Pickleloaf.com : Books : In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage


Books : In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage In association with Amazon.com Rating: - In Denial, In Denial covers a topic often ignored or down played by media and academia. Here the authors attack the premises, methods, and even question the use of ideology over facts by certain historians and professors. And the authors do name names. From a historical standpoint there is a great deal of information concerning the CPUSA (Communist Party United States of America); in particular, the authors show how the initially the Comintern ( "the Soviet agency that guided foreign Communist parties from 1919 to 1943") and later the KGB funded the CPUSA with millions of confiscated/stolen treasures form rich Russians. In return the CPUSA changed policy regarding issues like FDR, Poland, and the Russian takeover of Eastern European countries after WWII and who was allowed into or kicked out of the CPUSA was also determined by Russia. Huge quantities of information was sent by Communist sympathizers in the US to the USSR; for example, from 1926 to 1943 435,000 pages were sent to Moscow. Some of this information was very damaging to the US: military radar and aircraft design, atomic weapons, and proximity fuses, etc. Perhaps most disturbing was the active role the CPUSA played in spying for the USSR against their own country, America. A plethora of spies are listed, their US Communist contacts and many KGB contacts, and the arguments that revisionists try to use to mitigate, ignore, or even defend the actions of these traitors. These two authors use a variety of sources as a way of cross referencing facts: witnesses (whether KGB, confessing spies, etc), public records, US Investigations, Venona (espionage messages intercepted and latter decoded between USSR during WWII and more than 300 Americans, the majority of whom are Communist Party members), Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History in Moscow (which one author personally examined first hand), as well as other written sources and books. The authors use of sources is an incredible strength of this book, regardless ones personal belief regarding the former USSR or communism in the US. The author concludes that the aggressive prosecution of spies, like the Rosenbergs, President Truman's loyalty-security program that removed communist and communist sympathizers from government work, and labor unions and left-wing political parties dissociating themselves from communists led to such a backlash against communist that from the 1950s onward, Soviet espionage agencies no longer used the CPUSA "since it had become too risky." Instead of the ideology-driven betrayal of the US by Communist Party members or sympathizers of the 1930s and 1940s, resentment, blackmail, and money became the new motivators. As a result of the aforementioned actions by the US, espionage dropped of tremendously; however, in Canada, and Europe he asserts that this was not the case since the authorities did not aggressively prosecute domestic spying for the USSR. While the authors acknowledge McCarthyism's extremes, they in no wise excuse the betrayal of the US by American citizens, the majority of whom were Communist Party members or sympathizers. It is an interesting read since it is part of our history, and a part rarely spoken of without the McCarthy mantra drowning out any guilt by the guilty. One criticism is the author's assertion of the CPUSA as "profoundly antidemocratic in both theory and practice" (2). Yet this premise is mostly not mentioned except on page 63 when it is linked to subordination to Moscow. While the subordination to Moscow is readily demonstrated, the "antidemocratic" element is not spelled out. Rating: - Ridiculous Hype Considering the way that the authors harp so much on the fact of archives being released, they show an amazing ignorance of what the archives have actually revealed. We now have demographic analyses of the Soviet population in the 1930s that have been performed off of the heretofore unavaliable archives and they show a total of about 20.4 million deaths having occurred from all causes (old age included) in the years 1934-1939. Yet Haynes & Klehr repeat with a straight face the absurd claim manufactured for Cold War purposes by Robert Conquest that "more than 20 million" were somehow killed by the Soviet state within just 1937-1938 alone. This amounts to saying that old age is a Communist conspiracy. Although hundreds of thousands of executions occurred in these years, the "tens of millions" blather from the Cold War has fallen apart. What is especially deceitful about Kaynes & Klehr is that they pass on such nonsense in a tone which gives the inexperienced reader an impression that somehow the archives have proven Conquest to be correct, when the reality is just the reverse. Likewise the myth of the "artificial Ukrainian famine" has been quietly imploding under the weight of overwhelming archival evidence that a famine caused by natural disaster affected the whole of the Soviet Union and that collectivization subsequently improved the food production system. Mark Tauger is the leading expert on this topic at present and his work draws from the archives in the most detailed way, whereas the more famous books from the Cold War by Robert Conquest do not. These are facts which are slowly coming out based upon the most detailed archival records and if the knowledge of this hasn't spread widely yet then after a couple of generations have passed it will likely be close to common wisdom. But Haynes & Klehr do not want the reader to know what archives have revealed. An inexperienced reader picking this book up for the first time might get the impression that Archibald Getty is some crackpot divorced from the real documentary record and that Robert Conquest has been rigorously telling the history that is reflected in documents. The reality is exactly the reverse. It was also clear that the lead-off in the book sought to give the reader the impression that Deborah Lipstadt had somehow rigorously demonstrated a point in a tightly fought case. The reality is that the whole case was a game for the public. If revisionism about Lipstadt's alleged expertise is what interests you then you'd do better to skip David Irving and go straight to Carlo Mattogno. Mattogno is the leading expert on the types of questions which were allegedly at issue in the trial, not Irving. It's just another example of how this whole is made of misleading suggestions that are meant to steer the reader off of real evidence on anything. Rating: - The Cold War: A Warning Professor Haynes has alerted the reader to two points: (i) The cold war still continues in Amarican academia. In this war the Marxists are assisted by their liberal allies. Haynes uses term 'revisionist' to denote members of this Marxist-Liberal coalition. (ii)The revisionists attempt to deny communist espionage in America; when this is not possible they minimise it; when this second line of defence is untenable they defend commumist espionage. A particularly outrageous example of revisionism is provided by Ellen Schrecker. Rating: - An essential reference The major revisionists, fellow travelers and apologists for communism are well known but Haynes and Klehr cite so many others this is a handy book to have on hand when deciding whether to purchase other books. It has already saved me it's purchase price. Besides, it's an enjoyable read. Rating: - Like so many books... Not what I thought I thought this book would provide information (it does, but very little) about the lazy scholarship and outright denial that many leftist, particularly, in academia have about communism. The book ends up being a whole lot of name calling, and very little presenting of actual facts. I recognize the schizophrenic love affair the left has with communism and am always looking for more and more (as if it was needed) facts to show how evil and devestating communism is. Instead, this book belongs on the bookshelf next to Al Franken and Ann Coulter and more ideological shrieking. Don't waste your time, this book is so much fluff. I only gave this book two stars because, it rightly points out the state of denial someone must still be in to think communism is a good government system.