Fromm was deeply committed to a democratic socialist alternative to Western capitalism and what he labeled Soviet “managerialism.” He equated democratic socialism with “humanism”: the freedom of each individual, when sustained by society, to pursue a life of creative labor and happiness. Fromm thought that nonaligned “third force” countries had the greatest potential to travel down this path.
Fromm was swayed by a plan proposed in 1960 by Karl Polanyi for enlisting the support of a coalition of politically concerned intellectuals who would reinforce one another’s resources and ideas. A maverick Eastern European economic historian, in his 1944 classic, The Great Transformation, Polanyi propounded “humanistic socialism,” a system where economic conduct was subsumed by social relations of care and reciprocity. Polanyi contrasted his humanistic socialism with the capitalist marketplace, where economic profit was valued more than community. Realizing that his perspectives overlapped decidedly with Fromm’s, Polanyi confided “that our friendship of twenty years’ standing should bear fruit for others.” They should contact several likeminded socialist thinkers in London, Budapest, Milan, New York, and other locations who had resisted the “sticky plastic” of Stalinism, fascism, and marketplace capitalism. Polanyi’s intent was to organize these colleagues, pool their knowledge, and pursue effective political action globally.1
Fromm volunteered to be the primary facilitator of such an effort. In 1963, he wrote excitedly to Angelica Balabanoff, a friend and active Italian socialist, of his attendance at a philosophy congress in Yugoslavia where several Czech, Polish, and Yugoslav delegates, in open disagreement with delegates from Russia, East Germany, and Hungary, campaigned for an environment of freedom and dignity as a viable alternative to state socialism. Fromm characterized these delegates as young intellectuals “who have a real and deep faith in man and in socialism, and who are not afraid to voice their criticism of the Soviet concepts.” With this group in mind, Fromm contacted a good friend in London, Clara Urquhart, who introduced him to her associate Albert Schweitzer. In addition, she agreed with Fromm that a new international journal, Humanist Studies, might help attract colleagues. They planned to publish the journal quarterly and feature critical essays from scholars who believed that “the alternative between Western capitalism and Communist Khrushchevism is humanist socialism.” The two invited Schweitzer and Robert Oppenheimer to join the editorial board, which they hoped would also include their mutual friend Norman Thomas.
Fromm also made a point of contacting two British humanist socialist scholars: his friend T. B. Bottomore and Richard Titmuss. Titmuss taught at the University of London, had served in the cabinet of several Labour governments, and wrote prodigiously to promote egalitarian social policies. Both were enthusiastic when Fromm proposed an international arrangement to unite socialist humanist thinkers.2
Fromm also turned to a Polish philosopher, Adam Schaff, who interpreted Marx along Fromm’s humanist lines. Schaff was particularly interested in what the Soviet Marxists avoided—the problem of alienation. Fromm was especially intent on recruiting Catholic thinkers such as the Austrian Jesuit Karl Rahner. Fromm characterized Rahner to Schaff as a man “in the forefront of the liberal movement of the church” with a “sense of tolerance” and creative energy. Other clergymen included the Brazilian archbishop Dom Helder Camara and the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. The unifying agent here was adherence to Fromm’s “Credo”—to social arrangements and values that celebrated human life, growth, joy, and creativity. In Escape from Freedom, Fromm fancied medieval Catholicism as a springboard for Western humanism and found in Catholic public intellectuals such as Rahner, Camara, and Merton a take on Catholicism at one with their democratic socialist beliefs.3
Fromm emphasized that the Humanist Studies collectivity and other ventures to unite humanist socialists must go beyond a shared ideological position to recruit fellow activists for “what they represent as human beings.” Personality and ethical conduct were no less important than doctrines. Rahner and Jean Danielou (a historian of early Christianity and pastor to the poor) represented liberal Catholicism; Schweitzer and Paul Tillich stood in for socially conscious Protestantism. If Bertrand Russell represented philosophy and Robert Oppenheimer represented science, both were primarily dedicated to all of humankind. In the end, Fromm’s effort to establish Humanist Studies never came to fruition. Nonetheless, he stood at the hub of a global network of socially activist humanists.4
