The Anti-Communist Manifestos: Four Books That Shaped the Cold War

by John V. Fleming

The books altered the course of history; the lives behind them have the dark fascination of fiction. The subject of The Anti-Communist Manifestos is four influential books that informed the great political struggle known as the Cold War: Darkness at Noon (1940), by Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian journalist and polymath intellectual; Out of the Night (1941), by Jan Valtin, a German sailor and labor agitator; I Chose Freedom (1946), by Victor Kravchenko, a Soviet engineer; and Witness (1952), by Whittaker Chambers, an American journalist. The authors were ex–Communist Party members whose bitter disillusionment led them to turn on their former allegiance in literary fury. Koestler was a rapist, Valtin a thug. Kravchenko, though not a spy, was forced to live like one in America. Chambers was a prophet without honor in his own land. Three of the four had been underground espionage agents of the Comintern. All contemplated suicide, and two of them achieved it. John V. Fleming’s humane and ironic narrative of these grim lives reveals that words were the true driving force behind the Cold War. 4 photos

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction

364 pages, Hardcover

First published July 11, 2009

Reviews

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. I've read a ton in the literature of this period, and Fleming came up with all kinds of stuff I'd never heard of, including major best-sellers from the late 30s/early 40s and some exposes I'd like to read as well. A medievalist by trade, Fleming here breaks form (he's retired, he notes in an afterword, and decided to follow his own urgings to his kids to try new things) and considers what he terms the most important ex-Communist exposes of the 40s and early 50s. Most people have heard of Koestler's Darkness at Noon, which I haven't read since high school, but which he made me want to pick up and perhaps teach, and possibly Chambers' Witness, which he argues, convincingly, is a theologically serious and literarily successful creation that is also quite entertaining in its writerly flourishes and character sketches. (The subject is also taken on in Susan Jacoby's annoyingly breezy book on the case, though it does make the for me useful point that the discussion about facts is over, even committed lefties like Maurice Isserman having said so.) The other two books I'd never heard of, though at least one of them sounds pretty interesting as well--if, at 750 pages, loong. The whole thing is witty, uncommonly intelligent in its analysis, engaging in its recreation of the literary worlds and battles sketched here, and sometimes very funny. Highly recommended.

[Dennis D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book after reading a strong review in the WSJ. I had a minor head-smack after starting, since the subject matter is four noteworthy anti-Communist books, none of which I had ever read (oops). But it grabbed me nonetheless, and this is a topic and an era that fascinates me.

Author John V. Fleming points out that the war of propaganda was one of the major fronts in the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West, and highlights here four books that are deemed to have had a major influence in that regard. Fleming has further singled out authors who share a significant characteristic: they were all Communist activists at some point in their lives, prior to having written the works in question.

The books are: Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, Out of the Night, by Jan Valtin, I Chose Freedom, by the defector Victor Kravchenko, and Witness, by Whittaker Chambers.

Fleming’s study is not just reviews of the books in question, but explorations of the back-stories behind each of the books; how the authors came to be Communists in the first place, and what transpired that allowed them to ‘see the light’, and not just simply renounce Communism, but to create works that were highly critical of it.

Koestler’s Darkness at Noon is the only work of fiction of the lot, yet it is just as true-to-life than the rest. The country and its totalitarian dictator aren’t named, but the plot closely parallels the Moscow ‘show trials’, which were used to purge Joseph Stalin’s political opponents. Koestler’s protagonist, Rubashov, is an old-guard Communist who happily follows the party line until the organ of state is turned on him, and he finds himself imprisoned, falsely accused, and subject to a public trial where he knows that a guilty verdict is pre-ordained. Koestler himself was imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War, and was friends with several of Stalin’s opponents who were put to death during The Purge.

Valtin’s Out of the Night was the least compelling of the four narratives to me. Valtin was an operative of the GPU, the precursor to Russia’s KGB, and was imprisoned by the Russians and then the Nazis in turn, before fleeing to the US. There were just enough discrepancies in his autobiographical account to lend a tinge of credence to his critic’s cries of fraud. Regardless, it did exude ‘truthiness’, and ultimately led to tragic consequences for the author.

While Out of the Night may have smacked lightly of anti-Soviet propaganda, Kravchenko’s I Chose Freedom was a full-scale public outing of Soviet atrocities that in 1946 were still well-kept secrets. Critics publicly ridiculed the author as a liar and a fantasist. Soviet sympathizers, and even those on the fence as to their feelings regarding Communist Russia, could scarcely believe Kravchenko’s revelations of the dark underbelly of Soviet collectivism, including GULAGs and other forced labor camps, and the complete lack of due process or even basic human rights in the administration of these punishments. The French Communists then inadvertently gave Kravchenko an even bigger platform for his claims: they published a rebuke of I Chose Freedom that was so libelous, it allowed Kravchenko to take them to court. The resulting ‘Trial of the Century” featured hundreds of witnesses, and was a huge PR disaster for the Communists.

Lastly comes Whittaker Chambers’s Witness. This was the most intriguing, as its subject matter was the most hotly disputed. Chambers blows the whistle on several Communist operatives, including Alger Hiss, a senior State Department official and key figure in the U.N. Charter conference. Chambers had gone from denying Hiss’s involvement in espionage to exposing it, and there are factions that even today that challenge the validity of Chambers’s accusations. It’s weird to hear of any series of historical events where Richard M. Nixon is actually one of the heroes.

The ‘stories behind the stories’ were all compelling. And while it might be easy to distill Communism’s impact on America down to the Cuban missile crisis, McCarthyism, and “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall,” The Anti-Communist Manifestos makes it clear that there was a very real intent by the Soviet Union to undermine American democracy from WWII through much of the early part of the Cold War.

[Daniel DeLappe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book, but unless you are really into the subject, or you are one of the lefties he is writing about you would be wasting your time. I wish he had tied these three books into what is going on in the world today. Not much has changed. The world media a a joke and the most journalist are willfullly stupid or just affraid to see what is in front of them. If you do read this compare it to what goes on today (in particular think of the KGB rat that runs Russia and mentally challanged rulers of Iran as a starting point).

[Ny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never would have picked up this book if I hadn't worked on it, but so glad I did. Fleming is truly hilarious and the idea of researching 4 books' impact on the societies and political movements which they impacted is a great one. Can't wait to read his next book.

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

A flat description makes this book sound pretty unpromising: a study of four anti-Communist best sellers from the 1940s and ‘50s analyzed by retired professor of Renaissance literature, pictured on the blurb in academic regalia no less. In fact, the book is good, sound, upper-level popular history.

Fleming is not only widely read but also a clever writer, usually able to rein in both the academic and blogger sides of his personality. Though the book sprawls more than occasionally, most of Fleming’s diversions are at least as engaging as the theme itself. One might expect to find a reference to Dostoyevsky here—there are half a dozen—but not references to Walt Disney or the mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer. Fleming has even inserted droll index entries (“idiots, useful, 220; not so useful, passim”; “prothonotory warbler, spotted by Hiss, bagged by Nixon, 291”).

The theme of this work is “the cultivated blindness” that prevented Western leaders and intellectuals from acknowledging for decades the falseness and brutality of the Soviet regime. The thoughtful reader may ponder what current politically correct notions will appear as hopelessly wrong-headed in another eighty years.

[Fernando Pestana da Costa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about books. In four chapters the author discusses four anti-communist books that were important in shaping the West's perception of Soviet Union's regime at the time of Stalin: Arthur Kostler's Darkness at Noon, Richard Krebs' (aka Jan Valtin) Out of the Night, Victor Kravchenko's I Chose Freedom, and Whittaker Chambers' Witness. All these authors have been Communists, active in the struggle to foster Communist ideas in Europe and the US, but become disillusioned with Soviet's internal and international policies either at the time of the Great Purges, the Spanish Civil War, or the Hitler-Stalin pact. The tale they tell is by now a very well known: the Gulag camps, slave labor, arbitrary detentions, and so on. What can be somewhat surprising is the resistance these disclosures got, mainly in France but also in the US during World War II, vigorously promoted by Communist Party members, sympathizers, and fellow travelers. A very interesting and illuminating book.

[Jan Kubiznak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nejde pouze o rozbor čtyř zmíněných knih, ale o studii jejich přijetí, respektive hlavně jejich popírání. Autor poukazuje na naprostou zaslepenost některých intelektuálních elit, které nejsou schopny rozpoznat a přijmout realitu. Neobviňuje je přitom přímo ze lži, ale spíše z neschopnosti vidět skutečnost takovou, jaká je. V jiných formách to zažíváme i v současnosti.

"Masaryk byl jako diplomat v Americe oblíbený, rozhodně ho měli rádi američtí liberálové. "Železná opona" byla podle něj přeludem Churchillova imperialistického mozku. Tvrdil, že demokratické Československo může mít docela dobře přátelské vztahy se Sovětským svazem, jehož úmysly jsou dobré a činy čestné, když je vnímáme z nezbytné historické perspektivy. A pak byl mrtvý, rozpláclý na dlažbě."

[AKMENTINA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much appreciate the existence of this work as it provides details on how the book I Chose Freedom came to be and happenings and features of Kravchenko’s suit against the French journal Les Lettres françaises. An insulting and painful event that indeliberately provided Kravchenko with a platform from which he, with a help of great legal team and fellow victims of Soviet Union, struck a devastating blow to the Western Communist propagandists along to Stalinism itself.

