Fw: Radosh replies to Leo

[Michael Pugliese <debsian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

   Heh, I love the Left and the ex-Left, for this stuff! Between Carrol Cox,
who said once on lbo-talk that Stalinism, with or without scare quotes was
an invalid category of analysis or polemic (I'll dig up a book from 1937
published in the fSU, tributes to Stalin by Khruschev et.al. where they
proclaim their Stalinism w/o quibbles. ~Lucky Earl Browder, as Shactman said
in a debate with him in 1950 moderated by C. Wright Mills, "There but for an
accident of geography, sit a corpse!~) and Radosh here who calls Leo a
Stalinoid, it gets kwazy.
  Leaving aside teds calling Doug a Stalinist slanderer. Jeesh.
Michael Pugliese
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Radosh" <rradosh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "com LeoCasey@aol." <LeoCasey@xxxxxxx>
Cc: "Harvey Klehr" <polshk@xxxxxxxxx>; "John Haynes"
<Johnearlhaynes@xxxxxxxx>; "Robert J. Lieber"
<lieberr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "David Horowitz" <dhorowitz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
"Louis Menashe" <lmenashe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Pugliese Michael"
<debsian@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2001 8:36 AM
Subject: Book


Leo Casey:

Your Stalinoid and hostile letter confirms my entire take on the shift Left
of DSA.
My memory is correct. It was indeed Paul DuBrul who backed me up. I can
show you plenty of blurbs and endorsements Mike made for books, writing as
an intellectual, that he did not check on with DSA. THis was not a point of
ego on my part. As a man of the Left, I wanted to make it clear that my
reexamination of the Rosenberg case was NOT a matter of politics, but of
history. Indeed, it was, as the resulting debate showed, a seminal issue for
the integrity of the political Left. Mike's comment to me- and he did make
it- is that all he would be willing to say is that "if asked, I'll say
you're not a McCarthyite." To which I said, "thanks a lot, Mike."
As for the CP, do you think I'm not aware of the Howe-Coser book. In fact,
Irving's problem was his repudiation of his own thesis, and his leaning far
in the other direction to apologize for and explain the antics of those who
became Communists. I refer you to the printed debate between Irving and me
in Dissent after my Spanish Civil War article appeared in The New Criterion.
I have letters from Irving in which he even excuses Communists who supported
the party line who were black, because the CP fought for civil rights. What
happened to his analysis in his old book?
By the way,when I was seeking a blurb, it was not yet a "major"
controversy---that took place after the book's publication. Do you really
mean to say that an intellectual of the Left cannot enter into a decision
about a book without checking with the organization to which he belongs?
Sounds like good old CP politics to me-democratic centralism-which I though
democratic socialists abhorred.
I also did engage in a public and printed debate with Mike right before he
passed away, in the pages of Partisan Review, in which I told him I would
not answer his retort to my comments, thereby giving him the final word. You
can look that up for yourself. And Mike's posthumously published interview
in RadicalAmerica, quite pathetic as it is, indicates his desire to even
appease and grovel before the hard remnants of the far New Left. It didn't
work. Their introductory comments to the interview condemn him as an
unreconstrcuted social-democrat who meant well, but who failed to convince
them that he was on their side.
Finally, your view of what a blurb is for is ridiculous. I was trying to
make it clear that men of the Left could publicly give their approval for a
re-examination of a case that was central to the Stalinist Left's mythology,
and endorse its findings. Their response was "ofcourse you are right, but we
won't do it." To me, that is cowardice and intellectual hypocrisy, and says
something about their commitment to the truth.
NO wonder you and your movement are now politically and intellectual
bankrupt, without any influence, and compromised beyond salvation. Good
riddance!

Ron Radosh