Page "Eric Hobsbawm" Paragraph 23

The 1930s aside, Hobsbawm was criticised for never relinquishing his Communist Party membership.

Whereas people like Arthur Koestler left the Party after seeing the friendly reception of Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in Moscow during the years of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ( 1939-1941 ), Hobsbawm stood firm even after the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, though he was against them both.

In his review of Hobsbawm's 2002 memoirs, Interesting Times, Niall Ferguson wrote: