1. Rapoport. unfortunately, never states whether or not he joined the CP. Internal evidence in the book eg. his mention of his support of the Foster faction in the Party in the late 1920s or Foster's selection of him as a TUUL organizer suggests that he was a close supporter and probably a member.

2. For a similar account in Rapoport's narrative see pp. 71–75Google Scholar.

3. Lester Rodney, also a former party member, has. for example, faulted Nelson for his silence about the CP's attitude toward Smith Act prosecutions of Trotskyists and his treatment of the Nazi-Soviet pact. “Memories of a Lifelong Red.” In These Times (March 24–30. 1982), 18.Google Scholar

4. Of course. these oral autobiographies are only one part of a flood of recent studies — autobiographies, monographs, articles, and dissertations- which are contributing to the rewriting of the history of American Communism. See for example: Charney, George. A Long Journey (Chicago, 1968)Google Scholar: Richmond, Al, A Long View from the Left: Memoirs of an American Revolutionist (New York. 1972)Google Scholar; Dennis, Peggy, Autobiography of an American Communist (Westport, Conn., 1977)Google Scholar; Isserman, Maurice, Which Side Were You On? The American Communist Party During the Second World War (Middletown, Conn. 1982)Google Scholar; Keeran, Roger. The Communist Party and the Auto Workers Unions (Bloomington. Ind. 1980)Google Scholar; Klehr, Harvey. Communist Cadre, the Social Background of the American Communist Party Elite (Stanford, Calif., 1978)Google Scholar; Dyson, Lowell, Red Harvest: The Communist Party and American Farmers (Lincoln, Neb., 1982)Google Scholar; Buhle, Paul, “Jews and American Communism: The Cultural Question. Radical History Review, 23 (Spring 1980). 8–33Google Scholar; Naison, Mark. “Harlem Communists and the Politics of Black Protest.” Marxist Perspectives 1 (Fall 1978), 20–50Google Scholar; Prickett, James, “The Communists and the Communist Issue in the American Labor Movement, 1920–1950” (Ph.D. Thesis. UCLA. 1975)Google Scholar; Waltzer, Kenneth. “The American Labor Party: Third Party Politics in New Deal-Cold War New York, 1936–1954.” (Ph.D. Thesis. Harvard Univ., 1977)Google Scholar; Solomon, Mark. “Red and Black: Negroes and Communism.” (Ph.D. Thesis. Harvard Univ., 1972)Google Scholar. Even this long list covers only a portion of recent writing on the CP. Paul Buhle discusses some of the general directions of the new scholarship in “Historians and American Communism: An Agenda.” International Labor and Working Class History, 20 (Fall 1981). 38–45.Google Scholar

5. Peggy Dennis' autobiography is also excellent on the personal side of the Communist experience as are some of the interviews in Gornick, Vivian, The Romance of American Communism (New York, 1977)Google Scholar.

6. Other International Publishers' autobiographies include: Patterson, William L.. The Man Who Cried Genocide (New York, 1971)Google Scholar; Williamson, John, Dangerous Scot (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Davis, Ben, Communist Councilman from Harlem (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Hudson, Hosea, Black Worker in the Deep South (New York, 1972)Google Scholar.

7. Klehr, , Communist Cadre, 91–92. notes a low turn-over among black Party leadersGoogle Scholar.

8. This “generation” is delinated in two excellent articles by Isserman, Maurice: “The 1956 Generation: An Alternative Approach to the History of American Communism. Radical America, 14 (March-April 1980). 43–51Google Scholar; “The Half-Swept House: American Communism in 1956.” Socialist Review, 61 (jan–Feb 1982), 71–101Google Scholar.

9. Adamic quoted in Leab, Daniel J., “United We Eat: The Out-of-Work, the Unemployed Councils, and the Communists, 1930–1933.” (M.A. Thesis. Columbia Univ., 1961), 75Google Scholar.

10. Nelson explains that “most of our initiative had to come from the local level because we were relatively isolated from the national leadership of both the Party and the unemployed movement” (106). In his discussion of his California years, he similarly argues that distance from party headquarters meant greater autonomy. (See p. 255.)

