II. The Difficulties and Importance of Writing
Tovarich, there are so many things I want to tell you and ask you. Some of these feelings are now quite vague; I want to make them less so. Is it any use to cling to vague feelings? Many of them, as you will soon see, are ordinarily thought "utopian" in the sense of futile. I think it is of use. If you feel something, you ought not deny it merely because it is only a feeling; it is also yours.
Feelings, however vague, are the infant beginnings of a political traffic when you start to interchange them. Or they may be. Or I hope they may still be. At any rate, this is the only political traffic you and I might have; maybe we cannot have even that. I am trying to find out. My idea is to ignore the general and to be a bad soldier. The only truly good soldier today is a bad soldier. Or must I be an idiot if my generals are? Maybe you find that necessary, but I don't—not yet at least.
Above all, with all the mythmakers about and many intellectuals
Of course, we know the world today largely through communications we receive about it; we are always depending upon what others tell us, and more often than not we don't know who those others are or what their biases and interests might be. As for current events and trends, well, obviously it is becoming more and more difficult to cling to some sense of reality. It is a full-time job and one could easily use a large staff;.
I have to tell you that last year I read three or four dozen books by American and British specialists on Russia—and I am going to continue reading such books—but I still didn't get a real answer to the ultimate question I want answered: What kind of a man are you? It occurs to me that you might also be reading books by Russian specialists about America. I shudder to think of them. They are probably as bad as those I've read on Russia.
Let us forget specialists and experts for a while; they have their uses, no doubt, but how relevant are they to our doubts and purposes? I don't know. Let us talk to one another "naively"—each telling as honestly as he can, who he might be and how he thinks he got that way; how he lives and what he believes and how he thinks he has come to believe it. And, of course, let us talk politics. I'll begin our conversation, Tovarich, and I hope you will help me turn it into a little drama. Toward that end I'm going to put a great many questions to you but only after I have answered them myself as fully and frankly as I am able.
To Lewis A. Coser from Copenhagen, Denmark, dated January 27, 1957
Dear Lew:
To answer your smaller questions first:
Yes, I enjoy "Europe" enormously; but "Europe" means—can only mean—continuous traveling about and I am a natural-born traveler. As for specific locales inside Europe, I'm arranging my policies, as if I were all to myself a little nation, and I can't go making off-hand comments, even to good friends.
Did I write you that we (Katie, Ruth and I) just got back from a month's trip—in the VW microbus—through Yugoslavia, across to Bari, Italy, and up through the peninsula via Naples and all that? Thousands of images remain. The Yugs are like cowboy movie ruffians wandering up and down their bad-land gulches. You can give Italy to Clare Luce, the Pope and Mary McCarthy,
[14] McCarthy's book Venice Observed had been published in 1956 (New York: Harcourt Brace).
for all I care.I'll be glad to see the "answer to critics" [of The Power Elite] when my copy arrives. I worked on it very hard, and—good or bad—I had to do it. Also glad you're getting out so many publications. Just now I'm not writing anything but I hope to get something done in the spring. I've been asked to give a lecture at the London School of Economics in March, and to go to Salzburg Seminar for two weeks in late May.
As for your major questions:
By all means were I you I'd go to California
[15] The University of California at Berkeley.
—on a secure leave of absence from Brandeis. It's perfectly silly to think of it as "far away"—far away from exactly what? As I've told you, it's the one place I'd leave the East for.As for Columbia College, the situation is more fluid than ever. My impression—from a distance this year—is that the policy will be to hire only young men as assistant professors and gradually raise them. Although a big fight may develop when Casey retires in several years. I just don't know how it will look. You know as well as I how sticky and slow and arbitrary things north of 116th St.
― 227 ―seem always to be. At any rate, I won't know how it is going to be until several months after I return in September.
Take care,
Charlie
To William Miller, from Copenhagen, Denmark, dated February 5, 1957
Dear Bill:
I'm so glad you think the Dissent essay came off all right
[16] Mills's response to critics of The Power Elite.
