As for Charles Brown's post, it seems that Denby struck a very raw nerve. Brown accuses him of lying -- "sectarian prevarication." The people who wrote the book on falsification and rewriting of history shouldn't throw stones. _________ Let me add slandering me, if your implication is that I am one of "people who wrote the book on falsification and rewriting of history " . My political morality is of the highest order, so I am in the position to drop boulders if necessary let alone throw stones.I don't go by Jesus on this.
We have no evidence of your record of poitical activity . Who are you ? Why should we think that you can "throw stones" ?
The implication in the quotes from Denby that the racist, paternalist attitude toward Dubois and Robeson was typical in the CPUSA is lying, since you came out and said it. I would say the lie is more a prevarication or not exactly direct lying because he is motivated by his political differences with the CP. It is sectarian because it is between the different SECTIONS of the communist groups.
Andrew: Rather than engaging Denby's substantive points (which is rather reminiscent of the Howard Fast incident Denby recounted), Brown decides to throw up irrelevant smokescreens. _______
Charles: Let me, again, engage Denby's substantive points. He uses an alleged quote from one person, Fast, to try to make it seem that the typical and general attitude in the CPUSA toward Dubois and Robeson was paternalistic racism. I have evidence that contradicts this. That's not smoke. It is fire, and your shit is burning up. _________________
Andrew He conducts a few virtual popularity contests. He says that Angela Davis credited Black mass support for her freedom, which seems to, but doesn't, contradict Denby's statement that, *when she was freed*, she credited the CP. ________ Charles If you mean was the CP popular in the Black community in the period under discussion. yes. But you don't have enough political or logical sense to realize that the issue of what Black people think is important in this dispute. In fact, "Denby" , through you, is the one who makes what Black people think of the CP and vica versa the issue here.
Denby's quote on Angela Davis makes it seem like either she doesn't know that it was a mass movement that freed her or that she is wrong that the CP played an important role in organizing that mass movement. Angela Davis knew and knows more about what freed her than Denby did or you do.
One result of her freeding movement was the foundation of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, which struggles for 25 years plus to free other political prisoner, including Geronimo Pratt and Leaonard Peltier, and organzes against police violence, et al. It's executive director for most of that time was Charlene Mitchell, a CPUSA leader, and with Angela Davis. That's just some of the evidence of Angela Davis' consciousness about how freeing political prisoners works.
Andrew:
He engages in bureaucratic hairsplitting about whether Fast was an official Party spokesperson -- I don't remember him objecting when others on this list have judged the CP in terms of the deeds of its rank and file, instead of official policy and such, but I guess that's OK only if you're extolling it. (BTW, those who glorify the CP rank and file might reflect on Denby's eyewitness account of what a CP meeting was really like if you weren't part of the amen chorus. And there are myriad more marvelous stories, including a long legacy of violence against other leftists, but I guess that wasn't official Party policy.)
Charles: But I am not in the bureaucracy, so it is not a bureaucrat splitting hairs, but rather pertinent distinction to demonstrate you and Denby's lying (prevarication). That is, the basic point that the alleged comments by Fast, even if they were made are not typical of the Party's attitude, as a line or in the mass of members, about Dubois and Robeson
Andrew: I mentioned that Brown has not engaged Denby's substantive argument.
Charles: But that was a false statement by you.
Andrew: Here again are some of the points he made that have not been addressed:
(1) "When I talk to Negro Stalinists, I know and feel that it is the party first, second, and always. With this the question of Russia is always tied in. But it is never the Negroes first, no matter what they say." ----------------------- Charles:
What Denby feels in 1950 or so is not exactly a substantive point. But I did reply with actually living, Black autoworker's different feeling, and indicated I have spoken with many other older Black workers and people who would have been alive and adult at that time So, you are misrepresenting when you say I didn't address this squishy "substantive" point.
Andrew (2) "Why didn't one of the leading Communists or why didn't the CP as a whole support the March on Washington Negro mass movement?" (Anyone know the answer? How about you, Charles? You seem to be quite the expert on Party history.)
