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84th Congress!
1st Session /
COMMITTEE PRINT
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
What It Is
How It Works
A HANDBOOK FOR AMERICANS
SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE
ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL
SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL
SECURITY LAWS OF THE COMMITTEE
ON THE JUDICIARY, UNITED STATES
SENATE
GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS
DEPARTME \1
BOSTON PUBLIC JBRARV
DECEMBER 21, 1955
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary, 1955
J^
370894 <
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1955
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HARLEY M. KILQORE, West Virginia, Chairman
TAMES 0. EASTLAND, Mississippi ALEXANDER WILEY, Wisconsin
ESTES KEFAUVER, Tennesst?e WILLIAM LANGER, North Dakota
OLIN D. JOHNSTON, South Carolina WILLIAM E. JENNER, Indiana
THOMAS 0. HENNINQS, Jr., Missouri ARTHUR V. WATKINS, Utah
JOHN L. McCLELLAN, Arkansas EVERETT McKINLEY DIRKSEN, Illinoia
PRICE DANIEL, Texas HERMAN WELKER, Idaho
JOSEPH 0. O'MAHONEY, Wyoming JOHN MARSHALL BUTLER, Maryland
Subcommittee To Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security
Act and Other Internal Security Laws
JAMES 0. EASTLAND, Mississippi, Chairman
CLIN D. JOHNSTON, South Carolina • WILLIAM E. JENNER, Indiana
JOHN L. McCLELLAN, Arkansas ARTHUR V. WATKINS, Utah
THOMAS 0. HENNINQS, Jr., Missouri HERMAN WELKER, Idaho
PRICE DANIEL, Texas JOHN MARSHALL BUTLER, Maryland
J. Q. Sour WINE, Chief Counsel
EiCHAKD Arens and Alva 0. Carpenter, Associate Counsel
Benjamin Mandel, Director of Research
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CONTENTS
Page
Foreword v
Moscow inspired and dominated 1
Political party or conspiracy 8
Military aspect 8
Discipline 9
Authority at the top 9
Exclusive membership 10
Professional revolutionists.. - 10
Importance of theory 11
A full-time organization 12
Supersensitivity on organization matters 12
Desire to control or destroy other organizations 12
Deception as a method 13
Always on the offensive 13
Planning ahead 14
Red elite 14
Individual responsibility 15
Control by blackmail 15
Atmosphere of distrust 15
A divisive party 15
Attitude toward the Government and American institutions 16
The end justifies the means 16
Conformance to pattern 17
Revolutionary minority 17
Organization of the Communist Party, USA 18
Communist hierarchy 18
Conspiracy at work ^ 19
Moscow representative 20
Moscow, the seat of power 21
Communist Party membership 22
Official questionnaires 25
Dues 29
MaiUng lists 29
Evidence of party membership 30
Fellow travelers 32
How to judge a fellow traveler 33
Extent of Communist Party membership , 34
Communist Party membership by States 34
Changes in the volume of membership of CPUSA 35
Popular vote, 1948, for President 36
Presidential election returns by States for Communist Party candidates. _ 37
How to measure Communist influence 37
Resignations and ex-Communists 38
Recruiting 42
What makes a Communist tick? 43
Communist clubs 50
The shop clubs, Red spearhead 50
Community clubs 54
Section committee 57
District or State organizations 58
Communist chain of command 59
National committee 59
Disciplinary procedure 60
Leadership cult 61
Spirit of prevailing fear 62
Communist Party, USA as a puppet - 64
III
IV CONTENTS
Page
Soviet writers whose articles have appeared in the Communist, later known
as Political Affairs, theoretical monthly magazine of the Communist
Party, USA - 65
Articles published in Political Affairs (the Communist) by writers and
leaders of foreign Communist parties 68
Soviet Embassy and the Communist Party__i 73
Alexander Bittelman 73
Underground activity 77
Methods of evasion and deception 82
Trial and hearing technique 86
Communist front organizations 90
List of most typical sponsors of front organizations 94
Within the labor movement 96
List of unions with Communist leadership strongly entrenched 100
Conclusion 100
FOREWORD
The average American is unaware of the amount of misinformation
about the Communist Party, USA, which appears in the public press,
in books and in the utterances of public speakers. In part, this mis-
information is consciously planted by members of the party using ways
and means calculated to have the greatest effect in poisoning the
channels of American public opinion. In part, it is due to our ig-
norance of the problem — the problem of the existence in our midst of
a mass conspiratorial organization controlled by a foreign power. The
Communist problem is unique in our history.
The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee presents this study of
The Communist Party, USA — What It Is — How It Works as a con-
venient handbook for Americans in an effort to counteract current
misinformation regarding the Communist movement. This study
seeks only to touch the high spots without going into a detailed analy-
sis of Communist activity in the labor movement, among Negroes,
women, youth, foreign language groups, and in front organizations.
It endeavors to differentiate the Communist Party from bona fide
political parties in the United States. We earnestly believe that, given
a more accurate knowledge of the Communist conspiracy, fewer
Americans will fall victim to its wiles.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
What It Is— How It Works
Founded in September 1919, the Communist Party of the United
States of America is an organization unique in American history. It
is not a true poHtical party and differs fundamentally from all political
parties in this country. It is in fact a Russian-inspired, Moscow-
dominated anti-American, quasi-military conspiracy against our
Government, our ideals, and our freedoms.
MOSCOW INSPIRED AND DOMINATED
After testimony running over a period of more than 1 year, from
numerous qualified witnesses, the Subversive Activities Control Board
found, on April 20, 1953, that the Communist Party of the United
States is "substantially directed, dominated, and controlled by the
Soviet Union." This finding was based upon the evidence before the
Subversive Activities Control Board. It was undergirded by the
report of the House Committee on Un-American Activities on The
Communist Party of the United States as an agent of a Foreign
Power, published in 1947. The counts supporting this finding follow:
1. The Communist Party, USA, traces its origin to two conventions,
held simultaneously in Chicago from September 1 to 7, 1919, of the
Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party.
Both conventions were held in response to an invitation issued by
Gregory Zinoviev, then president of the executive committee of the
Communist International with headquarters in Moscow, and fu"st
published in this country on July 7, 1919, in the Novy Mir, a Russian
newspaper published in New York City. Zinoviev was, at that time,
a member of the executive body of the All-Russian Central Executive
Committee and Chairman of the Petrogi^ad Soviet. In obedience to
instructions from Zinoviev, the two parties he had called into con-
vention merged mto the United Communist Party of America in
May 1921.
2. Among the "twenty-one points" of admission to the Communist
International, adopted in 1920 and accepted by the American party,
was No. 14 to the effect that —
Each party desirous of affiliating with the Communist International should be
obliged to render every possible assistance to the Soviet Republics in their struggle
against all counterrevolutionary forces. The Communist parties should carry
on a precise and definite propaganda to induce the workers to refuse to transport
any kind of military equipment intended for fighting against the Soviet Republics,
and should also by legal and illegal means carry on a propaganda amongst the
troops sent against the workers republics. * * *
Since that time, paramount allegiance to the Soviet Union has been
a fundamental tenet of the Communist Party, USA, as shown by the
1
2 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
books recommended for party study such as: Problems of Leninism
and Foundations of Leninism, both by Joseph StaHn; History of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union; Lenin's Works, and by party
oaths of loyalty such as the following of 1935 for new members:
"I pledge myself to rally the masses to defend the Soviet Union, the land of
victorious socialism. I pledge myself to remain at all times a vigilant and firm
defender of the Leninist line of the party, the only line that insures the triumph
of Soviet Power in the United States" (The Communist Party — A Manual on
Organization, by J. Peters).
At the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International
held in the summer of 1935, attended by Earl Browder, William Z.
Foster, Gil Green, John Williamson, Jack Stachel, William Schneider-
man, James W. Ford, Robert Minor, Samuel Darcy and Martha
Stone, all topflight American Communist leaders at the time, an oath
was taken by the assembled delegates assuring "Comrade Stalin,
leader, teacher, and friend of the proletariat and oppressed of the
whole world" that "the Communists will always and everywhere be
faithful to the end and to the great and invincible banner of Marx,
Engels, Lenin, and Stalin" and that "Under this banner. Communism
will triumph throughout the world."
The Daily Worker and Political Affairs (formerly the Communist),
both official publications of the Communist Party, USA, have, since
their inception, consistently defended the Soviet Union without a
single exception to date.
Article I, section 1, of the Constitution of the Communist Party of
America, adopted in 1921, reads as follows:
The name of this organization shall be the Communist Party of America, Section
of the Communist International.
In his History of the Communist Party of the United States,
William Z. Foster lists its conventions under the following designa-
tions: Communist Labor Party (1919); Communist Party of America
(1919, 1920, 1921, 1922); United Communist Party of America (1921);
American Labor Alliance (1921); Workers Party of America (1921,
1922, 1923, 1924); Workers (Communist) Party of America (1925.
1927, 1928, 1929); Communist Party, USA (1930, 1932, 1934, 1936,
1938, 1940, 1945, 1948, 1950); Communist Political Association (1944),
thus establishing the continuity of the organization under the titles
given.
At its convention in November 1940, the Communist Party, U. S. A.,
decided:
That the Communist Party of the U.S.A., in Convention assembled, does here-
by cancel and dissolve its organizational affiliation to the Communist Inter-
national * * * for the specific purpose of removing itself from the terms of the
Eo-called Voorhis Act. * * *
The Subversive Activities Control Board found,' however, that
the disaffiliation did not alter in any substantive way the relationship between
the Respondent (CPUSA) and the Communist International. * * *
In 1943 when the Soviet Union was our ally in World War II, the
Communist International was dissolved on the initiative of the Presi-
dium of its Executive Committee. The Communist Party, U. S. A.,
publicly approved this decision. In September 1947 a conference of
nine leading European Communist parties established the Information
Bureau of Communist and Workers' Parties (Cominform). The
> Eeport, p. 14.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 6
American party hailed the establishment of the Information Bureau
as a much-needed center of cooperation, but did not affiliate in view
of the Voorhis Act and other legislation (statement of national board,
CPUSA, in Political Affairs, December 1947). The Subversive Ac-
tivities Control Board found ^ that —
the Communist Information Bureau represents what the Communists consider
the best possible substitute at the present time for the Communist International
and that Respondent's support of the Information Bureau * * * and its non-
deviation from the line of the Bureau, are done for the purpose and with the aim
of advancing the objectives of the world Communist movement.
The main reports at the founding meeting of the Cominform were
presented by A. Zhdanov, then a member of the Politburo of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, secretary of its Central Com-
mittee and a colonel-general in the Red army, and by Georgi M.
Malenkov, then general secretary of the CPSU and Deputy Chairman
of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union.
3. The current constitution of the Communist Party, U. S. A., adopted
in 1945, amended in 1948 and reaffirmed in 1950, states in its preamble:
The Communist Party of the United States is a political party of the American
working class, basing itself upon the principles of scientific socialism, Marxism-
Leninism.
In his address to the Supreme Soviet of the U. S. S. R. on August 8,
1953, Mr. Malenkov indicated how closely Marxism-Leninism is
officially identified with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and
the Soviet Government itseK, when he declared:
The Communist Party and the Soviet Government know where and how to lead
the people, because they are guided by the scientific theory of social development —
Marxism-Leninism * * * The Soviet state and the Communist Party equip the
people on the basis of the teaching of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin with a profound
knowledge of the objective laws of the development of society, the laws of the
construction of communism, and thereby give them a clear prospect of the con-
structive activity of the Soviet people.
4. The Communist International with headquarters in Moscow sent
representatives to the American Communist Party who wielded un-
questioned authority. The Subversive Activities Control Board found
that —
A preponderance of the evidence clearly shows that representatives of the
CPSU were in the United States and that through them respondent [CPUSA]
received directives and instructions, (Report, p. 61).
These representatives included: G. Valetski (Valetsky), 1922; Joseph
Pogany, alias John Schwartz, ahas John Pepper, alias John Swift,
1922-29; Boris Remstein, 1922; S. Gussev, alias P. Green, alias
Drapkin, 1925; Y. Shola, alias Mdler, 1926, 1927; Arthur Ewert,
ahas Braun, aUas Brown, alias Berger, 1927' Harry Pollitt, 1929;
Philip Dengel, 1929; B. Mikhailov, ahas George Wilhams, 1929, 1930;
Gerhard Eisler, ahas Hans Berger, ahas Edwards, 1931, 1932 and 1940-
45; Carl E. Johnson, ahas Scott, ahas Jensen, alias Jenson, 1921, 1922;
Petersen, 1925, 1926; Marcus, alias M. Jenks, 1928; F. Marini, alias
Mario Alpi, alias Fred Brown, 1938-48; WQliam Rust, 1927;
Wihi Muenzenberg, 1934; Louis Gibarti, also known as Dobos, 1927,
1928 and 1934; Raymond Guyot, 1938; Yusefovich; Paul Merker,
alias Wagner.
5. From March 1, 1919, to August 21, 1935, the Communist Inter-
national held seven congresses in Moscow. From 40 to 50 leaders of
'Keport, p. 19.
4 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
the American Communist Party attended these meetings from time to
time. As a rule, one or more of these leaders were chosen to be
member of the executive committee of the Communist International.
In his appearance before the House Committee on Un-American
Activities, on September 29, 1939, William Z. Foster, present chairman
of the Communist Party, USA, testified that he had visited the Soviet
Union on official business at least 10 times between 1921 and 1937.
The Communist International maintained American representatives
in Moscow between congresses. Included among them were Benjamin
Gitlow, Israel Amter, Max Bedacht, Robert Minor, Louis J. Engdahl,
Earl Browder, Harrison George, H. M. Wicks, William W. Weinstone,
William F. Dunne, Clarence Hathaway, John J. Ballam, J, Peters,
Andrew Overgaard, John Little.
6. Members of the American Communist Party were assigned to
official posts in the Communist apparatus in Moscow, notably:
Leonard Emil Mins, editor for the Marx-Lenin Institute prior to
1936; Schachno Epstein, editor of the Emes until his death in 1945;
Williana Burroughs, English language announcer for the Anglo-
American department of the Moscow radio until October 1945; A. G.
Bosse, alias Alfred J. Brooks, informational specialist for the Com-
munist International; Joseph Kowalski, head of a Soviet penitentiary
from 1920 to 1923; Anna Louise Strong, editor of the Moscow Daily
News,
7. Leading members of the American party were assigned by the
Communist International to posts as CI representatives in other
countries. Included in this group were: Earl Browder, China, 1927,
Spain, 1936-39; Philip Aronberg, China; Harry M. Wicks, Germany
and Latin America, 1926; William F. Dunne, France and Germany;
Joseph Zack Kornfeder, Latin America, 1932; Harrison George, Mon-
tevideo, 1926; Charles Krumbein, Great Britain and China, 1930;
Robert Minor, Spain, 1936-39; Nicholas Dozenberg — Soviet Military
Intelligence, Rumania, etc., 1927-39.
8. Leading members of the Communist Party, USA, have pub-
lished articles in official organs of the Communist International and
later the Cominform, Among these publications have been the
International Press Correspondence, the Communist International,
For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy. Among such con-
tributors have been A. B. Magil, Carl Reeve, William L. Patterson,
I. Amter, Max Bedacht, Earl Browder, William Z, Foster.
9. The Marx-Lenin Institute and other Communist schools in
Moscow have given special revolutionary training, with all expenses
paid, to American Communists who were later assigned to important
posts by the Communist Party, USA. Among those so trained were:
Carl Reeve, Charles Krumbein, Joseph Zack Kornfeder, Wiliam Odell
Nowell, Beatrice Siskind, Clarence Hathaway, Morris Childs, Harry
M. Wicks, Marcel Sherer, and Lovett Fort-Whiteman.
10. The Communist Party, USA, has, since its birth, recognized
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as its model and leading
party. In his book. Toward Soviet America, published in 1932,
William Z. Foster, presently party chairman, has said:
The Communist Party of the United States * * * is the American section of
the Communist International * * * The Communist International is a disci-
plined world party * * * Its leading party, by virtue of its great revolutionary
experience, is the Russian Communist Party (pp. 258, 259).
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 5
In his History of the Communist Party of the United States,
published in 1952, WilHam Z. Foster maintains his thesis:
Lenin was also the architect and chief organizer of the great Russian Commu-
nist Party * * * It is incomparably the most highly developed political organi-
zation in the history of mankind * * * (p. 151).
In the Daily Worker of March 5, 1939, the following cabled editorial
from the Moscow Pravda is reprinted:
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union always was and always will be
a model, an example for the Communist Parties of all countries.
At its meeting on December 3-5, 1938, the National Committee of
the Communist Party, USA, members were given the following
instructions in regard to the History of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union:
It wil be the task and duty of the membership and organizations of the Com-
munist Party in the coming months to organize and carry through the distribution
of the minimum of 100,000 copies of this book.
Testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities
on September 8, 1939, Benjamin Gitlow, Communist candidate for
Vice President in 1924 and 1928, a former member of the Political
Committee of the Communist Party, USA, and of the executive
committee of the Communist International, described the relationship
between the Russian Communist Party and the Communist Inter-
national with which the CPUSA was affiliated, as follows:
Whereas the American party * * * had to carry out decisions of the Com-
munist International explicitly, the Russian party was given a privileged position.
The Russian party was permitted not only to review all decisions of the Com-
munist International, but, if necessary, to take it up in its political committee
and to change these decisions * * * and that decision [of the Russian party]
becomes binding upon the parties of the Communist International.
Another important fact to bear in mind is that * * * the rules governing
the Communist International provide that whenever a party sends representatives
to the Communist International, or delegates to the congresses of the Communist
International, those delegates cannot be instructed * * * The only party that
has the right to instruct its delegates to the Communist International and to
make these instructions binding on the delegates is the Russian Communist
Party * * * In other words, they have built the Communist International
organization in such a way that the Russians under no circumstances can lose
control of the Communist International.
The Subversive Activities Control Board has found, on the basis
of the evidence, that —
All of the heads of the Comintern that are identified in the record have been
leading members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. (Report, p. 11.)
Alexander Bittelman, a founder and leading member of the national
board of the CPUSA, has stated, in his pamphlet Milestones in the
History of the Communist Party:
The Communist International and its model party — the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union — headed by Comrade Stalin, gave us the guidance that
helped the American Communists to find the way to the masses and to the posi-
tion of vanguard (p. 8). * * * The leading role of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union needs neither explanation nor apology. A Party that has opened up
the epoch of the. world revolution, and that is successfully building a classless
society on one-sixth of the earth, is cheerfully recognized and followed as the
leading Party of the world (p. 21).
11. From its very inception, the Communist Party, USA, has re-
ceived instructions and directives from Moscow, the headquarters of
6 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
the Communist International, on such important matters as the
following:
(a) Merger of the Communist Party of America and the
Communist Labor Party (1920).
(b) Combining legal and illegal work (1922).
(c) Campaign in behalf of political prisoners (1923).
(d) Establishment of the Daily Worker (1923).
(e) Establishment of the Workers Party of America as the
legal branch of the Communist Party (1923).
(/) Merger of Proletarian Party of America with the Workers
Party of America (1923).
(g) Praising achievements of the party (1923, 1924).
(h) Attitude toward the LaFollette movement (1924).
(i) Fusing together the foreign language sections of the
party (1925). _
(j) Reorganization of the party on a shop nuclei basis (1925).
(k) Trade union activity (1925).
(I) Sending of an American trade union delegation to the
U. S. S. R. (1925).
(m) Removal of Daily Worker and party headquarters from
Chicago to New York (1926).
(n) Attitude of the American party toward the Nicaraguan
?5ituation (1928).
(o) Celebration of international holidays (1928).
(p) Permission to hold a national convention (1928).
(g) International Red Day campaign (1929).
(r) Trade Union Unity Convention (1929).
(s) Gastonia campaign (1929).
(t) Work among the miners (1929).
(u) All-America Anti-Imperialist League (1929).
(v) Liquidation of party factions (1929).
(w) Recall of the executive secretary of the CPUSA (1929).
(x) Changes in the party secretariat (1929).
(y) Address containing instructions from the Communist Inter-
national directly to the members of the CPUSA (1929).
(z) Cablegram of instructions from the Young Communist
International to the Young Communist League of the USA
(1929).
(aa) Criticism of issues of the Daily Worker (1933).
(bb) Formation of a third party (1935).
12. The official literature of the Communist Party, USA (Daily
Worker, Political Affairs, etc.), has paralleled the line of Soviet publi-
cations (Pravda, Izvestia, New Times, etc.) from the foundation of
the party to date. This parallelism has been maintained throughout
all fluctuations in Soviet policy: for and against the League of Na-
tions, for and against cooperation with the democracies against
Fascist aggression, for and against peaceful coexistence, etc. Ameri-
can Communist publications have even reprinted articles from these
Soviet publications for the guidance of their readers. The Subversive
Activities Control Board has held that:
7. Respondent has established a press in the United States patterned after that
in the Soviet Union which operates as a means of setting fortli for Respondent's
members the correct line as laid down by tlie Soviet Union;
8. The press in the Soviet Union and the journal of the Communist Information
Bureau are major communication means whereby directives and instructions of
the Soviet Union are issued to Respondent * * *
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 7
The Attorney General, in his petition to the Subversive Activities
Control Board, has stated:
Throughout its existence the Communist Party never knowingly has deviated
from the views and policies of the government and Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, the Communist International, the Communist Information Bureau
and other leaders of the world Communist movement. Whenever such views
and policies have conflicted with the position taken by the Government of the
United States, the Communist Party has opposed the position of the United
States (Report, p. 79).
13. The Attorney General, in his petition to the Subversive Ac-
tivities Control Board, has further stated:
The Communist Party regularly reports and has reported to the government
and Communist Party of the Soviet Union and to the Communist International
and the Communist Information Bureau * * * (Report, p. 891.
Such reports were printed in official organs of the Communist Inter-
national and the Cominform such as the International Press Corre-
spondence, For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy, etc.
CPUSA leaders William Z. Foster and Alexander Bittelman submitted
such reports in 1926, Benjamin Gitlow in 1927, 1928, and 1929, and
Earl Browder, in 1932.
14. The Communist Party, USA, has accepted the statutes set
down by the Communist International in Moscow. The Communist
Party — a Manual of Organization by J. Peters, formerly CPUSA rep-
resentative in that city and former head of the Communist under-
ground in the United States, states that he has depended, for the
material in the manual, upon the "resolutions and decisions on the
question of organization adopted by the Second Organizational Con-
ference of the Communist International." The Second Congress of
the Communist International held in 1920 decided that —
All the parties and organizations comprising the Communist International bear
the name of the Communist Party of the given country (section of the Communist
International) .
In line with this decision, the American party designated itself as a
"section of the Communist International" until the party's disaffilia-
tion to circumvent the Voorhis Act in 1940.
Article 3, section 1, of the constitution of the Workers (Commu-
nist) Party declared that a membership requirement is acceptance
of—
the program and statutes of the Communist International and of the Workers
(Communist) Party * * *
15. Point 15 of the Conditions of Admission to the Communist
International, adopted in 1920 and accepted by the American Com-
munist Party, was the provision that —
the program of each party belonging to the Communist International should be
confirmed by the next congress of the Communist International or its Executive
Committee.
16. At conventions of the CPUSA, fraternal greetings were ex-
changed between the American party and the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union. The Subversive Activities Control Board notes
such interchanges at CPUSA conventions in 1921, 1927, 1929, and
1950 (Report, pp. 95-98).
17. In his petition to the Subversive Activities Control Board the
Attorney General held as follows as to the disciplinax-y power to
which the CPUSA is subordinated:
8 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
From the inception of the organization to the date of the filing of this petition,
the principal leaders of the Communist Party have been and are subject to and
recognize the disciplinary power of the Soviet Government, the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union, the Communist International and the Communist
Information Bureau * * * (Report, p. 99).
This disciplinary power has been sufficiently strong to bring about
the expulsion of two executive secretaries of the CPUSA, namely
Jay Lovestone and Earl Browder, members of the party's executive
committee such as Ludwig Lore, James P. Cannon, Wilham F. Dunne,
Bertram D. Wolfe, Benjamin Gitlow, and Joseph Zack Kornfeder, as
well as entire sections of the organization.
POLITICAL PARTY OR CONSPIRACY
Since the Communist Party, USA, is in fact simply the American
branch of the Russian Communist Party, it follows faithfully the
conspiratorial pattern laid down by its parent body.
The Russian Communist Party, the focal point and radiating center
of the international Communist movement, owes its inception to
V. I. Lenin, its guiding genius on matters of organization. The
principles upon which the Communist movement was founded were
therefore based primarily upon his experience with the czarist regime
under which the labor and socialist movements were illegal and the
rights to freedom of speech, press and assembly were nonexistent.
Widespread discontent of the laboring classes and the peasantry could
find no legal outlet or remedy, with the result that attempted assas-
sinations of government officials and even of the Czar, were not un-
common. Lenin's own brother was executed as a result of one such
an attempted assassination. In this atmosphere it is understandable
that Lenin envisaged an organization adapted to the specific purpose
of violent overthrow of his own government. Necessarily, therefore,
this movement was conspiratorial. In his authoritative work What
Is To Be Done, pubhshed in February 1902, in reference to party
organization, Lenin laid down the principle that —
Conspiracy is so essential a condition of an organization of this kind that all other
conditions * * * must be made to conform with it.
Today the Communist movement is no longer an insignificant Rus-
sian sect fighting against czarism, but an international movement
seeking world conquest and more specifically the destruction of the
American Government as its chief obstacle. Hence the Communist
Party, USA, as an organic part of that movement dedicated to the
same destructive purpose, has necessarily assumed the same Leninist
conspiratorial guise. The other characteristics of the movement
flow logically from this basic conception.
By way of contrast, American political parties, despite criticisms
they may make of public policy, are fundamentally loyal to our form
of government and conform to its laws. They rely upon the duly
constituted agencies of our Government and the operation of our
democratic processes for the correction of grievances.
MILITARY ASPECT
American political parties carry on their activities by peaceful
means within the confines of our legal structure in which they have
full faith. The Communist Party looks upon our Government as its
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 9
enemy which it seeks to overtlirow by forceful means. Hence, it is
organized along quasi-military lines. The program of the Com-
munist International adopted at its sixth congress in 1928, endorsed
by the CPUSA, and never since repudiated or superseded, has made
this plain by calling for —
a combination of strikes and armed demonstrations and finally, the general strike
co-jointly with armed insurrection against the state power of the bourgoisie
(1. e. capitalists). The latter form of struggle, which is the supreme form, must
be conducted according to rules of military science * * *.
Writing on Lenin's Conception of the Party, in the January 1934
issue of the Communist, official theoretical organ of the Communist
Party, USA, F. Brown, alias Alpi, a weU-known representative of the
Communist International, emphasizes this point. He holds up a
modern army as "a good example of organization" which "knows
how to impart a single will to millions of people."
DISCIPLINE
Our traditional political parties are loose organizations operating
under a very fluid and flexible discipline. Members and leaders will
differ sharply with each other and still remain within the same organ-
ization.
Lenin conceived the Communist Party, however, as an organiza-
tion which —
will be able to fulfill its duty only if it will be organized in the most centralized
manner, if it will be governed by an iron discipline, bordering on military dis-
cipline * * * (Conditions for Affiliation to the Comintern).
"Why do the Communists attach so much importance to discipline?"
asks J. Peters in his authoritative pamphlet The Communist Party —
A Manual on Organization, and he answers this question as follows:
Because without discipline there is no unity of will, no unity of action. * * *
The class war is bitter. The enemy is powerful. * * * In order to combat
and defeat this powerful enemy, the army of the proletariat must have a highly
skilled, trained General Staff [the Communist Party], which is united in action
and has one will.
Again Peters pointedly asks, "How can the Army fight against the
army of the enemy if every soldier in the Army is allowed to question
and even disobey orders of his superior officers?" The Communist
Party, USA, has therefore not hesitated to expel even its highest
officials for actual or suspected deviation from the official line of
Moscow. In Russia and other Communist countries such deviation-
ists have been shot. Communist leaders have frequently referred to
the party with pride as monolithic.
AUTHORITY AT THE TOP
Political parties as we know them are highly responsive to the
sentiment of their constituents and of the American people as a
whole. They encourage independence and initiative. They are
essentially democratic in their approach to the rank and file of party
membership. Initiative and pressure come from below.
In conformance with its military character and objectives, the
Communist Party is organized from the top down. It is essentially
undemocratic. The flow of its directives and strategy proceeds from
its highly centralized leadership in the Russian Communist Party by
10 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
way of the Cominform to the similarly centralized leadership within
the national board of the Communist Party, USA, and then on down
to the lower levels of the organization. As J. Peters has pointed out
to his fellow members of the Communist Party, USA, in his Manual
on Organization, "all lower Party organizations are subordinated to
the higher bodies,"
The Programme of the Communist International is quoted from
Petitioners Exhibit 125 by the Subversive Activities Control Board
to show that the Communist Parties are organized on the basis of
democratic centralism:
The Communist International and its Sections are built up on the basis of
democratic centralism, the fundamental principles of which are: (a) Election of
all leading committees of the Party * * *; (b) periodical reports by leading Party
committees to their constituents; (c) decisions of superior Party committees to
be obligatory for subordinate committees, strict Party discipline and prompt exe-
cution of the decisions of the Communist International, of its leading committees
and of the leading Party centres.
Party questions may be discussed by the members of the Party and by Party
organizations until such time as a decision is taken upon them by the competent
Party committees. After a decision has been taken by the Congress of the Com-
munist International, by the Congress of the respective Sections, or by leading
committees of the Comintern, and of its various Sections; these decisions must be
unreservedly carried out even if a Section of the Party membership or of the local
Party organizations are in disagreement with it. (p. 56).
In his work entitled "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back," pub-
lished in 1904 Lenin ridiculed political parties which "proceed from
the bottom upwards" and stressed the superiority of a party which
"strives to proceed from the top downwards, insisting on the exten-
sion of the rights and authority of the centre over the parts."
In a debate with Lenin as early as 1904 Leon Trotsky outlined with
remarkable foresight the type of organization which Lenin envisaged.
In Lenin's scheme the party takes the place of the working class.
The party organization displaces the party. The Central Committee
displaces the party organization, and finally the Dictator displaces
the Central Committee.
EXCLUSIVE MEMBEESHIP
Membership in our traditional political parties is easily obtainable
and comparatively unrestricted. This is not true of the Communist
Party, which is highly exclusive and restricted to those who pass its
rigid membership requirements.
In What Is To Be Done? Lenin outlined his conception of the
exclusiveness of the Communist Party, which has been a standard
guide for Communists throughout the world. He declared that —
the more narrow we make the membership of this organization, allowing only such
persons to be members who are engaged in revolution as a profession and who
have been professionally trained in the art of combatting the political police, the
more difficult it will be to "catch" the organization. * * *.
PROFESSIONAL REVOLUTIONISTS
A member of an American political party, as a rule, has many other
interests, including his club, his church, his work, his friends, and his
family. Communists, on the other hand, are expected to be profes-
sional revolutionists who, as Lenin announced in his paper, the Iskra
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 11
(Spark) in December 1900, No. 1, "shall devote to the revolution not
only their spare evenings, but the whole of their lives."
Few Americans realize what this means since no bona fide political
party would dare to make such demands upon its members. Speaking
for the Communist Party, USA, in his Manual on Organization,
J. Peters explains:
A professional revolutionist is ready to go whenever and wherever the Party-
sends him. Today he may be working in a mine, organizing the Party, the trade
unions, leading struggles; tomorrow, if the Party so decides, he may be in a steel
mill; the day after tomorrow, he may be a leader and organizer of the unemployed
* * *. From these comrades the Party demands everything. They accept
Party assignments — the matter of family associations and other personal problems
are considered, but are not decisive. If the class struggle demands it, he will
leave his family for months, even years * * *. Our task is to make every
Party member a professional revolutionist in this sense.
IMPORTANCE OF THEORY
None of our American political parties is so fanatically bound by
dogma as is the Communist Party, which is devoted to the theories of
Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. Briefly this dogma is based upon the
following false conceptions :
1. That all phases of American life, industry, education, reli-
gion, politics, the press, radio and films, even family life, are
dominated primarily by an irreconcilable class struggle between
the capitalists and the workers.
2. That our system of free capitalist enterprise (which has
produced for the American people the highest living standards in
the world), has actually outlived its usefulness and must be de-
stroyed.
3. That the sj^stem of communism (with its slave labor camps,
low living standards, and one-party dictatorship over every phase
of human life) is superior to and must take the place of our sys-
tem of free enterprise, thus abolishing the class struggle for all
time.
4. That American democracy is not a government of, by, and
for the American people but a capitalist dictatorship, which must
be destro3'ed.
5. That this change to communism and a classless society can be
brought about only by the violent overthrow of the capitalist
system and our form of government.
6. That the Communist Party is destined to carry out this
historic mission.
7. That Communists owe their highest and unreserved lo3^alty
to the Soviet Union, where the Communist system has been
finally established.
For tactical reasons these conceptions may be slightly modified by
the ruling hierarchy or disguised to avoid legal prosecution, but the
basic principles remain the same and are returned to when a temporary
emergency has passed. Thus, the Communist Party, USA, advocated
cooperation with the capitalists and with American democracy when
Russia faced destruction from Adolph Hitler, only to return to its
former hostility to capitalism when the war was over and Hitler was
destroyed.
870894»— 55 2
12 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
This chain of dogma is the frame of reference by which the Com-
munist interprets the world around him and maps out his behavior.
It provides him with a clear perspective of his present and future
battles. It indicates the goal toward which he is striving and
which justifies every means from treason to mm-der. It offers a
powerful political myth inspiring Communists with fanatical zeal.
A FULL-TIME ORGANIZATION
American political parties are usually active during election cam-
paigns. Their primary function is to elect this or that candidate
to office. Between campaigns activity is at a low ebb.
The Communist Party functions at all times of the year, every day
of the week, and at all hours of the day. It is a full-time organization
which is not restricted to election campaigns. It persistently seeks
to permeate every phase of American life for its own subversive
purpose. Communist agents may be found wherever and whenever
there is an opportunity for Communist propaganda or the promotion
of civil strife, whether it be the factory, the union, the church, the
school, or the neighborhood.
