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Wearing red masks due to the pandemic, workers, members and supporters of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) marched through Red Square in order to pay tribute to the most significant event of modern history.

"There has been nothing more magnificent than the Great October", said CPRF chairman Gennady Zyuganov during his address, praising the achievements of the 1917 Revolution.

He also blasted Russian media because while commemorating the iconic parade of November 7, 1941 - when the Red Army marched straight into the battle against the Nazis from the square - they didn't say a word about the reason the parade was held in the first place, which was to mark the October Revolution anniversary.

Zyuganov also praised the decisive and invaluable role of Vladimir Lenin in the victory of the 1917 Revolution and called the people of the country to fight "for a strong, modern and socialist Russia, for the USSR!".

IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM

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Russian communists paid tribute to the October Revolution in Moscow - In Defense of Communism

Communist Party leader Gus Hall is seen here speaking at the University of Oregon campus in Feb. 1962, against a collage of newspaper headlines. The Communist campus tour of 1962 is one episode in CPUSA history recounted in the new book 'Faith in the Masses' from International Publishers. | People's World Archives

The following is a preview of a new book just released by International Publishers:

Faith in the Masses: Essays Celebrating 100 years of the Communist Party USA

The book features contributions from more than a dozen authors examining various episodes, personalities, and themes from across the CPUSAs century of existence. Edited by Tony Pecinovsky, Faith in the Masses challenges anti-communist narratives as well as orthodox historians whove attempted to portray the CPUSA as an appendage of the Soviet Union rather than a product of domestic struggles in the United States for economic, racial, gender, and social equality.

This excerpt comes from a chapter written by Pecinovsky entitled, Far From Marginal: The CPUSA in the 1960s and early 1970s.

To order the book, visit International Publishers website.

1962: The tide has turned

It was February 12, 1962. Communist Party USA general secretary Gus Hall was in the midst of a West Coast speaking tour. On this particular evening, police on horseback nervously observed in the backfield while cheerleaders ushered attendees to their seats as more than 12,000 students packed the University of Oregon football field. Later that night, Hall spoke to an additional 3,000 students at Oregon College in Monmouth. On February 13, he spoke with 1,000 students at Lewis and Clark College and then on the 14th to only 800 at Reed College, as Portland officials refused to let Hall speak at the city auditorium, which could have accommodated the additional 1,000 students who stood around trying to get in.

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According to Philip Bart, onetime chair of the CPUSAs history commission, Hall spoke in front of a cumulative 19,000 students on five campuses between February 10th and 15th, 1962, including the University of California, where a spontaneously organized gathering of hundreds met with Hall after he concluded his remarks. Hall told students, Anti-communism is just a smoke-screen, the real aim is to destroy the Bill of Rights. This was a sentiment supported by over a decade of ramified political repression directed at the CPUSA and the broader movements for social and economic justice; the result was a constraining of domestic political discourse.

Just days later, Hall spoke at Stanford University in front of 1,500 students, while his comrade Arnold Johnson jammed the 700-person capacity auditorium at Hamilton College. According to the Utica Daily Press, There were people sitting in the organ loft and on stairs, the floor, and window ledges to hear the party stalwart. Also in February, 350 students heard Bart at Bowdoin College in Maine, and hundreds more heard Marxist historian Herbert Aptheker in St. Paul, Minnesota. Aptheker also addressed 250 students at the University of Pennsylvania in early April, while the onetime Communist Councilman from Harlem, Benjamin Davis, Jr., addressed 600 students at Harvard. And African-American party leader James E. Jackson, editor of The Worker, spoke with 1,400 students at Colby College in May.

