In The Haymarket Conspiracy, Messer-Kruse thoroughly debunks the dominant narrative through which most historians interpret the Haymarket Bombing and Trial of 1886–87.

Here is Dissent‘s dissenting book review, and Messer-Kruse’s response.

“Based on careful and extensive digging in American and foreign archives, particularly in Hungary, Red Conspirator is both a lively and well-written book, and the best life story yet published in English of a particular Communist type: the professional revolutionary who lived virtually his entire life in the shadowy netherworld where legality shaded into illegality and loyalty to Moscow and the world revolution trumped national identity. That its protagonist was a central figure in the most explosive American espionage case in the 20th century only adds spice to the mix.”

In recent years, increased attention has been focused on the economic hardship confronted by southern workers, especially under the pressures created by the Great Depression.  A close look at the labor movement, for example, reveals that during the great uprising in the textile industry in 1934, southern workers were at the center of a labor stoppage unprecedented in scope.  The textile strike demonstrated that southern workers responded to the initiatives of organized labor in what may best be understood as a moment of opportunity, only to be defeated by a combination of management recalcitrance and state suppression.  Similarly, the rise of the Communist Party-led Unemployed Councils and Workers Alliance of America documented the increased influence of the Communist Party and Popular Front forces in the unemployed movement of the 1930s.

Since 2000 historians have taken advantage of the newly-available records of the Communist Party U. S. A. (CPUSA) to uncover the details of its work in the United States, including the southern states about which relatively little had previously been known.  Greg Taylor’s work on the Communist Party in North Carolina (North Carolina, 2009) and Aaron Purcell’s exploration of party members in Tennessee (Tennessee, 2009) provide evidence of lively party activity the South.  Perhaps the most important link in the chain of modern scholarship dealing with southern progressives is Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore’s comprehensive study of the Communist Party’s activity in the region, Defying Dixie:  The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 (W.W.Norton).

Taken as a group these publications attest to the lively scholarship that has emerged as the source base for such work has expanded.  These writings address the currently controversial debate over the significance of local initiative in the activities of the CPUSA.  Most adopt the perspective of the new history of American Communism, which emphasizes grass-roots activism, while acknowledging the controversy over external influence.  In addition, the latest scholarship stresses the importance of cross-racial collaboration and class solidarity that sometimes produced effective political alliances.  One thing is certain:  it is now impossible to ignore the impact of an activist Communist Party in the story of southern progressivism.  The presence of the radical Left must be part of any comprehensive understanding of New South social and political history.  Progressives of all stripes helped shape another, as yet poorly understood “New South” that looked to the future as the region broke free from outworn traditions.

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James J. Lorence is a professor emeritus of the University of Wisconsin, Marathon County. His works include The Unemployed People’s Movement: Leftists, Liberals, and Labor in Georgia, 1929—1941 (University of Georgia Press) and the new paperback A Hard Journey: The Life of Don West (University of Illinois Press).