All-American Rebels

Writing the history of the American Left in the twentieth century is no easy task. The Left in this country has always been a fractured movement filled with competing ideas, values, and visions of a society that could meet the needs and desires of all of its people. Robert C. Cottrell follows in the footsteps of other scholars and writers who research and write this history, such as The Rise and Fall of the American Left by John Patrick Diggins or Everything Is Changing: Contemporary U.S. Movements in Historical Perspective by David De Leon. Robert C. Cottrell's All-American Rebels traverses much of the same ground as these two books and other similar studies, but unlike Diggins and De Leon, he takes the reader into the subsequent century. His work is also similar to Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the 20th Century by Andrew Cornell. The major difference is that Cornell's work focuses explicitly on anarchism, though his work does extend to the late twentieth century and early twenty-first. Again, Cottrell covers some of the same ground as Cornell, given that anarchism or left libertarianism is deeply embedded in the Left.But what is the Left in American history and in contemporary American society? Is socialism or Marxism the defining feature of the Left, as Diggins suggests? Are Black and LGBTQ civil rights activists who strive for equality and social justice as much a part of the Left as anarchists and democratic socialists who want to end capitalism and replace it with a cooperative economic system? De Leon would see a clear distinction. According to Cottrell, however, they are all a part of the Left along with environmentalists, senior activists, cultural radicals in literature and the arts, and many others. Creating coherence out of such a diverse array of people and movements poses a problem for any writer who attempts to present a history of the American Left in the twentieth century and beyond. Cottrell does an impressive job of herding the cats that American Leftists and radical reformers seem to resemble.Cottrell begins his study with the Lyrical Left of the first two decades of the twentieth century, though he reaches back to the late nineteenth century for precursors such as the Haymarket anarchists, Marxists of the Socialist Labor Party, militant labor radicals, and populists. For Cottrell, the Lyrical Left included democratic socialists, especially members of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies) and the cultural radicals of Greenwich Village affiliated with The Masses. He also includes early civil rights and women's rights activists. Here Cottrell places the movement within the context of state and vigilante repression. Leftists and radical reformers, regardless of their particular vision of a future society, were and are in opposition to the structures of power, whether economic, political, social, or cultural.After a brief analysis of the Lyrical Left and its repression during and after World War I, Cottrell examines the Old Left. Unlike the romantic, lighthearted, and boisterous Lyrical Left, the Old Left emerged after the split within the Socialist Party of America, following the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia. Communist factions emerged as two political parties that eventually merged into one, leaving the remaining democratic socialists to chart a nonauthoritarian path to a socialist future. Although communists were far more advanced in their understanding of racial and gender oppression than earlier socialists had been, communists were hardheaded revolutionaries with little interest in song and humor, which had been part of the rich culture of the Wobblies. Communists experienced their own divisions, but they were so beholden to Moscow that even during the heights of the Great Depression and their tenacious commitment to labor organizing, their appeal remained limited. Nevertheless, Cottrell connects the Old Left with the work of New Dealers as part of a larger effort to provide solutions to the dire economic crisis of the 1930s. Even before World War II ended, the Left was again under attack by conservative politicians, newspaper editors, and various influencers. Those attacks greatly increased into the postwar period and spread beyond communists to actors, directors, academics, and anyone else suspected of disloyalty or radicalism. During this dark period, Cottrell focuses on communists but includes other radicals and rebels. At midcentury, pacifists, gays and lesbians, African Americans, and writers and poets of the Beat movement also began to challenge the status quo.With the advent of the 1960s, a new generation of American rebels emerged. Here Cottrell's analysis of the Left becomes a bit more convoluted. Cottrell's distinction between radicals and liberals becomes hazier. Unlike De Leon, who covers much of the 1960s and 1970s, Cottrell does not exercise the diligence he could have in teasing out the differences between those seeking a truly radical transformation of society and liberal reformers who had no interest in ending capitalism. Nevertheless, Cottrell presents a narrative that takes the reader through the dramatic confrontations that radicals and reformers alike faced from political, institutional, and right-wing attacks. The New Left, Black Power, anti–Vietnam War activists, environmentalists, those in the women's and gay liberation movements, and a host of other civil rights advocates emerged during the 1960s and the 1970s and greatly transformed American society. Cottrell consistently places these many movements into a larger historical context.The remaining chapters of his study cover the last decades of the twentieth century and the first decades of the next. Cottrell examines the extraordinary diversity of the American Left and radical reformers and their many conflicts with the powers that be. Although at times the author's analysis is far too brief, resulting in a laundry list of left-of-center individuals and organizations, he makes it clear to the reader that the Left and radical reform are alive and well at the end of the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Scholars and students of history may find the book short on primary source analysis, as this is largely a work of synthesis. Cottrell never really defines what the Left is in his work, which may frustrate readers. Nevertheless, All-American Rebels is a study that chronicles efforts by those sincere in their quest for a more just, free, and egalitarian society. The book will appeal to any general reader interested in the United States’ radical past and present

Political science · American Political and Social Dynamics · History · Race, History, and American Society