History - Page 4

One hundred years ago, Bolshevik leader V.I Lenin and his small party hijacked the much larger anti-war and anti-Czar movements, which stormed the Winter Palace with him, taking control of the government, and then instituting a 73-year communist rule that claimed higher body counts than even Adolf Hitler. This, in turn, ushered in an admiration

Because novelist and literary critic Mary McCarthy was “a premature anti-Stalinist,” when the intellectual fashion in the 1930s was pro-Stalinist, one could assume from that moment on she saw through the various forms of communism. But this is not the case. In the early 1930s, McCarthy was a fellow-traveler of American communists, but this was

When exposed Soviet Spy Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury 96 years ago this month, the far Left, personified by the American Communist Party, denounced the verdict and championed Hiss as merely an innocent New Dealer framed by fascists. Fifties’ era liberals like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a fervent defender of the New Deal, and one

When the Leonardo Di Carpio-powered The Great Gatsby came out in 2013, reviewers treated F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel with appropriate respect, but, like those before them, had also designated it the only reason he stands with Hemingway as a major novelist. The familiar story of Fitzgerald never being able to do a repeat performance because

George Orwell once famously said that some ideas are so preposterous that only an intellectual could believe them. This was never truer than with Edmund Wilson, America’s premier man of letters in the 20th Century and 120 years old this year. As a literary critic, Wilson was solidly empirical, examining an author through their biography,

When in 1940, the House Committee on Un-American Activities came to Hollywood to investigate suspected industry communists, they overshot their mark by including actor Melvyn Douglas. Douglas was hardly a communist; indeed, he had been battling the influence of Party members in liberal and anti-fascist groups for well over a decade. Because he became president,

During the blacklist period, anti-anti-communists cast doubt on the sincerity of red-hunters, arguing that anti-communism was just a means for them to get publicity and money. They even peddled the legend that once Senator Joseph McCarthy was no longer a force to be reckoned after the Senate stripped him of his powers in 1954, he

Eleanor Roosevelt called her “neurotic.” Then-President Harry Truman dismissed her testimony as a “red herring.” Anticommunist newspapers, who found her credible, glamorized her as “a shapely blonde.” The former First Lady was closer to the mark about the mental instability of former-spy-turned-government-witness Elizabeth Bentley but wrong on her credibility; Roosevelt regarded Bentley’s accusations that several

“I am willing to stand or fall on this one.” So said Senator Joseph McCarthy, 50 years ago, who was already embattled two months into his investigations, which began in February of 1950 when he waved a list numbering–depending on who you wish to believe, McCarthy or his foes–205 or 57 Communists currently employed in

Historian Eugene Genovese has been categorized by pundits as following the familiar trajectory of ex-Stalinists who, having repudiated past allegiance, lurch violently to the Right. Pundits point to his speeches at the Conservative Political Action Committee, and his 1994 confessional, explaining how he and his generation defended Stalin’s murderous policies as evidence of the movement’s

Members of the Algonquin Round Table considered themselves the most sophisticated thinkers in twenties’ America. Wised up by the tragedy of World War I, in which many members served, they were adepts of mindless leader-worship and self-importance. But by the 1930s several of them succumbed to both idolatry, albeit secular, taking themselves very seriously by

John Patrick Diggins, a man I consider a mentor, once told me of an encounter he had with liberal journalist Murray Kempton in the 1970s. Kempton knew of Diggins’ work on communists-turned-conservatives. “I see you like to write about people who change their mind,” he said, following up with: “I like to write about people

Seventy one years ago, FDR bequeathed to presidency-hungry Republicans a campaign issue, courtesy of the Yalta conference. The conservative argument about this wartime meeting ranged from FDR being sick and taken advantage of by a robust, manipulative Stalin; or that FDR’s secession of Eastern Europe to the Soviet dictator was further proof of the president’s

Throughout his life, George Orwell was labeled a fascist by the Communist Left. Reviewing 1984, Harry Politt, head of the British Communist Party, characterized Winston Smith as a Nazi, based on his willingness when asked by O’Brian, who was masquerading as a rebel against Big Brother, if he would murder a child for the revolution.

In a scene the Left loves to replay as one of its heroic and clarifying moments, witness Dashiell Hammett replied to interrogator Joe McCarthy’s question over the matter of whether banning communist authors from overseas military libraries would be an effective way to fight communism: “If I were fighting communism, I wouldn’t allow people to

Once upon a time, Hollywood conservatives did not hide in the closet, recoiling at pro-Communist influence in Hollywood but keeping their criticisms private. Instead they organized and publicly proclaimed their allegiance to the Constitution. Their organization was called The Motion Picture Alliance for The Preservation of American Ideals, founded seventy years ago. The tide was

Charlie Chaplin is unique among Hollywood legends for being awarded both an honorary Oscar and the Communist International Peace Prize. The first award was given to him for being a pioneer of motion pictures, but he is no less the pioneer in his politics. His support for communist dictators while preaching free speech and tolerance

In the film Annie Hall, Woody Allen, a New York –actually Upper West Side–lover if there ever was one, complained of how the image of New York to the rest of the country was that of a “homosexual, left wing, communist” city. He followed up with, “even I live here and I sometimes think that.”

On December 7, 1941, the United States of America was drawn into war with Japan. 75 years ago, Japan bombed the military installations at Pearl Harbor taking the lives of thousands of Americans. Pre-Pearl Harbor Economic Situation After World War I, the United States and its allies entered into the Washington Naval Treaty. This Treaty