SUPERSENSITIVITY ON ORGANIZATION MATTERS
No political party in this country ever was so supremely conscious
of the mechanics of organization as is the Communist Party. This is
a demonstration of its quasi-military character. Like an army, it
pays marked attention to what makes the wheels go round and to
organizational techniques. The Communist International has pub-
lished considerable literature dealing specifically with party organiza-
tion. From time to time the party has published special organs,
known as the Party Organizer and later as Contact, as well as
pamphlets and articles, dealing with purely organizational problems
and intended only for the eyes of party members. Every convention
and meeting of the national committee of the Communist Party is
devoted in some part to organizational questions. Voluminous mate-
rial and du'ectives on such matters have been sent to this country
from Moscow for the use of the American Party. In 1935 the party
published its Manual on Organization by J. Peters, after he had spent
years of study in Moscow. Every Communist unit and front
organization has its organizational director, a post peculiar to this
type of organization.
DESIRE TO CONTROL OR DESTROY OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
Our political parties respect other organizations and, as a rule,
make little effort to interfere with their internal affairs or to control
them. Traditional political parties do not generally penetrate other
political parties. The reverse is true in the case of the Communist
Party.
Communists look upon all organizations not under their control as
instrumentalities of the enemy, of the ruling class. This holds true
for the Government, the unions, civic and professional organizations,
fraternal organizations, women's groups, youth groups, religious
groups, and even political parties. In warfare it is standard practice
THE COaiMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 13
to penetrate enemy territory and dislocate its machinery or capture
its strongholds. The Communist Party, while it safeguards its own
ranks against penetration, does not hesitate to infiltrate other
organizations.
In a letter to a comrade written in September 1902, dealing with
organizational problems, Lenin called for an organization which
"must be conspiratorial internally" and "ramified externally" with
"feelers" stretched far and widespread. As such an organization the
Communist Party alternates its strategy between a soft policy toward
those whom it considers currently useful and a policy of militant
opposition toward those whom it considers as current obstacles.
DECEPTION AS A METHOD
Fully aware that if it appeared openly in its true guise as a bridge-
head of a hostile, foreign dictatorship, the Communist Party, USA,
would attract httle support, its methods are based primarily upon
deception. This approach is inherent in the Communist movement
and was laid down by Lenin in his work "Left-Wing" Communism:
An Infantile Disorder, first printed in Russia in April 1920, in which
he declares:
It is necessary to agree to any and every sacrifice, and even — if need be — to
resort to all sorts of devices, manoeuvres, and illegal methods, to evasion and
subterfuge. * * *
Hence the Communist Party, pro-Soviet always, nevertheless calls
itself the party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln, It operates behind
the scenes of the Progressive Party and the American Labor Party.
Its members resort to aliases and deny their affiliation. It builds up
numerous front organizations with attractive labels to ensnare the
unwary in its various campaigns. Its leaders do not hesitate to
deceive their own members as to the party's real nature and purpose.
ALWAYS ON THE OFFENSIVE
Well-intentioned but naive individuals are constantly deploring the
fact that Communists rudely reject their amicable advances for good
will and cooperation. They are wont to blame themselves or our
own national policy for lack of response to their friendly overtures.
They do not understand that the Communist Party, USA, looks upon
itself as being in the nature of a reconnaissance and commando force
operating in enemy territory in behalf of the Soviet fatherland. In
accordance with this concept, just as in the case of an actual military
detachment of a hostile, foreign foe based upon American soil, correct
military strategy would call for a constant offensive against us, so the
Communist Party staj-s constantly on the offensive against all who
refuse to do its bidding. This approach is clearly outlined by Lenin
in his Works, volume VI, page 291:
The defensive is the death of every armed uprising; it is lost before it measures
itself with its enemies. Surprise your antagonists while their forces are scattering,
prepare new successes, however small, but daily; * * * in the words of Danton,
the greatest master of revolutionary policy yet known, de I'audace, de I'audace,
encore de I'audace! (audacity, audacity, more audacity).
Unaware of the philosophy behind Communist tactics, unsophisti-
cated and softhearted hberals are sometimes stunned by the barrage
14 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
of invective which greets their well-meant advances. They are un-
mindful of Lenin's effort to arouse among his followers a ''passion for
political denunciation," a field in which he was a rnaster. This will
explain why a Communist always seems to carry a chip on his shoulder.
This note of belligerence is echoed by J. Peters in the Communist
Party, USA, Manual on Organization where he indicates that the
party-
Unit as a whole and every individual member of the Unit should be known by the
workers in the street or town as fearless fighters * * *,
The party operates on the theory that "He who is not with us, is
against us."
PLANNING AHEAD
Within the Communist Party, USA, every step is planned in detail
from the smallest club or unit in the United States to the highest
echelons of the international Communist apparatus in Moscow — ■
sometimes months or years in advance. Nothing is left to whim or
circumstance. In part this is a reflection of the quasi-mihtary char-
acter of the party. In part it is a carryover from the Russians and
their passion for planning.
For example, a number of Communist leaders now in the forefront
of the revolutionary movement in the Far East were educated and
kept "on ice" for years in Moscow until the right moment. The pro-
gram of the Communist International adopted by its sixth congi-ess
in 1928 stands today as a definitive guide upon which present-day
activities of the Communist movement in all parts of the world are
based. In the current struggle of democracy against the Communist
menace, it would be suicidal to overlook this basic fact. Hence the
need for a diligent study of standard Communist literature by all its
opponents.
EED ELITE
Despite the fact that it has brought misery and slavery wherever it
has established its power, no American political party is as fervently
imbued with its mission as is the Communist Party. This conceit
extends down to its rank-and-file members, encouraged and stimu-
lated by Communist leaders throughout the world.
The Party-
said Lenin in his "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder-
is the highest form of the class organization of the proletariat; it should lead all
the other forms of proletarian organizations.
"We Communists," declared Joseph Stalin at Lenin's funeral in
1924, "are people of a special mould. We are made of special material.
We are those who comprise the army of the great proletarian strate-
gist, the army of Lenin. There is nothing higher than belonging to
this army."
Although the Communists have been repudiated by labor through-
out the world, Communist Party literature is replete with references
to itself as "the leader and organizer of the proletariat," "the van-
guard of the working class," even reaching the point where it is
characterized as "the most complete bearer of the great achievements
of tens of centuries of the rise of the human mind and its mastery of
the earth."
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AIVIERICA 15
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY
By and large American political parties are loose organizations in
which individual accountabihty is at a minimum. The Communist
Party member, on the other hand, is never a free agent. He is held
strictly responsible for his acts by his party superiors. This is a
continuing process which places every party member and leader on
the anxious seat at all times.
As Lenin pointed out in his work What Is To Be Done? in Feb-
ruary 1902, reprinted and accepted as mandatory by all Communist
Parties ever since, party members —
are keenly alive to their responsibility, knowing from experience that in order to
get rid of an undesirable member, an organization of true revolutionaries will
stop at nothing.
He stressed the fact that such an organization "punishes with merciless
severity every abuse of duty by a comrade. * * *" Penalties im-
posed have run all the way from censure or expulsion to murder.
CONTROL BY BLACKMAIL
Outside of the Communist movement, especially in naive liberal
circles, there is a prevailing illusion that Communist discipHne is
primarily based upon high idealism and conviction. However, the
chief conspirators in the Kremlin are not so impractical as to rely
upon such fortuitous and changing factors. They have too much at
stake. Therefore a much more reliable instrument is employed,
namely, blackmail. With the aid of extensive files continuously
augmented, showing every personal foible and misstep, every devi-
ation from the party hne, the threat of compromise or exposure
affords an alternative means of insuring obedience.
ATMOSPHERE OF DISTRICT
The Communist Party is permeated with an atmosphere of distrust
toward every individual party member. Hence members and leaders
are subject to a process of continuous checkup, totally at variance
with procedure in our political parties. This is done through annual
or more frequent registrations, internal purges and demands for
reports. Members are expected to attend classes regularly and to
keep abreast of official party literature in order to guard against any
possible defection from the cm-rent party line.
A DIVISIVE PARTY
Wherever the Communist Party makes its appearance, it serves as
a force for division and friction, following the theory of divide and
rule. Thus it seeks to alienate the United States from its potential
allies. Internally it tlirives upon promoting clashes: Between em-
ployer and employee, landlord and tenant, white and Negro, native-
born and foreigner, Catholic, Protestant and Jew; between the
American people and their Government, and within every non-
Communist organization.
16 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ATTITUDE TOWARD THE GOVERNMENT AND AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS
Political parties as we know them in American life may differ
sharply with each other. The party not in office may criticize the
current administration unsparingly. But fundamentally both the
Democratic and Republican Parties are loyal to our form of Govern-
ment as it is presently constituted. Not so with the Communist
Party.
Running like a red thread through Communist teachings from the
very inception of the movement is the note of total hostility to our
form of government. For example, the following points are included
among the fundamental tasks of the Second Congress of the Com-
munist International delivered July 4, 1920:
the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie [capitalist], the confiscation of its prop-
erty, the destruction of the whole of the bourgeois state apparatus from top to
bottom — parliamentary, judicial, military, bureaucratic, administrative, mu-
nicipal, etc.
In a similar vein, William Z. Foster, present chairman of the
CPUS A, has written in his book, Toward Soviet America:
Capitalist governments have nothing in common with proletarian govern-
ments * * *. In the revolutionary struggle they are smashed and Soviet govern-
ments established * * *" (p. 271).
M. J. Olgin, a former member of the central executive committee
of the CPUSA and an editor of the (Communist) Freiheit, stated
succinctly in his book, Why Communism, the exact purpose of the
Communists in entering legislative bodies. He said, "We go to the
law-making institutions, not to tinker them up for the benefit of the
capitalists, but to be a monkey wrench in their machinery * * *"
As shown by experience in countries which are under the heel of a
Communist dictatorship, the Communists display the same implacable
hostility toward all non-Communist parties and institutions. Thus,
William Z. Foster's pledge in regard to what he envisages under the
dictatorship of the proletariat in the United States cannot be lightly
dismissed. In this work, Toward Soviet America, he declared:
Under the dictatorship all the capitalist parties — Republican, Democratic,
Progressive, Socialist, etc. — will be liquidated, the Communist Party functioning
alone as the Party of the toiling masses. Likewise, will be dissolved all other
organizations, that are political props of the bourgeois rule, including chambers
of commerce, employers' associations, rotary clubs, American Legion, Y. M. C. A.,
and such fraternal orders as the Masons, Odd Fellows, Elks, Knights of Columbus,
etc, (p. 275).
THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS
Our American political parties may clash over issues or public office.
Nevertheless there is a certain code of ethics, of loyalty which is gen-
erally recognized and adhered to. The Communists have no such
scruples. They believe that ethics should be completely subordinated
to the class struggle, that is to say to the Communist movement.
According to the Soviet Short Philosophical Dictionary, " 'Moral' is
only that which facilitates the destruction of the old world," which
means out democratic world and particularly the United States.
"Moral", according to this conception, "is only that which strengthens
the new, Communist regime." Again, Lenin has said to Communist
youth, "Our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the
class struggle."
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 17
Specifically this means that Communists consider themselves justi-
fied in violating any and every ethical code in the interest of what
they consider a "higher" cause. Having been defeated by a legiti-
mate major'ty vote they will refuse to recognize it and press their
original contention. Having been expelled from an organization,
they will try to penetrate through other channels. Solemn agree-
ments are, to them, merely scraps of paper.
CONFORMANCE TO PATTERN
Political parties as we know them vary in character from State to
State and from country to country. The Communist Party conforms
strictly to pattern wnth some slight variations for purposes of local
camouflage. Those who understand the main outline and underlying
principles of the party in one country or locality, who are familiar with
the party line from Communist publications, can readily understand
and follow the identical pattern of the party as it appears everywhere,
and even predict it.
REVOLUTIONARY MINORITY
It is impossible to understand the nature and activities of the
Communist Party, USA, without appreciating the fact that it is
primarily a revolutionary minority seeking to perpetrate the over-
throw of the Nation by insurrectionary means directed at the most
sensitive and strategic strongholds of our Government. In other
words the Communists do not accept as final or decisive the verdict
of the peaceful ballot based upon majorities and public persuasion.
They rely rather upon forceful means beyond the purview of our legal
election machinery. This has been dealt with in some detail in the
House Committee on Un-American Activities report on The Com-
munist Party of the United States as an Advocate of Overthrow of
Government by Force and Violence, and the report of the Senate
Internal Security Subcommittee giving "documentary proof that the
Communist Party, USA, teaches and advocates the overthrow and
destruction of the United States Government by force and violence."
In his collected works, Russian Edition, volume XIV, part 2, page
270, Lenin formulated this strategic approach in his thesis on insur-
rection, which has been emphasized by Joseph Stalin, which reads in
part as follows:
Accumulate a preponderance of forces at the decisive place, at the decisive
moment. * * * Try to take the enemy b}' surprise.
In his Foundations of Leninism, Stalin presented the same thought
from a somewhat different angle when he called upon the Commu-
nists—
to locate at any given moment that single link in the chain of events which if
seized upon will enable us to control the whole chain and prepare the ground for
the achievement of strategic success.
Given a highly interdependent civilization vulnerable to physical dis-
location at many points, given the tremendous power of modern science
at the disposal of subversive forces and given the numerous frictions
prevalent in any democratic society, one can readily conceive the
potentialities for the creation of chaos inherent in a group which is
constantly probing for our weak spots and endeavoring to capitalize
upon them with the maximurp destructive effect.
18 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ORGANIZATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY, USA
COMMUNIST HIERARCHY
The basic organization of the Communist Party is the club or
branch. This may be based on a territorial limitation, for instance
embracing a community or rural area, or may be limited to employees
of a large industrial plant or of a single industry within a city or town.
Each club is controlled by an executive committee or bureau consist-
ing of the chief officers. A group of clubs or branches in a given area
is in turn controlled by a section committee. The next higher body
is the State committee or a district committee including two or more
States, above which is the national committee of the party. In recent
days the party organization has been subdivided into smaller con-
spiratorial groups.
A reading of the Communist Party constitution will not disclose the
structure of the party as it actually functions. Such documents are
drawn up for public consumption and disguise and not for real practice.
A conspiracy could not well be expected to publish its code of procedure
which has grown up and become ingrained in the organization as a
matter of usage rather than statute.
For example, the Communist Party constitution, in order to give the
party a semblance of democracy, declares that "The highest body of
the state organization is the State Convention." And further, "The
highest authority of the Party is the National Convention." Since
State and National conventions are held every 2 years or less often,
it is manifest that the party is not and cannot be run from day to
day by conventions. The conventions are merely rubber stamps for
decisions of a small core of policymakers including a Moscow repre-
sentative operating behind the scenes.
We shall present below the various stages in the structure of the
party as found in J. Peters' The Communist Party — a Manual on
Organization, published in July 1935, as compared with the present
streamlined version from the constitution of the Communist Party
of the United States of America, published in September 1945, both
of which are consciously misleading:
peters' manual, 1935 CONSTITUTION, 1945
Unit Bureau Club Executive Committee
Unit Membership Meeting Club Membership Meeting
Section Bureau Not mentioned
Section Committee Not mentioned
Section Convention Not "mentioned
District Bureau State or District Board
District Committee State or District Committee
District Convention State or District Convention
Political Bureau of Central Committee National Board
(Secretariat not mentioned) (Secretariat not mentioned)
Central Committee National Committee
National Convention National Convention
Political Secretariat of the Communist Not mentioned
International
Presidium of the Communist Inter- Not mentioned
national
Executive Committee of the Communist Not mentioned
International
World Congress of the Communist Not mentioned
International
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 19
One must not be misled by the formal outward structure of the
party, behind which a publicly unacknowledged but nonetheless
actual network operates. For example, a section committee can send
its representative to any subordinate club with power to determine
decisions of the club or its executive committee. Similarly the
secretariat of the national committee can send its representative with
overriding powers to any unit of the party. In the same manner the
Moscow headquarters of the Communist movement sends representa-
tives like Gerhard Eisler who have undisputed say over the decisions
of the national committee and the staff of the national office in its
day-to-day activity. These practices are not even mentioned in the
party's constitution.
CONSPIRACY AT WORK
On October 13, 1952, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee
heard the testimony of John Lautner, former member of the National
Review Commission of the Communist Party, U. S. A., and head of its
New York State Review Commission. This particular feature of the
Communist Party finds no parallel in political parties. According to
Mr. Lautner, this body's principal function was —
to safeguard party discipline, to vigilantly seek out and ferret out any anti-party
elements in the ranks of the party, to carry out investigations and to propose
for expulsion or any form of discipline party members who don't toe the line.
After the indictments of certain party leaders, the "three system"
of conspiratorial organization was adopted, which is described by
Lautner, who was assigned to carry out phases of this reorganization,
as follows:
The party leadership appointed the top coordinating committee. The top
coordi:iating committee consisted of three people. * * * Onewas head of the three.
He was the political person in the group. * * * The other was the organizational
person and the third one was the union mass-organization person.
Now, these three people were assigned, each one of them, to appoint three other
persons below him on the next level. * * * So he appoints his one, two, three P's.
* * * O does the same thing. * * * [Note. — O stands for organizer, P for polit-
ical organizer and T for trade union organizer.]
P does not know O or T on the lower levels. He knows only the three persons
that he appointed. O does not know the P's and T's on the lower levels. He
only knows his O's. So, here you have a situation where one party leader knows
his two associates in his triangle, and the three that he appointed below. All in
all, a party member wouldn't know more than six party members in the party,
up and down. * * *
To my own personal knowledge there was the top coordinating committee; that
3, the next level was 9, and the third level, 27; the fourth level, 81, and the fifth
level, 243. * * *
Speaking before the subcommittee of the House Comrnittee on
Appropriations on December 9, 1953, J. Edgar Hoover, Director of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation described the current organization ^
of the Communist Party in the following terms: /- ^ ^_ ^'^i/y^Jj /'
No longer are Communist Party membership cards issued; maintenance of
membership records are forbidden; contacts of rank and file members are limited
from 3 to 5 — the basic club unit. Most of the local headquarters have been dis-
continued and party records have been destroyed. No evening meetings are
permitted in headquarters without staff members present. Conventions and
large meetings are held to the absolute minimum. The use of the telephone and
telegraph is avoided.
No contact is had with families or friends; contacts between functionaries are
arranged through frequently changed intermediaries; false drivers Hcenses have
(i>
20 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
been obtained; assumed names have been adopted; modification of physical ap-
pearance has been effected, such as dyeing hair and eyebrows * * *.
They have removed conspicuous means of personal indentification such as moles;
they have effected a new manner of walking, have changed their dress standards,
have avoided old habits and even have avoided old vices, and have avoided appear-
ance in public places where their recognition would be probable.
They communicate through couriers and avoid the use of written communica-
tions. They have instituted loyalty tests for all prospective underground per-
sonnel. They rotate the underground personnel to avoid detection * * *,
They appear outside of hideouts only at night * * *,
They use different automobiles, and the cars frequently are registered in fictitious
names and not names of party members; the license plates are frequently changed.
They have used extreme precautions in regard to surveillance, making rapid
and frequent changes of conveyances, entering and leaving subways and buses
just before the doors close, and doubhng back on their course.
MOSCOW REPRESENTATIVE
The keystone of the Communist Party hierarchy within the United
States is the representative of the Communist International or its
present equivalent, the Information Bureau of the Communist and
Workers' Parties, otherwise known as the Cominform. The statutes
of the Communist International adopted at its sixth congress in the
summer of 1928 formally authorize the sending of such representatives
to affiliated Communist Parties. Although the Communist Inter-
national was allegedly dissolved in May 1943, witnesses before the
Committee on Un-American Activities have disclosed in terms of
their experience that these statutes are still fully operative in actual
fact although not openly acknowledged.
Article III, section 22 of these statutes declares that —
The E. C. C. I. (Executive Committee of the Communist International) and
its Presidium have the right to send their representatives to the various Sections
of the Communist International. Such representatives receive their instructions
from the E. C. C. I. or from its Presidium, and are responsible to them for their
activities. Representatives of the E. C. C. I. have the right to participate in
meetings of the central Party bodies as well as of the local organizations of the
Sections to which they are sent * * * They may * * * speak in opposition to
the Central Committee of the given Section * * * jf the hne of the Central
Committee in question diverges from the instructions of the E. C. C. I. * * *
The E. C. C. I. and its Presidium also have the right to send instructors to the
various Sections of the Communist International.
Appearing on September 8, 1939, before the Special Committee on
Un-American Activities, Benjamin Gitlow, former member of the
executive committee of the Communist International, former member
of the political committee of the Communist Party, USA, and one
time its candidate for Vice President of the United States, described
the powers of these representatives or "reps" as they are familiarly
called:
A representative of the Communist International to the United States during
his stay in the United States was the boss of the party. * * * He automatically
became a member of all the leading committees of the party in the United States
and participated in its deliberations and enjoyed a vote on matters that were
voted upon * * * all he had to do was to impose his power and mandate as a
C. I. representative, and then his view would prevail. Generally, American
Communists never would take a position in opposition to the representative of
the Communist International.
Seven years later on November 22, 1946, Louis F. Budenz, former
managing editor of the Daily Worker and a member of the national
committee of the Communist Party, USA, confirmed this picture
THE COIVIMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 21
when he described the activities of Gerhard Eisler, ahas Hans Berger,
aHas Edwards. The latter had been introduced to Budenz by Eugene
Dennis, former general secretary of the party, as the "equivalent to
a representative of the Communist International." Mr. Budenz de-
clared that —
the official representative of the Communist International is the chief communica-
tion officer who brings the hne of the party over, who knows it, and who, in
addition to that, is vested with a certain authority to intervene in party affairs
if he judges that necessary.
Mr. Budenz was notified by Dennis that he would "occasionally re-
ceive instructions and communications from this Hans Berger," alias
for Gerhard Eisler. Budenz described how Eisler (Berger) verbally
flayed Daily Worker Editor Clarence Hathaway "for almost half an
hour." In the Communis' of May 1944, leading theoretical organ
of the Communist Party, USA, Eisler (Berger) publicly castigated
William Z. Foster, then chairman of the party. In neither case did
these American Communist chieftains dare to reply.
In the November 1943 issue of the Communist, "Hans Berger"
wrote an article entitled "Remarks on the Discussion Concerning the
Dissolution of the Communist International," the purpose of which
was to inform American Communists that "internationalism still
lives." In The Communist of November 1942, Eisler, posing as an
American, explained the significance of "Twenty-five Years of Soviet
Power." He was for some time the brains behind Joseph Starobin,
foreign editor of the Daily Worker, whom he emploj^ed as his mouth-
piece. This wUl give some idea of the tremendous power wielded
over the American Communist Party by its Moscow-anointed com-
missar.
Others who have served in this capacity in the past include: G.
Valetsky ; Joseph Pogany, alias John Schwartz, alias John Pepper, alias
John Swift; Boris Reinstein; S. Gussev, alias P. Green, alias Drabkin;
Y. Sirola, alias Miller; Arthur Ewert, alias Braun, alias Brown, alias
Berger; Harry Pollitt; Philip Dengel; B. Alikhailov, alias George
WUliams; Carl E. Johnson, alias Scott, alias Jensen; Petersen;
Marcus, alias M. Jenks; F. Marini, alias Mario Alpi, alias Fred
Brown; William Rust; Willi Muenzenberg; Louis Gibarti; Raissa
Irene Browder; Raymond Guyot; Boris Isakov, alias Boris Williams.
At times two or more such commissars wiU be here simultaneously,
each being assigned to some special task or campaign.
There is method in AIoscow's designation of foreign commissars for
the American party as revealed by Jacob Golos, in charge of under-
ground activities, in an interview with Louis F. Budenz in his bio-
graphical work Men Without Faces; "An American might be a
Comintern man in such countries as China and the Philippines,"
declared Golos. "He will never yield to any homesickness for those
lands, nor will he think of his family there in a moment of weakness."
He added, however, that "for this country the C. I. (Comintern) man
and the C. I. agents under him will always be non-Americans — and
noncitizens if at all possible."
MOSCOW, THE SEAT OF POWER
In describing the Communist hierarchy from the lowest club to the
very pinnacle of power, we have endeavored to deal with the realities
22 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
of this farflung conspiracy as disclosed by individuals formerly
enmeshed therein, rather than to take seriously the current official
version of Communist organization which is foisted upon those gullible
and ignorant enough to give it credence.
Illuminating detail is found in the testimony of Joseph Zack
Kornfeder, former member of the central executive committee of the
Communist Party, USA, a former member of the Anglo-American
secretariat of the Communist International, later its representative
in Colombia and Venezuela.
He testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activi-
ties on August 9, 1949, in regard to a dispute in the American party
between the pro-Stalinist faction headed by William Z. Foster and
the anti-Stalinist faction headed by Jay Lovestone. This dispute
occurred long ago, in 1928. Nevertheless, the pattern of behavior
which it reveals is important in helping us understand a structure
which has not changed fundamentally since then. We quote from
Mr, Kornfeder's testimony:
The reason why Stalin, as well as Molotov and other leaders of the Russian
Communist Party, spent that much time on this faction fight in the United States,
was because Stalin, considering this country of utmost importance in the total
scheme of strategy, wanted to retain a reliable base by securing control, absolute
control, for his faction of the Communist Party of the United States * * *.
Stalin personally directed all the major phases of the fight against the then
majority of the American Communist Party, led by Jay Lovestone * * *. In
the windup of that fight, he and Molotov even participated as members of the
commission that tried Lovestone and other members of the central committee of
the American Communist Party siding with Lovestone * * *. The speech
was made at the Presidium on May 14, 1929.
In volume XI of the hearings of the Committee on Un-American
Activities (pp. 7112 to 7124) are printed two speeches made by Stalin
on May 6 and 14, 1929, and in which he actively intervened in the
affairs of the American Communist Party to the point of presenting
an ultimatum to the American delegation. He declared that —
If the comrades of the American delegation accept our terms — good and well; if
they don't, so much the worse for them.
Then Stalin recommended that Comrades Lovestone and Bittelman,
leaders of the American party, "must be recalled and placed at the
disposal of the Comintern." Subsequent to this meeting, Lovestone
was summarily expelled from his post as executive secretary of the
Communist Party, USA, and the rival faction was installed in the
leadership, despite the fact that his voting strength had represented
over 90 percent of the party membership in a previous convention.
Bittelman was shifted out of the United States to duties abroad.
Those who seek open statutory justification for Stalin's relationship
toward the Communist Party, USA, are chasing a will-o'-the-wisp.
In any conspiracy, the real source of power is not inherent in any
statutes. Since the elimination of the recalcitrant faction in 1929,
Stalin's power over the Communist Party in America was sufficiently
secure and unchallenged, as to make it unnecessary for him to openly
intervene. From that time on, his intervention has been more covert,
operating behind a screen of agents completely submissive to his
bidding.
THE COAIMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 23
It may well be asked how Jo?epb Stalin was in a position to keep
track of the activities of his Communist satellites in the United States.
According to Mr. Kornfeder, Stalin maintamed a personal secretariat,
each member of which was assigned to a specific area. At the time
Mr. Kornfeder was in Moscow, affairs in America were under the
supervision of one B. Mikhailov, the secretary on American affairs,
who visited the tjnited States in 1930 under the name of George
Williams, to take charge of the purge of Lovestoneites. In 1933
Helena Stasova was Stahn's secretary for German questions.
According to Mr. Kornfeder, this streamlined body of secretaries
outmoded the cumbersome machinery of the Communist International
and thus enabled Stalin to exercise more complete and direct control
over his international Red network.
The details of this mechanism will not be found in any public Com-
munist pronouncement either here or abroad. The subordination of
the CPUSA to Stalin personally is, however, implicit in the telegram
signed in behalf of its national committee by William Z. Foster as
chairman, and Eugene Dennis as general secretary of the Communist
Party, USA, on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Joseph Stalin and
published in the Daily Worker as recently as December 21, 1949, from
which we quote in part:
Dear Comrade Stalin: On your 70th birthday the National Committee of the
Communist Party, USA * * * sends you heartiest congratulations and warmest
greetings * * * Like the Communists * * * in all lands, we hail your more than 50
years of sterling leadership * * *.
According to this telegram, victory in World War II was ascribable not
to the joint efforts of the Allies and particularly the United States, but
rather to the guidance of the "Great Bolshevik Party, built by you
and Comrade Lenin, and, since Lenin's death, continuing under your
leadership to guide itself by the principles of Marxism-Leninism which
you have safeguarded and enriched." The telegram closes with the
wish "Long hfe to you, Comrade Stalin, and to your great and enduring
contributions to world peace, democracy, and Socialism."
COMMUNIST PARTY MEMBERSHIP
Accustomed as we are to the methods employed by our traditional
political parties with openly acknowledged membership, membership
records and books, we Americans rnight expect to find documentary
proof of such membership in the case of Communists. Naively
unaware of the conspiratorial nature of the Communist Party, we
might demand the production of a party membership card or other
documentary evidence before we will believe that an individual is a
Communist. Thus we might contribute to our own confusion,
accentuated by the consistent denial of party membership on the
part of those charged.
The Communist Party, USA, has progressively streamlined its
membership records to the point where no membership cards are
issued at tne present time. Dues records are maintained in code,
with each member assigned a number, in accordance with the following
form:
24 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
MONTH
Member's number
Jan.
Feb.
Mar.
Apr.
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
1
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
2
3
4
6
6
7
8
9 -
10 -
On every occasion before congressional committees, in the courts
or before grand juries, Communist Party officials have refused to
disclose party membership lists. In fact they have claimed that no
such hsts exist. In June 1949 four officials of the Communist Party
of Los Angeles were sentenced to jail for refusal to disclose such lists
to a Federal grand jury. Nevertheless all signs point not only to the
existence of such lists, but to the fact that the Communist Party
maintains an extensive dossier on each of its members.
It stands to reason that the party could not maintain a sound book-
keeping system, including records of dues payments, without accurate
records for each individual party member. It must be remembered
that the party's accounts are regularly supervised by both its national
review commission and by Communist headquarters in Moscow.
On January 17, 1950, for example, the Daily Worker announced the
the expulsion of John Lautner, a member of the New York State
review commission of the Communist Party. Printing his photo-
graph, the announcement said that "Lautner himself is an enemy
agent of long standing."
In March 1950 Matthew Cvetic appeared as a witness before the
Committee on Un-American Activities, having served as undercover
agent for the FBI within the Communist Party in Pittsburgh for a
number of years. Immediately following his appearance before
the committee, the Daily Worker published, on Alarch 3, 1950, a
digest of three documents purporting to show that Cvetic had
assaulted his wife's sister "with force and violence." The documents
included (1) the indictment, (2) a court order directing him to make
financial restitution to the alleged victim in this case, and (3) the
decision to nolle pross the case.
Testifying on September 30, 1939, Joseph Zack Kornfeder, former
member of the central executive committee of the Communist Party
and at one time in charge of its trade-union activity, declared:
I was once asked to supply an engineer, a chemist, who would personally have
qualifications capable, and let us say, talk to other engineers higher in the pro-
fession than himself, in this instance, specifically, certain engineers of du Pont.
I was asked to do that by Max Bedacht, who was then in charge of this phase of
their secret activity. Well, I recommended a certain individual.
A former member of the Communist Party, a writer, has told in a
letter of his experience in checking on the record of a former Com-
munist Party member, in connection with a certain article he was
writing for a Communist magazine in 1939. The writer was called to
the New York office of Charles Dirba, then head of the control com-
mission or disciplinary board of the party. We publish a few signifi-
cant excerpts from this letter:
THE COMJMTJNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 25
I told him of this story about having been a Communist. He produced
a book of some kind — it looked, as I recall it, like a large ledger — and began
looking through it. Finally, he came on what was, apparently, a note about .
It said, as I remember it, that had been a Communist in some city in
Texas several years ago.
Thus it would appear that the national headquarters of the Com-
munist Party was in possession of membership lists for Texas. There
is every reason to believe that such records are still maintained, in
secret, of course, and that copies are forwarded to Communist head-
quarters in Moscow.
Since the Communist Party, USA, is part of a world organization
operating under central direction and everywhere in accordance with
a uniform pattern, the testimony of Igor Gouzenko, former civilian
employee at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, is significant. We quote
from page 38 of the report of the Canadian Royal Commission, pub-
lished June 27, 1946, referring to biographical data dealing with Sam
Carr, national organizer of the Communist (Labour-Progressive)
Party of Canada:
A. On every Communist there is a file at the Comintern in Moscow; for every
Communist in the whole world there is a file at the Comintern at Moscow. * * *
Q. The Comintern was supposed to have been abolished before 1945?
A. Supposed to be abolished in 1943. but it is not so. * * *
According to Gouzenko, the registration card kept in the 1945
dossier in the Soviet Embassy on Sam Carr, stated after the mimeo-
graphed heading "Biographical Data," the following typed entry, in
Russian: "Detailed biographical information is available in the Centre
in the Comintern."
In his biographical study. This Is My Story, Louis F. Budenz,
former managing editor of the Daily Worker and former member of
the national committee of the Communist Party, described in detail
the party's method of keeping individual records:
Records are kept of each member in any kind of key post, just as they would
be for those engaged by any other espionage system. When a member takes up
a new post, he must file a complete new biography. This is checked for new data
and also to observe if it differs from the ones previously filed. In his biography
he is required to list his relatives, where they were born and now live, their occu-
pation, and his relations with them. His entire personal and labor history must
be given — previous marriages if any, his children and his arrests * * * He
must also give a complete accounting of his financial resources, the average salary
he has received throughout his working life, any bonds or other property he ever
owned, and what he now owns, if anything. * * * His Party record must be
given in detail (p. 235).
With this information in its hands, the party is in a position to
blaclonail any possible recalcitrant and to exercise highly potent
means of personal pressure.
OFFICIAL QUESTIONNAIRES
Communists have been most vociferous in condemnation of what
they term Government prying in connection with loyalty investiga-
tions. Below we present a questionnaire which party functionaries
were required to fill out in 1946. If any Government agency in this
country would dare to infringe on the privacy of its citizens to such
a degree, it would be denounced from coast to coast by the leftwing
press as violative of civil liberties. But so far as we know no Com-
26 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
miinist, nor any civil liberities advocate, has ever protested against
this Communist questionnaire as an invasion of the privacy of an
American citizen. Through such methods as this compulsory ques-
tionnaire the party is in a position to know every possible use to
which each party member can be put by the Communist conspiracy.
New York State Review Commission
Communist Party, U. S. A.
Memhers of County Committees and County Functionaries, not members of County
Committees
Members of Section Committees and Section Functionaries, not members of Section
Committees
Dear Comrade: Below you will find a questionnaire to be used as a guide in
writing your biography. Please be advised that the Commission wants a detailed
and frank statement from you, one that will enable it to know you as well as you
know yourself. Please use as much paper as necessary (on one side only) and be
assvired that tK:s document will be treated in strict confidence and properly
safeguarded.
1. Personal Background —
Your name and all pseudonyms and nicknames ever used in the Party or other-
wise;
Date of birth; place of birth (city, county & State);
!> ames and dates of birthplace and occupation and political affiliation of your
parents; same for your brothers and sisters;
Your own trade or occupation; place of employment, all occupations and places
of employment for the past ten years.
Your wife's maiden name (or your husband's first name), the date and place of
his or her birth, occupation and place of employment;
Name your children and give information as to their ages and date and place
of present employment.
Are you a veteran of any wars, such as World War I, II, Spain and foreign wars.
2. Education —
Describe your formal education; public school, high school and college;
Name the schools and indicate the years of attendance and degrees received;
Describe your Party education; what schools attended and courses studied;
Give a summary of your self-study, naming the Marxist books you have
covered.
3. Communist Party —
Give the date and place (city, county, section, club) of your joining the Party;
By whom recruited; his present wliereabouts and political and social back-
ground;
Describe your Party activities, stating all functions held in branches, sections,
counties, etc., giving dates and locating the organizations by county, city, and
state.
Name all conventions and conferences you have attended as delegate or observer
(state which) and all subcommittees you have served on.
Name all your recruits into the Party, giving their present whereabouts and
functions, as well as their social and occupational background. State whether
they are at present in the Party and if they dropped out, why?
Name your relatives and close friends who are or were members of the Party;
give their whereabouts and present organizational functions and activities.
Describe your present function or post in the Party, how long held; discuss any
other assignments that you may feel better fitted for; what would you want to
do in the Party.
Have you ever had any personal or political difficulties in the Party? Were
you ever involved in disciplinary action — where, when and give the disposition
of the case.
4. Mass Organizations and Struggles —
Name all the mass organizations you are or have ever been a member of (trade
unions, other political parties, education, economic and social mass organizations);
Give dates, posts and activities in each;
Describe the struggles you have participated in (strikes, lockouts, mass and
Partv demonstrations, etc.)
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF A]VIERICA 27
Were 5'ou ever arrested; where, when, on what charges, give the disposition of
the case or cases.
If you are at present, a full time functionary in a mass organization, describe
your post and functions.
UOPWA/1
Rec'd. Nov. 16, 1946.
REGISTRATION GUIDE
1. Book No 2. Age 3. Occupation.
4. What kind of company or organization do you work for?
5. What kind of work do you want to do?
6. What kinds of work have you done in the past?
7. Do you work nights? 8. If so, what nights?..
9. Are there any peculiarities in connection with your work, such as long travel-
ing time or lots of overtime?
10. Marital status 11. If unemployed housewife, what free time
have you during the day?
12. Number of children 13. Ages 14. What schools
do they attend?
15. Do you belong to a parents' or a parent-teachers' organization?
16. Name of organization
17. If not a member, has your children's school such an organization?
18. If a member, are you active?.. 19. Have you any special
function?
20. Have you any personal problems which restrict activity, such as ill health, in-
valids in the family, etc?
21. What are your skills, hobbies, interests, etc.?
22. Can you type? 23. Have you a typewriter at home?
24. Can you drive a car? 25. Have you a driver's license?
26. Have you a car? 27. Can you operate a mimeograph machine?
28. Are you going to school at present? 29. If so, what schools or
school?
30. What are you studying?
31. If going to school at night, what nights?
32. How many nights a week do you need for study?
33. What formal education have you had in the past?
(High school, college, special courses.)
34. Is your apartment suitable and available for occasional parties?
35. Available for parties? 36. Available for meetings, classes?
37. Are you a veteran? 38. Service (branch of).
39. 40. Decorations, etc
41. Do you belong to a vet organization? 42. Name of organiza-
tion 43. Where and when does it meet?
44. Are you active? 45. Attend meetings regularly?
Occasionally ?
46. Have you any special function in the organization?
47. Are you interested in vet housing work?
48. How long in the service? 49. How long overseas?
50. When did you join the Party? 51. If a former member of the
Y. C. L., when? ..Where?
52. State activities in Y. C. L
53. Present work in the Party (rank-and-file activity, special functions or offices)
54. Past work in the Party:
Activity or function
Where
When
370894°— 55-
28 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
55. Are you willing and able to work as an open Communist in the neighbor-
hood?
66. If not, why not
67. Are you known as a Communist anywhere outside of the Party? (In your
union, on the job, among your friends, etc.)
Do you read the Daily Worker regularly? Sometimes?
Do you read the Worker regularly? Sometimes? 60. Have
you a subscription to either or both? 61. If not, where do you buy
the paper? (what newsstand)
If you don't subscribe, why not?
Do you read Political Affairs regularly? Sometimes?
Have you a sub to P. A.? 65. What other Communist periodicals do
you read regularly ?
Sometimes?
Do you read current C. P. pamphlets? Few or many?
What other papers and periodicals do you read?
68.
59.
62.
63.
64.
66
67
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
68. What Marxist courses have you had?
Subject
Length of course
Where (Jeff.
School club or
county, etc.)
When
Teacher
69. Wh&i Marxist courses are you taking now? (Give full details)
70. What basic IMarxist literature have you read? (Marx, Engels, Lenin and
Stalin) State whether you've read all or part of the given work
Do you want to attend a club or section class or study circle?
What kind of course are you interested in?
What nights have j'ou free on which to attend a class?
Interested in daytime or weekend class?
What kind of branch or section work are you interested in doing?.
(Press, canvassing, education, literature, research, leaflets, etc.).
76. Do you think you can function better working as an open Communist in the
neighborhood or working in a mass organization?
77. If a new member, who recruited you? (First name only, and club)
78. Can you make a regular donation to the sustaining fund? (25^ a month and
up) __ 79. Amount?
Organization
Active
member?
Attend
meetings?
Function
(rank and file
specific func-
tion)
When
you
joined
Expect
to join
Known as
Commmiist
Union ... ... .
A. L. P. f American Labor Party).
Civil Riglits Congress •.
Consumer and Tenant Council .
Veterans Housing Conference
Good Neighbor Council..
American Youth for Democracy
(A. Y. D.)
NO PAC (National Citizens
Political Action Committee)
YC PAC (Young Citizens Politi-
cal Action Committee
Win the Peace . .
80. If you have been a member of any of these organizations for more than three
months, state past activity and function
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 29
81. If you have belonged to any of these or other organizations in the past, state
when, where, activities and positions. Also why you dropped out _
82. How often do the organizations you belong to meet and usually what nights?
(List individuaUy)
83. Altogether, about how many nights a week or month do you spend on meet-
ings and activities in each of these organizations?
DUES
Beginning with its constitution adopted May 27-31, 1938, and
thereafter, the CPUSA no longer pubhshes a table of membership
dues. The 1945 constitution simply says "Initiation fees and dues
shall be paid according to rates fixed by the National Convention,"
while giving no figures. This is done in the interest of secrecy for
fear that a publicly announced table may give a clue from which an
accurate estimate of party membership may be calculated. The
Party Voice, volume 1, No. 5, August 1953, published by the New
York State Communist Party, shows that on July 1, 1953, the Na-
tional Committee of the Communist Party, USA, mstituted the fol-
lowing monthly dues schedule:
Unemployed and youth $0. 15
Housewives • ^0
Members earning up to $40 weekly . 50
Members earning $41-$60 weekly 1. 25
Members earning $61-$80 weekly.. _ 2. 50
Members earning $81-$100 weekly 3. 00
Members earring over $100 weekly 10. 00
MAILING LISTS
The extent and interlocking character of maihng lists maintained
by the Communist network is disclosed by the fact that those whose
names appear on maihng lists of one front organization, suddenly and
without solicitation receive mail from another. An envelope sent out
by the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship has used the
stencil of the Voice of Freedom Committee. The New York World
Telegram of January 17, 1946, described how a housewife from
Wyckoff, N. J., solicited hterature from the National Federation for
Constitutional Liberties and thereafter began receiving under the
same stenciUed address um-equested printed matter from the National
Citizens Political Action Committee, the National Council of Ameri-
can-Soviet Friendship, Inc., and the Committee for a Democratic
Pohcy Toward China. On August 9, 1949, Mr. Blair Seese, a mem-
ber of local 601 of the Communist-dominated United Electrical,
Radio, and Machine Workers of America, which has been expelled
from the CIO because of this domination, testified before the Commit-
tee on Un-American Activities on the party's access to mailing lists,
as follows:
Mr. Tavenner. What about the Communist Party literature; do you receive
it yourself through the mail?
Mr. Seese. I have and I still do at times.
Mr. Tavenner. Do other members of the union also receive it?
Mr. Seese. I know other members in the local who have Communist literature
mailed to their homes, * * *
Mr. Tavenner. Wliat explanation is there for members of the union who are
not members of the Communist Party receiving this literature?
Mr. Seese. I have no explanation for it other than the fact that it seems evi-
dent that by some means the membership lists of the stewards' council are avail-
30 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
able to the Communist Party, because if there are errors in the addresses of any
union members, the same errors are made in sending out the Communist
literature.
Under these circumstances it is inconceivable that the Communist
Party would not maintain a roster of its own members.
The Communist Party is most scrupulous in the way it checks upon
and husbands its forces to insure the maximum utilization of every
ounce of available cooperation and support and to guard against pos-
sible losses. For this purpose rigorous registrations of all party mem-
bers are conducted regularly. As J. Peters indicated in The Com-
munist Party — A Manual on Organization, "The party leadership
must know its forces, must be able to assign each one to the place
where he is most suitable and most needed." In this respect he cites
with approval Lenin's counsel to the party leadership:
Not only to advise * * * but really conduct the orchestra, one must know
exactly who is playing first or second fiddle, and where, what instrument he was
taught, where and how, wliere and why he plays out of tune (when the music
begins to be trying to the ear) , and what changes should be made in the orchestra
so as to remedy the dissonance * * *
EVIDENCE OF PARTY MEMBERSHIP
The simple evidentiary test of a Communist Party card will not
suffice for proof of membership. Nor will the legal fictions incor-
porated in the official Constitution of the Communist Party, USA,
serve as a fruitful guide.
An excellent guide to determine Communist Party membership is
to be found in section 5 of the Communist Control Act of 1954:
Sec. 5. In determining membership or participation in the Communist Party
or any other organization defined in this Act, or knowledge of the purpsoe or
objective of such party or organization, the jury, under instructions from the
court, shall consider evidence, if presented, as to whether the accused person:
(1) Has been listed to his knowledge as a member in any book or any of the
lists, records, correspondence, or any other document of the organization;
(2) Has made financial contribution to the organization in dues, assessments,
loans, or in any other form;
(3) Has made himself subject to the discipline of the organization in any form
whatsoever;
(4) Has executed orders, plans, or directives of any kind of the organization;
(5) Has acted as an agent, courier, messenger, correspondent, organizer, or in
any other capacity in behalf of the organization ;
(6) Has conferred with officers or other members of the organization in behalf
of any plan or enterprise of the organization;
(7) Has been accepted to his knowledge as an officer or member of the organi-
zation or as one to be called upon for services by other officers or members of the
organization;
(8) Has written, spoken or in any other way communicated by signal, sema-
phore, sign, or in any other form of communication orders, directives, or plans of
the organization;
(9) Has prepared documents, pamphlets, leaflets, books, or any other type of
publication in behalf of the objectives and purposes of the organization;
(10) Has mailed, shipped, circulated, distributed, dehvered, or in any other
way sent or delivered to others material or propaganda of any kind in behalf of
the organization;
(11) Has advised, counseled or in any other way imparted information, sug-
gestions, recommendations to officers or members of the organization or to any
one else in behalf of the objectives of the organization;
(12) Has indicated by word, action, conduct, writing, or in any other way a
willingness to carry out in any manner and to any degree the plans, designs,
objectives, or purposes of the organisation;
(13) Has in any other way participated in the activities, planning, actions,
objectives, or purposes of the organization;
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 31
(14) The enumeration of the above subjects of evidence on membership or
participation in the Communist Party or any other organization as above de-
fined, shall not limit the inquiry into and consideration of any other subject of
evidence on membership and participation as herein stated.
For an intelligent appraisal of the forces at work in behalf of the
Communist movement in the United States, it is necessary to under-
stand the various categories involved, to appreciate the shade of differ-
ence between categories and to deal with them accordingly, recogniz-
ing, however, that each category constitutes a definite security risk
operating in the interests of a foreign power. It should also be re-
membered that these categories are not static, that party members are
shifted from one to another like pawns on the Red chessboard. The
following would constitute a rough classification of these categories:
1. Open party members. — This would include individuals whom the
party has found it expedient to designate publicly as party members,
such as party officials, candidates for public office, official representa-
tives and writers for the Communist press. The existence of this
group is essential to maintain the fiction that the Communist Party,
USA, is an open "pohtical party of the American working class."
The party has been compared to an iceberg with one-third above
the water and two-thirds submerged. Though these proportions are
not accurate, the open party members constitute its visible portion.
Since the submerged sector is considered more important, members
of the open party can be commandeered at any time in the service
of the underground. The testimony of Louis F. Budenz, Whittaker
Chambers, and Elizabeth Bentley has shown that men like Jack
Stachel, Max Bedacht, and J. Peters functioned simultaneously in
both the open and the underground apparatus. Well-known party
members will suddenly disappear from public view to be engulfed by
the underground, whose orders have distinct priority.
2. Semiconcealed party members. — Most party members are known
as such to their fellow members in the party club, union, front organ-
ization, or place of employment. Within the party they operate
under one or more aliases, making no avowal of party membership
publicly. This type of membership can be established by a member-
ship card of former days or record, evidence of payment of dues,
attendance at closed meetings, association with Communists in party
enterprises or campaigns, soliciting new members or appearing in any
other official capacity representing the party.
3. Members at large. — Party members who occupy important posi-
tions in government or organizations where knowledge of their aflili-
ation would be an obstacle to party purposes, are made members at
large. They do not attend Communist Party meetings and are
contacted solely by an emissary assigned to receive dues, distribute
literature and directives.
4. Members of the underground apparatus. — For reasons of secrecy
it may at times be necessary to withdraw an individual entirely from
any contact with the open Communist Party. Whittaker Chambers,
Elizabeth Bentley, and John Sherman, for example, were withdrawn
from the open party to work in the underground. Other members
of the Communist underground apparatus may never have been
members of the legal party. An individual assigned for this purpose
may even submit a public resignation under the direction of his
party superiors. On the other hand, a member of this apparatus
may be a purely technical assistant with no trace of party sympathy
32 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
or even knowledge of the true nature of the organization for which
he is working.
An operative active in the United States may have no direct
responsibility to the CPUSA, He may be linked with some special
arm of the Soviet Government and be directly responsible to it, such
as the Soviet Military Intelligence, the Soviet Foreign OfHce, or the
Supreme Economic Council. In each case his responsibilities to the
Soviet agency have complete priority over any consideration of the
domestic Communist Party.
5. Nonparty Cominunists. — Certain sympathetic persons find it
inadvisable or inexpedient to join the Communist Party. For ex-
ample, a person of great wealth or prominence may be in full sympathy
with the party, but he may be unwilling or unable to attend meetings
or carry out all Communist duties. But he agrees to abide by the
party's wishes and submit to its discipline. He may be a businessman
who depends upon the Soviet Government for commercial favors. He
may be a politician or a union official who could not be elected to office
. without the votes controlled by the Communist bloc. In some cases
compulsion may be employed to whip the individual into line.
6. Communist Party Supporters. — There are other individuals to be
distinguished from the above group who are in no sense under Com-
munist discipline, but who voluntarily and knowingly support the
Communists in one or more ways such as voting for Communist
candidates, signing of Communist election petitions, donating money
for the party or its press, supporting campaigns in behalf of the party
of individual known Communists, supportinc^ organizations openly
sponsored by the Communist Party, defense of Communist legal cases,
doing organizational and political favors for the party, or writing for
the Communist press. In each case the subject is fully aware that he
is supporting the Communist Party or one or more of its members or
one or more of its directly espoused activities. The usefulness of
such non-Communists is demonstrated by the example of Raymond
Boyer, a wealthy and noted Canadian chemist, who described himself
as having "worked in organizations in which there were Communists
and in which I knew there were Communists, and I have worked very
closely with Communists, but I have never held a party card nor paid
dues." A memorandum found in the Soviet Embassy cites his services
as follows:
Gives full information on explosives and chemical plants. * * * (Gave the
formula of RDX * * *).
KDX is an explosive perfected in England in 1942. He also fur-
nished information regarding the pilot plant at Grand Mere, Quebec,
for the production of uranium.
FELLOW TRAVELERS
1. Fellow travelers. — As differentiated from the above categories, a
feUow traveler may be defined as an individual who from time to time
supports one or more organizations or campaigns operating under the
indirect and usually unpublicized initiative and control of the Com-
munist Party or its representatives. Here we must point out three
distinct types.
t (a) Conscious fellow travelers. — A conscious fellow traveler is one
who affiliates with or supports one or more of these groups with full
knowledge of its character. For the moit part, such persons are
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 33
motivated by a definite sympathy for the Soviet Union or the Com-
munist Party or both. Here again we must differentiate between
two groups under this heading:
(i) Consistent fellow travelers.— Among those who support or
affihate with such organizations or campaigns are those who on
no occasion take issue with the Communist Party or its auxiliary
organizations. They have a consistent record of such affihations
or sympathy throughout all changes of the party hne, and despite
the fact that such organizations have been publicly exposed as
communistic.
(ii) Unreliable fellow travelers. — Occasionally there is defection
among the fellow travelers who support the Communist Party
or its auxiliary organizations. This may be due to disillusion-
ment as to the real nature of the Soviet regime or antagonism
toward such actions as the Stalin-Hitler Pact or disgust with
Communist methods in a particular organization. The sincerity
and depth of the individual's conversion may be measured by the
individual's subsequent behavior. If he supports no pro-
Communist organizations or campaigns subsequent to his first
break, it may be assumed that this break is sincere and thorough.
If, however, his name is to be found supporting such organizations
or campaigns at a later date, it may be properly concluded that
his break was neither genuine nor substantial.
(6) Unwitting fellow travelers. — It would be only fair to indicate that
individuals have supported Communist-inspired organizations in the
belief that such organizations were accomplishing some meritorious,
social purpose. They may have had not the faintest notion as to the
organization's Communist character, they may even be anti-Commu-
nist. In other words, they may be outrigh dupes. Such nam s are
not usually found in organizations of an outi ight Communis! character.
Nevertheless, the Communis Is welcome their financial and moral
support.
The Communists are perfectly frank in admitting the usefulness
of the fellow traveler. F. Brown, an agent of the Communist In-
ternational who operated in the United States in the 1930's, who
was also known as Alpi and Marini, has testified to that fact in the
Daily Worker of August 25, 1937, page 2, where he declares:
It is no exaggeration to state that besides the 55,000 Communist members,
there are today tens of thousands of individuals who are active in every field
of the progressive movement, carrying out the line of the Party in practice.
They work shoulder to shoulder with the Party members, follow the Party line
through our press — Daily Worker, Sunday Worker, language press, through
the mass activities of the Party — mass meetings, lectures, and all struggles in
which the Communists are in the forefront. * * * We must point out: First,
that their actual work is appreciated by the Party; second, that we consider their
work Communist work and want them to continue it.
HOW TO JUDGE A FELLOW TRAVELEK
It is possible to set up definite standards for judging a fellow
traveler's devotion to the Communist Party and the Soviet Union,
which must be taken into consideration in judging his lo3^alty to the
United States. This scale is not hard and fast. It cannot be applied
mechanically. It must be utilized intelligently with an eye to the
history of the period, our current relations with the Soviet Union,
the age of the individual at the time of his affiliations, and pos ible
changes in his views. It should be recognized that an individual
who has passed through certain experiences with Communist organi-
34 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
zations and wlio has been thoroughly and completely disillusioned,
can be of considerable value in counteracting Communist machina-
tions. To adopt an attitude of "once a fellow traveler, always a
fdlow traveler," is to place an obstacle in the path of the reeducation
of such individuals and to make it undesirable for an individual to
desert their ranks. The following points should, therefore, be kept
in mind in judging a fellow traveler.
1. The number of his associations with Communist-controlled
organizations.
2. The importance of the post or posts he occupied in these
organizations, (The Communists commonly limit such posts oo
individuals who are either party members or who possess the
party's confidence, though sometimes "big names" are pushed
up front as protective coloration.)
3. The extent of his activity.
4. The importance of such organizations in the Communist
setup.
5. His adherence to these organizations despite public exposure
of their Communist character.
6. His standing in the Communist press, which operates under
strictest Moscow and party censorship,
7. His standing in Communist organizations,
8. His pubhc statements and writings regarding the Soviet
Union, the Communist Party, individual Communists and
Communist-initiated campaigns and organizations.
9. His personal associations with Communists or sympathizers.
EXTENT OF COMMUNIST PAETY MEMBERSHIP
The latest estimate of Communist Party membership by the Fed-
eral Bureau of Investigation is about 22,663. The most recent break-
down by States is based upon a membership of 31,608 in 1951, as
drawn up by the FBI.
Communist Parly membership by States 1951
New Jersey 1, 070
New Mexico 22
New York 15, 458
Alabama 96
Arizona 136
Arkansas 20
California 4, 295
Colorado 72
Connecticut 580
Delaware 22
Florida 135
Georgia 51
Idaho 60
Illinois 1, 596
Indiana.
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts. _
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire.
475
25
12
71
60
25
250
759
450
701
1
362
82
25
15
52
North Carolina.
North Dakota.
95
52
Ohio 1,290
Oklahoma. 83
Oregon 125
Pennsylvania 1, 441
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah...
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Puerto Rico
Washington, D, C
Hawaii
Alaska
54
15
38
21
196
67
25
53
350
96
420
2
96
60
36
25
Total 31,608
THE COIMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AJVIERICA 35
To show the growth of the party, it is interesting to add here a
review of the total party membership over a period of years as given
by Earl Browder, its general secretary until 1945, in his pamphlet
Where Do We Go From Here? under the pseudonym Americus. His
references are undoubtedly to open party members. Mr. Browder's
figures would show that the party membership had increased over
6^ times from the depression year of 1932 to 1945.
Changes in the volume of membership of CPUS A
At beginnins^ of Total
the year of — membership
1930 7,500
1931.. 8,339
1932 12,936
1933 16,814
1934.. 24,500
' Including 13,000 in the Armed Forces.
At beginning of Total
the vear of — Con. membership
1935. 30,000
1936 40,000
1938 75,000
1944 1 66,000
1945 80,000
Election returns for 1928, 1932, 1936, and 1940 show how many-
voters actually supported the Communist Party presidential candi-
dates, except in the States where the party was not admitted on
the ballot. In 1932 this figure was approximately seven tirnes the
party membership figures as given by Browder. In 1940, during the
highly unpopular Stalin-Hitler pact, it closely approximated the party
membership figure, on a one-vote-per-party-member basis.
The Progressive Party backing Henry A. Wallace was publicly
supported by the Communist Party. In this connection the Senate
Internal Security Subcommittee received on October 7, 1954, the
testimony of Matthew Cvetic, a former FBI informant who had
worked his way into the Communist Party of western Pennsylvania,
becoming a member of its organizational, educational, and finance
committees as well as its nationality, political, and trade-union com-
missions. We quote him in part:
Now, we were directed, in a directive which was read to us in the Communist
Party headquarters, based on the Communist International of 1935, where all
Communist Parties in the world were ordered to set up in the various countries —
and this included the American Communist Party — a coalition party of Commu-
nists and Progressives * * * The primary steps which were taken during the
years after 1945 to consummate this objective — and this was as early as the last
part of 1945, in a report which was given by William Z. Faster, the then national
chairman of the Communist Party in which he stressed that one of the big objec-
tives of the Communist Party is the setting up of a coalition party in the United
States * * * And as a result of this report of William Z. Foster, subsequently
an organization known as the Progressive Party of the United States was organ-
ized on a national basis.
I was a member of the organizational committee of the Communist Party,
and as a member of this committee I was one of the eight ranking members of the
Communist Party for the western Pennsylvania district. The Progressive Party,
which later you Vill recall, in the 1948 campaign, had presidential candidates,
was set up by the organizational committee and also the political commission of
the Communist party. I myself sat in dozens of meetings where we set up the
Progressive Party * * * The personnel that moved around within the frame-
work of the Progressive Party in key positions were assigned out of the Communist
Party office * * * In other words,' it was controlled by planted, key Communist
agents, who had absolute control of the Progressive Party * * *
I attended meetings in Communist Party headquarters where we discussed
candidates who would be put up for office in the Progressive Party. _ And the
final determining factor of who the candidates would be was decided right in the
headquarters of the Communist Party * * *
36 THE COM]VrUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
I recall very vividly sitting in several meetings in Communist Party head-
quarters * * * and I recall why the decision to support Henry Wallace and Glen
Taylor was made. That was because they were two men who were willing to
work with the Communist Party in this coalition party * * *
And, too, when we had on 2 or 3 occasions meetings in Pittsburgh, Pennsyl-
vania, at which Henry Wallace and Glen Taylor spoke, the fund-raising ac-
tivities and the ticket-sales activities in connection with these meetings were
directed right out of the headquarters of the Communist Party * * *
On the same day, John Lautner, a former member of the review-
commission of the CPUSA, testified regarding the party's efforts to
"break out from its isolation" by forming the Progressive Party, and
he declared:
It enabled the Communist Party to reach into ranks, into sections, of the Ameri-
can population into which they could never have reached before, and it opened
up all kinds of new possibilities for the Communist Party throughout the country
and enabled the party to carry on a Communist ideological campaign in the labor
movement, in the trade-union movement * * * In addition to that, because it
was not necessary for the Communist Party to put forth its own national candi-
dates, Wallace and Taylor served that very same purpose for the Communist
Party.
In the light of the above, it is interesting to note the distribution of
the popular vote for Wallace ui 1948, totaling 1,137,957.
Popular vole, 1948, for president
Source: Compiled by the United Press from official and unofficial returns (as of Dec. 1, 1948) >
States
Alabama ,
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida..
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky.
Louisiana
Maine.-
Maryland
Massachusetts.
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri .,
Montana
Nebraska .,
Wallace,
Progressive
1,522
3,310
751
190, 381
6,115
13, 713
1,050
11, 683
1,636
4,972
9,649
12, 125
4,603
1,567
3,035
1,884
9,983
38, 157
38, 955
27, 866
225
3,998
6,641
States
Nevada
New Hampshire.
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York ,
North Carolina...
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon..
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina...
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah.
Vermont
Virginia.
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Total vote.
Wallace,
Progressive
1,400
1,970
42, 683
1,037
eOl, 167
3,915
8,220
37, 596
14, 661
55,161
2,587
154
2,801
1,861
3,764
2,679
1,279
1,863
29, 745
3,311
25, 282
931
1, 137, 957
• Taken from the World Almanac 1919 ,p. fll.
THE COMIVrUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 37
Presidential election returns by States for Communist party candidates
State
1928
1932
1936
1940
Alabama .
406
406
175
1,023
679
609
Ari7onfi _ _ - - -
184
317
216
675
730
Arkrinsas
164
10, 877
497
1,193
52
California .
13, 586
378
1,091
DoljiwarG - --- ---
133
Florida . .
3,704
64
OporETia
23
491
15, 582
2,187
559
Idaho -
276
Illinois - -
381
1,090
506
Iowa
328
320
293
1,524
272
■ 204
162
1,031
4,821
9,318
6,101
257
915
2,930
3, 384
2, 574
411
636
2,464
2,881
4,853
1,274
Massachusetts- _ -
3,806
2,834
2,711
IVTissonri _ _- - ---- -
568
1,775
417
385
563
489
New Hampshii'e
173
1, 257
158
10,884
264
2,915
135
27,956
193
1,590
43
35, 609
11
360
5,251
8,814
Npw IV-lpxico - - ---
936
2,386
830
7,231
545
Ohio
1,094
4,726
283
1,681
5,658
546
104
4, 060
411
191
4, 519
Rhode Island
239
232
111
209
47
364
234
207
947
195
86
2,972
444
3,112
180
319
253
280
405
98
1,907
Texas
212
191
Vermont
411
173
1,541
401
1,528
71
M'^ashintrton
2,626
Wisconsin - -
2,197
91
2,394
44, 748
100, 990
79, 306
49, 102
Source: World Almanac, 1950, from official returns by States.
HOW TO MEASURE COMMUNIST INFLUENCE
Communist influence cannot be estimated properly merely by
comparing its votes or membership with those of political parties.
Those who declare that the Communist Party is no menace because
its membership and voting strength constitute only a fraction of a
percent of the total membership and voting strength of major political
parties are deluding themselves and others. This approach is the
root cause of a mistaken policy which has already done considerable
harm and which may bring even more disastrous results. The
simplicity of this approach is Ijorn of sheer ignorance of the problem.
Each party member or sympathizer must be evaluated in terms of
his political, social, and economic weight and influence and the fact
that he has the backing of a major foreign power. The collective
influence of this group cannot be judged as a mere arithrnetical sum
of members and sympathizers, since one arm of this conspiracy lends
support to and supplements the other in a highly synchronized manner.
38 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
We must keep this in mind in estimating the influence of this tightly
organized, coordinated, and aggressive group and its combined effect
upon an amorphous, comparatively unorganized mass of people who
are, for the most part, blissfully unaware that they are being worked
upon by a conscious, conspiratorial group with a clear-cut policy.
We must remember that in a highly sensitive and articulated society
like ours, it is not difficult to cause havoc by a strategic dislocation.
Communists make a practice of seeking out such points of vantage.
Thus a party member or sympathizer may be an official of a labor
union with thousands of members which can tie up a given com-
munity or industry. He may be an unpublicized Government official
who prepares memoranda on policy afl'ecting the entire Nation. He
may be an atomic scientist with access to highly secret information
vital to our security. He may be a writer, a preacher, or a radio
commentator with a vast audience. He may be a script writer whose
film or radio message, voiced by a popular star, reaches millions.
He may be an actor whose popularity is exploited by the party to
sponsor its front organizations and public appeals. He may be an
artist with a mass following in the art world. He may be the descend-
ant of some well-known family tracing its ancestry to the days of the
American Revolution, whose name adds glamour to Communist
enterprises. He may be the leader of a tenants league or a community
organization. He may be the idol of a racial or foreign language group.
In each case the individual's influence radiates to ever-widening
circles with an effect similar to that of a stone thrown into a pool.
RESIGNATIONS AND EX-COMMUNISTS
Government agencies are sometimes confronted with cases in which
individuals claim that they have resigned from the Communist Party.
Under no circumstances should such a statement be accepted at its
face value. Party members have been known to use this device when
they are convinced that their previous Communist affiliations are
known and provable. In other cases, as for instance in connection
with the signing of non-Communist affidavits, the party will instruct
members who are trade-union officials to formally resign while re-
maining under party discipline. It should be remembered that party
membership is not looked upon as a possession of the individual, but
strictly a possession of the party, to give, withhold, or retract. The
party does not recognize any voluntary resignation. Those who fall
from the good graces of the organization are expelled.
The attitude of the world Communist organization toward resigna-
tions is reflected in section 30 of the Statutes of the Communist Inter-
national from which we quote in part:
Resignation from office by individual members or groups of members of
Ceiitral Committees of the various Sections is regarded as disruptive of the Com-
munist movement. Leading posts in the Party do not belong to the occupant of
that post, but to the Communist International as a whole. * * *
Certain tests may be made to determine the legitimacy and sin-
cerity of a resignation. No one of them should be considered as com-
plete and decisive. They should be judged in terms of the pattern
of the individual's pro-Communist or anti-Communist behavior since
the resignation. The following questions may properly be asked in
connection with each resignation: Does the individual have a carbon
THE COM]VnjNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 39
copy of his resignation? What was the real motive of the resigna-
tion? Was he or the Communist Party or one or more of its con-
trolled organizations in a position to benefit thereby? What was the
attitude of the Communist press toward the action? Do his views,
writings, readings, associations, and general attitude indicate that he
is still loyal to the party line or that he has, in fact, repudiated it?
Can he corroborate this claimed repudiation of the party with written
evidence or the statements of known anti-Communists? The indi-
vidual's record with the FBI since his resignation is, of course, im-
portant. A test of the individual's sincerity is his willingness to ex-
pose his associates in the ranks of the Communist conspiracy and its
methods of operations. Unwillingness to do this may indicate some
remnants of loyalty to the party. At the same time, it should be
made clear by Government agencies that such information is looked
upon as a valuable contribution to the security of the country and
not, as the Communists would have it regarded, as an act of petty
talebearing.
There are definite cases on record where withdrawals from the party
are apparently under party instructions. A number of known Com-
munist union leaders have signed non-Communist affidavits in order
to be in a position to avail themselves of the machinery of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board. During World War II, known Com-
munists, who were members of the Armed Forces, were allegedly given
a leave of absence in order to make them eligible for commissions.
This did not prevent them from faithfully following the Communist
Party line and from holding official positions in the Communist Party
after the close of the war. Such instructed withdrawals are clearly
suspect. _ , ^
Effective countermeasures against the worldwide Communist con-
spiracy require an intelligent attitude toward the ex-Communists both
here and abroad. In the event of actual armed conflict with the
Soviet Union, psychological warfare wiU play an important part in
determining victory. We must know how to win over the forces of
a possible enemy. We must develop skill in handling those we have
succeeded in disaffecting. In a sense, our handling of the ex-
Communists in this country gives us valuable preliminary training
which should be highly useful in the event of an actual conflict. A
policy of once-a-Communist-always-a-Communist would be disastrous.
Given a dictatorship, guarded by its ruthless secret police, with its
15 milhon slave laborers, with its 100 milHon peasants groaning under
the yoke of collectivization, with low hving standards and general
dissatisfaction, there is every reason to believe that the proper type
of psychological warfare could do much to disaffect Communist
forces, to shorten a war, and save many lives. A wrong approach
would retard the process of disaffection and strengthen the hand of the
Communists. It must be remembered in this connection, that by
using unsound methods the Nazis repelled millions of Russians who
deserted in the last war, and thus solidified the forces of the Red army.
Within our own borders it is estimated that it takes from 10 to 20
investigators to keep 1 subject under constant surveillance. With a
party membership of 22,663, and at least 10 times that number of syrn-
pathizers, it would take a secret police of close to a million to maintain
a constant surveillance of this group. This is utterly contrary to our
democratic traditions and would mean the setting up of an enormous
40 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
American Gestapo or MVD. Within the Hmits of its resources,
the FBI is, of course, doing a magnificent job. _ Nevertheless, it must
be recognized that in combating a conspu'atorial organization inchid-
ing, directly or indirectly, at times, within its orbit, more than half a
mSlion individuals and at the same time exerting its efforts against
crime of every conceivable type, the FBI is confronted with a stupen-
dous task. Hence the necessity of relying upon aU available informa-
tion which can be obtained from ex-Communists.
