[Marxism] David Matters: Personal observations of China - June 2007

[Louis Proyect]

Walter Lippmann wrote:
> Many of the posters to Marxmail are hostile to China, 
> but few of them, it seems, actually go there and report 
> on what they see. 

What a provocative formulation. This is like saying that Trotsky was 
"hostile" to the USSR. The article itself is utter drivel, just what 
you'd expect from a party whose leaders had been trained in 
Stalin-worship. The journal that sponsored the conferenced is published 
by Erwin Marquit, a real horse's ass. About 12 years ago I wrote some 
brief comments on Harvey Klehr's "Secret World of American Communism", 
taking exception to the author's red-baiting proclivities. He asked me 
to expand on the article and submit it to his stupid journal. Apparently 
Marquit didn't like my taking note of the buddy-buddy relationship 
between the CPUSA and Roosevelt, which undermined his own thesis that 
the party was a dangerous subversive outfit. I didn't mind so much that 
he didn't want to print my article, it was that he didn't even take the 
trouble to email informing me of that decision. I don't know whether 
Marquit is still in the CPUSA or not but they deserve each other.

My review:

Harvey Klehr's "The Secret World of American Communism"

Harvey Klehr's "The Secret World of American Communism" dishes up old 
Russian documents proving that the CP assisted Soviet intelligence. The 
documents show that leaders of the CP met with Soviet agents while 
rank-and-file party members went underground as "moles". Typically the 
moles dropped formal CP membership while stealing military and 
diplomatic secrets after they took various civil service jobs.

The most evil of these CP members turned agents, according to Klehr, 
were the Rosenbergs who stole the "secret" of the A-bomb while employed 
in top-secret government projects. The Rosenbergs were typical in the 
author's view of many CP'ers who transformed themselves into spies at 
the party's beck-and-call.

Historians like Klehr and Theodore Draper represent the earlier 
generation of historians who try to depict the CP as a puppet of Moscow. 
Klehr is a reactionary while Draper is an anticommunist liberal. 
Historians such as Maurice Isserman, Mark Naison have a much more 
nuanced view of the CPUSA and pay close attention to the ability of the 
CP to lead grass-roots struggles. Moreover, they are Marxists, and this 
can only help their work as historians.

Klehr's subtextual agenda is to show that Isserman et al are dupes of 
international Communism. Klehr's trump card is the documents he and a 
Russian associate dug up from a Kremlin now all too willing to kiss 
Washington's feet. The documents paint a picture of deceit, espionage, 
and treachery.

Contrary to Klehr's witch-hunting, these documents paint an entirely 
different picture. Instead of showing that the CP was a puppet totally 
loyal to Moscow, to the point of setting up spy networks, the documents 
show a CP just as loyal to FDR and his New Deal as to the Kremlin. What 
they demonstrate is a CP that sought more than anything else to 
ingratiate itself with the liberal-minded wing of the bourgeoisie. They 
also reflect a certain, how should we put it, infatuation with the CP on 
the part of the Unites States military-industrial complex. Stalin loved 
Roosevelt and his love was requited. How touching all this was back in 
the glorious days of the Popular Front when good capitalists and their 
Communist allies were making the world safe for democracy.

Let's take a look at a few examples.

In Chapter six, an NKVD document reports on communications between Earl 
Browder, the head of the CPUSA, and Franklin Roosevelt. FDR 
congratulates Browder and the CPUSA for conducting its political line 
skillfully and helping US military efforts. Roosevelt is "particularly 
pleased" with the battle of New Jersey Communists against a left-wing 
Labor Party formation there. He was happy that the CPUSA had been able 
to unite various factions of the Democratic Party against the left-wing 
electoral opposition and render it ineffectual.

In Chapter 7, entitled "The American Communist Underground Fights World 
War II" we get clear evidence of an incestuous relationship between the 
CP and the American state apparatus. In Document 71, General Fitin of 
the NKVD reports on a meeting between Lincoln Brigade veteran Milton 
Wolff and William Donovan. Donovan, founder and head of the Office of 
Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner to the CIA. Wolff has offered the 
services of Spanish Civil war veterans to "diversionary" work in Axis 
territories. The document states, "In the recent period WOLFF has 
provided American intelligence with 10 Americans, 1 Greek, and 3 
Yugoslavs, who are [officially] considered on active duty in the army 
and undergoing training in special ("commando") groups. Apart from the 
party members indicated, WOLFF has provided 6 nonparty Hungarians and 4 
Czechs to American intelligence." (p. 261)

Wolff ended up in the US army, but was dissatisfied with his duties and 
requested reinstatement into the OSS. Top spy Donovan agreed and Wolff 
received a commission in 1943. He found himself working in Italy with a 
number of Lincoln Brigade veterans whom he had originally recruited for 
the OSS.

According to Klehr, the OSS initiated contact with the CPUSA. "Not only 
did Donovan approach Wolff, but he remained in contact with [Eugene] 
Dennis specifically because of Dennis's role as the CPUSA liaison with 
American intelligence." (p. 270) This is a most peculiar sort of 
subversive spy network that has an official liaison with this most 
secretive and strategic of American government institutions. I do not 
recall SDS'ers or Black Panthers maintaining such a liaison during the 
1960's. Klehr tries to explain away Donovan's cooperation with the CP as 
wartime "expediency."

The problem with this interpretation is that it does not place the CP's 
role in US history in the proper context. Klehr looks back at the 
"secret world" of American Communism opened up by Kremlin archives from 
the perspective of a cold warrior. However, the Cold War did not start 
until 1945. The role of the CP before the Cold War was certainly one of 
loyal servant to the Soviet Union, but it was also a willing servant to 
American liberalism. Anyone without an ideological ax to grind would 
tend to view the CP as a key pillar of the New Deal, not as a collection 
of moles burrowing away at government institutions. If they were half as 
subversive as Klehr claims, we might be living under world communism today.

The documents in Klehr's book do not paint the picture of a dedicated, 
revolutionary cadre trying to undermine bourgeois democracy. We see 
instead a left party with allegiances to the Soviet Union and to 
Washington. This was the essence of the Popular Front: Communism as 20th 
century Jeffersonian democracy.

Stalin, no doubt, would have preferred that this cozy relationship 
continue but Truman and Churchill jilted him and the rest is history. To 
really unravel this history, it would be necessary not only to gain 
access to Kremlin archives but CIA and FBI archives as well. Someday the 
same type of circumstances that allowed Klehr to gain access to Kremlin 
archives will allow us to gain access to our own closely guarded secret 
archives.