Struggle

This is the true first edition of this book. Red dustjacket printed in black over plain stiff cardboard covers, sewn binding, 7 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches, 41 pp. plus “A Letter of Protest” from the International Committee for Political Prisoners. Book block fine, dustcover good (see photos). Dustcover now protected in an archival mylar cover. Wood engravings by Elizabeth Whipple. (K061) “Born Alojzij Adamič in Praproče pri Grosupljem (Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Slovenia), he emigrated to the United States in 1913 at age 15, served in the U.S. Army during World War I, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1918. He championed immigrant rights, opposed fascism and racism, and strongly supported Josip Broz Tito’s communist movement and the national liberation struggle in Yugoslavia. Adamic translated the core text "from the Yugoslav" (Slovenian/Serbo-Croatian) and provided a detailed preface and introduction to frame the context for an American audience. • Anti-Fascist & Anti-Authoritarian Focus: The booklet was written directly in response to the oppressive political climate sweeping through the Balkans in the early 1930s. It details the underground resistance and the harsh political realities under King Alexander I’s royal dictatorship in Yugoslavia, which had severely repressed regional cultures and banned languages like Slovenian in schools. • The Blueprint for Resistance: The text focuses on the concept of political and social struggle against tyranny. It highlights how ordinary citizens, peasants, and left-leaning students organized against overwhelming state force. • Bridging Yugoslav and U.S. Politics: Adamic used Struggle to educate the American public and the large South-Slavic immigrant diaspora about the dangers of European fascism. He believed that the American working class and immigrant groups needed to understand these overseas conflicts, as they mirrored the broader global fight for democracy, labor solidarity, and human rights. Struggle acted as a crucial ideological stepping stone between Adamic's 1934 breakthrough best-seller, The Native's Return, and his later, intensive wartime activism coordinating relief and political backing for Yugoslavia's anti-Axis liberation movements. Arthur Whipple was the publisher of the 1934 first edition of Struggle, based out of Los Angeles, California. Arthur Whipple was a young, emerging fine-press publisher on the West Coast who crossed paths with Adamic during a highly creative and radical era in Southern California. Whipple published the slim 1934 booklet of Struggle featuring an illustration by Elizabeth Whipple. It was a direct translation by Adamic of an underground manuscript smuggled out of Yugoslavia detailing the torture of political prisoners under King Alexander's dictatorship. Around this exact same time, Whipple was heavily invested in Adamic's circle. In 1935, Whipple published a prominent 100-page biographical and critical study titled Louis Adamic & Shadow-America, written by Adamic's close friend, the legendary California writer and activist Carey McWilliams. When Louis Adamic was handed the raw, underground manuscript during his 1932–1933 Guggenheim fellowship tour through Dalmatia (in modern-day Croatia), the author's real name had to be strictly protected. Because the manuscript explicitly detailed the brutal imprisonment, systemic torture, and human rights violations occurring inside King Alexander I's prisons, revealing the young man’s identity would have been a guaranteed death sentence or resulted in immediate execution by the Yugoslav royal dictatorship. When Adamic brought the text back to the United States to publish it through Arthur Whipple, he deliberately framed it in the introduction as the narrative of a young, pseudonymous Yugoslav informant. He did this to shield the resistance network while still utilizing the text as raw political evidence to expose European fascism to the American public.”. …