>And then the Red Purge came.... The Popular Front pushed the rhetoric
>of Americanism to the Left as far as it could go, but by doing so, it
>made stronger the very petard by which it got hoisted when political
>winds changed with the defeat of Axis powers and the beginning of the
>Cold War...Communists got labeled un-American and
>purged out of institutions such as industrial unions that they had
>worked hard to create.
The Communists got purged out of the labor movement because they lost their mass base and support, largely because they so slavishly following Stalin's pro-war line that they sided against rank-and-file activists during World War II and supported the no-strike pledge didactically. In the UAW, the Reutherites made their gains during the war by siding with rank-and-file activists for wage increases and against employer profiteering, while the Communists destroyed their credibility by siding with the employers on the issue of the no-strike pledge.
It was an epically mis-guided decision, where the Communists sacrificed their workplace credibility on behalf of the Soviet Union. Many workers saw in practice that their interests would be sacrificed by the Communists for the interests of the Soviet Union, so they had little problem believing anti-communist propaganda after the war. And since the Communists lost their base in the unions through their actions, they were easy to purge by rivals like the Reutherites.
>While you contrast the Old and New Lefts, they had at least one thing
>in common: both were unable to withstand the counter-offensive from
>the Right. In both cases the Left couldn't create a new hegemonic
>bloc on its own terms, though American leftists, old and new, made
>valuable contributions to struggles at home and abroad that we should
>not forget.
The New Left wasn't destroyed by the Right-- it collapsed of its own infighting. Sure COINTELPRO contributed, but the 70s and even the 80s was not McCarthyism. The Right were just smarter organizers.
>Leftists can help ordinary Americans make this
>crucial decision by telling them the truth. The decision, however,
>is for them to make. We ought to respect the intelligence of
>Americans, rather than treating them as if they were children or
>consumers to be brainwashed by clever marketing.
What "truth"? Many people around the world welcome the US empire-- this is not a country against country division, but a division that divides classes within countries around the world. And the truths involved are complicated and the issue is one of recognizing that the dog food being sold by the IAC-style antiwar folks is not the turth, but a bunch of twisted lies hiding really disgusting politics that the American people are smart enough to smell in a second.
That's why the antiwar movement has been failing so badly.
-- Nathan Newman