The New York Times reports on the thrilling, spectacular, amazing, happy happy news that the Communist Party USA has donated its complete archives to New York University. What a treasure trove of glorious history here!
The cache contains decades of party history including founding documents, secret code words, stacks of personal letters, smuggled directives from Moscow, Lenin buttons, photographs and stern commands about how good party members should behave (no charity work, for instance, to distract them from their revolutionary duties).
By offering such an inside view, the archives have the potential to revise assumptions on both the left and the right about one of the most contentious subjects in American history, in addition to filling out the story of progressive politics, the labor movement and the civil rights struggles.
And so on. But if you are looking for even a hint of doubt about the glories of communism, you won’t find it here. No, not one word is here about the gulags, the millions dead, the civilizations destroyed, about the many decades of dictatorship and slavery, the bloodshed, war, suffering, and on and on. The NYT story reports on the communists as if it was a dance troupe or a charming, an intelligent civic organization, or a peaceful club of idealistic star gazers.
There is no reason to even conjure up what a similar story about the Nazis would read like. Let’s try a harder case: say, new archives from the files of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. Would a story about them be written without dark mutterings about their personal failings and about the revisionist history showing that they were oppressors who only wore the guise of liberators? I doubt it.
Not so for the communists. We are just supposed to join in the party to celebrate the fabulous acquisition by New York University, and only be aghast that the moderate (i.e. sellout) “progressives” tried to kick these wonderful people out of the left-wing movement. Can you imagine? And yet how charming, we read at the end, that an aging communist showed up to view some of the pictures. Ah, a link to the thrilling of days of yore!
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One of the most important events for libertarians was the great purge by CPUSA and its minions, successful by the end of the 1920′s, of the libertarian leadership and organizations within the left. Much of it is already detailed in the biographies of communist activistss from 1900 through the 1930′s. It would be invaluable to go back through the CPUSA archives (and I do hope that they are put online) for many of the specifics.
Just a thought.
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net
http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com
I am in disagreement with communism as much as the next guy. You, however, seem to be so passionate about your sentiment as to seem paranoid. Chill out. If you want to ramble, then you should visit Free Republic.
The gulags, the dictatorships, the repression, and the poverty were all the result of having capitalists control the rest of the world. Absent that, it would all work out just as we claim.
There were no crimes in the Soviet Union before Stalin?
As regards the approach here, I’ll go for the easy mental experiment. Imagine if the existing Nazi Party of the US (surely there is one) donated its archives to New York University…. What would a story on that read like?
A Communist,
Let us not forget the mass murder under Communist governments. How many tens of millions died under Lenin and especially Stalin, and how many more tens of millions died under Mao?
But I guess mass murder does not matter when The Cause reigns supreme. And I guess, at least in this case, the deaths of all those individuals does not matter to those at the NYT.
You know what book needs more attention? The Black Book of Communism. This is a chilling treatise.
Why on earth would the US Communist Party have info on gulags and purges and such? Have we had gulags here in America?? Or are we supposed to assume that Soviet Communists would forward such info to their American counterparts?
I second ChrisB. Stop beating your chest and calm down.
I… move to amend?? Lame blogging, guys.
Marxism/Communism is easily responsible for the deliberate death of at least 50 million human beings, and this fact should be embedded forever in the consciousness of every thinking person. This atrocity is unequaled in modern history, and as Jeffrey has pointed out, is typically glossed-over or ignored by the Left and its sympathizers.
And we have not even mentioned the great economic inefficiency, waste, low material standard of living, and fundamental irrationality that characterize Marxist/Communist forms of social organization.
We communists also have gained wisdom since last century. We too remember history’s atrocities.
Next time we will put better people in charge: ourselves.
Another Communist,
I’ll bite and pretend you really believe in the cause. You’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s not about the people or egalitarianism, it’s all about you having power. I’m sorry, but you’ll never have control over me,
Friend of Liberty
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