The ACLU’s untold Stalinist heritage

[carol ann parisi]

 

Noted author Paul Kengor has unearthed declassified letters and other  documents in the Soviet Comintern archives linking early leaders of the ACLU  with the Communist Party.

Kengor found a May 23, 1931 letter in the archives signed by ACLU founder  Roger Baldwin, written on ACLU stationery, to then American Communist Party  Chairman William Z. Foster asking him to help ACLU Chairman Harry Ward with his  then-upcoming trip to Stalin’s Russia.

The letter suggests Ward intended to visit the Soviet Union to find “evidence  from Soviet Russia” that would undermine the capitalist profit motive.

Baldwin wrote the letter at a time when Stalin was deporting 1.8 million  Ukrainian peasants to Siberia under his policy of the forced collectivization of  agriculture, which resulted in the deaths of up to 10 million  Ukrainians in the two years that followed.

The Ukrainian government considers this to have been an act of genocide.

Foster was a key figure in the early years of the American communist movement  who belonged to the ACLU’s National Committee in the 1920s,  according to FBI documents. He later wrote a book titled “Toward Soviet  America” in 1932 and also testified under oath before Congress  that  he opposed American democracy.

Another letter on ACLU letterhead Kengor found in the Soviet archives dated  Sept. 2, 1932 asks the Communist Party of America for a schedule of Foster’s  trips around the country and offers to help keep the police at bay. It also asks  for the names and addresses of Communist Party representatives in the cities  where Foster was speaking.

Read more:  http://dailycaller.com/2011/01/04/the-aclu%e2%80%99s-untold-stalini...