It is sometimes asked, "How do we know the reformed Communists
have actually reformed? How do we know that they are not secret
agents of Joseph Stalin?" Such questions may be based upon sheer
ignorance of the problem coupled with a desire to disguise that
ignorance by the assumption of an attitude of apparent supercaution
without any specific foundation. They may be based upon a stubborn
unwillingness to face hard and unpleasant facts. On the other hand,
they may be the result of a Communist plant intended to cast doubt
upon those who can best expose them. From the Communist view-
point it is excellent strategy to confuse opponents and discredit
most effective witnesses. This shallow skepticism toward ex-
Communists is so.netimes found in circles which have been consistently
apologetic and defensive toward the Communists. ^
The answer to the above questions, of course, is that intelligence
and commonsense are required in dealing with both Communists
and ex-Communists. There is no substitute or short cut. The fact
of the matter is that in judicial and deportation cases thus far,
including the cases of Alger Hiss, Harry Bridges, the 11 Communists
leaders, Harold Christoffel, and many others, the testimony of
ex-Communists has demonstrated a high level of credibility under
rigorous cross-examination and investigation.
Those who do not understand the Communist underworld are apt
to misunderstand all that is involved in turning against the Com-
munist Party. It is not nearly so simple as repudiating a political
party.
As indicated above. Communist headquarters maintain an elaborate
dossier on each individual party member to be used as a club against
any possible defection. Widely circulated smear campaigns directed
against anyone who attacks the party or its constituents serve as
a powerful deterrent. Those who have earned their livelihood by
grace of the Communist machine, in a Communist-front organization
or through one of its unions or publications, are immediately penalized
by this vast apparatus.
The history of the international Communist movement is replete
with cases in which dissidents have been assassinated or have mysteri-
ously disappeared. Former Soviet Intelligence Chief Walter G.
Krivitsky was found shot in a Washington hotel in the early forties.
George W. Alberts, an opponent of Communists in the maritime field,
was found dead on board the steamship Point Lobos in 1941, beaten
with blunt instruments and hacked with knives. Juliet Stuart Poynlz,
a leading New York Communist, suddenly vanished without a trace
in the late thirties. Laura Law, who was threatening an expose of
the party in the State of Washington, mysteriously disappeared.
The pvrging and liquidation of leading Communists is a common
occurrence in countries behind the Iron Ciu-tain and in the Soviet
Union. It thus takes some courage for an ex-Communist to defy
THE COMMinsnST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 41
this nefarious machine. Under the circumstances, ex-Communists
might be expected to prefer obscurity and safety.
Wliat is the motive which impels an ex-Commimist to testify in
court or before a congressional committee in spite of the risks which he
knowingly takes? It is simple to ascribe it to a mere desire for
pubhcity; and this may be true in the rare case of a Matusow. But
it is also possible that a person who has been disillusioned "With Com-
munist claims and who is fully convinced that this movement is
dangerously antisocial and an ti- American might be moved by a deshe
to safeguard his country from what he now realizes to be a real and
pressing danger, having now determined to crusade as devotedly for
his country as he once did for a movement which misled and deceived
him. Experience has indicated this is the actual motivation in the
cases of most former Communists who have given testimony against
the party.
Some will ask, "How can you believe an ex-Communist who
admittedly has resorted to lies and deceit and who has been willing
to ally himself with a movement which demands outright disloyalty
to the United States in behalf of the Soviet dictatorship and which
condones every crime from treason to murder in support of its efforts?"
To answer this question properly, it is necessary to understand the
processes by which the Communist moral code is built up. In this
connection we wish to quote as this point the report of the Canadian
Royal Commission of June 27, 1946, which dealt with Communist
espionage cases, in which individuals were conditioned by a series of
study courses. In view of the highly coordinated and disciplined
character of the international Communist movem t , this practice
must be viewed as typical:
As the courses of study in the "cells" undermine gradually the loyalty of the
young man or woman who joins them, it is necessary to say something as to the
content of the courses pursued in them, as that is reflected by the evidence.
The curriculum includes the study of political and philosophic works, some of
them far from superficial, selected to develop in the students an essentially critical
attitude toward Western democratic society. This phase of the preparation also
includes a series of discussions on current affairs, designed to further a critical
attitude toward the ideals of democratic society.
But this curriculum would appear in reality to be designed not to promote social
reform where it might be required, but to weaken the loyalty of the group
member toward his or her own society as such.
Linked with these studies at all stages, moreover, goes an organized indoctrina-
tion calculated to create in the mind of the study-group member an essentially
uncritical acceptance at its face value of the propaganda of a foreign state.
Accordingly, the study-groups are encouraged to subscribe to Communist
books and periodicals * * * as well as selected books on Russia.
In some cases the effect of these study courses seems to be a gradual develop-
ment of a sense of divided loyalties, or in extreme cases of a transferred loyalty.
Thus it seems to happen that through these study-groups some adherents, who
begin by feeling that Canadian society is not democratic or not equalitarian enough
for their taste, are gradually led to transfer a part or most of their loyalties to
another country, apparently without reference to whether that other country
is in actual fact more or less democratic or equalitarian than Canada.
Indeed, a sense of internationalism seems in many cases to play a definite role
in one stage of the courses. In these cases the Canadian sympathiser is first
encouraged to develop a sense of loyalty, not directly to a foreign state, but to
what he conceives to be an international ideal. This subjective internationalism
is then usually linked almost inextricably through the indoctrination courses and
the intensive exposure to the propaganda of a particular foreign state, with the
current conception of the national interests of that foreign state and with the
current doctrines and policies of Communist Parties throughout the world. * * *
42 THE COMMUlSriST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A further objective, pursued through the study-group is gradually to inculcate
in the secret membership of the Communist Party a habit of complete obedience to
the dictates of senior members and officials of the Party hierarchy. This is
apparently accomplished through a constant emphasis, in the indoctrination
courses, on the importance of organization as such, and by the gradual creation, in
the mind of the new adherent or sympathiser, of an overriding moral sense of
"loyalty to the Party". This "loyalty to the Party" in due course takes the place
in the member's mind of the earlier loyalty to certain principles professed by the
Party propaganda. * * *
The indoctrination courses in the study groups are apparently calculated not
only to inculcate a high degree of "loyalty to the Party" and "obedience to the
Party," but to instill in the mind of the adherent the view that loyalty and obedi-
ence to the leadership of this organization takes precedence over his loyalty to
Canada, entitles him to disregard his oaths of allegiance and secrecy, and thus
destroys his integrity as a citizen. * * * (pp. 72-75).
In other words, the Communist is indoctrinated with a standard of
loyalty to the Soviet Union similar to that which moves the American
soldier to justify killing an enemy, spying and lying to accomplish the
enemy's defeat. Nevertheless, this individual soldier may be a per-
fectly honest, moral and upright citizen in his dealings with his fellow
men. Hence it is conceivable that once he has fully and sincerely
repudiated his Communist moral code the individual could and would
simultaneously repudiate the type of behavior which it justified.
Failure to understand how to handle the ex-Communist and how
to make full use of his inside knowledge of the Communist conspiracy
may result in costly errors for the United States.
RECRUITING
No political party in the country is as aggressive in recruiting new
members as is the Communist Party, nor as systematic. J. Peters in
his Manual on Organization lays down the principle that "Continuous
daily recruiting is the basic task of every Unit and each individual
member of the Party."
Recruiting is compulsory with each party member, who is expected
to fulfill his share of the quota assigned to his club or section in regular
Party Recruiting Campaigns. These campaigns are usually concen-
trated upon vs^orkers in the basic industries, upon Negroes, whom
the party considers as useful, explosive tinder in promoting social
friction and upon influential people in various walks of life. Each
party member is expected to keep a list of prospects whom he is ex-
pected to cultivate systematically, under specific party direction. In
her pamphlet The Communist Party and You, Betty Gannett,
Assistant Organization Secretary of the CPUSA, makes the following
suggestions:
a Communist must constantly help to educate his fellow workers, through the
sale and distribution of Communist literature, securing subscriptions for the
Communist press, individual discussions, and through influencing the most mili-
tant workers to join the Communist Party * * *
* * * make new friends, especially in your shop, your union, your organiza-
tion, or the neighborhood in which you live. You will find that our Communist
press our hundreds of popular pamphlets, will help you bring them nearer to our
Party. Use this material constantly — it is your best aid.
It is also true that the party has a tremendous turnover as converts
become disillusioned and drop out. Hence the importance of at-
tracting new gullibles.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 43
The following account of the recruiting of an American Communist
15 to be found in Life for January 5, 1948:
He joined the party in 1935, when he was 20 years old. It wasn't simple, like
joining the Democratic party or the Elks. It was the reward for three years of
work, study and obedience to discipline * * * It began when he was still a
high-school student in Chicago as social pleasure and what he thought then to
be intellectual adventure * * * There were parties, picnics, beach suppers, all
with songs and laughter, discussions and admiring girls * * * Of course there
was another side to all this. There were tasks, little ones at first, more important
ones later. He distributed literature at mass meetings, walked in a hunger march,
and it was rather fun, even a little exciting. He did not notice that he was being
watched by the older men, watched for ability and obedience * * * Soon he was
attending "the Workers' School three evenings a week. One or two evenings he
worked on party activities — wrapping newspapers at the print shop, attending
mass meetings, picketing the mass meetings of other organizations * * * After
three months of the Workers' School he could spot a "supporter," a "diversionist"
or a "dissenter" in a conversation on the weather * * * He had his membership
in tlie party * * *
WHAT MAKES A COMMUNIST TICK?
The question is often asked, "What makes an individual join the
Communist Party in the first place?" No single answer will suffice.
In each case there may be a different motive or a mixture of motives.
In some cases they are the result of normal psj'chological factors.
Sometimes there are distinctly abnormal features involved. It is
necessary to understand these motives and factors if we are success-
fully to deal with the problem.
A trite explanation offered by the ill-informed is that communism
is a product of inequalities under our social system. Hence, these
people argue, if we will alleviate these conditions, we will never have
to worry about communism. Since it is manifestly impossible to
devise a social system in which everybody will be satisfied, this would
mean that we should meekly fold our arms and accept communism in
our midst as a necessary evil for which we ourselves are chiefly to
blame. In the second place, this approach overlooks the fact that
milHons of dollars spent on cleverly devised Communist propaganda
is bound to have some effect in any society, no matter how relatively
contented, especially when supplemented by the activities of thousands
of ardent zealots.
The misery theory of communism runs contrary to the actual facts
in our country. New York State, for example, has approximately 50
percent of the total Communist Party membership and leads the
country. Yet it is second in terms of per capita income as well as per
capita school expenditures. California is second with approximately
16 percent of the total party membership and yet it is fourth in terms
of per capita income and seventh in terms of per capita school ex-
penditures. Similarly, Illinois is third in membership standing with
approximately 5 percent and yet it is sixth in per capita income and
third in terms of money spent for schools.
Conversely, Mississippi is lowest in the scale of Communist Party
membership but is also lowest in per capita income. The misery
theoiy of communism does not jibe with these figures nor with the
fact that such wealthy persons as Frederick Vanderbilt Field, and
prominent members of the Hollywood film colony, have been found
to be members of the Communist Party. Indeed the misery theory
of communism is exactly what the Communists would have us believe,
in order to mislead us.
370804°— 55 4
44 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A corollary to this theory is that workers are attracted to the
Communist Party in the hope of improving their lot economically.
Despite Russia's claim to be a workers' repubhc, the Communist
movement, by its disruptive tactics and support of Soviet slave labor
camps, has aroused the deepest hostility of labor. Labor has, there-
fore, expressed Uttle desire to migrate to the so-called workers' Para-
dise. Both the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of
Industrial Organizations are today bitteHy fighting the Communists.
In his report to the plenary session of the national committee of the
CPUSA held on March 23-25, 1950, Henry Winston, organizational
secretary, deplored the party's "central weakness in the fight to win
the workers" and declared that in its effort to win support for Henry
A. Wallace's Progressive Party the union "rank-and-file generally" did
not respond. He emphasized the fact that "the coalition tactic our
Party worked out beginning with the 1948 convention was not fully
unfolded in the shops." Thus the Communist Party has little ground
for the label of "proletarian."
It would seem, on the contrary, that a large percentage of the party
consists of mission-minded intellectuals who have constituted them-
selves the exponents of the interest of labor, which wants no part of
them.
William Bledsoe, former editor of the Screen Guild Magazine in
Hollywood, has brilliantly described the reactions of wealthy movie
stars and writers in his article entitled "Revolution Came to Holly-
wood," which appeared in the February 1940 issue of the American
Mercury. These cases are by no means typical of the industry at the
present time.
I saw Social Consciousness quicken and come to a boil in actors, writers, and
directors whose names rival Rinso and Camels as household words. I followed
the insurrection mass meeting by mass meeting, cocktail party by cocktail party,
until many a Big Name was more or less secretly enrolled in the Communist Party
or tagging along solemnly in one of the "front" leagues and committees * * *
I3ut on the whole Hollywood is a city of unhappy successful people. And that,
it seemed to me, was the basis for communism with two butlers and a swimming
pool * * *.
Actors, writers, directors and Hollywoodians on the fringes of the movie busi-
ness joined Party "fractions" which met in Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Brent-
wood underground cells to hear the Party line * * *,
One famous comedian wrote an article for the Screen Guild Maga-
zine entitled "Are We Laborers?" in which he attempted to prove that
the actor or writer, like the truckdriver, is a proletarian slave writhing
in the chains of capitalism. Another famous script writer propounded
the question "Is the Middle Class in the Middle?" to which he
answered, "If the middle class wants to get rid of its white collar of
servitude, it had better get its picket lines in order."
Screenwriter Mary C. McCall in the Screen Guild Magazine for
February 1937 said that for those enlisted in the good cause, "fife
begins" at 5:30. She declared:
Then we can listen to speeches and sign pledges, and feel that warming glow
which comes from being packed in close with a lot of people who agree with
you — a mild hypnotism, and exhilarating pleasurable hysteria.
Living as they do in an unreal world of images, some of them envy
the farmer and the laborer for his contact with reality. The Com-
munist myth offers a dream world which has all the earmaiks of
THE COMMUjSTIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 45
reality. For them the Soviet "paradise" is that reality, in which at
last they have a personal and contributory stake.
The special May Day issue of the Daily Worker for April 30, 1950,
demonstrated the type of middle class professionals attracted by the
Communist Party. This issue carried paid greetings from:
A group of Queens' dentists
A group of Manhattan physicians
A group of Bronx dentists
A group of college teachers
Manhattan dentists
A progressive Doctor of Chiropractic
White Collar Section, CPUSA
Cultural Division, N. Y. State Communist Party
Progressive Playwrights
A group of librarians
According to John Williamson, then organizational secretary of the
Communist Party of the United States of America, WTiting in Political
Affairs for February 1946, "71% of the Party in New York City
consists of white collar workers, professionals and housewives."
In a number of cases it will be found that the party is a refuge for
certain psychologically maladjusted individuals. A nurse at a neuro-
logical clinic in New York affirmed some years ago that she recom-
mended joining the Communist Party for some of her maladjusted
patients who needed some outlet for their nervous energy and she
added that the prescription had brought good results in some instances.
In Masses and Mainstream, a Communist mon;.hly magazine, for
November 1949, Francis H. Bartlett, a psychiatrist, explains "how
capitalism causes neuroses" and he advises involving "the neurotic
individual in a cooperative effort with us to understand and root
out the individualistic goals to which he clings."
In the same issue of Masses and Mainstream, Joseph Wortis,
another psychiatrist who has since invoked the fifth amendment in
refusing to answer inquiry regarding his Communist Party member-
ship, describes how "progressive" psychoanalysts deliver public
lectures "on the ps3'chological consequences of capitahsm" which
"leaves many in the audience frightened and palpitating, with no
alternative but to place themselves and their families at the disposal
of the already overtaxed facilities of the lecturer."
A recent example is the case of Mrs. Jean Murray, a former Com-
munist, charged with trying to blackmail prosecution witnesses in the
trial of Harry Bridges. She was sent for psychiatric examination by
Federal Judge Louis B. Goodman in San Francisco after she attacked
the court attendants, screaming, "Workers arise. Prepare yourself
for the revolution."
Maladjusted individuals feel themselves isolated. Communist
theory places the blame for such maladjustments upon society rather
than the individual which is a comforting thought for the individual
concerned. Mr. Bartlett holds out the following promise to those who
would join in the "struggle against capitalism."
In this process, the barriers between individuals are broken down; people develop
closer bonds with each other; they identify themselves with broader and broader
segments of humanit}'; they lose the sense of isolation and develop feelings of
sohdaritj\ * * * jji short, their lives, in spite of capitalism and against it, begin
to acquire significauce and direction.
46 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Joseph North, a feature writer for the Daily Worker of May 3,
1950, describes another case of a "gifted writer * * * a Communist,"
who told North "she was being psychoanalyzed." "I have been
having trouble in a group where I belong," she said. She brought her
troubles to her psychoanalyst and his advice was to leave the group,
she said, because it "deflates my ego." She reported no such negative
reaction from her membership in the Communist Party.
The neurotic person is baffled by the complexities of modern society.
The Marxist-Leninist formula offers a readymade answer to all
questions. The Communist is firmly convinced that in place of the
"old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms," he
possesses the key to Utopia "in which the free development of each is
the condition for the free development of all" (Marx).
Psychiatrists admit that the problems of the adolescent border
closely upon those of the neurotic. They are similar in many respects.
The adolescent tends to rebel against the domination of his parents and
adults generally. He is seeking a medium through which to declare
his personal independence. In a sense he is maladjusted. The Com-
munist movement, for its own insidious purpose, offers him a circle in
which he believes he will be taken seriously. It will publish his
articles in a youth magazine. It will offer him an audience for his
artistic talents. It will make him an executive secretary of some front
organization and give him authority he has never had before. He,
therefore, accepts its discipline voluntarily, even enthusiastically.
More than that. By dint of his acceptance of the Marxist-Leninist
dogma, he suddenly feels himself superior to his parents and the
adult world around him. He now has all the answers. It gives him
a certain confidence and sense of assurance. One young Communist
even went so far as to write an article entitled "My Father Is a Liar"
in the New Masses some years ago. In 1940 a group of young Com-
munists booed President Roosevelt on the White House lawn, the
first time in our history that such a disrespectful act was committed
against an American President. Unfortunately our school system
has not fully equipped our young men and women to see through
Communist sophistry and trickery.
The Communist movement offers attractive bait to those who
crave companionship and excitement. It offers relief from boredom.
One issue of the Daily Worker, for example, in its "What's On?"
column invited its readers to —
Films, discussion, dance Maritime shindig
Folk dancing Jefferson theater workshop
Welcome home party for Mike Gold May Day workshop dance
Vote Your Own Film Club Soviet film
Saturday Night Film Club Pre-May Day social
Negro-White Unity Cultural Festival Balalaika Symphonic Orchestra concert
Artists ball One hour of social theater
People's drama theater Chinese cultural cabaret
Spring frolic
Once an individual enters the Communist Party, he separates
himself psychologically from hfe outside the party, from his former
social contacts, his family, and his business associates. He lives in a
world which is hermetically sealed off from the outside by a more and
more impenetrable iron curtain of continuous indoctrination to which
he has become addicted to the exclusion of all other outside sources
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 47
of information and thought. He rehes upon party Hterature, schools,
and spokesmen for his views and information. He attends pro-
Communist plays. If he attends a concert or a social function, it is
one given as a benefit for the Daily Worker or some other Communist
cause. It is a satisfying experience for certain types of people. In
this closed circle the Communist hears the same Communist cliches
reiterated over and over again with never a doubting word. It is
like listening to familiar music. He meets the same or similar people
wherever he goes, all moving in the same Communist rut. Here he
can be sure of approbation and sympathy, since he. is always among
his ideological kinfolk. He is never isolated.
Added to all this is the excitement of picket lines, strikes, mass
meetings, parades, demonstrations, tiffs with the police, and arrests.
An active Communist will sometimes attend several meetings a day.
In other words, there is not a dull moment.
There is no doubt that the Communist network holds an attraction
for adventurous spirits who thrive on the conspiratorial atmosphere
within the party, the secret meetings, the resort to aliases, the para-
phernalia of illegality and opposition to constituted authority.
Those who have a tendency to rebel against tradition and conven-
tion— the Bohemians and the nonconformists of all stripes, are
naturally attracted to the Communist movement. By its repudiation
of so-called capitalist ethics and moral standards, the party provides
a welcome philosophical sanction for the lunatic fringe. According
to Communist theory, the family, as we know it, is an institution
designed to protect and extend property rights, which are anathema
to the Reds. By branding our Government as capitalistic, Com-
munist philosophy justifies any breach or defiance of governmental
authority.
There are timid souls, persons with a distinct inferiority complex
who are inspired to boldness when they become part of an aggressive
group. The wolf who is a coward singly becomes a scourge as part of
a pack. Psychologists refer to these people aptly as ambitious
cowards. A Communist writer, who is himself a temperamental
coward, will find considerable delight and satisfaction in writing in
the columns of the (Communist) Daily. Worker resounding and defiant
tirades against the monopolists and those in high places in the
Government.
The party is, in a sense, a vehicle for anyone with an ax to grind,
for anyone who has become embittered either by some unfortunate
personal or emotional experience, a victim of some serious physical
ailment or handicap, a second-rate artist, a lawyer without clients,
a doctor without patients, a writer without an outlet, or a preacher
without a parish, whose personal ego is soothed by the thought that
it is all the fault of the capitalist system. He finds, in the party, an
instrument to vent his spleen against the imagined source of injury,
as well as a receptive audience.
It is often asked why a Communist who is most vehement before
an agency of the American Government in defense of civil rights,
will meekly submit, without debate or protest, to the slightest whim'
of a Soviet dictator or the Communist Party, USA, even though it
may mean a complete repudiation of his most sacred principles.
Thus the Commimist who had, for years, denounced nazism and all
its works, reconciled himself overnight to the Stalin-Hitler Pact, and
48 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
for him nazism became merely a "matter of taste." Similarly those
who fumed against capitalism and Wall Street became willing to shake
the hand of J. P. Morgan, as soon as Earl Browder, then general secre-
tary of the Communist Party, gave such party heresy his blessing,
during the period when Russia was desperately seeking a united front
against Nazi Germany.
In certain liberal circles, there is an illusion that the Communist
movement is the very epitome of democracy. It is, therefore, worth-
while to present at this point a description of inner party democracy in
the highest echelons of the party, by William Z. Foster, its chairman, in
Political Affairs for September 1945. Although the regime of former
General Secretary Earl Browder is referred to, there is no reason to
believe that the atmosphere has been changed under his successors :
He [Browder] had grown almost into a dictator. His authority reached such a
point that his word had become virtually unchallengeable in our Party. His
policies and writings finally were accepted almost uncritically by the leaders and
the general membership. Browder created around himself an atmosphere of in-
fallibility and unchallengeable authority. All this was accentuated by the deluge
of petty-bourgeois adulation, praisemongering and heroworship that was con-
stantly poured upon him by our leadership and our members * * * Comrade
Browder had largely liquidated the political functions of the Party's leading bodies.
He habitually bypassed the National Board in policy making * * * The National
Committee, also, had gradually lost all real political power. It assembled; it
listened to Browder 's proposals; it affirmed them; it dispersed to the districts to
impress the policy on the membership. Of genuine political discussion there was
none in the National Committee. Similarly, our recent National Conventions were
hardly better than the National Committee meetings — with their formal endorse-
ment of Browder's reports, no political discussions. * * *
Why does a freeborn American accept such humiliating and despotic
authority? In the first place, the Communist has been taught that the
end justifies any means, that the interests of the so-called First Social-
ist Repubhc, to which he has voluntarily dedicated himself, are para-
mount and justify any and every sacrifice. He wiUingly submits to a
discipline of his own choice regardless of where it may lead, surrender-
ing all right to independent judgment.
Why does a man hke Frederick Vanderbilt Field, scion of a million-
aire family, join the Communist Party? His case is not an isolated
one. It not infrequently happens that such an individual, who is
the heir of unearned millions, suffers from a severe guilt complex. He
feels his life of idleness is unproductive. Keenly sensitive to the
plight of the underdog, he throws in his lot with the Communist Party
to salve his conscience, believing that the party is the champion of the
underprivileged. He takes the party's word for it, making no attempt
to investigate for himself such Communist institutions as slave labor
camps, the secret police and the real plight of the common people be-
hind the Iron Curtain, In fact, he is so grateful to the party for the
spiritual relief it offers that he will furiously resent the efforts of any-
one who tries to set him straight with the truth about the Soviet Union
and communism generally.
It is not essentially correct to look upon Communists as ordinary
criminals. Strangely enough, they may commit the most heinous
•crimes, all the way from treason to murder, in the firm belief that they
are thereby furthering the interests of humanity. They may be pur-
suing the highest motives based upon the warped and erroneous con-
science which Communist doctrine has inculcated. Thus they will
justify the utmost ruthlessness, the Communist purge trials, the use
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AJVIERICA 49
of forced confessions and the forced collectivization of millions of
peasants, resulting in widespread famine and starvation. The favo-
rite cold-blooded apology is "You must break the eggs if you would
have an omelette," the omelette in this case being socialism. The
Communist, in other words, considers himself a soldier in the inter-
national Communist army defending the interests of international
communism and the Soviet Union which, in his eyes, morally justifies
the taking of life, spying, and all the activities of war. Hence all
anti-Communist programs must have in mind a twofold objective.
(1) The first objective must be the reeducation of Communists through
methods of persuasion and experience in order to reincorporate them
into the ranks of sane and constructive citizens. It must be recognized
that this is difficult since we are confronted in many cases with hard-
bitten bigots. Nevertheless, it should be attempted, since it is far more
desirable to have a sophisticated, well-informed, and loyal citizen who
can contribute his knowledge and experience to the fight against
communism than one who is dedicated to defiance of the Anierican
Government. (2) The second objective must be to invoke the full
penalty of the law against recalcitrants both as a deterrent and as a
means of the reeducation of those not responsive to objective number
one.
Communist faith often invokes the fervor of a new religion. The
party member feels he is a member of an elite group, who are privileged
to live in a cu'cle which is the germ of the new world of tomorrow.
The nonparty infidels, he thinks, are living in outer darkness m a
world which is decadent and doomed. For the apostles and prophets
of religion he substitutes Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.'
However, the Communist places himself on a higher pedestal than
would a mere religious convert. Communist theory has a certain
superficial logic which makes an appeal to the intellectual. Thus in
many cases individuals are recruited for the party thi-ough Communist
Party schools and theoretical works. Frequently emotional and ideal-
istic factors tend to blur the mental processes and to obliterate sound
standards of judgment w^hich the same individual wijl unhesitatingly
apply in some other intellectual field in which he may be an expert.
The Communist zealot is never as critical toward Communist theory
or practice as he would normally be in his studies or in industry.
Lest it be assumed that individuals join the Communist Party solely
because of certain psychological aberrations, for idealistic reasons or
because of the party's mtellectual appeal, it should be realized that the
organization is in a position to offer attractive material benefits.
There are businessmen who are completely dependent for contracts
upon the good graces of the Soviet Government. Communist lawyers,
accountants, and insurance men draw generous incomes from their
services to Communist unions, front organizations, or individual
Communists or sympathizers. Certain columnists, writers, musicians,
actors, and artists find it extremely profitable to cater to leftwing
intellectual and artistic cncles. The Communist patronage machine,
with its wide ramifications, is extremely solicitous of its faithful
followers. Communist-front organizations and unions offer a source
of jobs which are restricted to those who pay unquestioning homase
to the party line.
There are members of the Communist Party who suffer from intense
inner qualms about the correctness of the party line and about its
practices behind the Iron Curtain such as the maintenance of slave
labor camps, Soviet imperialism, anti-Semitism, the regimentation of
50 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
intellectuals and the suppression of civil rights. But in many cases
they do not have the spiritual and moral courage required to make
a break, which may sound fantastic to those who have no realization
of the pressures to which a member is subject. Having become
completely dependent upon his Communist surroundings and asso-
ciates for his mental, spiritual and social sustenance, having isolated
himself from non-Communist influences, friends and reading, he looks
upon the very thought of a break as a personal tragedy. He dreads
being cast out of the holy of holies, the temple of Soviet worship.
He fears the vilification and slander which will be directed against
him as a "renegade" by the Communist smear apparatus. Remem-
bering the mysterious case of Gen. Walter Krivitsky, former Soviet
intelligence oflicer found dead in a Washington hotel, and Juliet
Stuart Poyntz, who disappeared from the streets of New York City
without a trace, he stands in mortal terror of physical assault or
possible liquidation. If he is employed through a Communist union
or front organization, it may mean the loss of his job. Cases have
been known where the party has threatened with exposure those who
had become disaffected. It is much easier for the weak character to
swallow his pride and his principles and just go along.
COMMUNIST CLUBS
The nature of Communist organization fluctuates in strict accord-
ance with the current political climate in which the party finds itself.
During the period when Russia was our ally, when the Red army was
being glorified and the Communist Party was frantically supporting
our war efi'ort in order to save the "Soviet Fatherland" from Hitler's
legions, Communist clubs met openly, sometimes numbering hundreds
of participants in cities lil^e New York. Today when Russia has
made the United States the chief target of its "cold war" and sub-
versive activities, when the Communist Party is under fire and its
leaders subjected to jail sentences, these clubs have been subdivided
into groups of from 3 to 5, meeting secretly usually in homes. They
are of two types, the shop club and the community club.
THE SHOP CLUB, RED SPEARHEAD
The shop club is peculiar to the Communist Party and speciafly
suited to its subversive and conspiratorial purposes. No other
political party in this country has adopted this form of organization.
It is a direct importation from the experience of the Russian Com-
munist Party.
Lenin, the party's chief authority on matters of organization, long
ago pointed out for Communists throughout the world that "Every
factory is our stronghold." Prior to 1926, the American party was
built on the basis of national language federations. Speaking before
the sessions of the Enlarged Executive Committee of the Communist
International held in Moscow in April 1925, Gregory Zinoviev,
chairman of that body, specifically instructed the Workers (Com-
munist) Party, as it was then called, "to fuse the national sections
into a real united party." A directive letter was sent to the American
party by the Communist International in which the party was given
until December 1, 1925, to reorganize its two most important districts,
THE COREVIUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AIMERICA 51
New York and Chicago. It was pointed out that "The factory
nucleus is the best organizational method of uniting comrades belong-
ing to different nationahties" and that "the work of properly organiz-
ing the party will be best accomplished by the organization of factory
nuclei." For the guidance of American Communists, AIoscow dis-
patched a special instructor named Marcus, who wrote a pamphlet
"The Communist Nucleus, What It Is— How It Works" under the
pseudonym of M. Jenks. From time to time, the party's internal and
confidential organ carried additional detailed instruction from spe-
ciahsts of the Russian Communist Party. To supplement this, J.
Peters (deported to Communist Hungary in 1949) was sent to Moscow
in the early thirties where he received extensive training as a result
of which he wrote the authoritative "The Communist Party— A
Manual on Organization." Today the shop nucleus is more eupho-
niously called the shop club.
The Communist International has given clear directives to the
American Communist Party to concentrate upon large industrial
plants. It has even indicated what specific industries should be made
the target. For example, the Party Organizer of February 1933
declared:
The Communist International in January 1931 raised for our Party the need
of concentrating on the most decisive industries (mine, steel, textile, auto, marine)
in the five largest districts * * * (p. 5).
The same issue of the Party Organizer even pinpointed the cities
selected, including Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago, so
that the party might "firmly root itself in the decisive industries."
Since that time, these objectives have been broadened considerably
to include more key industrial cities.
In Political Affairs for May 1950, Henry Winston presents his report
to the plenary meeting of the national committee of the Communist
Party, USA, in which he points up the necessity for a maximum regis-
tration of party members in the following basic industries: Auto,
electrical, steel, coal, rubber, and railroad.
What is the purpose of this concentration upon key industries?
Again we must turn to the Communist International for a clear and
forthright reply. Its resolution on imperialist war adopted at its
sixth congress in the summer of 1928 is still the basic line today.
Presented as the "main task in the struggle against imperialist war
before it breaks out" is the following:
Factory and trade union activity must be concentrated primarily in the industries
which serve the mobilization for and conduct of war, like the metal industry,
the chemical industry, and transport * * *. Sideby side with other revolutionary
mass actions (demonstrations, strikes in munitions works, transport strikes, etc.)
the general strike * * * is an extremely important weapon * * *.
The thirteenth plenum of the executive committee of the Communist
International in December 1933 summed it up most succinctly when
it called upon affiUated Communist parties to "concentrate their
forces in each country, at the vital parts of the war machine of irn-
perialism." In Communist jargon, all countries which are anti-
Communist are labeled as "imperialist."
Despite the fact that workers as a group find communism repulsive,
it must be remembered that the Communist Party makes it an active
practice to colonize key industrial plants with aggressive, often college-
trained Communists who have been thoroughly indoctrinated and rep-
52 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
pared in party training schools. The presence of one such trouble-
maker in a large establishment can be the source of considerable
turmoil.
Operating secretly within a given plant to avoid detection, the party
mem.ber receives every possible outside aid through what is known as
"concentration," defined by J. Peters as the ultilization of "all avail-
able forces and organizations to penetrate the selected factory."
Distribution of the Daily Worker, of leaflets, open air meetings at the
factory gate, are all handled by party membere on the outside, house-
wives, students, etc. Leading party members are assigned to advise
those who are inside. Front organizations supplement their efforts.
J. Petei"s, signing himself J. P., stressed the importance of this task in
the Party Organizer for February 1933, as follows:
That District and Section Committees must consider their first political responsi-
bility to those units which are concentrated on the important plants. This means
that all the problems, in the cx)ncentration work, must be taken up in the respect-
tive committee, a clear line of policy developed * * * comrades should be
assigned to help the units to carry on the work, * * *
It is incumbent upon the Communists operating inside the plant to
exploit "even the most elementary grievances in the shop" and develop
"partial struggles around these demands." These struggles, strikes,
etc. are not to be limited to the particular plant but must be broadened
to involve other plants and to involve the workers in conflict with the
police and the government generally.
