25 Years of American Communism
Rogoff, Harry
25 Years of American Communism The Communists Have No Heroes By Harry Rogoff WE hsve had in America all types of progressive and radical movements from the extreme revolutionary to the mild...
...there ha* not been one tinyle action in which it excelled other movement...
...Will they dare to look again into their Arst declaration of principles, their Arst programs, on which their movement was grounded...
...some a stormy life and some a quiet one...
...It is not hard to recall the names of scores of famous writers, artists, union leaders, who were at one time followers or sympathizers of the Communist movement and who, nave subsequently shunned it like the plague...
...There has never been a movement with such long lists of "traitors" and "renegades," as the Communist...
...All have left it...
...All those who joined the movement had to know the Communist principles, morality and tactics...
...We can understand that better now than in those years because we know that if we had not sent aid to England in the Summer and Autumn of 19*0, England would then have had to surrender...
...Will they dare to remind their follower...
...In 192* occurred the great pogroms in Palestine...
...r I BELIEVE there has never been a radical movement which went in for intellectual efforts the way the Communists did...
...Salvation could come only from the pressure of public opinion in Europe and America...
...For those first ideas, principles, and morals, which were once so holy, are now tabooed...
...But we recognised tha fineness which was theirs...
...If you were to remind a present-day Communist of the first principles of the movement, itis first program of action, its first moral position, he would be thrown into confusion...
...EvERY radical movement has s centrsl idea, a basic concept...
...But they did everything they could to bring misfortune upon our Isnd...
...25 Years of American Communism The Communists Have No Heroes By Harry Rogoff WE hsve had in America all types of progressive and radical movements from the extreme revolutionary to the mild reformistic...
...They hailed the pogroms as part of their "revolutionary program...
...Will they dart to remember the names of the hundreds of prominent, persons who were ohce linked to them and who turnd away from them with anger and disgust...
...Has the Communist movement produced a great personality in the quarter-century of its existence...
...On every issue, he voted in the same way that the isolationist and America First Congressmen voted...
...They have destroyed from without ,and within...
...The 26 years' history of the American Communist movement consists of the facts, episodes and development...
...like the single-tax movement, to a Henry George...
...The poets who were linked to the movement produced works which were forgotten soon after they appeared and the "fellow-traveling" critics stopped praising them...
...At that time President Roosevelt formulated his New Deal program...
...jAt every anniversary celebration, one reviews the past of the organization...
...They put themselves completely on the side of the Arab pogremists...
...You will find the same in the histories of many other organizations snd institutions, on which the . Communists set to work...
...They did everything within their power to sabotage the New Deal...
...Will the Communists dare to do this at their anniversary...
...The heroic moments, the outstanding leaders or noble actions stand as monuments to the movements even , after they have left the scene...
...A whole library of books and articles could be put together from the writings of disillusioned Communists of the past 25 years...
...there » not one pereondlity in the movement who command* reipect and admiration...
...Also in this were the Communists an exception...
...against the menace of fascist aggression...
...I do not know of any other occasion in the history of the Jewish people when an organized Jewish mass movement greeted and encouraged organized pogroms upon their own brothers in another land...
...The Kreiheit, Jewish Communist newspaper, encouraged the pograsiists and printed articles and cartoons which until then had appeared only in anti-Semitic papers...
...The entire liberal, labor, and socialist movement waa then unified in mighty protests...
...They damned the New Deal as Fascism and they damned Roosevelt as a lackey of the Wall Street bankers...
...porters, splitting the ranks and inflicting deep wounds which were not to heal for • long time...
...We recognized it even as we fought them...
...the whole story •/ radical movement* there exut* ana exception te mil of tkeee...
...Had the New Deal failed America might have been misled onto the same terrible path of Fascism and reaction as many other countries in Europe...
...but their baiie idcae remained the same...
...So, for example, we recall with something of reverence the great moments in the history of anarchism— its Chicago martyrs, for example...
...We remember them with respect even though we are in principle opposed to them and though we once fought against them...
...But ask a follower of the movement today, the oldest or the youngest, what the movement stands for, and he would give an equivocal, evasiv* answer...
...openly of the shameful acts, the disruptions, the scandals they have been responsible for in the 25 years of their existence...
