Irene Grant’s conversation with Kari Levitt

Text in English to type

This page contains question(s)
that we should discuss
in the Talk Page!

[2] organization in New Zealand. …But we tried very hard not to go to New Zealand. We were invited four times to go and every time until the fourth we said no… So that was that. When we came back we accepted… Donald was offered all kinds of things. We were, in fact, offered a job in China. …called the The International Fellowship of Reconciliation. I.F.O.R. That had an English and a Swiss… It had a number of groups, quite a very lively group in Britain. And Donald went out out to run the I.F.O.R. and a that point he ran into Tess […] And Donald had a committee, one member of which was a Roman Catholic called Maier. Caspar Maier. An Austrian Roman Catholic was a member of this committee which was trying to represent (various(?)) and he was a representative. …which machinations we were helped by Grossvater (Kolnaï), by Karli, by dear Eugen Benedikt.

K: Who was Eugen Benedikt?

I: He was a wonderful Weisse Rabe. Karli called Oscar Bo[c]k “der weisse Rabe” (?) The “white raven”. […]

K: These were Catholics.

I: He was left-wing Catholic. He was a steel worker. He was an out and outer. And he remained Catholic and he was in all kinds of tight corners and one day I said to him, I'll never forget it, he was a wonderful little [3] man… Karli knew al about thse people and so did Grossvater (Kolnaï) He's living in New York. You should visit him.

K: He's still alive.

I: Yes. […]

I: I've got his address. He was always known as little Otto Bauer. I said to him one day, […]

I: […] His name is Fritz Lener and I can give you his address. He was Jugendsorge (?).

K: Otto Bauer?

I: No, Fritz Lener. At that time he was … […] [4]

[…]

I: I can show you one or two of his letters. Well, how can I begin about Kolnaï?

K: I remember him …with a beard.

I: He didn't have a beard in those days. He was an exiled Hungarian Jew and he was a very constant contributor to the Volkswirt. And he was a good friend of Karli's. […]

[5] remember. I think before. (Garbled), John (Macmurray) was the other so to speak high figure in the Christian Left. And he and Karli were in constant exchange. Karli regarded himself as being the Apocalyptic chap and they regarded John as being the great revolutionary with a more harmonious outcome. […]

I: John's book are all over there. He did the opposite thing… Fo you know that BBC finally turned him down because the thought he was too radical. He was a very, very radical person. You only have to read his stuff beside Karli in Christianity and the Social Revolution. His aim was to put out books for students and never midn about a great philosophical name. […]

I: They had a Communist…

K: (Doug Jolly) was a surgeon, who went to Spain and worked with a mobile surgical v___ in the Spanish civil war.

[6]

[7]

[8] […] K: But this book has now established a reputation the world over with the title The Great Transformation.

I: What the title is it known under?

K: The Great Transformation.

I: Too bad. […] Because he said “it is about the origins of our times.” That's what it's about. Anyway too bad.

K: […]

[10] […]

I: Now Tess did not knew Karli in the way that we knew him. But of course she knew Karli and she may have very interesting thing to say. But certainly you should see her at all costs… By the way the flat was provided for her when she retired. What happened was she didn't retire because nobody could possibly keep all the… So what they did was, she retired of course, and then they moved everything, all the files into her flat. And there they sit. And she keeps it gong in a kind of way from there.

K: What was the organization she worked for?

I: The Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, usually known as S.P.S.L.

[…]

I: Szilard's first contact was with Donald. It was Donald… Donald was the first to meet Szilard. I have a lot of things to tell you. I think Tessie's stories would make a good background, if not more than background. […]

I: Gretta Berken? […]

[11] […]

I: Now Kenneth Muir, is an absolutely key person. (There follows a discussion of arrangements for the visit to K.M.) Now Kenneth, just so you know, is doing an enormous amount of work. He is translating Calderon. […] During part of that period, he was the editor of The Leeds Citizen. He has kept a total file of his articles in The Leeds Citizen. Many of them were expressions of the discussions in the Christian Left and many of them, without any doubt, were inspired by the time we spent with Karli. So Kenneth […]

[12] I: Mary died of leukemia…

[…]

I: It must be now… Mary was a key figure… It must now six years ago. […] Certainly there is a very large section of the Conservative Party whom Karli would have described as the “intelligent right”.[…] The other thing is, there was in the Christian Left at least one, if not several, devoted Communists of whom Douglas McLean was one. He was the Communist sitting in the Christian Left. His work was in Auden's (?) press. He was also a great friend of Kenneth Ingram, who was a member of the Christian Left. […] Kenneth Ingram was a wonderful person. […] And he said “Well, I'm a member of the Interplanetary Travel Society.” […] But Mac was a very active Communist indeed and he joined the Christian Left and he was really one of the most active people in that group. His Herrkunft? as heysay in German, was very, very different from all, from everybody else's because, unlike Donald who was also a Scot he had a very poor and miserable youth in Scotland. […]

[13] […] I: […] My access to the Christian Left goes back to William Morris and Donald and my father … […]

I: I think Donald was the first to talk to Szilard about where to go and what to do.

M: And Donald met Karli before you did?

I: Donald met Karli long before I was married, before I went to Vienna, which was in 1921, because Karli and Ilona were both in Vienna as refugees. […]

K: What year would that be?

I: 1920. Before I was there. […]

I: Donald was there on his own because he had started with the Quakers and while he was with the Quakers in France, the Quakers asked him whether he would go to Vienna because they were starting an aktion (project) in Vienna and Donald said yes. He left France, and went to Vienna, and he was [14] taken to Singerststrasse who was (?). […] So what he did was he got touch with the good old student movement and the good old Student International Federation. This was a Christian organization. And it was very vigorous.

K: And it was called the Student International Federation.

I: The World Student Christian Federation. In this country it was simply called the Student Christian Movement. […] And a really left-wing priest like William Temple, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, I could give you dozens… David Cairns of the Aberdeen University, … who was the daughter of the great Professor Murray, Gilbert Murray the great classicist. That man's daughter was Ages Murray […]

[16] […] I: The Austrian Student Relief became the European Student Relief and that … […] Conrad Hoskins (?), a wonderful person, Jewish and Ray Legate (?) not Jewish, went to Hungary. […]

I: We went to New Zealand and there Don was born and we didn't come back from New Zealand until 1929.

[18] Irene: Extraordinary letters? looking back on them.

Kari: Yes. Letters are so useful especially when they're dated.

I: That's 38 not 28.

K: Yes 38.

[…] K: May I go back a moment yo who… This is Leonard Schiff.

I: Thats is Leonard Schiff who went … […]

[19] Iredale was there. I was there. Doug went there. All kinds of people… And this man was the heart of it and he invited Nehru… I forget which year […]

K: This is Kenneth Muir?

I: Yes.

K: 1940.

I: Now this is also Kenneth at the same time. […] I was trying to put into English Nationaloekonomie und Philosophie (?)… just rough. Have a look. I think that's what this is all about. This is written to Donald but at the very end it's addressed as if to Dicki. Paul Tillich… lived there and I met him there with Reinhold Niebuhr.

K: What happened with Reinhold Niebuhr? …

I: Reinhold Niebuhr was a very influential theologian … Christian running, I think actually running, the theological seminary in New York. His wife was English. […] …I remember saying to him “Yes, you're a great prophet of the Old Testament but why dont you read the New Testament? The poor man was absolutely horrified.

K: He wasn't interested in the New Testament?

I: No, but he was more like a justice man from the Jewish background.

[20] K: But he wasn't Jewish?

I: No, he was of German extraction but I don't know how long he'd been in America… I think you should read Moral Man and Immoral Society. […]

[21] […]

K: Eleanor Ullman. Is she still living?

[…]

[22] […]

I: The Auxiliary Christian Movement …the flag (?) …and then you know the emblem. Unfortunately this hasn't got a date. And it was of the same date roughly and it was a letter to the Times and it's extremely interesting. We signed it: Kenneth Muir, Mary Muir, Fannie (?), Marjorie Young, Barbara Cass Beggs, I really can't …Kenneth Ingram. Not Karli. As far I remember he wasn't even involved in this discussion about the emblem. Or perhaps he was…

K: And he just didn't want to sign. I can't imagine him signing anything about an emblem. Couldn't imagine it. And this was about 1938?

I: It was about the time that our flag went in the march. You know what date that was.

K: Yes '38.

I:Write it down.

K: Now I want to get exactly what is you translated. It was called “Nationaloekonomie und Philosophie”?

I: That's the title of the essay.