Over time, the network included the former Mexican president Lazaro Cardenas, whom Fromm characterized as a leader of great “moral stature”; A. J. Muste, a leading American pacifist; Lucien Goldmann, a Marxist professor of the sociology of literature in Paris and Brussels who had worked with Jean Piaget in Geneva; and the brilliant Brazilian educational thinker and champion of universal literacy in Latin America, Paulo Freire. He also recruited Raya Dunayevskaya, who had been Trotsky’s secretary and was an informed critic of Soviet bureaucratic structures. As Fromm’s informal organization grew, Bottomore explained to him that the most essential similarities among the participants were their devotion to decentralized, nonauthoritarian socialist practices and that he had been especially impressed by the Yugoslav system of worker self-management. 5
Fromm regarded Yugoslavia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia as the countries most ready for change. “I have a lovely correspondence with a number of Yugoslav, Polish and Czechoslovak philosophers and intellectuals,” Fromm wrote in 1964 to Angelica Balabanoff, and “my books are being translated in all these countries.” He expressed confidence “that in these small countries a truly socialist movement will continue to develop, in spite of the ups and downs of the political situation.” If these nations could continue to establish their independence from Soviet controls while resisting consumerism and “the purely materialist interest in money,” he wrote Dunayevskaya, they would build viable humanist socialist societies. When Balabanoff cautioned against excessive optimism, Fromm discounted her advice.6
Fromm was particularly enthusiastic about the Praxis school of Marxist humanists (primarily philosophers and sociologists) originating in Zagreb and Belgrade who were attracted to “authentic” Marxism. He studied the school’s journal (Praxis), first released in 1964, and quickly befriended key participants: Gajo Petrovic, Ljuba Stojic, Svetozar Stojanovic, Rudi Supek, Predrag Vranicki, and especially Mihailo Markovic. Indeed, in his preface to Marković’s From Affluence to Praxis (1974), Fromm asserted that the group sought “to return to the real Marx as against the Marx equally distorted by right wing social democrats and Stalinists.” He was particularly keen on Markovic’s exposition of Marx on alienation, Petrovic on the essentially creative and practical nature of human beings, and Milan Kangrga on man’s creativity and productive capacity. Fromm was also pleased that these Praxis thinkers had translated several of his books and articles into Serbo-Croatian and that they were inspired by the writings of Karl Korsch, György Lukács, Antonio Gramsci, and his friends Lucien Goldmann and Ernst Bloch.7
The Praxis group demonstrated considerable courage in opposing Yugoslav President Tito’s modified Marxist-Leninist policies. Though Fromm characterized Yugoslavia as a “Third Way” country, he was insufficiently attentive to Tito’s subtle censorship techniques despite the fact that Praxis scholars were insisting that Tito hardly advanced a “Third Force” position and was no civil libertarian. In turn, Tito and his supporters characterized Praxis intellectuals as “professional anticommunists” and “enemies of self-managing socialism.” Periodically, Praxis, the group’s journal, was banned. Although most of the Praxis scholars held firm against pressures of this sort, a few reembraced the Tito state.8
If Marković and the other Praxis philosophers were key adherents of Fromm’s initiative in Yugoslavia, Adam Schaff became his main man in Poland. Indeed, with the possible exception of Bottomore in London, Schaff evolved into Fromm’s principal associate in developing a global network of humanist socialists. Thirteen years Fromm’s junior, Schaff had studied law and economics in Paris and philosophy in Poland. In 1945, Schaff completed his doctorate in philosophy at the Soviet Academy of Sciences and returned to Nazi-occupied Poland with the Red Army. He was appointed to a chair in Marxist philosophy at Warsaw University. While closely following Stalinist Soviet doctrinal interpretation and specializing in epistemology, Schaff became an official of the Polish Communist Party and took a leading role in its attacks on non-Marxist philosophic currents. But when Wladyslaw Gomulka returned to power in Poland in 1956—the year of Khrushchev’s revelation of Stalinist atrocities—Schaff became less doctrinaire. Indeed, Schaff was influenced decidedly by Lester Kolakowski, a leading Polish anti-Stalinist who warned the Gomulka government not to summon Soviet troops to quash political liberalization, as the Soviets had in Hungary late in 1956. Schaff discovered that Kolakowski admired Marx’s 1844 manuscripts and coupled it with the works of Lukács and Gramsci in emphasizing that Stalinist interpretations corrupted Marx’s humanist goals. Amplifying Kolakowski’s work, Schaff became a central figure in Polish Marxist humanism, although his elevated position in the Polish Communist Party suggests remnants of Stalinism in his weltanschauung. He embraced existentialism and phenomenology and argued for an interpretation of Marx that emphasized human freedom.9
