7 ms·

Hollywood’s Cold War Dissidents in Ireland

52 points by prismatic 3y ago

cat_plus_plus 3y ago
[flagged]
- dundarious 3y ago
  It was a common position among European and American communists that the Stalinist turn was a grave error that communists should strongly oppose, and that the USSR was not heading towards achieving communism (remember, not even China today calls itself communist, they have a communist party working towards that goal). For most western communists, it was a question of when not whether you had your "Kronstadt moment". Likewise, I wouldn't put every excess of a capitalist state on the head of someone who calls themself a capitalist. Should they be held a priori individually responsible for the late Victorian famines in India and Ireland? The various coups and dictatorships in the Middle East, Central and South America? The sanction regimes whose explicit goal is "to bring about hunger" because it violates the anti-sovereignty "sphere of influence" Monroe Doctrine?
  - nullifidian 3y ago
    >It was a common position among European and American communists Sadly it wasn't. Some continued to deny Stalin's crimes well into perestroika. Especially in the academia.
    - dundarious 3y ago
      Trotskyists were common, and hence, it was a common position -- I didn't say universal. I'm not even a Marxist/communist, never mind some scholar of sectarian subgroups, but that's just one popular example among many.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    > It was a common position among European and American communists that the Stalinist turn was a grave error that communists should strongly oppose… That was a “common position” in the sense that it was around, but it wasn’t the overriding position until 1956, when both the brutal Soviet invasion of Hungary and Khrushchev’s changes allowed European communists to make an easy break with Stalin. Before that, many European Communists were reluctant to alienate the Soviet Union or be tarred as Trotskyists. Then in the mid–late 1960s, the decline of Stalin’s popularity gave way to a rise in Mao’s popularity among some French, British, and German Communists, a position which has also dated badly. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Communist movement in many European countries remained fragmented, with the largest parties being post-Stalinist, but splinter parties still upholding Stalin and Mao as the models of their struggle. Interestingly, some of the smallest splinter parties operated just like cults of the Scientology sort, only without any religious basis – there was a trial in the UK fairly recently about an old Maoist party keeping a woman hostage for years.
    - dundarious 3y ago
      Sure, a similar situation occurred with Mao -- many followers who were afraid to criticize for too long (and many others who were not so afraid, though they are often left out because they failed to comprehensively demonize China). Does that repudiate communism in its entirety as a school of thought and action? I don't think so -- that's why I disagree with the root comment who conflated communist with Stalinist, and who was defining the bounds of (barely) acceptable opinion as (paraphrasing) "minor increase to the welfare state", with anything further being equated with Stalinism or anti-semitism. I agree there are quasi-Marxist cults, I know the story you're talking about. (I'd argue the continued lack of development of what the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as opposed to the current "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" can successfully look like, and how to then achieve "the withering away of the state" -- or even how to take power in the place where it's supposed to, the developed capitalist countries like Germany, without just gesturing at "the contradictions" and saying the people will get there -- that's what destroyed the Old Left communists. I have a different but no less critical appraisal of the New Left, and the Millennial Left. None of these projects even have a vision for how to get a vision for the future).
- photonerd 3y ago
  > I will not call people calling for public healthcare and social safety net communists Yet you just did. A lot of the “communists” in the Hollywood blacklist era were advocating for things exactly like this. Plus communism isn’t even close to history’s deadliest ideology. If you’re going to tally communism’s numbers then you need to also total capitalisms. The main & most cited work in that area is “Red Holocaust” which estimated the total for communism at ~60 million people. But using the same criteria as that work we can easily attribute 100 million deaths to capitalism in the 20th century alone (btw, this pales to both Christianity & Islam, who are #1 & #2 respectively)
  - ramblenode 3y ago
    It also doesn't make sense talking about the world's deadliest ideology without normalizing for population. Capitalism, communism, Christianity, and Islam have killed the most people because the most people have lived under them.
    - photonerd 3y ago
      Reasonable, to a point, but a slightly different metric.
  - cat_plus_plus 3y ago
    And that folks is how brainwashing works. I explicitely stated !A, yet someone claims I stated A. For anyone interested in substantial conversation - as I understand it, in UK you pay certain tax for NHS and in return you get access to certain medical services at certain quality/timeframe, that not everyone is happy about. Nevertheless, the government does not generally prevent you from getting other services on your own dime, or ban private research into new medical treatments. I understand that there have been a few contraversies regarding babies who NHS declared braindead and inelligable for transfer to another willing hospital, but those are rare corner cases where there are legitimate arguments from both sides. For these reasons, I do not consider public healthcare implemented simularily to NHS to be equivalent to communism, and if I were to consider moving from US to UK, different healthcare systems would not even be on my top 10 list of deciding factors.
- basisword 3y ago
  >> I am glad that in America even communists are not locked up for voicing their views Let me introduce you to when the US locked up its own citizens without cause or due process: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Ameri...
  - overlordalex 3y ago
    Even more cromulently: In Dennis v. United States the government jailed the leaders of the american communist party, and the supreme court upheld the conviction. And if it's said that it's justified because they were the leaders: in Harisiades v. Shaughnessy the supreme court ruled that immigrants can be deported for being a previous member of the communist party, not even in any sort of leadership position. This includes just being a member for a year or two several decades ago. You can make the argument that those were cases from the last century, so how about being arrested for exercising your first amendment in the wrong place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone For something even more recent, protesters attempting to stop a massive new police training center* are being charged with domestic terrorism *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Cop_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Cop_City While there is definitely plenty of latitude around "free speech" in America, it's not limitless and the government will happily jail you if they disagree with what you're saying. This is not even getting into topics like COINTELPRO