K: And that's translated into English as what… “Philosophic and Economic Manuscripts”?

I: There are many translations now but under what heading… I have not followed. I don't know.

[…]

… [23] Landshut and Mayer; and this is the French translation of… “Nationalokonomie und Philosophie”.

I: Now Karli, of course, who (?) …how much, he'd studied both volumes; but what he tried to rub into our heads was that the only one that really mattered was the basic philosophic position, was the one essay, which he made us stick to over and over again. Then he said everything that he di after that was in the nature of “I told you so”.

K: Who said that?

I: Karli.

K: That everything Marx said offer that…

I: I don't repeat verbatim because I don't remember his exact words but the meaning of what he said was “Kapital” was only like saying 'Well when I wrote this basic document, I can only now say my whole “Kapital” was another I told you so. Karli firmly believed, that Marx never departed, whereas the Russians I gather from Karli and from other people, said 'Oh well this was early philosophical …things. It wasn't basic.'

K: I know the dispute.

I: I think I'm right saying, I got it also from Karli, that for thirteen years the Russians never publicly acknowledged and certainly never let come to light that document.

K: Now here: 'The “Economie Politique et Philosophie”, which is here published in the French translation for the first time, was written by Marx probably towards the end of February 1846. That's before the Deutsche Franzosiche Jahrbuch… (German) When Marx wrote the (German) …was 1931.

[…]

I: (Someone. Name not on the tape) was a lecturer in history in Vienna, [24] Jewish. He was, we later learned, a vey great hero but he looked like nothing, a little man. […]

K: A bibliography of the writings of John Macmurray compiled by Albert N. Nephew in a journal called Listening Vol. 10, Spring, 1975. Listening is a British journal but it's gone for ten years so it must be that one can find it in a library. Otherwise ask Michael. What is Michael's name?

I: Michael Fielding…

K: “Materialism and Religion” by Joseph Needham, fellow of King's College, in a series; … […]

I: Christian Socialists.

K: Christian Socialists…

I: Michael Fielding has recently been a Christian Socialist conference, quite recently. There are quite a few groups.

K: But this is an old one. This is a 1930s one. And here it shows you all the different Christian Left Groups that were. The Socialist Christian [25] League, The Fellowship of Reconciliation, The Fellowship of Creative Service, Christian Peace Front, The Left Book Club, SCM, Christian Left - various denominations, Methodists Unitarians, Baptists, Anglicans, Congregationists. Why no Romans? No Roman Catholics?

I: There were no Roman Catholics at all.

K: Not a single Roman Catholics in all. Isn't that extraordinary.

I: Even we, and we took everything, did not have a Roman Catholic.

K: Isn't that extraordinary. …(Maxwell?) was a priest.

I: He was Christian Left.

K: But an Anglican priest, not a Roman.

I: But if they have high ritual they call themselves 'Father'.

K: They're very similar.

I: Gregory Vlastos, who tried to make Karli write to (MacIver) and who belonged to the Christian Left and who is now somewhere in America, Karl Polanyi, Jack (Poterill?) another High Anglican left-wing priest, very well-known, Timothy (Room?) of whom I've told you, John Lewis who edited, partly edited Christianity and the Social Revolution, …

[…] K: John Lewis?

I: Dr. John Lewis.

K: What sort of Doctor was he? Theology?

I: I think, philosophy. I don't know for sure. He was very Jewish and very Communist.

K: He was Jewish?

I: I think he was. … I had an awful argument with him once. Now I can't remember what it was about. It had something to do with the British Jews, the position in British society.

K: Kenneth Muir said yesterday, because I asked him if there were any Jews in this, he said there was only one and that my father disliked him a lot and distrusted him because he was a Communist agent.

I: Jews in what?

K: In the Christian Left. And it was the man that married Jean McConnell.

I: Alfred Cannon. He married Jean McConnell. He was a poor chap.

K: For some reasons my father didn't like him.

[…]

I: You are going to keep this. … That we should try to carry out < Trude Kurz > discussed it with us. Working class culture in Vienna and we were going to apply to Rothschild for a grant to do it. And in [26] preparation for that, we wrote up a lot of stuff with the help of Trude Kurz about the working class in Vienna. That was a _____ we never got because we ran away from Hitler and we never got it. But somewhere, buried in this house, are the pieces of paper that we prepared for that survey of the working class in Vienna. And the only that ever eventuated from Donald or me or both of us was that little thing you've got. …It never got further in the Auxiliary than (becoming us?). I don't think the Auxiliary movement ever carried this out but it might be interesting to you to see what they were talking about. That was the kind of thing…

K: This a training weekend within the Auxiliary movement.

