HERBERT APTHEKER'S BLINDNESS AS HISTORIAN - AND BLINDNESS SPREADS

HERBERT APTHEKER: STUDIES IN WILLFUL BLINDNESS

(New York: Anthony Flood, 2019)

BY ANTHONY FLOOD

Rev. by Hugh Murray

In his short book Mr. Flood has written an essential work for anyone interested in the many volumes of history written by Dr. Herbert Aptheker. The questions Flood raises, however, are not limited to Aptheker, but concern all historians and indeed all intellectuals who were members of the Communist Party (CP), U.S.A., and other Communist parties world-wide. The question simply put, “Can they be trusted?” When Gary Murrell sought to write about Aptheker for his dissertation, his academic advisor rejected that proposal because “Aptheker's work can't be trusted.”(55) Murrell accommodated his advisors by writing on another topic. However, Murrell clearly disagreed with his academic gatekeepers, and after receiving his doctorate, Murrell wrote a sympathetic biography of Aptheker. One chapter of Flood's book is a review of Murrell's biography.

Flood also includes chapter on a related topic – should Communists be allowed to teach? Sidney Hook, a Professor of Philosophy at New York U. wrote an article published in the New York Times, 9 July 1950, maintaining that CP members should not teach, “Heresy, Yes – But Conspiracy, No.” Hook contended that Communists should be barred from teaching because they were committed to the Communist ideology and would therefore commit “educational fraud.” They could not be objective. Flood includes some of Aptheker's reply to Hook: “You say that they [Communists] must violate the ethics of their profession because as Communists they must think and act in a certain way...The way to demonstrate a scholar's lack of objectivity, his failure to adhere to the canons of scholarship is to examine his writings...(p. 9) Mr. Flood did just that, and found Dr. Aptheker's writings wanting.

Herbert Aptheker began dating the woman whom he would marry, his cousin Fay, in 1936. She had joined the CP in 1929. Herbert then moved in Communist circles, even lecturing on Black history for them at a radical school. In August 1939 Nazi Germany and Communist USSR signed a “Non-Aggression Pact.” While many in the CPUSA were aghast that Stalin was suddenly in league with the bete noir of the Reds, and the American party lost a quarter of its membership, Herbert proudly joined the party at this time. In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and so began WWII in Europe. A fortnight later, the Soviets invaded Poland from the East. Dr. Aptheker undoubtedly supported the twists and turns of the Soviet line during this period. Why? Aptheker believed “The marvel of the greatest event in human history [the development of the USSR] was at stake.”(75)

In 1942 Aptheker received his Ph.D. from Columbia U. with his dissertation, a revolution in itself, and revolutionary, a challenge to the accepted historiography of the time on his topic. The history profession then was dominated by the works of U. B. Phillips, whose American Negro Slavery revealed how the “peculiar institution,” overall, was not so bad. It took the slaves from savagery and lifted them, Christianized them, protected them. Aptheker, who in the 1930s and early 40s had traveled in the South searching for historical documents, and also helping to organize an anti-peonage campaign. On at least one occasion, he was severely beaten. His dissertation was a rebellion against the prevalent pro-Southern Philipsian portrayal of American Negro Slavery; thus, Aptheker's title: American Negro Slave Revolts. In this work Aptheker blasted the notions of the contented slave, as he presenting evidence for 240 plots and conspiracies by slaves to destroy the system under which they were forced to live.

During WWII Aptheker served in Europe, commanding Black infantrymen in an artillery unit. Flood once asked Aptheker about his time in the Army, and the historian replied that “we” were fashionable then. At war's end, Aptheker the Communist wrote one of the Army's official histories of events in Europe; he was an officer with an office in the Pentagon.

With war's end, Aptheker still could find no university teaching post because he was a Communist. He became a research assistant to W. E. B. Du Bois, who had an office in the NAACP suite on 40^th Street, across from the New York Public Library. Aptheker received $25 a week for this work. In post-war America, hostility extended beyond Communists to others on the Left. W. E. B. Du Bois lost his teaching position at Atlanta U. (his age was the excuse, but he suspected that politics were the real cause). Then in 1948 the NAACP (that non-partisan, tax exempt organization), had Democratic President Harry Truman address the organization's convention, the first president to do so. It was an election year, and most of the leaders of the NAACP favored Truman. When Du Bois openly endorsed one of Truman's opponents, former Vice-President Henry Wallace, running on the Progressive Party ticket, the NAACP fired Du Bois, who had been one of the founders of the organization. Since then, the NAACP has generally been a Democratic Party front-group.

