Pete Seeger, Stalinist toady
From the website Useful Stooges (https://usefulstooges.com)
Born in 1919, the folk singer
Pete Seeger was son of two high-profile figures in classical music – his father
a composer and musicologist, his mother a violinist and teacher at Juilliard –
and his siblings, like Pete himself, went on to be successful (one of them was
a radio astronomer, the other a teacher at Manhattan’s Dalton School). Seeger
became a radical early on, apparently under the influence of his father: at age
17, he joined the Young Communist League; six years later, he joined the
Communist Party.
In the 1940s, he collaborated
with Woody Guthrie and a number of other well-known folk singers. He also
helped found a folk group called The Almanacs that was ideology under the
Kremlin thumb. Songs for John Doe, an Almanacs album on which Seeger played and
sang, faithfully reflected the anti-FDR and anti-war (and, indeed,
Hitler-friendly) Soviet line of the period following the 1939
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and Russia. When, shortly thereafter,
Hitler violated the pact by invading the USSR, Moscow instantly reversed its
position and ordered its American lackeys to do the same.
Accordingly, Seeger and his pals
removed Songs for John Doe from the market and destroyed all the copies they
could get their hands on. They then put out an album entitled Dear Mr.
President, which was essentially a love letter to FDR and an enthusiastic call
for all-out war to defeat the Nazis. It was right out of Orwell: we have always
been allies with Eurasia; we have always been at war with Eastasia. Such was
the mentality to which Seeger subscribed – this man long celebrated as a hero
of the people, of liberty, and of free expression.
Yes, Seeger & co. expressed
some admirable sentiments: they sang about racism and anti-Semitism. Then
again, at the time it was an integral part of the Moscow line to emphasize
America’s unequal treatment of blacks and Jews. If the Kremlin had suddenly,
for whatever reason, ordered American Communists to reverse their line on
racism and anti-Semitism, what would Seeger have done? Given his immediate,
unquestioning turnaround on FDR, it’s a fair question.
When the U.S. entered the war,
Seeger joined the U.S. Army and spent the duration entertaining troops in the
Pacific. In the 1948 election he supported third-party presidential candidate Henry
A. Wallace, who was famously soft on Communism (if not, in fact, an all-out
closet Communist). It was Wallace who said in a 1946 speech that the U.S. had
no more in common with Britain than with the Soviet Union and whose refusal to
disavow his endorsement by the Communist Party USA alienated even Norman
Thomas, the country’s most prominent socialist. But his views didn’t alienate
Seeger.
Pete Seeger was, in the late
1930s, a slavish servant of the Kremlin line who was capable, at a moment’s
notice, of making a 180-degree change in his position on any issue whatever. To
continue the story: in the 1950s, he was a member of the Weavers, whose hits
included the old tunes “Goodnight, Irene” and “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine”; in
the 1960s, this time as a solo act, he became a symbol of leftist protest.
Identified strongly with the civil-rights and Vietnam War eras, he co-wrote
such songs as “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”, “If I Had a Hammer,” and
“Turn! Turn! Turn!”, which became hits for performers ranging from The Byrds to
Marlene Dietrich. Seeger also helped make “We Shall Overcome” an anthem of the
protest movement. (He claimed that he was the one who changed the auxiliary
verb in the title from “will” to “shall.”) Called before the House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1955, he refused to answer questions; six years
later he was found guilty of contempt of Congress, but his conviction was
overturned. In November 1969, he led half a million protesters in singing “Give
Peace a Chance” outside the White House.
According to some sources, Seeger
became disillusioned with Communism, quitting the Party in 1949. Other sources,
however, say that he considered himself a Communist all his life. “I still call
myself a Communist,” he said in 1995, “because Communism is no more what Russia
made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it.” On the one hand,
he went to Russia in 1965 and to North Vietnam in 1972. On the other hand, he
sang at a benefit concert for Poland’s anti-Soviet Solidarity movement in 1982.
At some point he also publicly apologized for having thought Stalin was
anything other than a monster – but he watered down the apology by saying, “I
guess anyone who calls himself a Christian should be prepared to apologize for
the Inquisition, the burning of heretics by Protestants, the slaughter of Jews
and Muslims by Crusaders. White people in the U.S.A. ought to apologize for
stealing land from Native Americans and enslaving blacks.”