[Jon]

A compelling look at four anti-Communist best-sellers from the Cold War era (one novel and three at least nominal memoirs): Arthur Koestler's DARKNESS AT NOON (the only one widely read today), Jan Valtin's OUT OF THE NIGHT, Victor Kravchenko's I CHOSE FREEDOM, and Whittaker Chambers' WITNESS. Fleming, a professor emeritus of literature at Princeton, has a tendency to engage in annoying tics such as the "not un-" formation (loathed by another anti-Communist, George Orwell, who once attacked it by writing "A not unblack dog chased a not unsmall cat across a not ungreen field") and goes a little over the top in his revisionist defense of the much-hated Chambers. (Before reading this, I thought Chambers was a sleazy rat-fink; now, I'm convinced he was an intelligent sleazy rat-fink with a certain amount of talent and skill.) But there's plenty of great literary detective work, thoughtful criticism, and intriguing historical analysis here and anyone interested in this phase of US history should enjoy it.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has an intriguing premise: to study four books with an anti-Communist message that were published in the West after World War II. The author will then discuss how these books and their authors caused a seismic shift in American attitudes toward the Soviets. Unfortunately, the book is written at such a high level of detail that unless you are a specialist in the period and/or have read all the books that he discusses, you will likely be confused. I think if he had included a summary of the plot and main arguments of each of the four books, it would have helped. Also, the author continually puts in irrelevant asides that detract from the overall flow of the book, without adding anything to the argument.

[Dan Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to imagine, but there was a time when communism was expected to sweep the globe. Many considered it man's last, best hope. This book explores the four books the author considers most crucial in stopping that momentum. All the writers were ex-Communists, including men who had been members of the German Communist Party who opposed the rise of Hitler, along with the first defector from the Soviet Union. One of the books was easily as popular as Gone with the Wind. Along the way you meet interesting characters, including a woman who had an extremely unique perspective: she had suffered both in Stalin's gulags and in Hitler's concentration camps, and lived to tell about it. Keep your dictionary handy - despite the author's claim, this book wasn't written for a casual audience.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Princeton medievalist who specializes in Franciscan literature writes book about Cold War era... Result: an amazingly subtle interpretation of espionage books and ex-Communist memoirs in light of Dante, Shakespeare, and Walter von der Vogelweide....

Presumes some pretty good knowledge of the Cold War era ahead of time, which I lacked. But the Whittaker Chambers chapter had me up till 4 a.m.

Really provokes some serious questions about why these books -- all of them once best-sellers -- are rarely taught in literature and history curricula.

[C. Varn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not what you would normally say is a prime audience for this book, as a socialist, anti-marxism can be tedious, but the documentation of the war of ideas around anti-communist writings, mostly from Marxists or ex-Marxists, and their impact is a fascinating history in and of itself. Learning the literary of history and the sometimes profound effect that now obscure figures have had is vital despite ones economic leanings. This book is a good introduction into that world.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book quite a while ago. It provides a well documents account of several great and dramatic, but now obscure, cold war dramas. The book gives the history of the creation and publication of the memoirs as well as the bare bones of the story that the memoir was based on. The book is well written and well paced.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't recall when I've ever read a book this fascinating and revealing.

[Natalie K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read this entire book. I read two parts, one about Darkness at Noon and the other one about I Chose Freedom (the latter was what I acquired the book for because of a random interest in Soviet defectors). Overall it's an interesting book but is occasionally derailed by really random tangents. And I do get it, as the author is an academic and random tangents are near and dear to an academic's heart. But still, it was a bit much at times.

As I said, the section on Viktor Kravchenko's autobiography I Chose Freedom was the best by far. It was fascinating to see these sanctimonious French intellectuals tell Kravchenko, a man who lived in the Soviet Union most of his adult life, that he was wrong about the brutalities of communism. The lousy bastards never lived under that crap (trust me, it sucks) but yet they defended communism and Stalin to their last breath. Thank goodness Kravchenko won his lawsuit, though admittedly he did not receive the damages he should have.

I did not read the sections about the two other books. Not because they're bad, but this is the sort of book that you need a lot of background knowledge for, i.e. you need to have read the books themselves to fully understand what he's talking about.

