Masters of deceit

Prior to 1921 communists in the United States had been so concerned with their own private squabbles and organizational problems that they had little time for external activities.

After the 1921 “unification,” however, the Party, although still weak, emerged with greater stability. It was now being equipped with two striking arms: (1) the underground Party apparatus and (2) the above-ground, or “false-face,” apparatus of the Workers Party.

The time was ripe for communists to move in on American life and American institutions. The first objective was organized labor. Later the battlefront was to be extended to include all aspects of American life up to and including activities of the federal government in Washington.

Prior to 1921, by their own admission, communists had not been particularly effective among trade unions. True, William Z. Foster had helped found the Trade Union Educational League in 1920, but this communist-dominated group had made little headway. The Party at that time had lacked the discipline and training to exploit strikes. Its aims were usually visionary and, above all, too openly revolutionary. During the 1919 steel strike, for example, the Communist Party had issued this proclamation:

No wonder the Party was left in complete isolation. Such impractical statements were but noise and scared away normal trade-union people.

But the communists soon learned. Gradually they worked their way into trade unions, and under the name of the Workers Party propagated their program. Little by little they became more active above ground. In 1924 the Workers Party nominated, as candidates in the presidential elections, William Z. Foster as President; Benjamin Gitlow, Vice-President. In 1925, becoming still more bold, the Workers Party changed its name to the Workers (Communist) Party. The underground Party in the sense of being a separate organization was discontinued, although, as in all Communist Parties, a small underground was maintained. In 1928 communist candidates in the presidential elections polled almost 50,000 votes Finally, in 1929, by discarding the word “Workers,” the camouflage was dropped, and the Party became known as the Communist Party of the United States of America.

During these years the communists multiplied labor troubles and participated in a number of strikes, such as the textile strikes in Passaic, New Jersey (1926); New Bedford, Massachusetts (1928); and Gastonia, North Carolina (1929); as well as the coal strike of 1922, the railroad shopmen’s strike of 1922, and the New York furriers’ strike of 1926. Moreover, they were becoming more active in other agitational fields, such as economic problems, race relations, and nationality groups. The Party, now becoming stronger, was testing its wings in mass agitational work.

Meanwhile the Comintern was developing the type of Party it wanted in America. Gradually many contradictory policies and personality conflicts were eliminated. But important differences still existed. Many communists, for example, thought the Party should remain underground. They opposed founding the Workers Party. In one phase of this fight the communists were divided into three groups, known as the Geese, the Liquidators, and the Conciliators. Another dispute involved the proper method of infiltrating labor unions, with some members being uncertain how far the Party should go to the “left” or to the “right.” In 1923 a bitter struggle developed between factions headed by Charles Ruthenberg and William Z. Foster.

In 1928 and 1929, acting under Comintern instructions, the Communist Party conducted its first big “purges,” the mass expulsion of large groups of members. In 1928 James P. Cannon, an old-time communist leader, was expelled from the Party for possessing Trotskyite tendencies, a reflection of the Stalin-Trotsky fight in Russia. The Cannonites later formed a new party, the Socialist Workers Party, loyal to Trotsky. In 1929 the purge was even more severe. Jay Lovestone, Executive Secretary of the Party, and Benjamin Gitlow, a high-ranking charter member, were expelled.

Stalin took a personal interest in the American situation. Speaking in May, 1929, to the American Commission of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, he started the line that the communists were to revive after World War II, and asserted that the United States was heading toward a depression that would develop a revolutionary situation.

The Russians, by disciplinary purges, were hammering out a Party “of a new type,” or, in the words of Stalin, bolshevizing it.

In the 1930’s, with the beginnings of the depression, the Communist Party broadened its propaganda-agitation work. Economic disorder was exploited. The Party organized parades, hunger marches, petition campaigns, mass demonstrations. It plunged with vigor into strikes such as the San Francisco general strike of 1934 and the textile and bituminous coal strikes of 1934-35. In November, 1935, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was launched, and communists attempted to burrow themselves in its member unions. In addition, they attempted to convert members of other labor unions, minority groups, especially Negroes and individuals recently arrived in the country.

