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SACRAMENTOj 194} GEORGE H. MOORE, STATE PRINTER
SENATE
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE
FIFTY-FIFTH SESSION
1943
REPORT
JOINT FACT-FINDING COMMITTEE ON
UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
IN CALIFORNIA
TO
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE
MEMBERS OF COMMITTEE
SENATORS ASSEMBLYMEN
JACK B. TENNEY, CHAIRMAN NELSON S. DILWORTH
HUGH M. BURNS JESSE RANDOLPH KELLEMS, PH. D.
JAMES H. PHILLIPS
HON. FREDERICK F. HOUSER SENATOR JERROLD L. SEAWELL
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE OF THE SENATE
HON. CHARLES W. LYON
SPEAKER OF THE ASSEMBLY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION 5
Authorization 5
Activities of the Committee 6
Americanism 8
Isms versus Democracy 9
Subversive Groups Attack Weaknesses 10
PART I
COMMUNISM 12
1. The Soviet Government as an Ally of the United States. _ 12
2. Red-Baiting and Red Baiters 16
3. Sources of Communist Information 18
4. Communist Theory and Practice 21
Legal and Illegal Methods 22
Foreign Control 23
Force and Violence 26
Day-to-Day Struggles 27
Religion 28
Legal Political Communist Party a Fiction 33
5. Trotskyism 36
6. Six Periods of Communist Strategy in the United States 39
First Period (1919 to 1921) 40
Second Period (1921 to 1928) 41
Third Period (1928 to 1935) 41
Fourth Period (1935 to 1939) 42
Fifth Period (1939 to June 22, 1941) 43
Sixth Period (June 22, 1941 to f) 50
7. Communist Activities in California 58
8. Organization and Operation 64
Communist Functionaries 67
9. Labor Organizations 76
10. Front Organizations and Transmission Belts 89
11. Consumer Front Organizations 100
Communist Party Consumers Council 104
12. State Government 111
13. State Schools, Colleges and Universities 113
14. Conclusions 116
15. Affidavit of John G. Honeycombe 117
16. Affidavit of Rena M. Vale 122
League of Women Shoppers 124
WPA Historical Records Survey 126
American Writers' Union 128
American Federation of Government Employees 130
Communist Unit 131 Professional Section 131
Dues Secretaries Commission 133
Communist Party Fraction 134
Communist Control of Unions 136
San Francisco Cultural and Professional Fraction 137
Removing Non-Communists 139
"Loyalist" Spain 140
Negro Commission of the Communist Party 140
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TABLE OF CONTENTS— Continued
COMMUNISM— Continued Page
Communist Party Trade Union School 141
Meaning of "Popular Front" 142
Communist Party Membership Commission 143
Workers' Alliance Fraction 144
Communist Party Membership Drives 146
Collective Playwriting 146
Disillusionment 150
Los Angeles Newspaper Guild 152
Communist Party Political Commission 157
Communist Party Cultural Commission 164
Trotskyism in Writing 166
Communist Party Commissions 167
Control Commission 168
Communist Schools 172
Communist Oath 174
PART II
THE KING, CONNER, RAMSAY CASE 176
Legal History of the Case 177
Labor Background • 177
Communist Background 177
George W. Alberts 179
Campus Unit Number Five of the Communist Party 182
Flight 183
Communist Cause Celebre 185
Special Privileges at San Quentin 190
Employment for Parolees 191
The Parole Board 192
Mental Conditions of Men 194
John Mustak 195
George Wallace 196
Conclusion 198
PART III
STNARQUISTAS 200
Background and History 200
Sinarquism in the United States and California 201
"Zoot-Suit" Crimes in Lo& Angeles 203
Digest of Testimony of Connelly, Fuss and McCormick 212
Citizens' Committee for the Defense of Mexican- American
Youth 216
PART IV
NAZI ACTIVITIES 218
1. History 218
2. Theory 221
3. German-American Bund 225
4. Nazi Propaganda and Activities (in California) 241
5. Anti-Semitism 247
6. Nazi Front Organizations 254
Nazi-Communist Collaboration 256
National Copperheads of America 258
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TABLE OF CONTENTS— Continued
NAZI ACTIVITIES— Continued page
7. Friends of Progress 260
8. The America First Committee 273
9. Ku Klux Klan 280
PART V FASCIST ACTIVITIES 282
1. History 282
2. Theory 283
3. Fascist Propaganda Channels in the United States and
California 284
Nazi and Fascist Activities 294
4. Italian Organizations and Activities 299
Cenaloco 301
Ex-Combattenti Society 302
Sons of Italy 303
Italian Chamber of Commerce 306
5. The Italian Consulate 307
6. Italian Language Newspapers 309
7. Italian Language Schools 314
8. Summary of Italian Fascism in California 319
PART VI
JAPANESE ACTIVITIES 322
1. Kebeis 322
2. Dual Citizenship 323
3. Shintoism 323
4. Japanese Language Schools in California 326
5. Japanese Imperialism 329
6. Japanese Propaganda 332
7. Japanese Subversive Organizations 337
8. Activities of Japanese Evacuees 346
9. Pro- Japanese Sympathies in the United States 350
PART VII
MANKIND UNITED 353
Introduction 353
1. Mankind United Fantasy 355
2. Mankind United in Southern California 356
3. Mankind United in Central California 361
4. Mankind United in Northern California 376
5. The Voice 379
PART VIII
RECOMMENDATIONS _ 383
APPENDIX A 386
Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 13 386
APPENDIX B i 389
House Resolution No. 277 389
APPENDIX C 392
Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 8 392
INDEX 397
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EEPORT OP THE JOINT FACT-FINDING COM- MITTEE ON UN-AMEEICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
INTRODUCTION
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, and members of the Legislature : Your committee investigating un-American activities in California
herewith submits its report on the investigations and public hearings
held throughout the State.
AUTHORIZATION
The committee was created by Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 13, filed with the Secretary of State January 27, 1941. This resolu- tion created a Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activi- ties in California. The committee was instructed by Assembly Con- current Resolution No. 13 to ''investigate, ascertain, collate and appraise all facts causing or constituting interference with the National Defense Program in California or rendering the people of the State, as a part of the Nation, less fit physically, mentally, morally, eco- nomically or socially;'7 and to ''investigate the activity of groups and organizations whose membership include persons who are members of the Communist Party, the Fascist Organizations, the German Nazi Bund, or any other organization known or suspected to be dominated or con- trolled by a foreign power, which activities affect the preparation of this State for National defense, the functioning of any State agency, unemployment relief and other forms of public assistance, educational institutions of this State supported in whole or in part by State funds, or any political program. " Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 13 provides that the committee should "act during this Session of the Legislature (1941), including any recess hereof, and after final adjourn- ment hereof, until the commencement of the Fifty-fifth Legislature/' and "to file a report with the Legislature during any Session of the Fifty-fourth Legislature and with the Legislature during the regular Session of the Fifty-fifth Legislature." Assembly Concurrent Resolu- tion No. 13 appropriated the sum of $10,000 from the Contingent Fund of the Senate and the Assembly for the expenses of the committee.
Pursuant to the provisions of the resolution the Committee on Rules of the Senate appointed Senators T. H. DeLap, Chris N. Jespersen and Clarence C. Ward. The Speaker of the Assembly appointed Assembly- men Hugh M. Burns, Jesse Randolph Kellems, James H. Phillips and Jack B. Tenney. In compliance with the provisions of Assembly Con- current Resolution No. 13 the committee, as appointed by the Rules Committee of the Senate and the Speaker of the Assembly, selected Assemblyman Jack B. Tenney as its chairman.
Before the final adjournment of the Legislature in 1941, the Rules Committee of the Senate declined to make a further appropriation for the use of the Joint Fact-Finding Committee created under the pro- visions of Assembly Concurrent Resolution No, 13, On June 13, 1941,
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6 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
Assemblyman Jack B. Tenney, the Chairman of the Joint Fact-Finding Committee created under Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 13, offered House Resolution No. 277 to the Assembly. House Resolution No. 277 was adopted by the Assembly. This resolution contained nearly the same provisions as Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 13, except that it created an Assembly Fact-Finding Committee 011 Un-American Activities in California of five members of the Assembly to be appointed by the Speaker and appropriated the sum of $15,000 from the Contingent Fund of the Assembly for the expenses of the committee. The Speaker of the Assembly thereafter appointed Assem- blymen Hugh M. Burns, Nelson S. Dil worth, Jesse Randolph Kellems, James H. Phillips and Jack B. Tenney to serve on the Assembly com- mittee. Subsequently, the members appointed by the Speaker selected Assemblyman Jack B. Tenney as its chairman. Later in the year Senators T. H. DeLap, Chris N. Jespersen, and Clarence C. Ward resigned from the Joint Fact-Finding Committee created by Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 13. Although the committee sat during the greater part of its existence as an Assembly interim committee, it never- theless retained a majority of the members of the Joint Fact-Finding Committee.
Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 8 was introduced by Senators Jack B. Tenney of Los Angeles County and Hugh M. Burns of Fresno County on January 8, 1943. It was unanimously approved by the Senate and was adopted by the Assembly with but five dissenting votes. Pursuant to its provisions the Rules Committee of the Senate appointed Senators Hugh M. Burns and Jack B. Tenney and the Speaker of the Assembly appointed Assemblymen Nelson S. Dilworth and Dr. Jesse Randolph Kellems. The committee in its first meeting elected Senator Jack B. Tenney its chairman.
