Customer Reviews

Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left

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Ronald Radosh was born to proud communist parents. He attended red elementary and high schools (whose curriculum could match any modern-day college campus) and even spent his childhood summers at socialist camp. His life story reads like the perfect description to yield a grown-up replication of Hillary Clinton or Bella Abzug. But something went right along the way.

From a very young age, he embodied a devotion to the truth (or at least, like his parents, what he honestly believed was valid), and this veracity eventually lead him astray (or home depending upon one's point of view.) Ironically, the term "fellow travelers" has become cliche in communist circles, and Mr. Radosh uses it generously throughout this work, but he, the ex-communist, is the one who "traveled" away from a dead-end philosophy, while the so-called "travelers" continued to ram into brick walls, getting nowhere at all.

The drive to satisfy his inquisitive nature lead to many disappointments with communist ideals, but three incidents seemed to cement his conversion from the failed mindset. Along with a select ruck of fellow travelers he was invited to spend a month in Cuba--an offer he joyously accepted. However, touring the island prison, he painfully learned that the Cuban reality was a far cry from communist lure. Despite communism's promise of complete equality, he encountered a nation where the ruling class lived like kings while the working class lived in hopeless squalor and dissenters and eccentrics were subject to arbitrary institutionalization, torture, and execution. Touring a mental hospital where innocent dissidents routinely underwent lobotomies tore Mr. Radosh's heart. However, his reaction was not shared by Castro's other American toadies; one of whom dismissed the author's concerns with the seriously spoken statement, "We have to understand that there are differences between capitalist lobotomies and socialist lobotomies."

A second transmogrifying occurrence, that pays loud testimony to Mr. Radosh's integrity, was his undertaking the writing of what would become the definitive biography of the Rosenbergs. As a teenager, he had protested the spy couple's execution, fully convinced that they were innocent scapegoats murdered by a tyrannical government who had framed them for a false crime. He knew the Rosenberg sons, and in his circle Julius and Ethel were icons of unsurpassed stature. Upon the government's release of all documentation regarding the espionage case, Mr. Radosh determined to provide the martyred Rosenbergs posthumous exoneration. He was cataclysmically dismayed when the evidence conclusively proved that they were indeed guilty as charged. Many people with such strongly held convictions would have abandoned the project rather than publish a book that thoroughly refuted them. It speaks volumes about his character that he concluded his work despite having to change the thesis 180 degrees. Yet this inspiring honesty was not seen admirably by much of the left. "The Rosenberg Files" author earned widespread ostracization by his leftist peers, even many of those who agreed with its verisimilitude. Too many felt that the myth of the Rosenberg image should maintain its luster to sustain the cause--regardless of what the facts proved.

The third and final disillusioning upheaval he experienced happened during Nicaragua's Civil War. Like all good leftists, he supported the Sandinista regime, and all like all good truth-seekers, he wanted to comprehensively investigate the issues involved. Embarking on a hegira to the Sandinista camps during the war, he was shocked by abundant human rights abuses in stark contrast to all the agitprop about the regime's liberation. Mingling with a veritable who's who of leftism, he humorously relates his meetings with Bianca Jagger. The internationally renowned airhead seemed especially defensive of one particularly brutal Sandinista general. The origin of her support soon became obvious, as he regularly arrived at the motel late at night and disappeared into her suite until the wee hours of the morning. Appalling many of his fellow traveling ideologues, by agreeing to venture someplace they would never go--The Contras' Camps, he was again rattled to see humanitarianism and a thrust for democracy and fairness. Publicly siding with the freedom-fighting contras once again earned him the wrath of his fellow travelers, but this time he moved on leaving them all behind.

Ironically, it was the aimless fellow travelers who have repeatedly sacrificed their ideals to maintain allegiance to a cause whose bankruptcy constantly reveals itself. Ronald Radosh was the one who remained true to his principles--human rights, equality, fairness, and openness. He may have the liked platitudinous rhythms of socialism, but like anyone secure in his beliefs felt that further investigation is always beneficial. Although he bravely confesses that his misguided actions were extremely negative, he is correct in acknowledging that now "the capacity for harm is diminished because so many stood solidly behind America while we tried to bring it down. The country is stronger for having encountered and withstood us." Interestingly, while Mr. Radosh eventually found a rich sense of inner peace and self-respect, his adherence to ideals--rather than ideology--stands as a bold example that all of us, fellow travelers as well as those who never boarded, should emulate.

