Red purge

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>At 01:34 PM 03/05/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>>  >The Red Purge has also had deleterious impacts on non-socialists as
>>>well, as you can obviously see in the attitudes of most LBO
>>>anarchists and non-socialists here.
>>
>>There's some truth to this, but there's also some bullshit to it too.
>>Any critique of the politics, organization, or rhetorical style of
>>the sects is dismissed by sympathizers as redbaiting. Sometimes it is
>>redbaiting, but sometimes it isn't. Many socialists (e.g. David
>>McReynolds) and many Marxists (e.g. me) have problems with our
>>vanguard parties. Anarchism, too, is a highly honorable radical
>>tradition, and it's offensive to see it treated as a species of
>>McCarthyism.
>
>Also, I seem to remember reading somewhere that what decimated the 
>CP in the U.S. was not McCarthyism as much as Krustchev's official 
>owning up to the reality of Stalinism in the SU.
>
>Joanna

All the Communist Parties in the world heard the same news, and I 
don't think that Khrushchev's criticism of Stalin at the 20th 
Congress in 1956 had a worse impact on the CPUSA than the CPs 
elsewhere.  The turning point in US political culture was not 1956 
but 1947 (e.g., the loyalty oath, 
<http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst203/documents/loyal.html>).
-- 
Yoshie

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