Ron Radosh

November 3rd, 2008 11:12 am

Studs Terkel: Bard of the Popular Front

Studs Terkel: May 16, 1912- Oct.31, 2008

Louis “Studs” Terkel, radio host, raconteur, storyteller, oral historian and bard of the common man, died last week at the ripe age of 96. The tributes, in the midst of this historic election campaign, have poured in. On “All Things Considered,” Garrison Keillor sang a clever tribute to the tune of Woody Guthrie’s “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You.” A Washington Post staff writer praised him for his “shoe-leather approach to writing the history of America in the last century that coaxed extraordinary tales out of nobodies.” The New York Times obituary writer said that “he developed a continuous narrative of great historic moments sounded by an American chorus in the native vernacular.”

To be completely accurate, Terkel should be seen as the quintessential representative of Popular Front communism, circa mid 1940’s through the current era. The social democratic intellectual Marshall Berman, reviewing Terkel’s Working in the March 24, 1974 New York Times Book Review, called the Popular Front “one of the most poignant and powerful of American dreams,” one that despite its Communist origins, “liberated immense imaginative energies.” For Berman, and for Terkel, the Front “articulated a vision of a genuinely democratic community- perhaps the first such vision in American history.”

This would not be the last time the newspaper of record has extolled Communist cultural policy as a great triumph for American democracy. What the Popular Front really accomplished, contrary to Berman, was to co-opt heroes of the American story to the phony narrative of American Communism—-a struggle of working people allied with farmers, African-Americans and other oppressed minorities against the evil capitalist industrialists who exploited all in their search for super profits. It is a narrative that began with the late Communist historian Herbert Aptheker and today is carried on by its most well known exponent, the best-selling author Howard Zinn, whose People’s History of the United States has miseducated two generations of American students since it first appeared.

Nevertheless, one has to agree with Berman’s judgment that Terkel was “the ablest spokesman and visionary of the Popular Front in our time.” More than Zinn, who pretends to be writing history, Terkel simply recorded interviews with those he saw as common people. In telling their own story these ordinary Americans would rescue the country from the ruling class version of the past which created a picture of America triumphalism and exceptionalism. In Berman’s eyes, even Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who by now everyone knows were Soviet patriots who spied on behalf of Joseph Stalin- were “the last authentic heroes and martyrs of the Popular Front.” One must wonder if even Terkel believed that.

Yet Berman understood Terkel’s goal. The purpose of recording those oral histories was to show how those he interviewed ” had overcome all the social barriers that have kept them apart or antagonistic,” showing them “pledging solidarity, undertaking to march arm in arm toward the purple mountain majesties of the future, to take possession of America in the name of the people.” Or as he concludes: Terkel was seeking to bring “us together to work to change a social system that strains and drains us all.” In other words, to realize that great dream of socialism in America.

No wonder that the late A.M. Rosenthal, then executive editor of the Times and later a columnist for the paper (when it was still striving to have somewhat of an ecumenical approach and was not exclusively a left wing opinion sheet) read Berman’s review and, perhaps a bit harshly and in an over the top comment, promptly called Terkel “a shmuck with a tape recorder.” A man like Rosenthal, committed to the paper as he was, knew from personal experience and his years covering Communist Poland the reality of the nightmare underlying the Communist dream, and hence had little sympathy for the kind of narrative Studs Terkel was laying out.

The obituaries of Terkel have all pointed out that he had hoped to live to see Barack Obama elected President. That is not surprising. Like Terkel, Obama’s meteoric rise to political power started with his life in Chicago, and his introduction to the leftist and black nationalist Chicago political milieu in which Terkel also lived and worked. Indeed, listening to many of Obama’s soaring speeches reminds one of the expansive rhetoric and melodies of the Popular Front anthems. Obama’s campaign, then, might be seen as the final victory of the Popular Front culture in America.

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11 Comments

1. Pajamas Media » Studs Terkel: Dreams of American Socialism:

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Nov 3, 2008 - 2:31 pm 2. Donna V.:

Well, I liked Terkel’s book “The Good War.” I don’t remember any overt lefty bias in that book, but then I read it when I was still on the left myself, so the bias would not have been apparent to me then.

A few months ago, though, I came across online audiotapes of Terkel conducting an interview with Eugene Sledge back in the ’80’s. Sledge was a combat Marine in the Pacific in WWII and wrote a harrowing, classic account of those brutal island battles, “With the Old Breed.”

Listening to the interviews, I was struck by (and eventually annoyed with) how often Terkel interupted Sledge to try and put forth his own interpretation of the events Sledge had lived through. He seemed to be trying to get Sledge to admit that the Marines were just as bad as the Japanese. Sledge clearly did not buy this. I began muttering, “Shut up, Terkel and let the man talk! He’s the one who was on Okinawa, not you!”

I wondered after that where Terkel got his reputation for being such a great interviewer. He seemed far more interested in talking than listening.

Nov 3, 2008 - 4:00 pm 3. Marion L:

Dear Mr. Radosh:

From the last paragraph of your column, it appears that you have not read Obama’s The Audacity of Hope; it which he makes it clear that his economic philosophy has far more in common with FDR’s New Deal than with anything resembling “Popular Front culture.”

Moreover, during the event at which Caroline Kennedy endorsed him, Obama explicitly said that he believed in capitalism. Striving for basic fairness and a modicum of economic justice, as Obama does, is not a sign of “Popular Front culture.” Rather, it is a much needed remedy to eight years of Republican malfeasance.

