Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

NOTES
reductionist in its methodology and was fuelled primarily by politically motivated anti-communist sentiment. See Hannah
Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1951); C. J. Friedrich and Z. K. Brzezinski, Totalitarian
Dictatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956); John Wesley Young, Totalitarian Language:
Orwell's Newspeak and its Nazi and Communist Antecedents (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1991);
Vladimir Shlapentokh, A Normal Totalitarian Society: How The Soviet Union Functioned And How It Collapsed
(Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2001); Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panne, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej
Paczkowski and Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1999).
12. For critical commentary on the importance of stressing Comintern connection see David Mayfield, "What Is The Significant
Context Of Communism A Review Of The University Of Michigan Conference On International Communism, 14–
15 November 1986," Social History 13 (October 1988), 352. For comments on "new techniques" and the Comintern see
Bryan Palmer, "Communist History: Seeing It Whole. A Reply To Critics," American Communist History 2, no.2 (December,
2003): 209–211.
13. The Trotskyist critique centred on identifying the divergences between Leninism and Stalinism, contending that Trotskyism
represented the true traditions of Bolshevism. Trotskyists constructed their movement on identifying how this divergence
translated into the practices of the Comintern, corrupting the initial revolutionary role of Communist Parties, turning
them into appendages of Stalin's political will. See Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed. What Is The Soviet Union And
Where Is It Going (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1937). For a scholarly evaluation of the Trotskyist critique
of Stalinism see Robert H. McNeal, "Trotskyist Interpretations of Stalinism," in Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation,
ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1977), 30-52.
14. In a 1969 theoretical article, Eric Hobsbawm articulated that the major trends of communist historiography generally followed
an approach dominated by two schools of inquiry, "the sectarian and the witch-hunting;" an "industry" whose output
Hobsbawm considered to be "on the whole disappointing." As understood by Hobsbawm, the "sectarians" typically
represented former communists or Trotskyists whose primary motivation was to discredit party lines as inherently "incorrect"
due to their revision of Leninism. On the opposite spectrum, the "witch-hunters" discredit the sincerity of the populist
and democratic rhetoric of Western communist, refusing to believe that any tangible revision of Leninism occurred in
the evolution of the movement. What these two trends hold in common is that their inquiry is ultimately fuelled by political
motivations to ridicule and discredit communists. The witch-hunters, often disillusioned communists themselves, were
dominated by a commitment to showing the parties as "sinister, compulsive, potentially omnipresent bodies, half religion
and half plot, which could not be rationally explained because there was no sensible reason for wishing to overthrow the
pluralist-liberal society." Eric Hobsbawm, "Radicalism and Revolution in Britain" in Revolutionaries, ed. Eric Hobsbawm
(London: Abacus, 1973), 12. In a recent book review, Geoffrey Roberts has referenced these two schools as being dominated
by "Cold War psycho-babble;" the sectarians attempting to portray the slavish "Stalinist" mindset of the party
leadership, the witch-hunters attacking the perceived naivety or psychological dysfunctions of the rank-and-file. See
Geoffrey Roberts, "Review of Class or Nation: Communists, Imperialism and Two World Wars, by Neil Redfern," Communist
History Network Newsletter 18 (Autumn, 2005): 11.
15. The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace exerted an extremely influential role on the development of communist
historiography. While the archival collections established at the Hoover have been vital in tracing the historical
development of international communism, the Mission statement of the Hoover clearly exhibits a defined ideological
agenda stating, "This Institution supports the Constitution of the United States, its Bill of Rights and its method of representative
government. Both our social and economic systems are based on private enterprise from which springs initiative
and ingenuity.... Ours is a system where the Federal Government should undertake no governmental, social or economic
action, except where local government, or the people, cannot undertake it for themselves.... The overall mission of this Institution
is, from its records, to recall the voice of experience against the making of war, and by the study of these records
and their publication, to recall man's endeavors to make and preserve peace, and to sustain for America the safeguards of
the American way of life. This Institution is not, and must not be, a mere library. But with these purposes as its goal, the
Institution itself must constantly and dynamically point the road to peace, to personal freedom, and to the safeguards of the
American system." See, "Hoover Institution Mission Statement," in Hoover Institution: Stanford University Website
.
16. The distinctions in methodology and ideological outlooks between historians of the CPGB and the CPUSA were discussed
in great length with Kevin Morgan, Mike Waite and the archivists of the Working Class Movement Library in Salford and
the Labour History archives in Manchester during research conducted in January, 2005. The political culture of the British
Welfare State and experiences of social-democracy during the Cold War created a distinct intellectual outlook upon the
history of socialism in Britain. Another factor to consider in the British academy is the enduring intellectual legacy of the
Communist Party History Group that produced such eminent intellectual figures as Christopher Hill, EP Thompson, Eric
Hobsbawm and Perry Anderson. For a discussion of the influence of the Welfare State and socialism upon British national
identity see Joel Lewis, "Class Struggle and the Nation: A Historical and Statistical Study of Scottish National Identity"
(CHSBS Graduate Paper Submission, Central Michigan University, 2004). A critical discussion of the theory and legacies
of the CPGB Historians Group can be found in Joel Lewis, "The Communist Party Historians' Group: An Evaluation of
Theory and Historiographical Legacy" (Unpublished Article, Strathclyde University, 2002).
17. The Labour Party and the TUC leadership both shared a long history of denouncing and marginalising radical influences
within the ranks of the labour movement. Labour's overwhelming political goals became dominated by a PR agenda to
show Labour to be a party "Fit to Rule Britain," divorcing itself officially from radicalism and Bolshevism. Later events
like the J.R. Campbell Trial, the Zinoviev scandal, the General Strike of 1926 and the capitulation of MacDonald to form a
National Government in coalition with Tories fostered a further gulf between the "official Labour" movement and radicalism.
The "anti-communist" crusade of the Atlee Government therefore was not a break with earlier practices of Labour,
but was part of a larger historical continuity in Labour attempting to gain "public respectability." See Joel Lewis, "The
Ideology and Tactics of Revolution, Reform and Repression: The British Labour Party and Communist Party 1920-1924"
(MPhil diss., Strathclyde University, 2002)
18. George Moss has contended that Truman's domestic "loyalty program" of 1947 was inspired not just by domestic pressures,
but also by public interpretations of international events that overestimated the domestic strength of communism
through its association with the international communist movement. See George Moss, America in the Twentieth Century
(New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989), 266-270. The most damaging experiences that condemned the public perception of the
CPUSA came from the infamous Smith Act trial of 1949; a trial of the major leaders of the CPUSA intended specifically
to dismiss the political legitimacy of the party. To show the "monolithic and seditious" nature of the communist move-
151