Moscow dispatches, 1921--1934: The writings of Walter Duranty, William Henry Chamberlain and Louis Fischer in Soviet Russia

This review of Moscow dispatches (1921–1934) is based on a reading of the writings of Walter Duranty of the New York Times, William Henry Chamberlin of the Christian Science Monitor, and Louis Fischer of the Nation. Duranty was an experienced correspondent who had expressed anti-Soviet views before entering Russia to report on American famine relief. Chamberlin and Fischer, with little journalistic experience, were enthusiastic in their support for Bolshevism. None of the three knew Russian, and all three were unfamiliar with the Soviet political system. Foreign press coverage of a religious trial in 1923 resulted in the expulsion or departure of all western journalists except Duranty, Chamberlin and Fischer. Their editors in America were more concerned with domestic reports than Moscow dispatches, except for the salient issue of censorship. The objective of this study is evaluate the journalists' attitudes, under censorship pressures, in a totalitarian state. A study is made of their reports of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky; the dispatches which they wrote during a series of Soviet show trials; and their relations with the Soviet secret police. The journalists' private lives, personal interests and religious beliefs are relevant. Their attitudes toward Stalin's Five-Year Plan, toward a second famine which the Soviets concealed, and concerning the issue of United States recognition of Soviet Russia are explored. With recognition in 1933, Moscow dispatches lost their exclusivity. In 1934 Chamberlin and Duranty departed; Fischer followed later. Newly-accessible Soviet archives thus far have yielded no trace of these Moscow journalists. The challenge in this dissertation is to measure, through a reading of their Moscow dispatches, the correspondents' views of the regime.