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