The guard is tired

A review of "On Guard Against Browderism, Titoism, Trotskyism" 

Looking through old Communist ("Stalinist") pamphlets is a bizarre experience. I previously reviewed a hit piece written by American Communist leader Earl Browder in 1937. Just a few years later, Browder was expelled from the Communist Party USA as a "rightist". This pamphlet, by one John Gates, attacks Browder and so-called Browderism in no uncertain terms. The publication date is 1951. In 1958, Gates resigned from the party, after a failed attempt to make it more soft line (i.e. more Browderite). Even more bizarrely, Browder then agreed to write the preface to Gates' memoirs?!

There is very little to say about "On Guard". It's relatively uninteresting even on its own terms. Gates attacks Browder for being an anti-Communist stool pigeon. He fingers liberal attorney O John Rogge and journalist I F Stone as agents of the fascist Tito clique in Yugoslavia. The electoral successes of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers' Party also worry him.

The only interesting thing about the pamphlet is its heavy emphasis on Black civil rights and Native rights. Gates accuses both Browder and Rogge of "white chauvinism". Browder's integrationist line is criticized, presumably in favor of the Black Belt theory, although this is never explicitly spelled out.

Otherwise, this is simply another small pamphlet from the Communist Party USA. It's a good thing that its author eventually saw the light, and I hope he continued opposing "white chauvinism" even after leaving the CPUSA. Otherwise, I must say that the guard (or is it the vanguard) is tired!