...So, too, we recall the memory of Daniel de Leon of the Socialist Labor Party...
...At its founding 26 years back it also had clear and definite ideas and principles, and a clear snd definite morality and tactic for practical work...
...And if they will not recall all these things, then « what will they dare to speak at their celebrations...
...The Arabs then prepared to destroy the entire Jewish community...
...This is not the case with the Communist movement...
...All these movements knew what they wanted and where they were going...
...and had we not built up our military power, we could never have stopped Hitler in his victorious inarch...
...Can it, like the Socialist movement, point to a Debs...
...This has not happened to any other radical movement...
...You will not And one of them on the lists of recognized literary works that are drawn up from time to time...
...They tried to block the military preparation of the U.S.A...
...in the most critical moment of its history...
...IhE 26 years during which the Communist movement has existed in our country hsve been the most itonuy and tragic in world history and above all in the history of the Jewish people...
...But more noteworthy and striking—and most damning to the Communist movement—is the fact that it had in and around its ranks tens, perhaps hundreds, of outstanding personalities', and all of them have left, disillusioned—many with a curse on their lips...
...Can it point out with pride a great thinker, writer, idealist, Aghter, who bears the stamp "Communist...
...recalled above, and of hundreds of others of the sam* sort...
...Many of these hsve had a short life, many a long one...
...We all know the basic ideas and principles of such movements as socialism, anarchism, the now-defunct single-tax movement, the present New Deal, etc...
...In Ik* whole 26 year* of if exutence there ia not one moment, one epiaode which arouses admiration...
...All liberal and progressive persons, and many conservatives, grasped at the New Deal, supported Roosevelt and did everything they could to bring the New Deal to realization...
...And now we come to the third and most terrible betrayal of the Communist movement...
...The dregs remain: the job-holders, the careerists, and plain nobodies who have no will and no understanding, nothing but blind obedience...
...There was only one exception—the Communists...
...Sometimes it is an episode of heroic battle, sometimes it is a noble step forward for justice, sometimes it ia a great leader or spokesman...
...1 mean, of course, the behavior of the Communist movement during the first two years of the war, when it combined with the isolationists, America Firsters, and other reactionary groups in their desperate battle to prevent America from sending help to England, standing alone against Hitler...
...We have had three such critical moments: in 1929, in the early thirties, and in the first years of the war...
...Their fellow-traveler, Marcantonio, who followed the Communist line, voted in Congress against every bill to aid England, against every proposal to strengthen and develop our own military forces...
...So we recall with respect the heroic leaders of the Internationa* Workers of the World, among whom William Haywood stands first We were always sharp opponents of these movements...
...In the early thirties America plummetled into the depths of the worst economic crisis in its history...
...Yet in the entire 25 years of its existence there has not been produced a single Communist work meriting serious consideration from earnest scholars in the Aeld of politics, economics, and social science...
...On the enactment of this program hung the hopes of the country and especially of the millions of unemployed...
...That is what the Communists hoped to accomplish bj their deeds in the first two years of the war...
...How did the Communists conduct themselves in the critical moments of these terrible years, in the movements when the fate of our people our country, and of all mankind hung in the balance...
...The movement has no other kind of history...
...Ia the history of each of these movements we And something fine and noble,, something which Ares the imagination...
...Anniversaries are celebrated in reality for the purpose of having an opportunity t» recall the achievements of the organization, to gland back over the history of the organization, to re-examine its philosophy and program, to evaluate defeats and triumphs...
...We shudder when we think of what could have happened if the Communist activities of those years had been successful...
...Fortunately, their efforts were in vain...
...Glance through the histories of unions and you will find that the most tragic chapters were written because of Communist interference and disruption...
...like the anarchist movement, to a Parsons...
...In the course of their existence many of them made changes in their methods of fighting, their tactics...
...When once they began to isfiltrate, to get the least influence within an organiigUaa demoralisation set in, driving away thousands otatp...
...The exception ia tha Communitt movement, which ia now celebrating it* 26th anniversary...
...Among these "renegades" are the most talented, honest, and idealistic of all those ever in its ranks, those of whom the movement was proud...
...As soon as the Communists appeared on the scene they began to make trouble...
Vol. 27 • November 1944 • No. 47
