Forget if I read this in, "When the Old Left was New, " by Robert Cohen, Oxford Univ. Press on the Young Communist League, the American Student Union and the Young People's Socialist League in the 30's or in harvey Klehr's history of the CPUSA in the 30's blurbed by both Hal and brother Theodore Draper...
When asked by an outsider in the late 30's if YCL'ers were a tad too serious an organizer said (paraphrase), "Oh we like to have fun like dances and movies like all the other kids. But, we also study dialectical materialism!"
"Pete Seeger gets me singing those songs...Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, I'm A Liberal!" Phil Ochs, R.I.P.
See an article in The Nation, "I Dreamed I Saw MTV Last Night, " from the early 80's dissing faux, kitsch Old Left kultur. Kulturbolshewismus is what Dwight MacDonald called it.
"Folk Music and the Left, " by R. serge Dennisoff and Robbie Lieberman's history of the Old Left and music from Univ. of Illinois Press. She also has a good book on the Old and New Left and the Peace Movement I saw the other day. Michael Pugliese, give me The Mekons or The Clash over Metallica anyday.