LETTERS
Editors: You invite the views of your readers on the HoweRadosh debate on the Spanish Civil War (Dissent, Winter 1987). My views can be briefly stated. Radosh has left Howe without a shred of...
...3. Radosh parades his militant anti-Stalinism, but he is in effect a defeatist...
...to bring themselves to support the military and intelligence capabilities that (neocons believe) are necessary to meet that threat"—[but which capability...
...In all these, cases, the Stalinists suffered humiliating defeats...
...May I say, however, that it is unfair to characterize the Nation primarily by the articles it has from time to time published on the Hiss and Rosenberg cases...
...Sadat...
...270 Editors...
...The Communists managed soon to transform the popular militia into a disciplined conscript army...
...Nine months later, the Stalin-Hitler pact was signed and WW II was on its way...
...Western Europe...
...It may, in fact, be the best and only way to maintain the organizational base needed for future large-scale recruitment drives involving unorganized workers exclusively...
...It's worth noting also that CWA's recent bargaining and strike activity at AT&T and regional telephone companies like NYNEX and Bell Atlantic was likewise strengthened as a result of a series of similar mergers involving seven formerly independent unions representing over 35,000 telephone workers...
...Creating and killing off such straw men is neither challenging nor educational...
...Such affiliations, involving "small unions in declining industries...
...But it is both mistaken and misleading to simply ignore the foreign policy genesis of the neocon critique and claim that they are just a bunch of stupid so-and-sos who think that (all...
...He thereby implies that his original essay similarly excluded criticism of "moral equivalence" to the extent that such charges concerned foreign policy...
...Why are the conservatives always "soft on fascism...
...What about Tito...
...Like many others of my generation, I was grievously (but perhaps, venially) wrong but, unlike Howe, I admit it...
...The Communists gained influence very fast once it became clear that the Western democracies would not help the Spanish Republic...
...Civil wars are not like poker games...
...most...
...As long as we are playing the game of "what if...
...And in Stephen Cohen, we have a student of the Soviet Union of great critical capacity...
...contras...
...Judicial manipulation and sheer frame-up are not, alas, confined to the Soviet bloc...
...Radosh's kibbitzer view of the matter would then have advised the anti-Stalinist fighters to give up since the Communists now had a major stronghold in the government and the military...
...One can certainly argue that the neocons are wrong in their analysis of leftist opposition to significant aspects of U.S...
...IRVING HOWE Replies: Even if the neocons could demonstrate that leftists (which...
...West Berlin • Letters must be kept to about 500 words, typed, double-spaced, and carry the full address and name of the sender...
...Attempted buy-offs of the leadership of potential merger partners is, in fact, a common strategy used by larger unions hungry for new dues-paying members...
...Though all of the above takes us far afield from Spain, it is an attempt to apply some lessons...
...Membership growth of this sort by a union like CWA is, of course, no substitute for organization of entirely unorganized workers at fiercely anti-union firms like MCI and others in the telecommunications industry...
...I can understand Howe's general irritation with the Nation...
...The UTW-CWA merger, therefore, had both an industrial logic—uniting the communications workers employed at Western in one union, the largest in the industry— and the immediate effect of facilitating more coordinated bargaining and contract enforcement activity within this financially troubled company...
...We support the struggle of the people against the counterrevolution and the Somocistas, but we keep at arm's length from the Sandinistas who monopolize state power...
...In rebutting an example I offered of what I saw as a tendency on his part to substitute invective for careful analysis in his "The Spirit of the Times" essay (Fall 1986), Howe asserts that "[n]eoconservative writers have not, to [his] knowledge, tried to develop in a sustained way their charge that liberals and leftists are guilty of 'moral equivalence...
...Yes, it was our cause and we lost it...
...How silly can one get...
...Beware of the "terrible simplifiers" of whom Jacob Burckhardt warned us long ago...
...I'm happy to report that a CWA-backed committee of rank-and-file members and local officers of the UTW organized significant grassroots opposition to merger offers from several other unions that seemed mainly interested in providing high-paid staff positions for incumbent UTW leaders...
