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C old War Pacifist: Devere Allen and the Postwar Peace Movement, 1946–1955
Author(s) -
Addison Barbara E.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
peace and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1468-0130
pISSN - 0149-0508
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0130.2007.00446.x
Subject(s) - communism , political science , cold war , world war ii , agency (philosophy) , law , economic history , religious studies , political economy , sociology , history , philosophy , politics , social science
Devere Allen (1891–1955), a prominent American pacifist and socialist, was a journalist, author, editor, and historian of peace movements. In 1933, he created Worldover Press, a peace‐oriented, independent news agency of information on world affairs. Its most popular feature was Allen's column of analysis and opinion, “This Is Your World.” Written between 1946 and 1955, it provides a fascinating window into the postwar era as seen by a socialist pacifist American internationalist who became a forceful anti‐Communist after World War II. In a conflict that was repeated throughout the Left after the war, he broke with some of his pacifist colleagues and friends, especially A. J. Muste, over the issue of “moral equivalence” between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although he retained his fundamental pacifist and socialist beliefs, Allen moved toward a more politically centrist position by the time of his sudden death in 1955. 1