Malenkov, McCarthy and Mr. Thomas
RORTY, JAMES
WRITERS and WRITING Malenkov, McCarthy and Mr. Thomas The Test of Freedom. By Norman Thomas. Norton. 197 pp. $3.00. Reviewed by James Rorty Author of "His Master's Voice"; contributor to...
...Why, then, call McCarthyism and Communism twins, as Mr...
...indeed, there is very little principled difference between this writer and Mr...
...What Mr...
...It should be made required reading for both groups...
...What we should have done, in this reviewer's opinion, was to outlaw the Communist party back in 1936 or thereabouts, at the time of the Moscow Trials...
...contributor to "Commentary," "Commonweal" Among the earliest and most effective opponents of totalitarianism have been the democratic socialists, and none, on the record, has earned a better right to apply the test of freedom to current political tendencies and policies than the leader of the American Socialist party...
...The legal status of the Communist party is one of the specific problems to which Mr...
...His book will not be welcomed by either anti-anti-Communists or McCarthyites...
...And why equate McCarthyism--which has become an omnibus smear-amalgam applied both to the Senator's supporters and, by crypto-Communists, to the genuine anti-Communists whom they fear--with Communism, a disciplined totalitarian conspiracy operated by a foreign power...
...Thomas discusses the activities of the various Congressional investigating committees, gives well-earned credit to Robert Morris for the civilized procedure adopted by the McCarran-Jenner Committee, but concludes that by this time the investigation of Communism in the colleges may be doing more harm than good...
...Thomas does in his subtitle...
...Thomas in effect denies Communist conspirators the right to exploit our Bill of Rights and other freedoms in order to achieve the destruction of those freedoms...
...In his new book, Mr...
...At the tactical level, he argues that outlawing the party would give it the appeal of martyrdom and mystery, encourage it to infiltrate legitimate parties and form "front" parties, and discredit American democracy in England, which would consider such action "preposterous...
...As Mr...
...Thomas, would impair the basic American principle which accords all political groups the right to hold conventions, adopt platforms, and nominate and endorse candidates...
...But in dealing with it Mr...
...McCarthy is probably better rather than worse than much prejudiced or frightened and wholly unreflective public opinion...
...The McCarthyite threat to our freedoms is equally difficult to deal with...
...Thomas devotes detailed discussion in a chapter entitled "What Should We Have Done...
...They are shown by the National Opinion Research poll of May 1953, which showed that only 45 per cent believed that the Socialist party should be allowed to publish newspapers in this country...
...It is thus sharply differentiated from traditional American political parties, and all its present adherents are in some degree involved in its distinctive and essential character...
...Thomas and Corliss Lamont...
...The seriousness of these effects cannot be minimized...
...Thomas, seriously believe that if the Senator from Wisconsin by some unlikely chance should become President, he could institute here the apparatus of totalitarian dictatorship, including suppression of the opposition parties and press, a police terror, slave-labor camps, demonstration trials, and torture and execution without trial...
...Anti-anti-Communists will applaud this judgment, but they will find few other grains of comfort in a book as forthright and discriminating as it is tolerant...
...By this time, there is little principled difference among genuine libertarians...
...Thomas and other Socialists, has now become both principled and tactical...
...Thomas illuminates by his fairness and forth-rightness all the questions he discusses, even when one disagrees with him...
...To date, the chief effects of the Senator's demagogic crusade have been indirect...
...Inadvertently, Mr...
...seemingly, it would provide the party and its sympathizers with opportunities for obstruction and propaganda scarcely less than those it has exploited in connection with the prosecution of Communist leaders...
...Granting a good deal of merit to these considerations, it may be replied that some weight should also be given to the Communist party's view of the matter, which is that outlawry is to be fought, since it would handicap both the party's open propaganda and the conspiracy, which operates chiefly underground in any case...
...However, Mr...
...And does anyone doubt that, if the Communists should come to power, they would do all these things...
...Thomas points out: "Our jails are not filled with dissenters...
...McCarthyism," which the author defines as "sixth-column service to the Kremlin," is certainly such a problem...
...Outlawing the American CP, says Mr...
...The real test of freedom then appears with respect to specific problems...
...Thomas illustrates the difficulty of this problem when he quotes the statement approved last spring "almost unanimously" by the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union: "The ACLU holds that the American Communist party is distinctively and essentially characterized both by extreme anti-democratic doctrine and practice and by obedience to the Government of the Soviet Union, a despotic foreign power which dominates a worldwide revolutionary movement unprecedentedly threatening the national independence and individual civil liberties of all other countries...
...When he accepts, as he does, Sidney Hook's distinction between heresy and conspiracy, Mr...
...Granting that McCarthy is a wholly unscrupulous totalitarian-type demagogue and power-politician, does anyone, including Mr...
...Some of the most dangerous operations of the Communist conspiracy can scarcely be dealt with effectively either by legislation or by administrative measures like the Attorney General's list of Communist "front" organizations...
...The principled objection to this policy, expressed at that time by Mr...
...Characteristically, Mr...
...Such a law is easier to summarize than to write...
...The worst evil in America is local censorship by voluntary vigilantes in libraries and schools and the cowardice and apathy of the public before this censorship...
...He advocates its replacement by a comprehensive law on sedition which would proscribe the teaching of espionage and sabotage, the advocacy or formation of private, secret, or semi-secret military bodies (the party mobilized its para-military forces during the second Peekskill riot and presumably still has them), and the advocacy of specific acts of force and violence directed to the overthrow of the Government...
...Surely liberty is threatened more by Communism than by McCarthy...
...Thomas is certainly right in contending that the present McCarran Internal Security Act is unsatisfactory and ineffective...
...speech is still free to heretics who dare to claim their freedom...
...Thomas, in my opinion, gets off to a bad start with an inverted priority and a false antithesis...
...Thomas does not tell us--doubtless because it hadn't happened when the book went to press —is that this admirable if belated statement was subsequently voted upon and rejected by the boards of the ACLU's branches, with the result that, at this writing, the national board and the branches are still trying to reach agreement on a statement that will satisfy people as far apart as Mr...
Vol. 37 • March 1954 • No. 12
