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Jumping the Line: The Adventures and Misadventures of an American Radical
An eye-opening account of time served in the great battles of our century— for workers’ rights, against Fascism, Communism, and racism—Jumping the Line is the life story of an American original. William Herrick chronicles his adventures and misadventures on the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, in (and very much out of) the Communist Party, driving a tractor on a communal farm in Michigan, jumping the line as a hobo, organizing African American sharecroppers in Georgia, at work with Orson Welles, and immersed in his own writing. Herrick chronicles a life of great conviction and great disillusion. He went to Spain in 1936 to fight against the Fascists and there witnessed the horrifying acts that Fascists and Communists alike committed, before he was felled by a near-fatal wound. Here he tells about the life that led him, a working-class Jewish kid from New York, into the idealism and then the murky politics of this internecine conflict. From the bloody fight in Spain he takes us to the battlefields of the Communist movement in the U.S., where he found himself parading up and down the garment district of Manhattan, denouncing his former comrades. When Paul Berman interviewed Herrick in the Village Voice in 1986, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, Herrick’s remarks so incensed other veterans of the Abraham Lincoln battalion that they picketed the paper. What William Herrick has to say doesn’t always go down easily. But for those who like the truth, with a dash of wit and a healthy dose of history, it can be exhilarating.
260 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 15, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 24, 2013
This book eventually one me over.
The quickest summary I can give it is if forest gump had lived in the 1910s-1930s and done all the quintessential socialist things: been raised by communist family in new york, been a tramp, picket lines, communist party usa, anarchist commune, spanish civil war, disillusionment, etc. And if he'd had a halfie the whole time. (this dude definitely has an old-fashioned sense of who/ what women are. in some ways it was incredibly insightful, though, to be able to hear a radical from this time period candidly talk about sex, men/women, etc.)
Most interesting for me were his dispelling of the more romantic aspects of those days. Tramping for example, he says was awful. Half starved, exhausted and facing the physical and sexual violence of police, bulls and other tramps most of the time.
Or the spanish civil war. He reminds us that it was an actual war, something i embarrassing must admit I never fully considered. He talks about being shot in the neck, the excruciatingly painful and slow ambulance ride from the front during which the person above him died, bleeding and releasing their bowels on him below, the painful recovery and how half the americans that faught died. they were also mainly fighting north african mercenaries, not even necessarily fascists.
his exposure of the abraham lincoln brigades was much appreciated, as well as his take on the american Communist Party and the Popular Front - something Roosevelt was apparently even into.
An added treat for me which I did not expect was his 30-40 page section on Orson Welles, whose assistant he was. I fucking loved this part of the book.
You know which part I didn't like? SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When in the last few pages of the book he casual mentions how he testified against the communist party at grand juries, which wasn't a big deal for him since he worked in the courts as a stenographer. uncomfortable, don't entirely know what to make of that.
i look forward to reading his novel about the spanish civil war, hermanos!
3.5
The quickest summary I can give it is if forest gump had lived in the 1910s-1930s and done all the quintessential socialist things: been raised by communist family in new york, been a tramp, picket lines, communist party usa, anarchist commune, spanish civil war, disillusionment, etc. And if he'd had a halfie the whole time. (this dude definitely has an old-fashioned sense of who/ what women are. in some ways it was incredibly insightful, though, to be able to hear a radical from this time period candidly talk about sex, men/women, etc.)
Most interesting for me were his dispelling of the more romantic aspects of those days. Tramping for example, he says was awful. Half starved, exhausted and facing the physical and sexual violence of police, bulls and other tramps most of the time.
Or the spanish civil war. He reminds us that it was an actual war, something i embarrassing must admit I never fully considered. He talks about being shot in the neck, the excruciatingly painful and slow ambulance ride from the front during which the person above him died, bleeding and releasing their bowels on him below, the painful recovery and how half the americans that faught died. they were also mainly fighting north african mercenaries, not even necessarily fascists.
his exposure of the abraham lincoln brigades was much appreciated, as well as his take on the american Communist Party and the Popular Front - something Roosevelt was apparently even into.
An added treat for me which I did not expect was his 30-40 page section on Orson Welles, whose assistant he was. I fucking loved this part of the book.
You know which part I didn't like? SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When in the last few pages of the book he casual mentions how he testified against the communist party at grand juries, which wasn't a big deal for him since he worked in the courts as a stenographer. uncomfortable, don't entirely know what to make of that.
i look forward to reading his novel about the spanish civil war, hermanos!
3.5
December 10, 2011
"Jumping the Line" is a hobo phrase for "riding the rails," or hitching a ride on a freight car. It also brings to mind crossing boundaries, maybe even switching sides. Herrick has done both. Beginning life as a rail-riding hobo, Herrick developed an awareness of the plight of the downtrodden and eventually became not a member but employee of the American Communist Party. Herrick was hard-working element of the Party and an able union organizer and cell initiator. Willing to put his life on the line in backing his beliefs, Herrick traveled to Spain with the Abraham Lincoln brigade to fight the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Comintern, the International Communist Party, hoped this effort would lead to a home for Communism in Spain. While Herrick's soldiering was brief (he quickly took a bulled to the neck, nearly crippling him), the Communist atrocities and double-dealing there made him see the Party in an entirely different light. Returning to the States an anarchist at heart, Herrick had a wife to support and was tied to the Party for a paycheck. His outspokenness about the Stalin-Hitler pact led to his dismissal and his full emergence as an anarcho-social democrat. Appearing in these pages as Herrick formalizes his distrust of all power is such figures as Emma Goldman, Cole Porter and Herrick's former employer Orson Welles. This fascinating work is historically enlightening and a textbook in the formation of practical anarchism from an adventurer-author struck from the same mold as George Orwell.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews