Faculty Bibliography

David M. Oshinsky reviews "No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities," by Ellen W. Schrecker

David M. Oshinsky reviews "Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, The United States, and the Modern Historical Experience," by Gabriel Kolko

He concludes that such intellectuals became the 'spiritual parents' of the New Left - a connection that both groups seemed anxious to ignore. The 60's, he writes, were 'preeminently a time of personal experimentation, much of it disconcerting' to those who had matured during the 40's and 50's. The intellectuals were overly concerned by the New Left's sloganeering, historical ignorance and plain bad manners. The intellectuals did not understand that their own misgivings about conformity and mass culture, about materialism and mechanization, had become the concerns of radical youth, however vulgar, violent or simplistic the message appeared. In short, the mutual animosity between these groups obscured their common goals. For example, his claim that McCarthyism found its 'chief inspiration' in the ideology of liberal politicians and anti-Stalinist intellectuals is poorly documented and probably untrue. Among other things, it overlooks the enormous influence exerted by labor unions, religious and patriotic groups, the Republican Party, the business community and the popular press. Furthermore, Mr. [Richard H. Pells]'s analysis of uncooperative Congressional witnesses is incomplete. It is one thing to praise a Lillian Hellman for refusing to name names and quite another to ignore her positions on the major issues of the day. 'She had not shamed herself or her principles,' Mr. Pells writes. He seems unconcerned - or perhaps unaware - that these 'principles' included a knee-jerk defense of Stalinism and a selective approach to the plight of other victims of the McCarthy era. [Dwight Macdonald] looked and acted the part of the radical. He wore eyeglasses, a goatee and loud, sloppy clothes. He almost never left the borough of Manhattan. His conversations were embellished with odd physical gestures and 'the voice of a North American screech owl.' Some intellectuals dismissed him as a glib and inconsistent writer - a perception he did little to dispel. He 'was certainly no theorist,' [Stephen J. Whitfield], a professor of American studies at Brandeis University, writes. But 'his cleverness invited condescension, and his remarkably engaging and lucid style denied (him) the indulgence granted to clumsier writers, who are often beneficiaries of the belief that behind that impenetrable prose they must be thinking.'

He did not last long in the Communist orbit. He resented the political indoctrination, sectarian orthodoxy and cult of proletarianism that passed for 'honest writing.' His most vivid memory is of a meeting in New York about the Scottsboro case, which involved the arrest in 1931 of nine black teen- agers in Alabama who were accused of raping two white girls. At the meeting, he recalls, 'a letter from one of the blacks was read, which sounded like this: 'I din't jazz no girls. I din't jazz nobody. Nobody jazzed no girls,' for two or three pages. When the reading was over, one John Reed Club member jumped up and announced, 'This is literature.'' The two men had one thing in common, however - a hatred of Stalinism and its apologists in the intellectual community. It was, [William Barrett] recalled, the cord 'that bound [Philip Rahv] and [William Phillips] together most passionately.' In 1946 Partisan Review published a scathing editorial lashing out at the 'liberals' of PM, The Nation and The New Republic, calling them 'Russian patriots,' a 'Fifth Column' and other such names. The time had come to wake up, to face facts, to 'stop licking Stalin's boots.' He also provides some vivid recollections of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Arthur Koestler, all of whom offended him in one way or another. In 1946, for example, Miss de Beauvoir came to New York City to gather material for a book about the 'American experience.' She was anxious to see the 'workers' quarters,' especially Canarsie, which she had come across in one of John Dos Passos' novels. On learning that Canarsie contained few people and fewer workers, she settled for Harlem, Wall Street and other examples of imperialist decay. Somehow Mr. Phillips held his temper in check. 'After all,' he writes, 'Simone de Beauvoir was charming, and certainly attractive, and even if you do not agree about slave labor camps, that is not all there is to life.'