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Date Posted: 01:40:08 02/11/03 Tue
Author: j - quite possibly the hardest to understand section ever!
Subject: Ch25 - The Popular Front and the Left

I. The Popular Front and the Left
A. The Popular Front
i. a broad coalition of “antifascist” groups on the left
a. most important – Communist Party
B. the Communist Party
i. at first, a harsh critic of American government
a. Stalin, (Russian leader/controller of communist party) told American communists to soften their attitude toward Franklin Roosevelt and support his New Deal
- communist party membership grew to 100,000 in the late 1930s
ii. the Spanish civil war
a. attracted up to 3,000 communist American intellectuals (known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade) to fight against the fascist government of Francisco Franco
b. about 1/3 of the men who joined this battle died, but those who lived remember it w/ pride
- earnest Hemingway added this feeling and tone to his book, For Whom the Bell Tolls
- the communist party was instrumental in creating such groups as the Abe Lincoln brigade
iii. communist party members were among the most effective union organizers in some industries
a. took a stand against racial injustice by helping to organize a union of black sharecroppers in Alabama
b. although it appeared to be a patriotic organization, it was always under the tight supervision of the Soviet Union
iv. most members followed every inch of the “party line”
a. when Stalin signed a non-aggression pact w/ Nazi Germany, the American communists were ordered to abandon their passive view of Roosevelt and return to their old stance of harsh criticism of American liberals
- despite all the American party leaders obeying, the party lost many of its members for the change of stance
C. The Socialist Party
i. led by Norman Thomas, saw the economic crisis as evidence of the failure of capitalism and sought vigorously to win public support for its own political program
a. it attempted to gain support from the rural poor
ii. Southern Tenant Farmers Union
a. organized by socialist, H.L. Mitchell, tried to create a biracial coalition of sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and others to demand economic reform
- despite their efforts, the socialist party didn’t gain much and by 2936, membership dropped below 20,000
D. Hostility Toward The Communist Party
i. congressional committees chaired by Hamilton Fish and Martin Dies investigated communism wherever they could
a. many citizens were even attempting to drive the communists out if their communities
E. The Left’s Newfound Respectability
i. the 1930s witnessed an impressive, if temporary, widening of ideological art and politics
a. the New Deal sponsored artistic work through the Works Projects Administration that was frankly challenging to the norms of the 1920s
- filmmaker Pare Lorentz made a series of documentaries (The Plow that Broke the Plains(1936) and The River(1937)) that combined a celebration of the New Deal programs and a harsh critique of the exploitation of people and the environment that industrial capitalism had produced
- writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans were asked by Fortune, Life, and Time magazines creator Henry Luce to write an article on sharecropping and rural poverty
--the article proved to be too long and was made into the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
- the most successful chronicler was John Steinbeck w/ The Grapes Of Wrath

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