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20 Lab. Stud. J. 99 (1995-1996)
Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer

handle is hein.journals/labstuj20 and id is 311 raw text is: BOOK REVIEWS Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer. By John Abt with Michael Myerson. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. 311 pp. $34.95 cloth. To hear John Abt tell it, the chief counsel to the American Communist party knew virtually nothing about the inner workings of the party. He was unattached to any club and not privy to policy discussions at the top. Abt just seemed to be along for the ride, unquestioning and believing. He read all the Soviet trial proceedings of Stalin's purges and was thoroughly convinced of their truthfulness. He acknowledges now that all the victims were framed, but still (does) not understand it. Abt seems to have just drifted along with the times while successfully carrying on the party's struggle to dismantle the repressive McCarran Act. Abt seems also to have just drifted into the world of the Left: born and raised in a factory owner's family, with private schools and servants, his father became the chief negotiator for the clothing employers' association doing battle with the unions. Always financially well-off, Abt maintained an apartment on Central Park West and a house in the country even while complaining about the party's slowness in paying him. Abt declares that he will not name anyone as a Communist who has not publicly identified him or herself, but his restraint slips when talking about lapsed comrades like Mike Quill. There are a couple of anecdotes that shed a dark light on Communist morality and class position: working for the LaFollette Senate committee investigating employer spying against unions in 1937, Abt sent an investi- gator to Bloody Harlan County, Kentucky. He paid a (Black?) bellhop to open the hood of his car each morning, in case a bomb had been planted. Long-time Congressman Vito Marcantonio, although not a party mem- ber according to Abt, was a man of unparalleled courage with a strong whimsical streak. The Congressman would call someone up in the dead of night, wake them, scream at them, .. . 'You lousy, double-crossing no-good son of a bitch.' Then he would bang the phone down, never identifying himself. Some courage. This book adds little to the growing body of literature that helps us to comprehend the American Communist experience, and little to understand- ing labor struggles that Abt describes, from both first and second-hand per- spectives. There are anecdotes about Sidney Hillman, New Deal Washing- ton, a few CIO and party leaders, and some family and friends. Abt ends with an apology that is more apologia, echoing Michael Myerson's rather self-serving introduction. 99