The committee, therefore, acted at all times under joint authority of the Senate and the Assembly of the California Legislature. For this reason your committee makes its report to both houses of the California Legislature.
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMMITTEE
Between July 28, 1941, and March 1, 1943, the committee conducted 30 days of public hearings in the State of California. The dates and places of these hearings are as follows :
Los Angeles, July 28, 29, 30. 31. and August 1, 1941.
Los Angeles, October 14, 15, 16, and 17, 1941.
San Francisco, December 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, 1941.
San Quentin, December 6, 1941.
San Diego, February 19, 20, and 21, 1942.
Los Angeles, February 23, and 24, 1942.
Los Angeles, March 24, 1942.
Fresno, May 22, 23, 1942.
San Francisco, May 25, 26, and 27, 1942.
Los Angeles, December 16, and 19, 1942.
Los Angeles, February 27, and March 1, 1943.
In addition to the above specified public hearings, the committee met in executive session on a number of occasions. During the two years
INTRODUCTION 7
existence of the committee it has taken 16 volumes of testimony-tran- script numbering 3,980 pages. Hundreds of exhibits have been intro- duced in connection with the testimony of witnesses and are attached to the original transcripts of testimony. In addition to these records, the committee has gathered hundreds of pamphlets and circulars. Attaches of the committee have subscribed to subversive publications and have systematically checked them during the life of the committee. In addition, the committee has filed and indexed nearly 14,000 cards listing the activities of as many individuals in California. This part of the committee's work is incomplete due to the lack of funds for the employment of necessary attaches.
The committee has attempted to probe the activities of the groups enumerated in the resolutions creating the committee, such as the Com- munist Party, the Nazi-German Bund, the Fascist organizations and kindred groups.
The members of your committee unanimously selected Mr. R. E. Combs of Visalia as Chief Investigator. Investigators were hired from time to time in northern California and in southern California and in all cases these investigators did an outstanding patriotic work. Thomas L. Cavett did a great deal of work for the committee in the southern part of the State and Harry T. Machell did splendid work for the committee in the San Francisco area. The committee had a number of volunteer investigators who did extensive work without compensation and at their own expense. Among these your committee wishes especially to mention Mr. W. Bruce Pine of Los Angeles. Mr. Pine was attacked in San Francisco in a trap that had been laid for the committee's chief investigator, R. E. Combs, and had to be hos- pitalized. The American Legion and its committees assisted in every instance. Ben S. Beery, Chairman of the Americanism Committee of the Seventeenth District, American Legion, rendered your committee valuable services. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Anti-Defama- tion League and other similar groups assisted the committee in every possible manner. Many other patriotic and civic organizations who do not desire publicity, likewise rendered invaluable service.
Dr. John R. Lechner, executive director of the Americanism Educa- tional League did especially fine work in the Japanese field, collecting many documents and statistics concerning Issei and Nesei Japanese. His report, Playing With Dynamite, prepared by him in his capacity as chairman of the Americanism Commission of the 23d District of the American Legion, is well worth study in connection with the Japanese problem.
Particular mention must be made of the work of Mrs. Linnie Terry, committee secretary, who labored night and day preparing the material and typing the entire manuscript of this report.
To all of these patriotic individuals and groups, and the many others who are not named, but whose fine assistance is acknowledged, the members of the committee extend their sincere thanks.
From the very inception of its work the members of the committee were cognizant of the fact that all subversive activities are tinged with sensationalism and that facts developed by investigations and public hearings necessarily lend themselves to publicity. The committee and
8 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
its members, therefore, endeavored in every way to conduct the hearings with dignity and restraint, sometimes under most trying circumstances.
Before hearings on any phase of the committee's work were planned, an intensive study was made of the ideological background of the par- ticular movement under investigation. Its literature was secured and read. Hearing briefs, covering all of the points concerning the organ- ization, its leaders, members and activities, and the questions to be asked the witnesses and the exhibits to be introduced in connection with witnesses7 testimony, were carefully prepared. The order and appearance of witnesses were carefully planned so that the committee's transcript would show a clear, systematic and chronological sequence. To preserve clarity and continuity throughout, the examination of wit- nesses was conducted by the committee's chief investigator, Mr. R. E. Combs. At the conclusion of the prepared questions from the hearing brief, the members of the committee asked such questions as occurred to them during the chief examination of the witness.
The committee, at all times, cooperated closely with the intelligence units of the armed forces and with the Federal Bureau of Investiga- tion. Representatives of the committee have worked for weeks at a time with the agents of Federal departments. It was found the elastic powers of your committee were exceedingly helpful to other law enforc- ing agencies. The committee, empowered to subpena witnesses and to examine them under oath, not being bound by the rules of evidence and armed with the power to punish for contempt through the initia- tion of proper criminal proceedings, and for perjury in the event that crime might be established, cuts through the technical restriction of other investigative units which are primarily law-enforcing in character rather than fact-finding.
The newspapers of the State of California played an important part in the work of the committee. Nearly every newspaper in the State carried concise and clear reports of the public hearings and contributed greatly in exposing the machinations and activities of subversive groups within our borders. Your committee wishes to state emphatically that subversive organizations wither and die under the penetrating search-light of publicity. The newspapers of California have contributed no small part in patriotically checking these termites in their efforts to undermine and sabotage our government.
AMERICANISM
The committee approached each separate subversive problem on the premise that any group that attacks the Flag, institutions, traditions, Democracy and Constitution of California and the United States is un-American per se. The members of the committee, at all times, kept in mind the Bill of Rights and its guarantees to the people of the United States. The committee has, at all times, carefully distinguished between criticism of our form of government and design for its destruc- tion. We have been aware, at all times, of the right of every citizen to criticize, to discuss, and to propose changes in either our laws or our economics. We have never lost sight of the right of the individual, or of a group of individuals, to propose changes in our laws and in our government by constitutional methods. We have, therefore, concerned ourselves with those individuals and groups who are determined to
INTRODUCTION 9
sabotage and forcibly destroy the government under which we live and to which we owe our allegiance. The committee is happy to report that such individuals and groups are in the minority but wishes emphatically to state that because of this minority status, these groups have evolved techniques and tactics that more than offset the smallness in numbers of their adherents. They present a real and tangible threat to our institutions, our Democracy, our State and our Nation.
ISMS VERSUS DEMOCRACY
The members of the committee have been asked from time to time to define un-American and subversive croups. We believe that any organization, individual or group in California or in the United States, controlled, directed or subsidized by a foreign government or agency, either by direct instructions or sympathy with or adherence to foreign isms inimical to the Constitution and Democracy of the United States, and which have as their ultimate objective the changing of the policies of, or the government of, the United States in accordance with the wishes or directions or ultimate objectives of such foreign government, are un-American and subversive.
Considerable study of Communism, Fascism, and Naziism has been made by the committee and its representatives in contrast to American Democracy. We find, generally, that all of these isms are inimical to the most fundamental principles of Democracy under the Constitution of the United States. Communism, Naziism and Fascism differ one from the other only in minor technicalities. The committee finds that :
1. Communism, Naziism and Fascism are totalitarian dictatorships.
2. Communism, Naziism and Fascism abolish all respect for personal dignity and individual rights.
3. The individual under Communism, Naziism or Fascism is deprived of any legal protection whatever against acts of force or brutality by representatives of his respective government.
4. All three forms of government have in common a complete and thorough contempt for liberalism, parliamentarism, humanitarianism, majority opinion or democratic procedure. All three isms are founded on intolerance and are committed to attaining their ends by the appli- cation of ruthless force and brutality.
5. Under Communism, Naziism or Fascism the imposition of group interest over individual right differs only in respect to the group favored. Under Communism, it is the proletariat and under Naziism and Fascism, the lower middle classes of the people.
6. Communism, Naziism and Fascism are single party systems. Party members under all three systems are exalted over the remainder of the people and constitute a class under which new caste distinctions emerge. The National Socialist Party of Germany under Hitler at the outbreak of the war numbered about 3,000,000 people out of the total population of Germany, and the Communist Party of Russia had about the same numerical strength. Only party members in Germany or in Russia have anything to say whatsoever about the conduct of their respective governments.
10 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
7. Class warfare is the approved, accepted, desirable and legitimate means used by Communism, Naziism and Fascism for the attainment of their respective objectives.
8. Communism, Naziism and Fascism have a common history of terror and intimidation. The Blood Purges of 1934 in Germany are illustra- tive of the Nazi technique in overcoming opposition and have their counterpart in Soviet Russia in the physical mass liquidation of entire populations in the Ukraine and in the Communist trials and mass murders of 1937.
9. The Communist, Nazi and Fascist dictatorship share the doctrine of expansion by force beyond their own boundaries ; not only conquest by the sword, but conquest by propaganda, and political penetra- tion as well. The Fascist invasion of Ethiopia, the Nazi attacks upon Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway and Western Europe in gen- eral, and Soviet Russia 's attack on Finland, Poland and Rumania before Hitler's invasion of Russia, are typical illustrations of conquest by the sword. Nazi propaganda and front organizations under direct super- visi<0ta of Berlin,, Communist propaganda, front organizations aaid activities throughout the United States under the direct supervision of Moscow and Fascist propaganda and organizations under the direc- tion of Rome, are illustrations of the political penetrations of these three totalitarian states.
