Joseph Clark (journalist)

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Joseph Clark (June 18, 1913-December 27, 1988) was an American Communist Party member and foreign editor at the Daily Worker .

Biography

Clark was born as Joseph Cohen. [1] He came from a middle-class family of Jewish immigrants. [2] His daughter described his background as the "Old World of Yiddish stories and songs, Jewish intellectualism, revolutionary history and sacrifice." [3] Clark attended City College of New York. [4]

In 1929, Clark joined the Communist Party. [5] Clark was active in the Young Communist League and built on this experience when he helped found the National Student League. [6] Clark worked as the editor of the YCL's Weekly Review until the spring of 1942, when he joined the army and was replaced as editor by Claudia Jones. [7] From 1950 to 1953, Clark worked as the Moscow correspondent for the Daily Worker. [8] He then became the Daily Worker's foreign editor, writing a series of articles that attempted to counter the Russian reporting of the New York Times' Moscow correspondent Harrison Salisbury. [9]

In 1955, the State Department denied Clark a passport to travel to the Geneva Summit. [10] His passport was eventually returned following a court case [11]

William Z. Foster criticized Clark, along with John Gates and Joseph Starobin, for forming a "Right tendency" within the Party. [12] The three men began questioning what they saw as the "ultra-leftist" line of the Party under Foster's leadership. [13] Following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Clark initially followed the approach of Walter Ulbricht, criticizing the cult around Stalin but still praising his persecution of Trotskyists. [14] Clark resigned from the Communist Party in 1957. [15] He wrote that his resignation was due to a "revulsion against the injustices of Stalinist communism" [16] Although he broke with the Party, Clark defended it after he left from accusations of Soviet control and involvement in espionage. [17] As one of the most prominent Communist Party leaders to resign publicly, Clark was criticized in the magazine Soviet Russia, and was accused of working with John Foster Dulles. [18]

After his break with the Communist Party, Clark became a contributor to Dissent magazine, covering Communism. [19] He came to the magazine through his childhood friend Emanuel Geltman, who Clark had previously denounced as a fascist because of Geltman's Trotskyism. [20]

Clark was married to Ruth Fine Clark and was the father of Weather Underground member Judith Clark. [15] After the 1981 Brink's robbery, Clark refused to speak to his daughter and was not present at her trial. [21] He died of a heart attack on December 27, 1988, at his home in South Egremont. [15]

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References

  1. ↑ Iversen, Robert W. (1959). The Communists & the schools. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company. p. 384.
  2. ↑ Howe, Irving (1989). World of our fathers. Schocken Books. p. 345. ISBN   080520928X.
  3. ↑ Kaplan, Judy; Shapiro, Linn, eds. (1998). Red Diapers: Growing Up in the Communist Left. University of Illinois Press. p. 305. ISBN   9780252067259.
  4. ↑ Glazer, Nathan (1961). The social basis of American communism. Harcourt, Brace. p. 137.
  5. ↑ Conlin, Joseph Robert, ed. (1974). The American radical press, 1880-1960. Westport: Greenwood Press. p. 283.
  6. ↑ Cohen, Robert (1997). When the old left was young : Student radicals and America's first mass student movement. Oxford University Press. p. 25. ISBN   0195111362.
  7. ↑ Isserman, Maurice (1982). Which side were you on? : the American Communist Party during the Second World War. Wesleyan University Press. p. 148. ISBN   0819550590.
  8. ↑ Starobin, Joseph R. (1972). American communism in crisis, 1943-1957. Harvard University Press. p. 242.
  9. ↑ Isserman, Maurice (1987). If I had a hammer...The death of the Old Left and the birth of the New Left. Basic Books. p. 15. ISBN   0465031978.
  10. ↑ Draper, Hal (July 4, 1955). "Next Target: ISL Fight Against 'List' Gets Big Boost From Passport Victory" (PDF). Labor Action: 7.
  11. ↑ Duberman, Martin Bauml (1988). Paul Robeson. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 432. ISBN   0394527801.
  12. ↑ Shannon, David A. (1959). The decline of American Communism: A history of the Communist Party of the United States since 1945. Harcourt, Brace and Company. p. 307.
  13. ↑ Ring, Harry (February 3, 1958). "How Gates Views Socialism Today". The Militant.
  14. ↑ Roberts, Daniel (March 19, 1956). "The Daily Worker and the Stalin Cult" (PDF). The Militant.
  15. 1 2 3 "Joseph Clark, 75, Dies; Editor at Daily Worker (Published 1988)". The New York Times. 1988-12-29. p. 19. Archived from the original on 2023-10-28. Retrieved 2024-12-23.
  16. ↑ "Joseph Clark Hits Moscow Trials and Smith Act Frame-Ups". The Militant. September 23, 1957. p. 2.
  17. ↑ "Clark Denies Foreign Control Myth About CP" (PDF). The Daily Worker. September 13, 1957.
  18. ↑ "Moscow Intervenes in CP Fight with Smear Attack on Clark" (PDF). Labor Action: 1. February 11, 1957.
  19. ↑ Berman, Paul (2017-04-26). "The Ballad of Judith Clark, and Her Father Joe, and Us". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved 2024-12-28.
  20. ↑ Howe, Irving (1982). A margin of hope : An intellectual autobiography. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 209. ISBN   0151571384.
  21. ↑ Braudy, Susan (2004). Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left. Knopf Doubleday. p. 428. ISBN   9781400077489.
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