The Party increased in numbers. By 1930, after the great “purges,” membership stood at 7500. By 1935 it had jumped to 30,000, and to 80,000 in 1944. The Young Communist League, the youth organization of the Party, reached 20,000 by 1938. Communist “cells” were being formed in industrial plants, and Party members had infiltrated governmental positions, some even carrying out espionage. Intra-Party struggles had ceased, with Earl Browder, a native of Kansas, being elected in 1930 as General Secretary. He was to remain “in power” until 1945. Step by step the Party was becoming stabilized, developing its agitation and propaganda functions. Disciplinary machinery maintained “unity” and “correctness of views.” This was a period of accepting new members, broadening struggles, and strengthening organizational structure.

In 1935 the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern, meeting in Moscow, initiated the “united-front” policy, which provided that communists should work with other groups against fascism. Since 1933 Hitler had become the principal target of Soviet Russia. The Bolsheviks, fearing German military power, desperately attempted to enlist the support of the noncommunist world against the Nazis. Russia joined the League of Nations and became a strong supporter of the “collective security” program aimed at holding Hitler in check. Fascism, the communists shouted, represented a danger to everybody, communist and noncommunist. All must work together.

The “united front” is an old Leninist tactic designed to prepare for revolutionary situations. Internationally, the aim is to protect the Soviet fatherland. On a local level it gives the communists an opportunity to infiltrate, manipulate, and take over organizations. Noncommunists are encouraged to participate in communist campaigns with the Party, which always keeps in mind the best way to advance its own interests. If a united-front tactic does not promote communism, it is dropped. A new approach is then developed.

The prewar period was the time of great communist fronts in which so many innocent victims were caught. Literally hundreds of organizations, such as the American Youth Congress, American League Against War and Fascism (later known as the American League for Peace and Democracy), the American Peace Mobilization, and the National Negro Congress sprang into existence. They were created or captured by the communists. All were tailored, through high-sounding names, to attract as many people as possible; the communists had something to offer everybody. The Party during these years moved literally thousands of Americans, causing them, in some way or other, to support the communist cause. Their thought-control nets were busy at work, as will be shown later.

In 1936 the Spanish Civil War erupted, and the communists in the United States, amid great fanfare, sent about 3000 “volunteers,” commonly known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, to aid the Spanish Loyalists. Front groups of many types were formed to collect money, supplies, and medical aid. Those Americans who were the leaders in the movement to send other Americans, of whom some 50 per cent never returned, had no interest as such in either the Franco group or the opposing Loyalist government. They were acting, along with international communism, to advance the Bolshevik cause.

American communists used glittering promises, under-handed tricks, and downright fraud to coax young men to go to Spain. An enlistee might be promised a lucrative position in Spain, cash rewards, or travel accommodations. A young girl would entice unsuspecting men; in return for her favors they would promise to enlist. If necessary, fictitious passports were obtained or enlistees were stowed away on boats. An elaborate “convoy” system was established, individuals being taken from the United States, usually through France, to Spain. Any tactic was used to gain fighting manpower for the communist cause.

The events of World War II were to demonstrate clearly the loyalty of a now disciplined Communist Party to Soviet Russia. In August, 1939, the entire world was shocked: Hitler and Stalin had signed a “nonaggression” pact! Here was Moscow making an agreement with that “Fascist beast,” Hitler, whom it had denounced in bitter terms.

In a few days the pact’s full meaning became clear. Hitler had made a “deal.” German forces invaded Poland. The Russians, much more quietly, moved from the east. Poland was partitioned and Russia annexed a large slice of Polish territory. Hitler now turned toward the west, his “back” secure.

The Soviets were now in the role of “defenders of the peace” and everyone else was an “imperialist warmonger.” If Stalin did it, well, it was right. Hitler, the former enemy, now became a friend and ally. The war between Germany and the Western Allies was termed an “imperialist” war, with no support for the Allies. There was opposition to lend-lease, the draft and military production, support of strikes, circulation of antiwar literature. “The Yanks Are Not Coming” was the slogan. Russia’s war on Finland in 1939-40? That was different. That was not imperialism, said the communists. Round-the-clock marchers picketed the White House, urging that the United States stay out of the European war. The pickets were suddenly disbanded on June 21, 1941. A change in tactics seemed imminent.

The next day, June 22, 1941, the Germans attacked Soviet Russia. The European conflict now became a “patriotic war,” a “people’s war.” The United States must lend support: war matériel, money, and manpower. Russia was being overrun. The revolution was in danger. A virtual nightmare gripped the communists. Employ anything to help the land of Stalin: lend-lease, a second front, immediately. Strikes must be stopped. Send relief to Russia.

