Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM
ment, government prosecutors opted not to focus on individual "criminal" acts to substantiate their case, but instead directed
their case against the language used by communists to show the treasonous nature of their movement. Prosecutors
quoted extensively from "classical texts" of Marxism-Leninism to expose the "true nature" of the CPUSA, dismissing any
historical arguments that the ideological and strategic outlook of the CPUSA had changed over its history. Contending
"what all communists do by suggesting what one of them once intended," prosecutors gave a selective presentation of evidence
to link the CPUSA with a language intended to promote violence and treason. Defense lawyers attempted to present
quotes centring on "peace" and "democracy" to offset this potentially damaging line of argument. The tactics of the defence
were predictable and the prosecution countered it by introducing the infamous and highly damaging "Aesopian language
thesis." Aesopian language is generally defined as a form of "communications that convey an innocent meaning to
outsiders but hold a concealed meaning to informed members of a conspiracy or underground movement." The introduction
of this line of argument, which was considered acceptable by the court, made any statements made by the defense
generally ineffective: "According to the Aesopian language thesis, communist language was hardly ever meant literally.
CPUSA communicated in codes of metaphors, synecdoches, and antitheses. If Dennis produced a text which claimed
"peace" as the communists' objective, it was to be read as intending "war." The trick was to catch the communistinfluenced
writer off his guard, saying what he really meant. Thus if a "classic text" happened to admit violence as a
means, it indeed meant violence; if in the text one found "nonviolence, " it too of course meant violence… From the moment
the judge allowed the Aesopian language thesis to stand as relevant evidence, nothing the communist defendants
could say about the very distant relationship between language and the world would constitute a convincing defense since
the court had allowed the tautological interpretation that subversive language was misleading." See Alan Filreis, "Words
With "All The Effects Of Force": Cold-War Interpretation," American Quarterly 39 (Summer, 1987), 307; Peter L.
Steinberg, The Great "Red Menace": United States Prosecution of American Communists, 1947-1952 (West port: Greenwood
Press, 1984).
19. Willie Thompson, The Good Old Cause: British Communism 1920-1991 (London: Pluto Press, 1992), 83.
20. See Henry Pelling, The British Communist Party: A Historical Profile (London: A. and C. Black, 1958).
21. The Communist Party Historians Group, an organization of some of the leading intellectuals in Britain, offered in 1956 to
produce an history for the party. The CPGB leadership, fearing the treatment that the group would give to some of the
more "embarrassing" moments of the party's history, declined the offer and opted instead to charge Klugman with the task.
See Jeremy Tranmer, "The End Of History The Historiography Of The British Communist Party And The Death Of
Communism," in Politique, Societe et Discours du Domaine Anglophone Website .
22. See James Klugmann, History of the Communist Party of Great Britain 1919-1924 (London: Lawrence and Wishart,
1969); James Klugmann, History of the Communist Party of Great Britain 1925-1926 (London: Lawrence and Wishart,
1969).
23. For an insightful review on Kendall's political and intellectual development see Tony Carew, "Walter Kendall (1926-
2003): Remarks by Tony Carew at the Memorial Meeting, Conway Hall, London, February 14, 2004," in The Global Labour
Institute Website .
24. See Walter Kendall, The Revolutionary Movement In Britain, 1900-21: The Origins Of British Communism (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969).
25. For comments on the "traditionalist" emphasis on policy and leadership see John McIlroy and Alan Campbell, ""Nina
Ponomareva’s Hats": The New Revisionism, the Communist International, and the Communist Party of Great Britain,
1920-1930," in The History Cooperative Online Archive .
26. Although he was a consultant for the Fund For the Republic project, Earl Browder, the former Chairman of the CPUSA,
commented on the "traditionalist" view of the series stating, "What I miss in Draper is the understanding that he is writing
about an organic part of American history, and not merely a study of the American section of the Communist International.
The two phases are intertwined and interacting, in real life, and are more and more contradictory – but in reading
Draper one becomes conscious of the contradiction not in the form of the Living Struggle between American reality and
Leninist dogmas, but as a great gap, an abyss, across which there was never any real contact and therefore never any real
struggle." Quoted in Maurice Issermann, Which Side Were You On The American Communist Party During the Second
World War (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1982), ix.
27. John Earl Haynes contends that the authors involved in this project were united by a shared interpretation of "Communism
as an antidemocratic political movement that sought to replace America’s system of democratic liberties with a tyrannical
regime and also regarded the CPUSA as subordinate to Soviet Communism." See John Earl Haynes, "An Essay on Historical
Writing on Domestic Communism and Anti-Communism," in John Earl Haynes Historical Writings Online Archive
.
28. See Theodore Draper, The Roots of American Communism (New York: Viking Press, 1957); Theodore Draper, American
Communism and Soviet Russia (New York: Viking Press, 1960). Theodore and his infamous younger brother Hal Draper
were both involved in radical youth politics during the thirties. Theodore Draper was a member of the Young Communist
League and an avid supported of the Popular Front. His younger brother Hal was a devout Trotskyist and member of the
Young People's Socialist League. Hal gained notoriety in 1938 as a pivotal figure in leading the YPSL out of the Socialist
Party, helping to found the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party. Theodore broke with the YCL in 1939 during the era of the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, continuing on to become an avid liberal critic of the communist movement. For a sample of
Theodore's YCL writings on the Popular Front see Theodore Draper, "If The Democracies Unite," Young Communist Review
3, no.6 (August, 1938): 12-13.
29. In the same passage, Draper commented that he had gotten his internal documents, that were usually marked "Read and
Destroy," from "a good fairy that works for historians." See Draper, American Communism, 5-6.
30. See William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States (New York: International Publishers, 1952).
31. Relations between Browder and Foster had been sour for a number of years, not just from severe ideological disagreements,
but stemming from a deep personal conflict concerning who ought to be leader of the CPUSA. In the early days of
Foster's conversion from syndicalism to Leninism, Browder acted as one of his chief assistants in the internal politic fights
of the CPUSA. Beginning in late 1924, Foster spent a majority of the next decade attempting to win the favor of the
Comintern to install himself as leader of the Party. This internal leadership struggle came to a climax in the middle of
1929 when Lovestone, flexing his muscles as Party leader with a large majority, attempted to lead an internal revolt
against the "Class Against Class" line of the Comintern. In the aftermath of a series of Moscow meetings, Browder came
into favor with the Comintern to become leader of the CPUSA, leaving Foster essentially isolated and bitter towards his
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