[E.A.M. Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over de precieze datering van het begin van de Koude Oorlog wordt onder historici nog steeds gedebatteerd. John V. Fleming voegt daar in The Anti-Communist Manifestos. Four books that shaped the Cold War een prachtig criterium aan toe; de Koude Oorlog begint op het moment dat sovjet-overlopers in het Westen niet meer als een ongemakkelijkheid worden beschouwd.
\nIn zijn The Anti-Communist Manifestos brengt Fleming een specifiek literair genre in kaart; de anti-communistische getuigenis. Als hoogtepunten beschouwt Fleming Darkness at Noon (1940) van Arthur Koestler, Out of the Night (1941) van Jan Valtin alias Richard Krebst, I Chose Freedom (1946) van Victor Kravchenko en Witness (1952) van de Amerikaanse journalist Whittaker Chambers. Elk boek markeert een cruciale fase in de publieke acceptatie van de gedachte dat het tussen kapitalisme en communisme nooit meer goed zou komen, of in minder neutrale termen, dat het bloeddorstige Rode Gevaar de Westerse beschaving en alles waar het voor stond, op verschrikkelijke wijze om zeep zou helpen.
\nDarkness at Noon maakte het grote publiek deelgenoot van het feit dat er van linkse kant grote twijfels bestonden over het socialistische experiment. Van enthousiast aanhanger van de Sovjet-Unie ontwikkelde Koestler zich door zijn traumatische ervaringen met de ware aard van het communisme in de Spaanse Burgeroorlog en de Moskouse Processen tot anti-communist. Dit heeft Koestler gemeen met de overige drie auteurs: alle vier waren ooit overtuigde communisten, die de verschrikkelijke praktijk van het leven in de Sovjet Unie niet meer konden rijmen met het excuus dat de socialistische heilstaat nu eenmaal niet zonder slag of stoot tot stand zou komen. Alle vier worden verketterd door voormalige geestverwanten die verbeten vasthouden aan de illusie dat zich ergens in het steeds groezeliger wordende badwater iets kindachtigs bevindt.
\nDe schokkende inhoud van Out of the Night - de auteur is ervaringsdeskundig als gevangene en spion van zowel de communisten als de Gestapo - en de hardboiled en soft-pornografische vorm waarin het verhaal gegoten is, genereren hoge oplages. De Duitse inval op de Sovjet-Unie en de Japanse op Pearl Harbor maken daar echter een abrupt einde aan. Met Uncle Joe Stalin als bondgenoot moest Amerikaanse volk niet in verwarring worden gebracht door anti-communistische lectuur.
\nBij het verschijnen van I Chose Freedom was de Koude Oorlog inmiddels uitgebroken; de honger naar informatie over het werkelijke leven onder het stalinistisch juk was groot. Het enorme internationale commerciele succes van I Chose Freedom dreef Moskou tot het opzetten van een uiterst kwaadaardige lastercampagne, die werd uitgevoerd door linkse intellectuelen die in het boek een onbeschaamde aantasting van de heilige graal van het socialisme zagen. Na de spectaculaire rechtzaak rond het boek, waarin een aantal Goelag-overlevenden getuigden, werd het in het Westen steeds ongeloofwaardiger de ogen gesloten te houden voor de werkelijkheid van het communisme.
\nWitnessvan de ex-communistische, Quaker geworden Time-Life journalist Whittaker Chambers verscheen in 1952. In tegenstelling tot de andere drie was Chambers geboren en getogen in de VS en had hij, voor zijn apostasie, deel uitgemaakt van een wijdvertakt netwerk van communistische informanten. In 1948 werd hij, onder enorme belangstelling, door de House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) ondervraagt naar zijn activiteiten in de jaren dertig. Chambers noemde grote hoeveelheden namen, wat Amerikanen sterkte in hun overtuiging dat de samenleving in hoge mate was geinfiltreerd door Moskou. In Witness waarschuwde de schrijfvaardige Chambers onophoudelijk voor de verschrikkingen van het communisme en de gevaren die de beschaafde mensheid bedreigden. Angst had zich definitief van de natie meester gemaakt.
\nFleming heeft met zijn boek een prachtige inventarisatie gegeven van de ontwikkeling van de Amerikaanse publieke opinie ten tijde van het uitbreken van de Koude Oorlog. Een punt van kritiek is dat Fleming zich niet ontdoet van het Koude Oorlog-idioom. Door dit tekort aan distantie ontneemt Fleming zich de mogelijkheid de fundamentele vraag te beantwoorden hoe reeel de communistische dreiging in de VS na 1945 feitelijk was. Daarmee suggereert hij dat er binnen de VS werkelijk een serieuze communistische bedreiging bestond. Het kwalijke gevolg is dat met deze suggestie de troebele onderneming van McCarthy en Nixon tot op zekere hoogte gelegitimeerd wordt. Het zal dan ook geen verbazing wekken dat The Anti-Communist Manifestos wordt aanbevolen door de Conservative Book Club.
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