Actually, according to a standard history of Communism among US writers, Daniel Aaron's Writers on the Left, most US Communist writers had become disillusioned with Stalin by the end of the 1930s due to the Stalin/Trotsky rift, the Purge Trials, the Nazi-Soviet alliance, and in general the Communist Party's policy flip-flops and overbearing disciplinary tactics, which had driven away even former enthusiasts like Max Eastman as early as the late '20s. By 1953 very few major US writers supported Stalin--Dreiser was actually one of the few top writers who attended the last conference of the League of American Writers in 1942, along with, notably, Donald Ogden Stewart and Dashiell Hammett. There are other specifics in this post and previous ones I'd raise questions about, but it's past midnight here, so rather than chasing down each of those rabbits, I will just say that I feel it's important to review the known facts about each individual before making an assumption of guilt or innocence. In some cases a detailed review of a person's record will show that they travelled with the Communist Party for a time but were never a committed member, or were a member but left later for any of a number of factors ranging from personal to ideological reasons. In other cases someone who seems to be a mere dilettante turns out to be more than that. In other cases the evidence is too inconclusive to decide one way or the other, and we have to settle for not knowing. By the time George Orwell died he had compiled a list of 135 writers and other figures he suspected of Communist affiliation or fellow travelling, but he only felt confident enough about the facts to turn 38 of those names over to British intelligence for further review when he was on his deathbed.
Great post. Thanks.
As always, a brilliant, cogent post. Now go read your E-mail. :-)
Very good post.