Ronald Radosh is a first-rate historian who has travelled a well-worn political path from the Marxist left to the heterogeneous coalition devoted to the defence of liberal democratic values and processes. There are some fine autobiographical accounts of that journey - which many of us have also taken - extant, most notably the 1950s collection The God That Failed; Radosh's book is a valuable and often moving modern example of this literature.

The early chapters of the book evoke a distant world of Communist youth camps and Jewish radicalism. The author's insights into the nature of the Communists' exploitation of these movements (for example, protesting against the supposed anti-Semitic 'frame-up' of the atomic espionage agents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, while being silent over the ferocious anti-Semitic pogroms practised by the Soviet Union) make scandalous reading, while his account of the naivete of the 1960s counter-culture draws out the rather pathetic nihilism of that movement. But the story really gets going when Radosh depicts his gradual disillusionment with 'the Movement' from the early 1970s, dating from a trip he made to the prison-state of Cuba and continuing through his seminal research demonstrating the guilt of the Rosenbergs. His conclusion at the end of the book - articulating the premise of those who subscribe to Madisonian principles of deliberative democracy and thus who know that democratic politics can have no pre-defined 'end-state' - about the relative merits of western societies relative to the tyrannies that Marxism has always and everywhere established is so true, and so apt an epitaph on the bloody course of much 20th century history, as to be poignant.

There are minor quibbles to be had with the book. Radosh pays generous tribute to his editor, but there was no need: the book is peppered with mistakes that, while not serious, are certainly irritating and ought to have been picked up. (On more than one occasion the book spells 'minuscule' wrong; the notorious 1950s game-show cheat portrayed on film by Ralph Fiennes was Charles, not Mark, van Doren.) Overall, though, this is an excellent read.

Radosh is one of those former lefties who, like the prolific David Horowitz, had "second thoughts" about his communist upbringing and the political certainty it inculcated. He is loathed by academics and radical theorists to whom he is a turncoat of the worst order. But for a recovering victim of academic indoctrination this was a revelatory book, one of the best among many. This one names names, all the ones still assigned by professors of history, political science, women's studies, etc. in our major institutions of higher learning. They write their history with a Marxist bias so the US is always guilty, always criminally wrong; they care not about facts but about race, class, and gender. Thirty years of this has successfully fractured America's once proud melting pot. Intolerance has replaced the tolerance for which the country was meant to stand. Radosh gives the reader a view of the old, new, and leftover left from the inside early in the game. It's often very funny but, in the end, a sad commentary on the intellectuall quality of people who we all know as academic stars and political pundits. The key to his main theme is the chapter on the Rosesnbergs; many old lefties knew they were guilty but chose to stick to the lie for the "good of the party." This is the stuff of comtemporary politics--the truth has long been undervalued, deconstructed to the point of being inconsequential.

This book is a must-read for all those who wonder "how did we get this way?" in terms of the college campus re-education centers; the biased media; politics. Dr. Radosh has done for the American public what David Horowitz did in "Radical Son." He shows the up-bringing, indoctrination and activities of those in the Leftist/CPUSA Movement (whoops--they like to be called progressives) in the 60's-70's-80's and today. Radosh has done it in a shorter and very readable book. And, a book, like Horowitzs', which names names and is based on first-hand experiences. This makes it really dangerous to the Left--and to those who have bought into the Left's cant, without ever questioning it. Watch for the angry screeds to come from certain reviewers and publications. Radosh shows what the intellectual journey from hard-core Leftist to Conservative is like--and, the price that he and Horowitz, both stars of the Left in the 60's, paid. In Radosh's case, he was in the Movement longer that Horowitz, but his ephiphany was equally disturbing and sudden. His came about when he set out to write a book purporting to show the Roseberg's innocence--and, found out they were guilty! Of course, to write such a book and break with the parrty line cost him his star status and a host of "friends." He went through bad times, personally and professionally--as did Horowitz. But, he perservered and he stayed the course. Again, this is a MUST-READ for any person--Left, Right or Center!!

