I think there were many people in the early 1930s who could be called radical but would certainly be mainstream now. Hughes mentions that because of the Depression, school teachers in Chicago were not getting there salaries, and in the American South, unlike in Uzbekistan, school children did not have to work in the fields. His descriptions of racism he encountered in the US also help contribute to a sense of radicalism that I would characterize as a very healthy thing indeed. It is certainly sad when viewed in light of Uzbekistan today.

Well, I said I would not comment and look, I went ahead and did. The important part is that the book is a fascinating read and I wanted to make it more widely available. I mention in the introduction that I am not a scholar of Hughes or of particularly of Uzbekistan but simply have an avid interest in both. So, I trust you’ll forgive me for offending your sense of history.

By the way, I certainly hope that the Collected Works reprinted it, but at 66 pages it is a bit longer than an essay.

best wishes,

David

What surprised me was the lack of mention of this by Hughes in other works around that time – in The Big Sea, his Turkmen and Uzbek experiences are glossed over very quickly. In I wonder as I wander, it is a bit more extensive but no where does he seem, at least in his writings, to be openly radical.

Alas, I said I offered the book without commentary and now I’ve gone ahead and given some. The point is that this book, to me at least, is fascinating and deserves to be reprinted and I hope read.

It talks about how Chicago teachers do not get their salaries on time, how kids in the American South are forced to go harvest cotton and that in Uzbekistan none of this happens.

I would be very pleased if the book had been reprinted in the Missouri collection, but this is a bit longer than an essay.

best wishes,

David

It is historically inaccurate to call Hughes a “liberal” at the time he published “A Negro Looks at Soviet Central Asia.” In the 1930s, Hughes was self-consciously radical, and while not a party member, supported the Soviet Union and the goals of the Communist Party.

Only later, in the 1950s, did Hughes turn against the Communist Party–and testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. More from Wikipedia:

In 1932, Hughes became part of a group of disparate blacks who went to the Soviet Union to make a film depicting the plight of most blacks living in the United States at the time. The film was never made, but Hughes was given the opportunity to travel extensively through the Soviet Union and to the Soviet controlled regions in Central Asia, the latter parts usually closed to Westerners. Hughes would also manage to travel to China and Japan before returning home to the States.

Hughes’ poetry was frequently published in the CPUSA newspaper and he was involved in initiatives supported by Communist organizations, such as the drive to free the Scottsboro Boys and support of the Spanish Republic. Hughes was also involved in other Communist-led organizations like the John Reed Clubs and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, even though he was more of a sympathizer than an active participant. He signed a statement in 1938 supporting Joseph Stalin’s purges and joined the American Peace Mobilization in 1940 working to keep the U.S. from participating in WWII. Hughes initially did not favor black American involvement in the war because of the irony of U.S. Jim Crow laws existing at the same time a war was being fought against Fascism and the Axis Powers. He came to support the war effort and black American involvement in it after coming to understand that blacks would also be contributing to their struggle for civil rights at home.

Langston Hughes, before the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953
Hughes was accused of being a Communist by many on the political right, but he always denied it. When asked why he never joined the Communist Party, he wrote “it was based on strict discipline and the acceptance of directives that I, as a writer, did not wish to accept.” He was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953. Following his appearance, he distanced himself from Communism and was subsequently rebuked by some who had previously supported him on the Radical Left. Over time, Hughes would distance himself from his most radical poems. In 1959 came the publication of his Selected Poems. Absent from this group of poems was his most controversial work.