Friday, June 08, 2012
The left-leaning
magazine The Nation has published a list of what it deems America’s all-time,
most influential progressives. The list, which you can review for yourself , is
very revealing.
For starters, it’s fascinating that The Nation leads with
Eugene Debs at number 1. Debs was a socialist. It was 100 years ago this year,
in 1912, that Debs ran for president on the Socialist Party ticket.
Today’s progressives get annoyed if you call them
socialists. Well, why is a pure socialist the no. 1 “progressive” on The Nation's list?
Of course, progressives really get annoyed if you suggest
they bear any sympathies to communism. That being the case, two other
“progressives” on The Nation’s list are quite intriguing: Paul Robeson and I.
F. Stone.
Paul Robeson was a proud recipient of the “Stalin Prize.”
Even the New York Times concedes Robeson was “an outspoken admirer of the
Soviet Union.” When Robeson in 1934 returned from his initial pilgrimage to the
Motherland, the Daily Worker thrust a microphone in his face. The Daily Worker
rushed its interview into print, running it in the January 15, 1935 issue under
the headline, “‘I Am at Home,’ Says Robeson At Reception in Soviet Union.”
The Bolsheviks, explained Robeson, were new men. He was
bowled over by the “feeling of safety and abundance and freedom” he found
“wherever I turn.” He discovered sheer equality under Joseph Stalin.
When asked about Stalin’s purges, Robeson retorted: “From
what I have already seen of the workings of the Soviet Government, I can only
say that anybody who lifts his hand against it ought to be shot!”
Yes, Robeson was deadly serious.
Robeson told the Daily Worker that he felt a “kinship”
with the USSR. So much so that he moved his family there.
He also joined Communist Party USA. In May 1998, the
centennial of Robeson’s birth, longtime CPUSA head Gus Hall hailed Robeson as a
man of communist “conviction,” who “never forgot he was a communist.”
None of this is mentioned in The Nation’s profile, which
blasts anyone who dared consider Robeson a communist. Instead, The Nation
insists that Comrade Paul was a “progressive.”
And that brings me to I. F. Stone.
Stone is listed at number 26 on The Nation’s list. Stone
has been hailed by liberals for decades as the literal “conscience” of
journalism—a hero of impeccable honesty. In fact, we now know that Stone, at
one time, was a paid Soviet agent.
In their latest Yale University Press work, historians
John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev conclude that Stone (from
1936-39) was a “Soviet spy.” Also closely studying Stone’s case is Herb
Romerstein. In The Venona Secrets, Romerstein likewise concluded that “Stone
was indeed a Soviet agent.” One of the stronger confirmations from the Soviet
side is retired KGB general Oleg Kalugin, who reported: “He [Stone] was a KGB
agent since 1938. His code name was ‘Blin.’ When I resumed relations with him
in 1966, it was on Moscow’s instructions. Stone was a devoted communist.”
None of this appears at Stone’s “progressive” profile at
The Nation.
And speaking of progressives with communist sympathies,
also on The Nation’s list is Margaret Thanger . The Planned Parenthood matron
sojourned to Stalin’s Potemkin villages in 1934. “[W]e could well take example
from Russia,” Sanger advised Americans upon her return, “where birth control
instruction is part of the regular welfare service of the government.”
The Planned Parenthood founder was stunned by the
explosion in abortions once legalized by the Bolsheviks. No fear, though.
Sanger offered this confident prediction: “All the [Bolshevik] officials with
whom I discussed the matter stated that as soon as the economic and social
plans of Soviet Russia are realized, neither abortions nor contraception will
be necessary or desired. A functioning Communistic society will assure the
happiness of every child, and will assume the full responsibility for its
welfare and education.”
This was pure progressive utopianism, an absolute faith
in central planners.
Overall, the socialists, communists, and Soviet
sympathizers on The Nation’s list are dizzying: Upton Sinclair, Henry Wallace,
W. E. B. DuBois, Norman Thomas, Lincoln Steffens, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger,
Tom Hayden, Barbara Ehrenreich, and John Dewey—founding father of American
public education.
Thus, I’m compelled to ask: Is this “progressivism?” Is
progressivism synonymous with liberalism, or is it much further to left, closer
to communism?
I plead with progressives: This is your ideology … Could
you better define it, if that’s possible? Or is the definition of progressivism
always progressing? Actually, it is always progressing; that’s precisely the
problem with this train-wreck of an ever-elusive ideology. The Nation’s list of
leading American “progressives” is truly a teachable moment.
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