I was worried that your (justified) reaction to the earlier version would make it impossible for you to see the effect of your criticism on the final! I worked on it very hard and learned something about writing. I just couldn't let all these silly people say all that and then sulk in my corner. So it was necessary for therapy.I do not mind telling you (altho I hope you will not mention it to anyone) that "criticisms" of The Power Elite hit me very hard indeed. I suppose the whole thing coincided with a lot of self-criticism I've been giving myself and for a while I damn near lost my nerve for writing. It is hard to carry a load as big as Luther's when damn near all the world tells you it's only a bag of peanuts. But enough. I'm over it now. Or almost. Anyway do write Coser you think the piece came off OK; he was naturally worried about your reaction.
About your plans to move in '58 to the western NJ area (which I don't know): I want to tell you that when we return to the US we're going to live on Morningside Heights (if Herpers can give us a University apt.), but I do intend to build a sort of weekend place somewhere within an hour or two of NYC. I want a quite small but quite elegant little place and do not need much land. Although there is plenty of time, I hope you will consider our looking around together for a neighborhood. The great point with me—and I suppose with you—is regardless of initial costs, to keep the monthly costs (taxes etc.) very low. Rockland [County] is by no means out of the question. Anyway, keep the possibilities of a joint search in mind as I'm quite serious about it.
I've not worked much at anything for some months. Now
― 228 ―suddenly I began to "work at" the little book on "The Sociological Studies," a quite technical book of 150 pages or so.[17] This became The Sociological Imagination (1959).
I think it's time I wrote something about my own kind of sociology and against the current dominant "schools." I'm not in any hurry about it, but it comes along. I look forward to telling you about it when I return and, I hope, showing you some manuscript—to establish the right tone—and I think you'll enjoy it as much as I.My other project is this book on The Fourth Epoch,
[18] Mills did not obtain a publishing contract for this book, and he never completed the manuscript, but see his essay entitled "Culture and Politics: The Fourth Epoch," Listener 61, no. 1563 (March 12, 1959).
which I find I cannot give up but which I cannot focus. It is, after all, a philosophy of history as well as an explicit taking up and carrying forward of the old sociological tradition of Germany, which was at all times concerned with "the nature of our epoch."The Intellectuals book I have dropped—temporarily at least—it just doesn't interest me now,
[19] Mills's original contract (dated August 22, 1955) with Oxford University Press for a book on American intellectuals was renegotiated in December 1959; the project was then tentatively entitled The Cultural Apparatus. When Mills died in 1962 this work was still unfinished. He did publish an essay entitled "The Cultural Apparatus," Listener 61, no. 1565 (26 March 1959).
although it may become a long essay on "the role of reason in human affairs."[20] See his lecture entitled "On Reason and Freedom," read to the London School of Economics and Politics and broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation, Third Programme (February 1959).
At least that's going to be its major theme—rather than being empirically set by the intellectuals. So that one is up in the air for now.Much lecturing ahead: London on March 2, Frankfurt May 2. Salzburg asked me (finally!) for two weeks in late May and June—I wrote them a very superior little note saying it depended on who else was going to be there! To hell with that propaganda outfit. I hope to be asked to Oslo for a lecture and of course I've things set up for around Denmark. As you know, it is very hard to lecture on America in Europe. On every side there are all these stereotypes and try as you may anything you try to say falls into them. I think it is largely having to talk in English, which many Europeans understand much less than they suppose.
It isn't true that I am "disgusted" with Europe. I don't know
― 229 ―how Hofstadter got that impression. "Europe" can only mean continuous travel, which at all times I love. Only specific parts of Europe can be the object of "disgust." Italy, for example, I do not at all like: give it to the Pope, Clare Booth Luce and Mary McCarthy. Yugoslavia is obviously an altogether fascinating place, and I intend to motorcycle through it again this summer on the way to Athens and Istanbul. (RH [Ruth Harper] will be camped in the VW bus in Austria.) Germany and Austria—as I've told you—are continual sources of pleasure and agreeable puzzlement to me. Of course I don't know much about any of them: these are simply impressions of a fast-moving traveler.All the news of your writing plans—especially the economic history—is quite exciting. I think it's fine you've got the possibilities of such solid endeavors. What else keeps a man on the level? It's only when we don't have such programs that we lose touch with our own center; only when we do that we feel we might be making our own groove (unmix that one if you can).
