Talk:John L. Spivak

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Copyright[edit]

This entry lifts entire sentences directly from the Syracuse Library site cited in its refs. Just one reason among many that it needs a re-write and more sources. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 16:37, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Steffens quote[edit]

The New York Times obituary quotes Lincoln Steffens calling Spivak "the best of us", where us = muckrakers. Does anyone have a good source for that quote? Steffens died in 1936, so he wasn't assessing Spivak's career when he said that. When did he say those words and what was the context? Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 00:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NKVD operative[edit]

The entry states: "Phillip Jenkins, writing in American Conservative, states that Spivak was an operative of the Soviet NKVD." Jenkins provides no sources or details. Does anyone have a good source? If the assertion is true, at what date did Spivak begin working for the NKVD? Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 00:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Spivak was KGB, says Spies: the rise and fall of the KGB in America By John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, Alexander Vassiliev; online p 161 Rjensen (talk) 00:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nazis[edit]

Spivak links the Business plot to BOTH the Wall Street Jews and Nazi Germany. see the item linked in note 15, John L. Spivak, "Wall Street's Fascist Conspiracy Part 1", New Masses, January 29, 1935], see the first page (p 9) items 5 & 6 and page 10 item 13 for explicit reference to Nazi Germany and Hitler. Rjensen (talk) 04:19, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I see. It does mention Nazis although not in re the Business Plot as far as I can see. Unfortunately, this is the original primary source material. We must find and use secondary reliable sources suggesting Spivak said Nazis were involved in the Business Plot, otherwise I believe it is called original research.Capitalismojo (talk) 04:49, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on both sides of this. Sort of. First, the policy against OR does not mean we need secondary sources to document what Spivak wrote. We can all see what he wrote and debate whether or not we have summarized what he wrote appropriately. Similarly I can summarize the plot of Wuthering Heights by reading the novel, and everyone is free to dispute my summary. I've done this for novels like Upton Sinclair's Boston and films like The Skin I Live In. The OR policy doesn't mean we can't use primary sources when we use them properly to represent the views of the author of the document in question. For any analysis beyond that we need secondary sources. Was he correct in his analysis? Was he the first to make a certain point? Was his work influential? For such issues we would need secondary sources.

That said, I think Rjensen does not represent Spivak's argument carefully enough. Elsewhere he calls Spivak "an anti-semitic hate monger", which is about as wrong as can be. Spivak was a Jewish, communist, and anti-fascist. He was a Nazi hunter before the term was invented. He hated Jewish bankers because they were bankers first and foremost, traitors to their fellow Jews. This doesn't sound anti-semitic to me: "Felix [Warburg]'s brother Max is a Jewish banker getting along very nicely in a land where poor and middle class Jews are being killed, tortured and driven into ghettoes." And here's the money quote:

"I point these out not as casting reflection upon the great body of sincere Jews cooperating with the [Dickstein] Committee's work in fighting anti-semitism but to point out that the banker, whether he be Jew or gentile, is interested first in his class interests and in fighting for these interests he forgets racial and religious affiliations."

I authored most of this entry and neglected these New Masses articles just because they are such tough reading. Spivak was a terrific writer, even when you know he's manipulating his evidence and manipulating the reader. But these articles are nothing like his usual. I'd like to take a crack at a proper summary.

Further, when Spivak does make claims about the cover up the Business Plot and we mention that, we should do a much better job than "see the Business Plot". That sort of writing is really not up to WP's encyclopedic standard. We should be able to craft a sentence along the lines of "provided financing for a coup against the U.S. government" or "provided funding for what historians call the Business Plot, an effort to bring down the U.S. government." You get the idea.

BTW, I have no interest in the Business Plot entry. Life's too short. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 17:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spivak's New Masses articles in my opinion seethe with hatred and Spivak mongered it--spread it --regardless of any evidence. Did he really believed the $300 million line? He used the anti-semitic themes that were most popular in the US in the 1930s (Jews = bankers = control international finance). These were Nazi themes, not themes used by Communists. He was much more interested in Jewish bankers than Catholics (like Al Smith) or Protestants (like Morgan). that shows anti-semitism was his primary driving force--not much here on poor workers or blacks or unemployed or big industry (Communist themes). Note his repeated mention of the American Jewish Committee (they were not mostly bankers but mostly professionals or in the dry goods & clothing business) -- nobody else in the Business Plot story paid them attention, but they were leaders of the German Jews. (Spivak was a Yiddish Jew and hated the German Jews who formed the AJC, regardless of their occupation.) Rjensen (talk) 20:53, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And having now re-read both articles, it's clear he never linked the Nazis to the Business Plot. And God knows he never said "Jews = bankers". Quite the opposite! He argues that Jewish bankers are not good Jews. They betray their co-religionists. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:06, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

he argues that the American Jewish Committee (run by lawyers) also was bad. (it was a civil rights group) As for the Nazis, he speculated in print on numerous possible links (eg copper sales to Hitler when Guggenheim controlled the copper business) but indeed never found one (there were none)--the wild speculation is antisemitism. Indeed, this is what antisemitism looks like. Rjensen (talk) 21:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]