  - cat_plus_plus 3y ago
    So 80 years ago and not since? Cool, thank you for agreeing that China is almost a century behind times!
    - basisword 3y ago
      Guantanamo Bay.
      - cat_plus_plus 3y ago
        In theory, Guantanamo Bay detains foreign nationals who did a lot more than just say "oh one day the world will be better off as a theocracy". Planning to overthrow US government to build either communism or theocracy is illegal and I am Ok with that. Speech is something not mandatory for me to hear and something I am not forced to follow. In practice, I am sure there are many abuses and lack of due process to establish that each detainee is in fact a terrorist. But comparing that to extermination of millions by Stalin or Ughur reeducation camps in China is ridiculous. It's a small number of individuals who slipped through the cracks, and any system has cracks.
- gwbas1c 3y ago
  Ideologies are just that: ideologies. No implementation of the ideology gets close to what the ideology tries to be. Socialized health care isn't communism. It's just admitting that the "free market" isn't a magic panacea that automatically makes everything work. (Kind of like how most of us get our water from the government, or how we get our protection from our government-run military.) Equating socialized healthcare with communism is a poor argument: Canada, Australia, and the UK have socialized health care, and those countries are very capitalist. If you don't like socialized health care, I suggest looking at how those countries operate and build your arguments based on observed facts of those systems' weaknesses.
  - cat_plus_plus 3y ago
    US implementation of individual freedom is pretty close to what individual freedom ideology tries to be, so long as you understand individual freedom as others not interfering with your life as opposed to others being forced to help you. Even if your hot topic is guns or abortion, you may want to check the laws around Europe compared to laws in whatever is your favorite US state where you are free to move to anytime.
    - gwbas1c 3y ago
      > US implementation of individual freedom is pretty close to what individual freedom ideology tries to be I'll agree with that statement when I can practice my religion where I believe that psychedelics are a sacrament! > being forced to help you I pay taxes and registered for the draft when I turned 18. That argument doesn't fly. I think you are justifying being greedy under the guise of "freedom."
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  > Taiwan ... independent countries Is Taiwan no longer claiming they are the legitimate government of mainland China (as well as parts of a bunch of neighboring countries)?
  - incompatible 3y ago
    Apparently they give up on trying to reclaim the mainland in 1991. https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2021/04/25/2003756299 https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2021/04/25/20...
mdw1963 3y ago
[flagged]
- messe 3y ago
  Communism ≠ Stalinism.
  - cm2187 3y ago
    There is also maoism, trotskyism, partisans of pol pot, castro. Pick your genocidal variant of communism.
- romafirst3 3y ago
  Capitalism = slavery to the state. If you don’t have enough money you literally die of hunger and the system says it’s your fault. Hitler was a devout capitalist. Russia is a staunchly capitalist country. All of the poorest countries in the world are capitalist countries. People often lazily confuse specific ideologies and political theories with autocratic regimes and despots. And before anyone says communism causes despots there have been more capitalist dictators and despots than you can count.
  - rhapsodic 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - pphysch 3y ago
      The Nazi party was violently anti-communist, and relied on the support of powerful capitalists. "Socialist" in name only.
      - thegaulofthem 3y ago
        Socialist != Communist Just as all the Hacker News fellated Democrat-Socialist utopias of current Europe are not Communist.
basisword 3y ago
Interesting to read about the hysteria in the US at the time. I find it interesting how largely forgotten this period seemingly is and also how utterly bizarre it was. It seems reminiscent of current times and the hysteria/conspiracies many politicians try to openly sow. Also interesting to see the strength the Catholic Church had to influence the Irish state and how relatively quickly that power has disappeared almost entirely.
js2 3y ago
I recently watched Beat the Devil. I thought it was pretty dreadful. I had no idea it had a cult following and I can't imagine why. The film really runs out of steam about halfway through and most of the actors seemed to be going through the motions. It is certainly not among the Huston films that I would recommend. Watch The Maltese Falcon or The Misfits first. That said, Ebert put it on his "Great Movies" list: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-beat-the-devil-1954 https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-beat-the-devi... It's also possibly interesting for having had a 28-year old Truman Capote as screen writer. Except that I really think Capote wasn't a good fit for Hollywood. Breakfast at Tiffany's did not translate well to screen. On the other hand, Roman Holiday is among my favorite films. It's the quintessential romcom. For a terrific and unusual red-scare inspired film, let me recommend Johny Guitar. Now that's a film that deserves a cult following.
- michaelchisari 3y ago
  I'd say that Breakfast at Tiffany's would make an incredible film. It's a pity they never even tried.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - js2 3y ago
    Um... it's famously a film[1] staring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. I thought it was okay. It was obviously toned down a lot from the book to meet then current sensibilities which would not offend an audience today. Ironically, there's a comedy bit with Mickey Rooney[2] that probably didn't offend American audiences at the time but that has not aged well. I also thought they added a bit too much slapstick. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany's_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany's_(film) 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._Y._Yunioshi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._Y._Yunioshi
    - michaelchisari 3y ago
      I'm aware.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MightyBuzzard 3y ago
[dead]