Indeed, although I will enthusiastically vote for him, I wish that Obama’s economic program was more explicitly social democratic than it actually is.

(And please note that as a proud Jewish feminist, I despise Stalin and his crimes every bit as much as you do.)

Nov 3, 2008 - 5:02 pm 4. Donna V.:

The obituaries of Terkel have all pointed out that he had hoped to live to see Barack Obama elected President

Terkel might not have lived to witness the coronation, but I suspect he’ll be casting a vote for Obama tomorrow anyway. In fact, I would wager Terkel will be casting posthumous votes in the Windy City for many years to come.

Nov 3, 2008 - 5:12 pm 5. Wayne:

Marion L.
FDR’s New Deal was strongly influenced by the same Marxist economic philosophy that drove the Popular Front and other leftist (or Progressive) movements in the 1920s and 1930s. Obama’s forced redistribution approach has been toned down in his rhetoric only recently, since he knows that he would not be elected if people knew who he actually is. Don’t worry – you’ll get the socialist economy that you’re pining for.

Nov 4, 2008 - 6:53 am 6. Edward A.:

We do have G W Bush to thank for the recent spawning of socialism in the USA, excuse me…
USSA (United Socialist States of America.)

Nov 4, 2008 - 8:39 am 7. Will Sharpe:

Simply ridiculous, a specious gathering and linking of facts to draw Turkel’s profound life into a mere ploy to underscore an Obama economy policy that has yet to have done anything–and perhaps never will.

Nov 4, 2008 - 11:30 am 8. Marion L:

Dear Wayne:

FDR’s New Deal saved capitalism from itself; that is to say, from its worst excesses. That does not sound like “Marxist economic philosophy” to me. I hope that Obama will have an opportunity to implement the best of his common sense policies; which seek only to promote a greater level of basic fairness and economic justice.

If there is anything that epitomizes a “forced redistribution approach” to the economy, it is the Republican policy of favoring a wealthy few over the vast majority of working Americans. That is what led to our current economic crisis; namely “forced redistribution” to the already wealthy at the expense of the middle class and those in poverty.

Finally, I have no problem with identifying with democratic socialism of the type espoused by Norman Thomas and Michael Harrington. It was Michael Harrington’s book The Other American, that inspired John F. Kennedy’s War on Poverty. That hardly makes Kenndey a Marxist, just as Obama’s efforts to help the middle class hardly make him a socialist; especially as he (Obama) explicitly says that he supports capitalism.

Nov 4, 2008 - 3:19 pm 9. DavidN:

I’m always amused by people who quote someone like Obama saying he’s a capitalist. He is, of course, in one small fashion, being honest. American politicians, and academics, like Obama don’t understand capitalism, and pine affectionately for “just” society, freed from the constraints put on the government’s redistribution policies by those nasty old founding fathers. The one problem they have with socialism, and the one thing they like about capitalism, is that capitalism generates oceans of cash, whereas socialism tend to be moribund and lead to poverty. The solution seems to be telling everyone that you’re leading a capitalist government, and then doing everything as if you’re a socialist, but denying that’s what you are. That way everyone will be fooled into believing you’re a capitalist, the money will flow in and you can tax it all as much as you want (no one will notice, capitalists are rendered stupid by their greed) and you can enact your socialist policies without any of the poverty that ensues when a government announces that it’s socialist. Interesting strategy…we’ll see, but I don’t think it will work.

Nov 4, 2008 - 11:17 pm 10. view from afar:

It doesn’t work! I see the confusion I have had a lot (I thought it was only my confusion…)here in Europe the left keeps talking about socialism only a lesser evil than actual communism. After reading Marion L, the lights go on! Yes I know that technically the USSR is socialist, not true communism, but apparently to the elitist left, there is a big difference. (I don’t get it, believe me I have tried to learn) I’ve given up trying to explain the difference! For Europeans, capitalists are always only for capital, the greedy sort not the creative ones, you know that create jobs…so Marion L. if you’d like to, you can technically hide behind the different shades of socialism as it exists in this world, but living in a socialist system, I prefer good ole USA style capitalism…
David N. you’re right and you’re wrong in your explanation, I have had unbelievably confusing conversations with socialists here in France who defend the little guy’s right to earn money, but only so much money, you see because if they earn too much even if it is only on paper, it isn”t fair. So the greedy capitalists hide their capital gains,, so they don’t get taxed out of existence, ya know the selfish ones! Ok these discussions are with people who aregenerally teachers and other highly educated people, always need to be making more money because they are being exploited for their intelligence by society, but capital must be exploited and as it is capital(like capital gains, you take something or money and invest it and it grows in value), Like I said it gets really dizzying, oh and these people are genuinely thrilled to be called socialists, cause they are so helpful (not) to society by giving the poor more money, just not their wealth as they paid taxes…

Nov 5, 2008 - 11:57 am 11. frank:

It’s not the “excesses of capitalism” sports fans. Here’s what The Left does. Guy is skippering the Exxon Valdez, drunk and wasted and the Coast Guard fails at their backup job. No problem, supertankers must be outlawed by governmment.When this history is written your going to see leftist politicians pushing bad loans for 30 years and pawning them off on Freddie and Fannie until it was too late. One more time. I’m pounding vodka, snort a gram and crash the schoolbus I’m driving. Schoolbuses must be outlawed.”Change”.

Nov 8, 2008 - 2:12 pm