Upton Sinclair, Accidental Prognosticator

[peristaltor]

I'm right now a quarter-way through Upton Sinclair's second Lanny Budd novel, Between Two Worlds. This series is one he wrote through the eyes of a young man with manufacturing and political connections, an educated lad who sees the rise of Europe into the Great War and follows into the Second World War.

We're at 1922 in the story. Lanny and his friend attend one of the many conferences held by the victors in WWI to try to get the money the Versailles Treaty promised them— which, it should be noted, amounts to Germany literally owing the Allies more gold than has been mined from the earth in human history. The two see someone the Socialists in Italy revile, a traitor to their cause. The Socialists call him The Blessed Little Pouter. As they explain in the narrative, it's a play on his name: "Benito" means Blessed by God, and if you drop an S, "muso" means someone throwing a mild tantrum; "lini is a common diminutive.

A year passes. Lanny and his friend interview Mussolini, the Little Pouter. He has risen in prestige for some reason, and now commands early fascist thugs. After the interview, Lanny asks his friend if Mussolini can achieve the leadership role he seeks. His friend answers,

"He might…. But of course some other upstart would unhorse him in a few months."

(I truncated the sentence and emboldened the accidental prediction.)

Let's remember that Sinclair published Between Two Worlds in 1941, years before Mussolini was unhorsed.

Well, partially unhorsed.

Comments

[nojay]

The Versailles Treaty demanded five billion gold marks in reparations from Germany, the instigators of WW1. This, oddly enough, was the exact sum the victorious Prussians demanded (and got) from France after winning the war of 1871. Receiving that sum over a few years caused a disastrous deflation and depression in Prussia based on speculation and land price rises. That sum of five billion gold marks was demanded by the Prussians because that was the exact sum Napoleon Bonaparte demanded of them when he conquered Prussia in the early 1800s. There's history between France and Germany...

Five billion gold marks is about $350 billion in today's money, allowing for inflation.