Theodore DraperReseñas

This was slow going for me. I prefer micro-histories, focusing more on the individual. This is a great summary of the forces leading to the revolution and in particular has lots of primary sources, letters diaries and pamphlets which give both an insight into the mindsets on both sides of the conflict and a flavor of the times.

1/20/23

I picked this up from the library for a buck at the same time that I got "In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: Transcript of Hearing before Personnel Security Board and Texts of Principal Documents and Letters". It was this latter bk that I was most interested in given that I think it's highly interesting that the technical director of the Manhattan Project (the development of nuclear weapons in the US) wd not long after be put under scrutiny for his communist sympathies.

SO, I got "The Roots of American Communism" to read so I cd have some background history before getting into the biz about Oppenheimer - & history in great detail I did get. One of the things that interested me about this bk was that it was written & published during the beginning of the decline of the McCarthy Era. The bk is ostensibly written from an anti-communist perspective &, according to a Wikipedia bio, Draper was a communist turned anti-communist, but Draper's acct is more of a thorough timeline in wch most of the communists are often presented as dedicated, energetic, well-meaning & intelligent people.

While the bk is, indeed, extremely thorough in its history of who was who, where these whos were, what their various names were, & when they did what they did I didn't actually find much in the bk about the actual philosophy, the actual political motivations of the people involved. As such, it sortof reminds me of my mom, a virulent anti-communist who, when I asked her what communism was when I was a kid in the early 1960s, was unable to give me even the simplest definition. She was a typical brainwashed suburbanite - a total victim of propaganda she didn't believe existed.

Draper obviously has a much deeper understanding but either such definitions were outside the purview of the bk or he was treading lightly b/c of McCarthyism or? Whatever the case, the bk is scholarly & cd've arguably been used to make a case that these communists were upstanding citizens trying to better the world. He clearly has an admiration for many of them - esp the self-made intellectuals (a type dear to me).

IB-3

The standard history of the American Communist movement. Draper is a skilled historian. The author helps elucidate complex sectarian struggles in the party. Even if one reads closely though, it can be difficult to keep the different factions straight.
This book also made me aware of the ideological crisis that occured in the Russian party when the revolution failed to materialize in Western Europe. A solid basis for an further reading about the American left. Recommended and not dry.

A short critique of American foreign policy from Cuba to Vietnam. Stage by stage, the writer proves that in Vietnam as in the past in Cuba and Dominica, America has increasingly relied on military power to salvage political defeat.

(from the cover) "The untold story of the formative years of the Communist Party in America."

Professor Harvey Klehr has chosen to discuss Theodore Draper’s American Communism and Soviet Russia, on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject - Communism in America, saying that:


"...This book set the parameters of the way that I and a lot of other people came to understand how the Communist Party had operated in America and it helped us to understand why it had failed so miserably...."



The full interview is available here: http://thebrowser.com/books/interviews/harvey-klehr