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How many times have you read a “you gotta read this book” book review that starts by disagreeing with the entire premise, or at least the implication of the title of the book, but such is my take on “The Man Who Invented Conservatism” an important new book by Daniel J. Flynn, whose writing for the American Spectator I respect so much.
Students of the history and development of the modern conservative movement will no doubt enjoy and be informed by the details of how Russell Kirk, author of The Conservative Mind, and Frank Meyer disagreed and strove to excommunicate each other from the movement in which both were early players.
That’s all good stuff, and helps us understand many of today’s cracks on the Right, the divergence of libertarianism from conservatism, the debate over the role of religion in guiding policy, and the critique of Kirk’s book as downplaying freedom and offering no guiding principles on economics, ethics and politics.
However, to me the most interesting parts of the book are not the ones making the case that Frank Meyer “invented conservatism” but the parts documenting Meyer’s progress from committed Communist, deep inside the Soviet-controlled American Communist Party, to witness in the Smith Act trials of the late 1940s, before the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and befor the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB) a US government body established in 1950 to monitor and regulate organizations it deemed "Communist-action" or "Communist-front.”
Modern students of politics, unless they have decided to specialize in the Cold War, will not be exposed to this information, essential as it is to understanding how we got where we are today, and how today’s institutions of the Left trace their roots back to the Communist subversion of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration and American academia in the 1930s and 40s.
In this Mr. Flynn has done a masterful job of documenting Frank Meyer’s departure from the Communist Party and his position on the faculty of the Jefferson School, one of the most important Communist fronts of that era.
And Flynn names Communist names, such as Gil Green, Jack Stachel, New York City Councilman Benjamin Davis Jr., John Gates, Henry Winston, John Williamson, Robert G. Thompson, Carl Winter, Irving Potash and Eugene Dennis, mostly now forgotten, except by serious students of the era.
What’s more he gives us a great many obscure details – such as reminding us that the Communist Party essentially backed FDR by ostensibly dissolving itself and not running a candidate in the 1944 presidential election – the first time it had not fielded a candidate since 1920.
He also documents the astonishing willingness of many American Communists to change their long-held views and political positions simply on orders from Moscow, and the Party’s unwillingness to broke any debate or discussion once orders had been received.
This is the same lockstep mentality we see in today’s Democrats.
And most importantly, he details how the Communist infiltration worked and that far from being a benign alternative to the capitalist system represented by the Republican and Democratic Parties, revolutionary violence was essential to establishing Communist political rule.
To the extent that Mr. Flynn makes the case that Frank Meyer “invented conservatism” it can be found in the chapters documenting his association with William F. Buckley, Jr. and the foundation of National Review.
Once again, many of the names and details of the various factional disputes and charges of deviation from conservative principles are obscure to modern students – they shouldn’t be and in highlighting Frank Meyer’s recruitment of such luminaries as Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills into the movement, and the battles with Whittaker Chambers over ideological purity vs. real world politics, we can see many of the fault lines in today’s modern conservative movement.
Despite my disagreement with the title, I found “The Man Who Invented Conservatism” to be a must-read addition to my library, placed next to Whittaker Chambers’ “Witness,” M. Stanton Evans’ “Blacklisted by History” and Diana West’s “American Betrayal” as essential to understanding the penetration of America by Soviet-aligned Communists and how the modern conservative movement rose in the 1940s and 50s to confront and rollback the Communist tide.
George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com and is a veteran of over 300 political campaigns. A member of American MENSA, he served on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle, as Director of Policy and Communication for Congressman Adam Putnam (FL-12) then Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, and as spokesman for retired Rep. Mac Thornberry formerly a member of the House Intelligence Committee and Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
- Daniel J. Flynn
- The Man Who Invented Conservatism by Daniel J. Flynn
- conservative movement
- William F. Buckley, Jr.
- American Spectator
- Russell Kirk
- Frank Meyer
- libertarianism
- economics
- politics
- Smith Act trials
- Leftist institutions
- Jefferson School
- Communist Party FDR
- Revolutionary violence
- Whittaker Chambers
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