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Out of the Alcoves Out of the Alcoves How did America win the Cold War? An unusual new film recalls the important role played by a small and much maligned band of labor leaders, intellectuals, and political figures. by Seymour Martin Lipset ixty years ago, four young radicals all sketch of their extraordinary careers—Bell Sfound their way to the same tiny cor- and Glazer, for example, went on to do ner of New York’s City College. There, in important work as sociologists. Both are an alcove of the college cafeteria, they now retired from Harvard University. underwent a political and intellectual But Arguing the World is not only about transformation, emerging from bitter these four men. It is a contribution to the struggles with campus Communists as larger story of anti-Stalinism, the highly zealous anti-Stalinists and eventually as energized brand of anticommunism that leaders of the anti-Stalinist movement in played a major and not fully appreciated America. The four men and their move- role in undermining the Soviet Union. ment are the subject of an unusual docu- Thousands of anti-Stalinist ex-radicals like mentary film called Arguing the World, these four emerged almost everywhere which has been shown in scattered the- Marxist groups existed—in Johannesburg, aters around the country and is sched- Buenos Aires, Colombo, Brussels, War- uled to be aired nationally on PBS on saw, Mexico City, Toronto, London. All March 26. had become convinced that the Soviet The four went on from the alcoves to Communists had betrayed the Russian play prominent roles as writers, thinkers, Revolution, trampling the dream of a free and editors of politically important anti- and democratic socialism and creating Stalinist magazines: Daniel Bell, a social instead a brutally exploitive totalitarian democrat then and now; Nathan Glazer, a society, while at the same time undermin- radical Zionist then and a Democratic ing the struggle against fascism in pre- neoconservative now; Irving Kristol, a Hitler Germany and in the Spanish Civil Trotskyist then and a Republican neocon- War of 1936–39. Very often, their convic- servative now; and Irving Howe, a tions grew out of dismaying firsthand Trotskyist then and a moderate socialist at experiences. Returning to London in his death in 1993. After World War II, all 1945 from negotiations with Stalin and four wrote for influential anti-Stalinist Vyacheslav Molotov at Potsdam, British organs such as Partisan Review, the New foreign secretary Ernest Bevin, who had Leader, and Commentary. In 1953, Kristol had plenty of experiences with the helped create Encounter, a transatlantic Stalinists as the head of Britain’s anti-Stalinist journal based in Britain, and Transport and General Workers Union, Howe went on to found Dissent in 1954, was asked what the two Soviet leaders along with the late Michael Harrington were like. Just like the Communists, he (who deserves to be in the film, but did replied—by which he meant, of course, not go to City College). In 1965, Kristol the Communists in the Transport Workers and Bell launched the Public Interest Union and the Labor Party. (with Glazer later replacing Bell as coedi- The ex-radicals were bitter enemies of tor). This is only the barest thumbnail the Stalinists, and they made the downfall 84 WQ Winter 1999 A Communist leader of the 1930s rallies his followers for a march in New York City’s Union Square. of the Soviet Union and the destruction of anti-Stalinist socialist. I came to know the Communist Party their most impor- the four men in the film well, and tant goal. That was one of the qualities remained friends with three of them that distinguished them from other anti- afterward. communists. With a few notable excep- The alcoves were the heart of radical tions—such as senators Robert La politics at City College, a venue for a Follette, Jr.,* Henry “Scoop” Jackson, and steady stream of debate and invective Daniel Patrick Moynihan (another veter- between Stalinists and anti-Stalinists. an of City College)—they were not forces They were room-sized chambers in the in electoral politics. Rather, as the film college cafeteria with wooden benches makes clear, they battled the Stalinists, on three sides and an opening to the the Stalinists’ friends and fellow travelers, main eating area. In front of each alcove and the soft Left in the nation’s cultural was a large table, strong enough to hold and political institutions—in the intellec- the orators who frequently stood atop it to tual and academic worlds, in the trade harangue those who gathered. The unions, in the Democratic Party and other Stalinist or Communist alcove was political groups, and in the student move- known as the Kremlin, and the one next ments of the 1930s and ’60s. door, inhabited by a variety of anti- Stalinist radicals—Trotskyists, Socialists, et me return to the alcoves