Publishers
International Publishers is a book publishing company based in New York City specializing in Marxist works of economics, political science, and history. The company was established in 1924 by A.A. Heller and Alexander Trachtenberg, using funds earned through a lucrative trade concession granted...
, in which he argued the case for the pair's innocence.
An attaché
Attaché
Attaché is a French term in diplomacy referring to a person who is assigned to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency...
of Soviet Russia's new Italian embassy approached Lyons with a suggestion that he might be used as a secret courier to Moscow owing to the greater likelihood that an American could traverse the dangerous frontier unmolested, but before this plan could be put into action, Lyons' radical predilections drew the attention of the Italian police. Lyons was arrested, escorted to the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
frontier, and expelled from Italy.
Home in America, Lyons spent 1921 and most of 1922 in Boston working on behalf of the Sacco and Vanzetti defense effort, meeting with the pair frequently at their prison cells.
In the fall of 1922, Lyons became editor of Soviet Russia Pictorial, the monthly magazine of the Friends of Soviet Russia
Friends of Soviet Russia
The Friends of Soviet Russia was formally established in the United States on August 9, 1921 as an offshoot of the American Labor Alliance for Trade Relations with Soviet Russia...
, an organization closely connected with the then-underground Communist Party of America. Lyons later recalled that "unhesitatingly, I cast my lot with the communists. I devoted the next five years largely to Soviet activities." Following the termination of Soviet Russia Pictorial in 1924, Lyons moved to a position writing for TASS
TASS
TASS or Tass may refer to:* Telluride Association Sophomore Seminar, a six-week educational opportunity for minority high school students* Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union, TASS is the transliteration of the Russian abbreviation for it...
, the official news agency of Soviet Russia.
Moscow years
Lyons' position as a correspondent for TASS lead to his gaining a similar position for United Press InternationalUnited Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
as its Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
correspondent — instead of reporting from the United States for the Soviet press, now he would write on Soviet events for an American audience. While Lyons never joined the Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
(CPUSA), he had close ties and was considered a fellow traveler of the organization. UPI thought that Lyons' political background and the close contacts it implied would give him and it an edge over its competition in delivering news from the Soviet Union. Lyons remained the UPI's man in Moscow from 1928 until 1934, years which gradually transformed him from a friend of the Soviet state and communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
into a tireless and fierce critic of both.
Lyons was initially supportive of the Soviet regime and found the actions it took against its internal opponents to be credible. In his coverage of the 1928 Shakhty Trial
Shakhty Trial
The Shakhty Trial of 1928 was the first important show trial in the Soviet Union since the trial of the Social Revolutionaries in 1922.It is often alleged that the charges against the defendants were false, confessions fabricated, and torture or the threat of torture employed...
of mining engineers, regarded by historians today a precursor to the show trials of the late 1930s, Lyons could not rid himself of his belief that those charged must be guilty of something even as he recognized the trial to be an unequal contest in which those accused were denied an opportunity to fully defend themselves.
UPI's choice of Lyons paid dividends when on November 22, 1930, he was summoned to the Kremlin
Kremlin
A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
for a surprise interview with Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, a move to eliminate rumors circulating in the West about the Soviet leader's demise. Lyons thus became the first Western journalist to interview Stalin and his report of the encounter represented a major "scoop" that was widely reported throughout the American press. Lyons later recounted his meeting with the Soviet leader, a conversation which was conducted in Russian with the occasional help of a translator:
"One cannot live in the shadow of Stalin's legend without coming under its spell. My pulse, I am sure, was high. No sooner, however, had I stepped across the threshold than diffidence and nervousness fell away. Stalin met me at the door and shook hands, smiling. There was a certain shyness in his smile and the handshake was not perfunctory. He was remarkably unlike the scowling, self-important dictator of popular imagination. His every gesture was a rebuke to the thousand little bureaucrats who had inflicted their puny greatness upon me in these Russian years. * * *
'Comrade Stalin,' I began the interview, 'may I quote you to the effect that you have not been assassinated?'
He laughed. At such close range, there was not a trace of the Napoleonic quality one sees in his self-conscious camera or oil portraits. The shaggy mustache, framing a sensual mouth and a smile nearly as full of teeth as Teddy Roosevelt'sTheodore RooseveltTheodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, gave his swarthy face a friendly, almost benignant look.
'Yes, you may,' he said, 'except that I hate to take the bread out of the mouth of the Riga correspondents.'"
Lyons' interview with Stalin ran two hours in duration, joined midway by Commissar of Defense Kliment Voroshilov
Kliment Voroshilov
Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov , popularly known as Klim Voroshilov was a Soviet military officer, politician, and statesman...
