Good day Hivers and Book Clubbers,
Back with another review. Last review I talked about a biography on Huey Long, and for this one I'll stay with the lesser-known American politicians, albeit on a different side of the political spectrum. The book I'm going to talk about is titled 'Earl Browder; the Failure of American Communism', written in 1997 by James G. Ryan.
I'm using a PDF-version of the book, though I've seen that it is available on Amazon as well as a paperback, for those who wish for a physical copy. The story proper amounts to about 280 pages, which is quite manageable.
Even though the book is written as a biography and the story is told in a chronological manner, it talks mostly about US politics, both internally and in terms of Foreign Affairs. In these things, Earl Browder (1891-1973) and the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) only play a minor part, in a sense. I'll also keep things in somewhat general terms in this review, to keep everyone up to speed.
A communist America?
Is there any country in the world which seems farther away from Communism than the United States? Both Communism and socialism have always been dirty words in US politics, still used to this day to slander opponents and policies. Quite a different dynamic than in other parts of the world. Both parties in modern US history can quite reasonably be described as capitalist, though one side (Democrats) have a socialist wing inside it, while the other side (Republicans) carries a nationalist/populist wing.
The two-party-system has always somewhat kept a lid on ideological variety in US politics. Though this was not for lack of trying. There were parties like the Populists, the Farmer-Labor Party, and the movement behind Huey Long, which I talked about in my last review. Most of these movements leaned to the left of the American establishment.
Browder was born in Kansas, a state in which Populism was quite popular. Browder got involved in leftist politics, which saw him ending up in jail at quite a young age. This did not make him change his convictions, which leaned more towards Marx, and later on, Stalinism.
Evolution vs. Revolution, Internationalism vs. Americanism
Communism in all its forms was seen as 'foreign' in the US, or simply un-American. In a sense, it was: modern socialist thought bloomed in Europe, with Marx, Engels and Bakunin leading the early movement. Though their predictions turned out to be wildly off the mark: they expected communist revolution to succeed in the industrialized nations of Europe, i.e. England, France and the German states.
Instead, it succeeded in overwhelmingly rural Russia, where it succesfully overthrew (and murdered) the Czar in 1917 and beat the non-leftist White movement in a civil war lasting until 1921. The Bolsheviks showed the future for communism worldwide: it was to be a revolutionary, internationalist form of socialism that would conquer the world.
Yet Bolshevism would change drastically within a couple of years of this victory: even before Lenin's death, the jostling for power in Bolshevik ranks began. There were three main contenders; Trotsky leading the revolutionary Left, Bukharin leading a more peasant-oriented 'right'-wing, and Staling staying somewhere in the middle of these two. As Secretary of the Party and by virtue of being a great political manipulator, Stalin won out the power-struggle.
Some would argue Stalin wasn't a communist at all; he certainly wasn't a deep political thinker, and had a bit of an inferiority complex about that. Yet his realpolitik probably has led to the long-term survival of the Soviet Union, though he committed atrocities along the way in the 1930s, which cost
millions of lives, for example in the Ukraine (the Holodomor).
Browder was a Stalinist through and through: he met Stalin halfway through the 1920s, and this connection is what pole-vaulted him towards CPUSA leadership in 1930. He had remarkably little experience in the usual avenues of Socialist action in the US, which mostly revolved arount trade unions in the Mid-West. He was bumped forward by Moscow, and party discipline made the others acquiesce, though he turned out to be a charismatic enough leader to keep things together.
Browder was a very American face to a foreign ideology. Many agents in the country were Russian, and many of the Communist cadres in the US were Jews (as was the case with the Bolsheviks in Russia). To have a Kansas-born man like Browder in charge was a smart choice to shake off the label of foreign-ness that was already clinging to communism.
And yet Browder's bond with Stalin would also cause division. Stalin's purge of the Bolsheviks in the late 1920s was wildly criticized by Communists around the world. Browder was a Stalin apologist to the maximum. He would feign ignorance, or downplay the negative things happening in Soviet Russia.
The same could be said for Foreign Affairs: the rise of Hitler, whose most direct enemies were both Communism and Jews, caused dismay in communist ranks worldwide (which included many Jews). Anti-fascism became a unifying factor in American communist policy, it was something everyone could agree on. And then the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact happened in 1939, in which Germany and Russia signed a non-aggression-pact, and divided Polish territory between themselves.
Once again, Browder was on the defensive, but once again he took Stalin's side in terms of Realpolitik. His attitude towards WWII would be ambivalent in turn; Nazi Germany was the enemy, yet it also wasn't. France and England were fighting Germany, which was good, but yet again these countries were capitalist/imperialist powers, which was bad. A confusing situation, which might have prevented CPUSA from getting a mass following of any kind.
Conclusion
Browder woud spend a part of WWII in jail for identity fraud; he travelled multiple times to Russia with forged documents. His Russian wife also entered America illegaly, and was a known Bolshevik party member. He would exit politics after WWII; CPUSA would never amount to a big force in US politics, especially in the 'Red Scare' and Cold War 1950s.
It's a good book to read up on American communism in a all-round sense, since Browder takes central stage for about 15 years of its history. The writer, though, is clearly very leftist. Some people might take offense to that being obvious in writing a book; I don't mind it that much.
I'll be back with more reviews in the future, and I'll see you all in the next one,
-Pieter Nijmeijer
(Top image from https://pastdaily.com/2022/09/27/earl-browder-american-communist-party-candidate-for-president-1940-past-daily-reference-room/)
A brilliant review, as always and good insight into American political history. I did pause though when I read this bit:
There were parties like the Populists, the Farmer-Labor Party, and the movement behind Huey Long, which I talked about in my last review. Most of these movements leaned to the left of the American establishment.
I thought about Lindbergh, isolationism and eugenics in the thirties and early forties. The movement was quite strong. It not only advocated keeping out of the war, but also was sympathetic to Nazi ideology.
Also, today the Libertarian Party today is very strong, and very right wing.
I think left-leaning parties get more press (as they are more demonized) and consequently seem to have greater influence than they actually do. Just labeling a party left-wing is enough to kill it in this (my) country
Thanks for the kind words.
The small summation I did of course leaves out many possible names/parties you could name. Also within that list, Huey Long would not really be considered a leftist in any capacity that is not economics.
The left/right dichotomy is hopelessly flawed, but I end up using it all the same.
🙂 We all do...language is not always a perfect tool.