communism

The Spirit of History

regarding a small act of betrayal

My Dictator: Growing up in Ceausescu’s Romania

We believed—at least a little—the things we had been repeating all our lives.

The Learned Hand of the Law

I like to believe Learned Hand would not have been BFF-opera-buddies with Antonin Scalia, even though their shared interests include being dead.

From the River to the Sea

The pretense that “from the river to the sea” refers to something that didn’t happen rather than something that did debases all of us.

The People of Freetown

The image of Edna Lewis as a communist may jar with the more acceptable one of the “Grand Dame of Southern cooking.”

Everything You Hate: Whitewashing Reds

Picking out coded radical references in old films is a fun pastime