Welcome to today's deep dive. We are really excited
to have you with us today because we are unpacking
a really really fascinating life. Yeah, it's
a big one. It is. We're looking at the life of
Sender Garland. And our mission today is to trace
this incredibly long, complex life of a 20th
century American journalist, a pamphleteer, a
writer, and a guy whose life span basically the
entire century of radical political history.
Right. From 1902 all the way to 1999. It's just
a massive timeline. Exactly. And our single source
for this deep dive is a really comprehensive
Wikipedia biographical article on Garland. But
before we jump in, we do need to put out a crucial
impartiality disclaimer, because the source material
is, well, it's highly politically charged. Very.
I mean, Garland was deeply embedded in the Communist
Party USA, the CTE USA, for his whole life. Right.
So we want to explicitly say to you, the listener,
we are looking at this purely as a historical
text. We are not endorsing or taking sides with
any of the left -wing or right -wing ideologies
discussed today. No, not at all. Our goal is
simply to convey the facts of Garland's life
exactly as they appear in the source material.
We just want to understand the history. Exactly.
And, you know, what's so wild about Garland is
just his proximity to history. Like I said, he
lived from 1902 to 1999. Almost 100 years. Yeah.
And in that time, I mean, this is a man who interviewed
Emma Goldman. He managed Woody Guthrie. And there's
this great description of him where someone said
he talked in a voice. Like a teletype machine.
A teletype machine. Just that relentless, like,
clack, clack, clack mechanical energy. Yeah,
just nonstop. I love that image. So to understand
how someone becomes this absolute fixture of
the 20th century radical left, we kind of have
to rewind all the way to the beginning, right?
Right back to his childhood. Yeah, because he
wasn't born in the US. He was born in Białystok,
Poland, in April 1902. Which was part of the
Russian Empire at the time. Right. But his family
didn't stay long. The source says they escaped
in 1906 when he was just four because they were
fleeing pogroms. Yeah. And for those who might
not know, pogroms were these horrific, organized,
violent mob attacks against Jewish communities.
So they were literally running for their lives.
Fleeing absolute terror. And they make it to
the U .S. and they end up running a family bakery,
first up in Burlington, Vermont, and then later
in Glens Falls, New York. A very classic American
immigrant starting point. Totally. But Garland,
I mean, he didn't just want to bake bread. He
goes on this absolute marathon of an education.
Oh, it's wild. The list of schools is just, it's
long. He goes to the University of Wisconsin,
then NYU Law, then Albany Law, the new school
for social research. And the Rand School of Social
Science. Yeah, bouncing around, taking classes
with professors like Scott Nearing, who is a
huge radical figure. OK, let's unpack this for
a second, because the source points out something
really interesting about the timeline of his
radicalization. Right. Because you'd think, OK,
he goes to all these progressive schools. He
meets Scott Nearing. That's where he becomes
a radical. But no, he actually considered himself
a socialist by the time he was like 13 or 14.
Just a young teenager. Right. And he got there
just from reading The Appeal to Reason and books
by Upton Sinclair while he was working in the
bakery. So my question is, is it unusual for
a teenager working in a family bakery to adopt
such a rigid political framework so early? I
mean, before he even really reads Marx. Well,
what's fascinating here is how Garland actually
described this himself later in life to the historian
Howard Zinn. OK. Garland said that, yeah, Sinclair
made him a socialist. You know, Sinclair wrote
these really visceral books about the struggles
of the working class. It makes you angry. It
gives you that emotional spark. The outrage.
Exactly. But Garland said it was Karl Marx, who
actually, and this is his word, recreated him.
Recreated him. Yeah. Marx gave him this entire
systemic critique of what he called a cruel,
unjust society. So Sinclair gave him the feelings,
but Marx gave him the entire architecture for
how the world worked. And he was basically rebuilt
by that ideology. Totally. And he didn't just
want to like sit around and read about this critique.
