Apparently, the premise of the piece in New Politics,(on the Frances Stonor-Saunders book on the CIA and the CCCF) , the left socialist journal, did not/cannot sink in to certain brain cavities. Uncritical alignment with either Cold War Empire With All It's Requisite Means of Coercion and Consent exerted a powerfully baleful influence on the Broad Left from 1917 on. That Chomsky, himself, is anti-Leninist and had a youthful acquaintance with Oehlerite neo-Trotskyists, but, is unable to make his uncritical followers, do that neccessary work of housecleaning the barnyard of ideological kneejerkoffism is something, that as you can see, is more than annoying to someone who read, American Power and the new Mandarins, " by the Noamster back in 9th grade.
Remember the braying at the N.Y. Town Hall meeting, "Artists and Writers for Solidarity, " after Solidanosc was crushed by the tanks. When Susan Sontag said (sadly) that more truth about Soviet repression was in the (goddamn) Readers Digest, than in The Nation or The New Republic, of the 30's and 40's, was true. Have you ever done any research in the dusty corriders where back issues of left and liberal magazines gather dust and read the apologetics and worse for repression carried out by regimes and movements that claim to act in our name?
Ever read, "Couch Liberalism and the Guilty Past, " by Harold Rosenberg? It's a polemic against the lit critter, Leslie Fiedler's article in Commentary after the Hiss case. Progressives back then, just waking up, to the destruction of the radical and libertarian ideals of the original Russian Revolution drowned in rivers of blood by good 'ol Uncle Joe, made the same argument you are doing that. That they knew what was really going on but, "No enemies on the Left, "(even if the solidarity extended to the regime was misplaced since the fSU killed more Bolshevik militants and cadre than Hitler ever dreamed of) and that the Primary Contradiction was one's own Imperialist Ruling Class. (Which, I don't fuckin' deny. Jeesh. My radicalization was fueled by the Vietnam War and Reagans assault on Nicaragua, etc.) But, and I'll leave it at this, leftists that at this late date, cannot, even a s a grudging aside, on a list that is like a family quarrel, admit the obvious...Well... Michael Pugliese, Arrogant Son Of A Menshevik, Petty-Bourgeois Enemy Of The People, Vyshinsky Lives!