Cold War Pacifist: Devere Allen And The Postwar Peace Movement, 1946–1955

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-1-2007

Published In

Peace And Change

Abstract

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

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