He wanted to be the one writing it. He wanted
to broadcast it. Which brings us to the typewriter
part of his life, the apparatchik phase. Yeah,
his huge stint at the Daily Worker. Right. So
he spent 17 years from 1927 to 1943 at the Daily
Worker, which was the official paper of the Communist
Party USA. And he wasn't just doing light local
news. He was doing incredibly heavy hitting coverage.
Oh, massive stories. He covered the Scottsboro
Boys trial in Alabama, the Gastonia textile strike
in 1929, the Minneapolis general strike of 1934.
I mean, he was on the ground for major labor
in civil rights battles. He even went over and
reported on the Moscow purge trials. Right. Which,
I mean, that's a huge deal. The fact that he
was the one they trusted to cover the Moscow
purge trials, which were these brutal theatrical
trials by Stalin that shows how deeply trusted
he was by the party. Oh, absolutely. The writer
John Fleming actually described Garland as a
literary apparatchik. An apparatchik, meaning
like a total loyalist? A loyalist, a functionary,
a guy who enforces the party line. He was their
guy. And because he was their guy, the access
he had was just staggering. The people he interviewed,
let's just list a few because it's crazy. Go
for it. He sat down with Clarence Darrow, Emma
Goldman, Lucy Parsons. Huey Long. Which is quite
the mix right there. And it gets crazier. He
interviewed Nadezhda Kripskaya. Lenin's widow.
Yes. Lenin's widow. And he also interviewed Olga
Dneprchikova, the actress. It's an unbelievable
roster of 20th century figures. It really is.
But he wasn't just a reporter talking to famous
people. He was also kind of this enforcer of
what the party should be consuming. Right. His
role as a cultural gatekeeper. The source mentions
this column he wrote called The Constant Reader.
And his job in this column was to literally take
notes of books that should be, quote, praised
or blamed. Praised or blamed. Just very cut and
dry. Yeah. And if you think about it, it's so
similar to what we see today with like algorithmic
echo chambers or highly partisan influencers.
Oh, that's a great point. Like imagine relying
on a single column to tell you what art is politically
acceptable for you to consume. He's saying, this
book is good for the movement. That book is bad.
He was literally programming the culture of the
party. He was. But. You know, he did have a practical
side when it came to culture, too. It wasn't
all just strict Marxist theory. Right, the Woody
Guthrie connection. Yes. This is one of my favorite
details. Garland was the features editor who
oversaw a column called Woody Says. And that's
Woody Guthrie, the famous folk singer. Exactly.
And the funny thing is the Communist Party brass
didn't even consider Woody's column to be, quote,
strategic or basic. It wasn't high theory. It
was just folksy. Yeah. But Garland and the paper
ran it because it showed they were, quote, interested
in the people. It was relatable. It brought people
in. Exactly. And Garland was always doing things
like that. He was a founding editor of Partisan
Review. He was a charter member of the American
Newspaper Guild. And he had all these random
side gigs, too, like managing public affairs
for the New York Heart Association. Right. Or
editing the legal brief of physicians. He was
everywhere. He was highly visible. He wasn't
just reporting on the movement. He was effectively
the physical gateway into it. Which brings us
to a really famous anecdote. Here's where it
gets really interesting. The Whitaker -Chambers
story. Yes. So in Whitaker -Chambers' memoir,
Witness, he recalls a vivid memory from 1925
at Columbia University. Right. Chambers was looking
for the Communist Party. And he hears about this
high strung, redheaded boy who had just slept
on a bare floor and who talked incessantly about
the Soviet Union. And that boy was Senator Garland.
talking in that teletype voice. So Chambers meets
him and what happens? Well, Chambers wants to
find the party, but Garland tells him, well,
actually, the Communist Party is currently called
the Workers' Party for, you know, expediency,
legal reasons. Right. But he gives Chambers permission
to use his name. basically tell them Sender Garland
sent you as like a secret password. Okay, but
I kind of want to push back on that a little
bit. Sure. Because it sounds so cloak and dagger,
right? Like this super secret underground ring.