for a anarchists, socialist Zionists, members of Lmoment. I spent most of four years assorted splinter groups—was called in them, from 1939 to ’43, one year as a Mexico City in honor of Leon Trotsky’s Trotskyist and the rest as an unaffiliated exile home. Proximity, of course, led to shouting matches, even though the *La Follette, Wisconsin’s Progressive Party senator, Communists forbade their members to switched to the Republican line in 1946. Left-wing but converse with any Trotskyists, whom they anticommunist, he earned the enmity of the Congress of defined as fascist agents. My recollection Industrial Organizations, which worked to undermine his is that students, occasionally joined by candidacy. La Follette lost the Republican primary by a relatively small margin. The winner was Joseph some junior faculty, were there all day, McCarthy, who went on to a seat in the U.S. Senate. talking, reading, arguing, and eating. Out of the Alcoves 85 “Arguing the world” at a 1940 City College gathering. Standing on the right is Irving Kristol. In the world beyond the alcoves, most him was at Rosh Hashanah services at a of the anti-Stalinists were social democ- Conservative synagogue on the Upper rats, descendants of the Russian West Side of Manhattan. Fifty years had Mensheviks, but the Trotskyists had the passed, yet Irving was clearly unhappy to keenest understanding of the character have an erstwhile comrade catch him of Stalinism. Leon Trotsky, Soviet com- praying. missar of foreign affairs and head of the All Trotskyists had party names. I was Red Army under Lenin (1917–24), had Lewis. Horenstein became Howe. He clashed with Stalin after Lenin’s death, was the only one to keep his pseudonym. arguing for a somewhat less repressive Kristol was Ferry. As he mentions in the and more consistently revolutionary film, during most of his time at City he socialism, and was rewarded with exile in remained on the periphery of the Trot- 1929 and assassination 11 years later. skyists, among the close sympathizers, along with a good friend, Earl Raab. In or the anti-Stalinists, the alcoves theoretical discussions, James P. Fwere classrooms. The older and Cannon, the national leader of the more knowledgeable taught the newer Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, used to recruits. They gave lectures, answered speak of “the party periphery,” pronounc- questions, and explained passages in ing the last word as perry-ferry, so when Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky. The principal they finally joined, Raab became Perry form of recreation, other than talk, was and Kristol took the name Ferry. chess. Irving Howe was my first political After I joined the Trotskyist youth instructor among the City College movement in 1939, I recruited a good Trotskyists. Ironically, the last time I saw friend of mine, Peter Rossi, who later > Seymour Martin Lipset, a Wilson Center Senior Scholar, is a professor of public policy at George Mason Univer- sity and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is the author of many books, including most recently American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (1996) and Jews and the New American Scene (1995). Copyright © 1999 by Seymour Martin Lipset. 86 WQ Winter 1999 went on to become a leading sociologist. later became his country’s president), What party name did he pick? Rosen. summed up the anti-Stalinist position This largely Jewish group finally recruits when he said that the conservatives are an Italian American, and he wants to be our rivals, the Communists our enemy. known by a Jewish name. Irving Howe In the United States, the role of the took on the awkward task of telling Rossi anti-Stalinist radicals was particularly that it would be better if he used a non- important because few liberals were as Jewish pseudonym. vigorous in their rejection of Stalinism. Although the film doesn’t mention it, Many liberals up to the 1960s were some of those who hung around the opposed to dictatorship and communism alcoves were government agents. I found but wanted everyone left of center to out later that the authorities could work together. They were particularly become quite confused about political impressed by the strength of the Soviet matters. In the 1970s, when I needed a Union and its seeming opposition to fas- security clearance in order to serve on a cism (except, of course, during the years federal commission, I listed Irving of the Hitler-Stalin pact). They were Kristol as one of my long-time acquain- reluctant to believe that the Soviet tances, in part because he was the most Union was a repressive society. conservative person I had known for The Communists were never uncer- more than 20 years. A reference from tain about who their enemies were: they him, I thought, might speed the clear- always considered the Trotskyists, the ance.
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