52 points by prismatic 3y ago

cat_plus_plus 3y ago

[flagged]

dundarious 3y ago
It was a common position among European and American communists that the Stalinist turn was a grave error that communists should strongly oppose, and that the USSR was not heading towards achieving communism (remember, not even China today calls itself communist, they have a communist party working towards that goal). For most western communists, it was a question of when not whether you had your "Kronstadt moment". Likewise, I wouldn't put every excess of a capitalist state on the head of someone who calls themself a capitalist. Should they be held a priori individually responsible for the late Victorian famines in India and Ireland? The various coups and dictatorships in the Middle East, Central and South America? The sanction regimes whose explicit goal is "to bring about hunger" because it violates the anti-sovereignty "sphere of influence" Monroe Doctrine?
- nullifidian 3y ago
  >It was a common position among European and American communists Sadly it wasn't. Some continued to deny Stalin's crimes well into perestroika. Especially in the academia.
  - dundarious 3y ago
    Trotskyists were common, and hence, it was a common position -- I didn't say universal. I'm not even a Marxist/communist, never mind some scholar of sectarian subgroups, but that's just one popular example among many.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  > It was a common position among European and American communists that the Stalinist turn was a grave error that communists should strongly oppose… That was a “common position” in the sense that it was around, but it wasn’t the overriding position until 1956, when both the brutal Soviet invasion of Hungary and Khrushchev’s changes allowed European communists to make an easy break with Stalin. Before that, many European Communists were reluctant to alienate the Soviet Union or be tarred as Trotskyists. Then in the mid–late 1960s, the decline of Stalin’s popularity gave way to a rise in Mao’s popularity among some French, British, and German Communists, a position which has also dated badly. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Communist movement in many European countries remained fragmented, with the largest parties being post-Stalinist, but splinter parties still upholding Stalin and Mao as the models of their struggle. Interestingly, some of the smallest splinter parties operated just like cults of the Scientology sort, only without any religious basis – there was a trial in the UK fairly recently about an old Maoist party keeping a woman hostage for years.
  - dundarious 3y ago
    Sure, a similar situation occurred with Mao -- many followers who were afraid to criticize for too long (and many others who were not so afraid, though they are often left out because they failed to comprehensively demonize China). Does that repudiate communism in its entirety as a school of thought and action? I don't think so -- that's why I disagree with the root comment who conflated communist with Stalinist, and who was defining the bounds of (barely) acceptable opinion as (paraphrasing) "minor increase to the welfare state", with anything further being equated with Stalinism or anti-semitism. I agree there are quasi-Marxist cults, I know the story you're talking about. (I'd argue the continued lack of development of what the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as opposed to the current "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" can successfully look like, and how to then achieve "the withering away of the state" -- or even how to take power in the place where it's supposed to, the developed capitalist countries like Germany, without just gesturing at "the contradictions" and saying the people will get there -- that's what destroyed the Old Left communists. I have a different but no less critical appraisal of the New Left, and the Millennial Left. None of these projects even have a vision for how to get a vision for the future).
photonerd 3y ago
> I will not call people calling for public healthcare and social safety net communists Yet you just did. A lot of the “communists” in the Hollywood blacklist era were advocating for things exactly like this. Plus communism isn’t even close to history’s deadliest ideology. If you’re going to tally communism’s numbers then you need to also total capitalisms. The main & most cited work in that area is “Red Holocaust” which estimated the total for communism at ~60 million people. But using the same criteria as that work we can easily attribute 100 million deaths to capitalism in the 20th century alone (btw, this pales to both Christianity & Islam, who are #1 & #2 respectively)
- ramblenode 3y ago
  It also doesn't make sense talking about the world's deadliest ideology without normalizing for population. Capitalism, communism, Christianity, and Islam have killed the most people because the most people have lived under them.
  - photonerd 3y ago
    Reasonable, to a point, but a slightly different metric.
- cat_plus_plus 3y ago
  And that folks is how brainwashing works. I explicitely stated !A, yet someone claims I stated A. For anyone interested in substantial conversation - as I understand it, in UK you pay certain tax for NHS and in return you get access to certain medical services at certain quality/timeframe, that not everyone is happy about. Nevertheless, the government does not generally prevent you from getting other services on your own dime, or ban private research into new medical treatments. I understand that there have been a few contraversies regarding babies who NHS declared braindead and inelligable for transfer to another willing hospital, but those are rare corner cases where there are legitimate arguments from both sides. For these reasons, I do not consider public healthcare implemented simularily to NHS to be equivalent to communism, and if I were to consider moving from US to UK, different healthcare systems would not even be on my top 10 list of deciding factors.
basisword 3y ago
>> I am glad that in America even communists are not locked up for voicing their views Let me introduce you to when the US locked up its own citizens without cause or due process: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Ameri...
- overlordalex 3y ago
  Even more cromulently: In Dennis v. United States the government jailed the leaders of the american communist party, and the supreme court upheld the conviction. And if it's said that it's justified because they were the leaders: in Harisiades v. Shaughnessy the supreme court ruled that immigrants can be deported for being a previous member of the communist party, not even in any sort of leadership position. This includes just being a member for a year or two several decades ago. You can make the argument that those were cases from the last century, so how about being arrested for exercising your first amendment in the wrong place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone For something even more recent, protesters attempting to stop a massive new police training center* are being charged with domestic terrorism *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Cop_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Cop_City While there is definitely plenty of latitude around "free speech" in America, it's not limitless and the government will happily jail you if they disagree with what you're saying. This is not even getting into topics like COINTELPRO
- cat_plus_plus 3y ago
  So 80 years ago and not since? Cool, thank you for agreeing that China is almost a century behind times!
  - basisword 3y ago
    Guantanamo Bay.
    - cat_plus_plus 3y ago
      In theory, Guantanamo Bay detains foreign nationals who did a lot more than just say "oh one day the world will be better off as a theocracy". Planning to overthrow US government to build either communism or theocracy is illegal and I am Ok with that. Speech is something not mandatory for me to hear and something I am not forced to follow. In practice, I am sure there are many abuses and lack of due process to establish that each detainee is in fact a terrorist. But comparing that to extermination of millions by Stalin or Ughur reeducation camps in China is ridiculous. It's a small number of individuals who slipped through the cracks, and any system has cracks.
gwbas1c 3y ago
Ideologies are just that: ideologies. No implementation of the ideology gets close to what the ideology tries to be. Socialized health care isn't communism. It's just admitting that the "free market" isn't a magic panacea that automatically makes everything work. (Kind of like how most of us get our water from the government, or how we get our protection from our government-run military.) Equating socialized healthcare with communism is a poor argument: Canada, Australia, and the UK have socialized health care, and those countries are very capitalist. If you don't like socialized health care, I suggest looking at how those countries operate and build your arguments based on observed facts of those systems' weaknesses.
- cat_plus_plus 3y ago
  US implementation of individual freedom is pretty close to what individual freedom ideology tries to be, so long as you understand individual freedom as others not interfering with your life as opposed to others being forced to help you. Even if your hot topic is guns or abortion, you may want to check the laws around Europe compared to laws in whatever is your favorite US state where you are free to move to anytime.
  - gwbas1c 3y ago
    > US implementation of individual freedom is pretty close to what individual freedom ideology tries to be I'll agree with that statement when I can practice my religion where I believe that psychedelics are a sacrament! > being forced to help you I pay taxes and registered for the draft when I turned 18. That argument doesn't fly. I think you are justifying being greedy under the guise of "freedom."
bigbillheck 3y ago
> Taiwan ... independent countries Is Taiwan no longer claiming they are the legitimate government of mainland China (as well as parts of a bunch of neighboring countries)?
- incompatible 3y ago
  Apparently they give up on trying to reclaim the mainland in 1991. https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2021/04/25/2003756299 https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2021/04/25/20...