Yeah, very dramatic. But the source notes that
Garland later just introduced Chambers to Harry
Freeman. And Garland's own sister, Teba Wilner,
she was the promotional manager for the New Masses
magazine. which was a very public publication.
So was the party really this super secret underground
thing, or was it basically just an open secret
among these New York literary circles? It's a
bit of both, honestly. I mean, the Red Scare
was a real thing, so there was genuine legal
danger, which is why they used names like the
Workers' Party. Right, the expediency. But at
the same time, in those specific bohemian intellectual
circles in New York, Everyone kind of knew who
everyone was, so Garland gets to play the role
of the elusive gatekeeper giving out passwords,
even though he's also highly visible. He loved
the drama of it. Total. He was a connector. But
as we move into the Cold War era, his role shifts.
The party is under massive pressure, and Garland
becomes this incredibly aggressive pamphleteer.
The pamphlets are amazing. He wrote so many,
and they were so targeted. Yeah. They were basically
political weapons. He wrote the real Huey P.
Long. He wrote the real Rückenbacker. going after
huge public figures. And he goes after the media,
too. He wrote the truth about Reader's Digest.
Which is so funny to think about now. Reader's
Digest. Right. But to him, that was bourgeois
propaganda. And he wrote, is Dewey the man? And
then, directly tackling the Cold War, he writes,
enemies of the peace, profile of the hate Russia
gang. He was relentless. And red tape and barbed
wire. Close up of the McCarran law in action.
He's just churning these out. He's the ultimate
loyal apparatchik defending the party during
its hardest years. But time marches on, right?
The Cold War evolves. And this fiery young guy
in New York, he ages. Right. By 1980, he's nearly
78 years old. Most people are, you know, retiring.
Taking it easy. But not Cinder Garland. No. He
and his wife, the poet Martha Millet Garland,
they decide to move out west. They relocate to
Boulder, Colorado to be near their son, Alexander.
And if we connect this to the bigger picture,
it's just incredible. He doesn't retire. He basically
takes his New York radicalism and rebrands it
for a modern university town. He found the Social
Issues Forum at CU Boulder. He joins the Cultural
Events Board. Almost 80 years old. Yeah. And
the people he brings to speak in Colorado, he
just... taps his network. He brings Howard Zinn.
Who actually ended up writing Garland's obituary
later. Exactly. He brings Michael Parenti, Angela
Davis, and Fagan Ginger. Milt Wolf, who was the
last commander of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion.
Bringing the history of the old left -right to
the students of the new left. And he stays active
with local groups, too. C .S. Pays, Left Hand
Books, the Rocky Mountain Peace Center. He just
never, ever stopped. And away to the end. Yeah.
Sender Gerland passed away at his home in Boulder
on December 6, 1999. He was 97 years old. Left
behind a huge family, too, right? He did. His
wife, Martha, his children, Emily, Alexander,
Victor, and his granddaughters, Annalise, Amy,
and Rachel. Just a massive legacy. Yeah. So what
does this all mean? When we look at this Wikipedia
article and trace this whole story, To me, Sender
Garland's life is just a master class in relentless
ideological commitment. Oh, without a doubt.
I mean, from a little boy fleeing pogroms to
praising and blaming books for the party to organizing
forums in his 90s, his 97 years basically map
out the entire 20th century American radical
left. It really is a map. Yeah. And leaves you
with such a lingering kind of provocative question,
I think. What's that? Well, think about you,
the listener, and think about someone dedicating
80 years of their life to a single rigid political
framework. I mean, from a teenager reading Upton
Sinclair all the way to a 97 year old in Boulder.
Yeah. When you hold on to an ideology for that
long through massive global upheavals, purges
and an entire Cold War, does your worldview actually
adapt to the changing century or do you just
spend a lifetime trying to force the changing
century to fit your worldview? Wow. Does the
teletype machine ever change its message, or
does it just keep printing? Exactly. Something
to really think about. Absolutely. Well, thank
you so much for joining us on this deep dive.
It's been great. Thanks for listening.