Constitutional democracies are best described today as being "in the middle." The end of the war, with its necessary dislocations and readjustments, will make this fact even more apparent. On the one side is Communism and on the other, Fascism. Regardless of the outcome of the war neither ideology will be destroyed. While there is little difference between them, each flourishes and grows strong in its antagonism against the other. Naziism, and its German-American Bund mouthpiece in America, recruits members and sympathizers on the basis of its race hatred and anti-Communism. Russia, through its mouthpiece, the Communist Party of the United States, recruits mem- bers on the basis of class hatred and anti-Fascism. Constitutional democracies are caught in this vicious "squeeze-play." We have yet to see an anti-Nazi Communist League.
The successful adjustment of our economic life in the United States to industrial and agricultural mass production; the successful adjust- ment of the increasing use of machines to the decreasing use of labor within the framework of our Constitution and its Bill of Rights is the real problem facing American Democracy today. Many of our people, including public officials, appear to have lost sight of this real problem in the midst of the hullabaloo raised by the conflict between Fascism and Communism. American Democracy has been sitting idly by, quizzically watching the life and death struggle of two beasts of prey, little realizing that Democracy is the prize to be devoured by the victor of the contest. America must be made to realize that it is not just Fascism versus Communism, but, actually, Constitutional Democ- racy versus Totalitarianism.
SUBVERSIVE GROUPS ATTACK WEAKNESSES
The United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor! This attack was a practical demonstration of what can happen to a Nation
INTRODUCTION 11
unaware of enemies possessed with ideological passion for world dom- ination. The United States has no territorial ambitions. The United States has no desire to govern the people of other lands. In fighting this war we do so because we are attacked. All that the United States hopes for in victory is that the world will rid itself of the madmen ; of superiority ideologies and of the crusading isms continually challenging the right of other Nations to live at peace at home and with its neighbors.
This global conflict is a two front war. It is a war of ships and tanks, of bombers and guns. It is also a war of ideas. In the final analysis the conflict is not simply to determine the victorious nation or nations, but to determine what ideas will rule the world. The United States battle fronts are scattered throughout the world. We can trace the ebb and flow of desperate battle on the world's map. It is difficult, however, to trace the isms, the sneaking and disguised enemies of our democracy as they ebb and flow, pulsating within our own ranks at home. Our military leaders, our engineers and our scientists have developed military equipment; we have heard of "defense in depth"; of offensive strategy; of adequate arms, but we have developed little, if anything, for the battle of ideas. It should be remembered that we can win the war and lose our democracy through short sightedness. If we are to win the war and retain our democracy, then we must know not only the enemy we fight with guns but the enemy we fight with ideas; we must know his strategy and the weapons he uses against us. The fanatical fighting zeal of the subversive enemies within our midst must not only be met with equal zeal but must be surpassed in faith for our democracy and our form of government.
What kind of people are we fighting on the home front? Your committee is prepared to state that they are trained, iron-disciplined and inspired with a zeal and purpose to wipe out our way of life. Are we, as Americans, trained and disciplined and inspired with zeal to continue our way of life ? Are we prepared for this war at home ?
We are fighting a total war. We should demand nothing less than total victory. It is the responsibility of the Legislature to enact suit- able laws for the protection of the community, the State and Nation from these subversive organizations, but laws are not enough. We need a fighting faith for our Democracy, our Constitution and our way of life.
PART I
COMMUNISM
1
THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT AS AN ALLY OF THE UNITED STATES
The members of your committee are fully appreciative of the mag- nificent stand being made against Hitler and his hordes of barbarians by the Red Army. We are likewise cognizant of the fact that since December, 1941, our country, the United States, has been an ally of Soviet Russia. The members of the committee, since the invasion of Soviet Russia by Germany in June of 1941, have been in full accord with every possible assistance to the Soviet Union in its fight against the common enemy, Nazi-Germany. We stand unequivocally behind the foreign policy of our government in giving every possible aid, at this time, to Soviet Russia and her valiant Red Army. We have no quarrel, whatsoever, with the foreign policy of the United States in relation to the winning of the war and the uncompromising defeat of the Axis powers. We stand, as we believe every patriotic American stands, wholeheartedly for every possible aid to Great Britain, China, Soviet Russia and the United Nations in winning this war and in the complete and thorough crushing of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito.
The committee, however, wishes to distinguish between the activities of the Soviet Union as a government allied to the United States in this present conflict, and the activities of its tool and agent, — the Com- munist Party of the United States. We look upon these two activities as distinct and separate; on the one hand referring to the foreign policy of our own country, and on the other, referring specifically to our internal domestic picture, and bearing, perhaps, vitally, on the future and the preservation of our form of government when the war is ended.
The situation is crystal clear if our thinking is straight and lucid. Prior to December 7, 1941 the United States was seething with alien propaganda, foreign-agents and avowed enemies of our way of life. For 22 months, culminating June 22, 1941, two fifth columns, merging their activities and propaganda, had collaborated in sabotaging our defense efforts and our preparations for the eventuality of war. The Nazi Fifth Column and the Communist Fifth Column, because of the mutual interests of their respective foreign governments, buried what- ever antagonism that had existed between them and worked against their common enemies, the United States, Great Britain and the nations at war with Germany. Suddenly, on June 22, 1941, the masters of these fifth columns in America went to war against each other. The United States was still at peace. On June 23, 1941, the Communist Fifth Column stopped its collaboration with the Nazi Fifth Column, altered its propagandizing in the United States, and became a leading force in its demand for intervention. Many Americans, including members
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COMMUNISM 13
of your committee, favored intervention against Nazi-Germany at the outbreak of the war.
Since the invasion of Soviet Russia by Nazi-Germany, the Communist Party in California has been helpful in ferreting out Nazi and pro- Axis agents and sympathizers, as the transcripts of the committee amply indicate. Every loyal American, and every decent human being, loathes and abhors the bestiality and degrading philosophy that activates Nazi-Germany. Every loyal American is resolved and determined, at whatever personal sacrifice necessary, that the Nazi-monster and its Axis partners be vigorously and thoroughly stamped out. No loyal American will compromise this resolve and determination and will be satisfied with nothing less than the unconditional surrender and defeat of these world aggressors. In this resolve and determination of ours, the Communist Party of the United States has found, for the first time in its existence, a moving force in America, corresponding in every detail with the foreign policy, ambition and need of the Comintern. The Communist Party will take every possible advantage of this situation. Heretofore the Communists have been able to fit their party line into small segments of American life, detached from the broad current of Yankee thought and desire. Now, they find that the sweeping force of a great war in which the United States is engaged, is one which they can harness for their future, sinister purposes.
Earl Browder's latest book of Communist propaganda is Victory — And After (International Publishers Co., Inc., 1942). This work, as is to be expected, illucidates the present party line of the Comintern. In addition to being an all-out attack on Martin Dies and his com- mittee, the general theme is "Unity," which may be considered the Communist key-term for the current era of Communist strategy in the United States. The psychological tactic of tying in the enemies of Communism with the enemies, fancied or otherwise, of segments of American life, is here used in a vicious and clever manner by tying the enemies of Communism in with the enemies of the United States. Thus, although the Dies Committee has exposed Axis-agents and Nazi- front organizations as fearlessly as they have exposed Communism and its front organizations ; because it has fought Communism together with the now admitted enemy of the United States, Naziism, Mr. Browder labels Dies and his committee the real fifth column in America and agents of Hitler. Mr. Browder believes the war offers an opportunity for the Communist Party to rid itself of the Dies Committee and of all similar Committees by the fallacious reasoning that in view of the fact that the United States is an ally of Soviet Russia, it naturally follows that those who oppose Communism necessarily espouse Naziism. Mr. Browder's plea for " Unity " is a plea for freedom of action, plotting and intrigue in the United States for the Communist Party. Victory — And After is clearly Communist propaganda modified to meet the present strategy of the party.
In Victory — And After we have, as of course is to be expected, a different Earl Browder than the person who appeared before the mem- bers of the Fifteenth International Brigade in the vicinity of Moro Station in Spain following the brigade's relief from action at Teruel. (Affidavit of John G. Honey combe.) At that time, Mr. Browder is
14 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
reported as having said in his address to the members of the brigade that "Victory for the working class of Spain will be the signal for the revolt of the working classes throughout the world to overthrow their oppressors and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat; * * * we of America must set the example of revolutionary dis- cipline and courage for the workers of Spain as well as for our own working class at home in America, " and that the day would surely come when the Communists would be the cadres of the revolution, leading the vanguard of the working class in their struggle to over- throw the capitalists and the capitalist systems and establish the dic- tatorship of the proletariat; that the comrades in Spain must emulate the heroic leaders of the revolution, Lenin and Stalin.
