In Denial: Historians, Communism, & Espionage

Rating:
Summary: Duranty's children
Review: I read most of this important book in the course of a weekend, and it's hard to overstate how disturbing and infuriating it truly is. Haynes and Klehr have assembled a shocking catalog of the ways in which members of the American historical profession have systematically lied -- there's no other word for it -- about the fact of Soviet espionage in the United States and the complicity of American communists in that spying.

Based on their pioneering work in declassified Soviet intelligence archives, as well as their familiarity with the other relevant sources, the authors show how so much of the received wisdom about this topic is fraudulent, tendentious, or worse. Even more objectionable is the length to which many of these historians are willing to go to gloss over, explain away, misinterpret, or just plain ignore the new evidence. With telling excerpts and full documentation, Haynes and Klehr take us through incidents both well known and obscure, from the Rosenbergs, Hiss, and Harry Dexter White, to the mysterious (and apparently fabricated) origins of the phrase "premature anti-fascists" and the silence over the murder of dozens of Finnish-American emigrants to Russia in the 1930s.

The great libertarian historian Lord Acton (of "Power corrupts..." fame) wrote that the muse of historians should not be Clio, but rather Rhadamanthus, the son of Zeus and avenger of innocent blood. By this standard, the "revisionist" historians described here stand condemned. Perhaps the most infuriating portion of this volume consist of quotes from historians like Gabriel Kolko (p. 21) and Theodore Von Laue (pp. 24-5), who justify Stalin and his murders on the grounds of his "remarkable human achievement" (Von Laue's words) and alleged devotion to building a better future for the Soviet peoples. Here truly is Isabel Paterson's "humanitarian with a guillotine"!

This book is an essential tool for understanding the rot at the center of the American historical profession, the American academy, and indeed much of American intellectualism generally. Fortunately, we can take some comfort that, as Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn noted, the judgment of *history* and the judgment of *historians* is not the same thing. The crimes of Soviet communism are being better understood, in spite of the historians mentioned here. With that understanding will come understanding, too, of the moral guilt of many Americans, past and present, who aligned themselves with the Soviet "experiment." Haynes and Klehr have done a tremendous service in exposing the depravity of those who (in the words of Tony Judt, quoted on pages 138-9) "thought they could save the essence of the communist 'dream' by separating it from its rotted Soviet penumbra[. They] were, I suppose, useful idiots, if only to that rotted penumbra itself. Today they are just idiots."

Rating:
Summary: An Eye-Opening Book
Review: I write about the history of American space policy and strategic reconnaissance and one of the things I strive to do is dig into archives and find newly available sources to further our understanding of events. So I was interested in this book because one of the themes is how some historians of American communism and labor are actually _not_ interested in newly available information because it threatens their worldview. I find it amazing that historians are not trying to get as much of this information as possible.

But there were other amazing aspects of this book. I was aware of people who long denied the brutality of communism. There are certainly many people in academia right now who still write glowing commentaries on Fidel Castro, for instance. But I was not aware that there are current tenured professors of history who write glowingly of Joseph Stalin. Some of the quotes in this book from these people are jaw-dropping (some of them have been reproduced in other reviews on this website). I think that Haynes and Klehr are right to note that it is amazing not only that these people exist, but that some of them hold (or held) prominent positions in academia. They are correct in noting that Holocaust-deniers and Nazi-sympathizers are rare and regularly suppressed by the historian community whereas people who hold equally repugnant views about communism are often held in high esteem by their colleagues.

I attended the Venona conference that they mention, and have read some of their previous works. I am also somewhat familiar with the academic study of the Hiss and Rosenberg cases, where some individuals insisted for decades of their absolute innocence, but are now shown to be massively wrong. As recently as a few months ago the New York Times printed a mopey article that complained that the real travesty was not that the Rosenbergs ran a spy ring that provided the Soviet Union with vital secrets, but that they were executed in a show trial.

