Jewish Champions of First Amendment

[MatthewHPolSci at aol.com]

Lest silence give consent, I respectfully offer the suggestion that this  
discussion has gone far from the original question, and ventures onto territory  
where further debate could be required.
 
The original question was about Jewish champions of the First  Amendment.
It appears then to have broadened into a discussion of whether people who  
took tactical advantage of free speech protections could be considered  
champions.  That seems to have broadened into a discussion of Communists,  opposed in 
principle, as I believe they were, who surely needed free speech  protections 
in order to work in the United States.
 

Here are points where I would differ with the most recent post.
 
1.  There was an attempt at enforcing uniformity of belief within the  CPUSA 
greater than was normal in the patronage-oriented major parties.
 
2.  ". . . plenty of Americans joined the Communist Party because no  one 
else seemed to be doing anything about serious problems or paying any  attention 
at all to the African American community."  For mere  illustration, I would 
mention (a) the large-scale labor-management struggle (as  evinced in the mine 
workers' union and in others) and (b) experience in the  African American world 
in the 1920s one output of which is the Arkansas  sharecropper case.
I think the idea that nothing of consequence was happening vis-a-vis  African 
Americans until the CP came on the scene is wrong.
  
3.  The post omits what I believe to have been the absolute dependence  of 
the CPUSA on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the USSR, and the  
Comintern.  It also omits the Nazi-Soviet Pact and the profound stress  that 
generated for the Communists and their allies in the US.
 
4.  I do not think there was ever a point when there was a possibility  of 
being "a liberal and a communist at the same time" and I believe that was  
manifest in the struggles in the 1930s.  The Walter Reuther, Eleanor  Roosevelt, 
Reinhold Niebuhr records were always affected by the liberal  struggle to avoid 
organizations being taken over by CP discipline.  The  struggle was manifest 
in, among other things, the unions that went into the  Congress of Industrial 
Organizations (CIO).
 
5.  "There was a large exodus from the CPUSA after 1956 . . . after  the 
ugliness of the Soviet system became increasingly well-documented."  Be  that as 
it may, the ugliness of the Soviet system was known from the later  1920s.
 
Finally, back to free speech, there may have individual Communists who  
favored free speech in principle, but I am not personally aware of Communists  
advocating free speech for their adversaries on any basis.
 
I offer these points with some embarrassment, as they may also contribute  to 
the digression.  But the issues raised are so big that I would be  
embarrassed if I did not say something.  Obviously, I may be wrong.
 
 
 
 
Matthew  Holden, Jr.
Henry L. and Grace M. Doherty Professor Emeritus of  Politics,
University of Virginia
***
Address:
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Jackson, MS 39211 USA
Phone:  601-952-0596
mh3q at virginia.edu,
matthewhpolsci at aol.com,
matthewholden at bellsouth.net
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