The Communist Fifth Column is still in America. The committee warns that this fact must not be forgotten. We all admire the courage and heroism of the Russian people fighting against the barbarous, brutalized Nazi invader. We do not believe, however, that this stand and this courage of the Russian people proves the greatness of their form of government any more than we believe that the aggressiveness and brutality of the Nazi hordes prove the greatness of the Nazi dic- tatorship. We have no quarrel with the Soviet Government. We DO have a quarrel with Nazi-Germany and her Axis partners. We are determined, in collaboration with the United Nations, to prosecute that quarrel to glorious victory for the United Nations. We want peace at the conclusion of this victorious war with all the nations of the world. Our comradeship-in-arms with Soviet Russia in this life- and-death struggle will, and properly should, bring the people of the United States and the people of Russia, together in strong bonds of friendship. We desire that our governments, because of our mutual sacrifices, work together in the future in close friendship and coopera- tion. We have no designs on the Government of the United Nations nor upon the Government of Soviet Russia. We believe in the self determination of peoples of all nations. We insist and demand that we be permitted to determine our own form of government. We are resolved that the end of the war shall not see the end of our American way of life. Therefore, we should not tolerate in our midst, either the fifth column of the enemies we fight on the far-flung battlefields of the world, or the Fifth Column of the allies with whom we fight as well.
The war is one thing. Our peace, tranquillity and security at home, in California and in the United States, is another thing. We must not forget that the transcendent arch-enemy which the Communist Third International, and its affiliated parties throughout the world and the whole elaborate Communist hierarchy have been savagely, relentlessly, ruthlessly and fanatically fighting since the inception of the Comintern, is Capitalism. The complete smashing by force of every capitalist gov- ernment— yes, and of every Democracy — and the establishment of a world- wide dictatorship of the proletariat is the long range objective of the Comintern. The mere intervention of this global conflict will not, for an instant, change the allegedly scientific socialism of Karl Marx or in any manner amend or lessen the basic ideologies of the Communist movement which is indelibly burned into the mind and fibre of every real indoctrinated Communist.
COMMUNISM 15
The committee is likewise aware of the cleverly conceived and still more cleverly executed psychological warfare plans of pro-Axis forces in the United States. We have become thoroughly familiar with the patterns of Axis propaganda, its use of prejudices and its play on ignorance and emotion. The committee has gathered considerable evi- dence, proving beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the pro-Axis forces in California and in the United States, have used in the past, and are well prepared to use in the future, the Communist Party and Soviet Russia as a basis for a negotiated peace with Germany and the Axis powers. Hitler used the Communist menace as a stepladder to the Fuehrership of the Third Reich. Therefore, the committee emphatically warns the people of California and of the United States to be watchful and aware of such a pro-Axis scheme. Our country and its leaders have never quarreled with the people of other countries in the determi- nation of their particular forms of government. We reiterate that we in America have no quarrel with Soviet Russia, as a government, in its form of government, its economics, or its internal laws. We have never sought officially or otherwise to dictate to the people of Germany, of Italy or of Japan, the form of government under which they should live. We have never sent emissaries from the United States to under- mine or destroy the governments of foreign countries. We have never attempted to indoctrinate the people of other countries with our philos- ophy of government nor have we stirred them up for the purpose of undermining and sabotaging their institutions. We have no quarrel with the Monarchy of Great Britain. We have no quarrel with the form of the governments of the United Nations. We, therefore, believe that we have a right to be free of molestation and interference in our own Nation as to our particular type of government and its institutions. If we are not concerned about the preservation of our American Democ- racy, its Constitution, its government and its institutions, then, of course, it doesn't very much matter. The committee believes, however, that we are vitally concerned. Thus it is, that we carefully distinguish between the government of Soviet Russia, our ally in fighting the com- mon enemy, Nazi-Germany, and the Communist Party of the United States, which has as its long range objective the destruction of our form of government. It is only incidental, and considerably aside from the main question, that the Communist Party of the United States, in carrying out its policy of protecting the Soviet Union, joins pres- ently in our all-out war effort 'against the common enemy.
Clear thinking in these times is vitally important. The committee learned that when it investigated the Communists in California, that the Communists attacked the committee as being "Fascist" and, after the invasion of Russia by Germany as agents of Hitler. When the com- mittee investigated the German-American Bund, the Friends of Prog- ress, and the Italian-Fascist groups throughout the State, the committee was attacked by these groups as being ' i Communist. ' ' The pattern of psychological propaganda in this respect was the same on either side of the picture. This strategy is being carried to great lengths at pres- ent by the Communist Party in California. An attack upon the Ameri- can Communist, according to the American Communist, is an attack upon American " unity " and whoever indulges in such attacks, pro- claims the American Communist, is an ally of Hitler and the Axis
16 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
powers. The ' ' unity ' ' that the Communist Party babbles about at this time is the unity of a drop of arsenic in a glass of milk. If anyone complains of the arsenic, argues the Communist, he is disrupting ' ' unity. " It is the psychology of the classical proposal of an alternate selection of death; hanging or shooting, and the human mind some- times does not reason clearly enough to recognize the fundamental and actual desire, merely to live. Americans want neither hanging nor shooting, neither Fascism nor Communism. They want American Democracy, constitutional government, free enterprise, civil liberties, freedom, and the unhindered enjoyment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The distinction the committee makes in this connection is a very real one. How many of our people ever heard of a man by the name of Michael Kalinin? Everyone has heard of Stalin. Yet Stalin has no position, whatsoever, in the Soviet government. Michael Kalinin is the head of the Union of the Socialist Soviet Republics. Joseph Stalin is merely the Secretary of the Communist Party of Russia.
RED-BAITING AND RED-BAITERS
The average citizen knows little or nothing of Communism. He has been the victim of a steady barrage of clever propaganda under which true designs and purposes are concealed. He has been led to believe that anyone who advocates a more equal distribution of the world's goods and who fights for the oppressed and the exploited is called a * l Communist ' ' by the so-called ' i reactionary ' ' press and the spokesmen of large corporations. If Mr. Average Citizen has heard Communism defined at all, it has been on the basis of the theory of John Mill who defined "Communism" as "An equality of distribution of the physical means of life and enjoyment as a transition to a still higher standard of justice that all should work according to their capacity and receive according to their need. ' ' John Mill 's definition of Communism is the cheese in the trap for the unwary mouse, Mr. Average Citizen.
Generally, Mr. Average Citizen has never met anyone who admitted he was a Communist. He has undoubtedly heard of Mr. Earl Browder, Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States of America, and perhaps he has even seen photographs of Mr. Browder. He may have heard that "Communism is Twentieth Century Americanism.7' In recent years he has heard that Communism is based on the principles of Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln, Marx, Lenin and Stalin. Certainly, reasons Mr. Average Citizen, (if he is actually reasoning and not merely reacting to his conditioned reflexes), if Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln are in agreement with Marx, Lenin and Stalin, then, certainly, Communism is, in fact, really Twentieth Century Americanism.
If our Mr. Average Citizen has really been doing any thinking in recent years, he must undoubtedly have been considerably confused and dismayed by the apparently twisting Communist "party line" in America. He would like to discuss the matter and to learn the reasons and the motivating force behind Communist machinations in California and in the United States. This, however, he finds he can not do. Some strange spell has been cast over his mind. He finds that
COMMUNISM 17
he can not reason at all when it comes to a discussion of Communism. The more intellectual he happens to be; the more he considers himself a " liberal " or a "progressive" the more inhibited he finds himself when faced with this vague and mysterious subject of Communism.
While Mr. Average Citizen really knows little of the subject, its objectives and its purposes, he has heard of a terrible group of people generally referred to as "red-baiters." Depending on the current policy of the Communist Party, these ' ' red-baiters ' ' are the paid emis- saries of a variety of devils. Most generally the masters of the "red- baiters" are exploiting capitalists and "reactionary" taskmasters. More recently these "red-baiters" are the propagandists of Fascism and the designing agents of Hitler's Fifth Column in America. Act- ually, however, Mr. Average Citizen really does not know what the term means. He dare not even plumb the depth of its horrible implica- tions. If he happens to imagine himself a ' ' liberal " or a " progressive ' ' he will shy away from anyone who attacks Stalin's particular brand of Communism. He will avoid anyone who attacks Stalin's Sacred Cow. Anyone in America may attack the Socialists, the Trotskyites, the Nazis or the Fascists, with impunity but when Soviet Russia or the loyal comrades of Stalin's administration are attacked, they fall into that terrible category, that abyss of depravation, referred to as "red- baiters." A "liberal" or a "progressive" who falls into the sin of attacking Communism of the Stalin school, particularly if such "liberal" or "progressive" happens to be a sincere and sensitive soul, feels that he has sunk to the lowest depths of depravity; that he has betrayed his best friend and has lost caste over the face of the earth. It is as though a voodoo doctor had cast a spell over his mind; an enchantment of black magic suddenly conjured by name-calling. To sincere and sensitive individuals other Communist names such as ' ' stool pigeon," "renegade liberal," "strike-breaker" and "social Fascist" are name-taboos soul-shattering and terrifying, but for devastation complete, "red-baiting" is in a class by itself. The strange efficacy of the term has closed and kept shut the mouths of many disillusioned ex-Communists. Fear of this stinging epithet holds the tongue and hands of many who might speak and write on the subject with author- ity. Politicians, in trembling fear of the appellation, avoid Com- munism in campaign speeches and in the exercise of the public offices to which they are elected. This strange, paralyzing fear of a name should engage the attention of psychiatrists and psychologists.
Our American history is full of occasions of biting and derisive name- calling but throughout its crowded pages there have always appeared men of courage who feared neither the names or the caller-of-names. But only a few men during the past several years have had the courage to stand up under the paralyzing accusation of being a "red-baiter." There is little wonder, then, that Mr. Average Citizen is confused and dismayed when confronted with, what must appear to him to be a vague and unsubstantial thing — Communism.
Eugene Lyons, in his book on Stalinist penetration of America, "The Red Decade," has written brilliantly in defense of red-baiting. He sums it up as follows :
' ' There can be no clear thinking, no clear examination of the issues raised by the Kremlin 's intrusion in American
2— L-2275
18 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
life until the red-baiter taboo has been exorcised. A beginning, at least, can be made if those who expose Com- munist sculduggery walk up boldly to the terrible hob- goblin and, taking their courage in their hands, say, * ' Boo ! ' ' right in its face. After that, I can assure them, they will be able to wear the red-baiter tag with a flourish of pride, and their sleep will be as sweet as a healthy infant's. * * * What is more, I challenge all intel- lectually honest liberals to break through their inhibi- tions by saying, "Boo!" They will not find it easy at first, of course, and may have to practice it before their mirrors with doors closed and blinds drawn. But after a while they will discover that neither thunder nor light- ning will descend on their heads, but only a spatter of harmless sparks unloosed from Thirteenth Street, off Union Square in New York. In the end they will be cured, and will be able to examine the mythology of Stalinism as calmly as the folklore of capitalism or the mythology of Hitlerism."
The Committee investigating un-American activities in California has followed Mr. Lyons' advice and has not only said "Boo!" to the hobgoblin red-baiter-taboo but has actually found courage to subpena the medicine men of Communist Voodooism and compel them to testify in public hearings. The jungle drums of the Communist press have roared and sent up a great turmoil. New names have been invented and hurled with special venom at the committee and its members; distorted news items and lying editorials have been generously indulged in, but the spell has been broken. The committee is happy to report that the citizenry of California and of the United States may success- fully risk "red-baiting" and the terrible appellation of "red-baiters."
SOURCES OF COMMUNIST INFORMATION
No attempt has been made by the committee to include in this report the details and ramifications of the extremely complicated ideology of Communism. The committee has been more concerned with the activi- ties and manifestations in California of the Communist Party than with the ideology that moves and disciplines its members. The prob- lem, however, cannot be understood unless some knowledge of the theory of Communism, its history, development and strategies are explained. The members of your committee, its investigators and rep- resentatives, in addition to examining Communist witnesses, have given considerable time to the study of Communist documents, textbooks and literature. "Whatever the theoretical grounds and basis of Com- munism may purport to be, the committee is prepared to state the practical approach to the attainment of Communism in the United States of America is vicious and subversive. The committee, after its study and examination of Communist Party literature, textbooks and the works of contemporary writers who lived in Soviet Russia, concludes that all that remains of Communism in Soviet Russia is the name.
COMMUNISM 19
Even Joseph E. Davies writing in Mission to Moscow indicates this fact. The committee is prepared to state that Soviet Kussia since 1935 has been, in fact, a Fascist state.
The committee examined and interrogated many experts on the sub- ject of Communism and on the subject of Communism in Russia. It has questioned many disillusioned former members of the Communist Party. The affidavits of John G. Honeycombe and Rena M. Vale are set forth in full in this report. Both of these affidavits are outstanding evidence of the morass of intrigue and the insidious plotting of the Communist Party. The affidavit of Rena M. Vale is of exceptional value in the opinion of the committee. This unusual document of Communist undercover machination in the State of California should be read by every Californian.
To those who may be interested in pursuing the complicated ideology of Communism, its activities and machinations, the committee recom- mends its 16 volumes containing the transcript of testimony taken through 1941 to 1943 together with their exhibits. In this connection, the committee recommends to the Legislature, that these transcripts together with their exhibits, be published in their entirety. The com- mittee has studied and drawn heavily on the entire library of Commu- nist literature. The following list is recommended to those who wish to pursue the subject in greater detail:
1. Das Kapital, by Karl Marx.
2. Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels.
3. Official History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
4. The World Communist Movement, by G. Manuilsky.
5. Men and Politics, by Louis Fischer.
6. I Confess, by Benjamin Gitlow.
7. The Red Decade, by Eugene Lyons.
8. The People's Front, by Earl Browder.
9. Constitution of the Communist Party of the United States.
The last named, The Constitution of the Communist Party of the United States, is revised from time to time, as the laws of the Federal Government are revised, and , the foreign policy of Soviet Russia changes. All of the publications mentioned, with the exception of those by Fischer, Lyons and Gitlow, may be purchased at any Commu- nist book store in any of the large cities in California. Most of these book stores are easily identified as they are known as " Progressive " or " Workers" book stores, or some such equivalent name. Your com- mittee considers the works by Eugene Lyons as particularly illuminat- ing and informative. In addition to Lyons' Red Decade, the committee also recommends Lyons' Assignment in Utopia and Stalin, Czar of All the Russias.
In addition to the foregoing, members of the committee and its repre- sentatives have carefully examined the reports and records of similar committees and have had access to the files of law-enforcing bodies of the State and similar agencies. Confidential sources of information have been of great assistance in the preparation of public hearings and
20 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
have been the background upon which considerable evidence has ulti- mately been established.
The use of the word "Communism" in this report should be clearly understood. The committee wishes clearly to distinguish between such terms as "Socialism," " Syndicalism, " "Radicalism," "Anarchism," or general philosophies of political, economic or social change and "Communism." When "Communism" is used in this report, the committee is referring to the revolutionary radicalism and totalitarian- ism of Stalin and the Third or Communist International which has its headquarters in Moscow. The terms "Communism," "Stalinism," ' ' Third International, " " Communist International ' ' and ' ' Comintern ' ' are intended to convey the same meaning in the pages of the commit- tee 's report. The use of these terms is not to be confused with Social- ism or philosophies of governmental reform divorced from foreign domination and control, and force and violence.
In addition to the sources listed above the committee has gathered the following material:
1. Photostats of all of the signers to Communist Party nominating petitions in California, including the appointments of members to the State Central Committee of the Communist Party. The files of the committee contain complete lists of every individual who has officially run for public office on the Communist Party ticket together with the registered members of the Communist Party who signed their nomi- nating petitions.
2. Lists of all individuals who registered as Communists in various parts of the State.
3. Full data of the background and activity of California Communists and Fellow Travelers.
4. Identities, background and activities of individuals who have, from time to time, been identified with Communist causes in California, either in the category of "dupes" and "innocents" or just Communist Party "window dressing."
5. Files of the Communist Party official publication on the West coast, the People's Daily World; current Communist magazines and Communist literature. From these publications the committee has been able to secure a rounded picture of Communist attempts to pene- trate and capture the following :
Home Defense groups.
Labor Unions.
Consumers groups.
Language and racial groups.
Migratory labor and agriculture groups.
Schools and colleges.
Motion picture industry.
Theatre and radio.
Charitable organizations.
Art and music.
All fields of writing.
These publications clearly reveal Communist Party attempts to influence women's organizations, churches, State and Federal Govern-
COMMUNISM 21
ments, the Army and Navy, educational institutions and all mass organizations.
6. A mass of documents, photostats, inflammatory pamphlets, peri- odicals, newspapers, reports and similar documentary evidence of the scope of the Communist Party's influence in propaganda fields.
COMMUNIST THEORY AND PRACTICE
One of the stock questions asked by every American Communist and Communist Fellow Traveler when questioned as to his Communist affiliation is, "What is a Communist?" This is designed to leave the original questioner flabbergasted. The Communist or Communist Fellow Traveler, schooled in the art of oral fencing, readily falls back on the definition of ' l Communism ' ' by John Mill. He is apt to counter, when definitely pinned down, to something, as follows : " If you mean by "Communism," an equality of the distribution of the physical means of life and the enjoyment thereof as a transition to a still higher standard of justice that all men and women should work according to their capacity and receive according to their needs, then I am a Com- munist. ' ' This economic delusion is supposed to leave its hearers fully convinced that the word ' ' Communist " is a derogatory term for high- minded men and women who merely desire to make the world a better place in which to live.
Earl Browder has named the following as the basic texts of Com- munism : The Manifesto, by Marx and Engels ; Das Kapital, by Karl Marx; Fate and Revolution, Left Wing Communism, and What is to Be Done, by Lenin; Leninism, by Stalin; The United Front, by Dimitrov, the Secretary of the Third International. Earl Browder, himself, has written the following books on the subject, which are accepted by the Communists as authoritative : Communism in the United States (1933-4) ; What is Communism? (1936) ; The People's Front (1937-8), and Fighting for Peace (1938-9).
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels are the authors of the modern version of Communism and Lenin and Stalin are the modern inter- preters and prophets. All Communist authorities agree with this statement. The Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels in 1848, may be considered the bible of Communism. The Marxian theory of Com- munism is supplemented in its .modern version as to sovereignty and tactics to be employed for its attainment.