The Communist cell also functions as a source of information for
Soviet military intelligence. In the same issue of the Party Organizer,
F. B. or Fred Brown, alias for Alpi, an agent of the Communist Inter-
national, is most specific on this point:
An immediate task for the shop nuclei, for individual Party members working
in shops, metal plants, chemical factories, shipyards, on the waterfront, is to keep
their eyes open and see what is being shipped, what steps are being taken by the
bosses for the transformation of the industry into a war industry. * * * Real
efforts must be made to stop the shipment of ammunition.
It is of more than passing significance in this connection that the
man who was promoted to the small ruling secretariat position of
national secretary of the Communist Party, USA, is none other than
Gus Hall, alias for Arva Mike Halberg, Arvo Gust Halberg, Arvo
Kustaa Halberg, Gasper Hall, John HoUberg, and John Howell. He
has been convicted under the Smith Act. According to sworn testi-
mony before the city solicitor of Warren, Ohio, in 1937, he was the
leader of a bombing squad which obtained dynamite and nitroglycerin
and which was assigned by Hall to blow up and destroy property of
the Republic Steel Corp., the homes of nonstriking workers, railroad
property including tracks and bridges, huge tanks of highly volatile
benzol, a municipal dam controlling water supply and the municipal
electric light plant (hearings before the Special Committee on Un-
American Activities, November 4, 1938). The selection of Gus Hall
as one of the top leaders of the party is extremely significant.
Meetings of the shop club are called secretly — never by written
communication and usually by word of mouth. Even phone calls are
avoided. Meetings may be held in homes or in the local office of a
Communist-controlled union or sympathetic organization. If a
meeting room is rented, it is not hired in the name of the party. The
work is divided up among the chairman, the financial secretary in
THE COMlVrUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 53
charge of dues, the organizational director in charge of recruiting and
meeting arrangements, the press director in charge of Daily Worker
sales and distribution as well as other Communist literatm-e, educa-
tional director in charge of study classes and propaganda meetings.
As a rule, these meetings are held in the evening, once every week or
two. No minutes are kept, and financial records are kept in code.
Directives are presented orally from the next higher body by a per-
sonal representative. For conspiratorial purposes, it may be neces-
sary to divide up the members in a very large plant, into separate
clubs by departments.
For some time, the CPUSA published a confidential organ called
the Party Organizer, later known as Contact, which was devoted to
giving guidance to party members on matters of organization. Al-
though this magazine is no longer pubhshed, its advice is currently
relevant with the exception that it is now issued orally instead of in
writing. The March-April 1932 issue of the Party Organizer, in
describing correspondent C. B.'s experiences in the Bethlehem Steel
mill at Sparrows Point, Md., declares:
Grievances of the workers are sparks that can be developed into roaring
flames of strike if thej^ are carefully handled. The question is what to do with
this little spark * * * Revolutionary workers have the task of developing the
grievance to the highest level.
A study is made of the nature of the alleged "grievance," the de-
partments and workers affected. A leaflet is distributed dealing with
the "grievance." The correspondent continues:
The pay line on Monday will be especially "hot" first because of the grievance
itself; second because of the receipt of the leaflet; third, if our comrades par-
ticipate in the conversation and raise the agitation to a higher level, there
are great possibilities for singling out good prospects for a grievance group,
even to the extent of bringing workers right from the pay line to their own home
or bringing them to a designated place that was mentioned for this occasion where
several capable comrades would be on hand to speak to workers recruited in
this manner. * * *
This account was followed by another signed by J. B. who described
the party's activity against a new boss in the Fisher Body plant:
Immediately after this situation was reported a very small leaflet on this
matter was issued. This leaflet was distributed in this particular department in
various places such as machines, lockers, and all other spots where the worker
could easily see them. At lunch time one party comrade started to discuss the
leaflet and he urged that a grievance committee should be organized. The com-
mittee went to the superintendent demanding that the boss be removed. * * *
When the whistle blew, none of the workers returned to work. * * *
The activity of the shop club is not limited to the exploitation of
minor grievances but is consciously integrated into current Commu-
nist international policy. During World War II these shop clubs
were allegedly dissolved as a token gesture from our Soviet allies.
Today Communist parties throughout the world are emphasizing, as
their chief issue at the present time, the drive to immobilize the dem-
ocratic countries through a peace offensive. Literature distributed
is slanted to give the impression that the United States is controlled
by warmongers while the Soviet Union is referred to as "peace loving."
The party is quite flexible in its organizational forms. In some
cases, industry clubs are formed including members from a given
industry represented in a certain area, concentrating upon local
factories and union activities.
54 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COMMUNITY CLUBS
The bulk of the party membership is to be found in the community
clubs. These clubs serve a number of essential functions: (1) as
a local political dynamo contact and sparking point to stimulate
activity in local front organizations, unions, mass organizations, and
neighborhoods generally; (2) as a support and aid to nearby shop
clubs; (3) as a channel for intelligence information for officials at the
party center. These clubs usually operate under some protective
cover.
In determining the size of the community club, the party is caught
on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, if it would attract
public attention and support, it must hold public meetings and
encourage large attendance. On the other hand, it is compelled to
resort to conspiratorial secrecy by the fact that its activities in the
present period increasingly demand defiance of the law, outright dis-
loyalty to the United States and sacrificial loyalty to the Soviet
Union, thus arousing the ire of the public and subjecting it more and
more to stern punitive legal measures. The party has definitely
chosen the second alternative especially since 1945, dividing the
community clubs into small groups of about five. Public meetings
are held under the auspices of some convenient front organization
not unr'er the party.
In his Communist Party — A Manual on Organization, J. Peters
has indicated the type of issues to be exploited by street or town
units, including unemployment relief, the high cost of living, sanitary
conditions, sales tax, civil rights, police brutality, injunctions. He
adds:
Another important task of the Street and Town Unit is to help the Shop Units
in its territory and near to it * * * for example, systematic sale of the Daily
Worker in front of the factory; or S3'stematic holding of shop-gate meetings; dis-
tribution of leaflets or shop papers from the outside. The Street Unit can also
help the Shop Unit do open work around the factory, in the streetcar and bus
stations. * * * The Street Unit supports actively and takes part in the strike
struggles of the factory workers, and also mobilizes the neighborhood for sup-
port, furnishing reserves for the picket lines, conducting demonstrations, collecting
strike relief, etc.
Again by way of illustration, we cite an article in Contact for Sep-
tember 1947 by Oleta Yates, chairman of the San Francisco County
of the Communist Party:
Clubs must think in terms of moving people — ten, twenty, one hundred or
five hundred — in protest delegations, picket lines, demonstrations or other forms
of struggle.
The Daily Worker of April 26, 1950, cited, as an emulatory example
for its Communist readers the fact that "20 men and women were
found guilty of 'disorderly conduct' last week on a charge that grew
out of a demonstration at the 44 Stanton St. Welfare Department
center three weeks ago."
A representative list of Communist community clubs in the city of
New York as shown in the Daily Worker in the middle 1940's follows:
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 55
BEONX
Bedford Club
Begun Club (Mt. Eden)
Bronx Blvd. Club
Bryant Club (Tremont)
Burnside Youth Club
Cacchione Club
Cacchione (Mosholu) Club
Carver Youth Club
Castle Hill Club (Parkchester)
Club Anderson
Club Barker
Club Levin
Club Lincoln (Hunts Pt.)
Club 1 (Burnside)
Club 3
Club 4
Club 6
Club 8
Club 10
Dennis Club (Mt. Eden)
Elder Club (Parkchester)
Elder Tenants Club (Parkchester)
Elizabeth Stanton Club
Fisher Club (Parkchester)
Foster Club (Mt. Eden)
Flynn Club (So. Bronx)
Fordham Housewives Club
GunliiU Club
Haywood Club (Parkchester)
Hewitt Club (So. Bronx)
Italian C Club (Parkchester)
Jackson Club (So. Bronx)
Joe Brodsky Club
Joe Smith Club
Joe York Club (W. Bronx Youth)
Julius Fuchik (Pk. All. Youth) Club
Lucy Parsons Club
Melrose Club (Morrisania)
Melrose Youth Club
New Youth Club
N. Pelham 1 Club (Allerton)
N. Pelham 2 Club (Allerton)
N. Williamsbridge Club
Olgin Club (Mt. Eden)
Olgin Club (Tremont)
180th Club (Tremont)
Prospect Youth Club
Ruthenburg B Club
Shakespeare Club
Simpson Club
Sojourner Truth Club (E. Bronx Youth)
Solidarity Youth Club
Tom Paine Club
Upper Stadium Club
Van Cortlandt (Mosholu) Club
Vanguard Youth Club
Vets Club
West Farms 2 Youth Club
BEOOKLYN
Albermarle Club (So, Flatbush)
Avenue O Club
Avenue U Club
Banner Club (Brighton)
Bay 29th St. Club
BBOOKLTN — Continued
Bensonhurst Club (Bath Beach)
Beverly Club (So. Flatbush)
Boro Hall Youth Club
Brodsky Club (Midwood)
Brownsville Club
Brownsville Youth A Club
Buck Lazar Club
Cacchione Club (Bedford)
Cacchione Club (Crown Hts.)
Cacchione Club (Midwood)
Carver Club
Club C (12 A. D.)
Club C (24 A. D.)
Club 1
Club 3 (Bakers)
Club 5
Club 338
Coney Island Club
Dahill Club
Ditmas Club (So. Flatbush)
Douglass Club (E. N. Y.)
East Flatbush Club
Eastern District Club
Farragut Club (Flatbush)
Flynn Club (Bath Beach)
Fort Greene Club
Fort Hamilton Club
Foster Club (Bath Beach)
Freedom Club (Bath Beach)
Fulton Club (6 A. D.)
Cannes Club (11 A. D.)
Gleason Club
Greenpoint Club (Williamsburgh)
Gung-Ho Club
Halsey Club
Harry Barnett Youth Club
Highway Club (Bath Beach)
Hinsdale Club
J. Smith Club
Joe Stember Youth Club
John Brown Club
John Brown Youth Club
Kings Highway 1 Club
Kings Highway 2 Club
Kingston Club (Bedford)
Krumbein Club (Bath Beach)
Krumbein Club (Bedford)
Krumbein Club (Crown Hts.)
Krumbein Club (11 A. D.)
Krumbein Club (Kings Hwy.)
La Pasionara Club
L'Enero Club
Lewis Club
Longshore Club
Lower 16th Club
Luigi Gallo Club
Madison Club
Maugel Club
Mendy Club
Mendy Club (Kings Hwy.)
Mendy Youth Club
Middle 16th Club
Mike Ludlow Club
Neptune Club
New Lots Youth Club
New Utrecht Club (Bath Beach)
56 THE COMAIUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BROOKLYN — Continued
Oceana Club
Paine Club
Parkville Club
Parkway Club (Bedford)
Perlman Club (11 A. D.)
Plaza Club (Boro Hall)
Project Club (6 A. D.)
Restaurant Workers Club
Riverside Club (Boro Hall)
79th St. Club (Bath Beach)
Stillwell Club (Coney Island)
Stone Ave. Club
Tompkins Club
20th Ave. Club (Bath Beach)
Ulmer Club (Bath Beach)
Weiness Club
Williamsburgh Youth Club
Willie Milton Youth Club
Winthrop Club
MANHATTAN
Audubon North Club
Audubon South Club
B. Entin Club
Brodsky Club (5 A. D.)
Brodsky Club (8 A. D.)
Cacchione Club (Lower Manhattan
East)
Chain Corrugated Club
Claudia Jones Club
Club Bennett
Club Betances
Club Brodsky (Dist.)
Club Carlson
Club Forward
Club Galileo
Club Glumac
Club Gramsci
Club Isham
Club Larkin
Club Maltezos
Club A (Grand Central Section)
Club B
Club C
Club D-1
Club D-2
Club D-3
Club D-4
Club 1 (Lower Manhattan West)
Club 2 (Lower Manhattan West)
Club 2 (7 A. D. West)
Club 3 (Lower Manhattan West)
Club 3 (Lower West Side)
Club 3A
Club 4 (Lincoln Sq.)
Club 4 (Lower Manhattan West)
Club 4 (Printers)
Club 5 (Lower Manhattan West)
Club 5 (7 A. D.)
Club 5A
Club 6
Club n (Lower Manhattan West)
Club 6N
Club 6S
Club 7 (Fur)
Club 7 (Lower Manhattan West)
Club 7A
MANHATTAN — Continued
Club 8 (Lower Manhattan West)
Club 10
Club 21 Chelsea
Club 42 (Food)
Club 66 (Garment)
Club 89
Columbus Hill Club
Crawford Club
Cutters Club
Czech Club
Drieser Club (5 A. D.)
Dry Goods Club
Dyckman Club
East Harlem Youth Club
Emil Aine Club
15th St. Club (Lower Chelsea)
52d St. Club (Lincoln Sq.)
First E. D. Club
Freedom Club
Garibaldi Club (Lower Manhattan
East)
Garment Youth Club
Greek Adult Club
Harriet Tubman Club
Hillside Club (Inwood)
Hispano Club
J. Connolly Club (Wash. Hts.)
Jesus Menendez Club
Joe Hill Club (Forbes)
La Pasionara Club (Lincoln Sq.)
La Pasionara Club (10 A. D.)
Larkin Club (5 A. D.)
Lowell Club
Mooney Club (5 A. D.)
Mothers Club
143d St. Club (13 A. D.)
Puerto Rican Club
Railroad Club
Railroad Club (Lincoln Sq.)
Ray Friedlander Youth Club
Sacco-Vanzetti 1 Club
Sacco-Vanzetti 3 Club
Sacco-Vanzetti 4 Club
Sacco-Vanzetti 6 Club
Sacco-Vanzetti 7 Club
Sacco-Vanzetti 8 Club
Shirt (Amalgamated) Club
16th St. Club
Slipper (Shoe) Club
Stripers (Fur) Club
Stuyvesant 1 Club
Stuyvesant 2 Club
Stuyvesant 3 Club
Stuyvesant 4 Club
Stuyvesant 5 Club
Stuyvesant 6 Club
Stuyvesant 7 Club
Stuyvesant 8 Club
Thompson Club (10 A. D.)
Togliatti Club (8 A. D.)
Village North Club
Village South Club
Village Youth Club
Washington Hts. Youth Club
West Midtown 1 Club
West Midtown 2 Club
Youth Club
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 57
QTIEENS
Astoria Youth Club
Arverne Club
Auto Club
Bavside Club
Club M-2
Club M-3
Club M-4
Corona Youth Club
County School Club
Far Rockaway M Club
Freedom Club
Hamills Club (Rockaway)
Hillcrest Club
Hollis Club
Joe Hill Club
John Williamson Club
Juniper Valley Club
Long Island City Club
L'Unita Club
Maspeth Club
Mets Club
Middle Village Club
Railroad Club
Rego Vets Club
Sid Foelek Club
Sugar Club
Queensbridge Club
Willie Milton Club (Hollis)
Woodside Club
SECTION COMMITTEE
The section committee, headed by the section organizer or chairman,
supervises and dii'ects the work of the shop and community clubs in a
given area. This is done through meetings of the club chairmen and
through section representatives sent to the meetings of the various
clubs. Its officials parallel those in the clubs: chairman, organiza-
tional secretary, educational director, press director, financial
secretary, etc., who work on a volunteer basis.
Specimen sections in New York City include the following with
addresses as of 1946:
MANHATTAN
Tompkins Square
Lower Manhattan
Lower West Side, 430 Sixth Ave., Phone
OR 5-9696
Jefferson, 201 W. 72d St., TR 4-9362
Unity Center, 2744 Broadway, PH
9-9483
Chelsea, 269 W. 25th St., CH 4-1688
East Midtown
Lower East Side, 324 Second Ave.
Hank Forbes, 201 Second Ave., OR
5-9036
Yorkville, 350 E. 81st St.
Lower Heights, 493 W. 145th St;
Washington Heights
Food Workers
11 A. D.
7th A. D. West
Lower West Side, 430 Sixth Ave.,
OR 5-9896
7th A. D. East
Waterfront, 269 W. 25th St., CH 4-1947
Italian, 273 Bleecker St., CH 2-9436
East Side (Olgin), 154 Clinton St.
West Side, 73 W. 99th St.
Harlem
East Harlem, 171 E. 116 St., ED 4-2918
Lower Harlem, 1549 Madison Ave.,
SA 2-7559
BROOKLYN
Bath Beach, 2166 86th St., ES 2-7277
Boro Park, 4903 12th Ave.
Crown Heights, 289 Utica Ave., PR
3-9597
Fort Greene, 190 Tompkins Ave., EV
4-7183
Bedford-Stuyvesant, 1239 Atlantic Ave.,
ST 3-9589
6th A. D., 190 Tompkins Ave., EV 4-
7183
Brighton Beach, 3200 Coney Island
Ave., DE 6-9814
Eastern Parkway, 1188 President St.,
RP 3-9736
Industrial, 260 Fulton St., MA 5-9094
24th A. D., 806 Sutter Ave.
Bensonhurst, 7309 20th Ave.
Kings Highway, 1212 Kings Highway,
DE 9-9518
Brownsville, 375 Saratoga Ave.
East New York, 806 Sutter Ave.
12th A. D., 305 Church Ave.
Waterfront, 5306 4th Ave., GE 9-9734
Boro Hall, 260 Fulton St., MA 5-9094
Coney Island, 3228 Mermaid Ave.
Flatbush, 848 Flatbush Ave.
Williamsburg, 190 Tompkins Ave., EV
4-7183
Midwood
Kings Metal
58 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
QUEENS
Rego, Astoria, 3047 Steinway Ave. North Shore, 9912 N. Boulevard
Sunnyside, 4614 Queens Blvd.
BRONX
Prospect, 1301 Boston Road Morrisania, 1 E. 167 St., JE 8-1445
Fordham, 9 W.Burnside Ave., FO 4-8780 Kingsbridge, 20 E. Kingsbridge Rd.
Allerton, 2700 Olinville Ave., OL 5-8837 Mt. Eden, 125 E. 170th St., JE 6-8815
Hunts Point, 891 FreemanSt., DA 9-7956 Tremont, 807 E. Tremont Ave., TR
Mosholu, 3092 Hull Ave., OL 5-9315 8-7731
Parkchester, 1590 Westchester Ave.,
TI 2-4805
According to J. Peters' Manual, "The Section is made up of a num-
ber of Shop, Street or Town Units in a given territory," under the lead
of the section committee. The size of the territory of the sections,
the members of the section committee and the section organizer or
chau-man, are all subject to the decision of the next higher committee,
i. e., the district committee or State committee. Here again decisive
authority emanates from the top. The section committee usually
consists of from 9 to 1 1 members.
DISTRICT OR STATE ORGANIZATIONS
The district covers a portion of the country (a part of 1, or 1, 2
and sometimes 3 States, depending upon the industries, on the size of
the membership, etc.). Thus it will be noted that district 2 covers
all of the State of New York, while district 1 includes Maine, Vermont,
Massachusetts, New Hampshu"e, and Rhode Island. Pennsylvania,
on the other hand, is divided up between district 3 including eastern
Pennsylvania and Delaware, and district 5 including western Penn-
sylvania, the coal and steel centers.
In an effort to befog the pubhc mmd, the Communist Party consti-
tution declares that —
The highest body of the state organization is the State Convention, which shall
convene at least once every two years.
As a matter of fact. Communist conventions are perfunctory affairs
with little decisive power. In a fulltime conspu-acy it is manifest
that day-to-day decisions could not be left to a biennial convention.
Actual power resides at all times in a small secretariat of 3 or 5 within
the district or State committee, which may be overruled at any time
by a representative of the national committee or the Communist
International (now the Cominform). In its turn the district or State
committee and its officials are subject to approval by the national
committee. It usually consists of from 15 to 19 members.
The foUowmg chart gives the chain of Communist command from
the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the
smallest Communist unit in the United States. It attempts to
summarize the opinions of numerous former members of the Commu-
nist Party of the United States and the Soviet Union as to the structure
of the international Communist movement.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 59
COMMUNIST CHAIN OF COMMAND
Information Bureau
of ^ommunist and
Workers Parties
(Cominfom'-Bucharest
IPolitburejvu, (
Party of uSgR
Communist
soviet
Foreign
Office
Soviet Hilitarj
Intellie«nce
Cowmisslona
Organization Women
y Control Si RevieH Youth
Labor A^arian
Agit.fc Pro?. Colonial
International Front Organizations
den
Jni'
International Union of Students
World Federation of Trade Jnions
Soviet
in U.S.A.
Gen. Secy, GPS'
Secretary
for
American
Affairs
National
Officers. CPUS
Chairman
General secy.^
Org. secy.
labor secy.
Leg. dir.
Commission
chairmen
Women's International Democratic Fed.---
World Federation of Dcirocratic Youth —
Association of Democratic La»r,'ers
Association of Democratic Journalists
*^rld Hracp C,
Coninforra
Henresentative
in U.S.A.
»^rld crVP ''anrress-T; — : mn\ m ,
World F<.7*eratVon of Scientific Vforkers
-Congrp';s of Arrerican Woren
Labor Youth Lf-af^ue
National Lawyers Guild
Secretariat,
Co-imunirt
.S.A.
JNational Board, C.PilTS.A."!
American Front Ornanizati ons
Peace Information Center
National Labor Ppace Coaf.
iTonf. on Peaceful Alternative;
Civil Rirhts Congress
An. Con. for Prct. of For. Bom
Council on African Affairs
Com. for a Dei. Far Eastern Pol,
National Connittee, C.P.I'. 3. A,
Be view
I>istrict (state)
Officers, CPUSA
Chairman, Labor secy. Educ»cir-»-
Org. 5ecy.jQiLtt:-^t-h-rpS?ganizer
Negro
Agrar Le?
1 an ^
He:
Labor
Nationol-
alities
District(State) Comnittees
Mass
W.P
[Arizj I N.j| [ronn|
Mich
111
N.Y.
Oreg
Wash
Cal
I Mo. I [v^Vaj KoutljlMont
Neb
Utah
Section
Officers
Chairman, Ex. secy, Org. secy,
Educ. dir., Indust. r.pcv,
Press dir,, etc.
Club
Officers
Chairman, Organizer, Org. secy,
Educ. dir., Indust. secy.
Press dir., etc.
State
Front
Organizations
Section Committees
Election
Front
Organizations
Shop or Community
Club
Local
Front
Organizations
NATIONAL COMMITTEE
• The national committee which is elected by the national convention
in accordance with ai slate previously submitted by the party leaders
subject to the approval of current Moscow representative, usually
consists of from 30 to 35 members. All its members are not made
370894°— 55-
60 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
public. According to the party constitution, this committee "or-
ganizes and supervises its various departments and committees; guides
and directs all the political and organizational work of the Party;
elects or removes editors of its press who work under its leadership
and guidance; organizes and directs all undertakings of importance
to the entire Party; administers the national treasury." The national
committee meets about eveiy 4 months, its members being distributed
as organizers in the various districts throughout the countr^'. The
national committee elects a national board of about 11 which is resi-
dent in New York City, and meets about once a week. The national
board in turn selects a secretariat of 3 to 5 including the chairman,
the executive secretary and other members of the national head-
quarters staff, who run the party from day to day. In each case it
should be remembered that recommendations for each post come from
the top down, the highest echelons being subject to recommendation
and approval from Moscow itself. There are no rival candidates or
contests for office.
The actual functioning of the national committee and its smaller,
ruling national board or politburo (a term copied straight from the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union) is not in accordance with
any prescribed constitutional procedure. It is totally at variance
with routine practices in other political parties or in fact in traditional
American organizations in general. It is even extremely doubtful
whether the rank and file Communist Party member has the vaguest
notion of what is going on in the upper circles of his organization.
We shall try to give a true picture of the "broadest inner democracy"
of which the party boasts.
DISCIPLINARY PROCEDURE
Because of its quasi-military and conspiratorial character, the
Communist Party, USA, pays considerable attention to the matter
of discipline.
The national convention elects a national review commission,
formerly known as the control commission, which is strictly limited
to "tested" members of the party who have been active for at least
5 years. What the party constitution does not say, however, is that
members of this commission are closely interlocked with the under-
ground apparatus of the party and with Soviet military intelligence.
Because of this in some instances it commands greater authority
than the national committee itself. Among those who have been
members of this commission in the past are Charles Dirba, alias Moore;
K. Radzi; Jacob INlindel; Charles Krumbein, former Comintern
emissary jailed for passport fraud, and Jacob Golos, revealed in
testimony by EUzabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers as the
head of an underground ring of the Communist Party. Current
practice has been not to reveal the names of the members of the
review commission. This commission has charge of all disciphnary
procedure tlu-oughout the party, and is entrusted with the custody
of the party's secret records.
What matters are the subject of disciplinary action according to the
party constitution? One count is "conduct or action detrimental
to the working class." Considering itself as the "political party of
the American worldng class," it remains for the party officials to
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 61
interpret this highly elastic category of offenses. The opinions of
responsible labor officials are not asked. Another offense is conduct
or action detrimental "to the interests of the Party," another vague
classification. Punishable also is any violation of the decisions of
party committees. Under these broad categories of party offenses
the civil rights of party members are extremely tenuous.
In his book, From Bryan to Stalin, William Z. Foster, party
chairman, describes the expulsion of members of the central executive
or national committee for a variety of reasons utterly foreign to the
American political scene. Salutsky, Lore, and Askeli were expelled
in 1923-24 as "centrists." J. P. Cannon and others were expelled
in 1928 as "Trotskyites." Jay Lovestone was expelled in 1929 for
"right opportunist tendencies of a semi-Social Democratic character"
and because he violated a decision of the Comintern. Earl Browder's
expulsion of February 5, 1946, was based on charges of "factional
activity," attacks on the leadership of the French Communist Part}^,
and "revisionism of Marxism," and "obstructive passivity."
The penalties which may be invoked for these offenses are (1) Private
censure; (2) public censure; (3) removal from committees; (4) removal
from all responsible work; (5) expulsion from the party. We might
add a category of self-censure. In 1929 after the expulsion of Jay
Lovestone as general secretary of the party, and in 1945 after similar
action against Earl Browder as general secretary, party leaders has-
tened to admit their errors in support of these leaders and to publicly
repudiate them.
LEADERSHIP CULT
In order to insure unquestioning obedience to its mandates, the
international Communist movement inculcates complete subservience
to its "leader." Thus Joseph Stalin was referred to in such superlative
terms as "the leader of progressive humanity," "the great defender
of peace," "great successor in the cause of the immortal Lenin," the
"unifier of peoples," "the great military leader of modern times,"
"greatest strategist of our era," "symbol of heroism and glory," and
so on.
On a smaller scale the same atmosphere of slavish adulation per-
meates the national committee of the Communist Party, USA. Tes-
timony to this effect comes from William Z. Foster, himself, the party's
chairman. In his article in Political Affahs for September 1945
Foster states frankly:
With his great personal prestige and his excessive degree of authority, Browder's
word had become practically the law in our Party * * * He had grown almost
into a dictator. His authority reached such a point that his word had become
virtually unchallengeable in our Party. His policies and writings finally were
accepted almost uncritically by the leaders and the general membership. Browder
created around himself an atmosphere of infallibility and unchallengeable author-
ity. All this was accentuated by the deluge of petty-bourgeois adulation, praise-
mongering and hero-worship that was constantly poured upon him by our leader-
ship and our members * * *
Constantly grasping for more power, Comrade Browder had largely liquidated
the political functions of the Party's leading bodies. He habitually by-passed
the National Board in policy making * * *
The National Committee, also had gradually lost all real political power. It
assembled; it listened to Browder's proposals; it affirmed them; and it dispersed
to the districts to impress the policy upon the membership. Of genuine political
discussion there was none whatever in the National Committee. Similarly, our
recent National Conventions were hardly better than the National Committee
62 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
meetings — with their formal endorsement of Browder's reports, no political
discussions and no self-critical examination of the leadership * * *
In this stifling bureaucratic atmosphere * * * political thinking itself was
hamstrung. Comrade Browder, basing himself upon the high prestige which he
enjoyed among the Party membership, made policy pretty much as he saw fit.
Of course, Foster strives to create the impression that Earl Browder
was individually at fault for this state of affairs. Nowhere does he
admit that the atmosphere he describes is typical. The fact remains
that although Browder was general secretary from 1930 to 1945
with the knowledge and approval of his Moscow superiors, Foster,
who had been loud in praise of Browder's "insight and vision,"
hailing him as the "heroic leader of the people," did not dare to change
his tune pubhcly until 1945 after the French Communist leader,
Jacques Duclos, had damned Browder in the name of the interna-
tional Communist hierarchy. Following the ejection of Browder,
Foster was quick to pay his homage to his successor, Eugene Dennis,
quoting him with deepest respect. Dennis, according to Foster in
the Daily Worker of May 15, 1950, "symbolizes the just cause of
peace, democracy, and socialism" and is singled out as "the foremost
leader of our party."
SPIRIT OF PREVAILING FEAR
The truth is that the same Communist leaders who are the per-
sonification of defiance before congressional committees and the
courts of the land, who pour a steady stream of vilification upon
representatives of the American Government, are paralyzed with
fear before the emissaries of the Soviet dictatorship.
In the September 1945 issue of Political Affairs, Foster openly
admitted that the chairman of the party would have faced expulsion
had he made public his letter to the national committee of January
1944 in which he dared to take issue with Browder, then the current
Moscow favorite. In the Communist of April 1944 Foster's views
were openly castigated before the entire party by Gerhard Eisler, an
alien. Foster submitted meekly and without protest, simply because
Eisler possessed the blessing of Moscow.
It is indeed hard to reconcile the rebellious fire-eater of the Daily
Worker and of congressional committees' hearings with the submis-
sive Mr. Foster before his Moscow superiors. Speaking in Foster's
presence before the American commission of the Executive Com-
mittee of the Communist International on May 6, 1929, Joseph
Stalin was unsparing in his castigation of his American Gauleiter.
We quote his speech in part:
The Foster Group wants to display its loyalty to the CPSU (Communist
Party of the Soviet Union) and proclaims itself as "Stalinites." Good and
well. * * * The Foster Group wants to demonstrate its closeness to the Comin-
tern. * * * Good and well. * * * Let the Muscovites know how we Americans
can play on the Exchange. * * * But Comrades, the Comintern is not an Ex-
change. The Comintern is the holy of holies of the working class. The Comintern
must, therefore, not be taken for an exchange. * * *
It is characteristic that in writing to his friends Comrade Foster refers to that
conversation as something mysterious, as something about which one must not
speak aloud. * * * What could there be so mysterious in my conversations with
Comrade Foster? * * *
What did Foster speak to me about? He complained of the factionalism and
unprincipled character of Comrade Lovcstone's group. * * * I admitted that
Comrade Lovestone's group is guilty of these digressions. * * * From this,
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 63
Comrade Foster comes to the strange conclusions that I sympathize with the
[Foster] Minority group. * * * Is it not clear that that which Comrade Foster
WISHES, seems to him to be REALITY?
How did Mr. Foster, a free-born American, react to this humili-
ating dressing down from a foreign potentate? There is no trace of
any reply to this tirade by Mr. Foster. His attitude toward Joseph
Stalin was, however, clearly expressed in answer to a Government
question in connection with the trial of the 1 1 Communist leaders and
was published in a special supplement to the Worker of September 25,
1949. He was asked whether he was present and joined in the fol-
lowing greeting to Joseph Stalin at the Seventh World Congress of the
Communist International in Moscow in July 1935:
To Comrade StaUn, Leader, Teacher, and friend of the proletariat and oppressed
of the whole world * * * we address ourselves to you, Comrade Stalin, our
leader, * * * to you, beloved leader of the whole international proletariat and
of the oppressed with warmest greeting. * * * The peoples of the world * * * are
turning more and more towards the IT. S. S. R., fixing on you. Comrade Stalin,
the leader of the toilers in all countries, a gaze full of hope and love. * * * You
have taught and are teaching us Communists the Bolshevik art of uniting unshake-
able fidelity to principles tvith closest contact with the masses. * * *
The 7th World Congress of the Communist International * * * assures you,
Comrade Stalin, that the Communists will always and everywhere be faithful to
the end to the great and invincible banner of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin.
He replied:
I was not present at this particular demonstration but I joined in the spirit of
it and endorsed it. * * * I thought such a man deserved the ovation that he got.
In fact this bootlicking servility runs in a never-varying thread
through all of Foster's utterances after Stalin took over power. It is
worth noting by way of contrast, that Foster has repeatedly denounced
the chosen heads of his own comitry as imperialists and warmongers.
Here is a choice sample, from the Daily Worker of January 12, 1948,
page 3:
One of the outstanding traits of President Truman as a political leader is his
demagogy. He is a reactionary who covers up his sinister poHcies with fair
words; he cold-bloodedly indulges in glittering promises to the masses, which he
has not the slightest intention of fulfilling. * * *
Preparations for war and the aggressive pushing of big business imperialism,
all hidden under words of angelic peace — this was the heart of President Truman's
report. And a sinister heart it was. * * *
In his standard work, the History of the Communist Party of the
United States, William Z. Foster has this to say:
* * * When one set of capitalist demagogues — Truman, Taft, etc. — discredit
themselves, capitalism knows how to raise up another set — Eisenhower, Kefauver,
etc. — to keep bourgeois illusions alive among the toiling masses (p. 468).
In his testimony before the Committee on Un-American Activities
on November 26, 1946, Louis F. Budenz furnished another example
of the paralyzing fear which pervades the upper strata of the CPUSA.
The incident involved Gerhard Eisler, alias Edwards, and Clarence
Hathaway, then editor of the Daily Worker, a member of the party's
top political committee or national board. Budenz, who in late 1945
was managing editor of the paper, described what took place at an
editorial board meeting he attended:
I came into that meeting of the editorial board of the Daily Worker * * •
when lo and behold to my surprise in walked Mr. Edwards; he did not even
introduce himself to the editorial board, but in he walked and proceeded to
flay Hathaway for almost an hour, declaring him to be unfit to be editor of the
64 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Daily Worker, that he was more interested in his picture on the front page than
"he is in running the paper" as it should be run, politically. And I was amazed
at this because of Hathaway's position, as represented by the daily press at
that time, as one of the big three running the party. But Edwards came in,
and Edwards was the representative of the Communist International, and he
flayed Hathaway, and Hathaway did not do anything but sit there with a silly
grin and had to take this trouncing. That was an education to me.
Mr. Budenz continued his testimony with the case of Harry Cannes,
late foreign editor of the Daily Worker:
He was about to be convicted of false passports when he died of a brain tumor.
His death was hastened by fear and worry. I worked in the same office with
him at the time and know that most of his trouble was not fear of America, nor
fear of an American prison, but fear of people back of him in the Communist
conspiratorial apparatus. He feared he would have to divulge some of the
shadowy figures with whom he worked for the Kremlin.