It was reported in early March 1962 that Hall gave 37 separate speeches in just 12 days. In April, he told 400 students at City College-New York that if the McCarran Act prosecutors succeed in jailing him and Benjamin Davis, Jr., no Americanwill be free. Unlike the political inquisitors, his sights were centered on domestic civil liberties. This was a recurring theme for the steelworker turned union organizer turned Communist. Fortunately for Hall and his comrades, the political winds were shifting. Later that month, nearly 1,000 students turned out at Swarthmore College to hear Hall. On May 1, he addressed 7,000 people at the Union Square May Day rally. Days later, he spoke with 400 students at Hunter College, 700 students at the University of Chicago, and 1,800 more at the University of Wisconsin, where another 1,500 students were turned away due to a lack of seating.

By mid-June 1962, Hall declared, During the past six months, I have spoken to some 50,000 students and youth directlyThe tide has turned. Communist speaking engagements continued into the fall. For example, in late November, Michigan party leader Carl Winter spoke with 900 students at Kalamazoo College, a campus traditionally thought of as a conservative stronghold. Communists had every reason to believe it was time to go on the offensive.

That spring, Hall noted, In the mass movements, the most important and most active contingent are the youth. Jubilantly, he added, the student demand to hear Communists was completely without precedent. It was of such magnitude, he said, that no force is able to ignore it, including the FBI. It has become a point of discussion on all levels of political life, he continued. We are so close to it that we do not fully appreciate it. This is an important point, as many today seem unable to fully appreciate it as well. Hall called the growing demand for Communist speakers a mass break-out from the conformist strait-jacket of McCarthyism and a rejection of anti-Communism, a bewildering defeat for the ruling class.

Though many of the emerging student groups were loose and even temporary in nature, Hall was optimistic. He saw the potential for a spark that can fundamentally change and challenge the contours of U.S. anti-communism, a spark spearheaded by youth. Additionally, he noted the array of self-published journals students were then printing. Isnt it fantastic that in a number of colleges, there are two, three, or four monthly magazines and newspapers, Hall continued, many with a Marxist outlook. That Communists must be a factor in finding forms through which this tremendous energy can best express itself, was a given for Hall. That We must not be mere observers, was another.

Halls perspective, that Communists must be a force in helping to initiate forms of united action in this upsurge and help give it cohesion and direction, wasnt rhetorical. Party-led youth formations like the Advance Youth Organization, the publication New Horizons for Youth, the Progressive Youth Organizing Committee, and later the W.E.B. DuBois Clubs were emerging. In this regard, Hall viewed the string of Communist speaking engagements in the early 1960s as not just victories for free speech and democratic rights, won in the face of a powerful campaign organized by the ultra-right, a campaign that was being defiantly challenged by youth and students. He also saw these engagements as an opportunity to introduce students to Marxism-Leninism and rebuild the CPUSA.

The substance of Halls campus presentations often focused on free speech, democracy, the defeat of the ultra-right, and peace. Speaking to students in New York, Hall hailed freedom of speech as vital. Its a weapon, he added. It must be preserved if we hope to collectively thrash out the very complicated problems [youth] face. He connected the fight for free speech generally to the fight to hear Communists specifically. There is a very deep feeling that if you can preserve the right of Communists to speak, then you can preserve the right of all to speak. Thats true. But its more than just a fight for the right of Communists to speak. The fact is that they [youth and students] want to hear a Communist speakThey are sick and tired of hearing the so-called Communist viewpoint from anti-Communists.

To Hall, a shift in consciousness was taking place. The fascist-like assault designed to transform the American people into a hysterical anti-Communist mob had failed. Senator Joseph McCarthy had been silenced. The Smith and McCarran Acts would both be declared unconstitutional. Communists were now on the offensive, regularly speaking to thousands of students across the country. The squirming of politicians, the fanatical fascist-like fringe of the ultra-right was being pushed back into its lair, Hall concluded. This was partly due to the courage of student activists who spearheaded the right of Communists to speak on college and university campuses across the country, a strategic relationship Hall would not soon forget and one that would become a prominent feature of the general secretarys work for many years to come.

As noted above, J. Edgar Hoovers FBI unsurprisingly took note of this shift, too. They saw the tide turning as well. Cartha D. De Loach, assistant director of the FBI, speaking at an American Bar Association conference in January 1962, told reporters, the Communists have grown increasingly ambitious in their designs upon youth. He noted that the Communist-led Progressive Youth Organizing Committee, which was founded on December 30, 1960 to January 2, 1961, was created to pave the way for greater Communist influence among broad segments of our college students. De Loach also credited Hall with the partys renewed emphasis on youth.

Communists and their successful speaking engagements were getting under Hoovers skin. Uniformed and undercover police watched Halls every move. For example, it was reported in the New York Times that 22 uniformed police and 15 detectives attended Halls early May Hunter College speaking engagement. That same month, Time magazine reported that some 100 campuses had extended invitations to Communist speakers. It did not, however, report on the number of colleges and universities that had denied Hall, and other Communists, their First Amendment rightwhich was likely also a considerable number.

In September 1962, the partys Lecture and Information Bureau sent a series of letters to various professors, college papers, student councils, and organizations requesting that you invite representatives of the Communist Party to speak. This was a deliberate, systematic approach to reach students. In the past year Communist spokesmen addressed more than thirty colleges and universities where approximately 75,000 students and townspeople attended. It is clear from this, the letter concluded, that students wish to hear the Communist viewpoint from bona fide spokesmen. Students in their search for knowledge apparently are not satisfied to learn about communism from anti-Communists. Those hoping to stunt the youth and student movement and its welcoming of Communists were likely dismayed.

After over a decade of political repression, Communists seemed poised to make a comeback.

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Book preview: Gus Hall and the Communist campus tour of 1962 - People's World

Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method: Washingtons Anticommunist Crusade & the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World (New York: Public Affairs, 2020)

How do you get policymakers in Washington to think more about Southeast Asia, a strategic region of more than 600 million people? Talk to them about something they actually care about, an American counterpart once joked to me. If you portray Southeast Asia as an arena for competition with a rival great power (China today, the Soviet Union previously) or for pushback against a dangerous ideology, be it Islamism or communism, you just might get some interest.

In doing so, however, you risk a Pyrrhic victory. For, having framed the region around a broad, sweeping threat, you will find it very hard to argue for a nuanced approach to the diverse and divergent nations of Southeast Asia. And without clear thinking and a carefully calibrated approach, a great power such as the United States risks doing its own position in the region more harm than good.

The Donald Trump administration is the latest to rediscover this reality, as it has tried and failed to push its China containment drive into Southeast Asia. It would be a stretch to say that it has advanced a policy toward Southeast Asia. But, in between weakening the State Department and failing to show due regard for the regions premier security forum, it has leaned on Southeast Asian governments to join it in a broad pushback against China. While advising Southeast Asian nations to reject mobile technology from Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, or rebuff Beijings Belt and Road Initiative, the administration has not offered much in the way of viable alternatives.

But more concerning than this practical shortcoming is the deeper misunderstanding of how most of the regions governments see the intensifying U.S.-Chinese rivalry. The 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations vary greatly in terms of their warmth toward Beijing and Washington respectively, with Cambodia and Laos the most Chinese-friendly and Singapore and Vietnam (for now) the most U.S.-friendly.

However, none of these nations want to go all in with either great power. All, including Cambodia and Laos (sometimes seen as vassal states in Washington), have concerns about Beijings increasingly aggressive positioning. But they all have very close economic and trade relationships with China, too. They all, to different extents, value the U.S. security presence in Asia as a balancing force, as well as access to U.S. capital and markets. But they also have concerns about Washingtons reliability and its track record of attempting to interfere in their internal affairs.