The First Communist International was created September 28, 1864, and was organized in London, England. The Second Communist International was organized in Paris in 1889. Lenin organized the Third Communist International in Moscow in 1919. Trotsky headed the Fourth International. Only about 3,000,000 adherents of Russian Communism have any voice whatsoever out of the 180,000,000 or more Russians in the Soviet government. Only the "politically most con- scious" of the Russians may join the Communist Party of Russia. (Constitution, 1936, Article 126.)
Article XI of the Constitution and By-Laws of the Communist Party of the United States adopted in New York May 27-31, 1938, provides*:
"The Communist Party of the U. S. A. is affiliated with its fraternal Communist Parties of other lands through
22 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
the Communist International and participates in Inter- national Congresses, through its National Committee. Resolutions and decisions of International Congresses shall be considered and acted upon by the supreme author- ity of the Communist Party of the U. S. A., the National Convention, or between Conventions, by the National Committee. ' '
LEGAL AND ILLEGAL METHODS
The program of the Communist International bluntly directs
legal methods must unfailingly be combined with illegal
methods * * *." One of the conditions laid down for admission
to the Communist International, promulgated by 0. Piatnitsky, is as
follows :
"The obligation to spread Communist ideas include the particular necessity of persistent, systematic propaganda in the army. Wherever such propaganda is forbidden by exceptional laws, it must be carried on illegally. The abandonment of such work would be equivalent to the betrayal of revolutionary duty and is incompatible with membership in the Third International."
Section 36 of Part V of the Constitution of the Communist Inter- national provides :
1 1 The Communist Parties must be prepared for transition to illegal conditions. The B. C. C. I. (Executive Com- mittee of the Communist International) must render the Parties concerned assistance in their preparations for transition to illegal conditions. "
Joseph Stalin, himself, writing in Volume 1 of Leninism throws aside all pretense and states :
"The revolutionary will accept a reform in order to use it as a means wherewith to link legal work with illegal work, in order to use it as a screen behind which his illegal activities for the revolutionary preparation of the masses for the overthrow of the Bourgeoisie may be intensified. ' '
Methods and tactics of combining legal work with illegal work on the part of the Communists everywhere accounts, particularly in the United States, for the secret, conspiratorial, underground groups, who use fictitious names and deny their affiliation with the party. These tactics readily explain the shifting and deceit in the changing public declarations and documents of open Communist functionaries. Thus, it is, when the Congress of the United States enacts a statute providing for the registration of the members of groups dominated by foreign governments, that the open functionaries of the Communist Party act- ing for the protection of the secret and underground membership, revise their public constitution "as a screen behind which * * * the illegal activities for the revolutionary preparation of the masses for the overthrow of the Bourgeoisie may be intensified. ' '
The committee learned from William Schneiderman (Volume V, pp. 1260-1342) that the Communist Party did, in fact, call a special
COMMUNISM 23
National convention in New York on December 16, 1940 for the pur- pose of amending the Constitution to comply with the Voorhis Act — the Federal statute requiring the registration of subversive groups. In this connection Mr. Schneiderman stated that ''revolution is one of the historical facts of the world * * * we are part of it, ' ' He admitted that changes in the Communist Party Line in America and California were the result of changes in world events.
He said that the Communist Party believed it a mistake for the United States to enter the war until the Soviet Union was attacked. He amplified this statement by adding: "Any attack on the Soviet Union is an attack on the interests of the workers throughout the world." He stated that the use of the term "Fatherland," referring to Soviet Eussia, was merely symbolic and that William Z. Foster used this term in the symbolic sense when he stated that "Russia was the Fatherland of all workers and the Red Flag the flag to which the Communist Party owed allegiance. " He stated the slogan "The Yanks Are Not Coming" was the Communist Party slogan prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union by Hitler but after the invasion it became a "reactionary slogan," and that after the Soviet Union was attacked the role of America was changed.
An understanding of this insidious method of combining legal with illegal methods on the part of the Communist Party in the United States explains many inconsistencies, mental maneuverings and actual perjuries on the part of many Communist witnesses who have testified before the committee.
FOREIGN CONTROL
The Honorable Charles Evans Hughes reporting to the United States Senate January 21, 1924 in his capacity as Secretary of State, said:
"It will be seen that the question of whether Communist programs contemplate the use of force and violence has been passed upon by every class of tribunal which would pass upon it, namely, Federal and State Courts, adminis- trative tribunals and Legislative Committees of both Federal and State governments and in every case the result has been in support of the position that force and violence are inseparable from Communist programs."
Mr. Hughes stated further, in the same report :
" It is believed that the evidence presented by the Depart- ment of State established the unity of the Soviet Govern- ment, and the Communist International, all of which are controlled by a small group of individuals, technically known as the political bureau of the Russian Communist Party. Second, the spiritual and organic connection between this Moscow group and its agents in this country — the American Communist Party and its legal counter- part, the Workers' Party. Not only are these organiza- tions the creation of Moscow, but the latter has also elaborated their program and controlled and supervised their activities. While there may have existed in the
24 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
United States individuals, and even groups imbued with the Marxist doctrines prior to the advent of the Com- munist International, the existence of a disciplined party equipped with a program aiming at the overthrow of the institutions of this country by force and violence is due to the intervention of the Bolshevik organizations into the domestic political life of the United States. The essential fact is the existence of an organization in the United States . created by and completely subservient to a foreign organization striving to overthrow the existing social and political order of this country. Third, the subversive and pernicious activities of the American Com- munist Party and the Workers' Party and their subordi- nates and allied organs in the United States are activities resulting from and flowing out of the program elaborated for them by the Moscow group ! ' '
Stalin told the American delegation to the Third Communist Inter- national in Moscow in 1927: "The Communist Party of America, as a section of the Third International must pay dues to the 'KiminterneV'
William Z. Foster, three times a candidate for the President of the United States on the Communist ticket and an admitted member of the Third International, testified before a Congressional Committee of the United States Congress, as follows:
«* * * rpkg comnmnist International is a world party, based upon the mass parties in the respective coun- tries. It works out its policy by the mass principles of these parties in all its deliberations. It is a party that conducts the most fundamental examination of all ques- tions that come before it and, when a decision is arrived at in any given instance, this decision the workers, with their customary sense of proletarian discipline, accept and put into effect. * * * The workers of this country and the workers of every country have only one flag and that is the red flag. * * * The workers, the revo- lutionary workers, in all the capitalist countries are an oppressed class who are held in subjection by their respec- tive capitalist governments and their attitude toward these governments is the abolition of these governments and the establishment of soviet governments. * * * I stated very clearly the red flag is the flag of the revolu- tionary class, and we are part of the revolutionary class. * And all capitalist flags are flags of the capitalist class, and we owe no allegiance to them."
William Z. Foster further testified :
"No Communist, no matter how many votes he should secure in a National election, could, even if he would, become president of the present government. When a Communist heads a government of the United States, and that will come just as surely as the sun rises, that gov-
COMMUNISM 25
ernment will not be a capitalistic government, but a soviet government, and behind this government will stand the Bed Army to enforce the dictatorship of the proletariat. "
If anyone should believe that the testimony given by William Z. Foster, as quoted above, reflected a passing period of Communist policy, the recent testimony given by Mr. Foster before the Dies Com- mittee on September 29, 1939, dissipates that idea. Mr. Foster virtually confirmed the testimony he had given before another con- gressional committee several years previous. Earl Browder testified before the Dies Committee in September of 1939 also, and stated: "The Communist Party of the United States is affiliated with the Communist International * * *. We have participated in the International Congress ; we have sent delegates to all the International Congresses since the third Congress * * *. It was only an organ- izational question that there was any ignoring of the Constitution. Politically, there has been the closest collaboration, the closest relation- ship * * *. So far as the political essence of the problem is concerned, there is the closest harmony between the Communist Party of the United States and the Communist International." In order that no doubt be left on the subject, Mr. Browder stated there is no "single instance where the Communist Party of the United States has ever disagreed with the Communist Line in Russia."
As will be shown later, the foreign policy, need and ambition of Soviet Russia itself determines the policies of its Communist branches throughout the countries of the world. The method promulgated by the Third International for the combining of legal and illegal tactics in the countries in which the branches are operating, permit the Com- munist Parties literally to "fly through the air with the greatest ease," leaping from one convenient trapeze to another. Thus, the enactment of Federal statutes, providing, in part, that all organizations controlled or dominated by a foreign power, register as such with the Department of State, saw a frantically-called special convention of the Communist Party of the United States November 16-17, 1940. Certain of the gullibility of Americans in their unquestioning acceptance at face value of the truthfulness and honesty of anything printed in a so-called constitution, this convention of the Communist Party amended its so-called constitution to conform to the new Federal statutes. Thus it was that the revised constitution emanating from this special con- vention of the Communist Party of the United States provided in Article VII, Section 1, as follows:
"The supreme authority in the Communist Party of the U. S. A., is the national convention. Regular national conventions shall be held every two years. Only national conventions are authorized to make political and organiza- tional decisions binding upon the entire party and its membership, except as provided in Article VII, Sec- tion 6." (Section 6 provides that between conventions the highest authority of the party is the National Com- mittee. )
As far as the new constitution is concerned, the Communist Party of the United States was divorced from the Third International. The
26 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
Communist Party press in the United States openly laughed at the subterfuge — this typical application of the method of combining legal with illegal tactics. Actually the Communist Party of the United States redoubled its efforts for the sabotaging of our defense efforts and continued to carry out the mandates of the Hitler-Stalin pact. Paid Communist functionaries, such as Jack Moore and William Schneiderman, when subpenaed before the public hearings of the com- mittee, were able to shout from the housetops that the Communist Party was a law-abiding political group " carrying forward the tradi- tions of Jefferson, Payne, Jackson and Lincoln, " upholding "the achievements of Democracy, the right of 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' " and that the Communist Party "defends the United States Constitution against its reactionary enemies who would destroy Democracy and all civil liberties."