...But there was no Russian army in Spain, and, moreover, the Russian penetration of the Republican military and governmental structures was made possible only by the Republican disillusionment with the Western democracies who refused to come to their aid...
...Radosh has left Howe without a shred of "logic" or "morality...
...you can't just throw your cards on the table and announce that you won't play anymore...
...Neoconservative analysts do sometimes charge that in terms of practical politics (and even occasionally in their public pronouncements) some leftists treat the foreign policies of Western democracies (and particularly the U.S...
...Stony Brook, N.Y...
...Let me give just a few examples: 1. In the beginning of the civil war, the Spanish Communist party was weak and negligible...
...Radosh considered "what if the Western democracies had poured material and financial aid into the Republic...
...Blair, they would not yet have offered sufficient evidence for the charge that the left believes in a "moral equivalence" theory...
...and the USSR...
...The Spanish CP gained power and influence only after the Russians began to send arms and military advisers to Spain...
...It is true that most contributors to the Nation think that the organization and ideology of American empire block (or make very difficult) a new reform project at home...
...This can, and often does, lead the critics to ask why such unwillingness exists...
...but does this then mean that we relax our opposition to Mr...
...272...
...The Stalinists exploited the weakness of the republic and would have had a very bad time with a strong republic...
...Some years ago it published a review of his memoirs striking in its ignorance, lack of generosity, and stupidity...
...We shall return to it in the summer...
...Cincinnati, Ohio Space does not permit us to publish more responses to the Spanish Civil War controversy in this issue...
...That is why they are of little help when it comes to analysis...
...Letters will not be returned to senders unless they are accompanied by stamped, self-addressed envelopes...
...and the USSR...
...a) don't understand the nature and extent of the Soviet threat, and/or (b) are unable...
...My own reading of 271 neoconservative publications suggests the opposite...
...but have chosen instead to "mutter this darkly...
...Editors: While generally agreeing with Bob Kuttner's sober assessment of the state of union organizing ("Will Unions Organize Again...
...as morally equivalent to those of the USSR...
...interests and core values from an expansionist Soviet threat...
...In that, however, are we not at one with most of Dissent's authors and editors...
...An analogy may be made with Nicaragua today...
...We supported the war against Franco, but reserved our political disagreements with the existing Republican governments...
...Stalin imposed "People's Democracies" in Eastern and Central Europe because he had the military power to do so...
...315 E. 86th St...
...We demand of our government to cease, and desist from its destabilization in Central America and its support of the contras but we also call for a more open society in Nicaragua, a sharing of power by the Sandinistas with other progressive groups within the trade union movement and the professional and small-scale entrepreneurial groups...
...Botha...
...Arlington, Mass...
...The attacks that I have read on the left's alleged belief in "moral equivalence" have been raised largely (if not exclusively) in the context of foreign policy...
...New York, N.Y...
...foreign policy...
...How would history have been different if the conservatives really believed in democracy and if the liberal belief was strong enough to not fade out when the authoritarianism of the right really "puts its foot down...
...Ideologists who paint only in black or white have no tolerance for the world's ambiguities...
...For it's possible to be guilty of both a and b as mentioned and yet not be guilty of "moral equivalence...
...and why they did not...
...To those of us who were coming of age in those years, the left socialist movement now had a fighting chance to thwart Fascism and Stalinism...
...It's easy to be a Sandinista/neo-Stalinist or a contra proReaganaut but it is hard to be a democratic socialist and, because we insist on that qualifying adjective, we have no easy way out...
...but how on earth would voices such as these have had an echo at that time and in that place...
...But the one specific target of such campaigns mentioned in the article—the 5,000-member United Telegraph Workers (UTW) at Western Union—did not succumb to them in the manner implied...
...dealing with Khomeini?]—even then, dear Mr...
...However, the Nation consistently publishes articles on unionism and the newer social movements, on local and regional politics, on the economy, which do constitute an effort to recast our ideas...
...The conduct of the prosecution, particularly in the Rosenberg case, was far from beyond reproach...
