Voting Station

Freda Utley

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Advocate

The Resume

    (January 23, 1898-January 21, 1978)
    Born in London, United Kingdom
    Joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (1928)
    Married Russian economist Arcadi Berdichevsky (1928)
    Settled in Moscow (1930-36)
    Left the Soviet Union after her husband was arrested
    Wrote 'Lost Illusions' (1940), 'Last Chance in China' (1945), 'The High Cost of Vengence' (1948), 'The China Story' (1951) and 'Odyssey of a Liberal' (1970)

Why she might be annoying:

    She supported Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policies.
    She supported the isolationist America First Committee and wrote a Reader's Digest article calling for a negotiated peace between England and Nazi Germany.
    She claimed, 'There is no crime that the Nazis committed that we or our allies did not also commit ourselves.'
    She helped Joseph McCarthy compile lists of suspected Communists and sympathizers.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She served as a front-line war correspondent during the Sino-Japanese War (1938).
    After settling in the US, she wrote, 'My decision to leave the Old World for the New was the best I ever made.'
    During World War II, the Friends of the Soviet Union repeatedly tried to get her deported.
    Pearl Buck described 'Lost Illusions' as 'a strongly unassailable indictment of Russian Communism.'
    In 1956, she learned that her husband had died in 1938.
    Five decades later, her son learned that he had been executed for organizing a hunger strike in an Arctic prison camp.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 138 Votes: 67.39% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 6 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 90.91% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 8 Votes: 87.50% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 26 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 162 Votes: 65.43% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 13 Votes: 61.54% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 14 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 55 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 43 Votes: 72.09% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 28 Votes: 78.57% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 56 Votes: 69.64% Annoying