FACES AND PLACES: Historians in denial (06/06/04)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Historians in denial

Not too long ago I attended a scholarly presentation at Northern Illinois University during which a professor from an eastern university proudly proclaimed that he was a Marxist.

On campus to receive a scholarly recognition award, he was wearing a diamond stickpin in his tie, and later mentioned that he was looking forward to taking his wife to shop on Michigan Avenue, Chicago's gold coast of expensive and chic emporiums.

When it came time for questions, I was the first to raise my hand. "In view of the horrific loss of lives when Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Castro attempted to put Marxist theories into practice," I asked, "how can you defend Karl Marx." Out of the corner of my eye I noticed some of my professional colleagues shuffling in their seats, visibly embarrassed.

"What Stalin and the rest did was in no way a reflection of true Marxism," was the awardee's smiling response. Right. My professional colleagues breathed a sigh of relief and went on to praise his perspicacity.

Unfortunately, it is I and not the professor from the east who is the exception on many American college campuses where leftist views, leftist speakers and leftist texts seem to dominate the humanities, especially the history departments. The prevailing view seems to be that the abominable Marxist failures are not the result of a moronic ideology. It's simply that the wrong people were in charge in putting theory into practice. "True" Marxism has not been tried as yet; any criticism of Marxism, therefore, is either premature or malicious.

A recent publication, "In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage" by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr expose the hypocrisy of some of those historians who continue to delude themselves about the nefarious role of Communists played in American life. Messrs. Haynes and Klehr also authored "Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America" and "The Secret World of American Communism" (co-authored by Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov). In the latter two publications the authors present a wealth of documented evidence that indicted the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) as a willing and Kremlin-paid mediator and incubator of secret Soviet agents who worked in the White House of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

American academics during the 1950s, Messrs. Klehr and Haynes, argued that "the CPUSA was never an independent American political party but a creature given life and meaning by its umbilical ties to the Soviet Union."

"Hundreds of CPUSA members had infiltrated the American government and were passing information to the KGB," wrote Glenn Garvin in a Reasononline review of "In Denial" last April. Thanks to the Venona files, we now know for certain that American Communist agents "honeycombed the State Department and the Office of Strategic Services." Venona identified some 350 spies, almost all of whom were CPSU members. Earl Browder, CPSU chief from 1930 to 1945, personally recruited 18 of them.

Amazingly, despite this overwhelming evidence, the old, conspiratorial view of the CPUSA has recently been revised by American historians who now argue "that the American Communist movement was a normal, albeit radical, political participant in American democracy."

The bias begins with, and is tenaciously maintained by, the American Historical Review and the Journal of American History, two leading academic publications that essentially decide what is academically acceptable history and what is not. One would think that on controversial issues, academic journals would encourage scholarly debate, the airing of ideas in a free and open exchange. This has not happened, the authors of "In Denial" contend.

The last meaningful critique on the CPSU, Messrs. Klehr and Haynes inform us, was published in 1972. "In the more than 30 years since then, the Journal of American History has not published a single article that had a critical view of the CPUSA as a substantial theme. On the other hand, it has published no less than 22 articles portraying American communism and the CPUSA in a positive light or demonizing domestic anti-communism."

Although always skeptical regarding the CPUSA, Messrs. Klehr and Haynes were initially unprepared to believe the worse. In a 1992 book, "The American Communist Movement: Storming Heaven Itself," they concluded that "espionage was not a regular activity of the American CP ... To see the American Communist Party chiefly as an instrument of espionage or a sort of Fifth Column misjudges its main purpose."

"For conceding their mistake" in subsequent publications, writes Glenn Garvin, "Klehr and Haynes have undergone the intellectual equivalent of a Stalinist show trial by their fellow historians. A constant stream of articles in academic journals and lefty magazines - even an entire conference sponsored by New York University's International Center for Advanced Studies - has pilloried them for everything from 'triumphalism' to accepting funding from conservative foundations."

Responding, Messrs. Klehr and Haynes write: "In the vast literature dealing with fascist Germany and World War II, the assumption implicit or explicit in most scholarly work is that the Allied victory was a positive event and, decidedly, a righteous cause. We do not know of an example of reviewers in any major historical journal denouncing a book on World War II because it was written from a 'triumphalist' anti-Nazi or pro-allied perspective ... The Cold War should be no different." The West stood firm for forty years. "To millions of Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Georgians, Armenians, Ukrainians and other nationalities, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union meant liberation from Soviet imperialism."

Marxism and Communism continue to thrive on American campuses, where being identified as a Marxist is chic somehow, a sign that one is not part of the patriotically vulgar American lumpenproletariat. When it comes to history departments, conservatives need not apply.

We complain about the way the humanities are taught at universities in Ukraine. Historical research there is still circumscribed. The awarding of higher degrees still follows the Soviet system. With the Left setting the agenda on American campuses, is it all that much different here?

Myron Kuropas's new e-mail address is: [email protected].

| Home Page |