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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

smashed, holding the rocks that were inside. But I remember that several of the passengers in the car, we used to exchange Christmas cards for years and years and years after. That's the only way we would maintain contact. That was Peakskill. It was a good show.

Q:

Did it have some special significance for you as a sort of perception of what was happening to the left in the United States at the time?

Foner:

Well, the left by that time -- what's the year of Peakskill?

Q:

1949.

Foner:

Peakskill, '49, the left was becoming increasingly harassed and isolated, but again, if you were in an organization like 65, you were like in an island, and ou could justify a lot of things because you were inside that island and you had a lot of people around you, and you were doing things your way. So it was different. That was the advantage that we had that other people in the left did not have. They were really isolated.

Q:

So it wasn't a turning point of some kind for you.

Foner:

No.

Q:

Okay.

Foner:

Where do we go?

Q:

I guess at this point it seems reasonable to sort of try to summarize your feelings about the party experience.

Foner:

I have good friends who went through this period with me, the student movement, etc., and we see each other regularly. We invariably, we constantly, will get back to a discussion, “Was it worthwhile?” You know, to evaluate it. Frankly, I don't regard it as a waste at all. I think I learned a great deal. I met a lot of people whom I had great admiration for. I met people I don't. Many of them are still friends. I learned a great deal. I learned a lot of things that were wrong. I think I was able to profit from the mistakes of what I learned that was wrong. It's also a question of looking backwards. Internally, I always questioned many of the things about the Soviet Union, because one could say, “Well, he's an intellectual.” You see, I read the Times, the Tribune, all the papers and all the magazines. So I would come in contact with a lot of the criticism, although many of the things you would not touch. You didn't read Partisan Review. You didn't read Trotskyite stuff, because it was like traif. It's a terrible thing that you were not supposed to see this movie, read this book. It had an effect





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