Fromm’s friendship with Schaff was cemented after Schaff reviewed Marx’s Concept of Man for a Polish philosophy journal. He wrote to Fromm, lauding the way the book characterized Marx as a humanist with astute psychological insights. Fromm was overjoyed when Schaff ’s letter arrived, replying that very day to state how excited he was about “the increasing renaissance of Marxist humanism” globally. He promised to send Schaff copies of many of his other books, describing himself as “a socialist since my student days” but actively so only in recent years. Fromm invited Schaff to a world peace conference in London and asked him to contribute to an international symposium on humanist socialism.10
Fromm and Schaff maintained a lively correspondence during the mid-1960s and met on a few occasions. Fromm especially admired Schaff ’s energetic and vigorous life and his kindness, authenticity, and courage in trying to expose to people in the Soviet orbit the poverty of a reductionist state socialism. By March 1964, Fromm noted how he and Schaff were of one “essence” and held similar beliefs. When Schaff sought to couple Marxism with psychoanalysis despite the “official” Polish perspective that they were antithetical, Fromm was delighted.11
By the mid- and late 1960s, Schaff became the primary disseminator of Fromm’s writings in Poland, translating Fromm’s works into Polish, supervising their sale and distribution, and ensuring that they were reviewed in important Polish newspapers and periodicals. Schaff was especially pleased that The Art of Loving sold over fifty thousand copies within a few days on the Polish market. Coupled with other books translated into Polish, Schaff happily reported that Fromm had become a “very popular” and esteemed author in his country and had established a fine reputation among Polish social scientists. Fromm, in turn, procured the English translation of Schaff ’s Marxism and the Human Individual (1965) and worked to have it published by McGraw-Hill in paperback for a large American audience, explaining that it represented a breath of fresh air from Soviet Marxism. McGraw-Hill issued Schaff a contract; Fromm shepherded it through a difficult publication process and had Norman Thomas endorse the volume. Fromm also wrote a glowing introduction to the U.S. edition, characterizing it as a major publishing event. Schaff would introduce Americans to the renaissance of Marxist humanism within Soviet-bloc socialist countries, and this was purportedly part of a more general rebirth of humanism throughout the world, a rebirth that, Fromm claimed, was being led by Albert Schweitzer, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, and Pope John XXIII. For Fromm, Schaff and other humanists—extolling values of human dignity, creativity, and joy—represented man’s best hope against the threat of nuclear extinction.12
With Schaff in his growing international network of humanist socialists, Fromm sought to publish a volume illustrating “the scope and aliveness of humanist-socialist thought today” in order to demonstrate that this movement was “no longer the concern of a few dispersed intellectuals but was flourishing throughout the world, developing independently in different countries.” Even as Fromm’s effort to launch Humanist Studies was unsuccessful, he pursued an alternative: a multiauthored volume exhibiting the thoughts and talents of his network. With his reputation for publishing profitable bestsellers and his name on the cover as editor, Fromm knew that he would have no difficulty lining up a large U.S. commercial publishing house. Titling the edited volume Socialist Humanism: An International Symposium, he rapidly procured a contract from Doubleday for a substantially sized hardcover first printing and a subsequent paperback from Doubleday’s Anchor Books division. Fromm insisted that the project be “a volume of an international nature which could be published in several languages, to indicate that the increasing renaissance of Marxist humanism is a world-wide phenomenon.” Published in 1965, the book soon appeared in nine languages and sold half a million copies, modest sales compared to most other Fromm publications.13
When Doubleday offered Fromm a five-thousand-dollar advance for Socialist Humanism, Fromm pledged to divide the money equally among the contributors. He would contribute an introduction of about twenty pages and a substantive essay connecting humanist psychoanalysis to Marxist thought. Fromm directed other contributors to write six-thousand-word essays on topics of their choosing that pertained to humanism, to socialism, and more broadly to the nature of man and his needs. Although contributors would write for a general global market, Fromm directed them to appeal to intellectuals, students, and artists. In this instruction, Fromm seemed to be influenced by the concept of an “intelligentsia,” which Kolakowski and other Eastern European socialist dissidents had emphasized since the mid-1950s. Initially, Fromm planned on fifteen contributors; he ended up with thirty-five. There were no contributors from Russia, China, or Latin America, and only Leopold Senghor, the poet and president of Senegal, represented Africa. About one-third were from Yugoslavia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia; most of the others were from the United States, Britain, Italy, Germany, and France. In a letter to Schaff, Fromm suggested explaining the geographic limitation to the English-speaking readership of the first edition: “the closeness of thought with regard to humanist Marxism which exists in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and at the same time shared by a number of Western writers.” Essentially, Fromm’s priority was to connect writings by Eastern European dissidents to those of humanists in the United States and Western Europe.14
