Review of Cecil Eby, Comrades and Commissars

Book Reviews his close friend for 35 years? Whatever Rehashing the Lies the reason, it’s a good example of why objectivity is so vital to any historian. Comrades and Commissars. The Lincoln falsehoods; on Ronald Radosh, whose • Eby charges Peter Carroll with Battalion in the Spanish Civil War. By Cecil commentary often flagrantly contra- “scholarly malpractice” (p. 427), citing Eby. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania dicts the very evidence he cites; on John Haynes’s and Harvey Klehr’s State University Press, 2007. Robert Gladnick, also a bitter anticom- claim that the US government never munist. These and, in fact, all accounts referred to ALB vets as “premature By Grover Furr beg for critical scrutiny. anti-Fascists” (New Criterion, 09.02). n page 356 of this book, Cecil Eby also cites as fact testimony But why doesn’t he tell his readers of Eby recommends one account from the Subversive Activities Control Carroll’s response (with Daniel Oof ALB Commander Robert Board, HUAC hearings, and Francoist Bertwell) in The Volunteer of December Merriman’s death as “the most objec- historians. Such sources—like all ’03, where a U.S. Congressman is tive.” It is the only time Eby shows any sources—cry out for critical assess- quoted using the phrase on January 2, concern with objectivity—the careful ment. They get none here. 1945? Because most readers will not evaluation of often contradictory evi- When it suits his purposes, Eby know about it? dence. Elsewhere Eby ignores the reports rumor and allegation as fact. • Eby cites Gerald Howson’s well-known canons of historian Apparently he did not find enough remark that Joseph Stalin referred to research. Absent a devotion to objec- such rumors, for in addition he lards the Comintern as a “shop of cheap tivity, any historian’s bias must his account with many cynical goods” (lavochka). But Howson cites overwhelm him, as Eby’s does here. remarks, sarcasm and “cheap shots.” no evidence for this assertion. This Much of the text is taken from Whole pages have no citations at tale has been traced to Soviet NKVD Eby’s 1969 book Between the Bullet all, so generally we don’t know where defector Walter Krivitsky (Paul and the Lie. Though the author Eby got his assertions of fact, let alone Flewers to H-RUSSIA July 20, 2000, has added much more material, how to assess their accuracy. This http://tinyurl.com/378267 ) whose the basic framework remains the leaves him free to select those that best book was heavily ghost-written by same. Unfortunately, so do the fit his own biases. Without objective professional anticommunist publicist errors of methodology and bias that criteria, that’s all that’s left. Isaac Don Levine (Gary Kern, A Death fatally marred the earlier work. Here are a few cases of outright in Washington). Evidently Stalin never Eby sets out to write an explicitly fraud: said it! But it makes the whole anticommunist work. He culls through • On pages 189-190 Eby states, internationalist effort, of which the many works, mainly memoir accounts, without citation, that Lincoln Battalion ALB was a part, look like a swindle. to select those that put the Soviets, the commander Oliver Law led his men If you don’t try to discover the International Brigades, and commu- into “ambushes.” This assertion is truth from the beginning, you are not nists generally in a negative light. made only by Herrick, who claimed going to stumble upon it by accident But memoir accounts conflict with one of Hy Stone’s brothers was killed along the way. Eby’s book will no one another. Furthermore, memories in one such ambush. This is impossi- doubt be employed as a fount of anti- are not like photographs. With the ble, since neither brother was with the communist propaganda. But it is passage of time they change, recreate Lincolns. worthless as history. What a pity— themselves. Often people come to Of course Eby knows this, for else- and what a waste! believe they witnessed and experi- where he cites the sources that enced things that never happened. document it. So why does he repeat Grover Furr is an associate professor of Eby relies heavily on the work of this falsehood? Out of loyalty to English at Montclair State University in New Jersey. William Herrick, whose book is full of Herrick, a fellow anticommunist and THE VOLUNTEER December 2007 19.

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