Keep in touch,
Take care.
As ever,
Mills
[P.S.] A heart doctor told Wright yesterday that he had Angina Pectoris.
R. [Ruth]
Mills's case of angina pectoris was mild, and after a few days of bed rest at home, he continued his usual practice of ignoring his high blood pressure.
[21] Notes from Ruth Mills, undated (1984).
To William Miller, from Copenhagen, Denmark, dated March 14, 1957
Dear Bill:
One of the amusing features of any exchange of letters is the fact that the answer to one's last letter, if prolonged, reveals so clearly the ups and downs of one's mood. I've just read yours of 11 March, which
I mean this literally. Never have I written so continuously (yesterday I wrote for 15 hours) and, I do believe, turned out such [a] well-written first draft. These are short books. The first runs to some 220 typed pages, and is a statement of the promise, the tasks, the nature of the social sciences Ch. 1). It is at once a "defense" (without appearing to be such) of the kind of stuff I've done, and a really detailed criticism of "the methodological inhibition" Ch. 2) a la Lazarsfeld, and of "the fetishism of the concept" Ch. 3) a la Parsons. It also contains a complete, and I believe first-rate, rewrite of a never-published essay "On Intellectual Craftsmanship" Ch. 4)
[22] Published as an appendix in The Sociological Imagination.
and a brand new version of "The Political Promise" Ch. 5), which is set within a neat little view of the role of reason in human affairs, in history. Within it I have also finally been able to state the central role of historical studies in the social sciences as a whole. I am very excited about it all, and can't conceive of any sudden shift in my evaluation of it!I must ask that you not mention any of this to our friends, especially those of Morningside Heights. I want it to be just one big, dandy surprise: as from a prophet who comes in from a desert.
The other book I won't write about now, for I am too much inside it still. But it too is to be a short book, and on "The Intellectuals." Here again I think I've found a way to avoid both the moan and the simple denunciation.
You'll be glad to know, I think, that I've shifted my view of London, after being there a week to give a lecture at the London School of Economics. The truth is, I suppose, that I was very glad indeed to find out how well my stuff has been received in those circles, and how much their own work there is in line with it.
In April, Ruth and I go, without Katy, to Paris for 10 days. In late May, with two books out of the way, all three of us close up here, go to Salzburg for two weeks. Then I go alone, by motorcycle, across Czechoslovakia to Poland—if it can be arranged. Then, come back
Yours as ever,
Mills
[P.S.] Keep in touch and take care.
To William and Virginia Miller, from Copenhagen, Denmark, dated March 22, 1957
Dear Bill and Bucky:
I do want very much to read the new history book, but airmail is prohibitive in cost and sea mail for books is about 6 weeks. (In six weeks, or very shortly thereafter, all the contents of this apartment that won't fit into the VW bus are going into storage.) So your judgment not to mail the book is, alas, correct. Without having seen it, I share your hunch and hope that it will make some real money, and I want to read it not only for history but for writing.
Your brief characterization of crime fiction is enticing: "The gambit is the relation of respectable institutions and disrespectable society, not all of it underlying." But you did not complete the cross-tabulation, which is, of course—now don't be upset, study this:
SOCIETY INSTITUTIONS, Respectable Not Respectable Respectable 1 2 Not Respectable 3 4 The world as commonly—and erroneously—assumed is confined to 1; the world of most criminal fiction is 3, especially in its relation to 1.
The world of nihilism is 4—there is some crime fiction about this world too, but the fascinating world is 2. That is the world of moral men in immoral society, of the private eye as really the only tough moral center in a universe in which even that center will not hold: see Yeats, but also the best of Dashiel Hammet. No one has done more than fumble with it. What you could do, after you've
― 232 ―[got] the technique of crime fiction really slick and have thought out the world of two, is to give it form and meaning. I do not at all see why crime fiction of such a sort could not become a wonderful instrument with which to think about the world of the USA. Society as a network of rackets does not mean that all individuals are necessarily racketeers. Who is, and who isn't? Why it's the best way to raise the problem of guilt, of original sin, of Kafka's K, and it's why I, for example, sometimes work so hard.That sort of thing (about which by the way I'm quite serious) in my new book I will call "the sociological imagination." In the above, of course, we play with only two "dimensions." We need only a few more, the chief of course being I: the individual. Upon a few of these the crime fictioneer must focus. II: institutions are the more immediate milieu in which these individuals are seen to act. III: society, in most crime fiction, quite vague, but in some, like that wonderful Tucker's People by Ira Wolfert, it becomes more of a framework.
The job of crime fiction, apart from making money by entertaining—also important jobs—is the same as the job of all social science worth the name: to make society become as alive and as understandable and as dramatic as the best fiction makes the individual seem. And the job may be done, first, by realizing how individuals must be understood in milieu and how individuals and milieu and society [interrelate]. Second, by a technique of presentation which presents the relations between the three up close and as intrinsic. Such a technique, I believe, is not now available.
But go one more step.
| society | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Good | Bad | |||
| Institution | Institution | |||
| individuals | Good | Bad | Good | Bad |
| Good | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Bad | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
the goody goody world
the big world is OK but here's a good kid in a bad neighborhood which he transcends
the goody good hero: he alone is good in a world altogether bad
the goody goody crime story: only the criminal is bad
is probably a "null" cell, although I'm not sure
nihilism is total
But 3 and 7—there ought to be novels about them,
[23] Mills left 3 and 7 blank on his list.
especially 6 and 7. I'll keep a carbon of this to make transaction of ideas easier in case it stimulates you.I wasn't loafing and merely getting drunk in bed when I spent all that time, months of it, reading paperbacks and Balzac. All the above is obviously part of a theory of fiction which, I just now realize, I've been working on for years.
Yours,
M.
CWM
[P.S.] Have lost 24 lbs in last 5 weeks, and feel better for it.
To Lewis A. Coser, from Copenhagen, Denmark, dated April 4, 1957
Dear Lew:
Thanks for the letter with all the news, good and bad. Yes, I've lost 28 pounds in the last six weeks or so, and will probably be about right—at 185—by midsummer. Everything seems all right, and I work 15 hours a day at my desk.
Congratulations on reviews, promotion and California
[24] Coser was a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley, 1957–58.
which is wonderful. Try to stay. Get me there.My own news is mainly this: I have just about completed a little book of 10 chapters on "The Social Sciences."
[25] The final version of The Sociological Imagination has ten chapters, but only a few chapter titles match the ones in the working outline presented here. The phrases within quotes for numbers 4–7 were Mills's handwritten annotations to his typed outline.
Here are the chapters:PART ONE: THESIS
The Promise
The Methods
PART TWO: ANTITHESIS
Deviant Cases
Abstracted Empiricism—"anti-Lazarsfeld"
Grand Theory—"anti-Parsons"
Liberal Practicality—"social pathology"
Illiberal Practicality—"industrial relations"
On Bureaucracy—political meaning of chaps. 4 & 5
PART THREE: SYNTHESIS
The Political Role
Major Problems
You remember, I told you I was going "to return" to the profession. Well, here it is. Next fall I'll of course ask you to look it over. In the meantime, believe me, it is really quite an exciting little thing, about 90,000 words, I'd guess, in print.
I have also begun a 5-ch5apter little book called "Politics & Culture," which consists of 5 lectures I am to give in late May-early June at Salzburg: it is now in the form of a "Letter to Europeans"—about USA and Europe, and also about many of our little stuffed-shirt friends and colleagues. That's also the subject of another little book half done on "Intellectuals"—again some 5 or 6 chapters.
At the London School of Economics a few weeks ago, I was much enheartened by the way my kind of stuff is taken up there. My God, it is nice to know it makes a difference somewhere. Well, it damned well does there. Naturally, I'm nuts about the place and everyone I met there.