No party official, no matter how high his status, was apparently
exempt from this fear complex. Mr. Budenz declared in his testi-
mony, "I have seen Earl Browder look like he was struck with a
most intense fright on more than one occasion, and Jack Stachel
looks as though somebody was chasing him all the time."
It would seem, therefore, that whereas the lower layers of the
party might be motivated primarily by ideological devotion, its
higher echelons are driven by an overpowering fear of a far-reaching
conspiratorial network from which they cannot extricate themselves
even if they desu'e to do so — a cold-blooded machine which is merciless
toward even the slightest infringement of its drastic ukases.
COMMUNIST PARTY, USA, AS A PUPPET
Despite the fact that the party constitution specifies the national
convention as "the highest authority of the Party", actual practice
discloses that the seat of real authority lies neither with the convention
nor with the national committee which it supposedly elects, but with
Moscow. The House Committee on Un-American Activities entered
into considerable detail on this point in its report on The Communist
Party of the United States as an Agent of a Foreign Power,
published in 1947 as House Report No. 209. We elaborate this
point by an examination of party behavior since November 16, 1940,
when the CPUSA disaffiliated from the Communist International
"for the specific purpose of removing itself from the terms of the so-
called Voorhis Act" (H. R. 10094) and subsequent to the alleged dis-
solution of the Communist International on May 30, 1943.
Political Affairs, formerly known as The Communist, is the official
theoretical organ of the CPUSA. Its editorial board includes such
topflight members of the national committee as V. J. Jerome, Abner
W. Berry, Alexander Bittelman, Jack Stachel and Max Weiss. It is
published under the supervision of the national committee for the
purpose of supplying the members of the party with political directives
for the coming month. It is, therefore, of the highest significance
that the issues of this authoritative magazine contain in almost every
issue articles on the outstanding current issues by prominent writers
for the Communist press of the U. S. S. R. Thus the CPUSA
graphically demonstrates to its members the truth of the statement
which appears in the Daily Worker of March 5, 1939, that —
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union always was and always will be a
model, an example for the Communist parties of all countries.
THE COMRIUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA C5
SOVIET WKITERS WHOSE ARTICLES HAVE APPEARED IN THE COMMUNIST,
LATER KNOWN AS POLITICAL AFFAIRS, THEORETICAL MONTHLY
MAGAZINE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY, USA.
1940
Ackerman, A. — Lenin at the Second World Congress of the Communist Inter-
national, 936-949, October.
Chekalin, M. — The Renaissance of Nationalities and the Consolidation of Nations
in the U. S. S. R., 356-375, April.
Fuernberg, F. — A Brilliant Manual of Bolshevik Tactics, 749-762, August.
Kosiachenko, G. — The Basic Principle of Socialism, 1038-1044, November.
Lande, C. G. — Dynamic Changes in the Population of the Soviet Union, 1031-
1037, November.
Lenin, V. L — On the World Imperialist War, 516-517, June; The United States
of Europe Slogan, 17-20, January.
Mendelsohn, L. — On Lenin's Classic Work, "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of
Capitalism," 173-179, February.
Mitin, M. — The Power of Stahnlst Prediction, 141-148, February,
Stalin, Joseph — How Does Social-Democracy Understand the National Question?
716-728, August.
Yaroslavsky, Emilian — On Bourgeois and Bourgeois-Democratic Revolutions,
49-57, January.
1941
Gorodetsky, E. — The Patriotic War of 1918 Against the German Invaders of the
Ukraine, 1091-1107, December.
Kedrov, B. — Review of "Dialectics of Nature," by Frederick Engels, 834-838,
September.
Kursanov, George — Space and Time — Forms of the Existence of Matter, 377-
384, April; 458-467, May; 568-576, June; 652-656, July.
Lenin, V. I. — Imperialism and the Split in the Socialist Movement, 151-164,
February; The Pamphlet by Junius, 883-887, October.
Stalin, Joseph — Victory Will Be Ours, 673-677, August.
1942
Alexandrov, Gregory — Delay in Initiating the Second Front May Spell Disaster,
599-601, August.
Molotov, V. M. — Speech on the Occasion of the Signing of the Soviet-British
Mutual Assistance Treaty, 575-576, July.
Stalin, Joseph — Order of the Day on May Day, 1942, 402-407, June; On the Anti-
Hitler Coalition of the United Nations, 494-496, July; Letter to Henry Cassidy
on Second Front, 957, November; The U. S. S. R. and the Anglo-Soviet, American
Fighting Alliance, 963-972, December; Order of the Day to the Red Army and
the Soviet People on the Occasion of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the
October Revolution 972-992, December. Letter to Associated Press Repre-
sentative Henry C. Cassidy, November 14, 1942, 974-975, December,
Tolchenov, M. — Five Years of the Sino-Japanese War, 640-643, August.
1943
Alexandrov, G. — The Great Patriotic War and the Social Sciences, 47-50, Janu-
ary.
Bragin, Mikhail — The Great Battle of Stalingrad, 222-228, March.
Malinin, N. — On the Discussion of War Aims and Post- War Problems, 720-724,
August.
Manuilsky, Dmitri — The Glorious Victories of the Red Army, 975-979, November.
Mitin, M. — Marx and Engels on Reactionary Prussianism, 83-87, January.
Osipov, M. — Italy at the Crossroads, 58-61, jfanuary.
Popovich, Albert — What About Yugoslavia? 274-284, March.
Potemkin, Vladimir — The Soviet Union's Struggle for Peace in the Period Before
World War II, 917-921, October.
Shvernik, N.— World Labor and the Second Front, 874-880, October.
66 THE COilMinsriST party of the united states of AMERICA
1943— Continued
Stalin, Joseph — Reminiscences of Lenin, 4-9, January; Order of the Day on the
Occasion of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Red Army, 292-296, April;
May Day Order of the Day, 572-576, June; letter to Harold King on the
Dissolution of the Communist International, 671, July; Speed the Day of
Victory, 1071-1081, December.
Tolchenov, M.— The Time Factor in Coalition Warfare, 1002-1004, November.
Yudin, L. — On the 73rd Anniversary of Lenin's Birth, 562-563, June.
1944
Galaktionov, M. — On the Eve of the Invasion of Europe; Greater Vigilance
Against Vacillators and Enemies of Teheran, 291-295, April; Some Features
of Modern Warfare, 773-777, September.
Gavrilov, E. — Hungary's Occupation by Hitler, 461-464, May.
Gayev, V.— The Plan for Post- War Employment, 737-744, August.
Gromyko, Andrei — Speech at Dumbarton Oaks Conference, 957-959, October.
Malinin, N. — An International Security Organization, 988-1000, November.
Molotov, Vyacheslav M. — Report to Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 223-231,
March.
Smirnova, Zinaida — Lenin and the Soviet People's Patriotic War, 163-166,
February.
Tarle, Eugene — Poland and the Coming Stage of the War, 167-169, February.
Tolchenov, Col. M. — Germany's Military Situation, 586-593, July.
Trainin, A. — Certain Lessons of Versailles, 1015-1017, November; The Strategy
of "Mercy," 1073-1077, December.
Varga, Eugene — Plans for Currency Stabilization, 282-283, March.
Zhukov, A. — Japanese-German Relations During the Second World War, 284-
287, March.
1945
Baltisky, N.— Patriotism, 947-958, October.
Galaktionov, Major-General M. — The Danger of Aggression in the Light of the
History of War, 151-157, February.
Lenin, V. I. — Frederick Engels, 1018-1025, November.
Linetsky, V. — International Cartels and Their Agents, 704-709, August.
Melnikov, D. — The Vatican and Problems of Postwar Settlement, 1037-1045,
November.
Molotov, V. M. — Speech at United Nations Conference, 566-570, June; Address
to Moscow Soviet, USSR, 1136-1149, December.
Nikolayev, M. — France and the San Francisco Conference, 448-452, May.
Omelchenko, K. — Trade Unions and the State, 739-747, August.
Smirnov, I. — Lenin and Democracy, 368-371, April.
Sokolov, A. — Democracy, 518-526, June.
Stalin, Joseph — Victory Speech, 563, June; Statement on Polish-Soviet Treaty,
572-573, June; Letter on the Polish Issue, 574, June.
Tumanov, P. — The Constitution of the USSR — Guarantee of Democracy, 56-59,
January.
1946
Kalinin, M. I. — On the Mastery of Marxist-Leninist Theory, 597-601, July.
Lenin, V. I. — The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, 219-
223, March.
Leontiev, A.— The Origin and Character of the Second World War, 940-953,
October.
Mirski, Michal— Poland Today, 893-903, October.
Mitrovich, Stephane — Fundamental Remarks on the Question of Trieste, 502-525,
June.
Molotov, V. M.— The New Postwar Tasks of the USSR, 331-338, April.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AIMERICA 67
1947
Ivanov, S. — The Social-Democratic Parties and Labor Unity, October, 936-949.
Lyapin, A. P. — On the Gradual Transition from Socialism to Communism, July,
632-649.
Stalin, Joseph — Stalin's Reply to Professor Razin, May, 415-417.
Varga, Eugene — The Approach of an Economic Crisis in the Capitalist World,
March, 264-268.
Zhdanov, A. A. — On the International Situation, December 1947, 1090-1111.
1948
BHumin, I. G. — The Economic Teaching of Keynes, July, 638-661.
Gladkov, I. — On Changes in the Economy of Capitalism as a Result of the Second
World War (A Critique of Eugene Varga's Changes in Capitalist Economy
Resulting from the Second World War), February 181-191.
Lenin, V. I. — Differences in the European Labor Movement, January, 14-18.
Molotov, V. M. — Statement to the Council of Foreign Ministers (Dec. 12, 1947),
January, 44-50.
Olkowicz, I. — The United Working-Class Front — Basis of the Polish Peoples
Democracy, March, 251-258.
Vlatavsky, Geminder, B. — Background of the Struggle Against Reaction in
Czechoslovakia, April, 298-303.
Zhdanov, A. A. — On the History of Philosophy, April, 344-366.
1949
Communist Party of the Soviet Union — CPSU Co-Workers of Georgi Dimitrov
Pay Tribute to His Memory, August, 4-6.
Kuzminov, L — The Crisis Character of the Economic Development of the U. S.
in the Postwar Period, May, 54-70.
Kuznetsov, Vassili— The Struggle to Fulfill the Tasks of the WFTU, March,
20-33.
Laptev, I. — The Triumph of Mitchurin Biological Science, February, 47-61.
Leontyev, A. — Cosmopolitanism and Internationalism, July, 58-66.
Slansky, Rudolph — The Titoites — Servants of Imperialism, October, 59-64.
Varga, Eugene — Against Reformist Tendencies in Works on Imperialism, Dec,
74r-86.
1950
Molotov, V. M. — Address to Electors, June, 32-45.
Stalin, Joseph — Concerning Marxism in Linguistics, September, 37-60; The
National Question and Leninism, Nov., 60-69; On the Perspectives of the
Revolution in China, Dec, 25-36.
Suslov, M. — Defense of Peace and the Struggle Against the Warmongers, Jan-
uary, 30-50.
1951
Alexandrov, G. — A New Outstanding Contribution to the Treasury of Marxism-
Leninism, June, 70-83; July, 65-73.
Friss, 1st van — Wages in the Society of Socialist Construction, May, 78-88; June,
84-96.
Malik, Jacob — An Historic Call for Peace, July, 22-27.
Seleznev, I. A. — Stalin on the War Danger and the Possibility of Averting It,
December, 16-32.
Stalin, Joseph — Interview with Pravda Correspondent, April, 10-14; Concerning
the Atomic Weapon, October, 4-5.
1952
Alpatov, M. — On the Transition from the Ancient World to the Middle Ages,
July, 45-59.
Malenkov, G. M. — Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union to XIX Party Congress, October, 6-17.
Pervukhin, M. G.— The 35th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolu-
tion, November, 1-17.
Sobolev, A. — People's Democracy as a Form of Political Organization of Society,
May 11-29.
Stalin, Joseph — Speech at the XIX Congress of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, October, 3-5.
68 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
1953
Kammari, M. (with F. Konstantinoff) — Science and Superstructure, February
51-65.
Lenin, V. I. — Preface to "Letters to Serge", November, 61-65.
Malenkov, Georgi M.— The StaHn Heritage, April, 11-14.
(Stahn, Joseph)— Reader's Guide to Economic Problems of Socialism in the
U. S. S. R. by Joseph Stalin, June, 66-96.
1954
Malenkov, G. M.— The 1954 State Budget of the U. S. S. R., June 22.
Stalin, Joseph — Criticism and Self-Criticism, March, 9.
Ossip Piatnitsky, former head of the organization department of the
Communist International, declared at the thirteenth plenum of the
executive committee of the CI in December 1933 that, "The Com-
munist International is united by the Executive Committee of the
Comintern into a single, world, centralized party." In order to
emphasize the status of the Communist Party, USA, as a constituent
part of a disciplined world party. Political Affairs (formerly The
Communist) has published from time to time since 1940, articles by
the foremost leaders of foreign Communist parties.
ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN POLITICAL AFFAIRS (THE COMMUNIST) BY
WRITERS AND LEADERS OF FOREIGN COMMUNIST PARTIES
1940
Buck, Tim — The Crisis of Imperialism and the Future of Canada, 1093-1112,
December.
Cantos, Gregorio— The Spanish People Fight On, 656-669, July.
Communist Parties of France, Great Britain and Germany— Joint Manifesto.
180-185, February. '
Communist Party of Great Britain— The people Can Save Themselves Onlv bv
Their Own Action, 1125-1131, December.
Dutt, R. Palme— The British Communist Party Leads the Struggle Against the
Imperiahst War, 927-935, October.
Florin, Wilhelm — Ernst Thaelmann as Leader of the Communist Party of
Germany, 149-160, February.
Lo, B. T. — American Policy in the Far East and the Roosevelt Regime, 554-564
June. '
Roca, Bias— The Cuban People and the New Constitution, 916-926, October-
Forgmg the People's Victory in Cuba, 133-140, February. '
Ulbncht, W.— Anti-Capitalist Sentiment in Germany, 41-48, January.
Vedral, Jan— Soviet Socialist Repubhcs in the Baltic, 1007-1019, November.
1941
Buck, Tim— The National Front in Canada, 1011-1028, November
Communist Party of Chile— Program of Action for the Victory of the Chilean
People's Front, 452-457, Mav.
^^.'^JJ" aI^* ^^u^ °^ ^^^^* Britain— The War and the Colonial Peoples, 1029-
1031, November. '
Diaz, Jose— With All Possible Claritv, 802-804, September
Doran, Augusto— Colombia Faces the Imperialist Offensive, 619-622, Julv,
March "^~ Communists and China's Three People's Principles, 238-256,
Marty Andre-The New Rape of Indo-China, 64-82, January.
tomeral, B.— Ihe Most Important Lessons of the Paris Commune, 436-442, May.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 69
1942
Berger, Hans — From Leipzig to Riom, 270-276, April; Earl Browder and Ernst
Thaelmann, 307-309, May; On the Third Anniversary of the Soviet-German
Non-Aggression Pact, 610-619, August; Mr. Hoover and "The Problems of
Lasting Peace," 751-766, September; Our Nation discovers the Soviet Union,
886-893, November.
Buck, Tim— National Unity for Total War, 903-910, November.
Communist Party of Argentina, Central Committee — For the Fulfillment of the
Rio Pledges, 363-373, May.
Communist Partv of China, Central Committee — For Victory and Reconstruction
of World Peace, 748-760, September.
Dimitroff, Georgi — Tom Mooney: One of America's Finest Sons, 198, April.
Dutt, R. Palme— Strategy for Victory, 721-731, September.
Ercoli, M. — In the Name of the Italian People, 81-91, January.
Fischer, Ernst — The People's Front of Yesterday — The National Freedom Front
of Todav and Tomorrow, 841-848, October.
Hans, B.-^The Second Front and the German People, 374-379, May.
Merker, Paul^The Free Germans to the German People, 1051-1056, December.
"Pravda"— A Historic State in the Struggles of the Freedom-Loving Peoples,
491-493, July; Three Years of War, 816-818, October.
Urizar, I.— Jose Dias: His Exemplary Life and Work, 349-359, May; Spain and
the Second Front, 553-568, July.
1943
Berger, Hans— The Nazi "Peace" Offensive, 266-273, March; The Provocation
of the Polish Reactionaries, 513-526, June; The National Committee for a Free
Germany and Its Significance, 806-815, September; Remarks on the Discussion
Concerning the dissolution of the Communist International, 1018-1029,
November.
Buck, Tim — Canada Needs a Party of Communists, 725-741, August.
Burns, Emile — Labour Party and Communist Party, the Case for Affiliation,
361-369, April.
Campos, Pedro Albizu — Reply to Communist Party, USA, Greetings, 660-61,
July.
Communist Party of Great Britain — On the Beveridge Proposals, 168-174,
Februarv; Tasks of the British Unions for Victory, 753-756, August; For Unity
and Victory 957-960, October.
Communist Party of India, Central Committee — Solve India's National Crisis
Through National Unity, 377-383, April.
Communist Party of Ireland — Ireland's Way Forward, 285-288, March.
Dimitroff, Georgi — Statement on Behalf of the Presidium on the Executive
Committee of the Communist International on the Approval by the Comintern
Sections of the Proposal to Dissolve the Communist International, 672, July.
Dutt, R. Palme — British Labor and the War, 62-72, January.
Ercole, M. — The Crisis in Fascist Upper Circles in Italy, 505-512, June.
Izvestia — On the Eve of the Moscow Conference, 972-974, November.
Locascio, Antonio — After the Downfall of Mussolini, 816-823, September.
Marty, Andre — France's Hour Has Struck, 114-125, February.
Milano, Libertad (Radio Station) — An Appeal to the People of Italy, 181-184^
February.
Mota, C. — Notes on Brazil, 852-863, September.
Pravda— Hitler's Polish Partners, 396-398, May; The Anglo-Soviet Treaty of
Alliance, 662-664, July; On the Anniversary of the Soviet- American Agreement,
665-667, July.
Roca, Bias — The Communists of Cuba and the Cabinet, 761-768, August.
Rust, William — The British Labour Party Conference, 757-760, August.
Sverma, Jan — Problems of the National-Liberation Struggle in Czechoslovakia,
370-376, April.
1944
Berger, Hans — Concerning a Charge of Betrayal, 431-439, May; A Company
Union of Nations?: a review of Walter Lippmann's "U. S. War Aims," Dum-
barton Oaks Conference, 911-918, October.
Buck, Tim — Canada's Choice: Unity or Chaos, 369-381 , April.
Chen Pai-Ta— Critique of Chiang Kai-shek's Book: "China's Destiny," 21-62,
January.
Duclos, Jacques — Communist Participation in the French National Committee
of Liberation, 363-365, April; The Source of Communist Courage, 919-929,
October.
70 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
1944— Continued
Izvestia — The Teheran Decisions Promise Mankind a Durable Peace, 9-12,
January; The Most Important Stage in the Development of Friendship between
the USSR and Czechoslovakia, 170-173, February; The Armistice Agreement
with Romania, 937-940, October.
Marty, Andre — Communist Participation in the Provisional Government of
French Republic, 632-645, July.
Pravda — Armistice Agreement with Finland, 1052-1055, November.
Roca, Dias — The Cuban Elections, 723-736, August.
Rochet, Waldeck — A New French Democracy, 366-368, April.
Soviet Information Bureau — Three Years of the Soviet Patriotic War, 681-685,
August.
Togliatti, Palmiro (Ercoli) — The Political Situation in Italy, 1087-1102, Decem-
ber.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — Declaration on Soviet-Polish Relations,
190-191, February; Soviet Statement on Poland, 191-192, February.
Zamudio, T. G. — Toward a National Uprising Against Franco and the Falange,
1111-1123, December.
1945
Chou En-lai— The Tide Must Be Turned in China, 539-550, June.
Communist Party of China — Statement of the National Committee, 959-960,
October.
Communist Party of Greece — Historic Lessons of the Struggles in Greece (Reso-
lution of the National Committee), 902-912, October.
Duclos, Jacques — On the Dissolution of the Communist Party of the United
States, 656-672, July.
Dutt, R. Palme — Indian Letters of a Communist Soldier (Review of "British
Soldier in India," by Clive Branson), 1054-1056, November.
Fajon, Etienne — The Communists and Nationalization, 1128-1135, December.
Ibarruri, Dolores — A National Coalition for Spain, 1045-1047, November.
Mao Tse-tung — China Needs Democracy and Unity, 28-30, January; The
Mission of the Chinese Communists, 1048-1052, November.
New China News Agency — A Refutation of Chiang Kai-shek's March 1st Speech,
551-557, June.
Pollitt, Harry — The British General Election and Its Lesson for the Future, 835-
842, September.
Prestes, Luis Carlos— Letter to Wm. Z. Foster, 913-917, October.
Rudnitsky, K. — Poland After Liberation, 731-738, August.
Sharkey, L. L. — Australian Communists Reject Browder's Revisionism, 1026-
1036, November.
Thorez, Maurice — Organizational Problems of the French Communist Party,
710-716, August.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — Declaration of the Soviet Government Void-
ing its Five Year Non- Aggression Pact with Japan, 473, May; Text of Soviet-
Polish Treaty, 570-572, June; Declaration by the Soviet Government of a
State of War with Japan, 864, September.
War and the Working Class, editorial on the New Situation in Poland — and the
Old Delusions, 423-429, May.
1946
Berger, Hans — The German Labor Movement Since V-E Day, 640-651, July.
Bolshevik The — On the Ideological-Political Work of the Party Organizations
under Present-Day Conditions, 110-120, February; The Activating Force of
Marxist- Leninist Theory, 541-548, June.
Buck, Tim — The Postwar Role of Canadian Imperialism, 89-96, January.
Communist Party of Palestine — The Anti-Imperialist Struggle in Palestine:
Resolution of the Ninth Congress, 266-281, March.
Communist Party of Spain, Central Committee — Manifesto of the Communist
Party of Spain, 1016-1024, November.
Dimitrov, Georgi — The Communists and the Fatherland Front, 696-703, August.
Izvestia — The Iranian Situation, 327-330, April.
Pieck, Wilhelm — The Co-Responsibility of the German Working Class, 149-155j
February.
Popular Socialist Party of Cuba — Postwar conditions and the Struggle of the
Cuban People, 174-190, February.
Vilner, Meir — Arab- Jewish Unity for the Solution of Palestine's Problems, 561-
666, June.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 71
1947
Kardel], Edward — Notes on Some Questions of International Development, June,
531-554.
Merker, Paul — The Development of the New German Trade Union, November,
April, 359-367.
Mine, Hilary — Poland's Economy and Socialism, October, 902-909.
Thorez, Maurice — For the Republic, For National Independence!, December,
1120-1140.
1948
Bierut, Boleslaw — For An End to the Nationalist Deviation in the Polish Work-
ers' Party, November, 991-1005.
Communist Information Bureau — See Information Bureau of Communist and
Workers Parties.
Communist Party of India, Second Congress — Statement of Policy, May, 460-470;
Report on Self-Criticism, May, 470-477.
Ghioldi, Rodolfo— The Cultural Struggle in Argentina, April, 379-382.
Information Bureau of Communist and Workers Parties — Resolution Concerning
the Situation in the C. P. of Yugoslavia, August, 690-698.
Rakosi, Matias — Problems of Ideological and Theoretical Work in the Com-
munist Party of Hungary, July, 615-618.
Soviet Information Bureau — Falsifiers of History: a Historical Note, June,
538-550.
Tito, Josip Broz — 'The People's Front and the New Yugoslavia, January, 76-96.
1949
Communist Party of Bulgaria, Central Committee — -Statement on the Demise of
Georgi Dimitrov Addressed to the Party Membership and the Bulgarian People,
August, 3-4.
Deak, Zoltan— Treason in Clerical Garb: The Mindszenty Case, May, 39-53; The
Tito-Raj k Conspiracy Against the Camp of Peace (review of Laszio Rajk and
His Accomplices Before the People's Court). Dec, 87-94.
For A Lasting Peace, For A People's Democracy! — Right Socialists: Enemies of
Peace and Democracy, April, 67-71.
Liu Shao-Chi — Internationalism and Nationalism, August, 57-76.
Poland, Council of Ministers of the People's Democratic Republic of — Decree
Guaranteeing Freedom of Conscience and Religion, Oct., 95-96.
Roca, Bias — The Truman Plan for Development of Backward Areas, November,
58-68.
1950
Alvarez, Geronimo Arnedo — The Peron Government Follows in the Footsteps of
the Oligarchy, February, 49-62.
Bierut, Boleslaw — The Task of the Polish United Workers Party in the Struggle
for Vigilance, February, 76-96.
Gheorghiu-Dej, Gh. — Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the Power of Murderers
and Spies, January, 51-65.
Kim Ir-sung — To the People of Korea, August, 19-22; The Struggle of the Korean
People for a United, Independent, Democratic State, August, 23-39.
Liu Shao-chi — On the Party, October, 75-88.
Mao Tse-tung — Oppose Liberalism in the Party, September, 61-63.
Mine, Hilary — Some Problems of the People's Democracy in the Light of the
Leninist Stalinist Teachings on the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, July, 87-96;
August, 86-96.
Togliatti, Falmiro — Italy's Youth in the Fight for Jobs, Land, Peace, September,
64-78.
1951
Andreu, Cesar— The Rising Tide of Struggle in Puerto Rico, February, 220-228.
Chu Teh— On the Defeat of Chiang Kai-shek, Wall Street Puppet, August, 38-47.
Communist Party of India — Draft Program of the Communist Party of India,
September, 55-64.
For A Lasting Peace — On the Glorious 30th Anniversary of the Communist Party
of China, August, 33-37.
Ibarruri, Dolores — The Struggle of the Spanish People Against Franco, November,
44-60.
72 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
1951 — Continued
Mao Tse-tung — Concerning Practice, April, 28-42.
Neruda, Pablo — Festival of Youth, October, 50-51.
Rochet, Waldeck — Defense of French Agriculture and the Working Farmers,
May, 69-77.
1952
Ghosh, Ajoy — The General Elections in India, March, 34-44.
Joliot-Curie, Frederic — Halt Bacteriological Genocide! April, 26.
Kuo Mo-jo — Protest by the Democratic Parties of China Against Bacteriological
Weapons, April, 27-28.
Marinello, Juan (with Bias Roca) — The March Coup d'Etat in Cuba, April 42-51.
Papadopolous, N. — Wall Street's War Designs in Greece, February, 43-50.
Togliatti, Palmiro — The Sole Correct Path for Mankind, January, 12-29.
Wu Ch'iang — On Problems of Self-Criticism, August, 53-64.
1953
Communist Party of Bolivia, Central Committee — What Must Be Done in Bo-
livia, August, 29-36.
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Central Committee — The Death of
Joseph Stalin, April, 1-3.
For a Lasting Peace (periodical) — Leninism — Militant Banner of Working People
of the World, January, 5-9.
Gottwald, Element — The Prague Treason Trials, February, 46-50.
Mao Tse-tung — A Great Friendship, April, 15-18.
Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Central Committee — Recent Events and the
Party's Immediate Tasks, August, 52-59.
Thorez, Maurice — A New^ Policy for France, December, 14-17.
1954
Central Committee, C. P. of Brazil — Draft Program of the Communist Party
of Brazil, July, 54.
Ghosh, Ajoy — The Third Congress of the Communist Party of India, April, 53.
Gomez, Alfredo — The Political Situation in Cuba, October, 49.
Merischi, Vicente — Present Tasks in Argentina, March, 58.
Togliatti, Palmiro — For a New Course in Italian Policy, February, 24.
It should be noted that the above summary includes articles
representing the viewpoint of the Korean Communists at a time when
the United States was at war with the Korean Communist Republic.
A study of the position of the CPUS A from 1940, when it allegedly
disaffiliated from the Communist International, to 1955, shows that
the party was nevertheless in full agreement with Soviet policy on the
foUomng important issues:
Support of the Soviet-Nazi Pact.
Support of the Soviet attack on Poland.
Support of the Soviet attack on Finland.
Opposition to Lend- Lease and aid to Great Britain prior to Hitler's attack on the
Soviet Union.
Opposition to President Roosevelt during the Stalin-Hitler Pact.
For the opening of a Second Front after Hitler's attack.
Support of the Anglo-Soviet-American alliance after Hitler's attack.
Endorsement of the alleged dissolution of the Communist International in 1943.
Endorsement of the Information Bureau of the Communist and Woj-kers Parties
(Cominform) from its formation in 1947 to date.
Support of the Soviet Union and the following satellite countries: Poland, Hun-
gary, Albania, Bulgaria, Rumania, Czechoslovakia.
Support of Yugoslavia until its split with the Cominform and Russia in 1948.
Opposition to Yugoslavia after its split with the Cominform and Russia in 1948.
Support of Chiang Kai-shek from 1940 to 1943.
Opposition to Chiang Kai-shek from 1943 to 1946.
Support of a Chinese Coalition government in 1946.
Opposition to Chiang Kai-shek from 1946 to date.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 73
Opposition to American policy in Greece, Germany, Austria, Japan, Korea, etc.
Opposition to the Marshall Plan.
Support of Henry Wallace.
Opposition to the Truman Doctrine.
Opposition to the North Atlantic Defense Pact.
Support of recognition of Communist China and admission to the U. N.
Opposition to German rearmament.
Support for banning the atomic bomb.
Support of such international front organizations as: World Federation of Trade
Unions, World Federation of Democratic Women, World Federation of Demo-
cratic Youth, World Peace Congress, International Association of Democratic
Lawyers, International Association of Democratic Journalists, All-Slav Con-
gress, World Federation of Scientific Workers, World Peace Congress.
SOVIET EMBASSY AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY
The relations between the Communist Party and the Soviet
Embassy are nowhere specified in the official constitution of the party.
They are highly consphatorial and limited to a few selected individuals.
With the facilities available to this subcommittee, we can only sketch
the pattern of this relationship from isolated instances which cor-
roborate each other.
In his book, Men Without Faces, Louis F. Budenz, former managing
editor of the Daily Worker, has described the mechanism as he saw it
in operation as follows:
Unobserved, the chosen comrades entrusted with the reception of Moscow's
directives got them by hand from a courier, some apparently obscure person who
in turn had received them either from the Comintern representative or directly
from the Soviet consulate or embassy. During the latter part of my work in the
party this was Felix Kuzman, a former member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade,
who conveyed the brief directives from Gerhart Eisler to the Ninth Floor.
Another courier of this type who ran between the Soviet consulate and Bittelman
was the former White Russian officer Sergei Kournakoff. * * * Someone in the
offices tliere, [at the consulate] in turn, received the orders in the diplomatic mail
pouch or in code by cable.
According to Budenz, those in touch with this pipeline to the Soviet
Embassy included only such trusted insiders as Earl Browder, Eugene
Dennis, Jack Stachel, Alexander Trachtenberg, Alexander Bittel-
man, Robert William Weiner, also known as Welwel Warczower,
and the representative of the Communist International, Gerhart
Eisler. The majority of these or possibly all of them, were accom-
plished Russian linguists.
Sergei Kournakoff, mentioned above, died in Moscow on July 5,
1949. He was the \vi-iter of numerous articles and books on Soviet
military matters. His frequent contributions to the Daily Worker
were carried under the pseudonym "Veteran Commander."
ALEXANDER BITTELMAN
Born in Russia 60 years ago, Alexander Bittelman, alias Ralph
Barnes, alias Ascher Bittlemacher, alias Nathan William Kweit, alias
Isadore Spillberg, alias Alexander Raphael, ahas Z. P. Ralph, alias
Raphael and Ralph, has been a member of the executive committee
and its ruling political committee of the Communist Party, USA,
since the party's inception. He has been a delegate to Communist
International congresses in Moscow on a number of occasions. From
time to time, he has been editor of the party's monthly theoretical
organ, the Communist, now known as Political Affairs, to which he
has been a prolific contributor. He owes his authority in the CPUSA
74 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
not to any contact or following with the American people but primar-
ily to the fact that he has always been an assiduous student of the
Soviet press and a slavish follower of the Moscow line. As such he
is an indispensable link between the Kremlin and the American party,
a keen w^atchdog to insure against the slightest deviation from Soviet
policy. Benjamin Gitlow, a former member of the political committee
of the CPUSA, and the party's candidate for vice president, has said
of Bittelman :
Bittelman was * * * completely divorced from aU contact with the labor
movement and with American life. But he read Russian, followed the Russian
Communist press minutely and tried to copy in detail everything the Bolsheviks
advocated, in order to apply it to the United States. His sensitive nose was
always pointed in Moscow's direction (I Confess (Dutton) p. 191).
As the managing editor of the Daily Worker, Louis F. Budenz was
in a position which demanded daily and hourly decisions on party
policy. He described the manner in which the party's official mouth-
piece was overseered by Bittelman, to whom he referred as "the chief
of the small corps of politburo members who were in touch with the
Comintern representatives and the Soviet consulates."
The special role played by Bittelman, according to Budenz, was
as "the agent entrusted by Moscow with instructing the party leaders
in the precise terms to be employed in the use of Aesopian language,"
namely language which, for purposes of legal evasion, could be
interpreted in one way for public consumption and in quite another
way within the party ranks. "Many times," declared Budenz, "I
heard him lecturing the Politburo on exactly what words and phrases
the party declarations should contain in order to be Leninist and at
the same time legal."
The actual procedure followed in editing the Communist Daily
Worker finds few parallels in the history of American journalism. It
should be particularly shocking to those who hold that the Commu-
nist Party represents a segment of American political opinion rather
than a supine echo of Moscow. Mr. Budenz described his editorial
experiences with Bittelman in 1936:
Bittelman was then operating from the Hotel Albert, where the entire editorial
board conferred with him almost every day. So carefully were his whereabouts
and movements guarded, and so carefully did he seek to conceal our conferences,
that each meeting with him had to be arranged over an outside telephone * * *
Every day at noon, Harry Cannes, then foreign editor of the Daily Worker, a
veteran member of the board, would rise from his desk and leave the building.
In a few minutes he would return, to state generally that he had reached "Com-
rade Bar;ies" and that he woidd see us at such and such a time.
At the hour set, each member of the Daily Worker editorial board would stroll
over to the Hotel Albert. Singly each would enter the lobby and then go up to
Bittelman's room for a hurried hour on the paper's editorial policy. Bittelman-
Barnes was the law and the line; particularly did he take pains to stress the exact
manner in which a fundamental position should be presented (Men Without
Faces by Louis F. Budenz (Harper), pp. 79, 80).