Autobiographies are almost never "page turners", but I have to say this one makes for fascinating and fun reading! You don't have to be a history buff to enjoy this book!

In some ways, Radosh's "Commies" can be seen as a sequel to Whittaker Chambers' outstanding autobiography "Witness". Commies takes us from the period of the 1940s & 50s to the present, showing the profound influence and acceptance Communism enjoyed (and still enjoys) amongst the "mainstream" left in the United States. While it is true (as another reviewer mentioned) that little of what the book describes is truly new, the fact remains that the word has yet to get out to the majority of the public; Radosh's telling of his personal story may help this.

The most intriguing thing about this book is that Radosh doesn't tell us where he ended up with respect to personal ideology. We know that he is no longer a Communist or Communist sympathizer, but we don't know what his beliefs are today. I left the book with the impression that he was still searching out what his rejection of Communism really meant. However, this sense of not having joined a new "camp" is probably what makes Radosh the perfect person to tell this story.

This book is both an autobiography and a history of Leftist ideology in America. It is a history that Ronald Radosh knows well, having grown up during its origins as a "Red-diaper baby" and subsequently lived most of his life under its influence. The book traces the evolution of the Marxist inspired ideas of an egalitarian utopian movement in the U.S. from the early 1900's, to the present - as seen through the author's eyes and experiences.

Radosh's memoirs read like a Who's Who of leftist thinkers and personalities. It is fascinating to read of his associations with such people as Pete Seegar, Paul Robeson, W.E.B Dubois, William Appleman Williams, Bob Dylan, Robert Scheer, and a host of others. Over the years Radosh has hung out with just about everyone that has been associated with the Left in America, whether as a major or minor figure.

Radosh's break with communist utopian ideology did not occur all at once. It was at times a gradual disillusionment, then at times a more abrupt shock to his senses. For instance in 1956 when Krushchev revealed the crimes of Stalin and in the same year Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary he was deeply disturbed. But he remained true to what he believed was the hope for a better world, and joined the Communist Party U.S.A. as a full-fledged member.

Then came the "New Left" of the 60's. The Old Left ideas were being refurbished by historians such as Williams, who argued that the economy of America was a managerial form of predatory democratic capitalism. There was an invisible totalitarianism that acted through America's corporate and civic structure to mold thought and stifle dissent. The Old Left name "Communism" became "Democratic Socialism" for the New Left.

Radosh went along with this, and was influenced by such New Left luminaries as Michael Harrington, Irving Howe and James Weinstein. Then in the 70's Radosh stayed for over a month in Cuba. This was an eye-opener. He observed first hand that the "workers" labored under unsafe and unhealthy conditions, the psychiatric hospitals were giving lobotomies and homosexuals were jailed. Radosh states: "...the net effect was to make me start rethinking my most fervently held assumptions."

The greatest shock to his Marxist utopian ideals came in the late 70's and early 80's when Radosh was researching for an article he was writing. His intention was to once and for all exculpate Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who had been executed in 1953 for being Soviet spies. New information had been made available from the release of Soviet files and from Kruschev's diaries.

After an extensive study of the old and the new material Radosh came away from his project convinced that the Rosenberg's were not innocent, but guilty. He tried to get this information published in left leaning journals and magazines such as In These Times, The Nation and The New Republic, but was turned away. When he approached Michael Harrington and Irving Howe, the two leading socialist thinkers and writers in America, he was told basically to just let the matter drop and to forget about it. His article eventually grew into a book, "the Rosenberg File: A Search for the Truth" published in 1983.

Not yet completely deconverted Radosh tried to "rekindle his faith" (his words) by getting involved in the civil war in El Salvador to research a possible book. What he found were simple peasants who had their land taken from them by revolutionaries who had postured as their saviors, only to become their masters. When the charismatic "savior" Daniel Ortega was defeated in a democratic election, Radosh wrote: "The Nicaraguan election ended the prospects for revolution in Central America. It also ended my long exile from America."