And so on, for several more
sentences, the point being that everybody alive today has ancestors who did
horrible things that need to be apologized for. The difference, of course, is
that today’s Christians did not personally work with Torquemada or take part in
the Crusades – whereas Seeger himself was a willing tool of Stalin, mindlessly
following his orders and tailoring the message of his music to the Kremlin
directives of the day. Then again, in 2007, heeding a critical article by
historian Ronald Radosh, Seeger wrote “Big Joe Blues,” a song in which he accused
Stalin of ruling “with an iron hand” and of having “put an end to the dreams /
Of so many in every land. / He had a chance to make / A brand new start for the
human race. / Instead he set it back / Right in the same nasty place.”
Good try, but it could be argued
that this is pretty weak stuff. Did Stalin really set humanity back “in the
same nasty place”? Or did he, by injecting sheer terror into the daily lives of
an entire country and by imprisoning, torturing, and murdering tens of
millions, take it to places far nastier than those anyone else (excepting
perhaps Hitler and Mao) had ever conceived of?
As with many other radical performers, he had
ardent fans in politically active circles during the Depression and World War
II, got in a bit of hot water with the government in the postwar years,
acquired new counterculture fans during the civil-rights and Vietnam era, and
in his old age, like many other sometime traitors, found himself being honored
by the same government that had once called him in on the carpet and celebrated
by the same media that had once banned or refused to review his performances.
But there was also a backlash.
When the New Yorker ran a long, gushing profile of Seeger in 2006, praising him
as a “conservative” devotee of “the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,” David
Boaz of the Cato Institute took to the pages of the Guardian to remindreaders
of “Seeger’s long habit of following the Stalinist line.” Boaz cited the rapid
switcheroo that Seeger underwent between Songs of John Doe and Dear Mr.
President, contrasting some lines from the former (“Franklin D, listen to me, /
You ain’t a-gonna send me ‘cross the sea. / You may say it’s for defense / That
kinda talk ain’t got no sense”) with some very different lines from the latter:
Now, Mr President
You’re commander-in-chief of our
armed forces
The ships and the planes and the
tanks and the horses
I guess you know best just where
I can fight …
So what I want is you to give me
a gun
So we can hurry up and get the
job done!
Boaz quoted Ronald Radosh:
“Seeger was antiwar during the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact; pro-war after
the Soviet Union was the ally of the United States; and anti-war during the
years of the Cold War and Vietnam.” He also quoted historian Alan Charles Kors:
“We rehearse the crimes of Nazism almost daily, we teach them to our children
as ultimate historical and moral lessons, and we bear witness to every victim.
We are, with so few exceptions, almost silent on the crimes of Communism.”
Indeed. Commented Boaz: “We can only hope that soon it will be the season for
holding accountable those who worked for Stalinist tyranny, as we have held
accountable those who worked for National Socialist tyranny.”
Alas, that reckoning did not take
place in Seeger’s own lifetime. In 2007 he was feted at the Library of
Congress; two years later, he performed at Barack Obama’s inaugural concert. At
age 92, still a radical, he marched with Occupy Wall Street in New York. When
he died in January 2014, Obama issued a statement saying that Seeger had “used
his voice and his hammer to strike blows for workers’ rights and civil rights;
world peace and environmental conservation, and he always invited us to sing
along. For reminding us where we come from and showing us where we need to go,
we will always be grateful to Pete Seeger.”
Testimony of Pete Seeger before
the House Un-American Activities Committee, August 18, 1955
. . . Mr. TAVENNER: The Committee
has information obtained in part from the Daily Worker indicating that, over a
period of time, especially since December of 1945, you took part in numerous
entertainment features. I have before me a photostatic copy of the June 20,
1947, issue of the Daily Worker. In a column entitled “What’s On” appears this
advertisement: “Tonight—Bronx, hear Peter Seeger and his guitar, at Allerton
Section housewarming.” May I ask you whether or not the Allerton Section was a
section of the Communist Party?
Mr. SEEGER: Sir, I refuse to
answer that question whether it was a quote from the New York Times or the
Vegetarian Journal.
Mr. TAVENNER: I don’t believe
there is any more authoritative document in regard to the Communist Party than its
official organ, the Daily Worker.
Mr. SCHERER: He hasn’t answered
the question, and he merely said he wouldn’t answer whether the article
appeared in the New York Times or some other magazine. I ask you to direct the
witness to answer the question.
Chairman WALTER: I direct you to
answer.
Mr. SEEGER: Sir, the whole line
of questioning—
Chairman WALTER: You have only
been asked one question, so far.
Mr. SEEGER: I am not going to
answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious
beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of
these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any
American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very
glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.
Mr. TAVENNER: Has the witness
declined to answer this specific question?
Chairman WALTER: He said that he
is not going to answer any questions, any names or things.
