Reds at the Top?
GOODMAN, WALTER
Fair Game BY WALTER GOODMAN Reds at the Top? Old battles never die, and some of them don't fade away either. Once again, the issue of liberals collaborating with Communists in causes of...
...In addition, everyone knows how easy it is to uncork the guilt juices that abound in every good liberal...
...Other organizations faced with a similar problem—the American Civil Liberties Union, sane, CIO unions—sometimes responded in ways that did not distinguish clearly enough between individuals and organizations, between members and policy makers...
...A few premises: First, the nuclear-freeze movement is not directed from the Kremlin, not inspired by the KGB, not under the control of Sovietphiles...
...It reminds them of bad times, of blacklists and boycotts, and they greet any effort to address the matter with cries of "Witchhunt...
...That is the measure by which the Administration will have to determine its response...
...So, let me try to make clear what I am not talking about...
...The peace that Communists offer is the peace of the boot, the prison, the grave...
...As for individual Communists, let them be spear-bearers if they wish, but not scriptwriters...
...They have won that distinction by diligent service to a brutal regime, and it may be taken as a tribute to their proven fidelity that liberals shun them most emphatically when the issues concern relations between the West and the Soviets...
...Their history is replete with switches of position that make sense only in terms of the strategies of the USSR...
...But Not Lead I am assuming that the goal of the freezemovementisnot.likesomeofthe antipolitical movements of the '60s, to provide a showcase for the glittering virtues of its exponents, but to draw large numbers of Americans into the battle...
...in this instance, the record amply supports the consensus...
...the specific issue has to do with the appropriate place, if there is one, for Communists and like-minded organizations within that campaign...
...Where doubt exists, I would give the benefit to the organization in question...
...A second consideration is that Communists have shown over and over, to the detriment of the Left's causes, that they are untrustworthy colleagues...
...But haven't Western Communists changed since the Khrushchev "revelations...
...Finally, decisively, America's Communists have long been apologists for despotism and for tyranny...
...Once again, the issue of liberals collaborating with Communists in causes of apparently mutual interest presents itself...
...Lastly, common experience and common sense combine to force one to the conclusion that the Communist Party, U.S.A., has no life apart from Moscow, and that organizations such as the World Peace Council and its affiliates exist mainly to perform the bidding of the Kremlin...
...If friends of the USSR wish to march for a nuclear freeze, that is their right...
...An organization like the World Peace Council, which has established itself as a servant of Soviet interests, seems to me to have as much place at the head of those truly dedicated to peace and freedom as members of the Ku Klux Klanhaveon the board of the NAACP...
...If its slogans denounce Washington in terms never used for Moscow, a habit of the World Peace Council, then the public will understand the message...
...hence the enduring popularity of popular fronts...
...begin, we should keep in mind that we are not talking about anyone's livelihood...
...The presence of Communists and fellow travelers among critics of the Administration can only hurt their cause...
...I am not talking about barring anybody from joining in any movement, or about establishing an ideological test for peace marchers, or undertaking elaborate inquiries into the life history of any individual...
...On matters of war and peace, civil liberties and civil rights, relations between capital and labor, their lodestone in all the countries of the West over many years has been the Soviet Motherland...
...These reasons for welcoming them do not seem to me compelling...
...When the cries of "Witchhunt...
...At stake here is the effectiveness of the drive for a ban on nuclear weapons...
...There is reason for their uneasiness...
...In some countries, where the party has a substantial following, there has been movement toward greater independence...
...Although it is no fault of the freeze movement that similar pressure cannot be applied to the Kremlin, that fact must temper its policies and tactics, including the policy of how to deal with Soviet-oriented organizations...
...The hope of the freeze movement is that it can show that the truly parochial group is in fact the one on the Right that resists any effort at arms control...
...To permit this bunch to help plan the strategy of an arms-control group is a lot more beneficial to them than to the group, like inviting the Mafia to figure out how to control drug traffic...
...If there are still liberals around who feel guilty about being rude to Communists and their acolytes, well, it's time they got over it...
...ambiguity cast a cloud over their actions that has never entirely been lifted...
...That the Soviets and their friends in the West will exert themselves to turn the movement to the advantage of the USSR goes without saying, but as much could be said, or left unsaid, about many virtuous endeavors...
...The fact that Communists were active in organizing industrial unions in the '30s was not sufficient reason to call off the organizing...
...Freeze them out...
...That sort of charge bespeaks wishful thinking on the part of Administration officials who would rather it all went away...
...Let them March...
...Moreover, the Communists generally prove to be energetic workers, with a particular knack, inbred in the ideological genes, for organizing...
...Screening processes of any sort are by nature distasteful to the liberal spirit, but all that is required here is barring the Communist Party and egregious fronts from participating in the councils of the organizations that lead the freeze movement...
...How can liberals not be anti-Communist as a matter of principle, and as a matter of practice, how can they not be suspicious—and in all cases, why shouldn't they be smart...
...and "Red-baiting...
...There is no more place in an American peace movement for anti-American unilateralism than there was on the ACLU board for those who refused to defend the civil liberties of Trotskyists...
...The peace movement in its several incarnations has often been prone to accept or even solicit Communists and their acolytes on the grounds that in so high an endeavor, there are no enemies on the Left, and in any case, it is inappropriate for the liberally inclined to set up bars to political participation...
...In America, where the party remains inconsequential, it is capable of nothing except in association with other groups on the Left...
...But it is no right of theirs to contaminate the larger movement and diminish its effectiveness...
...On the other hand, being a leader of a political body is not like being on the invitation list for a cocktail party...
...The cause this time is the campaign for a nuclear freeze...
...Most Americans do not much care for Communists and will find it particularly difficult to follow them on an issue that involves weighing American interests against Russian interests...
...Party functionaries and their kindred spirits may no longer receive the line direct from Moscow as they did in headier times, but they hang onto their jobs and their ideological briefs by knowing how to read the signs...
...While some on the Right wish to believe, or bring others to believe, that the nuclear-freeze movement is being worked on strings held by the Reds, some on the Left bridle at any suggestion of a political test for participation...
...the hounding of Communists has too many times been a source of pleasure for its own sake as well as for personal political advantage, and cruelties have ensued...
...Insofar as the movement remains the property of the parochial Left, it is no threat to Ronald Reagan...
...Second, the main value of the nuclear-freeze movement in this country lies less in the prospect of a freeze, superficially attractive as that may be, than in the pressure it puts on a foot-dragging, missile-happy Administration to approach arms-control negotiations in a more serious and forthcoming spirit...
...If the citizenry's perception of the bad faith of Communists were unfair, then the job would be to educate the citizenry...
Vol. 66 • March 1983 • No. 6
