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A review by margaret45678
Red International and Black Caribbean: Communists in New York City, Mexico and the West Indies, 1919-1939 by Margaret Stevens
2.0
This book had a lot of major issues, but I think the core problem is that it presents itself as something which it is not. This is primarily a study of Anglophone (mostly US-based) Communist newspapers, supplemented with other archival (again, entirely Anglophone) sources. At the same time, Stevens often takes these sources - not only Communist publications but also US State Department reports (?!) - at face value, as if they accurately represent events that occurred, rather than certain groups' or individuals' perspectives on those events. Only occasionally does she acknowledge that things may have been (literally or figuratively) lost in translation, not to mention the fact that both pro- and anti-communist sources may well have intentionally distorted facts in significant ways.
It is clear that Stevens doesn't know Spanish or French, or at least not enough to conduct serious research in those languages, which is basically fine, but it's very disingenuous to present this book as if it's a study of Communist groups in French- and Spanish-speaking countries when you've done little or no research into what those groups produced themselves in their own languages. It's particularly egregious since Stevens claims she wants to challenge the dominant center-periphery framing (and on multiple occasions criticizes US Communist groups for not translating texts into Spanish). The book really should have been framed as primarily an investigation into US/Anglophone perspectives on communist, anti-racist/imperialist and labor movements.
Stevens also could have drawn on secondary research published in English to supplement her understanding of these countries, but she only cites one or two secondary sources in the entire book. Partially due to the lack of secondary sources, the book feels very disjointed, just hopping from one primary source to the next with little context. For instance, she doesn't discuss (or even mention?) the Mexican Revolution which had just finished (or was arguably still going on) in this period. She throws in a few statistics (ex. membership figures for various organizations) without citing any sources at all. She also vaguely refers to "revisionist" accounts, without providing any specific examples. There's no guidance for further reading on this topic, which sort of makes it seem like Stevens is trying to pass herself off as the only person who has ever written about it.
I read a few reviews published in academic journals that pointed out minor factual errors. The book is also pretty poorly written (to be fair, I feel like a lot of historians these days are not good stylists), with lots of run-on sentences and words being used in incorrect, confusing ways. At one point (p. 220 in the edition I read) Stevens writes that a radical group was a "bulwark to" finance capital, which would literally mean they supported finance capital - I have to assume that this was a mistake. Stevens also throws around the word "objective/objectively" a lot (for instance, in describing Marcus Garvey's attitude to the KKK - huh!?) without really getting into what that means (maybe I'm just too postmodern for this book). Conversely, she can also be very vague - the book is littered with "apparently," "presumably," "it seems," etc. - maybe doing some secondary research would have helped to establish what did and didn't happen!
Overall, I found much of the analysis quite shallow. Often Stevens simply restates the sources she's drawing on. She had some overarching ideas about the interaction between anti-racist/anti-imperialist and communist/labor movements (cross-class race/nation-based movements and cross-race/nation class-based movements) which were interesting but never really led anywhere (perhaps having a conclusion chapter would have resolved this). I think her argument is that these two tendencies were sometimes in tension, but not as much as you might think...well, ok, sure.
She also seems to be arguing that, on the one hand, the Comintern and explicitly Communist groups/individuals were more involved in anti-racist/imperialist struggles than unnamed "revisionist historians" will admit, but at the same time, these movements were not puppets of Moscow and/or the CPUSA and actually were able to influence them in turn - which I'm sure is true, but which wasn't explained clearly enough here to really be convincing.
It did seem to me like she was bringing new sources and subjects into the field, which is definitely a good thing, but then again it's hard to say because she barely cites any secondary sources, so there may well be a wealth of literature on this topic already. Honestly it just felt very sloppy, which is particularly disappointing because there is already a perception that politically engaged historians cannot do serious scholarly work, and I think in many ways this book just provides ammunition to reactionaries (throwing in some random Stalin apologism doesn't help either).
If you don't have any background knowledge about any of the regions this book purports to discuss, don't read it, you will be very confused and probably misled on a few points. You might get more out of it if you already know a bit about the social and political history of the region and are able to critically evaluate Stevens' claims.
It is clear that Stevens doesn't know Spanish or French, or at least not enough to conduct serious research in those languages, which is basically fine, but it's very disingenuous to present this book as if it's a study of Communist groups in French- and Spanish-speaking countries when you've done little or no research into what those groups produced themselves in their own languages. It's particularly egregious since Stevens claims she wants to challenge the dominant center-periphery framing (and on multiple occasions criticizes US Communist groups for not translating texts into Spanish). The book really should have been framed as primarily an investigation into US/Anglophone perspectives on communist, anti-racist/imperialist and labor movements.
Stevens also could have drawn on secondary research published in English to supplement her understanding of these countries, but she only cites one or two secondary sources in the entire book. Partially due to the lack of secondary sources, the book feels very disjointed, just hopping from one primary source to the next with little context. For instance, she doesn't discuss (or even mention?) the Mexican Revolution which had just finished (or was arguably still going on) in this period. She throws in a few statistics (ex. membership figures for various organizations) without citing any sources at all. She also vaguely refers to "revisionist" accounts, without providing any specific examples. There's no guidance for further reading on this topic, which sort of makes it seem like Stevens is trying to pass herself off as the only person who has ever written about it.
I read a few reviews published in academic journals that pointed out minor factual errors. The book is also pretty poorly written (to be fair, I feel like a lot of historians these days are not good stylists), with lots of run-on sentences and words being used in incorrect, confusing ways. At one point (p. 220 in the edition I read) Stevens writes that a radical group was a "bulwark to" finance capital, which would literally mean they supported finance capital - I have to assume that this was a mistake. Stevens also throws around the word "objective/objectively" a lot (for instance, in describing Marcus Garvey's attitude to the KKK - huh!?) without really getting into what that means (maybe I'm just too postmodern for this book). Conversely, she can also be very vague - the book is littered with "apparently," "presumably," "it seems," etc. - maybe doing some secondary research would have helped to establish what did and didn't happen!
Overall, I found much of the analysis quite shallow. Often Stevens simply restates the sources she's drawing on. She had some overarching ideas about the interaction between anti-racist/anti-imperialist and communist/labor movements (cross-class race/nation-based movements and cross-race/nation class-based movements) which were interesting but never really led anywhere (perhaps having a conclusion chapter would have resolved this). I think her argument is that these two tendencies were sometimes in tension, but not as much as you might think...well, ok, sure.
She also seems to be arguing that, on the one hand, the Comintern and explicitly Communist groups/individuals were more involved in anti-racist/imperialist struggles than unnamed "revisionist historians" will admit, but at the same time, these movements were not puppets of Moscow and/or the CPUSA and actually were able to influence them in turn - which I'm sure is true, but which wasn't explained clearly enough here to really be convincing.
It did seem to me like she was bringing new sources and subjects into the field, which is definitely a good thing, but then again it's hard to say because she barely cites any secondary sources, so there may well be a wealth of literature on this topic already. Honestly it just felt very sloppy, which is particularly disappointing because there is already a perception that politically engaged historians cannot do serious scholarly work, and I think in many ways this book just provides ammunition to reactionaries (throwing in some random Stalin apologism doesn't help either).
If you don't have any background knowledge about any of the regions this book purports to discuss, don't read it, you will be very confused and probably misled on a few points. You might get more out of it if you already know a bit about the social and political history of the region and are able to critically evaluate Stevens' claims.