Fast, Howard - Stefan Kanfer (review date 10-24 December 1990)

Stefan Kanfer (review date 10-24 December 1990)

SOURCE: “Fast Backward,” in The New Leader, December 10-24, 1990, pp. 21-3.

[In the following negative review of Being Red, Kanfer condemns Fast's “disingenuous” account of his life and the Communist Party.]

Thanks to such works as Lillian Hellman's memoirs, Vivian Gornick's The Romance of American Communism and now Howard Fast's Being Red, an elaborate new myth is flourishing on college campuses and in salons afflicted with political amnesia. It goes like this:

Once upon a century there were two ogres, one with a small moustache and one with a big moustache.

There was never a doubt about Small Moustache. He was evil incarnate. He was an absolute ruler who believed in terror as a political means. He was psychotic. He was responsible for the deaths of millions. Hate underlay his actions, especially toward the Jews.

Big Moustache was different....

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