Being Red CL

by Howard Fast

Book Overview

This edition brings the story of 20th-century Southern politics up to the present day and the virtual triumph of Southern Republicanism. It considers the changes in party politics, leadership, civil... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0395551307
• ISBN13: 9780395551301
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 370 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

AN AMERICAN COMMUNIST CADRE TELLS THE TALE OF THE RED SCARE

I have always been intrigued by the American Communist Party's ability up until the period of the "red scare" of the late 1940's and the 1950's to draw to and recruit a relatively large number of free-lance intellectuals and cultural workers. Whether the party could keep them over the long haul is a separate question. However, if one was to draw up a Who's Who of those members of the American intelligentsia who passed through the party's orbit during the first half of the 20th century one would find numbers far greater than would be indicated by the party's actual influence in American politics. The novelist Howard Fast in his memoir of his decade long membership in the American Communist Party is highly representative of that trend. Or, at least of the trend that could rationally explain their experience without either foaming at the mouth or running to the nearest government law enforcement agency. The tale Mr. Fast has to tell is informative and, except for the utter poverty of his childhood and the early loss of his mother, not atypical of the urban children of immigrants in general and New York Jewish youth in particular who came of age between World War I and II and joined the party. The key events that drove many into the party's orbit were the Depression, the rise of Nazism in Europe and the hope that Soviet Union could provide a model for a socialist future. Those events also drove many youth into the Social Democratic and Trotskyist movements as well. What is interesting about Mr. Fast's story is that he joined the party at the tail end of the Communist Part's Popular Front period. That period was exemplified by then Party Chairman Earl Browder's declaration that "Communism is 20th century Americanism" and he and those recruited during the period really believed that this was the road to socialism. Unfortunately for them, Browder and those recruits got caught between the hammer of the American end of Cold War strategy and the Soviet's "left" turn which for a long period effectively ended the harmonious relationships provided during the Popular Front period. Mr. Fast is somewhat exceptional in that rather than leaving during the "red scare" he dug in his heels, stuck it out and did his duty as he saw it. The curious thing about this honorable position is that from what this reviewer was able to read between the lines of his book Mr. Fast was much closer to a Social Democratic or pacifist view than a Communist view during this period. But, such are the vagaries of the human personality. As Mr. Fast unfolds his story he has many antidotes to relate concerning background to events such as the last part of World War II, the "red scare" as seen down at the local level, the beginning of the Cold War, the start of the Korean War, and the execution of the Rosenburgs. Some of this information I knew previously but much is new and interesting. One should be glad that an old ex-Stalinist decided to write about his experiences. Maybe future g