TURNER, JOHN KENNETH. Challenge to Karl Marx. Pp. viii, 455. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc., 1941. $3.50

Published date01 May 1942
DOI10.1177/000271624222100149
Date01 May 1942
Subject MatterArticles
212
delicacy.
The
hypercritical
may
readily
find
faults
with
Mr.
Carlson’s
book,
but
the
general
reader
will
find
it
most
stimulating
and
informative.
Even
the
historian
will
recognize
the
value
of
such
an
account
as
this,
and
glean
much
information
from
it
for
historical
studies
of
Greenland
and
its
people.
DAVID
K.
BJORK
University
of
California
TURNER,
JOHN
KENNETH.
Challenge
to
Karl
Marx.
Pp.
viii,
455.
New
York:
Reynal
&
Hitchcock,
Inc.,
1941.
$3.50.
This
thoughtful
book
is
a
healthy
cor-
rective
of
dogmatism.
It
meets
every
doc-
trine
with
a
doubt.
It
is
so
perfectly
skep-
tical
that
it
threatens
to
fall
victim
to
the
very
error
which
it
deprecates.
The
criti-
cism
of
Marx
and
Engels
and
their
more
infatuated
disciples
demonstrates
again
that
economic
behavior
may
not
be
predicted
with
complete
exactness.
Many
factors
which
seem
to
be
influential
in
society
re-
fuse
to
be
fitted
into
any
generalization
unless
the
rule
be
so
broad
as
to
lack
mean-
ing.
To
be
sure,
economics
is
art
as
well
as
science.
But
to
admit
this
is
not
to
im-
pugn
the
usefulness
of
hypothesis
checked
by
fresh
inquiry
in
order
to
proceed
to
a
more
fruitful
hypothesis.
Marx
has
suffered
the
penalty
of
having
arrived
at
an
extraordinarily
penetrating
analysis.
If
it
was
natural
that
he
should
fall
in
love
with
the
representation
he
had
created,
and
should
pray
that
his
Galatea
be
given
life,
it
was
inevitable
that
others
after
him,
beholding
his
handiwork,
should
proclaim
the
miracle.
For
Marx’s
model,
compared
to
the
images
which
went
before,
does
seem
to
breathe.
The
author
is
not
tilting
at
windmills
when
he
assails
dogma.
There
is
enough
of
it,
and
it
is
the
enemy
of
creative
intelli-
gence.
But
those
who
are
impressed
by
the
stature
of
Marx
will
not
find
it
diminished
by
these
searching
comments.
Godhead
is
gone,
but
in
its
place
is
something
better
than
mere
authority.
Worthy
apostles
do
not
make
Marx
an
idol,
but
call
him
a
prophet.
His
approximation
to
wisdom
is
remarkable
enough.
Remove
the
halo,
and
the
countenance
shines
by
its
own
light.
Show
the
frailties,
and
the
strength
is
more
apparent.
It
is
only
the
temple
priests
that
will
be
discomfited
by
this
book.
The
ideas
of
Marx
are
most
at
work
where
they
are
least
identified
with
his
name.
Observable
all
over
the
world-quite
apart
from
war-
are
tendencies
toward
collectivist
action
in
place
of
weakened
individual
enterprise;
common
plan
makes
headway
against
pri-
vate
profit;
claims of
producers
and
con-
sumers,
as
distinguished
from
mere
owners,
are
louder.
The
American
economy
is
elo-
quent
of
changes
which
Marx
forecast.
The
most
mechanical
features
of
the
Marxian
system
have
suffered
casualties
of
time
and
fuller
knowledge,
while
the
principles
show
power
of
survival
beyond
those
of
other
social
thinkers.
If
Marx
could
come
back
today,
he
would
find
far
more
to
confirm
than
to
confound
his
sur-
mise.
BROADUS
MITCHELL
Wendell,
Mass.
BERDIAJEW,
NIKOLAI.
Sinn
und
Schicksal
des
Russischen
Kommunismus.
Pp.
199.
Lucerne,
Switzerland:
Vita
Nova
Verlag.
1937.
BEST,
HARRY.
The
Soviet
Experiment.
Pp.
vii,
120.
New
York:
Richard
R.
Smith,
1941.
$1.25.
Berdiaev’s
volume
is
an
original
and
profound
analysis
of
the
genesis
of
Bolshe-
vism
by
one
of
the
most
incisive
contempo-
rary
Russian
thinkers.
The
author
traces
the
Russian
form
of
communism
to
the
distortion
of
the
Russian
religious
idea,
to
Russian
Messianism
and
universalism,
to
the
age-long
Russian
search
for
the
king-
dom
of
truth
and
justice.
Berdiaev
ad-
vances
the
view
that
Bolshevism,
brought
about
by
war
and
the
general
disintegration
of
Russian
society,
had
strong
roots
in
the
Russian
tradition,
in
the
good
as
well
as
the
bad
of
it.
The
study
of
Russian
literature
and
thought
convinced
Berdiaev
that
Czarist
Russia
did
not
possess
a
unified
culture.
This
chasm
between
the
culture-bearing
upper
strata
of
Russian
society
and
the
mass
of
the
people
on
the
one
hand,
and
the
lack of
moral
sanction
on
the
part
of
the
old
r6gime
on
the
other,
made
revolu-
tion
inevitable.
Thinkers
and
poets
belong-
ing
to
different
schools
and
groups
had
all
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