Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Kyrill M. Anderson, The Soviet World of American Communism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. xi + 378 pp. $35.00 cloth.

Abstract

The first reaction of a perhaps overly jaded reviewer with a long history of skepticism about the Communist Party of the United States is to ask whether this work is really necessary. A volume in the Annals of Communism series, it consists of ninety-five documents from Moscow archives relating to American Communism's relationship with the Communist International (Comintern) and its successor organizations. The documents, ranging from detailed instructions for American Communists to arrest and death certificates for unfortunates caught up in the purges of the 1930s, have powerful exemplary value. They tend to be arranged in small clusters of two or three and to be introduced by clearly written narratives that summarize them and explain their significance. The decision to organize the book topically rather than chronologically leads to some repetition but does not detract from its considerable impact.