What Mr. Flood spotlights in his short book, and what all the famous doctors of history have failed to clearly reveal, is that Aptheker in his American Negro Slave Revolts and in his many other works of history, fails to mention and fails to cite the important related work on slave revolts - the only successful slave revolt in the Americas – the uprising in Haiti. That rebellion against the French, which led to an independent Haiti, occurred only a few years after the American rebellion against the British, which led to an independent U.S.A. That revolution in Haiti was described in a major work by C. L. R. James in his Black Jacobins, published in 1938, several years before the completion of Aptheker's dissertation on Black revolts in the US. James's book received wide-spread publicity, even being reviewed in Time Magazine, as well as in academic journals. Aptheker must have heard of it. Aptheker often made efforts to meet other historians of Black history. Apparently he made no effort to meet James. Aptheker never mentions James or Black Jacobins in his dissertation or his book on the subject that followed. Why did Aptheker snub the Black man who wrote Black Jacobins? Flood exposes James as Aptheker's “Invisible Man.”

Flood notes how major historians have fumbled this question – Eugene Genovese, John Bracey, Robin D. G. Kelley, Manning Marable, Eric Foner (former president of the Organization of American Historians), Jesse Lemisch, and Dr. Du Bois. All of these historians have discussed both Aptheker and James, but they either ignored how one omitted the other, or they discussed it barely in passing. The basic reason for Aptheker's expelling James from his histories – Aptheker was a Stalinist-Communist; James was a Trotskyist. Communists were not supposed to read or associate or have anything to do with such heretics. The historians mentioned above generally bemoan how the history profession treated Aptheker quite badly, despite how much research Aptheker did, how many books he wrote, how many pioneering studies he fomented, and yet he could not find a full-time teaching job. Moreover, Aptheker was often ignored in the major history works by others. He was ostracized by the history profession. Yet, Aptheker was doing to James what the profession was doing to Aptheker, and those moaning about Aptheker's ostracism do not moan about his ostracizing James.

Strange that it took someone outside the history profession, like Mr. Flood, to expose the blindness, not only of Aptheker, but of other major historians in the field to that blindness.

Flood also points out that in the 7 volumes of Aptheker's Documentary History of the Negro People in the US, he never mentions James. If the excuse be that James was a West Indian, then why, asks Flood, is Eric Williams included? Williams, as Prime Minister of Trinidad even had the Marxist C. L. R. James imprisoned.(81) Aptheker includes the words of the jailer, but not the jailed Black radical.

Flood goes beyond the purging of James from the many places in Aptheker's histories where the Black scholar of the Haitian revolution should have been discussed and cited. Flood also discusses the interview of Aptheker in the Journal of American History,(39-41) where Mr. Flood is critical because Robin D. G. Kelley failed to ask the elder Aptheker certain general questions about slavery. Kelley contended that in the interview they were discussing Black slavery in the US, but Flood argues that Aptheker's general views on slavery and slave insurrections should have been explored. For example, Flood thought Kelley should have asked about Aptheker's book, The Truth about Hungary, in which the American scholar justified the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 to suppress a popular revolution in the Soviet satellite. In Flood's view, Aptheker, who described and justified slave rebellions in the US, wrote a book justifying the Soviets brutally crushing the “slave” rebellion in Hungary. To Flood, it was a clear case of oppressed workers trying to overthrow their Soviet overlords, but losing the battle to tanks and modern weapons. Flood detects a contradiction in Aptheker's position on slavery and rebellion, one not discussed in the interview. Mr. Flood also presents and alternative title to Aptheker's book: The Pravda about Hungary.(37)

More telling, Flood reminds readers of Aptheker's views on slave rebellions and oppression in another area. In 1950 while Aptheker was still a commissioned officer in the US Army, he wrote and published something on events in Korea. Major Aptheker wrote: “As soon as the reactionary and imperialist nature of the American occupation in South Korea and of its creature, the [Syngman] Rhee clique, became clear, demonstrations, strikes, uprisings and guerrilla warfare appeared once again. These appeared . . . in South Korea only – not in North Korea. Uprisings come from oppression. In North Korea the people ruled – therefore no revolts; in South Korea a new foreign master and new Korean traitors held power – therefore constant rebellion.”(41-42) Aptheker wrote this during the Korean War while American soldiers were shooting and being shot at by the forces of North Korea. Flood jabs a point: the expert on slavery and oppression failed to see that rebellions can occur when things are not so bad, and rebellions may not occur when oppression is overwhelming. As there are still no strikes and rebellions in North Korea, using Aptheker's flawed analysis, we can conclude that the people still “rule” in the North.

Flood includes a short, well-written page (65) about a trip to Mexico that Aptheker took in the early 1950s. The question is whether historian Aptheker was also a hit-man or merely a bag-man for the Communists. This is an intriguing episode, and one deserving more research. J. Edgar Hoover had declared Aptheker the most dangerous Communist in America. Surely, the FBI must have been tapping his home and using other means to keep track of him. Are there any old files that could resolve this question, and while at it, possibly throw light on the alleged molestation by Aptheker of his daughter Bettina?

Flood concludes that Aptheker was an historical writer, but not an historian.(79) I disagree. So did Murrell, who wrote that every individual's experiences may influence and distort portrayals of reality.(55) I present my argument using recent events: on July 4, 2019, former footballer Colin Kaepernick posted sentences from an 1852 speech by Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass. In those words, Douglass was sharply critical of the US Government. Soon after Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz accused Kaepenick of distorting what Douglass had said. Cruz posted the entire speech, and he maintained Douglass was far less critical when you read the entire address. Of course, others might retort, that too is insufficient; think of the entire life of Douglass and what that meant. And others might reply, but think of all in America during that era, which ended with Civil War and the end of slavery. And others, no that is insufficient, one must include...And others when you consider...So the only way to avoid criticism that one is distorting and cherry-picking is to include a Hegelian everything, the universe. But no historian (or artist, or writer, etc.) can do that. Unable to include the all, historians must pick and choose what to include, and what to omit. History is an art.

However, Aptheker should be condemned for omitting James and Black Jacobins from his works because James's writings are pertinent, closely related to Aptheker's own research. They were writing on similar and sometimes identical subjects. But Aptheker failed to mention or cite or discuss James's works because Aptheker was a Stalinist; James a Trotskyist.

For centuries Roman Catholic priests wrote histories, but they too often had to get approval, from their Order, or from their Bishop before publication. To received such approval, they may have had to avoid certain topics, mention of certain heretics, exposition of certain novel but non-traditional notions of science, etc. Should we ignore what these priests have written? Or should we learn from them with an awareness that perhaps such a book might not be the best source for information concerning Martin Luther? A priest's history may have omissions, may not be “totally objective,” but we may still learn from it.

There is little doubt that Aptheker inspired interest in Black history, in slave rebellions, and in other topics. He was an historian, a Stalinist Communist historian, but an historian, none the less. We must keep things in perspective. Aptheker was not the only author with limitations, and I recall that he pointed to a then current volume on the intellectual history of the US published in 1950 by one of the most prestigious historians, Henry Steele Commager. Here is how wikipedia describes Commanger: “As one of the most active and prolific liberal intellectuals of his time, with 40 books and 700 essays and reviews, he helped define modern liberalism in the United States." I recently checked his book on American intellectual history, The American Mind, published in 1950. This highly praised book ignored Blacks. Was Commager color blind? In this book, Du Bois is absent, as is Booker T. Washington. No mention of Langston Hughes or Richard Wright or even the Harlem Renaissance. Nothing on Frederick Douglass, or the West Indian who founded one of the most popular Black organizations in American history, Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Assn. The only person Commager mentions as he discusses Negroes is Gunnar Myrdal, the Swede who had recently written American Dilemma.(American Mind, p. 414) By comparison, Aptheker omitted James. But liberal Commager seemed to have more blind spots than Stalinist Aptheker. Commager was teaching at Columbia when Aptheker was a student. It is wrong what Aptheker did concerning James, but keep things in perspective. One can learn, but one must be aware of the limitations of even famous historians, and indeed of all intellectuals. In my lexicon, Herbert Aptheker is an historian. And so is Commager.