April 15 Ruth and I go to Paris for 10 days, then back; then I fly to Frankfurt for a lecture, then back. About 15 May we close up here and go to Salzburg seminar for 2 weeks. Then I go alone, by motorcycle, to Poland, if I can clear everything, for 3 weeks; come back and join Ruth and Katie in Austria—to loaf slowly toward Lisbon, from where we fly to NYC on 3 September.
It's becoming quite a year. A pivotal year, I think, for me. Suddenly,
Yours ever, Mills
When Robert Lekachman, who was then an economist on the faculty of Barnard College, reviewed William H. Whyte's Organization Man for Commentary in 1957, he included a critical discussion of Mills's New Men of Power (1948). Responding with the following letter, Mills took the opportunity to set the record straight concerning his position in relation to Marxism.
To the editor of Commentary, from Copenhagen, Denmark, spring 1957
[26] Published in Commentary 23, no. 6 (June 1957): 580–81.
To the Editor of Commentary:
Little unpleasantries I always try to ignore.… But now comes Mr. Lekachman whose errors of statement in [his] "Organization Men" bring him into view. He asserts that I have analyzed Fortune; that I have found it to have "a unity of outlook"; that I think it a "consistent and sure-footed organ" of one ideology; that it goes international in order to put down leftward tendencies at home; and he implies that I believe its editors omniscient conspirators.
I have not read Fortune with any regularity for many years—so superior on economic fact and business opinion do I find Business Week. I have never "analyzed" Fortune magazine, nor the strange varieties of ideology which at any time may have possessed its assorted editors, whoever they may be. I have never assumed that it is "a consistent, sure-footed organ" of any ideology. In fact, I should have characterized it as inconsistent and stumbling. With one exception: although seemingly informed by often radical backgrounds, whoever produced it appeared consistently to lack omniscience.
My major use of Fortune in the book cited by your writer is based upon explicit quotation. […]
In [New Men of Power] I also cite Fortune as an example of "sophisticated conservatism." This little phrase, so often kidnapped and abused, cannot be properly understood without its twin brother, "practical conservatism." Among other terms of definition, "sophisticated conservatives" seem more aware of the political conditions of money-making and corporation-maintenance, which of course include the international. This I contrasted with an older vision of a more utopian capitalism: the "practical conservative," in his outlook and drive, is immediately economic and less aware of larger political realities.
When I wrote this book, a decade ago, Fortune had been for some time a vehicle of the sophisticated rather than the practical variety of business ideology. I do not see how this can reasonably be denied. Mr. Lekachman fails to mention the contrast without which either term loses much of its meaning. He does not name the date of my publication, which, however convenient for him, is surely a disservice to your readers. What he has done, in brief, is mistake my explicit use of one ten-year-old article in Fortune for an "analysis" of the magazine's "ideology"—which he presumably takes to be permanent. Having made this up, he then uses it in spurious and invidious contrast with what I suppose must be called his own analysis of "Fortune's view of the world," which turns out to be conveniently and ambiguously expressed by one writer, Mr. William H. Whyte, Jr. I cannot imagine what Mr. Lekachman takes all this to be in aid of.
As for the statement, alleged to be mine, that "Fortune's stand in favor of international aid [is] motivated by a desire to stave off" leftward tendencies in America: I do not know the motives of the editors of Fortune as of ten years ago: and I think them of small importance. But as for the general idea, so crudely stated by Mr. Lekachman: certainly I have believed, and do now believe, that since World War II any sound business ideology is likely to be relevant to international expenses as well as to domestic politics. The motive indicated above, however, is nowadays not likely to be important, if only because in the United States there are no leftward tendencies to "stave off."
I do not believe that U.S. foreign policy can be adequately explained,
― 237 ―as in the current formula, by (a) the numerous and evil actions of the Soviet Union, plus (b) the numerous proclamations of ideals by America. (a) + (b) = the wearisome voice of America. There are perhaps other elements those who would understand the world must consider. The relations of domestic and international problems are most intricate; I do not know of an altogether adequate statement of them. But I have been and I am trying to confront such problems.Rather than doing so himself, Mr. Lekachman adopts a tone and with it covers up the issues—a fashion often displayed in your magazine. It is a way to stop thinking by the use of such easy phrases as Mr. Lekachman's "Marxist and Hobsonite echoes." I am less interested in echoes, Marxist or otherwise, than in explicit statement. It is less important that your writer imputes to me opinions I do not hold than that he obscures serious problems by such fashionable superficiality. Let me say explicitly: I happen never to have been what is called "a Marxist," but I believe Karl Marx one of the most astute students of society modern civilization has produced; his work is now essential equipment of any adequately trained social scientist as well as of any properly educated person. Those who say they hear Marxian echoes in my work are saying that I have trained myself well. That they do not intend this testifies to their own lack of proper education.
