Customer Reviews

Red Hunting in the Promised Land: Anticommunism and the Making of America (Global Issues)

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"Red Hunting ..." is a very thoughtful and intellignet book. It makes the case that American anti-Communism was a unique historical phenomenon caused by the nature of this country as a relatively new nation with no long standing traditions; a nation based on a revolutionary ideology and subject to rapid change and constant re-definition. The US need to define itself AGAINST something; and in the late 1800s and on that something became Communism (the British Empire no longer aroused the old hatred)--another new ideology that could serve as an ideal rival. For Americans, Communism became the dark Other, standing out there is the shadows waiting to devour us. American ideas about Communism were often vague and contradictory. Anything that Americans feard at any given moments became associated with Communism whether there was a real life association or not--- modern art, jazz, non-white races, Jews, Catholics, European high culture, psychiatry, pornography, drugs, whatever.

Kovel contrasts the more rational approach to Communism by the other Western democracies who suppressed violent radials while tolerating non-violent expressions of Communist sympathy, freely admitted that some of Marx's points were valid and worked toward greater social and political equality in a way that diminished the possibility of violent revolution by giving dissenters and poor people a respectable voice in society.

Let me begin by saying the Kirkus Review (that you may read nearby on Amazon.com) is descriptive and accurate (even penetrating) enough, insofar as the space alotted allows. But the idea given there, that this is a book that you should not read because it is nasty and false is perhaps misdirected. True, it is a wretched and deplorable work. That being affirmed, there is another side to approaching Joel Kovel's scurrilous type of Marxist Agitprop. Actually this book should be read by all Americans of any intellectual aptitude who are trying to understand our times - our recent history. That approach is to broadcast this book as an entry into the American Marxist frame of mind, its gut and soul and indeed, the International Marxist world view. In that sense it is very instructive. To begin with it should be noted that the author is the "Alger Hiss Professor of Social Science" at Bard College (Stratford On Avon, N.Y.) This is an 'endowed chair' (ie. big bucks). The President of this Artsy Craftsy (and very expensive) establishment for the last 25 or so years is Leon Botkin. He (Botkin) has set us all on notice that he was a decades-long close friend of the late Alger Hiss, a man he says he much admired, (Ltr to the Editor, Chronicle of Higher Education). No doubt that he had a good deal to do with establishing the 'Hiss Chair' upon which our author, Joel Kovel sits. Perhaps, if you should investigate, you will find that the evidence against Alger Hiss, his wife , his brother, and his 'espionage ring', is "massive", not to mention 350 'other' Americans (mostly CP) who spied for the USSR. Not to mention the entire leadership of the CPUSA (including Earl Browder, (CPUSA Head), his brother and his sister). (A. Hiss was not convicted of espionage because the evidence was, no matter how overwhelming, from 'peace time' ('38), and the 3 year 'peace time' statute of limitations for espionage had long run out.). He was convicted of lying under oath - that is, perjury. These facts are central to understanding a work like Kovel's. This deplorable academic holds what might actually be called the Chair of "Treachery and Espionage" at Bard. Now any perusal of Comrade Kovel's book would convince anyone that the author HATES AMERICA, indeed his hatred is a bright, burning flame. To be sure, he devotes about a page (total), in a very long book, to a criticism of the Soviet's ultimate killing regime. This is pro-forma 'cover'. But his narrative argument, going back - mind you to the European immigrant's original wars with the 'innocent' native populations of the New World (which natives were, you know, those warlike cannibals, slavers, and exquisite torturers), including his exposition of American "black holes" of forgetfulness of our original sins against everybody (this Wagnerian Leitmotiv is endlessly repeated). This 4 or 500 year old conflict was because of the "anti-communism" sin of original American immigrants. Now Kovel/Botkin's Bard institute is largely full of "red-diaper babies" and "red-diaper-grandbabies". Descendents of U.S. Communists. Fathers/Mothers who visited their sins on their sons/daughters". So this book, Bard College and its President all ties together. It is for the above reasons that this book is highly recommended to anyone who would wish to understand the interior workings of the Marxist and Neo-Marxist mind in America, and especially within U.S. Universities, where Marxists metastasize, and are, like Kovel, particularly active in the Humanities and English departments. Study this 'work'. Please restrain yourself from "throwing this book forcefully across the room". Those impulses will come, but steady yourself! Finish the damned thing! Kovel's work will give you much insight into both the insanities of American Marxism, Freudian psychotherapy (Kovel is a Psychiatrist), Marco-Fascist Sociology, and the incredible destructiveness of radical movements, the inner workings of the socialist mind, and demonstrate to you much about the continuing Communist influence in America. ( Oh, did you really think that Revolutionary Socialism was DEAD in America?)

Joel Kovel holds the prestigious "Alger Hiss Professor of Social Studies" chair at Bard College, which should tell you all you really need to knopw about both Kovel and Bard College. With the declassification of the Venona papers a few years ago (see: Haynes' and Klehr's "Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America", and "The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors" by Romerstein and Brendel) it became clear that yes, Alger Hiss was indeed a Soviet Agent, and that he was part of a concerted- though mostly unsuccessful- Soviet attempt to steer American foreign policy in the post-WWII era.

Every political movement has its diehards who refuse to give up their most cherished beliefs, even when confronted with glaring evidence to the contrary. For them, the intuitive correctness of their beliefs cannot be sway by mere fact- even when those facts counter the very "truths" that led them to their beliefs in the first place. There are many out there who believe that JFK was actually planning on withdrawing from Vietnam, that the Rosenbergs were innocent, and the moon landing was faked. You can't argue with them, as they've already rejected the best evidence.

Kovel is intelligent to realize that the best evidence is against him, but that doesn't hurt his case as he's not really interested in historical fact. He's a psychiatrist (by training) and a sociologist (by appointment) so he makes his case in a different way, which is to say by making up suppostitions and then justifying them backwards. I.e., if the persons involved were of type X, then they surely would have done Y. And since it's obvious that they did Y, that implies they must be pf type X... which proves they did Y. It's all very circular and relies on a good deal of ignorance of informal fallacies.

Of course he never considers a much simpler story. If you were a true believer in the better world promised by Communism- and many, many tens or hundreds of thousands of people in the US and Europe did believe that in the 1930 and 40s- and the party asked you to do a little espionage to help the state that was the vanguard of the World Revolution- wouldn't you do your bit to help? Of course you would. Look at how many people believed in the Soviet revolution enough to actually emigrate there in the 30s, in the belief that they were building a new utopia. This somehow never occurs to Kovel, which I suppose is a consequence of playing historian without ever having actually read all that much history.

So if you're the sort of true believer who believes that the Soviets never tried to spy on the US, that no US citizen ever worked for the KGB and that that the oil companies are hiding a secret 250mpg carburator, this is certainly the book for you. More critical readers would do well to look elsewhere.