As one of a handful of American scholars allowed to review documents in newly opened Soviet archives, John Haynes has used fresh evidence to shed new light on the United States' confrontation with communism at home. In a succinct survey, Haynes traces the buildup of the American Communist party (CPUSA) in the twenties and thirties, focuses on the heyday of popular anticommunism from 1945 to 1960, and follows the relative decline of anticommunism as a political issue in the sixties and seventies. Along the way he describes the chief episodes, figures, and institutions of cold war anticommunism, showing how earlier campaigns against domestic fascists and right-wingers provided most all of anti-communism's tactics and weapons. And he dissects the various anticommunist constituencies, analyzing their origins, motives, and activities. Haynes draws on new and incontestable evidence that the Soviet Union heavily subsidized the CPUSA from its earliest days; maintained an underground organization in Washington in the 1930s that reported to the CPUSA and in turn to Moscow on U.S. government activities; and placed CPUSA members in the wartime OSS and OWI, the government's major intelligence and propaganda agencies. He also confirms much of Elizabeth Bentley's 1940s accusations of Communist infiltrations. American Ways Series.
John Earl Haynes is Modern Political Historian in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. He received his Ph.D. in 1978 from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. from Florida State University in 1966.
Web: johnearlhaynes.org
Dr. Haynes is the author of eleven books:
11. Spies: the Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (coauthors Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, Yale University Press, 2009)
10. Early Cold War Spies: the Espionage Trials that Shaped American Politics (coauthor H. Klehr, Cambridge University Press, 2006)
9. In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage (coauthor H. Klehr, Encounter Books, 2002)
8. Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (coauthor H. Klehr, Yale University Press, 1999)
7. Calvin Coolidge and the Coolidge Era: Essays on the History of the 1920s (editor, Library of Congress and the University Press of New England, 1998)
6. The Soviet World of American Communism (coauthors H. Klehr and Kyrill Anderson, Yale University Press, 1998)
5. Red Scare or Red Menace? American Communism and Anticommunism in the Cold War Era (Ivan Dee Pub., 1996)
4. The Secret World of American Communism (coauthors H. Klehr and Fridrikh Firsov, Yale University Press, 1995)
3. The American Communist Movement: Storming Heaven Itself (coauthor H. Klehr, Twayne Pub., 1992)
2. Communism and Anti-Communism in the United States: An Annotated Guide to Historical Writings (Garland Pub., 1987, editor and compiler)
1. Dubious Alliance: The Making of Minnesota's DFL Party (University of Minnesota Press, 1984)
He has also authored as of 2009 seventy-four published articles and essays along with a number of web-only essays.
Dr. Haynes is also a member of the editorial boards of the journals American Communist History, The International Newsletter of Communist Studies, and the Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung as well as on-line editor of the historical discussion list on American communism, H-HOAC. He was the Library of Congress's historical representative to the Incomka Project (International Committee for the Computerization of the Comintern Archive).
In addition to his historical activities, Dr. Haynes has served as the Assistant Commissioner for Tax Policy in the Revenue Department of the State of Minnesota, director of local aid in the Finance Department of the State of Minnesota, staff aide to two Minnesota governors, one U.S. Senator, and one U.S. Representative from Minnesota and researcher for a caucus of the Minnesota State Senate. He also served in staff positions on the Anderson For Governor Committee (Minnesota) and the Minnesota Humphrey for President Committee