I need comment only briefly upon Mr. Lekachman's rather ungenerous review of The Organization Man—my own view of which was printed in the New York Times of December 9, 1956. As readers of White Collar (1951) and The Power Elite (1956) will have immediately seen, both Mr. Lekachman and Mr. Whyte agree with much of what I have written about bureaucracy and the higher business life. About the general run of the facts and about many of the meanings, that is. The political judgments involved on all sides are divergent. For I have, of course, in my several discussions of these matters, taken a consistently critical and altogether independent view.
C. Wright Mills
Mills was planning a research trip to Poland to conduct interviews for his book-in-progress on intellectuals when he wrote the following letter to Ralph Miliband, whom Mills had met at a London School of Economics seminar that year. Miliband was a
To Ralph Miliband, from Copenhagen, Denmark, dated April 9, 1957
Dear Miliband:
I do not see why you don't come to Poland with me! As I think I told you, I lecture at Salzburg 26 May to 8 June. On the 9th or 10th of June, I plan to leave my wife and child camped out in Austria and by motorcycle (BMW-R-50: international six days trial model) cross Czechoslovakia to Poland. Total time of trip—well, ten days or 2 weeks. I don't know. Why don't you come along?
It should not cost much—your trip to Austria & back from London. We'd stay at the cheapest places and picnic for most of our food.
If it's possible and you're interested, let us know and we'll arrange details.
I've finished 9 of the 10 chapters of the little book on the social sciences. Last night in drunken celebration, it seemed a wondrous book. This morning, very sober, by god it may well be.
From the 17th to about the 25th of April, my wife and I will be in Paris. [Edgar] Morin, I think, is loaning us his apt,
[27] Morin, the French sociologist and political commentator.
but I can't altogether work out his French. Is the fellow a foreigner of some sort? Anyway, if not there, we'll perhaps be at one of the hotels Norman [Birnbaum] gave me the names of.[28] Birnbaum, a sociologist from New York City, was then teaching at the London School of Economics.
Sincerely, Wright Mills
To Ralph Miliband, from Copenhagen, Denmark, dated April 13, 1957
Dear Miliband:
I am not able to see why the LSE [London School of Economics] cannot this year close up shop earlier in order to suit our convenience. Perhaps it is due to some local peculiarity, some curious inability to reason properly and to act well. But no matter. That it is unreasonable is no reason for us to be. What is the very earliest date that you could be in Salzburg? As I think I've told you, I love Austria, much more than Texas, and if I tarried there I might well write another little book, in some Baroque way, on some mountainous topic.
[29] He spent several months in Austria later that year and worked on a manuscript: the letters to Tovarich.
No, I have not been asked to come to London during the summer, and I do not know whether I could go there were I asked this summer. What would delight me no end is to come for a month next January, and, in 10 lectures of one hour each, give the social science manuscript, which just then will be about ready to go to press. About then also, I shall have in hand "The role of reason in human affairs" or "The Intellectuals" (an 8-ch5apter item). Oh, these days I'm a regular wholesaler of ideas, a department store of cultural wares. And so modestly priced too: for transport and living expenses while there, I'll go anywhere, and there present the unpublished word. But I suppose London next January is mere fantasy, all the more attractive, though, in that I can think of nothing that would better enable me to improve these books. But if they do not ask me, it only goes to show that they do not deserve me. So let them all wait, and pay their two pounds each to follow the wordy little trail of a North American aboriginal.
