[Marxism] Book Ann: Red Chicago

[mlause at cinci.rr.com]

---- Seth Wigderson <sethw at MAINE.EDU> wrote: 
> From: Michael D. Roux <mroux at uiuc.edu>
> 
> Red Chicago: American Communism at Its Grassroots, 1928-35 Author: Randi
> Storch 
> 
> Red Chicago is a social history of American Communism set within the
> context of Chicago's neighborhoods, industries, and radical traditions.
> Using local Party records, oral histories, union records, Party
> newspapers, and government documents, Randi Storch fills the gap between
> Leninist principles and the day-to-day activities of Chicago's
> rank-and-file Communists. Storch reveals the realities of street-level
> American Communist experience during the worst years of the Depression,
> when Chicago's Communist Party experienced its first substantial growth
> in membership, when its members developed lasting structures in their
> neighborhoods and factories, and when tens of thousands turned out for
> Communist rallies.
> 
> Uncovering rich new evidence from Moscow's former Party archive, Storch
> argues that although the American Communist Party was an international
> organization strongly influenced by the Soviet Union, at the city level
> it was a more vibrant and flexible organization responsive to local
> needs and concerns. Thus, while working for a better welfare system,
> fairer unions, and racial equality, Chicago's Communists created a
> movement that at times departed from international Party leaders'
> intentions. By focusing on the experience of Chicago's Communists, who
> included a large ethnic, working-class, and African American population,
> this study reexamines Party members' actions as an integral part of the
> communities where they lived and the industries in which they worked. 
> 
> Randi Storch is an associate professor of history at the State
> University of New York College at Cortland.
> 
> Cloth: 978-0-252-03206-6 $35.00 Pages: 320 pages  Dimensions: 6.125 x
> 9.25 in.   Illustrations: 14 photographs, 4 Line Drawings, 2 Maps/Graphs
> 
> Michael D. Roux 
> Publicity Manager University of Illinois Press 
> 1325 S. Oak St., Champaign, IL  61820 
> PH: 217-244-4689 
> FX: 217-244-8082 
> mroux at uiuc.edu 
> http://www.press.uillinois.edu