11. (New York, 1963), 441.Google Scholar

12. Nelson and Rapoport also offer a similar analysis of American roots to the popular front. (See Rapoport, , p. 126Google Scholar; Nelson, , p. 175.)Google Scholar

13. Buhle, Paul, “Introduction” to “Fifteen Years of Radical America.” Radical America, 16 (May–June 1982), 5Google Scholar.

14. On oral history and memory see the important articles by Frisch, Michael, “Oral History and Hard Times: A Review Essay.” Red Buffalo, 1 (1972), 217–31Google Scholar and “The Memory of History,” Radical History Review, 25 (1981), 9–23Google Scholar. See also “Editorial: Oral History,” History Workshop, 8 (Autumn 1979), i–iiiGoogle Scholar. The best introduction to the theory and method of oral history is Thompson's, PaulThe Voice of the Past: Oral History (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar. For a discussion of the importance of oral history to the study of American radicalism see Buhle, Paul, “Radicalism: the Oral History Contribution,” International Journal of Oral History, 2 (Nov. 1981), 205–15Google Scholar.

15. For an excellent (and self-reflective) recent oral autobiography compiled by an anthropologist see Krech, Shephard III, Praise the Bridge That Carries You Over (Cambridge, Mass., 1981)Google Scholar. Peter Friedlander provides a thoughtful, if sometimes dense, methodological introduction to his work of oral history. The Emergence of a UAW Local, 1936–1939: A Study in Class and Culture (Pittsburgh, 1975)Google Scholar. Oddly, Friedlander neglects to discuss his apparent familial connection with his informant. Fdmund Kord. Kann has written an interesting commentary on his related oral history study of Petaluma's Jewish Community. “Reconstructing the History of a Community,” International Journal of Oral History, 2 (Feb. 1981), 4–12Google Scholar.

16. The meetings are described in the introductions to the different books. Painter provides additional information in “Hosea Hudson: A Negro Communist in the Deep South,” Radical America, 11 (July–Aug 1977), 8Google Scholar.

17. See Hareven, and Langenbach, Randolph, Amoskeag (New York, 1978)Google Scholar, passim. See also the interesting reviews by Sullivan, Ann in Radical America, 15 (July–Aug. 1981), 57–63Google Scholar and by Harney, Robert in International Journal of Oral History, 1 (June 1980), 139–42Google Scholar.

18. Anthropologist quoted in Cooper, Patricia, “Oral History in the 1980s: A Panel Discussion.” OHMAR Newsletter, 6 (Spring 1982), 7Google Scholar. On women in the CP see: Shaffer, Robert, “Women and the Communist Party, USA,” Socialist Review, 45 (May–June 1979)Google Scholar and Grazia, Victoria de, “Women and Communism in Advanced Capitalist Societies: Readings and Resources,” Radical History Review, 23 (Spring 1980), 80–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. Barrett and Ruck emphasize what they see as the “typicality” of Nelson's experiences.

20. Thompson, , Voice, 114–16Google Scholar.

21. One indication of the changed climate is the two favorable reviews given to Hudson's narrative in the New York Times (Jan. 10, 1980 and Book Review, Nov. 18, 1979). At the same time, many current and former Party members remain reluctant to talk about aspects of their work in the CP. fearing a revival of McCarthyism.

22. For examples of New Left criticisms of the Old Left see Aronowitz, Stanley, False Promises (New York, 1974), 13–14Google Scholar; Brecher, Jeremy, Strike! (San Francisco, 1974), 204, 221, 257, 317Google Scholar; Weinstein, James, Ambiguous Legacy, 16–86Google Scholar. For the response of a veteran of the Old Left see the debate between Weinstein, and Gordon, Max in Socialist Revolution, 27 (Jan.–March 1976), 11–66Google Scholar. Barrett, Kann, and Ruck, allude to their political roots in the New Left; Painter is less explicit on this point and refers only to herself as a “Democrat” (vii)Google Scholar.

23. New York Times, Feb. 22. 1981; “Editors' Introduction” to “Presenting the Past: History and the Public.” a special issue of the Radical History Review, 25 (1981). 3–8Google Scholar.

34. Hodgson, Godfrey, America in Our Time (1976; pb. ed., New York, 1978). 9–10Google Scholar.