The heavy, but shaky, hand of the Trump administration has alienated key U.S. partners in Southeast Asia, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, while doing little to win over the likes of Cambodia and Laos. A case in point is Washingtons recent request to Jakarta to allow P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft to land and refuel in Indonesia, presumably while monitoring the South China Sea and other contested areas. The Indonesian government was always likely to reject such a tin-eared ask, because it jealously guards its nonaligned status and is wary of upsetting Beijing. That it even would make such a request signals to Indonesia that Washington does not understand its very clearly stated independent and active foreign policy, helpfully laid out in English in Foreign Affairs magazine by Mohammad Hatta, one of the nations founders, in 1953.

The P-8 controversy brings to mind another, far more high-profile incident, involving U.S. aircraft operating in Indonesia 62 years ago a time when Washington also saw Southeast Asia through the lens of great-power competition and ideological rivalry. In May 1958, Washingtons secret backing for separatist uprisings in Indonesia was exposed when a B-26 bomber piloted by CIA agent Allen Lawrence Pope was shot down by the Indonesian military over Ambon and Pope was captured. The CIA had been trying to weaken Indonesias founding President Sukarno, who it feared was getting too close to the Indonesian Communist Party and the Soviet Union. But, as Vincent Bevins argues in The Jakarta Method, Washington misjudged Sukarno and ended up being exposed in Asia as an aggressor against one of the worlds leading neutral powers. Sukarno took the Pope incident personally. I love America, but Im a disappointed lover, Bevins quotes him as saying. With bitter irony, the United States drove Sukarnos Indonesia in the direction from which it had been trying to divert it: a more anti-Western, more pro-Soviet Union, and pro-China path.

Howard Jones, who served as U.S. ambassador to Indonesia during this increasingly fraught period in the bilateral relationship, had tried to push for a more conciliatory approach to Sukarno, insisting that Washington was wrong to see Indonesia as another domino at risk of falling to communism. This was the all too common weakness of Americans to view conflict in black and white terms, Bevins quotes him as having written. There were no grays in the world landscape. There was either good or evil, right or wrong, hero or villain.

Bevins crisply written book documents how this blinkered approach contributed to tragedy upon tragedy in the developing world. Washingtons covert and overt efforts to oppose communism in Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, and Indonesia helped to precipitate or support mass violence and military coups. In Indonesia, at least several hundred thousand alleged leftists were massacred in 1965 to 1966 after Sukarno was ousted by Gen. Suharto with backing from Washington. Bevins describes how U.S. diplomats in Jakarta shared lists of purported communist sympathizers with the Indonesian army knowing that they would be murdered, just as had been done in other countries.

The Jakarta Method shows how the United States and its anti-communist local allies rolled out a disturbingly familiar playbook across the world to violently suppress leftists movements, parties, and partisans, even where they were not likely to come to power. In the early 1950s, U.S. officials had spoken of a Jakarta axiom in their foreign policy. That meant respecting the neutrality of independent states such as Indonesia, rather than pressuring them to choose a side in the Cold War. Twenty years later, Jakarta had become a byword for the murderous U.S.-backed repression of leftists. In 1973, the name of Indonesias capital was spray-painted onto the streets of Santiago as a warning of the impending murderous purge of leftists that followed Augusto Pinochets U.S.-backed military ouster of Salvador Allendes socialist government in Chile.

Using a mix of documentary sources and interviews with participants across multiple continents, Bevins shows how U.S.-backed violence shaped the world we live in today. More contentiously, he argues that this violence was an important contributor to the ultimate Western victory in the Cold War an outcome that surely stems more from the collapse of the Soviet Union and its East bloc satellites than to U.S. meddling in third countries.

Although the author admits that there was no central plan for a global campaign of extermination, at times he seems to succumb to the black-and-white, U.S.-centric approach of which he is rightly so critical. When U.S. interventions fail, such as in the Pope incident, they are depicted as ham-fisted and tragicomic. When U.S. allies succeed in ousting leftists, Washington is presented as an all-knowing, evil mastermind. But the margins between the success and failure of anti-leftist coups and uprisings were more often decided by the balance of political and military power on the ground than by the machinations of the CIA and U.S. diplomats.

In putting so much emphasis on the U.S. role in these turbulent events, Bevins risks underplaying the deep domestic divisions that were the key drivers of conflict and overlooking the agency of local actors. Such is the dizzying force of U.S. power that it can blind its sternest critics, as well as its strongest supporters, to the gray zones where most other nations exist. Viewing the world in black and white, through the lens of great-power competition: You might call it the Washington Method.

Ben Bland is the director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute. His most recent book is Man of Contradictions: Joko Widodo and the Struggle to Remake Indonesia.

Image: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library (Photo by David Hume Kennerly)

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The Washington Method in Southeast Asia - War on the Rocks

We kind of hit it off on a Friday night, had a little Fourth of July at the lake on the following Monday and began dating, said Eric Patterson, Pams husband. Pam was in a hurry to get married and get through school. She finished high school atBriarwood, earned her degree from UAB and at the age of 19 she was back at Briarwood teaching.

I figured I better hurry so I could grab him, Pam said.

The Pattersons have a true passion for giving back to their community, wherever they may be. Eric worked forAlabama Power Companyin Birmingham for four years, transferred to northwest Alabama, then moved to Tuscaloosa and lived there for a number of years before moving to Mobile in 1989.

I have been blessed by a great company, said Eric, who was a division manager. Alabama Power is involved in the community, period. Its been a blessing that Ive had a company that encouraged us to be engaged and involved in the community. And as I say, its because of Alabama Power that we do and get engaged in so many ways.

Pams career was not dependent on staying in one particular place, and she was able to move to continue her passion for teaching while supporting her husbands career.

I tell my students, I was made to be a kindergarten teacher, Pam said. I feel just as strongly as people are called to the ministry that I was called to teaching. And that path just worked because I could move with Eric very easily when he moved and fall back into teaching.

When the Pattersons moved to Mobile, Pam started working atMorningside Elementary, which served a diverse population of students, as most of her career has been in diverse schools.

I taught there for 15 years, and during that time of teaching I also was on various committees, Pam said. I worked with our school in developing our Title I project and did training for Mobile County school teachers. I retired in 2004 and started working with the New Teacher Academy withMobile County Public Schools. In 2006 I accepted a position at South supervising student teachers, and in 2012 I started working in theOffice of Field Services.

Eric has served on the USA College of Education and Professional Studies Advisory Council since 2016 and currently is the advisory chair. In 2018, he made a donation to South to create the Pamela Lynne Patterson Endowed Scholarship in Education.

Being part of the advisory council has deepened that appreciation and love for giving, Eric said. Everything were talking about right now starts with Mr. Abe Mitchell and his willingness to help match giving toward undergraduate scholarships for the university. Everything that were talking about centers around Mr. Mitchell, and I just cant say enough to thank him for what hes done to make things like we were able to do possible because of his generosity.

Eric surprised his wife with the creation of the scholarship. He hopes the scholarship will honor Pams work and dedication to the field of education.

Pam knew nothing about it, and I didnt want her to be involved in it at all, Eric said. I wanted to find some way to honor this lady. I mean, as I said before, she could have made millions of dollars doing other things. Shes absolutely brilliant. She was valedictorian at Briarwood High School.

When I told her about it, the first thing she did was start crying and crying. That was reward enough right then and there to know that it meant a lot to her, and it did because of all that shes invested in her life.

The Pattersons know how difficult it is financially for undergraduate education students in their last semester of college. While completing student teaching in schools, its difficult for students to work.

And we do have a number of back-to-school students and a lot of them need to work because they have families, so I wanted our scholarship to be able to help students with tuition in their last semester, Pam said. Im just so thrilled that someone can benefit from this, because I was on an academic scholarship in college and I know. We were married while I was in college, and it was a godsend for us. Im just thrilled that we can do that for someone else. Again, paying it forward.

Erics involvement in education has not only stemmed from his wifes involvement with education, but also his time with Alabama Power. While working with the company in Mobile, Eric also worked with theMobile Area Education Foundation.

We have supported schools throughout my career in various places throughout the state, Patterson said. So, as Ive moved around, I have been involved with school systems because of Alabama Powers encouragement and our personal belief in being involved with schools.

The Pattersons have also supportedDistinguished Young Women. Eric was president of the board for two years and Pam was executive director of the organization for three years.

The primary focus of Distinguished Young Women is to provide scholarships for young women to attend colleges and universities across the country, Pam said. Distinguished Young Women is such a beneficiary of University of South Alabama scholarships. More than 25 young women from various states have attended South on scholarships received through this program.

Weve been very heavily involved with that organization and, just again, another one of those benefits of education and another of those things that I love about South Alabama, because Eric and I love Distinguished Young Women. Souths involvement has just been a model for many universities in the state.

Eric is still involved in fundraising for Distinguished Young Women and is chairman of the scholarship foundation. The two are active members at their church, and Eric coached and served on the board for Cottage Hill Little League. He and Arlene Mitchell in 1990 helped establish the first senior center in Mobile, previously named the Mary Abbie Berg Senior Center.

Our boys and their children have learned some things also about passing it on, Eric said. And everything about me is centered around my faith, and the Lord has blessed me way beyond anything I could have ever imagined with family and everything else. And so heres another way to try to help somebody else along the way, to pass along some of the good things that weve been blessed with.

The Pattersons have truly embraced the University of South Alabama during their time in Mobile.

The university has been good to us, Eric said. We enjoy the time we spend with folks from the university and, you know, were just very grateful for what the university means to Alabama as well as the Mobile area.

This story originally appeared on theUniversity of South Alabamas website.

(Courtesy of Alabama NewsCenter)

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7 Things: COVID-19 vaccine may not come soon enough to stop coming wave, Tuberville lashes out at socialism and communism, AL AG involved in election...

Marco Eagle Published 5:02 a.m. ET Nov. 13, 2020 | Updated 7:47 a.m. ET Nov. 13, 2020

Editorial cartoon(Photo: Universal)

How ironic. The same people who were denied the right to vote for centuries white women and black and brown U.S. citizens are now the saviors of our precious democracy.

It is even more amazing since Trump and the Republican Party tried every dirty trick in the book to keep these same people from voting in the 2020 presidential election. They all deserve a badge of honor and our eternal gratitude. Our young citizens should also be thanked.

Nevertheless, I will never understand how so many educated Americans could be so brainwashed by one man. Trump, maybe the greatest conman in the history of the United States, was able to do it.

Hopefully, when Biden is sworn in, they will get to see how a real American president should act and perform.

E. L. Bud Ruff, Marco Island

My parents took me to see the great leader who had come to campaign in our hometown to make Germany great again. The people cheered him on. Flags were everywhere. No one feared the loss of democracy in the process. The enemy was cloaked under the word communism.

Fascism was the opposite of communism, but both systems advocated rule over many by a handful of insiders.

Fast forward to the cult of Trump. When I see the signs, the flags, the radicals and thugs who defend the great leader under some skewed concept of patriotism and nationalism, I see images of the past repeating.

I dont know whether it is lack of education or plain stupidity that causes these folks to side with dictators in advocating the demise of democracy in our country. About 75 million (voters) said no in order to save democracy.

In my native country it went the other way. Right after Hitler took power, government agents went door to door, looking for his enemies. They arrested socialists, communists, trade union leaders and others who had spoken out against the party. Democracy was dead and concentration camps were built to house socialists. The con had worked, as it almost did here.

Fred Rump, Golden Gate Estates

More: Guest Commentary: Safe Navigation in area waters

More: Letters to the Editor, Nov. 10

And: Letters to the Editor, Nov. 6

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Letters to the Editor, Nov. 13 - Marco News