23 - To the World Peace Council, Budapest (1953)

Summary

In this open letter to the World Peace Council’s 1953 meeting in Budapest, which Du Bois was unable to attend because the US government had revoked his passport, he laments the absence of any representation from his country and offers his insights as a “hereditary outcast.” While Du Bois describes the longstanding American strain of individualism that transformed that nation into a “money-mad people” and set the stage for imperial expansion, he argues that the enmity of the Cold War was a contingent historical development of the Truman era. For Du Bois, the gravest consequence of the county’s embrace of an existential struggle with the Soviet Union is a new “Reign of Terror” within the United States, which threatens to erode the foundations of American democracy. Despite the bleak state of affairs, Du Bois insists that appeal to conscience of America is still possible and that the Cold War can be transcended by marrying together Soviet and American ideals.