On a different level, I have criticisms of Flood's book. Reading it, jumping back and forth between text and endnotes, I was sometimes confused as to where I was. The font of the endnotes should be smaller than the text and the numbers larger. Also, when I taught at a university where the main source of freshmen was the public school system, in my lectures, if I used a word or phrase that I believed the students might be unfamiliar with, I would start the sentence, use the difficult word, take a slight pause, the equivalent of a written comma, and then use a more common synonym. On a few occasions reading Flood's book, I wondered whom he was writing for. When he wrote about “adverts,”(59) I naturally assumed he was speaking about advertising, but he meant the far more obscure American definition. Elsewhere he uses “irenic,” and I assume most will read that as “ironic” with a minor misprint. However, he intends to convey a meaning quite different from ironic, more compromising, and pacific instead. Then use commas and add the more common term. Flood also inserts the term Phillipsian(43) in a chapter before he has given any information describing U. B. Phillips, so the reader will have no way of guessing why an adjective is derived from the man's name.

Finally, there is the issue of repetition. A book composed of published articles will likely contain repetition, but this is a mixed blessing. First, it can bore, but second, it allows for re-emphasis on important points. And in Flood's small book, there are many important points that should be emphasized. Flood has written a good, short book.

ADDENDUM

1) If it is fair to make an analogy between the Radical Reconstruction that occurred in the American South after the Civil War, with the even more radical reconstruction that occurred in Eastern Europe after WWII, we know that when the Yanks withdrew the military occupation forces after 1876, it was bad news for many Blacks and others who supported the Party of Lincoln. Had the Hungarian rebels succeeded so soon after WWII, what would have been their attitude toward those who viewed the Soviets as liberators? Which ethnic group was most grateful? I suspect Aptheker, and the far-right wing writer of history, David Irving, are probably correct in thinking a large pogrom might have occurred if the tanks had not been coming.

2) Another important point – should communists be allowed to teach? Though Flood does not emphasize it, Aptheker, often dubbed in the general media as the Party's theoretician, volunteered to act as an expert witness to help defend Steve Nelson in his trial in 1951 for violating the Smith Act. For several days Aptheker rolled out his knowledge of Marxism, attempting to persuade the jury that Nelson was guilty of no crime. However, in 1942 the FBI had bugged Nelson's home and knew he received a visit from a Soviet Embassy official who ordered Nelson to place reliable communists in the new Manhattan Project. The Soviet also gave Nelson money to implement the plans. Nelson was, in effect, being asked to establish a spy network to gather information about the development of the American atomic bomb to give to Stalin.

Did Aptheker, expert on Marxism and the Communist Party, know of Nelson's treason? Did he care? If he did not know, perhaps he was not the expert on Communism he claimed to be. If he did know, he favored the release of a man who set up a spy network to betray America concerning the most powerful weapon then in the human arsenal on behalf of the Soviets.

When someone joins the CP, he is expected to submit to Party discipline. This may mean not reading C. L. R. James and not citing him or giving him any credit in your books. It might also mean going to Mexico to deliver money to American comrades, or even eliminating the Mexican Communist who betrayed Gus Hall to the FBI. Or it might mean defending a man who planned the stealing of atomic secrets for Stalin. Would it also entail acts of treason? If a comrade were to ask you to pass an unopened envelope to someone, that seems innocent enough. It might be, but might not. All CPs had an open party and an underground party, and one task of the latter was to recruit some of the open party members to engage in espionage or to be agents of influence for the USSR. Of course, not all were recruited or would have accepted such an “invitation” to the dark side. But even Junius Scales, who was sent to jail for violating the Smith Act in North Caroline as a Communist in the 1950s, in his biography acknowledged, he was never asked, but wondered what his response would have been to the Party leaders if asked. Sidney Hook thought Communists should be barred from teaching because they might commit educational fraud. I think there may have been more serious issues to consider.