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In Denial: Historians, Communism, and Espionage

John Earl Haynes,

Harvey Klehr

4.05 · Rating details · 73 ratings · 8 reviews

Beginning in the late 1960s, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr say, the study of communism in America was taken over by "revisionists" who have attempted to portray the U.S. as the aggressor in the Cold War and saw suspicion about the American Communist Party (CPUSA) as baseless "paranoia." In this intriguing book, they show how, years after the death of communism, the lea ...more

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Paperback, 316 pages

Published October 1st 2005 by Encounter Books (first published 2003)

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Jan 23, 2016 Frank Stein rated it really liked it · review of another edition

One of the things that most shocked me on entering graduate school was how many celebratory histories we read on American Communists. I'm not talking about histories of progressives, or socialists, or even communists with a small c, I'm talking about histories that placed the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) at the forefront of much positive social change in the early 20th century, from the labor movement to civil rights, and that denigrated attacks on the CPUSA and its So One of the things that most shocked me on entering graduate school was how many celebratory histories we read on American Communists. I'm not talking about histories of progressives, or socialists, or even communists with a small c, I'm talking about histories that placed the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) at the forefront of much positive social change in the early 20th century, from the labor movement to civil rights, and that denigrated attacks on the CPUSA and its Soviet supporters as craven assaults from benighted plutocrats. I had naively thought there was a consensus that the Soviet Union, especially in the early to mid-20th century, was a totalitarian monstrosity, and that its foreign agents acted mainly as mouthpieces for its dictatorial interests.

This book proves that there remains a large part of the American historical profession which refuses to bend to the overwhelming mountains of evidence of Soviet crimes, and which continues to paint national and international Communism with rosy colors. The authors, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, the two premier experts on Soviet espionage, remain genuinely horrified at continued obfuscations and justifications of Stalinist and Soviet power in the American academy, and rightly so. They show that from the 1970s onwards, "revisionists" tied to the New Left tried to portray the Soviet Union as the moral equivalent or even superior of the United States, and they won much of the battle in journals and universities. Professor Barbara Foley recently celebrated the Soviet Union's "involvement of millions of workers in socialist construction, the emancipation of women from feudalistic practices, the struggle against racism and anti-Semitism" and so forth. Brown University Professor Paul Buhle said he could attack Soviet crimes only if others admitted that Harry Truman was "America's Stalin" because of his purges of Communists in the government. Meanwhile, this revisionism translated into the celebration of the CPUSA's work at home. Mark Solomon of Simmons College in his dissertation on black Communists in the South claimed that they "virtually originated the idea of Black Belt self-determination" and led the early civil rights movement in the South.

When documents emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union showing it was definitely a genocidal regime, and proving that the CPUSA was subsidized and dominated by the Soviets, many revisionists only slightly adjusted their views. Solomon in his still celebratory 1998 book "The Cry was Unity," now admitted that black communist were controlled by Moscow, but said that it was "reminiscent of a parent's tough love for an erant child." Edward Johanningsmeier's biography of CPUSA leader William Z. Foster admitted that new records showed that CPUSA members "did not act completely autonomously," but that they still embodied the most idealistic strain in American politics. More often, post-Soviet revisionists attacked historians who noted Soviet atrocities with the odd charge of "triumphalism," or continued to smear anyone who noted the extent of Communist penetration in America as "McCarthyites." To historians like Yeshiva professor Ellen Schrecker, McCarthyites had long been a capacious enough term to encompass liberals such as Arthur Schlesinger, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the CIO labor union, so of course it could be applied to those who saw Communist espionage itself as somehow a bad thing.

Communist espionage remains the most contested part of the historical record, and is what makes a book like this of more than antiquarian interest. Charges of Communist espionage later tainted much of President Roosevelt's and Truman's reformist efforts, and led to an organized attempt to remove any Communists from government. These charges also, of course, beget wild accusations and Joseph McCarthy's unsubstantiated charges. On one side, much of the right and some of the liberal Left, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, were horrified by Communist subversion and worked to stop it, sometimes going clearly to excess; on the other hand, many on the Left made allies with accused Communists like Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Lauchlin Currie, and Julius Rosenberg, portraying them as innocent victims and the "red-baiters" as the real danger to America. Such lines defined much of American politics from the 1950s through 1970s.

Haynes and Klehr have no truck with ignorant political bullies like McCarthy, but they do think that with the opening of the Soviet Archives and the release of America's "VENONA" decrypts in 1995, the evidence is overwhelming that most of those major actors removed from the government or jailed for espionage in the 1940s and 1950s were working as Communist spies. Increasingly feeble and hollow attempts by historians to find glimmers of evidence attesting to Hiss's or White's or other's innocence are rightly mocked as mere ideological rear-guard actions, now ignored even by some former leftist compatriots. New revisionists often admit the espionage, only to argue that this was actually for the benefit of the United States. Professor Michael E. Parrish argued of Rosenberg's, Hall's, Fuchs's and others atomic espionage, "Who's to say" that their spying "did not contribute significantly to the...'long peace' that followed World War II? Would the United States have been at prudent in times of crisis in the absence of Soviet nuclear weapons?" As Haynes and Klehr pointed out, the government did not give it to these men to decide which dictators would be better off with nuclear weapons.