Guided by Schaff in Poland and Bottomore in Britain, Fromm solicited several contributors who were not part of his network. Because they stood for the “third force” of democratic socialism, each contributor also had to be relatively “free of any cold war tinge.” In brief, each author had to have the reputation as well as the intellectual posture for “the independent and free man who is fully alive.” But Fromm sometimes allowed other factors to intrude. He rejected Roger Garaudy, a member of the French Communist Party who tried to reconcile Catholicism and Marxism, because Bottomore disliked him intensely. On the other hand, Fromm solicited and accepted what he characterized as a “confused” article from Herbert Marcuse exemplifying “a pseudo-radicalism in a peculiarly veiled language” because otherwise “everybody would believe that I rejected his paper because I did not like his views.” Clearly, Fromm had not recovered from his drubbing at the hands of Marcuse a decade earlier. 15
Fromm found that it took far more time and effort than anticipated to complete Socialist Humanism. Correspondence with authors was often prolonged and exhausting. Some essays arrived in such poor English translations that Doubleday required Fromm to have them retranslated. Other contributors substantially exceeded the word limit. When Fromm recommended cuts, contributors sometimes disputed his advice. Fromm worried that Eastern European writers risked retribution from Stalinist regimes for appearing in Socialist Humanism alongside Western anti-Stalinists. To mitigate the risk, he insisted that all contributors excise references blatantly adverse to “Soviet practice and ideology.” “Communism” was not to be singled out as an enemy, and all expressions “which are aggressive and could possibly smack of cold war language” had to be deleted. Several contributors balked at such limitations, and this required time-consuming negotiations. But Fromm almost always got his way.16
Indeed, Fromm worked assiduously to turn Socialist Humanism into a coherent thirty-five-author volume that convinced the public of “the vitality of humanist socialism” globally as against the rigidities, hierarchies, and “objective” laws of the Stalinist state. A consistent theme of his work characterized man as a subjective and social being who sought creative expression and happiness. He had an ethical grounding, to be sure, and could be inspired toward socialist revolution. Above all, man sought a sense of wholeness and identity in a world of other sociable and supportive beings. When man enabled others to gain identity, happiness, and dignity, he helped himself. Human bonding and caring was far more central to these contributors than the Stalinist interpretation of Marx. Indeed, they defined themselves in opposition to Stalin’s Dialectical and Historical Materialism (1938), in which the agent of history was not the human being but the hard “objective” material factors in the “means of production.” Almost all contributors cited the young, flexible, and humanistic Marx of the 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and championed a realization of the “essence of man” and his “passionate strivings,” full “consciousness,” and “independence.” These were alternatives not only to the “alienation” and “crippling” qualities of the Stalinist state, they insisted, but also to the Western marketplace and attendant capitalist exploitation.17
It was quite an achievement for Fromm to have established these points of thematic unity among sophisticated intellectuals of widely disparate backgrounds and from decidedly different countries and experiences. Within the pages of Socialist Humanism, Eastern Europeans seemed to share a kindred spirit with Western Europeans and Americans. Even Leopold Senghor and Nirmal Bose, Gandhi’s secretary and an anthropologist, wrote essays that were compatible with most of the other contributors. The publishing venture fortified Fromm and his colleagues in the belief that humanist socialism constituted a vibrant movement and a viable, “third force” alternative to both Western capitalism and Soviet managerialism. Indeed, they considered themselves heirs to Max Shachtman and others who had called for a “third camp” of democratic socialists in a dangerous bipolar world. Socialist Humanism was perhaps the most cited and celebrated collective global expression of 1960s third-way socialism, providing an international context to the increasing number of works by members of Fromm’s expanding circle of colleagues.