But I must fault Haynes and Klehr somewhat on their misuse of the terms "traditionalists" and "revisionists." They admittedly create these terms as shorthand for the groups they are discussing, but this introduces problems to the discussion, because these terms already have their own meanings within the historical community. And they aren't really accurate anyway. History that is properly done is by definition revisionist, for it attempts to revise our understanding of events. And Haynes and Klehr in many ways are seeking to revise the previously popular view of subjects such as the Communist Party of the USA with new sources and sophisticated interpretation. So doesn't that make them "revisionists" as well?

But this is only a small criticism. This is a fascinating book.

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Summary: In Denial: Historians, Communism, & Espionage
Review: Neatly dividing academic historians of American communism into two camps of "traditionalists" and "revisionists," the authors proceed to tar all of the "revisionists" with the same brush. Partly writing in response to the reception accorded their earlier works and , they task the "revisionists" for deceptive historical scholarship when it comes to all things communist and anticommunist in American life.

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Summary: Why Did They Do It? Why Are They Still Defended?
Review: Surprise, surprise. The release of the Venona decryptions--showing that Alger Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent, the American Communist Party was indeed a tool of Stalin, and the martyrs of McCarthyism were indeed traitors to America and Western civilization--seems to have been received with less than open arms in academia. No one should be shocked. The revisionist mindset in history departments these days is set in concrete, and it'll take more than mere proof to disabuse these progressive fossils of their sentimental attachment to the Vanguard Generation of the 1930s-1950s. Or, more charitably, such revelations as Venona should be expected to signal the beginning of a debate, not the end.

This book isn't really for the lay reader. The authors minutely examine scholarly arguments against Venona, or arguments that attempt to "of course" it aside. The refutations they deploy sound convincing to me. The authors don't fight entirely fair. They excoriate one revisionist author for mixing up the principals in one case, but confess to a similar error of their own in an endnote. Throughout, the psychic indigestion of the revisionists is on display, as they try to salvage the reputations of their heroes. They do so either by rejecting or distorting the evidence, or falling back into the "higher truth" position, in which spying for Stalin against America was just another form of action for social justice.

One bit of Venona controversy that seems to have fallen silent is the case of leftist gadfly journalist I. F. Stone, who does not appear in this book. Apparently no case from the Venona decrypts can be made to back up Herbert Romerstein's accusation that Stone was a Soviet agent of influence for a while. Instead, Stone appears to have rejected monetary offers from his would-be handlers, so far as Venona reveals. To be fair, Haynes and Klehr weren't the ones who made that accusation in the first place.

The retired NKVD assassin Pavel Sudoplatov makes a cameo appearance. The authors really should have put a caution flag next to his name, as the most explosive allegations from his book have never been proven. But there he is, invoked to bolster the case against the Rosenbergs (which didn't really need bolstering, at this late date).

A sad bit of history is presented in an appendix. It is a list of names of mostly Baltic immigrants to America, who moved to the Soviet Union, were arrested and executed, and buried by the KGB. Their names and bodies were recovered by Memorial, the Russian organization that searches for secret mass graves in Russia. The bitter consequences of deluded idealism...

The fraudulent aura of progressivism that Stalinism had for so many Americans is still a mystery. How a dream of a better world led these people to betray the most just country in history to the most oppressive country in history defies easy explanation. Ignorance is no excuse, as the bloody nature of Soviet communism was well reported in the West almost from the Soviet Union's inception. (If they couldn't believe Stalin's own ex-secretary, Boris Bazhanov, who would they have believed?) Although leftist compilers of standard reference works are reported here to be distorting the Venona evidence, one can only hope for its lessons to start seeping into the curriculum, as well as the broader culture. It can't happen a decade too soon.

Rating:
Summary: Why Did They Do It? Why Are They Still Defended?
Review: Surprise, surprise. The release of the Venona decryptions--showing that Alger Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent, the American Communist Party was indeed a tool of Stalin, and the martyrs of McCarthyism were indeed traitors to America and Western civilization--seems to have been received with less than open arms in academia. No one should be shocked. The revisionist mindset in history departments these days is set in concrete, and it'll take more than mere proof to disabuse these progressive fossils of their sentimental attachment to the Vanguard Generation of the 1930s-1950s. Or, more charitably, such revelations as Venona should be expected to signal the beginning of a debate, not the end.

This book isn't really for the lay reader. The authors minutely examine scholarly arguments against Venona, or arguments that attempt to "of course" it aside. The refutations they deploy sound convincing to me. The authors don't fight entirely fair. They excoriate one revisionist author for mixing up the principals in one case, but confess to a similar error of their own in an endnote. Throughout, the psychic indigestion of the revisionists is on display, as they try to salvage the reputations of their heroes. They do so either by rejecting or distorting the evidence, or falling back into the "higher truth" position, in which spying for Stalin against America was just another form of action for social justice.

One bit of Venona controversy that seems to have fallen silent is the case of leftist gadfly journalist I. F. Stone, who does not appear in this book. Apparently no case from the Venona decrypts can be made to back up Herbert Romerstein's accusation that Stone was a Soviet agent of influence for a while. Instead, Stone appears to have rejected monetary offers from his would-be handlers, so far as Venona reveals. To be fair, Haynes and Klehr weren't the ones who made that accusation in the first place.

The retired NKVD assassin Pavel Sudoplatov makes a cameo appearance. The authors really should have put a caution flag next to his name, as the most explosive allegations from his book have never been proven. But there he is, invoked to bolster the case against the Rosenbergs (which didn't really need bolstering, at this late date).

A sad bit of history is presented in an appendix. It is a list of names of mostly Baltic immigrants to America, who moved to the Soviet Union, were arrested and executed, and buried by the KGB. Their names and bodies were recovered by Memorial, the Russian organization that searches for secret mass graves in Russia. The bitter consequences of deluded idealism...

The fraudulent aura of progressivism that Stalinism had for so many Americans is still a mystery. How a dream of a better world led these people to betray the most just country in history to the most oppressive country in history defies easy explanation. Ignorance is no excuse, as the bloody nature of Soviet communism was well reported in the West almost from the Soviet Union's inception. (If they couldn't believe Stalin's own ex-secretary, Boris Bazhanov, who would they have believed?) Although leftist compilers of standard reference works are reported here to be distorting the Venona evidence, one can only hope for its lessons to start seeping into the curriculum, as well as the broader culture. It can't happen a decade too soon.

Rating:
Summary: Stalin's apologists in academia exposed
Review: The statement made in the Publisher's Weekly review that "this uncompromising manifesto" compares Left-wing historians' sympathy for American Communism to Holocaust denial is not entirely accurate. While much of the book does focus on the blindness of academia to facts about the American Communist Party being a subversive tool of the Kremlin and revelations from the Soviet archives about the extent of Soviet espionage in America (Leftists often attempt to deflect the issue with red herrings about "McCarthyism." Just check out the negative reviews), what Haynes and Klehr do compare to Holocaust denial is the continued whitewashing of Stalinism by radical left-wing revisionists such as J. Arch Getty, Robert W. Thurston, Gabriel Kolko, Theodore Von Laue, Fredric Jameson, Barbara Foley, Grover Furr and others. Actually, they are probably worse than holocaust deniers because their defense and/or denial of Stalinist mass murder largely go unchallenged, unlike Holocaust revisionism. And, as the book says: "The number of apologists for the former Soviet Union and its mass murders dwarfs the handful of aberrant pro-Nazi academics in America." (pg 13) Do you think this is an exaggeration?

Von Laue defends Lenin, Stalin and the totalitarian murder machine they created: "How then are we to judge Stalin? Viewed in the full historical context Stalin appears as one of the most impressive figures of the twentieth century." "Regard for individual life was a necessary sacrifice in Lenin's ambition to enhance life in the future." "The specific design of Soviet totalitarianism has perhaps not been sufficiently appreciated. However brutal, it was a remarkable human achievement despite its flaws." (pg 24-26) This apologist for mass murder is a "professor" and one of the authors of a much used history book.

Kolko, another revisionist whose books were widely assigned as college texts, whitewashes the brutal mass slaughter of thousands of helpless prisoners at Katyn stating "Whoever destroyed the officers at Katyn had taken a step toward implementing a social revolution in Poland." He also states that "Katyn was the exception" in Soviet behavior and "its relative importance....must be downgraded very considerably." (pg 21)

Thurston, a "professor" at Miami University of Ohio, claims that Stalin "was not guilty of first degree murder from 1934-1941 and did not plan or carry out a systematic campaign to crush the nation." (pg 24)

Furr, an *English* professor at Montclair State University, praised the blood-drenched Communist revolutions in Russia and China: "The greatest historical events in the twentieth century - in fact, in all of human history - have been the overthrow of capitalism and establishment of societies run by and for the working class in the two great communist revolutions in Russia and China." (pg 27)

Can one honestly say that these examples don't compare to Holocaust revisionists and their whitewashing of Hitler? These apologists for tyranny and deniers of genocide should be just as reviled as David Irving and his ilk, and should not be accepted in American higher education.

I addition to this book I'd recommend "A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia" by Alexander Yakovlev, an excellent work of history that tells the truth about the criminal nature of Lenin, Stalin and the USSR.

Rating:
Summary: The wheels of justice grind slowly, but inexorably
Review: This book connects the dots between the files in the Soviet archives and the history of the American Communist subversion of the political and economic systems of the United States. The title of this book begs the question as to why the continuum of the state of denial, the one espoused by adherents of Communism - that cruel and inhumane system of repression - still exists in America today?

A part of the answer can be found in that segment of the human condition requiring refusal to acknowledge new facts into an old theory. The reason? - Man's reluctance to change his worldview and the way he fits within it. Seeing yourself differently spells crisis at any age. The re-arranging of ones' assumption model, the one which issues forth expectations based upon a set of assumptions that one adheres to, dubious or otherwise, creates a crisis which often leads to a series of agonizing self reappraisals; a daunting prospect. Thus, it's much easier to cling to an old theory, particularly when it leads to the euphoria of self rightiousness, a condition of unbounded virtue; and, this is one of the essential lures that makes the Communist "faith" so seductive. So, they care for the oppressed, and if you're not with them, then you don't.

Communism differs from religion only in the sense that it promises a utopia here on earth as opposed to one in the after-life. Eric Hoffer's, "the true Believer" speaks to this message rather well.

In the final analysis it matters not what one scored on his SAT's or whether he made the Dean's list, it's only his capacity for self deception which governs the extent to which he will blinker himself. This also holds true for women, perhaps even more so. I believe the geneticists will uncover a lobe in the brain for judgement, the ability to make proportionate, balanced decisions all day long without emotional overlap. I also believe that fewer than 15% of people have this inborne capability. Anecdotally, that's roughly the same number who are the swing votes in political elections. They can change their minds without shortcircuiting emotionally. The other 85% have more difficulty.

Just as technlogy has always changed the balance of power throughout the course of human history, the micro chip, by fueling the telecommunications boom, has allowed more people to get more information, more quickly, than at any time in human history. "Information" helped implode the Soviet Union and it will in like form expose the Communist, academic revisionists in America for all to see. It's happening now in video media, in Hollywood, in book publishing, in universities, and in the labor movement. It's happening to the radical Leftist leaders of N.O.W. and to those who use the environmental movement to mask their Leftist intentions. Society is changing all around us. To see it requires a knowledge of history and some helicopter perspective. It's a beautiful thing for those of us who continue the quest for human freedom and individual liberty for all.

This book is just one more piece of evidence which bit by bit exposes the Pharassic scandals of those on the Left who continue "in denial". It should be recommended reading for all, particularly college age students, it's that important!

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Summary: Academia unveiled
Review: This book is a great follow on to their work on the Venona project. As someone who has seen my kids suffer in many classes at their universities by challenging the nonsense that is spouted by tenured leftists, this book would be a wonderful gift to any student who is going to be subjected to the propaganda called "higher education" at many of our leading schools. "In Denial" is more than an expose' however, since it shows that taxpayers are wasting billions of dollars in tax-supported schools where students are not educated about the evils of Communism, but just the reverse, where academic revisionists now try to rewrite history to their liking instead of dealing with the facts of Communist infiltration into American and Western society while Stalin put more people to death than Hitler.
This book will be totally ignored by the media who have been trained well to speak nothing but good about the true evils of Communism and its followers in academia today.

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Summary: This book is silly and mean
Review: This book is designed by Mssrs. Haynes and Klehr to sell, not to contribute to knowledge. They know they can sell this tripe because many of us will lap it up. They distort so much of the books that they cite, in McCarthy-esque fashion. This is what they've done in their other books as well. They are what have brought us the Ann Coulters and the reduction of dialogue in intellecutal life. Any of the books they attack exhibit much more sophisticated thinking than theirs. They whine because they think they should be at the top of their fields, but their reductionist logic shows they're not capable of a sophisticated or nuanced treatment. They are modern day McCarthyites intent on building the idea that the academy is filled with leftists. What a laugh. Over the years they've developed a more didactic and shrill stance, over misperceived slights. I have to wonder at their motives. TO have spent your life in pursuit of this end must be, in the end, an aweful fate. So I do feel sorry for them. But this book really is silly.

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Summary: Haynes and Klehr's own goal on historical research.
Review: This book, with its tendentious title, purports to be an evaluation of current standards of historical scholarship. In this it scores an own goal, for its own standards of objectivity, contextualisation, and accuracy leave much to be desired (details are available from me on request). The authors' most egregious fault is their tendency to dismiss anyone who differs from their interpretation of fragmentary and ambiguous evidence (from Venona and elsewhere), as apologists for Stalin's heinous regime who distort the truth in defence of traitors.

In reality the evidence against some (not all) of the principal characters in this book is very much more open to conflicting interpretations than Haynes and Klehr allow. They employ unworthy language in their attack on those with contrary views. I am myself condemned by them for my defence of Washington economist Lauchlin Currie (aide to FDR, 1939-45), and I have also written on the famous Harry Dexter White case. Haynes and Klehr unequivocably condemn both men, but it is easy to condemn if one weighs the evidence with a presumption of guilt rather than innocence.

Currie and White were prominent New Dealers of distinctly non-communistic persuasion. Both are renowned for their tireless efforts to save rather than destroy the democratic free enterprise system. But many of their right-wing detractors see little difference between the New Deal and communism. Both were also very high-ranking economists during the wartime Grand Alliance who had frequent official dealings with Soviet diplomats, many of whom happened also to be KGB agents. It is unconscionable that this context should be downplayed, and that whenever their names are mentioned in deciphered Soviet cables this should invariably be taken as prima facie evidence of espionage activity.

Haynes and Klehr rubbish defenders of Currie and White in a chapter entitled "Lies about Spies". A few inconsequential errors of fact in some of my own writing (later corrected) are blown out of all proportion and treated as "lies" and "fanciful conjectures". Yet they can themselves be shown to have been equally guilty of factual error, as well as fanciful conjectures of their own. In the murky history of espionage none of us should be making unvarnished claims.

For the record, I have never supported communism. I am an economist who generally favours the market, but with the usual sensible qualifications. Most of my colleagues regard me as quite right-of-centre (if they could categorise me at all). This also applies to several of the other writers who are written off by Haynes and Klehr as morally corrupt "revisionists".

My impression is that the authors are pursuing a "neo-con" agenda and would like the brutal suppression of all views that they regard as "left-labor", otherwise cavalierly defined as "communist". In any case, from my UK perspective, they seem grossly to exaggerate the domestic communist threat to the United States during the Cold War. In Britain the CP has never been proscribed or harassed yet has made almost no political headway (happily, in my view). I imagine that the same would have been true in god-fearing, free-enterprise America if the CPUSA and the various (often unsuspecting) people with whom the CP had any dealings had not been mugged and muzzled by the friends of Joe McCarthy.

Haynes and Klehr are entitled to the opposing view, but readers should swallow none of it on trust.