James G. Ryan

Earl Browder : the failure of American communism

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Earl Browder, the preeminent 20th-century Communist party leader in the United States, steered the CPUSA through the critical years of the Great Depression and World War II. A Kansas native and veteran of numerous radical movements, he was peculiarly fitted by circumstance and temperament to head the cause during its heyday.Serving as a bridge between American Communism s secret and public worlds, Browder did more than anyone to attempt to explain the Soviet Union s shifting policies to the American people in a way that would serve the interests of the CPUSA. A proud and loyal follower of Joseph Stalin, Browder nevertheless sought to move the party into the U.S. political mainstream. He used his knowledge of domestic politics to persuade the Communist International to modify Popular Front (1935-1939) tactics for the United States.Despite his rise in the hierarchy, he possessed an independent streak that ultimately proved his undoing. Imprisonment as he neared age 50 left permanent psychological damage. After being released with the approval of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Browder lost his perspective and began entertaining delusions of grandeur about his status in American politics and in the world Communist movement. Still, he could never quite bring legitimacy to the CPUSA because he lacked the vision and moral courage to separate himself totally from the Soviet Union. Ryan concludes that Browder was not so much insincere as deluded. His failure contributed to the demise of the popularity of the Communist party in the United States.In preparation for this book, the author consulted the Browder Papers at Syracuse University and U.S. Government documents, particularly the F.B.I. files. In addition, he traveled to Russia for research in the Soviet Archives when recently opened to Western scholars, including the records of the former Communist International and a collection of American Communist party files, 1919-1944, shipped secretly to Moscow long ago. Indeed, until 1992, the existence of the CPUSA collection was only rumored.

The Memphis Riots of 1866: Terror in a Black Community During Reconstruction

On May 1, 1866 Memphis, Tennessee a street brawl erupted between several Irish policemen and a group of blacks recently discharged from the United States Army. The conflict quickly escalated into a full-scale battle between the police department and virtually all Negroes wearing Union blue in the downtown area. A detachment of federal troops from nearby Fort Pickering, occupying Mermphis since the end of the Civil War, intervened to halt the violence within five hours. Most of the black veterans then retreated to the safety of the Fort, just outside the city. With the fall of darkness, peace seemed secured and the soldiers returned to their barracks. But soon thereafter a large white mob descended upon the citys Negro community and rampaged unchecked for the entire night and the following day. By the time martial law was declared and order firmly reestablished on the afternoon of May 3, 46 blacks and 2 whites lay dead. Seventy-five other persons had received bullet wounds. Moreover, during the forty-hour span of anarchy, predatory gangs had raped at least 5 Negro women, robbed over 100 victims and dealt severe beatings to 10 others. Property destroyed included the houses of 91 families, (89 belonging to blacks, 1 owned by a white man and 1 of an interracial couple), 4 churches, and 12 schools. A contemporary estimate placed the damage at over

The Superterranean World of British Communist Historiography

100,000.1 Although the bloodshed prompted a Congressional investigation, and although most historians agree that the Norths reaction to these and other atrocities helped the Radical Republicans sweep the Congressional elections later that year, no study of the Memphis Riots exists.2 Furthermore, only two essays having relevance to the subject have appeared. Written by the same author, one speculates upon the underlying causes of the violence; the other discusses its political results.3 Moreover, these historical accounts have several serious shortcomings. Neither describes what happened in the black community during these three fateful days in May. The former relies heavily upon the Memphis Daily Avalanche, quoting it thirty-three times in thirty pages. The study neglects to mention, however, that the newspapers editor was one of the white rioters. Two years later the Avalanche would welcome the Ku Klux Klan to the river city.4 Not surprisingly, the articles author places much of the blame for the riot on the presence of Negro

The Bureau, the Church, and the Party

Professors McIlroy and Campbell have penned a clearly written, lively account of British Communist Party historiography, most informative to one who studies the CPUSA. They acknowledge major differences, specifically the CPGB’s lack of language federations, relative freedom from sustained factionalism, and totally legal status. The essay nevertheless lays out a literary terrain familiar to Americans. Historians of the Party take their work seriously. They express their views forcefully. They employ compelling argumentation. Revisionists and traditionalists battle each other (albeit with a bit less acrimony). McIlroy and Campbell make it clear that recent, single-volume, scholarly general histories of the British Party (Good Old Cause by Willie Thompson; Laybourn and Murphy’s Under the Red Flag; and Eaden and Renton’s Communist Party) have made ‘‘surprisingly’’ little use of East Bloc archives. That all three neglect such a trove strikes a stateside reader as positively astounding. Clearly, a major opportunity exists for a graduate student or young writer seeking a historiographical name for him or herself. McIlroy and Campbell’s account alludes to Trotskyists; perhaps they might have discussed Trotskyism’s general omission from the scholarly literature on most Communist parties. A central aspect of ‘‘A Peripheral Vision’’ is the authors’ correction of errors made by previous historians, and insistence that assertions reflect the evidence—not merely acknowledge its existence. As such, their work reminds one of In Denial, the powerful indictment of shoddy scholarship by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr. What McIlroy and Campbell do in their article is an essential, if not always pleasant, aspect of our craft. Those they criticize will likely have responses to make. Hopefully, in the end however, all will be held to a higher standard. As Brigitte Studer, Berthold Unfried, and Bryan D. Palmer did earlier, McIlroy and Campbell identify Stalinism, or the Stalinist way of life, as an

Historical dictionary of the 1940s

Steve Rosswurm’s study of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s interactions with the Roman Catholic Church details how two previously distant institutions began to cooperate actively in mid-twentieth century in America. They did so for their own separate reasons, and to resist the modernism that seemed to threaten them both. In the process, Catholicism emerged from its previous ghetto-like isolation, losing much of its traditional social gospel agenda. Rosswurm details how the Church facilitated its acceptance into mainstream life by vigorously embracing the visceral anti-Communism that later came to define the Cold War era. At various points throughout the book Rosswurm, a practicing Catholic, asserts that anti-Communism was not the only—nor even the most significant mutual concern: