Collecting area: Communism & Socialism

The author, publisher, and radical bookseller Michael Katanka (1922-1983) was a staunch Socialist and historian of British labor. Beginning with his 1868: Year of Unions in 1968, Katanka wrote or edited a series of books and articles on Fabianism, satirical caricature, and trade unionism.

The Katanka-Fraser Political Music Collection consists of audio recordings, sheet music, and songbooks of politically-inspired music in a variety of languages. The works range from the English and German Socialist press of the 1880s to the antiwar movement of the 1960s and 1970s, touching upon labor agitation, proletarian songs, student protest, the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggles, the Spanish Civil War, and Communism and Socialism. The collection also includes a few books and sound recordings from the extreme right in Nazi Germany.

Recognizing deficiencies in the U.S. Left due to external assaults and internal weakneses, LeftRoots was formed in 2013 as a national formation of Left social movement organizers and activists whose goal was to connect disparate grassroots struggles in an effort to build socialism. Using the concept of “cadres”, (small non-hierarchical collectives of organizers and activists), to strengthen the Left, LeftRoots developed resources in the form of workshops, resources, and analysis for activists. Membership consisted of two modes, Cadre & Compa. Cadres were active, dues-paying, voting members of LeftRoots branches, while Compas were committed supporters and friends of LeftRoots who agreed with the LeftRoots Points of Unity statement, and made annual/monthly financial contributions. At its height, there were Cadres in over 30 cities.

This all-digital collection documents LeftRoots meetings, agendas, political education curriculum, programs, gatherings, and campaigns from its founding in 2013, through the Trump presidency, the COVID pandemic, and the Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2014 and 2020. The 21 gigabytes of data includes their website, recordings of webinars, handbooks, slide presentations and materials from their General Baker Boot Camp gatherings, strategy documents, meeting agendas, and more.

Raymond Luc Levasseur went underground with a revolutionary Marxist organization in 1974 and spent a decade in armed resistance against the American state. Radicalized by his experiences in Vietnam and by a stint in a Tennessee prison for the sale of marijuana, Levasseur became convinced that revolutionary action was a “necessary step in defeating the enemy — monopoly Capitalism and its Imperialism expression.” As a leader of the Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit, later called the United Freedom Front, he took part in a string of bombings and bank robberies targeting symbols of the state including government and military buildings and corporate offices. All active members of the UFF were arrested in 1984 and 1985 and sentenced to long prison terms, although the government’s effort to prosecute them (the Ohio 7) on separate charges of seditious conspiracy ultimately failed. Levasseur served twenty years of a 45-year prison sentence, approximately thirteen years of them in solitary confinement, before being released on parole in 2004. He continues to write and speak out for prisoners’ rights.

The Levasseur papers are an important record of a committed revolutionary and political prisoner. Beginning with his work in the early 1970s with the Statewide Correctional Alliance for Reform (SCAR), a prisoners’ rights organization, the collection includes communiques and other materials from revolutionary groups including the UFF, the Armed Resistance Unit, and the Black Liberation Army; Levasseur’s political and autobiographical writings; numerous interviews; selected correspondence; and a range of material on political prisoners and mass incarceration. Consisting in part of material seized by the FBI following Levasseur’s arrest or recovered through the Freedom of Information Act, and supplemented by newsclippings and video from media coverage, the collection has particularly rich content for the criminal and seditious conspiracy trials of UFF members (also known as the “Ohio 7”) in Brooklyn, NY and Springfield, MA, as well as Levasseur’s years in prison and his work on behalf of political prisoners.