I: We had training weekends. Here was one labelled Professor Donald (Meyer) talking at what we called a training weekend. That is to say getting ready to be a Christian Leftie. The next one, Nos. 1 through 2, the next one, “Notes from a Christian Left Training Weekend - Christian Criticism of the Social Order”. That's Karli.

K: I would like a copy of that.

I: I daresay that was Kenneth. …Well it is true up to a point and true for some people but as far as I, personally am concerned, the whole Christian Left began.

K: But some people like to date it to these (Q?) Camps.

I: Yes.

K: That's what… In fact Macky started with the (Q?) Camps.

I: Mac? Yes. Mac belonged to another of such camps run by a man called Norman Ridyard. Norman Ridyard was not (Q?) Camps, the two (Q) camps would be regarded by some people as the very beginning of the Christian Left. But I would not so regard them though they were very important…

K: On this tape … Graham in May Parade in London carrying the Christian Left flag with Leonard Schiff and the man whom she identified as Father Iredell in front. But Ireni then later thought that perhaps he was in fact Father Grosser I think, he is Father Grosser myself. Zoe Fairfield was the General Secretary of the Auxiliary Movement and the address of the Auxiliary Movement was in Annandale, North End Road Golders Green. Concerning Ireni's rough translation of the Landshut and Mayer', Leipzing edition of Nationalokonomie und Philosophie, it was most remarkable. […]

[27] translations were made by Ireni in London, were published in Lepizig, probably in 1932 and were physically exported to Switzerland, the Leipzig publications, from whence they were obtained by the Christian Left. They were not published in Switzerland but they were smuggled out to Switzerland. With respect to the “Bulletins” and POlanyi's role in the “Bulletins”, Ireni said 'There were no “Bulletins” with which Karli had nothing to do. But he was particularly concerned with, and, indeed drafted and wrote the 'Bulletins', that is the 'Christian Left Bulletins', dealing with 1) Trotskyism, 2) The Study on the Early works of Karl Marx, 3) The Bulletin titled 'Russia and the World'. The Bulletins dealing with Chartists were principally the work of Kenneth Muir and the one advertised as "Working Class Culture in Vienna” never materialised. Instead there a No.7 which, however, deals with Levellers and Diggers in the Cromwell period with Stanley (?). The project of “Working Class Culture in Vienna” is described on the tape. Regarding the 1938 statement of the Christian Left, it would appear, incidentally, that in about 1937 the Auxiliary Christian Left changed its name to the Christian Left and it was at that time that a great deal of work was done on drafting, so to speak, a Manifesto. The papers, which I have seen, the documents in Ireni's possession shows that Karl Polanyi was intimately concerned with the drafting of the group document and his corrections and adits are to be seen all over these documents. The individuals concerned with the foundation of the Christian Left were two Cass Beggs, David and Barbara Cass Beggs, Kenneth and Mary Muir, Donald and Irene Grant, Marjorie Young (now Reid), and this Kenneth Ridyard mentioned to me by McClelland. There was a meeting… in (Newforest?), maybe this is, in fact, the Q camp. It's not quite whether these Q Camps were in 1935 or in 1938. That has yet to be established. The Q Camps, in any event, seem to deal, according to Ireni, more with social relations, questions of documentation in Ireni's possession…

End of tape. There does not appear to be anything on the other side.

[28] I: Now I'm going to begin a the end and go backwards.

K: Okay.

I: At the end of dicussions of the draft for the Christan Left, John wrote this very long letter. It is here. You must read it, but not now. But at the end of the letter he said, (Paragraph No. 7 was considered unsatisfactory. The members who were there were instructed to write this commentary - to re-write this commentary - and we were to suggest the wording. We suggest the following wording. And I will read this paragraph).

K: This is written by John Macmurray.

