Word: mitfordly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...completely inactive during those years. Mitford describes her work with the Civil Rights Congress, a group that had a large share of S.P. members, but was one of the most active civil rights groups of the time. It is hard to remember, now, what it felt like to be one of a very few whites working to end discrimination in an era when laws like restrictive housing zones were considered legitimate; it is to the C.P.'s credit that it recognized the exploitation of Blacks long before recognized the exploitation of blacks long before the so-called liberals who spent...
...Mitford--unlike, say, Lillian Hellman--does not bother with name-calling or invective. She simply states what the C.P. did, and what it felt like to be constantly under FBI and HUAC observation; individual party members become much more sympathetic characters through her witty description of both their heroism and their flaws...
...cases, of course, Mitford's concentration on individuals replaces deeper political analysis, as she skims rapidly over inter-party politics and changes in the party line. But there are many books already on such heavy topics; Mitford's intention was to show what it felt like to be a member of the CPUSA during the '40s and '50s, not to describe the party's full operation...
...Mitford does not go into the details of her departure from the party, which was prompted by the 1958 revelations about Stalin's purges, because she does not want to undermine the validity of the years she spent with the C.P. By 1958, she says simply she felt the party had become stagnant through having been forced underground; more effective work for the cause could be done through outside radical movements. She and her husband, a radical labor lawyer, had no regrets about the time they spent with the party--in a way, she writes, "the Party experience proved...
...real reason to read A Fine Old Conflict, in the end, has less to do with an interest in the nature of the Communist Party than with Mitford herself. There are few people who can be so consistently witty about something they feel deeply about, and simultaneously so insightful. Such people should be treasured, always...