Sorry to Say, But Karl Marx Knew What He Was Talking About
Without question, Madame’s first cousin, Mercedes (Mitzi) Debardas Dworin (1922-2016) was my favorite member of the Hyman/Kagan/Chicago side of the family. For not only did Mitzi throw the party at which my mother and father first met in Beverly Hills more than 80 years ago; she was a literate, thorough-going political animal who had no fear calling a spade a spade or a virulent anti-Communist a fascist troll. (She was also the only one in the family who pronounced my name in the European fashion . . . “Kourt.” Up until nearly the end of her life, she was tweaking the political right; in 2014 she responded to an article on former Texas Governor (and then Secretary of Energy) Rick Perry on her Facebook page, writing: “Not even his new-fangled glasses can mask the fact that Gov. Perry is dumber than a bag of hair!”
For quite a few years, Mitzi would host a smallish December luncheon in her home at 313 N. Maple Drive for the surviving members of the Hollywood Blacklist. As one can well understand, with each passing year, the number of luncheon guests dwindled until, by 2011, the sole survivors who were able to attend, were screenwriter Norma Barzman (who, so far as I know will be 104 this coming September 4), and Norman Corwin, "The Grand Master Of American Audio Theatre," and screenwriter for Kirk Douglas’ 1956 film “Lust For Life.” Mitzi always scheduled these lunch-gatherings for late December, knowing that Annie and I would be in town to listen to them discussing contemporary politics sharing their most difficult memories and letting them know that someone (moi) would keep their names, history and travails alive for yet another generation or two. . .
From the late 1930s through the beginning of the Kennedy era, to be a virulent anti-Communist generally meant being either an ultra-conservative Republican isolationist, or an unreconstructed Southern Democratic racist. These anti-Communists aimed their knives at, among others, union members and their leaders, teachers and blacks. When it came to the movie industry, these hellions of hatred became completely unhinged, hauling actors, screenwriters, directors and producers (a majority of whom were Jewish) before various Congressional committees in order to ask what became the most haunting question of the age: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” Many took the Fifth, and were forced out of the industry; others “named names,” thus becoming pariahs to their colleagues. Some were sent to prison. Then, there were the self-taught “experts” on Communism who, at the drop of a hat, pointed fingers and told tales of precisely who was out to foment revolution within our borders. Such “experts” became so reviled by progressives that they became eternally damned, their names never again mentioned in polite company . . . among them were the likes of Adolphe Menjou, Robert Taylor, Cecil B. DeMille, Barbara Stanwyck and Ronald Reagan (who, ironically, was the only POTUS to ever lead a trade union . . . the liberal Screen Actors Guild . . . but then again, Ronnie at one time supported actress/U.S. Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas [aka “The Pink Lady”] over Richard Nixon in the 1952 California senate election).
Not only were people in those days attacked for having been a member of the C.P. back in their youth; they were accused of being “premature anti-Fascists,” “Fellow Travelers” and what today we might call either “influencers,” or “groomers.” (One of the actors on my paper route, the blacklisted Hershel Bernardi told me that indeed, he had joined a couple of left-wing groups in his youth due to a girl friend he sought to impress.) There were far too many victims, and not enough heroes or heroines. It was a terribly difficult time; so many lives, reputations and the ability to earn a living were at stake. There also emerged a kind of PTSD; to the best of my recollection, Madame never, ever signed a petition - even if it was something she believed in - for fear that it would come back to haunt her. The fear and paranoia engendered by the daunting conspiracies of a generation did not fade; many of the victims took the fear and paranoia with them to their graves. (BTW: One of the best histories of this era of blacklisting was written by the late actor Robert Vaughn: Only Victims, which served as his PhD dissertation when he was a doctoral student at the University of Southern California. in the late 1960s.)
Being both a Hollywood Brat and a longtime student of American political history and its psychological underpinnings, I have long had my doubts about whether all these virulent anti-Communists really, truly feared Karl Marx’s “haunting spectre” — “the spectre of communism,” or whether they merely glommed onto a political cause which would pay dividends both in the press and at the ballot box. Remember that before “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy became the end all and be all of anti-Communism, he was known around Washington as “The Pepsi Cola Kid” - a tool of business interests who had accepted a loan from Pepsi-Cola in exchange for working to end sugar rationing (he paid it back), and money from a construction company in exchange for opposing funding for public housing (which he eventually voted for).
From the time of his election to the Senate in 1946 until he gave a history-changing speech in Wheeling, West Virginia in February of 1952 (in which he held up a piece of paper proclaiming “I have here in my hand the names of dozens upon dozens of Communists who are infecting our State Department”), McCarthy was considered a light-weight. Once he gave that speech - and many just like it - he was on the front page of every newspaper in the country and soon found himself the leader of a movement . . . which up to the age of Marjorie Taylor Green and Ted Cruz, is still referred to as “McCarthyism.” Oh to be the eponymous ancestor of a movement!
In years past, anti-Communist Republicans and racist Southern Democrats loudly attacked and spoke and tried their damndest to legislate out of existence such “Socialist” programs as Social Security, Medicare and federal spending on everything from education and public housing to feeding poor children. The rhetoric never changes, just the names of the speakers. We recently saw another McCarthy - Speaker Kevin - promise to legislate against Social Security and Medicare in exchange for being given the gavel he has long dreamed of wielding. He has as much of a chance of succeeding as Robert Taft did back in the 1950s or Newt Gingrich in the 1990s.
Make no mistake about it: MAGA Republicans are just as much against anything and everything that smacks or smells of communism or socialism as were their predecessors. The one enormous difference between yesteryear and today is from whence these MAGAites see the conspiracy emanating. In an earlier age, the face belonged to Stalin, and the place was Moscow. Today, the faces are those of Biden, Harris, Pelosi, Schiff, George Soros and anyone who believes in Democracy over autocracy or freedom over oligarchy. Unbelievably, where Russia was freedom’s greatest enemy during the Cold War, today, Vladimir Putin is more praiseworthy than the Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (How ironic it is to hear President Zelenskyy attacked as “nothing but a third-rate television comedian” by those who revere Donald J. Trump, a fifth-rate television presence.)
It makes one ill to hear Republican leaders deride the war in Ukraine, attack President Biden for his surprise visit to Kyiv, and for being more concerned about that war than about the needs of the American people, or warning that there should no longer be a “blank check” for that war. Whatever happened to proudly being a beacon of freedom for the rest of the world? Then again, perhaps the Clown Car Caucus has been spending so much time deriding the President, his family and his party, that they’ve failed to note all the bills he’s passed which will lower drug prices, beef up micro-chip production and rebuild bridges, highways and schools.
Will we ever awaken from this nightmare where Russian autocracy is preferred over American Democracy? Or was Karl Marx being spot-on when he noted nearly 175 years ago that “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”
I for one am sick and tired of farce being played out by a bunch of political philistines.
Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone