FIRST-RATE HISTORY

...One eminent newspaper turned the book's publication into a news story, and the account had so many overtones of having discovered something sinister that George Ken-nan was moved to write a public letter to the editor...

...But then, still in its infancy, the American Communist Party was transformed from an authentic expression of American radicalism into "the American appendage of a Russian revolutionary power...

...It was enormously stimulated by the Russian Revolution because, to use the famous and deeply influential phrase of Lincoln Steffens, the revolution seemed to promise a future that would work...

...And, in the ultimate thrust of provoc-ativeness, the volume suggests that American Communism in its early stage may well have been tied to an ancient and honorable American tradition of dissent...

...Draper's subject is the history of the American Communist movement—its origins in the "historic Left," the founding of the Party in 1919, and the activities of the Party until 1923 when it was reorganized by Moscow...

...Yet for the most part, the reception of the book provides another indication that the United States, even if it is still in a stage of genteel McCarthyism, is over the worst...

...He is doggedly objective—so much so, as a matter of fact, that too often the pages have too little of Draper, bringing his informed judgment to bear...

...As I write this, the publisher, Viking Press, has felt it necessary to issue a statement that the book is a regular commercial volume and that the Fund has purchased only a limited number of copies...

...Future publications will continue the history of the Communist Party and treat the influence of the movement in specific areas of the national life...

...Reviewed by Eric F. Goldman ONE OF THE advantages of reviewing a book for a monthly like The Progressive, where the review cannot appear on the official day of publication, is that the reviewer has a chance to consider not only the book but some of the reactions to it...

...It is sponsored by the Fund for the Republic, which has long since been deemed in some quarters to be only several million dollars different from the Daily Worker...

...If this volume is a foretaste of the books to come, they are certain to prove a distinguished contribution to the American's understanding of his criss-crossed, gullible, and gloriously questing past...

...Most of the reviews have calmly recognized the book for what it is—a genuine piece of history about a subject of genuine importance...

...American Communism, Draper points out, found roots in the persistent idealism of a segment of the American public...

...His research has been thorough and resourceful...

...He shows the understanding which can come from a one-time member of the movement without lapsing into the higher holiness that can mark ex-Commu-nists...

...Some of the reactions to the book have followed the most dismal precedent...

...At the end, the book, cool and rigorous as it is, has developed a motif of high tragedy...

...It treats card-carrying Communists as if they were actually human beings...

...The Roots of American Communism is the first in a series of volumes sponsored by the Fund for the Republic and under the astute, clearheaded editorship of Professor Clinton Rossiter of Cornell...

...Here and there commentators have hinted at dark conspiracy between Draper and the Fund...

...He never forgets that history is the history of human beings and his clear, vigorous writing is frequently made the more readable by vignettes of the principal actors...

...This is especially true in the case of The Roots of American Communism, for the volume has all kinds of qualities certain to stir up feeling...

...The book is written by an ex-Com-munist...

...Draper develops this theme with such a wealth of knowledge that it will have to stand for reasonable men unless and until someone can muster an equally persuasive pattern of facts that prove otherwise...