FORCE AND VIOLENCE
The Manifesto, by Marx and Engels, states : " * * * Communists scorn to hide their views and aims. They openly declare that their purpose can only be achieved by the forcible overthrow of the whole extant social order. Let the ruling classes tremble at the prospect of a Communist revolution. Proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Proletarians of all lands, unite ! ' '
Lenin stated: "The dictatorship of the proletariat is nothing else than power based upon force and limited by nothing * * * by no kind of law and by absolutely no rule."
Earl Browder, the foremost exponent of Communism in the United States has stated in his book, "What is Communism?":
"It must be emphasized that capitalism will not simply come to an end; it can only be ended by the organized actions of the working class in collaboration with its allies from other sections of the population. * * * After this first step of taking state power has been realized, the workers make use of the state power to take possession of the instruments of production. Then the new govern- ment, at the head of the masses, reorganizes the entire national economy of the country in an organized and planned manner, along socialist lines. * * * All revo- lutions have been made with weapons which the over- thrown rulers had relied on for their protection. * * * History does not show a single example in which state power was transferred from one class to another by peace- ful means, whether in the form of voting or some other method of formal democracy. * * * If the productive forces and accumulated wealth of society are to be pre- served and further developed the property rights of the capitalists and the institutions by which they are maintained must be abolished and the exploiting minority and its agents suppressed. Thus, some form of violence is unavoidable. There is no possible choice between vio- lence and non-violence. The only choice is between the two sides of the class struggle."
COMMUNISM 27
Stalin stated to the Communist Party of the United States of America in 1929: "I consider the Communist Party of the United States is one of the few Communist parties to which history has given decisive tasks from the point of view of the world revolutionary move- ment. It is necessary that the American Communist Party should be capable of meeting the moment of crisis fully equipped to take the direction of future class wars in the United States. You must forge real revolutionary cadres and leaders of the proletariat who will be capable of leading the millions of American workers toward the revo- lutionary class war."
William Z. Foster stated in 1928 when accepting the Communist Party nomination for President of the United States : "We must utilize this campaign to carry on a widespread and energetic propaganda to teach the workers that the capitalist class would never allow the work- ing class peaceably to take control of the state. That is their strong right arm, and they will fight violently to the end to retain it. We working class must shatter the capitalistic state. We must build a new state, a new government, a workers' and farmers' government, the Soviet Government of the United States. * * * In all our agita- tion around these demands we must emphasize the absolute necessity for the proletarian revolution. Our strategy is to utilize these imme- diate demands to educate and organize the masses in preparation for the final revolutionary struggle, which will abolish capitalism alto- gether. Reliance upon immediate demands would lead us merely to reformism. Our party is a revolutionary party. * * *"
Your committee might continue quoting from official Communist sources for many pages in reference to the program of force and violence advocated by the Communist Party for the overthrow of the Govern- ment of the United States, but it is felt the above quotations will suffice. It may be said without fear of contradiction that the Communist Party in America and the Communist Parties throughout the world, under the domination of the Third International, have, as their ultimate and long- range objective the destruction of all existing democracies and govern- ments by force and violence and the establishment of soviet govern- ments in their stead under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The objective of world-wide revolution and the destruction of existing governments by force and violence, and the establishment of Soviets, is the long range plan of the Stalinist Communist. It is an objective that can be postponed from time to time in view of the ever immediate objective of the Communist Parties of the world. Soviet Eussia, itself, is the immediate consideration, and its protection, as the Fatherland of the proletariat, is ever present in the minds of Stalin's loyal comrades everywhere. An understanding of these two fundamental objectives of the Communist Party and the Third International is absolutely neces- sary in order intelligently to follow the apparently twisting policies and "Party Line" of the American Communist Party in California and in the United States.
DAY-TO-DAY STRUGGLES
" Sof tening-up processes" of "decadent" bourgeoise democracy is known in Communist Party pig-Latin as the technique of the ' ' day-to- day struggle" against the "bosses" and the "bosses' government."
28 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
Under the heading of "Immediate, and Partial Demands," the Com- munist Party hopes to move the non- Communist masses toward the blood-and-thunder era in which the government will be overthrown and the dictatorship of the proletariat established. No issue is too small or insignificant for Communist Party strategical utilization. The issue may be social, political or economic. Immediate issues such as wages, working conditions, hours, civil rights, liberties, and zoot- suit gangs all afford opportunities for agitation in the "day-to-day struggle.*' The whole purpose of the strategy is to arouse the masses, the non-Communist masses, against the " bosses " and to direct pub- lic resentment against the "bosses' " government. By this tactic the Communist Party believes that it extends its own influence with the people and, when public resentment is whipped to a white heat, will offer an opportunity to the Communists to lead the masses in civil war and armed revolt against the government.
Jack Stachel, writing in The Communist for November, 1934, under the title of "Our Trade Union Policy, a Report to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee," states: "Our basic task in trade union work, as Communists, is to organize and lead the masses in a struggle for their immediate economic and political needs, and, in the course of these struggles * * * to revolutionize these masses, to mobilize them for the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of capitalism."
V. Adoratsky writing in The Communist for May, 1932, states :
"* * * Leninism does not limit the movement to any one particular form of struggle, but rather strives to master all forms. Various forms of proletarian struggle are the strike movement, demonstrations, parliamentary struggle, revolutionary utilization of parliament when the situation demands it, and also the higher forms of struggle: armed uprising, civil war, dictatorship of the proletariat. In the second place, Leninism approaches the problem as to what particular form of struggle is to be utilized, historically, in connection with and taking into consideration the entire concrete situation. In the choice of means it is necessary to sh6w the greatest flexibility."
This particular technique of "Immediate and partial demands" in the so-called "day-to-day struggle" of the Communist Party, must be understood if the agitational techniques of the conspiracy are to be exposed and combated. Members of legislative bodies, public offi- cials and the people generally should be warned careful Iv to dis- tinguish between Communist Party agitation per se and legitimate issues of real public concern.
RELIGION
Modern Communism and its true believers abhor religion. Earl Browder has stated: "We Communists do not distinguish between good and -bad religion, because we think they are all bad for the masses." William Z. Foster, testified before a congressional commit- tee, that : "Our party considers religion to be the opium of the people."
COMMUNISM 29
Experts on Communist history, theory and the laws of Soviet Russia have stated to your committee that Communism is the most intolerant of all isms, in spite of the loud-mouthed boastings of the American Communist that the members of their party are " liberals'* and " progressives. " In connection with the subject of religious tolerance and freedom in Soviet Russia, which Communist apologists are now proclaiming to the unsuspecting citizenry of the United States in their drive to make Soviet Russia appear as a Democracy instead of the absolute totalitarian dictatorship that it is, the committee quotes Article 126 of the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Repub- lics, now being sold two for a nickel, neatly bound and carefully printed in English by Ogiz, State Publishing House of Political Literature, Soviet Russia, 1938:
"Article 126. In conformity with the interest of the working people, and in order to develop the organiza- tional initiative and political activities of the masses of the people, citizens of the U. S. S. R. are ensured the right to unite in public organizations — trade unions, cooperative associations, youth oganizations, sport and defense organizations, cultural, technical and scientific societies; and the most active and politically most con- scious citizens in the ranks of the working class and other sections of the working people unite in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, (Bolsheviks), which is the vanguard of the working people in their struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system and is the leading core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state." (Italics are the committee's.)
Thus, the great ' ' democratic, ' ' intolerant dictatorship of the proletar- iat as enunciated by its constitution permits its people to organize into particular and specifically named societies, thus excluding those not catalogued. This "tolerance" and "democracy" goes even further; it permits the most active and politically most conscious citizens actually to unite in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Thus, the con- stitution itself excludes and makes illegal organizations and societies based on any other school of thought than Communism.
Article 124 of the aforesaid Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics provides :
"In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U. S. S. R. is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.'" (Committee's italics.)
At first blush, and without further information, it would appear that this guarantee of both religious and anti-religious freedom was the acme of religious tolerance. Vladimir Gsovski, who was formerly a County Judge and lawyer in Russia, and who is presently Assistant in Foreign Law to the Law Librarian of Congress and a professor in Russian at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service,
30 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
has written on the legal status of the church in Soviet Russia in 8 Fordham Law Review, 1, January, 1939. Mr. Gsovski states :
"The Soviet laws directly dealing with religion and the church are not the only factors determining the status of the church in Soviet Russia. Inimical attitude toward religion in the Communist philosophy has contributed largely to the manner in which the laws were interpreted and applied. Stress is laid at one time upon propaganda, at another time upon direct persecution and suppression. To deprive the churches of any possibility of exercising influence upon the people even outside of politics is the real tenor of all the acts of the Soviet Government. To create conditions for replacement of religion by atheism is its real aim."