. Lyons' cable detailing the interview was widely reproduced across America and was hailed by an editorial in the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
as "the most distinguished piece of reporting of this year, if not the last four or five years."
On the heels of his journalistic coup, Lyons returned to the United States for a brief visit in March 1931, making a lecture tour to 20 Northeastern cities organized by UPI. While he already had begun to harbor doubts about the myriad of problems and violence associated with the Russian revolution and was torn between "looming doubts and waning loyalties," Lyons found himself engaged to speak mostly before businessmen's luncheon clubs. "Looking into their self-satisfied faces, I could forget my doubts," Lyons later recalled. He delivered a blinkered
Blinders
Blinders, also known as blinkers or winkers, are a piece of horse tack that prevent the horse seeing to the rear and, in some cases, to the side. They usually are made of leather or plastic cups that are placed on either side of the eyes, either attached to a bridle or to an independent hood...
defense of the revolution to his assembled audiences.
"Had I remained in America permanently I might have evolved a new, if badly scarred and patched, enthusiasm," Lyons wrote in his memoirs. "I might have ended by contributing high-minded lies to the New Masses
The New Masses
The "New Masses" was a prominent American Marxist publication edited by Walt Carmon, briefly by Whittaker Chambers, and primarily by Michael Gold, Granville Hicks, and Joseph Freeman....
and slept happily ever after." But Lyons did return, where he found an ever-increasing level of terror exerted by the GPU
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
against recalcitrant peasants, anyone suspected of secretly holding gold or foreign currency, and those accused of economic crimes such as sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
:
"The newspapers were filled with the same braggadocio and threats. Victories, successes, triumphs, but the plan for spring sowing far behind; three shot for sabotaging the rabbit-breeding plans; enginemenRailroad engineerA railroad engineer, locomotive engineer, train operator, train driver or engine driver is a person who drives a train on a railroad...
and signalmenSignalman (rail)A signalman or signaller is an employee of a railway transport network who operates the points and signals from a signal box in order to control the movement of trains.- History :...
shot for counter-revolutionary negligence in connection with a disaster on the KurskKurskKursk is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym Rivers. The area around Kursk was site of a turning point in the Russian-German struggle during World War II and the site of the largest tank battle in history...
line; eighty-four arrested for forging bread cardsRationingRationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.- In economics :...
. Another internal loan was being oversubscribed — 'voluntary' contributions of a month's wages or two months' wages. Another blast-furnaceBlast furnaceA blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron.In a blast furnace, fuel and ore and flux are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions...
started in MagnitogorskMagnitogorskMagnitogorsk is a mining and industrial city in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the eastern side of the extreme southern extent of the Ural Mountains by the Ural River. Population: 418,545 ;...
. PoincaréPoincaréSeveral members of the French Poincaré family have been successful in public and scientific life:* Henri Poincaré , physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science* Lucien Poincaré , physicist, brother of Raymond and cousin of Henri...
-War and agents of imperialism and dastardly kulakKulakKulaks were a category of relatively affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union...
s and Left-Right and Right-Left deviators and secret TrotskyistsTrotskyismTrotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
and heil Stalin and 2 + 2 = 5."
Doubts gradually overwhelmed revolutionary faith.
Lyons was among the earliest writers to harshly criticize New York Times Moscow reporter Walter Duranty
Walter Duranty
Walter Duranty was a Liverpool-born British journalist who served as the Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times from 1922 through 1936. Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for a set of stories written in 1931 on the Soviet Union...
for journalistic dishonesty. Writing about Duranty in 1941, Lyons would say, "Of all his elliptical writing, perhaps his handling of the famine
Holodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
was the most celebrated. It was the logical extreme of his oft-repeated assertion that 'you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.' Now he made his omelet by referring to the famine
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
as 'undernourishment.'"
Ironically, Lyons himself had earlier played a role in the concealment of the 1932-33 Holodomor
Holodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
when he denounced journalist Gareth Jones
Gareth Jones (journalist)
Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones was a Welsh journalist who first publicised the existence of the Great Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33, the Holodomor, in the Western world.-Life and career:...
as a liar for his initial reports of the famine. Jones had published the first significant reports of the massive famine in the Manchester Guardian, only to have the veracity of his reporting denounced by Lyons, Duranty, and others in the Moscow press corps. Lyons later self-critically recalled that "throwing down Jones was as unpleasant a chore as fell to any of us in years of juggling facts to please dictatorial regimes — but throw him down we did, unanimously and in almost identical formulas of equivocation. Poor Gareth Jones must have been the most surprised human being alive when the facts he so painstakingly garnered from our mouths were snowed under by our denials."
