Advocate and Activist: MEMOIRS OF AN AMERICAN COMMUNIST LAWYER [Hardcover]

John Abt (Author), Michael Myerson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A fascinating and illuminating account of his legal career... He has also produced a charming, warm-hearted memoir." -- Peter Irons.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press; 1St Edition edition (August 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252020308
• ISBN-13: 978-0252020308
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,212,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memoirs of the Counsel for the Communist Party USA, July 9, 2010

By 

Sean Mulligan (Alpharetta, Georgia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Advocate and Activist: MEMOIRS OF AN AMERICAN COMMUNIST LAWYER (Hardcover)

Many people said that with his respectable family background and fine legal mind, that if Abt had retreated from his principles and became a dissilutioned former Communist liberal, he could have risen far in the federal judiciary, even to the Supreme Court. Instead he dedicated himself to being a labor lawyer and a lawyer for the Communist Party USA, when during the McCarthy Era even most liberals and civil libertarians were afraid to represent Communists.

Abt, discusses his upbringing and how he became politically conscious during the Great Depression. Abt was a part of a group of Communists who were Federal employees led by Harold Ware. Abt denies that the characterization of the group as a spy ring, noting that they didn't have the security classification system that they have today and that none of the AAA documents he had access to involved national security.

Abt tells of the many popular struggles he was involved in over the years, such as the Civil Rights Movement, Henry Wallaces 1948 Presidential Campaign and the Anti-War Movement. Abt, talks about the many fine people he knew in the CPUSA while commenting on the mistakes that the Communist Party made over the years.

9 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars 300 pages of nothing, November 2, 2000

By 

Stephen M. St Onge "Stephen M. St. Onge" (Mpls, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Advocate and Activist: MEMOIRS OF AN AMERICAN COMMUNIST LAWYER (Hardcover)

John Abt lived one of the more interesting lives of the twentieth century. As a secret member of the Communist Party and espionage agent, he could tell a whale of a story. As someone who watched the rise and fall of American and Soviet Communism, he might reflect on what happened, and why a movement that once looked so succesful fell apart. If nothing else, he might at least have told some interesting lies.

He doesn't.

Instead, he spends over three hundred pages carefully avoiding the main themes of his life: what he really did as a Communist, why he felt it necessary to conceal his membership in the Party, what it was like inside the Party, and what, if anything, he learned from it all.

The advanced student of communist propoganda will learn a few things, and those who know of Abt from Elizabeth Bentley's and Whittaker Chambers memoirs, the Venona decrypts, and other sources can glean a few interesting facts here and there, but mostly, Abt says nothing about himself, his life, his movement, or his century, and takes three hundred pages to avoid saying it.

A wasted life, and a waste of money. Don't buy it.

9 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Propaganda by an Espionage Agent, April 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Advocate and Activist: MEMOIRS OF AN AMERICAN COMMUNIST LAWYER (Hardcover)

John Abt's autobiography follows the distinctive pattern set over the years by similar Communist dissimulations in print. That is, his smooth lies are very much like those of Ring Lardner, Jr., Lillian Hellman, Alger Hiss, Dorothy Healey, Vladimir Posner, Armand Hammer, Emmanuel Fried, and a devil's host of others. Abt's life 'explained' is an exercise in 1) that which he does NOT explain, 2) attempts at outright Soviet Agitprop, and 3) a profound anti-Americanism. Abt was one of a rather large number of 'secret' party members. In his case, secret for 50 years (he 'came out' at his 80th birthday party). Truly a man who lived a lie all of his adult life. Along with "fellow travelers" ("Sputniki", from the Russian of Trotsky's political term), the Communist movement set out to destroy America by "any means possible". Then to deliver it to the Lenin-Stalin-Khrushchev-Bresznev regime - the largest mass murder machine in human history. (See: "The Black Book of Communism", elsewhere on Amazon.Com). Abt mumbles on about the "Marxist study group" he belonged to in the1930's, which included Alger Hiss and several other Soviet espionage agents. After the Whittaker Chambers defection affair, Abt, not himself a 'source', became eventually its head, turning the ring over to the NKVD (in '44), later called the "Perlo Group". The group's members, were denounced by Perlo's ex-wife, who named Abt as an espionage agent. (see the "Venona" transcripts elsewhere on Amazon.Com for Abt as a spy) Abt mentions many other communists and fellow travelers (carefully, sure that they had been already identified elsewhere) in this autobiography completed after his death in '91. All these should be of interest to anyone interested in friends of Stalin, from Pete Seeger to Studs Terkel. He is very obtuse about other friends, as is his co-author Michael Myerson about himself, a guy who writes for 'various publications', ' organizes political campaigns', 'teaches in NYC', had been "a National Director of a Peace Organization" (all unamed), ie., Myerson is a cypher. But Abt's agitprop work must be read with great care. Do keep in mind that the CPUSA (and Abt) was wholly controlled by the Soviet butchers from Moscow. Abt's legal career is a sort of ultimate dark lawyer joke. Published by the U. of Illinois (what could they have been thinking?). Minus 5 stars and therefore recommended for that very reason.