I: Yes… In one of the efforts to get a finished basis. “The task of the Christian community is one of freedom, equality an brotherhood. These are mere words unless they are embodied in the structure of our human life; and the extension and realization over the whole field of human life is the purpose of Christianity. The economic, political relations of men are not merely the basis of personal life. They are an inherent pat of, and the criteria of, its reality. In our day the economic integration of humanity determines, in very large measure, what forms of personal life are possible at all. As a result, it is no longer possible to maintain, or to extend, personal life if (?) Christianity demands of us, without a transformation of our existing political and economic structure as a whole.

[29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] Mensch menschlich

[35] K: The biggest mystery then is really concerning my father with this Christian Left thing, because, (…) how is it that Karli got so mixed up with the Christian Left? I can understand how it is that he gave classes on the early Marx, because he was a great teacher and because he believed very much in what the early Marx was saying. But I find difficult to understand this apparent change from someone who, certainly in Vienna, was very secular.
I: Well he was very much interested in little Otto Bauer. He was supportive of him and he was very supportive of Donald. In a sense it was political, because he really thought that Donald was being manipulated by this Jesuit. But that's a different thing…

K: Yes that's different. That's politics.

I: And I think I have to say this. I think he was very impressed, so he should have been, by Zoe and her colleagues in the Auxiliary Movement, because they were very substantial people and they were very keen [36] Christians. Margaret Ronan? and Joseph Fairfield? would talk to him on their own grounds about their Christian faith. I think Karli was impressed with them, quite rightly. So was I. Because they could tell you exactly what they meant. And they acted in character. They stood by him when people were cross with him because they realized that he belonged. Now I can't explain it better that.

K: But you understand that it has to be explained.

I: You could say that, because I knew Karli very well, I don't think he was using these people. In a way it looks like that. But I don't think so.

K: Yes in a way.

I: We didn't feel we were being used. And, of course, there were many people who came from various angles into the Christian Left. They were very much enlightened by the idea that it wasn't this bloody dogmatic Marx that they had to worry about but somebody who was very close to their own feelings and Karli was able to do that. I don't think that's using people. It's recognizing what was in them.

Organizations Irene Grant spoke about

The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), Menschheitkämpfer, Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL), The Society of Visiting Scientists (SVS), The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), Herrengall 30, The Austrian Student Relief => The European Student Relief, Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), World University Service (WUS), Student Christian Movement (SCM), Pycombe Corner Group, The Q Camp, .

Persons Irene Grant spoke about

By Alphabetical Order:

• B: Bauer Otto, Benedikt Eugen, Beggs Barbara, Bock Oscar
• C: Cannon Alfred, Casspegg x, the Cornfords
• F: Fairfield Zoe, Fielding Michael
• G: Grosser John
• I: Ingram Kenneth, Father Iredell / Iredale,
• J: Jolly Doug
• K: Kennipcott Helen, Kolnaï Grossvater, Kurz Trude
• L: Lener Fritz
• M: MacMurray Elisabeth, Macmurray John, Macky / Mac x, McConnell Jean, McLean Douglas, Maier Caspar, Mansfield x, Muir Kenneth, Murray Agnes, Murray Gilbert
• N: Niebuhr Reinhold
• R: Reid Marjorie (née Young), Ridyard Kenneth, Ridyard Norman
• S: Schiff Leonard, Simpson Esther (Tess), Strachey John, Streep Tammy, Szilard Leo
• T: Tatlow x, Tillich Paul, Tissingdon x, Turton Helen
• U: Ullman Helen
• W: Wesley John

By apparition: Oscar Bock, Otto Bauer, Caspar Maier, Eugen Benedikt, Fritz Lener, Grossvater Kolnaï, Doug Jolly, Helen Turton, Esther Simpson (Tess), Leo Szilard, the Cornfords, Kenneth Muir, Douglas McLean, Kenneth Ingram, Agnes Murray, Gilbert Murray, Leonard Schiff, Father Iredell / Iredale, John Strachey, Paul Tillich, John Grosser, Reinhold Niebuhr, x Tissingdon, Tatlow and these people, Father John Macmurray, Elisabeth MacMurray, Helen Ullman, Michael Fielding, Alfred Cannon, Jean McConnell, Trude Kurz, Norman Ridyard, Macky / Mac, Zoe Fairfield, x Casspegg, Barbara Beggs, Marjorie Young (= Marjorie Reid), Kenneth Ridyard, Edward x, John Wesley, Helen Kennipcott, x Mansfield, Tammy Streep.

Text Informations

Reference:
Date: 1986
KPA: 30/03