Epilogue

The epilogue appraises the state of radical labor and Civil War memory surrounding the war’s semisesquicentennial. What Eric Hobsbawm terms “the patriotism of the Left,” including the cultural symbols of the Civil War era, was critical to political fights against right-wing nationalism and anti-liberalism. Emancipationist memory was especially central to the political culture of the Communist Party USA, as well as to the broader “Americanization” movement within the Popular Front. However, the “Good War” against fascism provided powerful nationalist mythologies surrounding “Victory Culture” that were less bound by class. Further, the Cold War--and a mass culture of domestic anti-communism--scuttled the revolutionary memory of the Civil War as a precursor to broader class emancipation.