mdw1963 3y ago

[flagged]

messe 3y ago
Communism ≠ Stalinism.
- cm2187 3y ago
  There is also maoism, trotskyism, partisans of pol pot, castro. Pick your genocidal variant of communism.
romafirst3 3y ago
Capitalism = slavery to the state. If you don’t have enough money you literally die of hunger and the system says it’s your fault. Hitler was a devout capitalist. Russia is a staunchly capitalist country. All of the poorest countries in the world are capitalist countries. People often lazily confuse specific ideologies and political theories with autocratic regimes and despots. And before anyone says communism causes despots there have been more capitalist dictators and despots than you can count.
- rhapsodic 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - pphysch 3y ago
    The Nazi party was violently anti-communist, and relied on the support of powerful capitalists. "Socialist" in name only.
    - thegaulofthem 3y ago
      Socialist != Communist Just as all the Hacker News fellated Democrat-Socialist utopias of current Europe are not Communist.

basisword 3y ago

Interesting to read about the hysteria in the US at the time. I find it interesting how largely forgotten this period seemingly is and also how utterly bizarre it was. It seems reminiscent of current times and the hysteria/conspiracies many politicians try to openly sow. Also interesting to see the strength the Catholic Church had to influence the Irish state and how relatively quickly that power has disappeared almost entirely.

js2 3y ago

I recently watched Beat the Devil. I thought it was pretty dreadful. I had no idea it had a cult following and I can't imagine why. The film really runs out of steam about halfway through and most of the actors seemed to be going through the motions. It is certainly not among the Huston films that I would recommend. Watch The Maltese Falcon or The Misfits first. That said, Ebert put it on his "Great Movies" list: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-beat-the-devil-1954 https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-beat-the-devi... It's also possibly interesting for having had a 28-year old Truman Capote as screen writer. Except that I really think Capote wasn't a good fit for Hollywood. Breakfast at Tiffany's did not translate well to screen. On the other hand, Roman Holiday is among my favorite films. It's the quintessential romcom. For a terrific and unusual red-scare inspired film, let me recommend Johny Guitar. Now that's a film that deserves a cult following.

michaelchisari 3y ago
I'd say that Breakfast at Tiffany's would make an incredible film. It's a pity they never even tried.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- js2 3y ago
  Um... it's famously a film[1] staring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. I thought it was okay. It was obviously toned down a lot from the book to meet then current sensibilities which would not offend an audience today. Ironically, there's a comedy bit with Mickey Rooney[2] that probably didn't offend American audiences at the time but that has not aged well. I also thought they added a bit too much slapstick. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany's_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany's_(film) 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._Y._Yunioshi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._Y._Yunioshi
  - michaelchisari 3y ago
    I'm aware.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

MightyBuzzard 3y ago

[dead]