Richard Levins, the John Rock Professor of Population Science who taught at Harvard University for nearly forty years, used his varied interests in ecology, mathematics, population genetics, and politics to form a multifaceted approach towards his studies. Focused on “looking at the whole” and understanding complex issues from a variety of perspectives, Levins was an active contributor to the disciplines of ecology, sustainable development, population dynamics, epidemiology, mathematical theorizing, and disparities in science. Rather than separating academic life from the political, Levins sought to intertwine the two subjects whenever possible. It was through these political connections that he met his wife, Rosario Morales, an author and poet from Puerto Rico. Following his marriage to Rosario, he became increasingly focused on the Puerto Rican independence movement and the mistreatment of the United States towards this territory. Along with holding professorship, Levins remained involved in research throughout his career, with topics including the spread and impact of infectious diseases as a result of a changing environment, human ecology, sustainable development, population dynamics in multi-species systems, agro-ecology, new and resurgent disease, philosophy of science in relation to complex systems, and third world science development.

The Richard Levins Papers spans the early years of his education to the end of his retirement years. Published writings, research materials, course materials, correspondence, and personal items bring multiple perspectives into this survey of Levins’s career and accomplishments.

A co-founder of the Valley Women’s Center and the Everywoman’s Center at UMass Amherst, Patricia Lee Lewis has been an important part of the vibrant activist culture in the Pioneer Valley since her graduation from Smith College in 1970, advocating for women, civil rights, peace, the environment, for small farms and rural communities, and for art. Her varied career has included service as Supervisor of Community Development for the Massachusetts Office for Children (1974-1976), as Rural Development Specialist for the Massachusetts Cooperative Extension Service, and as County Commissioner for Hampshire County (1984-1988). After receiving an MFA from Vermont College, she founded Patchwork Farm Writing Retreat in Westhampton in 1992, which offers workshops and retreats in creative writing and yoga.

As a member of a National Women’s Delegation, Lewis visited the People’s Republic of China in 1977. Having been invited by the All China Women’s Federation, Lewis and her colleagues toured the country, seeing the sights and examining the role of women, education, and agriculture, visiting Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Tachai, and Guilin. The many hundreds of photographs she took during the tour are a powerful visual record of the country only a few months after the Gage of Four were arrested and the Cultural Revolution declared ended. The collection also includes approximately 100 photographs taken of agriculture and rural life in Louisiana and Texas in 1979.

A 1969 graduate of Smith College and member of Students for a Democratic Society, Sandy Lillydahl took part in the second contingent of the Venceremos Brigade. Between February and April 1970, Lillydahl and traveled to Cuba as an expression of solidarity with the Cuban people and to assist in the sugarcane harvest.

The 35 color snapshots that comprise the Lillydahl collection document the New England contingent of the second Venceremos Brigade as they worked the sugarcane fields in Aguacate, Cuba, and toured the country. Each image is accompanied by a caption supplied by Lillydahl in 2005, describing the scene and reflecting on her experiences; and the collection also includes copies of the file kept by the FBI on Lillydahl, obtained by her through the Freedom of Information Act in 1975.

Born on April 15, 1919 in Baltimore, Maryland to David and Minnie Lipshires, Sidney was raised in Northampton, Massachusetts where his father owned two shoe stores, David Boot Shop and The Bootery. He attended the Massachusetts State College for one year before transferring to the University of Chicago and was awarded a BA in economics in 1940. His years at the University of Chicago were transformative, Lipshires became politically active there and joined the Communist Party in 1939. Following graduation in 1941, he married Shirley Dvorin, a student in early childhood education; together they had two sons, Ellis and Bernard. Lipshires returned to western Massachusetts with his young family in the early 1940s, working as a labor organizer. He served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946 working as a clerk and interpreter with a medical battalion in France for over a year. Returning home, he ran for city alderman in Springfield on the Communist Party ticket in 1947. Lipshires married his second wife, Joann Breen Klein, in 1951 and on May 29, 1956, the same day his daughter Lisa was born, he was arrested under the Smith Act for his Communist Party activities. Before his case was brought to trial, the Smith Act was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Disillusioned with the Communist Party, he severed his ties with it in 1957, but continued to remain active in organized labor for the rest of his life. Earning his masters in 1965 and Ph.D. in 1971, Lipshires taught history at Manchester Community College in Connecticut for thirty years. During that time he worked with other campus leaders to establish a statewide union for teachers and other community college professionals, an experience he wrote about in his book, Giving Them Hell: How a College Professor Organized and Led a Successful Statewide Union. Sidney Lipshires died on January 6, 2011 at the age of 91.

