BOOKS
461
melodrama ti c VISIOn o f a world of "dupes," "lackeys," "da ngerous
thinkers ," a nd "hidden conspirac ies" from the Communi st pa rty
itsel f, a vISion tra nsmitted to ignora nt a nd unscrupulous
ma instream politicia ns by ex-Communist pa id info rmers whose
outl ook a nd vocabul a ry had bee n sha ped in the Party . avas ky
att ributes the Pa rty's "fo rtress menta li ty" to de fe nsive reac ti ons
against the red hun t, but we know from hi stori cal schola rship a nd
the memoirs o f fo rmer Communists th a t the me nta li ty preda ted the
red hunt by seve ra l years, hav ing begun to crystalli ze befo re the e nd
of the wa r a t the time of the Duclos letter a nd Browder's d epos iti on.
Navas ky o f course is ri ght that Ameri ca in the 1950s was not in
a sta te o f "na ti ona l emergency." But the same can ha rdl y be said of
Europe or the Fa r Eas t, where the United Sta tes was try ing to
prevent furth er gains by the Sov iet Union. M cCarthyism was
founded on the fa lse confl ation of the internal a nd externa l threats
posed by communi sm , whi ch a lso expla ins why it las ted longe r tha n
simila r peri ods of repress ion in the pas t. Politicia ns took a dvantage
of the world situ a tion to pose as a rdent pa tri ots by pillorying
domes tic Communists a nd trying to link their own pa rti san
opponents to the Sovie t Uni on ; the conve rsion of a fo re ign poli cy
issue in to a bogu s domes ti c one was es pec ia ll y a ttrac ti ve to old
isola ti oni sts a nd new Asia-Firsters uneasy a bout the exte nsion of
American commi tme nts overseas to conta in Sov iet communism .
Navas ky rej ec ts the concept o f "to ta lita ri a ni sm ," favo red by
a n ti-Communist intell ec tuals, fo r blurring the di stincti on between
communi sm a nd fasc ism , a theme still capa ble of a rousing
impass ioned deba te as the excha nges thi s winter ove r Susan Sontag's
speech on Pola nd revealed . According to Navas ky, "M arxists
identified with the weak a nd spoke the la ngu age of socia l justi ce,"
whe reas fascists openl y worshipped v iolence a nd minority rul e. The
loftiness of its professed ideals used to be the las t-ditch defe nse of
people reluctan t to surrender a linge ring sympathy for the Sov iet
Uni on . One might a rgue tha t the co rrupti on of a n ideal, a nd worse,
its ma nipul a tive invoca ti on to conceal siniste r a ims, is no less
mora ll y culpa ble a nd i fa r more insidi ous tha n the blunt d isavowal
of a ny huma ne principles. And the H UAC Congressmen also
professed to serve the "noble ideals" of the Ameri can founding
fa thers. Yet Na vasky's point has a limited validity if strictly confined
to the diffe rence between communi st a nd fasc ist sympa thizers in the
Wes t a nd not invoked to temper oppos ition to Sta linism or to less
murde rous but no less tota lita ri a n Communist di cta torships in other