Heinz Brandt
As the Socialist Humanism book was being formulated, Fromm considered dedicating it to his second cousin, Heinz Brandt. Fromm had been working to free Brandt from an East German prison, where he had been incarcerated as a political prisoner by Walter Ulbricht’s hard-line regime. In the end, Fromm dismissed the idea of the dedication, fearing it might endanger contributors to the volume living in the Soviet sphere of influence. But the temptation was understandable, for between mid-1961 and mid-1964, a campaign to free Brandt was one of the primary activities not only of democratic socialists globally but of civil libertarians and peace activists who were navigating the borders between liberalism and socialism. By orchestrating this international effort, Fromm not only demonstrated his commitment to political activism but also his capacity to bypass ideology and play the part of a shrewd tactician.18-
Decades earlier, during his eleven years of Nazi incarceration, Brandt had been partially sustained by support networks of communists in the German prison system. At the end of the war, he became a paid Communist Party functionary in the GDR (East Germany), where he worked for democratic socialism and social justice. But Brandt quickly grew disillusioned with the dictatorial and bureaucratic dispositions of the GDR and spoke out against the regime. Fearing arrest in 1958, he fled with his wife Annelie and their three young children to Frankfurt, in the Federal Republic. There, he found a job as an editor of Metall, the newspaper of the local Metalworkers’ Trade Union. Through this mouthpiece, Brandt opposed both GDR Stalinism and Federal Republic rearmament. In June 1961, he represented Metall at a trade union congress in West Berlin, where he was kidnapped by the GDR State Security Service and incarcerated in East Berlin as an enemy of the state.19
From the time of Brandt’s kidnapping by the GDR until his release from prison several years later, Fromm worked relentlessly to free his cousin. Between mid-June 1961 and early May 1962, the GDR kept Brandt in almost total isolation, making it difficult for Fromm to learn where he was and what he had been accused of doing. Fromm discovered that a secret trial for espionage had begun on May 2 (a month before the kidnapping), an event that contradicted the GDR’s assurances of open proceedings. The East Berlin district attorney promised to drop his charges if Brandt stated publicly that he had voluntarily returned to live in the GDR. When Brandt refused the deal, he was convicted of sedition and sentenced to thirteen years of hard prison labor. As Brandt had already survived Auschwitz, Fromm worried about his cousin’s health. The GDR refused Fromm’s requests for leniency and instead publicized Brandt’s purported immoralities—alcoholism, distribution of pornography, and womanizing. Brandt’s health deteriorated under these dire conditions. In order to secure Brandt’s release, Fromm demonstrated remarkable sophistication in complex international negotiations.20
Fromm secured Brandt’s freedom three years later by working closely with his wife, Annelie, the one person with whom the GDR allowed Brandt to correspond. Writing to Clara Urquhart, Fromm detailed how impressed he was with Annelie, who continued to reside in Frankfurt. She came from a poorly educated East German working-class family, had rarely traveled, and had little contact with the West. But Fromm admired her intelligence and insight. Like Brandt, she had initially joined the East German Communist Party, believing it to be the path to peace and socialism. She lost faith in the party when she learned of its Stalinist bent. Annelie worked tirelessly to gain information and to network with figures in the peace movement, the democratic socialist movement, and the Metalworkers’ Union. She made a point of updating Fromm on her husband’s condition and on the nuances of German politics. Fromm rarely wrote a letter on the case without her input and approval.21
Fromm and Annelie forged a mutually supportive relationship during their efforts to help Heinz. Fromm saw to her financial needs and arranged for her travel schedule as she solicited support for her husband. The rapport and trust between Fromm and Annelie was remarkable, given their very different backgrounds. Each helped the other navigate an extremely complex set of circumstances. When Fromm considered writing to a Ukrainian member of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party with whom he had developed a rapport, for example, he checked with Annelie on the details. She felt it was important to pressure Ulbricht with a steady stream of international protests against her husband’s incarceration. But Fromm cautioned that outraged protests could rigidify the GDR. Several supporters recommended that Fromm write a book or pamphlet on Brandt to publicize his decency as a voice for peace and disarmament in Germany. He talked it over with Annelie and they concluded that a protest document might prod Ulbricht to issue a pardon.22