Ranging from an autobiographical account that outlines his development as an activist (prepared in anticipation of a trial for conspiracy charges under the Smith Act) to drafts and notes relating to his book Giving Them Hell, the Sidney Lipshires Papers offers an overview of his role in the Communist Party and as a labor organizer. The collection also contains his testimony in a 1955 public hearing before the Special Commission to Study and Investigate Communism and Subversive Activities, photographs, and biographical materials.

The dissolution of the Soviet bloc after 1989 was hastened in the Baltic republics by mass popular resistance waged through non-violent cultural and political means. In Lithuania, the revolutionary efforts that began in the spring 1988 culminated in a formal declaration of independence in March 1990. After demands to submit to Soviet authority were ignored, the Soviets sent troops to occupy key buildings in Vilnius killing fourteen protesters in the process. In the face of a resilient resistance and international pressure, the Soviets held on to power for several months, until turmoil at home forced them to recognize Lithuanian independence on September 6, 1991.

This small collection contains a selection of publications dating roughly from the time of the Lithuanian revolution of 1988-1991. Along with a series of mostly pro-independence newspapers and magazines, the collection includes some interesting ephemera, including a series of scarce appeals for independence issued by Sajudis and their Latvian and Estonian partners, a pair of buttons, posters, fliers, and pamphlets. Although most of the materials are in Lithuanian, the collection includes a few written in Russian or English, and there are a few items relating to Lithuania reflecting a Soviet provenance.

Paul Lyons

Paul Lyons was a passionate teacher, historian, writer, activist, and musician. He was born in 1942 into a lower middle-class Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey and attended Weequahic High School. He earned his undergraduate degree in history from Rutgers University in 1964. He then continued at Rutgers where he began studying law. After hearing a speech by Bayard Rustin, he quit law school to become a teacher and civil rights activist, participating in campus protests as part of the anti-Vietnam War movement. Between receiving his master’s degree in history at Rutgers in 1967 and his PhD in Social Work from Bryn Mawr College in 1980, Lyons taught history at Temple University and The Miquon Upper School, an independent middle and high school located in Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, PA. He spent the bulk of his career teaching at Stockton University in New Jersey. While at Stockton, Lyons was involved in his union, and played saxophone and sang in the Stockton Faculty Band. He also helped establish The Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Research Center.

During his career he published 5 books: Philadelphia Communists, 1936-1956 (1982); Class of ’66 (1994); New Left, New Right; The Legacy of the Sixties (1996), The People of This Generation (2003); and American Conservatism: Thinking It, Teaching It (2009). A historian of the Left, Lyons spent his career attempting to grapple with the successes and failures of the New Left in the United States during the latter part of the 20th Century. Literature on the New Left was long dominated by top-down narratives focusing on major organizations and their leaders. Lyons’ People of This Generation (Temple UP, 2003) was significant in that it presented a far different view of the movement as a neighborhood-level case study of the grassroots. His book American Conservatism: Thinking It, Teaching It grappled with the history/intellectual traditions of conservatism in America through the experience of teaching an interdisciplinary senior seminar in the spring of 2006. Much of his research focused on the teaching of social justice and present day events, such as 911, within the classroom. He was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, The Observer and The Journal of Historical Society.

Lyons was married to Mary Hardwick and had three children: a son, Max Lyons , step-daughter, Jenn Zelnick, and step-son, Nate Zelnick. He passed away at the age of 67 in 2009.