All these moves and countermoves are not just history. They stand as an everlasting warning of the way in which communists in America, whatever their claims, serve only one master: Moscow.

Other events in Russia had repercussions in the Communist Party, USA, as they still do today. In 1943 Moscow dissolved the Comintern. One purpose was to mollify Western fear and distrust of communism. Russia, the communists claimed, wanted to be a genuine friend. In 1944, following the new line, the Communist Party, USA, under Browder’s leadership, “dissolved”; actually it merely changed its name to the Communist Political Association (CPA), a “political-educational association.” Here again the idea was to “soften” opposition to communism, make it sound a “little better” to Americans. This was the period when Russia was a military ally and the communists were trying to extract as much as they could from this country. The best tactic, of course, was to be “friendly.” The Communist Political Association did not have the harsh, bugaboo connotations of the “Communist Party,” but it was the same faithful lackey of Moscow.

In 1945 the war was over. Hitler was defeated. Moscow reverted to its former hostile “line”; she denounced the Allies and claimed full credit for destroying Hitler, and Japan too. Communist Parties, including the one in America, were told to be more defiant.

This meant another change for the communists in the United States. In April, 1945, an article was published in a French communist journal, Cahiers du Communisme, by Jacques Duclos, then Secretary of the Communist Party of France. Duclos condemned “Browderism,” the so-called policy of “collaboration” with American capitalism as shown in the CPA. This was “revisionism,” “opportunism,” and a betrayal of Marxism-Leninism. What was needed, according to Duclos, was a militant attack on “capitalism,” not cooperation with it.

The Duclos article initiated a purge in the Party, the greatest since the days of Lovestone and Gitlow. Browder became the scapegoat. An emergency convention of the Communist Political Association was hastily called and by “unanimous vote,” except Browder’s, re-established the Communist Party. Browder was suspended from office and later expelled. This man from Kansas, twenty-five years a faithful servant of the Kremlin, had served his purpose. Foster became Chairman.

“Browderism” was regarded by communists as a direct outgrowth of the Lovestone-Gitlow period. Lovestone had been accused of espousing “American exceptionalism.” By this the communists meant that he viewed American capitalism as something “exceptional,” not obeying the Marxist-Leninist laws, which teach that capitalism, because of internal contradictions, will decay. Lovestone believed that American capitalism was too strong to follow these Marxist rules.

Browder, according to his communist critics, also fell into a similar error. He overestimated the power of American capital and believed that, through planning, America could overcome for some time its economic problems. This theory of “organized capitalism,” these opponents said, was wrong. It revised Marxist principles, weakened the communist movement, and betrayed the “socialist future.”

After 1945 the Communist Party, using Browderism as a weapon, entered into a new period of consolidation and loyalty to Soviet Russia. The Party apparatus was tightened and discipline strengthened. Security commissions, with almost unlimited powers, tested the “loyalty” of members and many were expelled. Increased restrictions on the admittance of new members were set up. The Party press, following the Moscow tack, inveighed against American “imperialism” and heaped abuse on the Marshall Plan, the Greece-Turkey Aid program, and the organization of a West European defense organization. The old-time Stalinist, William Z. Foster, was welding the Party into an anti-American weapon of the cold war.

In 1948, for the first time since the 1920’s, the Party found itself on the defensive when the Department of Justice initiated prosecution against its leaders. The twelve members of the Party’s National Board were indicted under the Smith Act (enacted in 1940), which prohibits any conspiracy that advocates the overthrow of the United States government by force and violence. Previously, in 1941, the government had instituted prosecutions against members of the Socialist Workers Party (Trotskyites) under this statute. Other statutes since used by the government in the attack on the Party include the Internal Security Act of 1950 and the Communist Control Act of 1954.

In a long trial, running through most of 1949, eleven members were convicted, the twelfth, William Z. Foster, having been severed from the trial because of illness. In June, 1951, the Supreme Court upheld these convictions, and the government subsequently took prosecutive action against additional Party leaders.

This government prosecution was a strong disabling blow against the Party. Many of its top leaders were arrested and convicted. Others lived in fear of arrest. As a result the Party to a large extent went underground in the first large-scale underground operation since the early 1920’s. Party offices were closed, top Party leaders went into hiding, records were destroyed. Courier systems were instituted and clubs broken up into small units, if not completely disbanded. For about four years, from mid-1951 to mid-1955, the Party in protecting itself spent energy, time, and money that otherwise would have gone into agitation and propaganda.