The substantial global resources and moral influence of the London-based Amnesty International also proved decisive. When Clara Urquhart introduced Fromm to Amnesty’s president, Peter Benenson, they became instant friends. Benenson shared what he had learned from his many rescue experiences, provided financial resources and publicity, and urged Amnesty affiliates to help with the Brandt case. And he suggested that Fromm use select German contacts to sell the Federal Republic on a prisoner exchange involving Brandt with the GDR. The problem, Fromm explained, was that because Brandt had been critical of West German rearmament, the Federal Republic would find little advantage in bringing him home. Prodded by Fromm, Benenson named Brandt the Amnesty International “Prisoner of the Year” for 1963, which placed significant pressure on Ulbricht to resolve the case. Yet Fromm and Benenson feared that Ulbricht would remain intransigent, for the GDR dictator did not want to give the appearance of yielding to Western pressure. Something more was needed to persuade the GDR, and Benenson suggested that Bertrand Russell could help.23
At the time, Russell enjoyed a stellar reputation in both East and West as a champion of peaceful coexistence and freedom of thought. Renowned as a philosopher and mathematician, he was a Nobel laureate and wielded substantial moral authority. A democratic socialist critical of the Stalinist state and a supporter of Amnesty International, he was also a friend of Khrushchev and was highly regarded in the USSR and the GDR. In fact, the East German government had awarded Russell a special medal of honor. Having admired Escape from Freedom, he welcomed direct communication with Fromm on the Brandt case. In May 1962, Fromm sent Russell an epistle that systematically reviewed the case and proposed a meeting with Russell to plot strategy.24
Russell’s response to Fromm was encouraging: “I shall do anything you advise with respect to Brandt.” He agreed to see Fromm in London before the 1962 Moscow Conference on Disarmament and was drafting a letter to the president of the conference, which included a plea for Brandt. Russell confided to Fromm that Khrushchev had recently written one of his characteristically friendly letters to him, and, with Fromm’s guidance, he would incorporate a plea for Brandt in his reply to the Soviet leader. 25
Fromm had a fruitful meeting with Russell in London. Subsequently, they met in Wales, where Fromm asked Russell to write a foreword to the proposed pamphlet defending Brandt. After informing Khrushchev of the need to free Brandt, Russell calculated that the Soviet leader would communicate with Ulbricht. Under Fromm’s guidance, Russell next wrote a private letter to Ulbricht asking for amnesty to be extended to Brandt as “a particular favor.” Russell told Ulbricht that his own “efforts in the West to oppose dangerous and uncompromising militarism are hindered by things such as the imprisonment of Heinz Brandt.” Ulbricht seemed to soften on the issue of amnesty but insisted that Brandt remain in East Germany; if Brandt returned to Frankfurt, the image of the GDR as a civil and freedom-loving nation would suffer. After Russell explained Ulbricht’s new posture, Fromm conferred with Annelie, who in turn outlined a response that Fromm asked Russell to communicate to Ulbricht: that for “compelling reasons” Brandt’s family could not move to East Germany. Instead, Swedish authorities would allow him to relocate there (leaving ambiguous whether his family would join him in Sweden). The crucial issue in the negotiation, Annelie pointed out, was for her husband to be able to leave the GDR, and that would provide him de facto freedom. The proposed relocation in Sweden might give Ulbricht a face-saving vehicle if he released Brandt. Russell agreed with this logic—that once Brandt was freed and permitted to leave the GDR for Sweden, he could then rejoin his family in Frankfurt.26
Ulbricht continued to balk, and Russell grew impatient, even threatening to return his GDR Medal of Honor—a blow to East German prestige. Fromm counseled Russell to delay the return of the medal—that the threat itself might prod Ulbricht into a declaration of amnesty. Russell disregarded Fromm’s sound advice and returned the medal, and he publicized plans to prepare an article criticizing the GDR’s treatment of Brandt for a West German publication. Fromm recognized that Russell’s rash actions had closed the door to direct private negotiations with the GDR, leaving few viable options, though he felt there was a remote chance that Russell’s conduct could provoke the Russians “to suggest to the East Germans that they do something.” When Benenson commented on the seemingly hopeless situation, Fromm replied that “the only thing to do is to go on showing [the GDR] that we have not forgotten the case.” Often brash and dismissive, Fromm demonstrated uncharacteristic pertinacity and calm in these difficult circumstances. He appeared to be engaging the “life” of an extraordinarily skillful diplomat and strategist throughout the course of the case.27
