Out of the Alcoves

How did America win the ? An unusual new film recalls the important role played by a small and much maligned band of labor leaders, , 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 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 . 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 and creating Stalinist magazines: , a social instead a brutally exploitive totalitarian democrat then and now; , a society, while at the same time undermin- radical Zionist then and a Democratic ing the struggle against 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 , 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 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 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 ’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 (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 at Stanford University. He is the author of many books, including most recently : A Double-Edged Sword (1996) and and 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 , 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. When an FBI agent came around Social Democrats, and the anti-Stalinist to discuss my file, however, my relation- trade union leaders and intellectuals ship with Kristol was his main concern. their main foes. Whenever they gained Was I aware, he asked, that Irving Kristol strength anywhere in the noncommunist had been active in the Social Problems world, they used it to try to dominate Club at City College? Not only was this organizations on the left, including, in a ridiculous error—the Social Problems the United States, the Democratic Party Club was a Communist front—but the and the labor movement. All of these agent apparently did not have a clue efforts spawned committed anti- about what Irving Kristol, the founder of Stalinists. Communist domination of the the neoconservative movement, had Washington State Democratic Party for a been up to politically since he left City time in the 1930s made Henry “Scoop” College. Jackson into an informed and active anti- Stalinist. (James Farley, one of President nly a short part of the film deals Franklin D. Roosevelt’s chief political Owith the alcoves. Most of it uses operatives, once said there were 47 states still pictures and interviews to chart the and the Soviet of Washington.) In political and intellectual careers of the Minnesota, where Governor Elmer four men. It is one of the very few docu- Benson followed every twist and turn of mentaries that has attempted to show the the Communist line, Hubert Humphrey, world of political intellectuals—how Evron and , and Max they are formed, how they change, and Kampelman, among others, were galva- how they affect political life and society nized into action. at large. The contest was particularly heated From the 1930s on, the anti-Stalinists inside the trade unions, since their tried to convince others on the left that shared Marxist background told both the the Soviet Union was the antithesis of Communists and the anti-Stalinist radi- everything that democratic socialism cals that the unions were the essential stood for, a much greater enemy of institutions. At the peak of their strength democracy than . Mario in the 1930s and ’40s, the Communists Soares, a Socialist who led the fight to controlled unions accounting for more stop the Communists from commandeer- than a third of the members of the ing Portugal’s 1974–75 revolution (and Congress of Industrial Organizations and

Out of the Alcoves 87 a significant segment of the American either lied about their membership in Federation of Labor. Out of the nasty the party or took the Fifth Amendment, battles fought within the trade union arguing that the conservatives were movement emerged anti-Stalinist leaders attacking them because they were liber- such as David Dubinsky, Walter als, trade unionists, blacks, or Jews. Very Reuther, Albert Shanker, George Meany, often the tactic worked. From the anti-Sta- linists who became con- servatives—including , Whitta- ker Chambers, and Irving Kristol—the Right gained a political education and, in some cases, an injec- tion of passion. The ex- radicals brought with them the knowledge that ideological movements must have journals and magazines to articulate their perspectives. In 1955, for example, Wil- Before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, Ronald liam F. Buckley, Jr., Reagan criticized Hollywood Communists but defended free speech. launched National Re- view at the urging of Willi Schlamm, a former and James Carey. After World War II, the German Communist. In its early years, anti-Stalinist unions played an important was largely written and role in the international arena, especial- edited by the Buckley family and a hand- ly through the labor-financed ful of former Communists, Trotskyists, Union Committee, a massive effort to and socialists, such as Burnham and support democratic trade unions in post- Chambers. It played a major role in cre- war Europe and other regions. ating the Goldwaterite and Reaganite and in stimulating an anti- he contribution to the anti-Stalinist Soviet foreign policy. Tstruggle by conservative and The most important convert to anti- Republican groups is more difficult to eval- Stalinism, of course, was , uate. Though obviously anticommunist, the a former trade union leader and near- conservatives lacked the firsthand knowl- radical liberal Democrat, whom the edge and passion of the anti-Stalinists. They Hollywood Stalinists initially regarded as were inclined to view the more numerous a close ally. After becoming president of and outspoken New Dealers and liberals as the Screen Actors Guild in 1947, he more important foes. quickly learned about the ways of the During the 1940s and ’50s, the con- Stalinists from battles within the union gressional investigations of Communist and the Hollywood community. When activities in the United States, chiefly the he reached the White House, he work of right-wing Republicans, handed appointed a large number of anti-Sta- the Stalinists a useful means of rallying linists—including Elliot Abrams, Carl support in the liberal and civil liberties Gershman, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Max Kam- communities. Unlike America’s real rad- pelman, and —to high icals, from the Wobblies to the black mil- positions on his foreign policy and itants of the 1960s, the Communists, as defense teams, despite their social demo- Dan Bell notes in the film, never defend- cratic commitments. ed their right to be Communists. They I believe that the vigor of Reagan’s for-