Mr. SCHERER: He was directed to
answer the question.
Mr. TAVENNER: I have before me a
photostatic copy of the April 30, 1948, issue of the Daily Worker which carries
under the same title of “What’s On,” an advertisement of a “May Day Rally: For
Peace, Security and Democracy.” The advertisement states: “Are you in a
fighting mood? Then attend the May Day rally.” Expert speakers are stated to be
slated for the program, and then follows a statement, “Entertainment by Pete
Seeger.” At the bottom appears this: “Auspices Essex County Communist Party,”
and at the top, “Tonight, Newark, N.J.” Did you lend your talent to the Essex
County Communist Party on the occasion indicated by this article from the Daily
Worker?
Mr. SEEGER: Mr. Walter, I believe
I have already answered this question, and the same answer.
Chairman WALTER: The same answer.
In other words, you mean that you decline to answer because of the reasons
stated before?
Mr. SEEGER: I gave my answer,
sir.
Chairman WALTER: What is your
answer?
Mr. SEEGER: You see, sir, I feel—
Chairman WALTER: What is your
answer?
Mr. SEEGER: I will tell you what
my answer is.
I feel that in my whole life I
have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature and I resent very much
and very deeply the implication of being called before this Committee that in
some way because my opinions may be different from yours, or yours, Mr. Willis,
or yours, Mr. Scherer, that I am any less of an American than anybody else. I
love my country very deeply, sir.
Chairman WALTER: Why don’t you
make a little contribution toward preserving its institutions?
Mr. SEEGER: I feel that my whole
life is a contribution. That is why I would like to tell you about it.
Chairman WALTER: I don’t want to
hear about it.
Mr. SCHERER: I think that there
must be a direction to answer.
Chairman WALTER: I direct you to
answer that question.
Mr. SEEGER: I have already given
you my answer, sir.
Mr. SCHERER: Let me understand.
You are not relying on the Fifth Amendment, are you?
Mr. SEEGER: No, sir, although I
do not want to in any way discredit or depreciate or depredate the witnesses
that have used the Fifth Amendment, and I simply feel it is improper for this
committee to ask such questions.
Mr. SCHERER: And then in
answering the rest of the questions, or in refusing to answer the rest of the
questions, I understand that you are not relying on the Fifth Amendment as a
basis for your refusal to answer?
Mr. SEEGER: No, I am not, sir. .
. .
Mr. TAVENNER: You said that you
would tell us about the songs. Did you participate in a program at Wingdale
Lodge in the State of New York, which is a summer camp for adults and children,
on the weekend of July Fourth of this year?
(Witness consulted with counsel.)
Mr. SEEGER: Again, I say I will
be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.
Mr. TAVENNER: I am going to ask you.
Mr. SEEGER: But I decline to say
who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have
sung them.
Mr. TAVENNER: Did you sing this
song, to which we have referred, “Now Is the Time,” at Wingdale Lodge on the
weekend of July Fourth?
Mr. SEEGER: I don’t know any song
by that name, and I know a song with a similar name. It is called “Wasn’t That
a Time.” Is that the song?
Chairman WALTER: Did you sing
that song?
Mr. SEEGER: I can sing it. I
don’t know how well I can do it without my banjo.
Chairman WALTER: I said, Did you
sing it on that occasion?
Mr. SEEGER: I have sung that
song. I am not going to go into where I have sung it. I have sung it many
places.
Chairman WALTER: Did you sing it
on this particular occasion? That is what you are being asked.
Mr. SEEGER: Again my answer is
the same.
Chairman WALTER: You said that
you would tell us about it.
Mr. SEEGER: I will tell you about
the songs, but I am not going to tell you or try to explain—
Chairman WALTER: I direct you to
answer the question. Did you sing this particular song on the Fourth of July at
Wingdale Lodge in New York?
Mr. SEEGER: I have already given
you my answer to that question, and all questions such as that. I feel that is
improper: to ask about my associations and opinions. I have said that I would
be voluntarily glad to tell you any song, or what I have done in my life.
Chairman WALTER: I think it is my
duty to inform you that we don’t accept this answer and the others, and I give
you an opportunity now to answer these questions, particularly the last one.
Mr. SEEGER: Sir, my answer is
always the same.
Chairman WALTER: All right, go
ahead, Mr. Tavenner.
Mr. TAVENNER: Were you chosen by
Mr. Elliott Sullivan to take part in the program on the weekend of July Fourth
at Wingdale Lodge?
Mr. SEEGER: The answer is the
same, sir.