Return to America
After his return to the United States early in 1934, Lyons wrote two books about his Moscow years. The first was a rather subdued work entitled Moscow Carrousel, published in 1935, which was followed by another far more outspoken account of events, Assignment in Utopia, published in 1937.One of those directly influenced by Lyons' writing was George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
. In his seminal novel Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
Orwell borrowed a chapter title from Assignment in Utopia, "Two Plus Two Equals Five." Lyons recalled that this was a common slogan in the USSR during the drive to complete the first Five-Year Plan in just four years; Orwell adapted it as a metaphor for official totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
lying.
Following his return from the Soviet Union, Lyons very briefly flirted with the Trotskyist movement. Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
himself initially praised Assignment in Utopia but later became quite critical of Lyons as the journalist moved to the political right.
After completion of his two thick books of his Moscow experience and a biography of Stalin, Lyons set to work on a full length study of CPUSA influence on American cultural life during the 1930s, entitled The Red Decade. The book did not prove popular at the time it was published in 1941, however, since soon after it saw print the Soviet Union was invaded by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and became an American ally in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The book's fame came only later, during the era of McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
, when its title became a byword for the popular front
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
alliance between communists and liberals during the 1930s.
In later years Lyons' political views shifted to the right, and for a time he was editor with Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
, Plain Talk
Plain Talk
Plain Talk was the leading American anti-Communist magazine of the late 1940s. Edited by Isaac Don Levine, it featured articles written by many of the leading figures of the time....
and National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
. He was also involved with Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...
.
During the early 1940s and the Second Red Scare which followed World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Lyons was a frequent contributor to the popular press on anti-communist themes, targeting liberals whom Lyons deemed inadequate in their denunciations of the Soviet regime. In The American Mercury
The American Mercury
The American Mercury was an American magazine published from 1924 to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured writing by some of the most important writers in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s...
Lyons was critical of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
for lending her prestige to a gathering of the American Youth Congress
American Youth Congress
American Youth Congress was an early youth voice organization composed of youth from all across the country to discuss the problems facing youth as a whole in the 1930s. It met several years in a row - one year it notably met on the lawn of the White House. The delegates are known to have caused...
, a united front
United front
The united front is a form of struggle that may be pursued by revolutionaries. The basic theory of the united front tactic was first developed by the Comintern, an international communist organisation created by revolutionaries in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.According to the theses of...
joint organization bringing together communist and socialist student groups. In 1947, Lyons attacked former Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
Henry Wallace
Henry Wallace
Henry or Harry Wallace may refer to:*Henry A. Wallace , U.S. Vice President 1941-1945, presidential candidate for the Progressive Party 1948**Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center...
as an appeaser
Appeasement
The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...
of the Soviet dictatorship
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...
who refused to face up to the true nature of the regime.
Writing for the American Legion
American Legion
The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...
in 1950, Lyons accepted the premise that American government agencies had been infiltrated with Soviet spies. He also lauded the work of the House Committee on Un-American Activities for its work investigating the activities of the Communist Party and exposing communists in the government employ.
In addition to his work as a free lance journalist, Lyons was engaged as a biographer, publishing a widely-read biography of former President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
in 1964 and another on his first cousin, founder of NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
and chairman of RCA David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff was an American businessman and pioneer of American commercial radio and television. He founded the National Broadcasting Company and throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his...
, in 1966.
Lyons returned once again to the topic of Soviet communism in his final book, Workers' Paradise Lost, published in 1967.
Death and legacy
Eugene Lyons died on January 7, 1985.Lyons' papers are housed in the Special Collections department of Knight Library
Knight Library
Knight Library is the main facility of the University of Oregon's library system. It is located on the university's campus in Eugene, Oregon, United States. The library design is emblematic of the architecture of the university's older buildings, and it serves as a hub of student activity. As of...
at the University of Oregon
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
in Eugene
Eugene, Oregon
Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...
.
Works
- The Life and Death of Sacco and Vanzetti. New York: International Publishers, 1927.
- Modern Moscow. London: Hurst & Blackett,1935.
- Moscow Carrousel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1935.
- Assignment in Utopia. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1937.
- Stalin, Czar of all the Russias. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1940.
- The Red Decade: The Stalinist Penetration of America. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1941.
- Our Unknown Ex-President: A Portrait of Herbert HooverHerbert HooverHerbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948. - Our Secret Allies: The Peoples of Russia. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1953.
- Herbert Hoover: A Biography. Garden City, NY: Doubleday,1964.
- David Sarnoff: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
- Workers’ Paradise Lost: Fifty Years of Soviet Communism: A Balance Sheet. New York: Funk and Wagnalls 1967.
External links
- Guide to the Eugene Lyons Papers, Knight Library, University of Oregon, Eugene. Retrieved July 19, 2010.
- "Stalin Laughs!", Time, December 1, 1930. Report of Lyons' interview with Stalin.