Posted on 03/20/2007 12:33:43 AM PDT by neverdem
The songwriter, labor organizer and folk hero Joe Hill has been the subject of poems, songs, an opera, books and movies. His will, written in verse the night before a Utah firing squad executed him in 1915 and later put to music, became part of the labor movement’s soundtrack. Now the original copy of that penciled will is among the unexpected historical gems unearthed from a vast collection of papers and photographs never before seen publicly that the Communist Party USA has donated to New York University.
The cache contains decades of party history including founding documents, secret code words, stacks of personal letters, smuggled directives from Moscow, Lenin buttons, photographs and stern commands about how good party members should behave (no charity work, for instance, to distract them from their revolutionary duties).
By offering such an inside view, the archives have the potential to revise assumptions on both the left and the right about one of the most contentious subjects in American history, in addition to filling out the story of progressive politics, the labor movement and the civil rights struggles.
“It is one of the most exciting collecting opportunities that has ever presented itself here,” said Michael Nash, the director of New York University’s Tamiment Library, which will announce the donation on Friday.
Liberal and conservative historians, told by The New York Times about the archives, were enthusiastic about the addition of so many original documents to the historical record. No one yet knows whether they can resolve the die-hard disputes about the extent of the links between American subversives and Moscow since, as Mr. Nash said, “it will take us years to catalog.” But what is most exciting, said Mr. Nash and other scholars, is the new areas it opens up for research beyond the homegrown...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Michael Falco for The New York Time
The vast collection from the Communist Party USA includes personal letters, smuggled directives and photographs.
Check out that typo, "The New York Time." The Times put it on the frontpage, and the art section. Go figure.
What an honor for NYU. /sarc
The NY Times Ode to Communism, accompanied by music, right on the front page.
A hundred years ago they were Communists. Today they're the modern Democratic Party.
Closet ? They're about as out of the closet as you can get.
Believe it or not, there are people (some Britons, for instance) who sincerely believe the NYT is too conservative and pro-Israel (!). Have a look at the reader's response to this Gerard Baker article on London Times, and note a certain individual from New Zealand and some Britons:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article1522471.ece
What would the NYT do if the BBC and Al-Jazeera didn't exist ? They need those outfits to stick around to make them look like they haven't sailed off the far-left horizon. I don't think the BBC makes any bones about the fact that it is not only rabidly anti-Zionist but also anti-Semitic. This may be an overused expression, but Hitler would be quite proud of those outfits. It's almost like the Allies lost the war, but instead of swastika-wearing soldiers goosestepping about, it's hippie-dressed intellectual elites and turban-wearing bearded bombthrowers in their stead.
Apropos.
The NY Times website has this story in the "Arts" section.
I'm not quite sure how this positioning reflects upon the NYT, except possibly that its editors are a bunch of fruits, nuts, and flakes.
This is hugh and series. Also rilly greet.
My only concern (kidding, I hope) would be whether there will be an effort to "scrub" the files clean of evidence showing the extensive ties to Moscow. The Venona intercepts were very bad for the Dem cause, and this could be as well.
Overall, it's astonishing that, for the first time since the early 1960s, the NYT is admitting the CPUSA existed.
In my part of the country during that time period, they were known as the "Red Flag" wavers.
Thousands of them streamed into this territory to destroy mining companies and start up vile left wing newspapers. They were part of the great immigration wave from Eastern Europe that deposited millions of left wingers into our country. I believe their numbers and voting power gave us the 16th and 17th amendments and led to FDR and his establishment of the federal bureaucratic fascist state we live under today.
Their descendants are alive today in my area, collecting welfare, social security disability and pushing their communist agenda at local public meetings.
This was and is a European left wing infestation that we haven't recovered from.
Should have donated the cache to City College. Alma Mater of Julius Rosenberg and a bunch of the guys in his spy ring.
eleanor roosevelt attended communist meetings in nyc.
it was fashionable for america's protestant upper crust to travel to europe and bring home communist beliefs. also, eastern european jewish immigrants brought a communist agenda to america. david horowitz' "radical son" explains this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.