Posted on 03/20/2007 12:33:43 AM PDT by neverdem
The songwriter, labor organizer and folk hero Joe Hill has been the subject of poems, songs, an opera, books and movies. His will, written in verse the night before a Utah firing squad executed him in 1915 and later put to music, became part of the labor movement’s soundtrack. Now the original copy of that penciled will is among the unexpected historical gems unearthed from a vast collection of papers and photographs never before seen publicly that the Communist Party USA has donated to New York University.
The cache contains decades of party history including founding documents, secret code words, stacks of personal letters, smuggled directives from Moscow, Lenin buttons, photographs and stern commands about how good party members should behave (no charity work, for instance, to distract them from their revolutionary duties).
By offering such an inside view, the archives have the potential to revise assumptions on both the left and the right about one of the most contentious subjects in American history, in addition to filling out the story of progressive politics, the labor movement and the civil rights struggles.
“It is one of the most exciting collecting opportunities that has ever presented itself here,” said Michael Nash, the director of New York University’s Tamiment Library, which will announce the donation on Friday.
Liberal and conservative historians, told by The New York Times about the archives, were enthusiastic about the addition of so many original documents to the historical record. No one yet knows whether they can resolve the die-hard disputes about the extent of the links between American subversives and Moscow since, as Mr. Nash said, “it will take us years to catalog.” But what is most exciting, said Mr. Nash and other scholars, is the new areas it opens up for research beyond the homegrown...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Michael Falco for The New York Time
The vast collection from the Communist Party USA includes personal letters, smuggled directives and photographs.
Check out that typo, "The New York Time." The Times put it on the frontpage, and the art section. Go figure.
What an honor for NYU. /sarc
The NY Times Ode to Communism, accompanied by music, right on the front page.
A hundred years ago they were Communists. Today they're the modern Democratic Party.
Closet ? They're about as out of the closet as you can get.
Believe it or not, there are people (some Britons, for instance) who sincerely believe the NYT is too conservative and pro-Israel (!). Have a look at the reader's response to this Gerard Baker article on London Times, and note a certain individual from New Zealand and some Britons:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article1522471.ece
What would the NYT do if the BBC and Al-Jazeera didn't exist ? They need those outfits to stick around to make them look like they haven't sailed off the far-left horizon. I don't think the BBC makes any bones about the fact that it is not only rabidly anti-Zionist but also anti-Semitic. This may be an overused expression, but Hitler would be quite proud of those outfits. It's almost like the Allies lost the war, but instead of swastika-wearing soldiers goosestepping about, it's hippie-dressed intellectual elites and turban-wearing bearded bombthrowers in their stead.
Apropos.
The NY Times website has this story in the "Arts" section.
I'm not quite sure how this positioning reflects upon the NYT, except possibly that its editors are a bunch of fruits, nuts, and flakes.
This is hugh and series. Also rilly greet.
My only concern (kidding, I hope) would be whether there will be an effort to "scrub" the files clean of evidence showing the extensive ties to Moscow. The Venona intercepts were very bad for the Dem cause, and this could be as well.
Overall, it's astonishing that, for the first time since the early 1960s, the NYT is admitting the CPUSA existed.
In my part of the country during that time period, they were known as the "Red Flag" wavers.
Thousands of them streamed into this territory to destroy mining companies and start up vile left wing newspapers. They were part of the great immigration wave from Eastern Europe that deposited millions of left wingers into our country. I believe their numbers and voting power gave us the 16th and 17th amendments and led to FDR and his establishment of the federal bureaucratic fascist state we live under today.
Their descendants are alive today in my area, collecting welfare, social security disability and pushing their communist agenda at local public meetings.
This was and is a European left wing infestation that we haven't recovered from.
Should have donated the cache to City College. Alma Mater of Julius Rosenberg and a bunch of the guys in his spy ring.
eleanor roosevelt attended communist meetings in nyc.
it was fashionable for america's protestant upper crust to travel to europe and bring home communist beliefs. also, eastern european jewish immigrants brought a communist agenda to america. david horowitz' "radical son" explains this.
if the democrat party actually declared itself to be aligned with the communist party, the "american electorate"
would still vote for it...probably with no reservations.
My son goes to NYU..he isnt intersted at all in the politics. I have to force him to go to some lib events to take pics. Today the campus anit-war people are having a demonstration at Washington Sq Park. They were thinking of cancelling tho as there were very few people that were going.
Exactly..... Hit the nail on the head! Nice post...
OMG he sees the vermin on a daily basis. How does he handle it?
He ignores them completely..wont let them talk politics!
2007 AEI Irving Kristol Award Lecture - Bernard Lewis Whether it's heard or read, it's a must!
John Edwards' Death by Bangs It's pretty bad for the tort lawyer.
Russia Gives Iran Ultimatum on Enrichment
From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
I wonder if Walter Duranty and Alger Hiss have their own individual chapters in this history...
CCNY and Columbia (Whittaker Chambers alma mater) were both hot-beds for future recruits. It's amazing we won World War II with all the subversives hidden in high places in FDR's government and the growing bureaucracies... It puts Chambers conversion into an even brighter light: without a converted patriot like Chambers, who knows what happens in the 1950's and 1960's in this country.
My s-i-l considers the NYT to be a conservative and reliable publication. *sigh*
NYU is the natural depository for these Documents. The Tamiment Library already contains a large collection of documents from the NYC labor movement.
http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/
I regretfully agree that although NYU has been a pretty good university that has given degrees over the years to a lot of first-generation college students, they are way to the left.
They also have the collected papers of Margaret Sanger.
But, on the positive side, it's always useful to have documentation and to preserve it. I remember reading the Communist Manifesto and extracts from Das Kapital when I was in college, and it simply gave me a slightly better understanding of the problems of Communism, as well as its attractions for weak minds.
I notice that among other things the Tamiment Library has a collection of papers from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Some day, I hope the true story will be told of the crimes of the Spanish Communists and the deluded leftists who went to Spain to fight on behalf of Stalin. Those papers might someday help reveal the true story, after the propaganda fades away. For instance, I know the Spanish Communists killed priests and nuns in large numbers, and I'm somewhat curious whether their foreign followers participated in any of those crimes. Or did their hosts keep them in ignorance?
smuggled directives from Moscow...Gosh, a moment of candor from The Ministry of Truth.
...stern commands about how good party members should behave (no charity work, for instance, to distract them from their revolutionary duties).And how little things have changed.
Hey, I wonder if there's any discussion of Dim Prez Woodrow Wilson's imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs?
Thanks for the ping!
I beg to differ, sir:
She must have been reading far too much UK Indypendent or New Left Reviews. They do make the NYT sound like Ronald Reagan (the US president, not his left-leaning son).
Oops sorry, "he".
Thanks for the link.
I had to take the medical history of a veteran from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade when I was a student during a surgical rotation in the Bronx.
It helps to explain how badly distorted that the political preferences of NYC and its environs have developed, and how much there is to love and hate in a unique place, hosting the Statue of Liberty no less, while they conspire against liberty constantly.
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