It would seem that Alexander Bittelman who has franldy declared
that he would not fight against the Soviet Union "in any war" because
"any war against the Soviet Union would be an unjust war," has
been singled out by the powers that be as the chief carrier and
guardian of the sacred fire of Russian Bolshevism within the American
party. He has also served as the party's official historian for the past
two decades delineating in full the decisive role of the Soviet-domi-
nated Communist International in every phase of the activity of the
American party from its very inception.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 75
On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Communist Party
of the United States in 1934, Bittelman wrote his pamphlet Fifteen
Years of the Communist Party, where he outhnes the origin of the
American party as follows:
Nineteen hundred and nineteen was the year when our Party was formed * * *
Nineteen hundred and nineteen was the year when the Communist International
was formed, preceding the formation of our Party by about live months. Our
Party became part of it * * * But it was only through the costly experiences of
the first world war, and especially the victory of the proletarian revolution in
Russia under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, that the proletarian vanguard of
the United States came to realize that the Bolshevik way is the only way for the
liberation of the American proletariat and all the exploited and oppressed. Thus
it came to pass that our Party came into existence. * * *
Throughout his works, Bittelman stresses the role of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union as a model and guide for the CPUSA. In
his Communist Party in Action, for example, he points out to members
of his party:
It is, of course, impossible to say which particular experience in the class
struggle was decisive for your joining the Communist Party. Rather it must
have been the sum of many experiences on various points of the class struggle
front, among which the fight against imperialist war and for the defense of the
Soviet Union had undoubtedly played a very great part in bringing you into the
ranks of the Party. This is the case with many workers who join the Communist
Party because it "is the only Party that is following in the footsteps of Lenin and
the Bolsheviks, that is, organizing the American proletariat to follow the example
of the working class of Russia led by the Communist (Bolshevik) Party (p. 4).
Again in the same pamphlet he frankly admits:
These Socialist successes of the Soviet Union, achieved under the leadership of
the Communist (Bolshevik) Party, have undoubtedly had a great influence in
bringing you into the ranks of the American party. Now you must try to gain
a clearer and more thorough understanding of the international role of Bolshevism
and of the Bolshevik Party (p. 14).
In his later work entitled "Milestones in the History of the Com-
munist Party," published in 1937 on the occasion of the American
party's 18th anniversary, Bittelman bluntly states:
The Communist International, and its model party — the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union — headed by Comrade Stalin, gave us the guidance that
helped the American communists to find the way to the masses and to the posi-
tion of vanguard (p. 8).
In answer to those who charge that the pohcies of the American
party are dictated by Moscow, Bittelman not only admits the in-
tervention of Stalin's puppet organization, the Communist Inter-
national, in the affairs of the CPUSA, but actually glories therein.
"The Comintern did 'interfere'," boasts Bittelman in the same
pamphlet, "there can be no doubt of that. And it is fortunate that
it did." He points out moreover that "the Comintern spoke to the
American Party with authority and wisdom" (p. 88). He insists
that the CPUSA "can derive deep satisfaction from the fact that it
unfailingly received brotherly advice and guidance from the Com-
munist International." And he defiantly adds that "The leading
role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Comintern
needs neither explanation nor apology" (ibid, p. 71).
He goes on to voice the feeling of pride with which the American
party views the fact that it is part of "a world party together with
the glorious Party of the Soviet Union" and that this world party
370894°— 55 6
76 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
"is daily guided by such proved leaders as Manuilsky, Kuusinen
* * * Piatnitsky" — all prominent leaders of the Russian Communist
Party (ibid, p. 92).
Climaxing his panegyric, Bittelman declares:
In the fifteen years of its existence the Comintern has grown into a true world
party. It has reached the high state where all "Communist Parties are carrjang
out one single line of the Comintern" a stage where all "Communist Parties are
united by the Executive Committee of the Communist International into a single
centrahzed World Party * * *" (Piatnitsky, Speech at the Thirteenth Plenum of
the Executive Committee of the Communist International) (ibid, p. 92) .
Pointing out that the existence of this "world party" of which the
American party is an organic part, makes possible the formulation of a
"world revolutionary strategy," he adds that "it is in Comrade
Stalin, since Lenin's death, that this strategy has found the greatest
formulator, interpreter, and organizer."
In demonstrating the complete subservience of the American party
to Moscow, Mr. Bittelman is not content to present his case in broad,
general terms. He is most specific in itemizing the nature of Kremlin
intervention in detail.
When the American Communist movement was first founded in
1919, it consisted of two rival groups: The Communist Party of
America and the Communist Labor Party of America. Bittelman
describes the Comintern's role at this founding stage:
The bringing together of all American revolutionary workers into one Communist
Party * * * was the first of the more significant acts of advice of the Comintern
* * * A unified and single Communist Party was materialized in the United
States in shorter time, less painfully and wastefully, than could have been the
case without the advice and assistance of the Comintern (ibid, p. 74, 75) .
This, according to Bittelman, is the first milestone in the history of
the CPUSA.
From 1919 to 1922 for example, the Conununist Party, USA, was
illegal. Bittelman outlines the nature of Moscow's advice and
guidance in evading the law, as follows :
Once more the American Communists consulted with the Communist Inter-
national. This was in 1921-1922. And the correct advice came, as it was
bound to * * * Illegal work, that is, revolutionary work that could not be done
openly because of governmental persecution, was not abandoned but continued;
the illegal work supplementing the legal, and vice versa * * *
What was it that proved especially helpful for the American Communists in
the Comintern advice on legal and illegal work? It was the world and Russian
experience of bolshevism (ibid, p. 76).
A major concern of the CPUSA is the task of boring from within
the labor movement. Here again the Comintern actively intervened
according to Bittelman:
The next milestone in the Comintern leadership for the American Party we find
on the question of trade union work * * * It was Comintern advice and guid-
ance tliat helped tlie American Communists to turn full face to the building of a
Left Wing in the reformist unions beginning with 1920; it was the advice of the
Comintern that helped * * * formulate strike policies and tactics; it was Com-
intern advice on how to revolutionize the labor movement * * *(ibid, p. 77, 97).
According to Bittelman, the directives of the Communist Inter-
national extended to the point of advising a policy (which is still in
force) calling for the establishment of an independent Negro republic
in what he called the Black Belt in the South, a step which would
involve armed insurrection against the United States in which count-
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 77
less Negro lives would be sacrificed to the machinations of Moscow.
Here are Bittelman's own words on the subject:
Once more came the "outside" influence of the Comintern; and what did it say?
It said that * * * in the Black Belt the full realization of this demand (for
national liberation) requires the fight for the national self-determination of the
Negroes including the right of separation from the United States and the organ-
zation of an independent state (ibid, p. 85).
It has been pointed out that in the early 1930's the Communists
advocated measures for so-called unemployment relief which were
jacked up to the point where their acceptance would have meant
national banla-uptcy. In support of these demands embodied in the
Lundeen bill, the Communists promoted hunger marches calculated
to incite the unemployed against the Government. In a number of
cases, State legislative chambers were occupied and vandalized and
numerous instances of violence developed. Where did the inspiration
for this program come from? Bittelman gives the answer:
the Comintern undertook to prepare the proletarian vanguard, the Communist
Party, and through it the whole working class for effective struggle against
unemployment.
The Communist Party, guided by the Comintern, eventually succeeded in
making this demand * * * a major issue in the class struggle of the United
States (ibid, p. 87).
Keferring to the ouster of Jay Lovestone, former general secretary
of the CPUSA and his followers, Bittelman calls attention to
the advice of the Comintern in * * * cleansing itself of the Lovestone oppor-
tunists and the conciliators with the advice of Joseph Stalin (ibid, p. 88, 89).
Thus, according to Moscow's leading apologist and spokesman with-
in the American party, the Communist International with headquar-
ters in Moscow, actively intervened in the affairs of the Communist
Party of the United States on the following major issues: (1) the
founding of the CPUSA; (2) the emergence of the CPUSA from an
illegal to a legal status and the combination of legal and illegal activity;
(3) policies in the American labor movement; (4) proposal for an
independent Negro republic in the South; (5) activity among the
unemployed ; (6) the choice of leaders for the American party.
UNDERGROUND ACTIVITY
Since the present is a period in which the exigencies of Soviet policy
require that its American Communist henchmen maintain an attitude
of active hostility toward the American Government, since it has been
only a short time since American lives were actually being lost in com-
bat against Communist military forces, and since the Government,
in self protection, has been compelled to adopt suitable restrictive
measures, the Communist Party, USA, has more and more resorted
to underground methods. The party does not wait until the police
crack down on its members and organizations before it initiates
precautionary measures.
Writing in the Communist International as early as September 1,
1931, B. Vassiliev, a Russian specialist on party organization, called
upon all Communist parties to safeguard themselves against "police
terror." He declared that —
The question of an illegal organization must now receive the closest attention of
all Communist Parties without exception in capitalist countries * * *
78 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
He called for the "formation of an illegal apparatus alongside the
still functioning legal Party apparatus." The application of this
basic instruction means that while the Communist Party, USA is
still legal, it has already built up a parallel illegal apparatus. Mr.
VassUiev further indicates that this illegal apparatus is "to take over
the functions of the legal apparatus as this is liquidated as the result
of police repression."
We are fortunate in having available the Vassiliev directive which
furnishes the basic pattern for Communist conspnative procedure
which would otherwise not be avaOable in such convenient form under
present circumstances. Basing himself upon the conspiratorial
experience of the Russian Communist Party, he goes into some detail.
The first steps for forming an illegal party apparatus which he recom-
mends are as follows:
1. Securing a building for storing the party archives. Such archives
are usually entrusted to veteran party members and are invariably
located outside of known party headquarters. They may be at the
home or office of some wealthy party member or sympathizer located
in surroundings calculated to avoid suspicion.
2. Establishment of one or more illegal printing plants for the printing
of party organs in the event of their closure. These would, of course,
be supplemented by auxiliary apparatus such as mimeographs, multi-
graphs, etc. In addition, the instructions call for the establishment
of one or more legal party organs, usually appearing under some
other assumed auspices. New editors must be appointed in advance
to replace those facing possible arrest. In the event of the suppression
of the party paper, a complete apparatus is to be prepared for its
appearance under a new name. Funds are even to be prepared for
the payment of fines and other incidental expenses.
3. Establishment of an apparatus for distributing illegal party litera-
ture.
4. Selection of a definite group of leading party activists to pass into
illegality. The history of the party shows innumerable cases of leaders
who have suddenly disappeared from public mention in the party
press for a time simultaneous with their assignment to illegal
activity. This has been the case with J. Peters, Jacob Golos, Whit-
taker Chambers, Earl Browder, Charles Krumbem, Emanuel Joseph-
son, George Mink, Philip Aronberg, Morris Childs, and many others.
5. Preparation of addresses and houses for illegal correspondence, for
secret sessions of the leading party committees and for housing the illegal
party leaders and for conferences at specified hours between them and
party members who are still operating on a legal basis. In this connec-
tion, the homes and offices of wealthy contacts often serve as a con-
venient cover.
6. Training of a minimum number of party members in the tech-
niques of underground work {running an illegal printing plant, code
work, the technique of personal and written contacts, the defense and pro-
tection of the illegal party apparatus, etc.). For this purpose trained
Russian instructors or Americans who have had training in Soviet
conspiratorial schools, are usually utilized.
To supplement these measures, Mr. Vassiliev gives specific instruc-
tions for individual party members and organizers, which have
particular force in the present hectic period:
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 79
1. No documents of an incriminating character are to be kept at
the legal premises of the party, and all party members are to be
warned regarding the keeping of secret or incriminating documents.
2. Certain selected party leaders engaged in special work of an
illegal character are warned against visiting the legal party headquar-
ters. Meetings of party leaders are not to be held at these locations.
3. In a period of semi or complete illegahty, the Communist-front
organizations and unions assume major importance as legal covers
for party members. Moreover, party members are instructed to
penetrate even nonparty and antiparty organizations in order to
carry on their activity. (In recent years, for example, there has
been accumulating evidence of Communist efforts to penetrate both
the Democratic and RepubHcan Parties, church organizations,
conservative unions, etc.)
4. Above all, Communist activity in specific factories is to be
carried on on a strictly conspiratorial basis. Members engaged in
this work are cautioned:
(a) To act in such a way as not to reveal their party member-
ship. (Recently the party was faced with a dilemma in this
connection, having urged its members to actively circulate the
Stockholm peace appeal which automatically revealed the
Communist forces.)
(6) Meetings of factory groups must be held in strictest se-
crecy, with the possible exception of the admission of reliable
sympathizers at times.
(c) Real names are not to be used at meetings by individual
members.
Vassiliev urges that "breaches of police restrictions should first of
all be organized in the factories informally and directly, by attract-
ing the working masses into the struggle. * * *" In other words,
the individual Communist will not stick his neck out to provoke
defiance of the policy, but will work behind the scenes to induce the
workers in his factory to do so and take the consequences. Com-
munists consider every such "breach" as an evidence of further
weakening of our democratic government.
J. Peters, in his authoritative Communist Party-;— Manual on
Organization, published in 1935, gives further du-ectives for safe-
guarding the Red conspiracy:
1. Do not tell any member anything about Party members wliich does not
concern that member.
It will be remembered that many Americans viewed with skepticism
the testimony of Whittaker Chambers that he was kno\^Ti to Alger
and Priscilla Hiss simply as "Carl." It sounds utterly fantastic
that they would not ask for details. The fact is, however, that any
party member who is inquisitive, who asks questions, beconies an
immediate object of suspicion. The party demands unquestioning
obedience in the fullest sense of the term.
2. Do not discuss any Party question outside of the meeting of the Party
organization * * * Stop discussing inner Party questions on the street corners
or cafeterias. * * *
3. Avoid, as much as possible, keeping membership lists with names and
addresses, and if you have such lists, do not keep them in your home, or in the
headquarters of the Party Unit or Section, or in your pocket.
4. Documents which are not for publication should be read only by those Party
members to whom they are addressed, and should be destroyed immediately
80 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
after reading. Documents which need study must be carefully safeguarded.
Every member who has such a document must return it after reading it to the
Party committee, which destroys it immediately.
These instructions on illegal activities are supplemented by a
publication entitled "The Agent Provocateur in the Labour Move-
ment" written by Johannes Buchner and published by the official
Communist publishing house, the Workers Library Publishers, for the
avowed purpose of "combating provocation and spying." This
pamphlet states that the "struggle against provocation and pohce
espionage forms a permanent and fundamental function of every
Party member and of the entire Party organization."
While the CPUSA plays upon every hberal sympathy in protecting
its members from ouster or prosecution by the Government, it has no
such scruples in dealing with suspicious persons in its own ranks.
Describing those Communists guilty of "petty bourgeois prejudices
and petty bourgeois muddleheadedness" who fear throwing "suspicion
on a friend and a comrade" or who hesitate to "hurt his feelings,"
Mr. Buchner lays down this ruthless principle:
Until the Communist Parties expel this petty bourgeois sentimentality and
muddleheadedness energetically from their midst, they will never be able to wage
an effective struggle against the agents provocateurs (p. 13).
Persons under suspicion, he says, should not be trusted merely "on
the alleged grounds that they possess valuable and indispensable
facihties" (p. 13).
Mr. Buchner advises Communists to read Our Secret War, by
Thomas Marvin Johnson, which contains descriptions of various
methods employed by spies for communication purposes.
In some instances, he ascribes to the police procedures (for penetrat-
ing into the technical apparatus to acquire information) which the
party undoubtedly uses for its own purposes, such as the enlistment of
"shorthand typists, technical secretaries, janitors, charwomen, and
servants." Detailed instructions are given as to methods employed
by police officials in eliciting information and how to guard against
them.
Mr. Buchner advises the following methods for eluding the pohce:
Firstly, the correct co-ordination of legal and illegal work * * *. Secondly, the
drawing" up and exact observance of the rules of conspiracy work, that is to say,
practical measures to ensure that confidential decisions and documents, illegal
persons, addresses, etc., are kept a close secret. Thirdly, exact rules for the
conduct of comrades under arrest with regard to their statements in court and
before the police (p. 44) .
He warns against excessive concentration of illegal work of the party
"in the hands ojf a single comrade," referring particularly to "the
direction of an illegal printshop, communication with organizations
alDroad and with underground organizations." He emphasizes that
"illegal Party work calls for a strict division of functions so that the
arrest of one person may not cause the dislocation of several spheres
of illegal Party work" (p. 46),
Buchner advises that "all symptoms of personal feelings, senti-
mental considerations, or superficial friendliness" be rejected in the
selection of comrades for illegal party work. Such persons must be
thoroughly checked as to "moral and political personality of the com-
rade concerned, his strength of character, militant experience, personal
courage, his connections and social intercourse, way of life, family
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 81
relations, etc." Precautionary measures are urged "in any case of
suspicions, serious or otherwise, even when there are no adequate
proofs by which the suspicion can be corroborated" (pp. 46, 47).
Buchner's pamphlet indicates that the Communists have made a
scientific study of eluding police vigilance. He cites the following
specific measures which incidentally provide valuable leads for our
own counterespionage agencies :
1. Thorough analysis of every case of arrest, examination and comparison of all
circumstances and incidents accompanying the case.
2. Increased vigilance in cases of distortion or misrepresentation of the Party
line.
3. Exact analysis of the various proposals and formal motions brought forward
by the suspected person over a given period of time.
4. Extreme caution towards people who display excessive curiosity, who offer
themselves for the execution of confidential tasks.
5. Special attention and vigilance to be paid to * * * (cases of alcoholism,
embezzlement, extravagance, sexual excesses, etc.)
6. Strict and continual financial control over all sums of money expended by
the organization and over every penny of Party funds.
7. Special courses of instruction * * * in the most elementary methods of
illegal work and conspiracy must be conducted in the Party schools.
8. Police agents should he unmasked, by making their names known and pub-
lishing their photographs and descriptions of their persons in the press.
9. Direct action on the part of all the workers of the whole enterprise or of a
given department so as to discover and forcibly eject all spies.
10. Every Communist Party should constantly hold in view the possibility of
having to change quickly to illegal work and should take * * * preparatory
measures.
11. By altering the dwelling places of various comrades, the addresses and the
places of meeting after arrests (pp. 48, 49).
Included in this invaluable study for the guidance of party members
are the following rules established by a famous espionage scliool of the
German general staff:
Do not show too obvious curiosity when collecting news and doing reconnais-
sance.
Train your facial expression so as to appear always uninterested and indifferent.
Never discuss confidential matters in a coffee-house, on the tram, or in the train.
Conceal your knowledge of foreign languages; this makes it easier for you to
overhear conversations.
Don't leave papers, envelopes, newspapers, hotel or business bills lying about
anywhere. Don't throw them in the waste paper basket either, even if they are
torn in small pieces (pp. 49, 50).
Always arrange meetings with people from whom you intend to learn some-
thing at a great distance from your and their place of living. If possible they
should have to make a railway journey of several hours to arrive at the meeting
place. When tired, especially after a night journey, the client is less capable of
offering resistance and is m.ore ready to let things out.
Rather learn five or six facts, even if they be insignificant ones than a hundred
opinions (pp. 49, 50).
Mr. Buchner's pamphlet lays down certain "rules of behavior" for
Communist Party members in "executing confidential conspiratorial
work:"
He must always be on his guard, must never talk at random, never he guilty
of carelessness; he must know how to govern himself and hold himself in
check * * *. He must fight systematically against all distractions and tenden-
cies to lose hold over himself, against talkativeness and curiosity. He must evolve
a number of strict rules of life for his daily existence and his intercourse with men
and affairs (p. 50).
82 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
He is most specific in bis directives for the behavior of Communist
operatives: i|
1. Tell him who ought to know what you have to say, not he who is permitted
to know it.
2. A revolutionary must not talk at random or use superfluous words. * * *
3. Only ask what it is your concern to know.
4. Be on your guard in telephoning and in letter-writing. * * *
5. Don't take unnecessary things with you.
6. Look around you. See who is following you and who is watching you.
7. Don't pose. Don't attract attention by acting the conspirator; act and
behave simply.
8. Avoid all frivolity and care-free behavior. Consider every step and every
action.
9. Adapt your way of life to the environment in which you belong according
to the documents you carry (pp. 50, 51).
METHODS OF EVASION AND DECEPTION
Many Americans are inclined to minimize the resourcefulness and
the cunning of the Communist fifth column. Many, having little
substantial knowledge of the nature of this conspiracy, inclined to
accept the CPUSA as just another American political party, are
misled by its claims. It would be well, therefore, to present an
analysis of typical Communist methods of evasion and deception.
Communists customarily resort to double talk and what has aptly
been described as Aesopian language, in other words, language
intended to give one impression to the outsider and quite another
to party insiders. While they constantly assure the Soviet Union
and their associates in the United States of their loyalty to the
Soviet cause, they seek to give the impression to Americans that
they are simultaneously loyal to this country. The 1945 constitution
of the CPUSA declares that the "Communist Party carries forward
[a phrase added to offset any impression of complete endorsement]
the democratic traditions of Jefferson, Paine and Lincoln." The
very same document declares that —
The Communist Party of the United States is the political party * * * basing
itself upon the principles of * * * Marxism-Leninism.
which calls for the establishment of a dictatorship by force and
violence in direct contradiction to the principles for which Jefferson,
Paine and Lincoln stood.
The preamble to the 1945 party constitution says "The Communist
Party upholds the achievements of American democracy". The
weasel word here is, of course, "achievements." As William Z.
Foster puts it in his 23 Questions About the Communist Party,
"We stand second to none in our loyalty to the American people."
Since the party by its own claim represents the American people
this is a pledge of loyalty to itself. The party here does not pledge
itself to support the institutions of American democracy as they are
today. Nor is this implied in the pledge "to defend * * * the
democracy of our country." The reference to "our^ country"^ is
particularly presumptuous in the light of the many previous allusions
by Communist spokesmen to the "Soviet fatherland" and the party's
demonstrated and undeviating loyalty to Soviet policy. In fact,
in his 23 Questions, WilUam Z. Foster openly claims that "Socialist
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 83
democracy, which is what prevails in the U. S. S. R., is on a higher
plane than the democracy of * * * the United States."
Article II of the party constitution carries the pledge to "extend
the democracy of our country." This term is a common one in Com-
munist literature. It is simply an admission that the "limited democ-
racy" remaining in our Government according to William Z. Foster,
is to be "extended" and exploited to the full to further the advent of
communism.
Again to mislead the unwary the preamble purloins certain phrases
from our own Declaration of Independence, demanding the right to
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," calmly ignoring the known
fact that the lot of millions in Communist countries is to be denied
these elementary rights.
Article II presents the party's purpose "to promote the best in-
terests and welfare of the working class and the people of the United
States." Naturally the party, self-described as the "political party
of the American working class," assumes for itself the right to define
what are these "best interests and welfare."
The preamble declares that the party will defend the "United States
Constitution and its Bill of Rights against its reactionary enemies."
Since the Communists do not consider themselves as reactionaries
but as progressives, this provision could not apply to their unceasing
efforts to undermine and destroy the United States Constitution.
How can William Z. Foster, or the party he heads, be trusted to defend
the United States Constitution when he frankly states in his 23
Questions that "the Stalin Constitution of the U. S. S. R. is far and
away the most democratic in the world?"
Nowhere in the world has communism, or "socialism," as the Com-
munists sometimes call it, been established by the freely expressed will
of the majority. This has been true from the time of the Russian
Revolution in 1917 to the satellite countries of the present day. In
every case these actions have been applauded by the CPUSA. Never-
theless in article II the CPUSA stands for the "establishment of
socialism by the free choice of the majority of the American people."
As a matter of fact, the Cormnunists hold this majority in complete
disrespect as indicated by their open contempt for the democratic
institutions which express the will of this majority.
In order to give the impression that the CPUSA is thoroughly
democratic in character, article VII declares that "the highest author-
ity of the Party is the National Convention." The fact is that these
conventions can be held only with Moscow's permission in accordance
with the constitution of the Communist International, a procedure
still in force. Those who have attended these conventions have ac-
knowledged that delegates are handpicked from above and usually
approve a single slate of members of the national committee without
contest. These gatherings merely rubberstamp decisions previously
made in the upper reaches of the Communist hierarchy.
The Communist Party is torn between its desire to assure the
American people that it is not affiliated with Moscow's international
Communist apparatus and its determination, on the other hand, to
demonstrate its afiiliation and unswerving loyalty to that organiza-
tion. Having openly acknowledged its affiliation with the Com-
munist International for over 20 years, the CPUSA on November 16,
1940, "disaffiliated" itself "for the specific purpose of removing itself
84 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
from the terms of tlie so-called Voorhis Act," requiring the registra-
tion of foreign agents. On May 22, 1943, the Communist Inter-
national was formally dissolved as an expedient to placate Russia's
allies in World War II, the action receiving the subsequent endorse-
ment of the disaffiliated CPUSA. The sincerity of this move may be
measured in the light of the testimony of Louis F. Budenz, former
member of the national committee of the CPUSA and former man-
aging editor of its official organ, the Daily Worker. Describing a
meeting of the party executives with Gerhard Eisler, alias Hans
Berger, representative of the Communist International, Budenz de-
clared under oath on November 22, 1946:
Now, I want to get here to the dissolution of the Communist International * * *
This issue (of the Communist) we were discussing was the one that discussed the
Communist International. * * * And it was agreed that Mr. Berger should
write this piece which he did write, in order to show our comrades that inter-
national still lives * * * even with the dissolution of the Communist Inter-
national.
The article by Hans Berger referred to, entitled "Remarks on the
Discussion Concerning the Dissolution of the Communist Inter-
national," appeared in the Communist (official CPUSA theoretical
organ) for November 1943.
In September 1947 the information bureau of the Communist parties
was established. In a statement appearing in the Daily Worker on
November 3, 1947, the national board of the CPUSA formally an-
nounced that the Communist Party ^'should not affiliate" because of
the "present political situation in the United States" which was de-
scribed as "anti-Communist hysteria and war incitement." It did not
say that it has not affiliated. The statement acknowledged, however,
that "the establishment of an Information Bureau by nine Communist
Parties of Europe is of great significance." It is in this light that the
statement in the preamble declaring that "the Communist Party holds
as a basic principle that there is an identity of interest which serves
as a common bond uniting the workers of all lands" should be judged.
To mislead those who interpret this document literally, the preamble
adds the assurance that the party "recognizes further that the true
national interests of our country * * * require the solidarity of all
freedom-loving peoples and the continued and ever-closer cooperation
of the United Nations," in order to give the impression that the U. N.
and not the Cominform represents that international "common bond."
The fact is that there have been convincing proofs of the CPUSA's
actual affiliation with the Cominform as demonstrated by —
1. Complete adherence to and endorsement of Cominform
policy.
2. Printing of Cominform directives in official organs of the
CPIJSA, such as the monthly Political Affairs.
3. Printing of CPUSA statements of policy and reports on
activity in the official Cominform organ For a Lasting Peace, For
a People's Democracy.
4. Fraternal greetings and support sent by the CPUSA to con-
ventions of foreign Communist parties openly affliated with the
Cominform.
5. Fraternal greetings and support sent to the CPUSA by for-
eign Communist parties affiliated with the Cominform, and by
the Cominform itself.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 85
6. Support by the CPUSA of world movements endorsed by the
Cominform such as the World Federation of Trade Unions, the
World Peace Congress, the Women's International Democratic
Federation, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, the
International Union of Students, and the World Federation of
Democratic Lawyers.
7. Sale of Cominform literature by CPUSA bookshops.
Public exposure of the CPUSA as a conspiracy with an under-
ground, illegal apparatus, engaging in espionage and other treasonable
activities, has induced the party to incorporate into its constitution
various formulations calculated to give the impression that the party
is entirely legal and aboveboard. Article IV, section 10, declares
that —
every member is obligated to fight with all his strength against any and every
effort, whether it comes from abroad or from within our country * * * to impose
upon the United States the arbitrary will of any group or party or clique or con-
spiracy, thereby violating the unqualified right of the majority of the people to
direct the destinies of our country.
This statement is honeycombed Math semantic boobytraps. Since the
Communists claim to represent the enlightened will of the majority
of the people, they would never plead guilty to being arbitrary, to
violating the will of the majority, or to representing a clique or con-
spu-acy. In article IX, punishment is prescribed for "conduct or
action detrimental to the working class and the nation," the interpreta-
tion of these terms being left to the determination of the disciplinary
review commission of the CPUSA. It is as if an organization of
gangsters had formally adopted a constitution describing itself as a
league of honest, law-abiding Americans; or an extortion racket oper-
ating under the name of Merchants Protective Society.
In 1948 the House Committee on Un-American Activities pubhshed
a report to show that the CPUSA is an advocate of the overthrow of
the Government by force and violence. In 1952 the Senate Internal
Security Subcommittee published documentary proof along this line.
In 1949, 11 top leaders of the CPUSA were convicted under the
Smith Act on the charge of teaching and advocating the overthrow of
our Government by force and violence. In part, the Government's
case was based upon quotations from seven Communist classics which
a defendant, Carl Winter, declared are obsolete. Nevertheless these
very works were recommended by Political Affairs in 1947 and are
openly sold in Communist bookshops. In a fm*ther effort to escape
the incriminating force of its basic documents, article XIV of the 1945
constitution declared:
The Communist Party is not responsible for any political document, policy, book,
article, or any other expression of political opinion except such as are issued by
authority of "this and subsequent national conventions and its regularly consti-
tuted leadership.
In effect, this would constitute a formal repudiation of all the works
of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin which are standard references for party
speakers, writers, and teachers today. Its purpose is undoubtedly
to invalidate this mass of evidence.
When charged with advocating the overthrow of Government by
force and violence, the party usually resorts to the formula used by
WilHam Z. Foster in his 23 Questions: "The danger of violence * * *
always comes from the reactionary elements," who would oppose the
86 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
revolutionary designs of the Communists. According to this logic, a
pedestrian who is provoked to violence in opposing the forcible efforts
of a highwayman to rob him of his possessions is primarily responsible
for such violence. Experience has shown that the Communists have
initiated violence in every country in which they have been active to
the point of actual control as in Russia, China, and the various satel-
lite states.
A prize example of evasion is that furnished by William Z. Foster,
chairman of the CPUSA, in answering questions as to what he would
do in the event of war between the United States and the Soviet
Union. These answers are, of course, typical of what may be expected
of party members generally in dealing with this question, which is an
acid test of their lo^^alty.
In the early days of the Communist movement, their spokesmen
were more forthright. Thus, William Z. Foster in his work Toward
Soviet America published in 1932, predicted positively:
The danger of imperialist war against the U. S. S. R. is now most acute. * * *
The capitalists clearly intend to thrust war upon the Soviet Union. * * * It is a
situation that should arouse every worker * * * to rally in defense of the Soviet
Union.
On September 29, 1939, during the period of the Stalin-Hitler Pact,
Foster appeared before the Special Committee on Un-American Activ-
ities. He was asked by the chairman :
In the event of war between the United States and Soviet Russia, would your
allegiance be to the United States or Soviet Russia?
Foster's replies run the entu-e gamut of evasion. We present them
in part:
I say it is a hypothetical question. * * * I am for the defense of the United
States. * * * if the United States entered this war on an imperialist basis, I
would not support it. * * *
Mr, Foster again appeared on May 27, 1948, before the Senate
Judiciary Committee. Again he was asked what he would do in the
event of an American conflict with the Soviet Union. Here are his
typical replies:
* * * any war that may be developed between the United States and the
Soviet Union can only be an imperialist war at the instigation of Wall Street,
and we Communists are against all imperialist wars. * * * Russia would never
attack America. * * * Because a socialist government is not an aggressive
government. * * * [Referring to the Soviet attack on Poland:] That was just
Russian land that tlie Polish Government had. * * * [Referring to the Soviet
attack on Finland:] Finland was the tool of reactionaries of every stripe. * * *
I have stated that we are not going to fight against the Soviet Union * * *
[Referring to ol:)edience to military orders:] That would depend on the circum-
stances. * * *"
TRIAL AND HEARING TECHNIQUE
Basing itself upon Lenin's theory that the Government consists
of "special bodies of armed men, who have at their disposal prisons"
and "repressive institutions of all kinds," for the oppression of the
vast majority of the population, the Communist Party, USA, which
looks upon our Government as the "enemy," has devised various
methods for evading exposure and prosecution which have been
employed from time to time before congressional committees and
the courts. These methods include the following:
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 87
1. Denial that the CPUSA advocates overthrow of govern-
ment by force and violence (Schneiderman case, case of 11
Communist leaders, case of the "second string" 13).
2. Denial that the party is an agent of a foreign power.
3. Denial of party membership (Alger Hiss, William W.
Remington).
4. Denial of legal authority to compel answers to questions
regarding party affiliation (Hollywood Ten).
5. Refusal to answer questions regarding party affiliation,
claiming privilege under the first amendment to the Constitu-
tion guaranteeing freedom of speech.
6. Refusal to answer questions regarding party affiliation,
claiming privilege under the fifth amendment on grounds of
possible self-incrimination.
7. Refusal to furnish official records on grounds that such a
request is beyond the legal scope of the committee or agency
(Joint Anti-Fascist' Refugee Committee).
8. Charge that the agency or committee is illegally constituted.
Nor has the above exhausted the Communist bag of tricks.
Johannes Buchner, in his authoritative pamphlet The Agent Pro-
vocateur in the Labour Movement, previously referred to, presents
detailed instructions for Communist conduct before the police and
in court:
* * * no statement incriminating any comrade, no names, no addresses, not a
single fact which could possibly be used directly or indirectly against the Party,
its organs or individual members of the organization. No explanations in this
respect. Absolute denial even when personally confronted with the persons and
despite the evidence given by police spies and agents provocateurs. Whoever
infringes, even but a little, these fundamental rules must instantly and mercilessly
be ejected from the Party (p. 51).
This directive furnishes a key to understanding the consistent
hostility of Communist witnesses before investigating bodies and the
courts.
Buchner warns against getting involved in talks and discussions
"even about seemingly distant topics, such as views of life, etc."
Should the authorities not know for certain that the individual is
a party member and have no proofs to that effect, then says Buchner:
since a categorical refusal to make any statement would convict you of being a
Communist, you may permit yourself a few short statements calculated to obtain
credence, but only with regard to your own person.
He discloses the essentially conspiratorial nature of the party by
advising that "We must always conceal our plans and our ways of
work from the class enemy," meaning, of course, the Government,
(p. 51.) He adds later, "therefore alwa3^s be on your guard, be a
conspirator, carefully control yourself and others" (p. 54).
Communists are cautioned to note whether they are being followed
when leaving a police station or their own homes (p. 24).
