Speak of the devil. I open up my mailbox , and here's a creepy little redbaiting offlist post from yo boy.
CB
^^^^^^^
CB:
He sends quite a bit of anti-c stuff to me offlist , too. He's a real redbaiter.
-----Original Message----- From: Michael Pugliese [mailto:michael098762001 at earthlink.net] Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 11:29 PM To: Justin Schwartz Cc: Charles Brown; Dennis Perrin Subject: Fwd: CPUSA members (Schwartz)
------- Forwarded message ------- From: "Robert W. Cherny" <cherny at sfsu.edu> To: H-HOAC at h-net.msu.edu Subject: CPUSA members (Schwartz) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 21:20:17 -0700
From: Stephen Schwartz <karastjepan at yahoo.com>
The thing that seems to be missed here is that we all have known for many decades what the CP members "believed in," and to hang an argument for nuance and even indulgence of them on that, as opposed to allegedly indicting them for what they did, does not hold up. Of course, if one intends by "what they believed in" reference to such abstractions as "progress," "equality," and "end to racism," etc., then CP members look very good. But these are vague and finally meaningless abstractions.
Much more important is the unchallengeable fact that CP members "believed in" the habitual strikebreaking by the AFL, the invention of the Ukrainian famine by Western journalists, the guilt of the Moscow Trial defendants, the activity of the POUM on behalf of Franco, the cowardice of the anarchists in the Spanish war, the decisive role of the International Brigades in the same war, the alliance of Trotsky with the Nazis and Japanese (and considering that Stalin didn't declare war on the Japanese until late 1945 one wonders why the Japanese or Trotsky would, suppositiously, have wasted their time), the treason of Tito, the espionage of the post-1945 Communist leaders in East Europe on behalf of the U.S. and Britain, South Korean responsibility for starting the Korean War (as we are reminded by Mr. Schonbrun), the Doctors' Plot, and the anti-Jewish character of the Hungarian Revolution. CPers with whom I was associated in 1968 claimed that the Soviet invasion of then-Czechoslovakia was necessary to prevent a West German invasion of the country. So what they "believed in" is as bad and sometimes worse than what they did; and nobody who doubted or criticized these fantastical beliefs was allowed to remain in the CP for long.
By and large the sources that remain unweighed are anti-Stalinist, not Stalinist or "cold war liberal" materials. For example: the Social Democratic corpus of literature associated with THE NEW LEADER; Italian anarchist material about the New York unions, material reflecting the legacy of Dubinsky and other Bundists; the whole body of Trotskyist material aside from the biographies of Cannon and Shachtman, etc. Examination of these "unexamined" sources adds to the historical verdict against the CP; it does not dilute it.
I was always told of the Rosenbergs, while in the CP milieu, that it was considered an honor for U.S. party members or supporters to be asked to commit acts of treason, espionage, and terrorism on behalf of the USSR and that nobody would have said no. By the way, where do we have a case of someone leaving the CP in protest after being approached in such a manner? I don't know of a single one. I do know of a lot who committed treason, a lot who served as spies, and a lot who assisted in the terrorist assassination of Trotsky, without a single one except Louis Budenz ever, thereafter, admitting their guilt.
Stephen Schwartz
-- Michael Pugliese