This small collection of published and unpublished papers assembles several of Lyons’ articles for publication including: Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, and The Journal of Historical Society. Also included is a draft of an unpublished memoir, a copy of his 1980 master’s thesis The Communist as Organizer: The Philadelphia Experience, 1936-1956, drafts of American Conservatism, speeches given at anti-Iraq War rallies, and a draft of a manuscript entitled The Last Socialist in America. It also includes his poetry and other assorted writings. Many of these writings reflect his lifelong areas of interest such as the history of the Left and the rise of conservatism in the U.S. Also included are several articles from journals and web outlets that address September 11th, the Iraq war, teaching, John F. Kennedy, the 1960s, patriotism, and more.

Revolutionary organizers, writers, and theorists, Eric Mann and Lian Hurst Mann have been active in the struggle for civil rights for decades. The son of Jewish Socialist and labor organizer from New York, Mann came of age during the early phases of the Civil Rights movement and after graduating from Cornell (1964), he became field secretary for the Congress of Racial Equality. Increasingly radicalized through exposure to Black revolutionary nationalists, Mann took part in the Newark Community Union Project and became a leader in anti-imperialist opposition to the war in Vietnam as a New England regional coordinator for the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and later with the Revolutionary Youth Movement I — the Weatherman above-ground tendency of SDS. Following a militant demonstration at the Harvard Center for International Affairs late in 1969, Mann was convicted of assault on the basis of perjured testimony and sentenced to two years in prison. An organizer of his fellow prisoners even behind bars, he was “shipped out” often in the middle of the night, from prison to prison, spending the last year at Concord State Prison. After being released early in July 1971, he continued his prison activism through the Red Prison Movement. At the same time, as a writer, he earned a national audience for his book Comrade George: an account of the life, politics, and assassination of Soledad Brother George Jackson. Feeling himself at a low point in his radical career, Mann met Lian Hurst while vacationing in Mexico during the summer 1974. Hurst, a leader in the Berkeley Oakland Women’s Union, architect, and a strong Socialist Feminist, soon became his partner in life and politics, and Mann left Massachusetts to join with her in Berkeley. Hurst lead a group of women from BOWU who formed a “Thursday night group” and left the organization with the polemic, “socialist feminism is bourgeois feminism” all of whom moved towards integrating women’s liberation and Marxism-Leninism. At her urging, the two took part in Marxist Leninist party building, becoming union organizers with the United Auto Workers, and eventually moving to Los Angeles. Hurst was elected shop steward by her fellow workers as a known revolutionary. There, Mann led a campaign to keep the Van Nuys assembly plant open (1982-1992) — captured in his book, Taking on General Motors. They joined the August 29th Movement and its successor, the League of Revolutionary Struggle. They left LRS in 1984. In 1989, Mann and veterans of the GM Van Nuys Campaign formed the Labor/Community Strategy Center, which has been a primary focal points for their work ever since, helping to build consciousness, leadership, and organization within communities of color. Hurst became editor of AhoraNow, an innovative bilingual left publication that featured articles by Black and Latino working class leaders and helped initiate the center’s National School for Strategic Organizing. In 2003 Hurst wrote, “Socialist Feminism: Thoughts After 30 Years” for AhoraNow, a critical re-engagement of those important debates from an historical perspective after a 30 year reunion of BOWU’s key leaders. Mann’s latest book is Playbook For Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer. Hurst and Mann continue to write and agitate in the cause of revolutionary change, particularly for oppressed communities of color.

The Mann-Hurst collection contains the records of two lives intertwined with one another with the cause of liberation of Black and Latino communities, women, and an internationalist pro-socialist anti-imperialism. Containing a nearly complete set of publications, the collection also contains early materials on Lian Hurst’s work with BOWU and the both Eric and Lian’s time as organizers for the UAW and their participation in the August 29th Movement and League of Revolutionary Struggle. Of particular interest are a series of letters home written by Eric during his imprisonment. The collection contains comparatively little on Hurst and Manns’ more recent work with the Labor/Strategy Strategy Center or Bus Riders Union