I have been out of town for several days--hence the tardiness of this response. Luca Gallesi wrote: " I am quite sure that Pound read Proudhon during the Repubblica Sociale Italiana.I remember having read something about Proudhon his letters to the Minister of Popular Culture Mezzasoma and in his letters to Ubaldo degli Uberti. One of these letters is translated in Heyman's "The Last Rower" (page 336, Citadel Press), where EP states: "We must remember that Mussolini and Gesell both preferred Proudhon to Marx" Again, we may infer Pound's reading of Proudhon in his obituary for Orage (Selected prose, pag 410): "Proudhon will be found somewhere in the foundations of perhaps all contemporary economic thought that has life in it"." I don't agree that this letter counts as evidence that Pound read Proudhon. We know--at least I know from unpublished letters--that he was reading Gesell at the time he wrote the sentence quoted. And anyone who reads Gesell's NATURAL ECONOMIC ORDER will discover that Proudhon is everywhere in that text. And, of course, Pound mentions the two together in the Heyman printed letter. I can't begin to comment on the vigorous debate that En Lin Wei has occasioned by his provocative articles. I don't agree with his conclusions on the whole, but I think his position deserves more respect than it has always received in posts. The question of Fascism vs Communism was not very clear-cut in the thirties. It is true that Fascist thugs and Communist thugs battled one another in the streets, but it is also true that the Commnist, Sorel, was read and admired by both Lenin and Mussolini. And-- we should remember--Fascism claimed to be a variety of socialism. Proudhonian socialism/communism was almost entirely eclipsed after the Spanish Civil War. The Republicans were Proudhonians, but they were completely swamped by the Leninists sent to help from the Soviet Union. To the extent Pound was a Proudhonian, he was Communist. My view is that Pound was the farthest thing from an ideologue--partly because he was constitutionally incapable of abstract thought.--by his own admission, I might add. He was a thorough-going pragmatist, picking up whatever he thought would be useful to improve the world. He picked up a lot of stuff one would wish he had never encountered. But if you put a sponge in dirty water, it will absorb dirt. I have written a good many articles on this subject over the years--being one of those academics listers love to hate. The latest is a book from Illinois University Press called POOUND IN PURGATORY. It traces Pound's economic and political thought from his adoption of Social Credit about 1917 to the St. Elizabeth;s years. The account is based on unpublished--and mostly previously unread--correspondence. I think that En LIn Wei would modulate his position a good deal if he could find time to read that work--as so many of us have found time to read his pieces. Leon Surette English Dept. University of Western Ontario London, Ont. N6A 3K7