Mr. WILLIS: Was that the occasion
of the satire on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
Mr. TAVENNER: The same occasion,
yes, sir. I have before me a photostatic copy of a page from the June 1, 1949,
issue of the Daily Worker, and in a column entitled “Town Talk” there is found
this statement:
The first performance of a new
song, “If I Had a Hammer,” on the theme of the Foley Square trial of the
Communist leaders, will be given at a testimonial dinner for the 12 on Friday
night at St. Nicholas Arena. . . .Among those on hand for the singing will be .
. . Pete Seeger, and Lee Hays—
and others whose names are
mentioned. Did you take part in that performance?
Mr. SEEGER: I shall be glad to
answer about the song, sir, and I am not interested in carrying on the line of
questioning about where I have sung any songs.
Mr. TAVENNER: I ask a direction.
Chairman WALTER: You may not be
interested, but we are, however. I direct you to answer. You can answer that
question.
Mr. SEEGER: I feel these
questions are improper, sir, and I feel they are immoral to ask any American
this kind of question.
Mr. TAVENNER: Have you finished
your answer?
Mr. SEEGER: Yes, sir. . . .
Mr. TAVENNER: Did you hear Mr.
George Hall’s testimony yesterday in which he stated that, as an actor, the
special contribution that he was expected to make to the Communist Party was to
use his talents by entertaining at Communist Party functions? Did you hear that
testimony?
Mr. SEEGER: I didn’t hear it, no.
Mr. TAVENNER: It is a fact that
he so testified. I want to know whether or not you were engaged in a similar
type of service to the Communist Party in entertaining at these features.
(Witness consulted with counsel.)
Mr. SEEGER: I have sung for
Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to
sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or
situation in life. I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers,
and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody. That is the only
answer I can give along that line.
Chairman WALTER: Mr. Tavenner,
are you getting around to that letter? There was a letter introduced yesterday
that I think was of greater importance than any bit of evidence adduced at
these hearings, concerning the attempt made to influence people in this
professional performers' guild and union to assist a purely Communist cause
which had no relation whatsoever to the arts and the theater. Is that what you
are leading up to?
Mr. TAVENNER: Yes, it is. That
was the letter of Peter Lawrence, which I questioned him about yesterday. That
related to the trial of the Smith Act defendants here at Foley Square. I am
trying to inquire now whether this witness was party to the same type of
propaganda effort by the Communist Party.
Mr. SCHERER: There has been no
answer to your last question.
Mr. TAVENNER: That is right; may
I have a direction?
Mr. SEEGER: Would you repeat the
question? I don’t even know what the last question was, and I thought I have
answered all of them up to now.
Mr. TAVENNER: What you stated was
not in response to the question.
Chairman WALTER: Proceed with the
questioning, Mr. Tavenner.
Mr. TAVENNER: I believe, Mr. Chairman,
with your permission, I will have the question read to him. I think it should
be put in exactly the same form.
(Whereupon the reporter read the
pending question as above recorded.)
Mr. SEEGER: “These features”:
what do you mean? Except for the answer I have already given you, I have no
answer. The answer I gave you you have, don’t you? That is, that I am proud
that I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I have never
refused to sing for anybody because I disagreed with their political opinion,
and I am proud of the fact that my songs seem to cut across and find perhaps a
unifying thing, basic humanity, and that is why I would love to be able to tell
you about these songs, because I feel that you would agree with me more, sir. I
know many beautiful songs from your home county, Carbon, and Monroe, and I
hitchhiked through there and stayed in the homes of miners.
Mr. TAVENNER: My question was
whether or not you sang at these functions of the Communist Party. You have
answered it inferentially, and if I understand your answer, you are saying you
did.
Mr. SEEGER: Except for that
answer, I decline to answer further. . . .
Mr. SCHERER: Do you understand it
is the feeling of the Committee that you are in contempt as a result of the
position you take?
Mr. SEEGER: I can’t say.
Mr. SCHERER: I am telling you
that that is the position of the Committee. . . .
Mr. SEEGER: I decline to discuss,
under compulsion, where I have sung, and who has sung my songs, and who else
has sung with me, and the people I have known. I love my country very dearly,
and I greatly resent this implication that some of the places that I have sung
and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they
are religious or philosophical, or I might be a vegetarian, make me any less of
an American. I will tell you about my songs, but I am not interested in telling
you who wrote them, and I will tell you about my songs, and I am not interested
in who listened to them. . . .
Source: Congress, House,
Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of Communist Activities, New
York Area (Entertainment): Hearings, 84th Congress, August 18, 1955