The FellowTraveller: A Postscript To The Enlightenment.

David Caute destroys the myth that a fellow -traveller is merely a watered-down communist lacking the courage of his convictions. He shows that the authentic fellow- traveller is neither an orthodox Marxist nor a revolutionary, but is an heir to the intellectual legacy of the eighteenth century Enlightenment and of the early nineteenth century Utopian Socialists.
Radicals at a distance and pinning their hopes on Russia and China, the fellow-travellers quickly reverted to a faith in the democratic and evolutionary process when they came to consider their own countries. They combined a belief in the social relevance of science with a passion for planning and centrally directed social engineering. Elitists for the most part, they were entirely skeptical about the proletarian dictatorship, whether as a concept or a reality. Distrustful of Trotsky and all he stood for, they fashioned their own benign image of Stalin in conformity with their own aspirations. The Fellow-Travellers gives a rare, full portrait of those who belonged squarely to the Old Left.