As a rule, those charged with certain crimes before a court of law
concentrate upon proving their innocence. Not so with the Com-
munists. They have other aims of a propaganda nature described
by Air. Buchner:
A Communist must utilize a political trial to help on the revolutionary struggle.
Our tactics in the public proceedings of the law court are not tactics of defense but
of attack. Without clinging to legal formalities, the Communist must use the trial
as a means of bringing his indictment against the dominant capitalist regime and
of courageously voicing the views of his Party.
88 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A study of the trial of the "first string" Communist leaders and the
tactics employed by the defense will disclose that these were primarily
the tactics employed, which resulted in the citation of defense lawyers
for contempt. It was the motivating factor in the selection of Eugene
Dennis, general secretary of the Party, to defend himself despite his
lack of legal training.
It is sometimes assumed that lawyers defending Communist cases
are just like any other lawyers who take cases as a matter of business
and who are not to be held responsible for the views of their clients.
But Mr. Buchner makes it clear that lawyers in Communist cases
belong in a different category. "The aid of such barristers," he de-
clares, "as deprecate the importance and the function of the Party in
their pleading, must be decisively rejected" (p. 52).
The International Labor Defense, described by Attorney General
Biddle as the "legal arm of the Communist Party," and now func-
tioning as the Civil Rights Congress, published a pamphlet some years
ago entitled "Under Arrest! How To Defend Yourself in Court!
What To Do When Arrested and Questioned!" which gives additional
pointers which are recommended for study in special classes organized
for the purpose.
Introducing this pamphlet, Helen Stasova, international secretary
of the International Labor Defense (International Red Aid), with
headquarters in Moscow, declared, "We must give directions to the
workers on how to defend themselves."
Symbolic of their distrust of the dignity and sanctity of our
courts, the Communists do not rely upon legal defense. Believing
that the courts are primarily instruments of the ruling class, the Com-
munists rely primarily upon mass action to terrorize the courts to act
in behalf of their defendants. Thus the pamphlet boasts that —
The principal work of the International Labor Defense consists in arousing the
widest mass protests, as the chief effective method with which to wrest the work-
ing class militants from the bosses' clutches (p. 6).
In accordance with this practice, mass picket hnes were conducted
around the Federal Court Building during the trial of the 11 Com-
munist leaders in 1949.
According to this approach, the policeman "is a servant of the boss
class. * * * He is your enemy." Hence the instruction for dealing
with him or his superiors:
* * * you shall not give the names of your fellow workers, the names of organi-
zations that you belong to. * * * And if you are a foreign-born worker, no
information of any sort, of the date you landed, the name of the boat, etc. Give
your name. That is all. You should not even furnish an address (p. 9).
If charged with assaulting a policeman, the defendant is advised not
to deny the act but to assert "your right to defend yourself" (p. 16).
"Have no faith in fake promises of the cops or district attorney,"
is a warning issued by this pamphlet (p. 11). Defendants are urged
to demand a jury trial so as to "have much more opportunity to
raise class issues" (p. 13).
The key to the defiant attitude of a Communist in the courts lies
in the precept laid down to "make capitalism the defendant, and
yourself the prosecutor" (p. 16), In his own eyes and those of his
associates, his defiance makes him a hero of the class war. Thus
"the capitalist courtroom" must be used "as a forum from which
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 89
the workers on trial expose before their fellow toilers the true nature
of the courts — as a tool in the bosses' economic and political op-
pression" (p. 29).
Written in the days when the Communists had not fully adopted
their present Trojan Horse tactics, the pamphlet is franker than
Wilham Z. Foster on the question of force and violence, declaring:
* * * the masses of workers will be fully justified, historically and socially, in
using means, including force and violence, in defense against capitalist force and
violence and in a revolutionary situation, to dislodge capitalism and replace it
with a classless social order. * * * (p. 17).
Despite their activities as a Soviet fifth column, Communists are
advised to quote the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jeffer-
son, Abraham Lincoln, and Woodrow Wilson in support of their
right to revolution (pp. 18, 19).
Keminiscent of the procedure followed to the letter by the defense
in the trial of the 11 Communist leaders in 1949, causing weeks of
delay, we find the following:
Before the jury panel is sworn in by the clerk, get up, and state that you challenge
the entire panel of prospective jurors on the ground that it is composed of people
whose social and economic interests will prejudice them against you, the de-
fendant (p. 20).
Characterizing the various sedition laws, criminal anarchy statutes
and criminal syndicalism acts which have been adopted by various
States, the pamphlet refers to them as "class laws, brazen and undis-
guised, forged by the capitalist state to suppress the struggle of the
masses" (p. 25).
Defendants are warned against too great reliance upon attorneys
since they are "limited by the technical rules of the courts" (p. 15).
"No pussyfooting" is to be tolerated from attorneys. "An attorney,"
it is pointed out, "should be employed only for instruction and tech-
nical defenses," the defendant reserving for himself the right to pre-
sent "the class issues."
William L. Patterson, former national secretary of the International
Labor Defense and presently executive secretary of the Civil Rights
Congress, has written an illuminating article entitled "The Inter-
national Labor Defense and Courtroom Technicians," for the Labor
Defender of May 1933, official ILD organ. The tactics laid down
then form a pattern for those followed in all recent Communist trials.
The instructions laid down by this well-known Communist are most
explicit :
The class struggle begun on the streets or in the shop is carried into the court-
room. * * *
Many of the friends and even members of the ILD have seriously questioned its
methods. * * * International Labor Defense lawyers are engaged to serve it
chiefly on the basis of their ability as "courtroom technicians."
A lawyer has to concern himself only with the juridical aspects of the case.
He is not asked to engage in the political defense of the accused, but his legal
defense of the accused, because of the nature of the cases the ILD is engaged in,
becomes at once political * * *.
The ILD believes that only mass pressure can bring about the release of a
class war prisoner; that pressure must be supplemented by legal defense.^ The
legal defense must be of the most expert character. Every legal technicality
must be used. The more far reaching the knowledge of the lawyer retained by
the ILD, the more easUy and effectively can the worker be shown that the
guaranties of justice extended him by the ruling class are meaningless.
90 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COMMUNIST FRONT ORGANIZATIONS
Communists speaking openly in the name of the Communist
Party and franldy as disciplined agents of the Soviet Union could
make very little progress in winning converts in the United States.
Wherever and whenever they have secured power in any country, it
has been the result of a calculated policy of deception. One of the
most important instruments of Communist deception is the front
organization. Without the aid of its numerous front organizations,
the Communist Party would be an isolated, insignificant sect. With
the aid of its network of fronts, the Communist Party can and does
exercise influence far out of proportion to its actual membership. It
is in a position to establish contacts not otherwise available,
A Communist front organization may be broadly described as an
organization formed at the initiative of the Communist Party of the
United States or another country or the Communist International
(Cominform) and operating under Communist instruction for the
accomplishment of one or more current aims.^ The actual aim of the
Communist front is not openly stated but is concealed behind a high-
sounding and attractive reform objective. In exceptional cases like
the American Youth Congress the Communists have taken over an
organization originally organized by non-Communists and have trans-
formed it into a Communist front. A front can be local, national, or
international in its scope.
The building of front organizations has been laid down as a primary
directive by Otto Kuusinen, secretary of the Communist Inter-
national, for all Communist parties in the following words uttered at
the Sixth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist
International held in Moscow:
The first part of our task is to build up, not only Communist organizations, but
other organizations as well, above all mass organizations, sympathizing with our
aims, and able to aid us for special purposes. * * * We must create a whole solar
system of organizations and smaller committees working actually under the
influence of our Party (Communist (magazine), May I93I, pp. 409-423).
The real purposes of the Communists in building a front organiza-
tion are never those which are publicly stated to attract adherents.
The actual objectives which we cite herewith, may be varied and may
overlap in the case of any given organization.
1. As part of Soviet psychological warfare against the United States,
Communist fronts seek to paralyze America's will to resist Communist
aggression by idealizing Russia's aims and methods, discrediting the
United States, spreading defeatism and demoralization. At the
present historical juncture in world affairs, all Communist fronts serve
this primary purpose. Specializing in this field, however, there have
been such organizations as the American Peace Crusade, the Com-
mittee for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact, the Congress of
American Women, the American Youth for Democracy, and the
Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy.
2. Certain organizations specialize in pro-Soviet propaganda such
as the magazine New World Review (formerly Soviet Russia Today),
' The Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 describes the Communist-front organization as follows
In sec. 3 (4) (p 4): "The term 'Communist-front organization' means any organization in the United States
(other than a Communist-action organization as defined in paragraph (3) of this section) which (A) is sub-
stantially directed, dominated, or controlled by a Communist-action organization, and (B) is primarily
operated for the purpose of giving aid and support to a Communist-action organization, a Communist
foreign go"ernnieut, or the world Communist movement referred to in sec. 2 of this title."
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 91
the National Council of American Soviet Friendship and the American
Russian Institute.
3. Where the Communist message cannot be carried most effectively
by the Communist Party among particular groups in the population,
special fronts are formed for the purpose, such as American Youth for
Democracy, Labor Youth League, Congress of American Women,
the National Negro Labor Council, International Workers Order
(foreign-born groups), American Committee for Protection of Foreign
Bom, and the various foreign-language papers of the Communist
Party.
4. Sometimes fronts are used to appeal to special occupational
groups still with the same broad general purposes in mind including,
by way of example, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Coun-
cil of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions, the Photo League, and
Farm Research. .
5. To defend the cases of Communist lawbreakers, fronts have been
devised making special appeals in behalf of civil liberties and reaching
out far beyond the confines of the Communist Party itself. Among
these organizations are the Civil Rights Congress; Emergency Civil
Liberties Committee; National Committee to Repeal the McCarran
Act; Trade Union Committee for the Repeal of the Smith Act;
National Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case; Bridges,
Robertson, Schmidt Defense Committee; Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee
Committee; the National Lawyers Guild; Spanish Refugee Api>eal;
and the American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born. When
the Communist Party itself is under fire these fronts offer a bulwark
of protection.
6. Communist dissimulation extends into the field of pohtical par-
ties forming political front organizations such as the ProgTessive
Party and the American Labor Party. The Communists are thus
enabled to present their candidates for elective office under other
than a straight Communist label.
7. With an eye to religious groups, the Communists have formed
religious fronts such as the Methodist Federation for Social Action,
the Protestant (magazine), and the American Jewish Labor Council.
8. All Communist fronts are expected to serve as instruments of
Communist espionage seeking out information and passing it through
proper channels and serving as an occupationasi cover for espionage
agents while their premises serve as convenient mail drops.
9. Communist operatives on the payrolls of the various Communist
fronts are given a liveliliood and valuable organizing experience at
the expense of sources outside of the Communist Party. Thus the
International Workers Order with assets of over $1 million employed
party stenographers, clerks, organizers, speakers, writers, teachers,
janitors, and others in connection with its 2,000 lodges.
10. Certain Communist fronts are organized for the purpose of pro-
mulgating Communist ideas and misinformation into the bloodstream
of public opinion. Examples of such organizations are the Allied Labor
News Service, Federated Press, and the Labor Research Association.
11. Schools under patriotic and benevolent titles indoctrinate
Communists and outsiders in the theory and practice of communism,
train organizers and operatives, recruit new party members and
sympathizers. These are no ordinary schools seeking mere culture or
academic degrees. Such schools, whether open or secret, are operated
60222—65 7
92 THE COAIMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
by Communist Parties throughout the world under the supreme
direction of Moscow under a common pattern. Schools of this type
have been:
Abraham Lincoln School, Chicago Michigan School of Social Science,
Jefferson School of Social Science, New Detroit
York Ohio School of Social Sciences^ Cleveland
California Labor School, San Francisco Philadelphia School of Social Science
Samuel Adams School, Boston and Art
Seattle Labor School, Seattle Schoo. of Jewish Studies New York
In Canada such Communist indoctrination was conducted chiefly
by study groups whose operation is described by Canadian Royal
Commission in its report of June 27, 1946:
A further objective, pursued through the study group, is gradually to inculcate
in the secret membership of the Communist Party a habit of complete obedience
to the dictates of senior members and officials of the Party hierarchy. This is
apparently accomplished through a constant emphasis, in the indoctrination
courses, on the importance of organization as such, and by the gradual creation,
in the mind of the new adherent or sympathizer, of an over-riding moral sense of
"loyalty to the Party." * * *
The indoctrination courses in the study gi'oups are apparently calculated not
only to inculcate a high degree of "loyalty to the Party" and "obedience to the
Party," but to instill in the mind of the adherent the view that loyalty and obedi-
ence to the leadership of organization takes precedence over his loyalty to Canada,
entitles him to disregard his oaths of allegiance and secrecy, and thus destroys
his integrity as a citizen (pp. 74, 75).
12. Communist fronts change in accordance with the current party
line. Thus when the party line was stridently anti-United States in
the early 1930's, the Communists launched the American League
Against War and Fascism. In the face of the growing menace of
Adolf Hitler in the late 1930's, they projected the American League
for Peace and Democracy advocating collective security with the
democracies against fascism. During the Stalin-Hitler Pact (1939-
41), however, they created the American Peace Mobilization which
picketed the White House against lend-lease and the defense program.
After Hitler attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and Russia
became an ally, this organization was transformed into the American
People's Mobilization which supported the war effort. Immediately
after World War II, the hne changed again and fronts immediately
blossomed out against the American defense program and against our
foreign policy, such as the National Committee To Win the Peace, the
American Peace Crusade, and similar organizations.
13. Front organizations enable the Communist Party to mobihze
what appears to be a body of public opinion outside of the party in
support of their campaigns, projects, legislation, or demands. In
many cases the statement of such an organization is printed by the
press without investigation. The names of leading sponsors command
attention. These organizations claim to speak in the name of great
masses of Americans whom they do not actually represent. Since
one front organization will support another, they manage to pyramid
their membership claims to fantastic proportions.
14. Front organizations serve as a valuable recruiting ground for
new party members and supporters.
15. Certain fronts are formed to provoke racial friction such as
the United Negro and Allied Veterans of America, Council on African
Affairs, National Negro Labor Council, and others.
Benjamin Gitiow, former Communist Party candidate for Vice
President of the United States, former member of its politbureau,
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 93
and a former member of the Executive Committee of the Communist
International, has explained how a front organization is formed,
A front organization is organised by the Communist Party in the following
fashions: First, a number of sympathizers who are close to the party and whom
the party knows can be depended upon to carry out party orders, are gotten
together and formed into a nucleus which issues a call for the organization of a
particular front organization which the party wants to estaolish. And generally
after that is done a program is drawn up oy the party, which this provisional
committee adopts. Then, on the basis of this provisional program, all kinds
of individuals are canvassed to become sponsors of the organization, which is
to be launched in the very near future. A provisional secretary is appointed
before the organization is launched and in every instance in our day the secre-
tary who was appointed was a member of the Communist Party. * * * And
as president of the organization we would put up some prominent public figure
who was willing to ^.ccept the presidency of the organization, generally making
sure that, if that public figure was one who would not go along with the Com-
munists, he was of such a type that he would be too busy to pay attention to the
affairs of the organization. * * *
On the committee that would be drawn together, a sufiicient number of Com-
munists and Communist Party sympathizers, who would carry out party orders,
was included, and out of this number a small executive committee was organized
* * * which carried on the affairs of the organization, so-called, and this small
executive committee, with the secretary, really ran the organization. And
this small committee and the secretary are the instruments of the Communist
Party, with the result that when manifestos or decisions on campaigns are made,
those campaigns are ordered by the Communist Party (hearing of the Special
Committee on Un-American Activities, vol. 7, pp. 4716, 4717, 4718).
Various American fronts are each affiliated with a parent interna-
tional front from which they receive directives, literature and other
aid and to which they give unreserved and active support. Repre-
sentatives of American fronts are to be found at international con-
ferences of these organizations. These organizations interlock and
cooperate closely. The following international Communist fronts
are among those functioning at the present time:
World Federation of Democratic Youth
International Union of Students
World Federation of Democratic Women
World Peace Congress
World Federation of Scientific Workers
International Organization of Democratic Journalists
International Association of Democratic Lawyers
These operate in close harmony with the Communist-dominated
World Federation of Trade Unions.
Since Communist fronts have a way of changing names from time
to time and from place to place, no specified list can serve as a perma-
nent safeguard to insure their detection. Safety from their machina-
tions can be guaranteed only through ceaseless vigilance and detailed
knowledge. We, therefore, present for the guidance of the American
people certain criteria which will be useful in spotting a Communist
front.
1. Since Communist fronts must start with a working nucleus of
party members or reliable sympathizers, and since the party depends
for its continued control of these organizations upon this nucleus, the
presence of certain names frequently found as sponsors and ofhcials
is often a good clue. We present herewith a list of the most active
and typical sponsors of Communist fronts in the past.
94 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
LIST OF MOST TYPICAL SPONSORS OF FRONT ORGANIZATIONS
Adams, Josephine Truslow
Barsky, Edward K.
Bass, Mrs. Charlotta
Benson, Elmer
Bryson, Hugh
Burgum, Edwin Berry
Carnovsky, Morris
Darr, John W.
Davis, Jerome
DuBois, W. E. B.
Dunn, Robert W.
Emerson, Thomas I.
Evergood, Philip
Fairchild. Henry Pratt
Fast, Howard
Gellert. Hugo
Gold, Ben
Cropper, William
Hammett, Dashiell
Hathway, Marion
Havighurst, R. J.
Hellman, Lillian
Hendley, Charles J.
Hughes, Langston
Hunton, Alpheus W.
Hutchins, Crace
Imbrie, James
Jerome, V. J.
Kenny, Robert W.
Kent, Rockwell
Kingsbury, John A.
Kirchwey, Freda
Kreymborg, Alfred
Lamont, Corliss
Lampell, Millard
Lawson, John Howard
Lovett, Robert Morss
Lynd, Robert S.
Maltz, Albert
Mann, Thomas
Mather, Kirtley F.
McAvoy, Clifford T.
McManus, John T.
McMichael, Jack R.
Mc Williams, Carey
Miller, Clyde R.
Morrison, Philip
Mulzac, Hugh N.
Parker, Dorothy
Patterson, William L.
Pauling, Linus
Pennypacker, Anna M. W.
Pope, Arthur Upham
Rautenstrauch, Walter
Refregier, Anton
Reynolds, Bertha G.
Robeson Paul
Russell, Rose
Schuraan, Frederick L.
Shapley, Harlow
Shipler, Guy Emery
Shumlin. Herman
Spofford, William B.
Steel, Johannes
Stefansson, Vilhajalmur
Stern, Bernhard J.
Stewart, Donald Ogden
Stewart, Maxwell S.
Stone, L F.
Stover, Fred W.
Straus, Leon
Struik, Dirk J.
Sugar, Maurice
Thompson, John B.
Trachtenberg, Alexander
Travis, Maurice
Uphaus, Willard
Van Kleeck, Mary
Ward, Harry F.
Warne, Colston E.
Weltfish, Gene
Wilkerson. Doxey A
2. Does the organization receive publicity and promotion in such
Communist pubHcations as the Daily Worker, Daily People's World,
Masses and Mainstream?
3. Does the organization hold meetings in halls or does it have its
offices in premises ordinarily used by Communist organizations?
4. Is literature of the Communist Party and other front organiza-
tions to be found at headquarters and at meetings?
5. Are speakers and entertainers employed who are frequently
associated with other Communist fronts or with the Communist
Party or its press?
6. Are facilities used in common with the Communist Party or its
front organizations (printers — see printer's union label, mimeograph
services, addressing, stationers, picnic grounds, accountants, real-
estate agents, doctors, lawyers, artists, promotion agents, public-
relations counselors, radio commentators, etc.). Accountants es-
pecially can be instrumental in enabling the Communist Party to
keep careful track of the organization's finances and activities.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 95
7. Great care should be taken in determining the character of those
who actually run the organization ignoring such figureheads as the
honorary chairman. What is the loyalty record of the executive
secretary, of resident and functioning membere of the executive com-
mittee, members of the staff, the organization secretary, educational
director, editor, etc.?
8. Does the organization, and especially its official organ, follow the
Communist Party line on issues and campaigns publicized in the Daily
Worker? Does it invariably support and defend the Soviet Union?
Does it adhere to its avowed purpose or inject issues of the above
character?
9. Does the organization cooperate with other fronts and with the
Communist Party in election campaigns. May Day parades, peace
campaigns, petitions, tag days, and other projects promoted in the
Daily Worker?
10. Does the organization cooperate with Communist-controlled
unions?
11. Does the organization furnish direct or indirect revenue to the
Communist Party, its publications, its fronts or establishments
through orders for printing, stationery, advertisements, donations,
and services of various kinds?
12. Is the organization repudiated as Communist-controlled by
such outstanding organizations as the American Federation of Labor,
the American Legion, or its own former constituents? What is its
history? How long has it existed?
13. Does it furnish regular financial statements issued by well-
known and reliable public accountants?
14. Is the organization actually controlled by its membership or by
an outside Communist clique or group?
15. Does it interchange mailing lists with the Communist Party, its
front organizations, or its publications?
It would be well for alert Americans to be aware of the tricks
employed by Communist fronts when faced with the threat of exposure
or prosecution. We list some of these which have previously been
employed.
1. After lengthy and arduous investigation, the front will suddenly
change its name so that the job will have to be done all over again.
Front organizations change their names from time to time and are
variously labeled in different cities and neighborhoods. Sometimes
fronts wiU merge to avoid exposure or prosecution. At times they
have been known to assume a name similar to some well-known and
respectable organization. An example is the Methodist Federation
for Social Action which has no official connection with the Methodist
Church. Another is the now defunct A. F. of L. trade-union com-
mittee for unemployment insurance which was forced to desist from
using this name as the result of an order secured by the American
Federation of Labor before the Federal Trade Commission. By way
of illustrating the various guises assumed, the following Communist
fronts were active in the recent peace offensive after World War II:
American Peace Appeal, American Peace Crusade, American People's
Congress and Exposition for Peace, American Students Repudiate
Aggression in Korea, American Youth Peace Crusade, East Harlem
Women for Peace, Young People's General Assembly for Peace,
Committee for Peaceful Alternatives, Maryland Committee for
96 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Peace, Minute Women for Peace, Irving Peace Theater, National
Assembly Against UMT, Mid-Century Conference for Peace, Na-
tional Delegates Assembly for Peace, National Committee To Win
the Peace, New York Peace Institute, Peace Information Center,
Veterans for Peace, World Peace Congress, etc. New names are con-
stantly cropping up.
2. The names of prominent citizens who have been duped into the
organization who are usually inactive and unaware of what is going on,
will be cited as proof of the organization's respectability.
3. Individuals who expose the character of Communist fronts will be
threatened with libel suits, smears, physical assault, blackmail, and
ouster from official positions. Legal advice is always valuable as a
safeguard.
4. The organization will claim a membership which cannot be
accurately verified.
5. Communist fronts, when identified as such, will immediately and
vigorously deny the charge.
6. A favorite device is to arrange for the defense^of the particular
front by a non-Communist publication. For example, when the
Southern Conference for Human Welfare was exposed as a front by
the House Committee on Un-American Activities, it was defended in
the Harvard Law Review by Walter Gellhorn, of Columbia Law
School.
7. Ofttimes, after a Communist front has been successfully
launched by a provisional committee, a new committee will be substi-
tuted to conceal the origin of the organization.
8. A favorite Communist gambit is the claim that since an individual
belonged to a given front organization jprior to its citation as such by the
Attorney General, the individual should not be held responsible. This
asks us to ignore the fact that a front organization is by definition
subversive and, except in the very few cases where organizations orig-
inally formed by non-Communist forces were taken over by the Com-
munists thereafter, all front organizations were subversive from their
inception. The important date is not when the organization was cited,
for its subversive character does not date from the day of- its listing
by the Attorney General.
9. Recently there has developed a tendency to decry references to
defunct organizations. This is unrealistic because the fact of member-
ship in an organization which was subversive loses none of its eviden-
tiary value when the organization goes out of existence. No informa-
tion about a live and active conspirator should be considered as dead
or irrelevant. (It should be pointed out in this connection that in the
early 1940's Alger Hiss was Hsted in congressional files as a member of
the national committee of the defunct International Juridical Associa-
tion. There were no other front associations for this man at the time.
This Communist link was ignored by the State Department and Alger
Hiss was left to conduct his nefarious activities until 1948 when Whit-
taker Chambers appeared on the witness stand.)
WITHIN THE LABOR MOVEMENT
The CPUSA is the only party which coordinates its activity in the
political field with its activity m the trade unions. In other words,
while political parties place their reliance upon voting strength, the
THE COMMIJjSriST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 97
CPUSA seeks support in the field of industry through the trade
unions. Every base established by the Communists in our unions is
in fact a Soviet bridgehead within our own economy. A" strike
organized by a small Communist minority in a vital industry can have
a more far-reaching effect than a vote of the majority of the popula-
tion. In his book, Toward Soviet America, William Z. Foster has
frankly set down some of the principles which guide the CPUSA in
this process of penetration of American labor.
1. "Its principle is to make every shop a fortress for communism"
(p. 254). This aim must be kept in mind in sharp contrast with that
of the average American trade unionist whose primary desire is
better wages and working conditions.
2. "It concentrates its work upon the heavy industries and those of
a war character" (ibid.). In its magazine, the Communist, for
February 1934, the CPUSA, quoting a decision of the Executive
Committee of the Communist International, outlines what such con-
centration entails:
Communists must * * * concentrate their forces in each country, at the
vital parts of the war machine of imperialism * * * Communist Parties must
by all means in their power ensure the practical organization of mass action
(increasing the work among railwaymen, seamen and harbor workers, preventing
the shipping of arms and troops, hindering the execution of orders for belligerent
countries * * *) * * *
During the period of the Stalin-Hitler Pact, the Communists
carried out these mandates by fomenting strikes through unions
under their control in North American Aviation of California; th
Allis-Chalmers of Wisconsin, engaged in important manufacturing
equipment for the Navy; and in various arms and ammunition plants
in Connecticut. During the Korean war, the International Union
of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, also Communist controlled,
conducted a strike which tied up the major part of the copper industry.
3. Joseph Zack Kornfeder (known in the Communist Party as
Joseph Zack), former national trade-union secretary of the CPUSA,
has testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities
on September 30, 1939, as follows:
Mr. Whitley. Does the Communist Party use its connections with the trade
unions of the various industries for the purpose of carrying on espionage activ-
ities? * * *
Mr. Zack. The Soviet Government will utilize its American organization for
whatever purpose they find convenient * * * there are secret organizations that
manage to pick out individuals out of the ranks of the Communist Party to use
for that purpose.
Mr. Whitlet. Do you know of any specific instances in which they have used
their trade-union connection to obtain industrial secrets?
Mr. Zack. Yes. While I was in charge of the Trade Union Unity League
I was once asked to supply an engineer, a chemist * * * I was asked to do that
by Max Bedacht, who was then in charge of this phase of their secret activity.
Testimony of Rear Adm. Adolphus Staton, retired, before the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on March 2, 1954, dealt with
Public Law No. 351 involving radio operators in the Communist-
controlled American Communications Association during World
War II. In the course of this testimony, the minutes of a meeting
held in the oflSce of Secretary of Navy Frank Knox on May 19, 1942,
were incorporated into the record from which we quote relevant
portions:
Admiral (S. C.) Hooper then stressed the danger of Communist Party cells in
the transportation and communication industries and in the armed services, and
how the Conununist Party was striving with all its power to establish such ceils
98 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
* * *. The contributory effect of foreign cells in a country's system of com-
munication was amply demonstrated in the fall of Norway and of France, stated
Admiral Hooper, giving details of each.
* * * He emphasized the particular danger of a cell among radio operators
and brought out the example of the Spanish Fleet at the very start of the 1937
revolution, when some 700 officers were murdered by the Communist Party cells
in the fleet because of the fact that the radio operators delivered the announcement
of the Communist revolution to their comrades rather than to the responsible
ship's officers. * * *
Admiral Hooper further stated that * * * the American Communications
Association was Communist Party controlled and the nucleus of the Communist
Party cell in United States communications. * * *
Marcel Scherer, a founder, International vice president, and
national orj];anization director of the Federation of Architects, Engi-
neers, Chemists, and Technicians, later business manager of local
1227 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers and inter-
national representative and educational director of District 4 of the
UEMWA, who admitted under oath his part in organizing a local
union at the atomic radiation laboratory of the University of Cali-
fornia in 1942 or 1943, has been identified in sworn testimony as a
former student at the Lenin School in Moscow. Here training was
given in the "science of civil warfare, revolutionary uprising," "sabo-
tage," and similar matters. Sworn testimony before the House Com-
mittee on Un*-American Activities shows that he was in contact with
Clarence Francis Hiskey and Steve Nelson, both involved in atomic
espionage.
4. American workers owe a great deal to the fact that labor and
management have become convinced, through long experience, of
their interlocking interests and the need for cooperative and friendly
relations. In his work. Toward Soviet America, Foster makes clear
in the following passage that the Communists are determined to
disrupt this relationship, cost what it may, that their demands can
never be satisfied:
The capitalists and the workers are class enemies, with mutually hostile in-
terests. * * * Communist action is based upon the slogan of "Class Against
Class" ; that is, the working class against the capitalist class (p. 252).
Stability in industry and in our society as a whole has been built up
over the years through a system of collective bargaining, which is an
anathema to the Communists according to the First International
Congress of Revolutionary and Industrial Unions in Moscow in 1921:
The belief in the sanctity of collective bargaining * * * must be met with a
resolute and decided resistance on the part of the revolutionary trade union move-
ment. The revolutionary trade unions * * * must realize their (contracts)
relative value and clearly define methods which will abolish these contracts when
it proves to be profitable to the working class.
5. American labor looks upon our Government with devotion and
respect. It is the object of the Communists, however, to pit the forces
of labor against the American Government as indicated by Foster's
statement from the same work that "the aim always is for the workers
to lead and for tiie attack to be directed against the capitalist class
and its government" (p. 253). The Labor Fact Book for 1931 pub-
lished by the International Publishers, a Communist publishing house,
gives some idea of how this is done:
The Communist Party and the Trade Union Unity League call for persistent
and repeated mass violations of injunctions as the only way to compel the courts
to lin)it the use of the injunction weapon against the workers. A campaign of
mass violation was begun in New York City in October, 1930 * * * (p. 154).
THE COMMUNIST PARTY Or THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 99
Clashes with the police are encouraged, as exemplified by the follow-
ing account from the Daily Worker of May 31, 1937, pages 1 and 3:
Chicago police kill 4 pickets, 100 wounded at Republic Steel. * ♦ * Chicago
Communist Party urges citywide protest denouncing the blood bath at Republic
Steel plant as one of the worst police outrages in recent history. Morris Chi'ds,
secretary of the Communist Party, called all workers to join * * * in citywide
protest.
6. Labor has learned to voice its demands through its chosen
leaders. Employers and Government officials endeavor to establish
stability in industry through negotiations with these officials. But
William Z. Foster, in the name of the CPUSA, has sworn undying
enmity toward these labor leaders in the following exphcit terms;
"They are enemies within the gates of the working class and must be treated
as such. They head the labor movement only in order to behead it. They are
a menace and an obstacle to all struggle by the workers. * * * They must be
politically obliterated" (ibid, p. 256).
7. Although labor organizations in the United States have fraternal
ties with foreign labor groups, they do not operate under foreign dis-
cipline. Communists do not possess such freedom. This has been
demonstrated by William Z. Foster in his description of the Trade
Union Unity League (TUUL), at one time the labor auxiliary of the
CPUSA:
The TUUL is the American section of the Red International of Labor Unions.
* * * Its relations towards the Communist Party are those of mutual support
and cooperation in the struggle * * * (ibid., p. 258).
The 1931 Labor Fact Book points out that "the Red International of
Labor Unions was organized in July 1921 at a Moscow congress * * *"
and that this international body aims "To coordinate and regulate the
struggle of the working class in all countries * * *" (p. 212). As a
result there have been cases of international coordination of strikes
and organization of Communist-led unions in the copper, maritime,
sugar, and other industries.
In 1945 the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) was organ-
ized with the Communists in control, replacing the Red International
of Labor Unions. In his book. The History of the Communist Party
of the United States, WiUiam Z. Foster points out that —
The powerful unifying tendency of the WFTU was also felt In the United
States" (p. 477).
and that the Communists supported this movement. It was repudi-
ated as Communist-dominated by both the AFL and CIO. Foster
adds:
The Communists also have always been indefatigable workers for trade union
unity. * * * They have ever sought to link up the labor movement of the
United States with that of other countries. In late years this has meant active
backing of such organizations as the Latin American Confederation of Labor and
the World Federation of Trade Unions (p. 561).
Communist unions have, however, made no formal or open affilia-
tion with the WFTU.
American labor has based its demands purely on the basis of its
economic and social needs with due consideration to national emer-
gencies during wartime. Flowing from their international ties and
discipline. Communist-dominated unions and labor groups have
adapted their policies strictly to the exigencies and need of Soviet
100 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
diplomacy and interests. During the period of the StaHn-Hitler Pact
from 1939 to 1941, strikes were encouraged by Communist-dominated
unions in vital war industries. As soon as Russia became an ally
after Hitler's attack, a no-strike policy was adopted by Communist-
dominated unions. Labor Fact Book 7 praised the no-strike policy
of our national trade unions during this period (p. 112).
After the end of World War II, the Soviet Union readopted its
policy of hostility toward the United States, and Communist unions
in the United States reinvoked a vigorous prostrike policy.
8. Members of Communist-dominated unions have testified that
the finances of these organizations are frequently siphoned off for
Communist causes, front organizations, campaigns, and publications.
Communist officials are placed on the union payroll. Union services
are placed in the hands of Communist lawyers, accountants, printers,
mimeographers, and meeting-hall managers.
COMMUNIST-CONTROLLED UNIONS
Unions expelled by the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 195C
because they were held to be directed toward the achievement of the
program and purposes of the Communist Party: United Office and
Professional Workers of America; Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and
Allied Workers of America; International Union of Marine Cooks and
Stewards; American Communications Association; United Furniture
Workers of America; International Fur and Leather Workers Union;
International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union; Inter-
national Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers; United Public
Workers of America; United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers
of America.
CONCLUSION
In issuing this handbook for Americans showing the operations of
the Communist Party, USA, the Senate Internal Security Subcom-
mittee hopes to help "alert the American people to the real nature of
the enemy in our midst and the insidious character of the methods em-
ployed. The principles set down are intended as a guide rather than
a set of hard and fast rules to be mechanically applied. We must
realize that we are dealing with a movement which is constantly fluid,
constantly varied and elusive. There can be no artificial substitute
for constant intelligence and alertness.
o
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