Communism

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• 9/20/2020
  

  Woody Guthrie's Communism and "This Land Is Your Land"

  by Aaron J. Leonard

  The author of a new book on the FBI's surveillance of folk musicians argues that Woody Guthrie did join the Communist Party, though he was at odds with leadership over discipline. The affiliation is reflected in the lyrics of his most famous song. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  9/17/2020
  

  Richard and the Revolutionaries: Why did Lefties Love Wagner?

  "Wagner’s tale of the corrupting power of the golden Ring matches Marx’s musings on the “perverting power” of money."

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• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  9/2/2020
  

  Looking Out For Each Other

  by Leah Valtin-Erwin

  The wrenching transitions that East Germans faced in adapting to western commercial culture after reunification offer lessons for the COVID crisis, and a warning that the burdens of managing social change and stress often fall on retail workers. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  7/27/2020
  

  Joseph McCarthy and the Force of Political Falsehoods

  McCarthy never sent a single “subversive” to jail, but, decades later, the spirit of his conspiracy-mongering endures.

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  7/25/2020
  

  Milos Jakes, Czech Communist Leader, Is Dead at 97

  Mr. Jakes “came to be seen as the epitome of an out-of-touch Communist Party functionary,” said professor Mary Heimann.

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• SOURCE: The Intercept
  7/15/2020
  

  The Revolutionary Life of Paul Robeson: Scholar Gerald Horne on the Great Anti-Fascist Singer, Artist, and Rebel (Podcast)

  Historian and Robeson biographer Gerald Horne discusses the singer and activist's legacy and politics. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  7/1/2020
  

  Europe in 1989, America in 2020, and the Death of the Lost Cause

  by David W. Blight

  We should not celebrate too much as monuments topple and old slave-auction blocks are removed. History did not end when the Soviet Union dissolved, and it will not end now, even if a vibrant movement sweeps a new age of civil rights into America. Most of all, we must remember what the Lost Cause is and was before we try to call it past.

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• 6/30/2020
  

  Pawns of History: The Poetics of Russian Revolutionary Politics

  by Tim Brinkhof

  The repression of political dissent in Czarist Russia led many future revolutionaries to literature as a gateway to political thought; their poetic idealism may have made them both effective and dangerous.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  6/22/2020
  

  30 Years Ago, Romania Deprived Thousands of Babies of Human Contact

  Here’s what’s become of them.

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  6/11/2020
  

  Protest, Passion, Politics (Review Essay)

  "As protests work to remake the world, the reissue of Vivian Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism invites a new generation to reflect on what it means to live a life of political commitment—where the passionate pursuit of justice meets organized political action," writes Alan Wald, a reviewer of classic work of left political activism.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  6/2/2020
  

  How History Will Judge the Complicit

  by Anne Appelbaum

  Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?

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• 5/10/2020
  

  Turn out the Lights: When the Last American Diplomats Fled China

  by Joe Renouard

  The U.S. diplomats who left China in 1949 left oral histories that are now archived at the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Their stories warning how how misunderstandings, misplaced hopes, and missed opportunities can poison relations between great powers.

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• SOURCE: The American Interest
  4/11/2020
  

  The Forgotten Women of the Gulag

  A new book by Monika Zgustova brings the harrowing, heartbreaking history of the Soviet Gulag’s female prisoners to life.

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• SOURCE: Artnet News
  4/2/2020
  

  A 200-Foot Section of the Berlin Wall Has Been Torn Down to Make Way for Condos, Leaving Historians Appalled

  One of the largest remaining stretches of the inner wall was tucked quietly away in a suburb.

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• SOURCE: New York Times Book Review
  3/17/2020
  

  A Stirring Family Saga Tells a Taboo History of Vietnam

  by Gaiutra Bahadur

  Americans may not know that literature has been doing history’s job with brutal episodes in Vietnam’s past. 

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• 3/15/2020
  

  Churchill, Stalin and the Legacy of the Grand Alliance: An Interview with Professor Geoffrey Roberts

  by Aaron J. Leonard

  Geoffrey Roberts assesses the history and legacy of the wartime alliance and political relationship between Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  3/5/2020
  

  The Truth About Stalin’s Prison Camps

  Vera Golubeva spent more than six years in one of Joseph Stalin’s gulag camps. Her crime? “To this day, I still don’t know,” she says.

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• SOURCE: The Washington Post
  November 9, 2019
  

  ‘The day the wall came down’: How The Post covered the Berlin Wall’s fall 30 years ago

  by Robert McCartney

  Thirty years ago, East German officials abruptly announced it would open its border, ending 28 years of separation between East and West Berlin. This story ran on the front page of The Washington Post the next morning.

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• SOURCE: The American Interest
  8/27/19
  

  The Price of Self-Delusion

  by Ronald Radosh

  Paul Robeson, the towering figure of American arts, athletics, and civil rights activism, was also an unapologetic Stalinist. Failing to acknowledge this checkered legacy ultimately does a disservice to the goals he fought for.

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• SOURCE: NY Times
  September 3, 2019
  

  Around the World with Mao Zedong

  by Ian Johnson

  Julia Lovell's "Maoism: A Global History" traces the surprisingly wide influence of Chinese Communism.