88 WQ Winter 1999 eign policy and of his opposition to the The New Left failed from the begin- evil empire was largely a product of his ning to understand the totalitarian anti-Stalinism rather than his conser- nature of Stalinism. Indeed, although its vatism. He pressed the military and ideo- leaders did not know it, the Free Speech logical struggle against communism Movement itself was a target of the Sta- much more intensely than his efforts to linists. As I learned at an off-the-record cut taxes, balance the budget, or enact meeting that a New York Times editor the right-wing social agenda. Most con- held with some faculty and administra- servatives and businesspeople were will- tors, the most powerful Communist trade ing to deal with Communists in order to union leader in the San Francisco Bay expand trade, as and area had proposed an unusual deal to the George Bush did (along with Democrats University of California regents. Com- Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton). Reagan munist students on the Berkeley campus and other anti-Stalinists were not. would put an end to the movement’s protest if the Regents would agree to he four intellectuals featured in expel Mario Savio and other activist TArguing the World, like other anti- leaders and modify Rule 17. The Stalinists, often went their own ways on Stalinists regarded the FSM leaders as questions of domestic and foreign policy. rivals and uncontrollable adventurers Kristol and Howe represent the two poles, and anarchists. with Kristol becoming a neoconservative Republican and Howe remaining very ow strong were the Stalinists in much a man of the Left. But the anti- HAmerica? Especially during the Stalinists were united in their opposition 1930s, but continuing into the ’50s and to the rising New Left in the 1960s. As ’60s, they were a major force in intellectu- Irving Howe makes clear in the film, the al life, in publishing, and in Hollywood. anti-Stalinists quickly recognized They dominated a large segment of the Stalinoid traits in the young radicals— labor movement, and they had influence their opposition to debate, to a university within the civil rights groups. Anti- open to all thought, to ideological plural- Stalinists who raised questions about the ism, and, in the end, to democracy itself. extent of this influence were charged with Nat Glazer and I were on the faculty of redbaiting and McCarthyism, but the the University of California at Berkeley in information now coming out of archives in 1964 when the radical attack on political the former Soviet Union and from U.S. pluralism—precursor of the more recent government files supports many of their insistence on political correctness— arguments. We now know, for example, began with the Berkeley Free Speech that Harry Bridges, the head of the Movement (FSM). Glazer and I tried to International Longshoremen’s and Ware- stem the movement, at one point address- housemen’s Association who gained fame ing hundreds of student activists from an as a leader of the 1934 general strike in San impromptu soapbox on the roof of a cap- Francisco, was not only a member of the tured police car in front of Sproul Hall, Communist Party of America but served the Berkeley administration building. We on its Central Committee. Alger Hiss, who argued that civil disobedience was war- famously insisted that he had been unjust- ranted in resisting manifest evils that ly accused of spying for Moscow, was could not be fought by democratic apparently identified in a coded Soviet means. But we said that the Berkeley evil intelligence cable as one of theirs. Copies was not of that magnitude. The issue in of the receipts sent to Moscow for the mil- Berkeley was never free speech, which lions in annual subsidies received by the was abundant, but a stupid university reg- Communist Party of America and of orders ulation, Rule 17, that required that pub- from Moscow to change the party line and lic political activities could only be con- leadership explode the Left’s cherished ducted in the context of a debate, with notion that the American Communists different sides represented. were an independent radical force.

Out of the Alcoves 89 The revelations from the archives are the ultimate struggle for freedom would a continuing source of astonishment, be between the Stalinists and the anti- especially to the many liberals who Stalinists. And, I’m glad to say, we won. remain in denial, refusing to acknowl- edge that the Communists were a real Epilogue force in the United States. But the anti- Stalinists are not surprised. Sometimes cannot resist adding a personal story. the fear of being denounced and ostra- IBefore entering City College in 1939, I cized as redbaiters, and of losing or attended Townsend Harris High School, being denied jobs, particularly in the then affiliated with the college, which intellectual and academic worlds, kept enabled bright students to get through in them from saying as much as they might three years. Like the college, Townsend har- have, but by persistently writing and bored large numbers of Communists, speaking out about the nature of Trotskyists, and Socialists, most of whom Stalinism and the Soviet Union they moved on to the alcoves. I was the leader of encouraged the majority of American the anti-Stalinists, having joined the Young Democrats and liberals to accept Ronald People’s Socialist League at 14. For much of Reagan’s efforts to break up the Soviet my stay at Harris, I argued almost daily Union. with a leader of the Young Communists. We Before Reagan, few of us expected to argued about everything: the Moscow trials, see the demise of Soviet Communism. I the , the Popular Front, think many feared that Whittaker Roosevelt and the New Deal, the role of the Chambers was right when he wrote that German Communists in aiding Hitler’s rise we were on the losing side of history. to power. After we graduated, the young Fortunately, Reagan knew better. He Communist went on to College understood that the empire was not only and eventually became a distinguished psy- evil but inefficient and ineffective, and chologist. that if pushed, it would collapse. So did Fifty years later, I attended the reunion others, including anti-Stalinist political of our Harris class. He was there, and I and labor leaders such as Moynihan and beckoned to him. When he came over, the Al Shanker, who knew from personal first words he said to me after half a cen- experience that the Communists could be tury were, “You were right.” Sometimes beaten. As novelist wrote, you win an argument.

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