Fromm never learned precisely why the GDR released Brandt in May 1964 and allowed him to return directly to Frankfurt. In his foreword to Brandt’s autobiographical The Search for a Third Way Fromm wrote that “The miracle was wrought when Bertrand Russell gave the campaign its greatest impetus by returning a medal awarded him by the East German Communists.” Privately, Fromm advanced two other and in some ways more persuasive explanations for his cousin’s release. First, he confided to Annelie his suspicion that owing to an international wave of sympathy for Amnesty’s “Prisoner of the Year” and Russell’s friendship with Khrushchev, the Russians had ordered the GDR to release Heinz. Had Annelie not insisted to Fromm and he to Russell that as a precondition of any such release from prison Heinz had to be allowed to leave the GDR, Fromm was sure that Heinz would have spent the rest of his life in East Germany. In a letter to Clara Urquhart, Fromm advanced a second perspective on the Brandt release, crediting Urquhart with persuading Russell’s trusted assistant, Charles Ellis, to prod Russell to approach Khrushchev.28
Shortly after Heinz returned to his family in Frankfurt, Fromm and Annis hosted the Brandts at their home in Cuernavaca, where he and Heinz spent much time talking through Heinz’s traumatic experiences. “Eleven years in Nazi prisons and three years in a Communist prison leave traces which are very difficult to erase,” Fromm observed. The Brandts and the Fromms took increasing pleasure in each other’s company. At Fromm’s urging, Heinz began his autobiographical The Search for a Third Way. His “third way” was the socialist humanism Fromm had spent the past half decade elaborating. Though Fromm had grown increasingly distant from his extended family since World War II, the two cousins grew closer as Brandt, the longtime activist, became something of a scholar and writer.29
Happy in his marriage, Fromm found increasing joy and contentment as a social commentator and political activist, with supportive third-way colleagues. Without them, it would have been inconceivable for Fromm to have carried on the complex and trying negotiations in the Brandt campaign with such calm, balance, and subtlety. As he approached old age, Fromm had become an adroit diplomat in certain situations and had been able to rein in some of the more impatient and prophetic aspects of his personality. There were important shifts and revisions among the array of “lives” he was living.
There were tradeoffs. In addition to his display of diplomatic acumen, Fromm was writing more books and articles than ever before, but they lacked the profundity of Escape from Freedom (1941) or even Man for Himself (1947). Volumes such as May Man Prevail? (1961), Marx’s Concept of Man (1961), and Beyond the Chains of Illusion (1962) linked Marx to Freud in exciting ways and addressed problems in the most dangerous Cold War years with reasoned solutions. But these more recent books borrowed heavily from conceptual structures and historical perspectives that Fromm had developed in the 1930s and early 1940s, culminating with the publication of Escape from Freedom. He became an increasingly self-referential writer, often drawing on the premises of his early publications. In brief, Fromm had not taken adequate advantage of the tough but significant criticisms of discerning colleagues in quite some time. Although Urquhart, Schaff, and even Bottomore were eager to read and discuss Fromm’s drafts, they did not offer hard criticisms and voiced no displeasure in the redundancy that had become a staple of his writing. Most definitely, they were not like his colleagues at the Frankfurt Institute.
To be sure, David Riesman continued to be a thorough critic who spoke his mind. But Riesman had a talent for mixing tough commentary with optimal conviviality and good cheer. The speed with which Fromm published was matched by heightened activity in the peace movement. In view of his new activism, the thoroughness and the scholarly aspects of his writing had to give, Fromm acknowledged to Riesman. By late April 1966, he told Riesman that he was scheduled to deliver twenty lectures in as many days—“a hectic time.” Riesman marveled at his energy even as he privately fretted that Fromm’s pace was excessive and even troublesome. The frenzied, sometimes even hypomanic, behavior since early in the decade had not dissipated.30
Oswaldo, the prominent Mexican caricaturist, completed a sketch of Fromm (see centerfold) that was based on his salient memories at this point in Fromm’s life. In true caricaturist form, Fromm’s large head rested on a small and frail body that seemed barely to support the weight and pressure, perhaps unintentionally reflecting the immense responsibilities bearing down on his aging self. Meticulous dress—a tie, a well-pressed white shirt, and a dark jacket—only modestly fortified the infirm body. A large pair of glasses framed Fromm’s bright, determined eyes and powerful jaw. The discernable mind-body imbalance that Oswaldo captured seemed to be compounded by a heavy stack of books under Fromm’s right arm and a much lighter bouquet of flowers in his left hand. Oswaldo pictured Fromm walking off at perhaps too vigorous a clip, leaving behind pairs of fragile little hearts as footprints. Despite the dangers of the Cold War and a variety of obligations weighing heavily on him, the caricature depicted the Fromm who had impressed the world as Love’s Prophet.
