I posted months ago calling attention to the groundbreaking interview of Aptheker in the Journal of American History, and above all his role in pioneering work in African-American history, as well as his principled courage as an army officer leading Black troops, as was the situation in his day. Since then I have heard him speak. Unfortunately, he continues to defend his book whitewashing the Soviet invasion of Hungary, reflecting that most peculiar Communist view that if the CIA undertakes to overthrow a government, it was overthrown by the CIA. It never crosses his mind to ask why the people, and above all, the workingclass, did not defend what was supposedly their government, against the counter-revolution. Likewise, he takes pride in having been a prime mover in taking most of the ragged remnants of the CPUSA out of the hands of Gus Hall when the latter actually called in the Cleveland police to maintain his control of the convention there. It never occurs to him to look back thirty years before that event to when the Khrushchev secret report on Stalin faced the CPUSA with the now-or-never choice between continuing to echo Moscow's version of events or deciding that it would arrive at judgments, even on the USSR, independently, as the group with which I was associated advocated. His prestige was actively thrown to the wrong choice. But in the long view he will be remembered for his brave and trailblazing work on the history of Black America. William Mandel radman wrote: > >Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 > >From: marvin berlowitz <berlowmj@email.uc.edu> > >Subject: US Higher Education: Interview with Herbert Aptheker > > > > An interview with Aptheker can be found at > <http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/87.1/interview.html> > > > It should be incorporated into a standard handbook for the > >orientation of graduate students. His statements on the role of partisanship > >in scholarship, his class analysis of the current state of U.S. higher > >education, & his concluding statement on radical scholarship are especially > >informative. The autobiographical section is truly inspirational. And, of > >course, Robin Kelly's questions bring out the best in him.
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