Well! I'm shocked! This all sounds like the Americans were fighting the
class enemy of the working class. Heavens forbid. I'm utterly speechless.
Issam Mansour
At 10:06 AM 02/03/2001 +0000, you wrote:
> >Library of Congress Finds Lost Communist Documents
> >
> >January 18, 2000
> >Contact: Helen Dalrymple (202) 707-1940
> >Public Contact: (202) 707-5387
> >
> >Library of Congress Opens to Researchers the Records of the Communist
> >Party, USA
> >
> >Microfilm Includes 435,165 Frames on 326 Reels
> >
> >The Library of Congress has opened for research copies of the records
> >of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA) covering the period from the
> >1920s to the 1940s. This collection of documents had long been
> >thought destroyed. However, in late 1992, after the dissolution of
> >the Soviet Union, a historian in the Manuscript Division of the
> >Library of Congress, John Earl Haynes, learned that the CPUSA had
> >secretly shipped these records to the Soviet Union more than 50 years
> >ago, where they were kept in a closed Communist Party archives. In
> >the post- Soviet era the new Russian government took control of these
> >records and opened them for research.
> >
> >In January 1993, Dr. Haynes traveled to Moscow and was the first
> >American scholar to examine this historically significant collection,
> >housed in what is today known as the Russian State Archives of Social
> >and Political History. Upon his return to the United States, he
> >recommended that the Library of Congress propose to the Russian
> >Archives that the collection be microfilmed and a set of the
> >microfilm deposited in the Library to ensure their permanent
> >availability.
> >
> >The Library of Congress opened negotiations with the Russian Archives
> >in 1993 to microfilm the collection. The negotiations over the years
> >that followed involved staff of the Library's Manuscript and European
> >divisions as well as James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress.
> >In late 1998, a formal agreement was signed by Winston Tabb,
> >Associate Librarian for Library Services, on behalf of the Library,
> >and Kyrill Anderson, director of the Russian Archives. The project
> >has now been completed. In total, the film includes 435,165 frames on
> >326 reels. The cost of filming was supported by a "Gift to the
> >Nation" from John Kluge, chairman of the Library's Madison Council,
> >and the Library's James B. Wilbur Fund for Foreign Copying.
> >
> >The previous paucity of the archival record has been a major obstacle
> >to scholarship on the history of the American Communist movement.
> >Accounts of the history of American communism and the related issue
> >of anticommunism have been highly contentious, with the academic
> >consensus varying widely over the decades in part due to the
> >shallowness and resulting ambiguity of the evidential base. The CPUSA
> >has always been a secretive organization; while occasional government
> >raids, subpoenas, search warrants, and congressional investigations
> >made some documentation part of the public record, the quantity was
> >never large because of the party's practice of hiding or destroying
> >records. Although some party documents have also become available in
> >the papers of various private individuals, the quantity is limited.
> >
> >Now any researcher can read microfilmed copies of the original
> >documents in the Manuscript Reading Room of the Library of Congress.
> >Historians will, therefore, have a much stronger basis for
> >reconstructing an accurate picture of American communism and
> >anticommunism from the 1920s to the 1940s. A finding aid has been
> >created to guide researchers through the collection.
> >
> >Many of the documents in this collection are unique; the records are
> >very detailed regarding the history of the CPUSA, particularly for
> >its origins in the 1920s and the early and middle 1930s. There are
> >fewer records for the 1937-1944 period than for the earlier years,
> >probably due to the difficulties of shipping large quantities of
> >records once war started in 1939. The CPUSA collection at the Russian
> >Archives has no material later than 1944.
> >
> >Among the items in the CPUSA collection are:
> >
> >* A 1919 letter from Nikolai Bukharin, head of the Communist
> >International in Soviet Russia, to American radicals urging them to
> >form an American Communist Party. The Comintern (as the Communist
> >International was called) told American radicals that they should
> >organize "Communist nuclei among soldiers and sailors...for the
> >purpose of violent baiting of officers and generals, " recognize
> >the "necessity of arming the proletariat," tell radical soldiers when
> >demobilized from the army that they "must not give up their arms, "
> >should expose President Woodrow Wilson "as a hypocrite and murderer,
> >in order to discredit him with the masses," form "militant organs of
> >the struggle for the conquest of the State power, for the
> >dictatorship of the Workers" and adopt the slogan "Down with the
> >Senate and Congress."
> >
> >* A 13-page application for admission to the Communist International
> >from the newly organized Communist Party of America. The letter,
> >dated November 24, 1919, ends with the declaration that "The
> >Communist Party realizes the immensity of its task; it realizes that
> >the final struggle of the Communist proletariat will be waged in the
> >United States, our conquest of power alone assuring the world Soviet
> >Republic. Realizing all this, the Communist Party prepares for the
> >struggle. Long Live the Communist International! Long live the World
> >Revolution."
> >
> >* A 1926 memo regarding Soviet subsidies to the American Communist
> >movement. Different Soviet agencies subsidized different American
> >Communist activities, and sometimes the funds, sent to the United
> >States by surreptitious means, were delivered to the wrong recipient.
> >In this memo, the head of the American Communist party attempts to
> >reconcile who got which subsidies and which transfers were needed to
> >ensure that the various activities received what Moscow intended.
> >
> >* Some documents illustrate the emphasis that the CPUSA placed on
> >organizing African Americans. A 1924 letter from the Comintern, for
> >example, confirms that it was providing a subsidy of $1,282 to send
> >10 black Americans to the "Eastern University," a Comintern school in
> >Moscow. Another document is a 15-page report on the party's work in
> >Harlem in 1934.
> >
> >* There is a small collection of the letters of John Reed in the
> >CPUSA collection. Reed, a well-known American journalist of the
> >1910s, was a founder of the American Communist Party in 1919 and one
> >of its early representatives to the Comintern. However, he died of
> >typhus in the Soviet Union in 1920. This material is thought to have
> >been in his possession at the time of his death and was added to the
> >CPUSA collection by Comintern archivists. (Reed was the subject a
> >successful 1981 Hollywood film, "Reds," in which Warren Beatty played
> >Reed.) Reed reported on the Mexican Revolution, and in a 1915 letter
> >in the collection, written from Mexico, he tells his editor in New
> >York about his impressions of several of the leading Mexican
> >Revolutionary generals: Francisco "Pancho" Villa, Emiliano Zapata,
> >and Venustiano Carranza.
> >
> >* A six-page report discusses Communist attempts to organize
> >sharecroppers in the agricultural South in 1934. It includes brief
> >sketches of the sharecroppers the party attracted to a "farm school"
> >it set up in St. Louis.
> >
> >
> >
> >[This message contained attachments]
> >
> >
> >
> >________________________________________________________________________
> >________________________________________________________________________
> >
> >