This book sometimes lacks structure and can occasionally devolve into what seem like petty historical quibbles, but on the whole the evidence here should be sobering. Haynes and Klehr begin the book by noting the loss of a libel battle in the UK in 2000 by a noted Holocaust denier, and rightfully point out that many of the tactics used by Holocaust deniers are mimicked by minimizers of the Soviet atrocities. Yet while Holocaust deniers are rightfully estranged from intellectual discourse, defenders of the Soviet Union and its foreign espionage are placed at the very pinnacle of the American academy. ...more

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Mar 25, 2019 Emil O. W. Kirkegaard rated it it was amazing

Eye opening account of the rampant left wing bias in the history of American communism. Makes you wonder about the other historical facts you've been taught... ...more

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Dec 30, 2017 Tech Historian rated it it was amazing

History won't be kind to these historians.

This was a long needed book. Given what we now know, the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin was as brutal as Nazi Germany. The only difference was the indiscriminate holocaust against all of its people rather a specific religion. The authors "name names" (irony intended) of the historians and academics who still deny the truth about the evil that was the Soviet Union.

This myopia may have been explained as enthusiasm for a youthful regime fighting agains History won't be kind to these historians.

This was a long needed book. Given what we now know, the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin was as brutal as Nazi Germany. The only difference was the indiscriminate holocaust against all of its people rather a specific religion. The authors "name names" (irony intended) of the historians and academics who still deny the truth about the evil that was the Soviet Union.

This myopia may have been explained as enthusiasm for a youthful regime fighting against the worst excesses of capitalism in the 1920's and 30's, or solidarity for a (belated) wartime ally in the 1940's. However, on the surface it's unexplainable how rational people could have supported the Soviet regime after Khrushchev's 1956 "cult of personality" speech about the evils of Stalin. Or even if they were still true believers, how they could still remain "deniers" after the Soviet archives were opened?

Perhaps some of this can be explained by the political alignment in the United States. The majority of Americans identify with a single party. In doing so we tend to embrace the entire party platform.

Anti-communism in the 20th century was most strongly identified with the Republican party. With more than a half-century of distance, Republicans stood on the right side of the debate about communism and on the wrong side of most social issues - race, the role of women, etc. Those who identified with social issues tended to be Democrats. Again with a half-century of distance, Democrats stood on the wrong side of foreign policy - the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, etc. were living hells, not some gauzy utopias. It's too bad our political system has yet to come up with a way to say, "I'll take the social issues of the Democratic party and the foreign policy of the Republicans."

The authors treated the issue of whether this was a Democratic or Republican issue more carefully than some of the commenter's have. Labels like "left," "liberals" make me think that perhaps our brains are wired for simple ideas that obviate the need for thinking.

The irony is that history is not on the side of the historians who've made a career of self deception. When they're gone we'll be shaking our head over the legacy of denial.

Great book and should be read alongside The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - The Stalin Era and The Venona Secrets, Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors and The Sword and the Shield ...more

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Jan 12, 2011 Boris rated it it was amazing

The authors survey modern historians who through tortuous prose and egregious "logic" try to deny, justify or mitigate the impact of those who spied for the the Soviet Union during WWII.

Between the Venona cables, corroborating accounts of defectors and the Soviet and former Warsaw-pact state archives, there is no doubt that the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White and other lesser-known spies committed treason and fed military secrets to mass-murdering Stalinist Russia, to the detriment o ...more

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Nov 14, 2018 ELB rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, non-fiction, 2000s, favorites

"IN DENIAL Historians, Communism &
Espionage
By John Earl Haynes
Harvey Klehr
From the Cover
This is a book explaining how, beginning in the late 1960s, the study of American communism was taken over by “revisionist” historians who attempted to portray the United States as the aggressor in the Cold War and saw the American Communist Party (CPUSA) as an admirable force for democracy. Today, more than a decade after the death of the Soviet communism, revisionists remain dismissive of Stalin’s crim ...more

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Jun 05, 2018 Lawrence rated it it was amazing

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Apr 08, 2011 haetmonger added it

Not my cup of tea, really.

The main complaint that comes to mind is the way that the authors occasionally sound like they are attacking the Soviets and their useful idiots abroad for playing dirty -- e.g., there's a couple of pages where they talk about how people like Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, etc. swore loyalty to America and then broke that sacred oath, as if it is this deception that is immoral. Likewise, there are a couple of points where they almost seem to be praise the U.S. for not ...more

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Mar 05, 2016 JA rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bin-non-fiction

An excellent overview of the academic response to newly declassified data on Soviet oversight of American communism. If nothing else, it provides a convenient list of 'musts to avoid' - that is, supposed historians whose work, whatever the topic, must be viewed skeptically. ...more

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