Review of The Red Corner: The Rise and Fall of Communism in Northeastern Montana by Verlaine Stoner McDonald

Authors

Bradley D. Snow, Montana State University

Date of this Version

Fall 2011

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 31:4 (Fall 2011).

Comments

Copyright © 2011 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.

Abstract

It's not often that such names as Stalin, Lenin, and Trotsky figure centrally in works dealing with Montana history. But that's the case with Verlaine Stoner McDonald's The Red Corner: The Rise and Fall of Communism in Northeastern Montana. McDonald's history deals with a little-known but fascinating chapter in Montana, and western, history the 1920s electoral takeover of the local government of Sheridan County, Montana, by Communist Party members. As McDonald shows, Sheridan County, an agrarian territory of 10,000 persons in the extreme northeastern corner of the state, proved fertile territory for a variety of leftist political movements, including Bryanite populism, the Non-Partisan League, and, for a brief period, Communism.