Howard Fast's "Reply to Critics"

In 1950, when The Proud and the Free was published, the government and private industry were attacking Communists and anything that seemed critical of American society.

The books of Fast, and of other writers in the Communist Party, were being pulled out of libraries and bookstores. In the media, books showing any criticism of American society or questioning that the United States was "leader of 'The Free World', were attacked.

Fast's book was attacked in a leading New York City newspaper, The World Telegram and Sun, as "treasonous" and as a distortion of history. I don't have the original review, and don't know anyone who does. But "Reply to Critics" is Fast's answer to it.

In it Fast discusses the question of historical accuracy in the novel The Proud and the Free, and how and why he came to write it.

Please do the following:

Study this essay, "Reply to Critics," carefully.

Discuss this essay and the issues Fast raises in it:

• historical accuracy;
• the possiblity or impossibility of a "revolution for equality" in the 18th century and the possibility of it today;
• the bias of anti-working class historians against the Revolt of the Pennsylvania Line; objectivity and partisanness in the writing of history (Fast admits that he is very 'partisan', or on the side of the poor and working class).

Please email 300 words to your group (and I will get it too -- I am in every group distribution list). Be sure to check back to read your fellow group-members' contributions, too.