Charles: You are really funny. I am definitely more of an expert than you on Party history, but I don't know the specifics of that particular march on Washington and the CP. For the sake of argument , assume that the CP did not support that particular march. No it does not prove that Negro CP members put the Party first , second and whatever over the Negro people. No, it does not disprove the assertions that the CP was way ahead of other majority white organizations of the era on the issue of Black freedom and equaltiy and supported the mass movement. Briefly, the reason it does not, is the advanced positons that the CP took on so many other issues that were key expressions of the struggle for Negro freedom, such as the difference with the Socialist Party on dissolving the race question into the class question, the Scottsborough case, superseniority in industrial unions for Negros, the National Negro Labor Council, led by Coleman Young, a Black US Vice Presidential candidate in the 1930's, etc, etc.
And of course, Dubois and Robeson's judgements about the Party were a better indicator of the attitude of the mass Negro community than Denby's.
Andrew: (3) "how much control do Russian workers have of production? ... Who controls the factory committees? ... Does this control come from the workers on the line or from the Kremlin on down?"
Charles: The CPUSA portrayal of the level of Soviet workers' control of production was inaccurate for some periods certainly, though there may have been different levels of workers control at different periods. More generally the Party support of the SU over the many years, was too uncritical at times, though correct overall. The overall policy of defending the Soviet Union from imperialism, was correct.
Andrew, the Marxist-Humanist, (4) "the Party had betrayed the "Double V" movement (victory abroad and victory at home)"
Charles: Who organized the Double V movement ? Denby and his comrades ? Reuther ? Are you referring to the no strike pledge ?
Andrew: (5) Older Blacks "saw the CP crush the Hungarian workers' revolt, killing thousands and imprisoning many more."
Charles: "Older" Blacks , many of whom I know, are not that focussed on those events in Hungary. Of course, the CP there was not the CPUSA. This is not a SUBSTANTIVE point.
(6) Angela Davis "said she was a Marxist. ... [She] stated that she would work to free political prisoners all over the world." But "[w]hen she was freed and a citizen of Czechoslovakia tried to get her to sign a petition opposing the jailing of political prisoners in that country, she wouldn't even look at him."
Charles: I gave you a sample of her work fulfilling her promise on political prisoners, which seems to be more than Denby did. She probably didn't agree with that petition.
In general, socialism has a state. It retains a repressive apparatus for repressing the bourgeoisie and counterrevolution. (See_The State and Revolution_, by Lenin) So the existence of "political prisoners" in a socialist country is not per se a violation of socialist law or the expectations of communists. However, in the history of actual socialism the state power was abused. On Czechoslovkia, in particular, from what I know, some of those in revolt should not have been imprisoned but there were also bourgeois counterrevolutionaries and fascists . So, I'd have to see the petition and know more particulars.
Not signing that petition does not prevent Angela Davis from being a great freedom fighter and democrat.
Andrew (7) While the U.S. was "senselessly slaughter[ing] the Vietnamese people," President Nixon "was off to China, sipping tea with Mao Tse-Tung. He followed this up with a trip to Russia and champagne toasts with Brezhnev."
Charles: The connection with the CPUSA is too attenuated and I responded already. The Soviet support for Viet Nam was critical in its glorious victory over U.S. imperialism. Also, the wording of the above is another prevarication, a sort of warped way of lying.
Andrew: (8) When Angela Davis "was freed by a jury [she] gave credit to the Communist Party for freeing her."
Charles: This is repetitious.
Andrew (9) When he saw pictures of Davis "joining in" with ordinary Cuban workers, he was reminded of the Black woman who asked "After the revolution, when I put down my rifle, will I have a broom pushed into my hands?"
Charles: Innuendo, prevarication, false assumptions embedded , slanderous, racist , male supremacist, imperialist , pessimistic fantasizing by Denby which suggests more about his political ,"Hegelian" confusion, than Angela Davis and the Cuban Revolution's good works in the real world. This particular Denby fantasy has no substantive criticism of Angela Davis or the CPUSA. It isn't even substantive in form. It is openly a musing. It is fancy. He sees a picture of Angela Davis and is reminded of "Black Woman". What kind of whimsical shit is that ?
Charles Brown
Detroit