In his closing chapter Radosh notes how Left ideas have morphed over the years, and that now the Leftover Left is busy with such causes as ultra-environmentalism, pro-Arabism, political correctness, and deconstructionist "Dada". "Today's left has no Soviet Union as a beacon, but its reflexive hatred of the American system is still intact." Radosh states that in 1990 he ended his own long exile from America. He looks back at his old "comrades" and is certain that some of them still live in their illusions and dream secretly of a revolution. As Arthur Koestler defined them, they are "clinging to the last shred of the torn illusion " with the "typical intellectual cowardice that prevails on the left."

This is a good autobiography. Just not worth 5 stars.

The first part of the book reads like a "who's who" of the left. Amusing little snippets like when Bob Dylan was asked to shut up at some meeting when he wouldn't stop singing and how Mary Tavers of Peter and Paul fame posed under less than modest conditions come to mind.

What I found most interesting was towards the end of the book. His trips to Cuba and Nicaragua illustrate his conversion from the far left to reality. His conclusion, summed up in a quote, (paraphrased here) that the West's values are worth defending from the far left and right, was heartening to read.

This book is for anyone who has ever wished to be a be a fly on the wall, especially when the wall is in the rooms where so many radical academics and activists were sitting. The book chronicles Radosh's amazing journey from red diaper baby to left wing activist to someone who had ultimately had the strength of character to put truth ahead of "the cause". One can only imagine the apoplectic reaction of many of those who find their way into this book. For the rest of us who reside on "planet earth", the book is a breath of fresh air.

To quote Hayden's "Students for a Democratic Society". This is an excellent book about the Left's blindspot--either willfull or self-deluded--towards the atrocities of the Soviet Union and Communist movements in general. Radosh begins in the late 30s early 40s--when Leftist attacked FDR as a war-mongerer during the Nazi-Soviet pact--and ends w/ Bianca Jagger strutting around nude during the anti-Sandinista Nicuaraguan elections in the late 80s. The stories and anecdotes Radosh brings out are entertaining and in ways, frightening, because of the depth of the willful ignorance of Communist atrocities within the Leftist collective consciousness. Michael Lerner, Bob Scheer, Ed Asner...these people still walk around w/ a hefty amount of credibility to the crowds they play to. That's disturbing. Radosh also returns to the Rosenberg case, and shows how the Venona taps confirm the guilt of the Rosenbergs. He also tells of the Leftist reactions to this, either denial (like many reviewers below, many of which don't even address the consequences of the Venona "secrets") or worse, "The facts are irrelevant, we need the Rosenbergs as heroes".

I'm only giving it four stars, because I think that David Horowitz' Radical Son is a better overall biography (more personal and honest), and Horowitz explains the personal appeal of and rationale behind Leftism. Radosh's book is more of a summary of Leftist vomit, like the above quote from the SDS, but it's still an excellent book about one side of the political spectrum during the Cold War.

Ronald Radosh's "Commies" might be the most important political book of the year. It certainly changed my perspective of American politics. For years, I thought that, while the far right refused to even acknowledge America's problems, let alone try to solve them, the far left was angry with America because it failed to live up to its ideals. Now I understand that the left's hatred of America is because of it's ideals--individual freedom, private property, and a free-market economy.

I went to an Ivy League school during the awful McCarthy era of the 1950s. For years, I've been puzzled--and I doubt that I'm alone--about the apparent double standard at work in academia, the media, and the arts and entertainment: why the expression of the ideas of the left was so vigorously defended in decades past, but why ideas--not just of the right, but of any not conforming to current leftist ideology--are today savaged as being not simply wrong, but evil, and thus not worthy of a hearing. Thanks to "Commies," I now understand the reality that it's not about fairness and truth, but about total, blind commitment to a secular religion called socialism. It doesn't ease the pain of seeing my old school, once a bastion of free speech and independent thought, become a place where students confiscate and destroy newspapers that they deem politically incorrect, while the faculty applauds and the administration tacitly approves. But it does help me and others understand what's happening. For that, Mr. Radosh's book is an important political history.