...I am not a soothsayer but I think that the chances of getting rid of the Stalinists if the Republicans had been successful were rather high...
...Perhaps I should add that although I am a member of the Nation's editorial board, this letter expresses only my opinion...
...That perception is accurate only if one arbitrarily excludes foreign policy—which Howe apparently goes on to do by explaining that the 1984 Oxford Union debate concerned only foreign policy, and not the relative morality of the domestic policies of the U.S...
...It's also possible, by the way, to believe that over-all the Soviet Union is the major threat/problem in the world, while right now the Reaganite policy on Star Wars, SALT II, etc., is a grave threat to hopes for peace...
...What I find confusing about Howe's rebuttal is that nowhere in the original essay is there any hint that the neoconservative charges were limited to domestic policy...
...What is it that Howe wrote so sensibly long ago about "useful idiots...
...But I have read no assertions that, as a group, liberals and leftists believe there is no moral difference between the domestic policies pursued in the U.S...
...He seems to argue that whenever and wherever the Stalinists have established a foothold they will prevail...
...has Mr...
...We reserve the right to edit letters down to fit our space and to choose which shall be printed...
...Editors: For a biography of Princess Catherine Dashkova (1743-1810), I would be grateful to hear from anyone who has relevant material other than the currentlyavailable biographies, memoirs, etc., in English, French, Russian, German, and Dutch...
...But, in a period when—as Bob's article points out—it is very difficult to recruit large numbers of new members in the high-tech end of the private sector, a merger and affiliation strategy aimed at union consolidation makes considerable sense...
...New York, N.Y...
...Indeed, Radosh's is the best statement of the case I have read anywhere (and an improvement on his original article in the New Criterion) and I am grateful to Dissent for publishing it...
...First, Bob quotes a "disgusted CWA organizer"me—on the subject of affiliation campaigns in which several different unions compete for the affections of a smaller AFL-CIO union or independent association by offering financial inducements to their top officers...
...Dissent, Winter 1987), I'd like to correct any misleading impressions his article may have created regarding union mergers in the telecommunications industry and other organizing activity involving the Communications Workers of America (CWA...
...Editors: Irving Howe's reply to the portion of my letter that was published in your Winter 1987 issue leaves me a bit puzzled...
...In view of the political importance of these cases, they are bound to be perpetual matters of controversy...
...2. Radosh is a master of misleading analogies...
...But even then large sectors of the front, especially in Catalonia, were held by anarchists and independent leftists...
...It is true that the Communists have established a foothold in the ranks of the South African liberation movement...
...10028 Editors: The Fall 1986 issue has arrived and with it, of course, Irving Howe's article, "The Spirit of the Times," with which on most points I am in strenuous agreement...
...add nothing to labor's strength as a whole," the article contends...
...The answer they generally arrive at is that many on the left (a) don't properly understand the nature and extent of the Soviet threat, and/or (b) are unable, because of ideological utopianism or a sense of guilt ("Vietnam syndrome"), to bring themselves to support the military and intelligence capabilities that (neocons believe) are necessary to meet that threat...
...Wheaton, Md...
...some...
...It is easy enough to decree fifty years later, and from New York to boot, that the anti-Stalinists should desert...
...He has just expressed himself strongly on the Vidal article...
...Why were the liberals so silent...
...Critics like Charles Krauthammer, Robert Tucker, and Owen Harries have indeed developed, "in a sustained way," their view that many liberals and leftists are unwilling to pursue foreign/national security policies that (from the neoconservative perspective) effectively protect U.S...
...Santa Cruz, California Editors: Ronald Radosh's ideological commitments seem to have overcome his analytical talents...
...UTW members voted instead to oust these officials and merge with CWA because it already represents the rest of Western Union's unionized work force...
...liberals and leftists believe "that Soviet totalitarianism and Western democracy are equally bad and repressive" in terms of domestic policy...
...The deepest hopes and highest aspirations of the people were represented somewhere on the Republican side, buried at times by many contradictions, but still there...
...Nor, in his reply, does Howe offer any reason why foreign policy should be excluded...
Vol. 34 • April 1987 • No. 2