I think a letter to Paris, care of the author's agent, Miss Ellen Wright, 14, Rue Mr-le-Prince, Paris VIe, will reach me, as I want to try to see her. But send a carbon to Copenhagen to make sure. Returning from Paris, I turn right around and go by train to Frankfurt for 2 days, then back here for 2 weeks or so; then to Salzburg.
Listen, if you are serious about going, and can go about July 1, please now do this:
figure out a rough plan of where we go via what: Salzburg
― 240 ―to Salzburg. (Remember I am on a US passport but I suppose I can go across Czechoslovakia.) Maybe Mrs. Birnbaum will give you ideas of the best route. Road conditions don't matter; if a goat can walk it, the machine can scramble it. So choose freely some vast and intricate circular route. By the way, where is Poland anyway?Go to the Automobile Association (Fanum House, New Coventry Street, London, W.1 Whitehall 1200) and in my name (Membership Number 895851 OD/6) tell them your route and ask them to give you a "strip-map." They'll make it for free; but act right away because my membership expires soon.
But from them or elsewhere [get] the best maps available of the terrain, in some language we can read or learn to read in a day or so. Try not to get a great sheet; small, cleverly foldable ones are much better on a motorcycle. I'll reimburse you the cost.
Tell me what if any experience you've had with motorcycles. None is required, but perhaps then I'd best tell you something of this way of life. Also about luggage and about clothing. About luggage: forget it, put it in your pocket. We have more important things to carry: these are far wilder places than we have ever known, and what we do not know is whether we can drink what people there may mistake for wine, whiskey, even water, should we be reduced to that. About clothing I shall write later a little technical exposition for you, which I've been wanting anyway to get done. But in the meantime, please tell me your own expectations about it all. Also your weight, as we are both so gross I fear I must have the factory at Munich heavy up the rear shocks. They like to do that sort of thing anyway as the machine is one of their special little competitive creations. Merely to look upon it is to experience the essence of the only truly human mobility.
Do you like the way I have written this letter? You ought to. I have only been writing as you spoke one Friday night in Surrey. Both of us, I take it, are admiring strangers of the English. Perhaps, if all goes well, other things remaining equal, someday we shall show them how to do it.
Sincerely,
Wright Mills
C. Wright Mills
When Mills and Miliband visited Warsaw, Poland, in July 1957 (traveling by car instead of motorcycle), it was a time of great ferment against the repressive Soviet-style government. Socialist intellectuals were deeply involved in the political upheaval. Stalin had died in 1953, and Khrushchev had publicly attacked Stalinism at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956. Following Khrushchev's speech, a strike by Polish workers against food shortages and other restrictions had helped pave the way for a degree of liberalization: some enhancement of civil liberties, a halt to the collectivization program, and the return of Wladyslaw Gomulka as First Secretary of the Communist Party in October 1956, after his release from prison.
[30] Later, in 1966, Gomulka was expelled from the Communist Party.
Mills's meetings with dissenting socialist intellectuals in Poland, including Leszek Kolakowski, Pawel Beylin, and Adam Schaff, made a strong impression on him.
[31] Kolakowski, a philosopher and fellow of All Souls, Oxford, wrote Toward a Marxist Humanism: Essays on the Left Today, Main Currents of Marxism (3 vols.) and many other works. Pawel Beylin, a Polish sociologist, philosopher, and dissident, inspired—along with Kolakowski and others—political and intellectual ferment. Adam Scha, a Polish philosopher and theoretician, was a member of the Central Committee of the Polish Communist Party at the time and had served as an intermediary between the dissident Communist intellectuals and the government.
A few months later, in a letter to Adam Schaff about the possibility of giving a lecture at the University of Warsaw, Mills wrote: "My visit to Poland—and Yugoslavia before that—although dreadfully brief, has been very stimulating to me. It has deepened my own socialism and hardened my attitude towards the triviality and formalism of much ‘social science’ in the US. It has also shown me something of the great difficulties now faced in eastern Europe and made me want to confront them. I shall never write seriously again without including in the inner forum to which one writes the kind of intellectual public representatives of which I met in Poland."[32] Letter to Adam Schaff, dated October 29, 1957.
To Tovarich, probably from Innsbruck, Austria, 1957