Sign in  |  Register

The New Criterion

America’s leading review of the arts and intellectual life
- Harry Mount, the London Telegraph

Features

September 2002

The myth of

by Harvey Klehr

Re-evaluating the treatment of the volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

In 1984, George Orwell gave the Ministry of Truth the task of rewriting history. Under the slogan “who controls the past controls the future,” an army of scribes modified documents, changed textbooks, and rewrote old newspapers to ensure that history conformed to every shift of the ruling party’s political line. Left-wing American historians have likewise been busily engaged in altering the past to buttress their conviction that Communists are the real heroes of modern history. Of all the historical myths promoted by the American left, few have been more fiercely protected than those about the Spanish Civil War, lionized as “the Good Fight,” a heroic struggle between fascism and antifascism, and the Communist-led International Brigades, a band of selfless volunteers whose brave deeds were immortalized in stirring songs (they won the battles, but we had all the good songs, Tom Lehrer noted).

I ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase

Subscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions)

Subscribe to TNC (Online only)

Purchase article credit and clip this article

If you already have an account login first

Harvey Klehr is andrew Mellon Professor of Politics at Emory University.


more from this author

This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 21 September 2002, on page 19

Copyright © 2010 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-myth-of--1913
rate this article for your user profile

E-mail to friend


The New Criterion

By the author

Radical history

by Harvey Klehr

On shoddy & politicized scholarship.

You might also enjoy

Ayn Rand: engineer of souls

by Anthony Daniels

A critical account of the "Chernyshevsky of individualism."

Remembering Irving Kristol

by James Piereson

On the godfather of modern conservatism & his intellectual legacy.

Carlyle the wise

by Barton Swaim

On the political thought of Thomas Carlyle.

Most popular

view more >

download
first delivery

The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices

Webcasts

Elucidations & Corrections: Arts Criticism
The Goldring Arts Journalism Program S. I. New House School of Public Communications at Syracuse University honors "The New Criterion."


Swallow Anthology Reading at The Grolier


New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 4
"The Criminalization of Making Money" by Lionel Shriver, Recorded 9/25/09