Again, as in previous years, events in Russia determined communist policy in America. The death of Stalin in 1953 and the advent of Malenkov brought the “Big Smile” policy from the Soviet bear, which was continued by Bulganin and Khrushchev. The Communist Party, USA, weakened and largely immobilized in its underground haunts, welcomed the new line. Then, in the summer of 1955, came the Geneva Conference. The Party, sensing a new “political climate,” began to come above ground. Quietly communist leaders reappeared in public, many courier systems were discontinued, and most underground hideaways abolished. By the spring of 1956 most of the Party’s underground had been curtailed and even the communist leaders who had become fugitives from justice began to surrender. This experiment in underground strategy had cost the Party severely.

Now, however, the Party was faced with severe problems of internal disorganization and factionalism. Many Party members had left the movement. Administrative affairs were in a state of chaos. Invaluable records had been destroyed. Party leaders, returning from underground assignments, found that they were often ignored by the ruling hierarchy. Money was scarce. Footholds in noncommunist organizations, such as labor unions, had largely been lost.

Then came Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin and charges of anti-Semitism in Russia. In the fall of 1956 came the bloody Soviet intervention in Hungary. No events since the German-Russian nonaggression pact of 1939 had so gravely shaken the Party. Stalin, the man the comrades had revered so long, was proved to be a murderer, thief, and liar. Communist leaders in the United States were stunned and aghast. Immediately, different opinions developed as to the Party’s future policy—opinions that gave rise to severe leadership differences.

One group, headed by William Z. Foster, although accepting Khrushchev’s denunciations, emphasized what “good” Stalin had done for the communist movement. These were the so-called Stalinists, who wanted as few changes as possible in the Party organization. Opposing Foster was a faction headed by John Gates, editor of the Daily Worker, who openly advocated disbandment of the Party and establishment of a political association. This action, he argued, would make the Party more palatable to the general public in light of the severe criticisms. In between, many middle-of-the-roaders, led by Eugene Dennis, were not sure just what the Party should do in this, one of its most severe crises.

In February, 1957, the Party assembled in its Sixteenth National Convention, the first since 1950. The convention was under the dictatorial control of a few Party leaders. Much deceitful publicity was released to demonstrate that the Party had declared its “independence” of Moscow, that a new leadership had been installed, and that the Party was entirely American in character. However, Foster and his associates so effectively manipulated the sessions that the same old Stalinist line prevailed.

The Party retained its same old name, continued the majority of its old leadership; it reaffirmed its adherence to the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism; it reaffirmed its acceptance of “proletarian internationalism”; it refused to condemn or even take a stand on the Soviet rape of Hungary; it refused to condemn the tyranny and proven anti-Semitism of the Soviet Union; it did not take a single affirmative step to declare its independence of the Soviet Union; and, in fact, the Soviet-controlled press hailed the Communist Party, USA, for remaining loyal “to the principles of Marxism-Leninism.”

The Communist Party is a highly disciplined tool of the Soviet Union in the United States. In the thirty-eight years since it came into being, it has developed a trained and potentially effective leadership that overnight, should the situation become favorable, could expand into a mass organization of great potential power. No longer does it need to send its promising young leaders to Moscow for training, because its own educational system is now performing that function.

The present menace of the Communist Party in the United States grows in direct ratio to the rising feeling that it is a small, dissident element and need not be feared. As we relax our protection and ease up on security measures, we move closer and closer to a “fool’s paradise.”

Through the Communist Party, the mentality of the Russian Bolsheviks is being transmitted to America, together with the belief that man can be completely redesigned from a child of God into a soulless social cog. The Party member, whether he be a farmer in Missouri, an automobile worker in Michigan, or a lawyer in California, must be made to think, act, and be like other Party members. Many techniques, such as discipline, education, the Party press, recreation, literature, organizational structure, the arts, are used to fashion the “communist man,” the terror of the twentieth century. This is the “man” the Kremlin hopes will place the hammer and sickle above the White House and establish a Soviet America as part of a world empire, with Soviet Russia as the master of all. This is the “man” who, in a recent secret Party meeting, admonished the comrades present that a search of history would show that there has never been a revolution without force and violence and when the time comes, “We will hang and shoot those responsible for the type of government we have today.”