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| List of Documents Reproduced in Facsimile | ||
| Preface | ||
| Acknowledgments | ||
| A Note on the Documents | ||
| Glossary of Individuals and Organizations | ||
| Chronology of American Communism | ||
| Ch. 1 | Background | 3 |
| A Brief History of the American Communist Party | 4 | |
| The Clandestine Activities of the CPUSA | 14 | |
| The Question of Joseph McCarthy | 15 | |
| The Historiographic Debate | 17 | |
| Ch. 2 | Clandestine Habits: The 1920s and the Early 1930s | 20 |
| The Comintern and Covert Operations | 20 | |
| John Reed and Clandestine Funding of American Communism | 21 | |
| Julius and Armand Hammer | 26 | |
| Other Secret Communications | 31 | |
| The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat | 42 | |
| Earl Browder and Undercover Operations in Asia | 42 | |
| Harrison George and the Secret Work of the PPTUS | 49 | |
| Agnes Smedley, Comintern Agent | 60 | |
| Ch. 3 | The Secret Apparatus of the CPUSA: The Early Years | 71 |
| The CPUSA Establishes Its Secret Apparatus | 71 | |
| J. Peters and the Secret Apparatus, 1932-1938 | 73 | |
| Rudy Baker Replaces J. Peters | 83 | |
| The Washington Communist Underground, 1933-1943 | 96 | |
| The Ware Group and the La Follette Committee | 96 | |
| Peters and the Washington Informant Group, 1943 | 106 | |
| Copying Confidential State Department Letters, 1936 | 110 | |
| Ch. 4 | The Secret Apparatus Branches Out | 119 |
| The Secret Apparatus under Rudy Baker, 1938-1940 | 119 | |
| Fighting Ideological Deviationists and Other Enemies | 124 | |
| Weeding Out Internal Enemies | 125 | |
| Stealing the Files of Party Enemies | 128 | |
| Enforcing Ideological Conformity | 132 | |
| Max, the Agent Who Wouldn't Go Home, 1939-1942 | 147 | |
| Fighting Deviationists and Bad Elements in the Spanish Civil War | 151 | |
| The Surveillance of Bertram Wolfe, 1937 | 153 | |
| The Death of Albert Wallach, 1938 | 155 | |
| "Suspicious Individuals and Deserters" in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion | 183 | |
| Ch. 5 | Other Faces of the Secret World | 188 |
| Ann Cadwallader Coles, a Southern Artist in the Secret World | 188 | |
| American Communists and Soviet Radio Propaganda, 1937-1942 | 195 | |
| Williana Burroughs, New York Teacher and Soviet Radio Propagandist | 199 | |
| American Students in the International Lenin School | 202 | |
| American Communists in Red Army Uniforms, 1936 | 203 | |
| Ch. 6 | The American Communist Party, the Secret Apparatus, and the NKVD | 205 |
| The Brother-Son Network in World War II | 205 | |
| The Brother-Son Network and Soviet Atomic Espionage | 216 | |
| Morris Cohen, Atomic Spy | 217 | |
| Recruiting Japanese Cadre for the Comintern | 226 | |
| Earl Browder and the NKVD | 232 | |
| Earl Browder as an NKVD Talent Spotter, 1940 | 233 | |
| Margaret Browder, NKVD Agent, 1938 | 238 | |
| Irene Browder, Commissar with "Emergency Powers" | 243 | |
| Earl Browder's "Back Channel" to the White House | 249 | |
| Ch. 7 | The American Communist Underground Fights World War II | 259 |
| The CPUSA, the OSS, and Soviet Intelligence | 259 | |
| Recruiting Veterans of the International Brigades for the OSS, 1941-1945 | 259 | |
| Eugene Dennis, William Donovan, and the Infiltration of the OSS and OWI | 266 | |
| Reporting on the American Embassy in Moscow, 1942-1943 | 286 | |
| Ch. 8 | Soviet Intelligence and American Communists, 1942-1945 | 292 |
| NKVD and GRU Inquiries about Americans | 294 | |
| Judith Coplon, Soviet Spy | 294 | |
| Albert Feierabend, Soviet Agent | 296 | |
| Edmund Stevens, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Reporter | 299 | |
| Veterans of the International Brigades | 303 | |
| OSS and State Department Employees | 307 | |
| Elizabeth Bentley and the Perlo Group | 309 | |
| The Credibility of Whittaker Chambers | 317 | |
| Ch. 9 | Conclusion | 322 |
| Appendix A The Archival Record | 329 | |
| Appendix B Organization of the American Communist Party | 334 | |
| Selected Readings | 337 | |
| Index | 341 |
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Joe Gordon
reviewed The Secret World of American Communism: Documents from the Soviet Archives on January 30, 2019
The Secret World of American Communism
A while back I read a book called Inside the Stalin Archives. That book wasn't so much about the archives themselves but how American historians got access to the archives. I found it interesting and enjoyable, if not exactly what I was expecting. This book is one of the volumes that was produced by the researchers.
It is presented in an unusual format. It concentrates on 92 specific documents, most of which are reproduced in their entirety. The text places these documents in their context and explains what they mean and their relationship to other documents and often related events in the wider historical record.
But to say these are from the Stalin Archives is a bit dramatic and misleading. These would be more accurately described as the ComIntern archives. They span the time from about 1920 until 1945. Most are from the 1930's, when the archives are more complete. In the early days of the CPUSA (Communist Party of the USA), not all records were sent to the Soviet Union, and when the Second World War broke out more gaps appeared due to obvious logistical difficulties.
Frankly, I was a bit underwhelmed. The picture painted by these documents isn't so much one of a nefarious organization dedicated to the overthrow of American Democracy, but a bickering bunch of ideologues concerned more with who was a Trotskyist or a Lovestoneist. This is not to say that the CPUSA were not dedicated Communists loyal to their Soviet masters, provided with funds and missions to infiltrate the US government, trade unions, and other American institutions. They were. But the documentary evidence provided, while it supports the position that the CPUSA was secretive and involved in a wide variety of surveillance activities, they were relatively unproductive. The best examples provided did show that confidential information was given to the Soviets, but that confidential information was not secret or classified info.
Of course, because these documents come from the ComIntern rather than the KGB (and its forerunners), we're likely not getting the "good stuff." It may well be the case that the CPUSA was as dangerous as the Red Scare of the 1950's would lead us to believe. But I don't think this book makes a very good case of it.
I found the most interesting document was a letter sent from the US Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, to President Roosevelt from late 1936. Dodd's letter is insightful and if more such letters made their way to Western leaders of the time, perhaps much agony could have been avoided. This letter is enough for me to search out a good biography of Dodd, or at least a book about his time as Ambassador to the Third Reich.
My 2 star rating may be a bit harsh. I found the format of the book interesting. Although I read a lot of history, I don't really know how history is researched when it comes to archival sources. The topic is important, even if the documents we're presented are less than earth-shattering. And there are a number of interesting vignettes of various CPUSA members. I just feel that the book falls short of being the "convincing new picture" of the CPUSA that it purports to be.
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