The committee, at this point, wishes to stress the alleged constitu- tional freedom of religious worship and the freedom of anti-religious propaganda. The freedom of religious propaganda is thereby pro- hibited. On this point, Mr. Gsovski writing on the legal status of the church in Soviet Russia, states :
"In 1929 the constitutions of the major soviet republics were amended to make clear the prohibition of religious propaganda and this modified text was incorporated into the 1936 constitution."
Mr. Gsovski 's treatise on this subject may be summed up as follows: Soviet statutes do not recognize the church as an organized aggregation of parishes of a given denomination. All such units, if they exist at all, must be strictly local in character. All churches are completely deprived of any property rights. Even the ownership of vestments, utensils, chalices and other objects which are merely destined for purely liturgical and ceremonial use are denied to them. All objects of historical or artistic value are taken from the churches and removed to museums, if the objects do not have a material value. Any gift made to a church or religious organization, under Soviet law, automatically becomes the property of the Soviet state, and is subject to disposal by Soviet authority. Any establishment of regular membership fee is for- bidden by Soviet law under a penalty.
The activities of a church or religious group, referred to in Soviet law as a "religious association," are strictly confined to what the Soviet law terms "performance of the cult," that is, to bare performance of ceremony. "Religious associations" is a term in Soviet law that has no remote relationship to the legal entities embodied in the Anglo- Saxon sense. Under Soviet law, no church may dispense charity, teach religious doctrines, even to its own members or their children. Religious ceremonies or the display of religious symbols are stricthr prohibited under heavy penalty in any governmental, public, coopera- tive or private institution or enterprise or in commonly used premises of an apartment. Special permission of the government must be obtained two weeks in advance for the customary God services in the open air or in any other premises than the church. Christmas and Easter are not holidays in Soviet Russia. Any worker who attends
COMMUNISM 31
church on either of these days and who fails to put in an appearance at his place of work is summarily dismissed.
Soviet statutes strictly prohibit the teaching of religion or "any form of religious belief" by the church. These statutes go even further in prohibiting the teaching "of any form of religious belief" in any educational establishment and also in "teaching religious doctrine to persons under 18 years of age. ' ' Mr. Gsovski, in this connection, states : "Soviet regulations are not confined to a negative combat of religion, but a positive program of atheistic education is officially established for the Soviet schools. ' '
In reference to the persecution of the clergy, Mr. Gsovski says : ' ' For 18 years limitations and especially heavy financial burdens were imposed upon the clergy of all denominations and upon monks and nuns. From the first Soviet Constitution of July, 1918 to the Constitution of 1936 the laws deprived the clergy of franchise. The disfranchise not only affected the right to vote, and to be members of the trade unions and therefore be lawfully employed especially in governmental enterprises, but also imposed higher rents for their apartments. When food and other commodities were distributed by ration on cards, disfranchised persons were deprived of such cards. Their children were practically barred from education and employment. They were subjct to specially high taxes."
A religious man is suspected by the Communists of being inimical to the Soviet Government and almost automatically involves the accusation of counter-revolutionist. Mr. Gsovski points out that the definition of ' * counter-revolutionary ' ' crime is couched in very general terms which are much broader than that of political crimes. Moreover, the Soviet court has power to sentence for acts not expressly dealt with in the Penal Code. The law provides: "Propaganda or agitation containing an appeal to overthrow, undermine, or weaken the Soviet authority or to commit individual counter-revolutionary crimes, or the dissemina- tion, preparation, or possession of literature containing such matter * * * if done * * * by utilizing religious or racial preju- dices ' ' — entails the death penalty. Set up, side by side with the courts, are special government departments that have broad power to inflict heavy penalties without any judicial procedure and without trial, and not bound by any substantive or adjective law. These special gov- ernment departments are variously known as Cheka, GPU, OGPU and, since 1934, the Federal Commissariat of the Interior — Narkomvnudel (NKVD). Mr. Gsovski states that: "For several years it had first the actual power and later the right to put to death after secret procedure, or sentence to penal servitude (labor camps) or exile." Mr. Gsovski concludes with this statement :
"The entire set-up of the Soviet penal system does not offer any convincing evidence that the high number of prel- ates, priests, monks, and active parishioners were engaged in the counter-revolutionary activities for which they were prosecuted. Separation of state and church declared in Soviet decrees means actually the suppression of the church by an atheistic state. Soviet legislation on religion is a legislation of militant atheism which sought to eradi- cate religion from the human mind. ' '
32 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
Much ado by American Communists was made over the new Consti- tution of December, 1936, above referred to and quoted, as to its guar- antee of religious freedom. As a matter of fact, all information and evidence available, points to a marked increase in anti-religious activ- ity on the part of the several agencies of the Soviet Government and certainly there has been no change in the religious outlook of American Communists. This anti-religious campaign is directed against all religions — Catholic, Protestant, Greek Orthodox, Mohammedan and Jewish. Corliss Lamont, formerly head of the Friends of Soviet Rus- sia, wrote in Soviet Russia and Religion: "The truth is that the social roots of religion are well on the way towards being totally abolished in Soviet Russia. ' ' In this same work, Mr. Lamont states as follows :
"It now remains to be asked to what extent the anti- religious campaign has been successful. The most recent figures were announced at the meeting held in Moscow in February, 1936, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Union of Militant Atheists. The union now boasts a membership of more than 5,000,000 with 50,- 000 active local organizations. There is also the youth section, the Young Militant Atheists, who number over 2,000,000. During its existence the union has published more than 1,000 anti-religious titles, with the actual total of books and pamphlets issued running into several mil- lion * * * Emelian Yaroslavsky, old Bolshevik and friend of Lenin's, who is President of the Union of Mili- tant Atheists, claims that there are approximately 40,000,- 000 active atheists in the U. S. S. R. out of a population now close to 170,000,000. "
Mr. Earl Browder, the American prophet of the dictatorship of the proletariat, states in Religion and Communism: "From this estimate of the social role of religion, it is quite clear that the Communist Party is the enemy of religion. We Communists try to do the opposite of what we hold religion does."
In a book, Teachings of Marx for Boys and Girls, by William Mont- gomery Brown, your Committee finds the following:
"Religion is a dangerous dope because it takes the people's mind off their misery and their poverty. Religion is dope like opium. Well, religion acts the same on the poor American as opium does on the Chinese coolie. Now you will understand one of the most famous sayings of the great Karl Marx. He said, 'Religion is the opium of the people. ' It makes them dream of a heaven in which they will be rewarded forever, if they suffer patiently the hell they have on earth. The preacher dopes them with his sermon. Then they go home dreaming about the beau- tiful heaven which is no more real than the beautiful palace of a Chinaman's opium dream."
The committee believes that it is unnecessary to extend this part of its report any further. It is the definite and abiding conviction of the members of the committee that the Communist Party seeks, not
COMMUNISM 33
only to destroy our government, its Constitution and the American way of life, but to destroy our religion and religious institutions as well.
LEGAL POLITICAL COMMUNIST PARTY— A FICTION
The fourth period of Communist development and strategy in the United States, based on the parallel period of the need, ambition and foreign policy of Soviet Russia, saw the rise of Communism in the United States as a legally constituted political party. While begin- nings had been made before this period the names selected had been more deceiving, such as the Communist Labor Party, Workers' Party, et cetera. It must be remembered that this fourth period, beginning in 1935, had seen the launching of the Trojan Horse Cavalry and the creation of " people's fronts," " popular fronts" and " collective secu- rity." Fascization of Soviet Russia had been under way for some time. Stalin had despaired of forming an advantageous pact with Hitler and Mussolini and was in growing fear of a German and Japa- nese war. The comrades of the Communist Parties of the world were ordered to sell Soviet Russia to their respective countries on the basis of "Democracy" and "anti-Fascism." In conformity with the new slogan "Communism is Twentieth Century Americanism" and the Communist-advertised agreements between Marx, Lenin, and Stalin and Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, the Communist Party of the United States of America launched its legal political party in earnest. The revolutionary character of the party had not changed. It was merely in moth balls. What the Communist Party of America did, so reasoned the Kremlin strategists, reflected the character of the Soviet Government. So it was that selected comrades in the various states were ordered to register as members of a legally constituted Communist Party. Former members of the Communist Party have stated that at no time in the United States did more than 20 per cent of the member- ship of the Communist Party register openly as such. This strategy served two purposes. First, it helped the Red Fatherland in its cur- rent maneuvering and secondly, it permitted greater recruiting of unwary Americans into the party and gave an air of respectability to the odious appellation of "Communist."
It must be emphasized and remembered that the Communist Party is fundamentally and basically a secret, conspiratorial branch of a for- eign government. Its members, for the greater part, in affiliating with this secret and conspiratorial group, do so under assumed and fictitious names. The committee has examined many Communist Party member- ship books and has in its files photostats of the applications for mem- bership of many Communists. In nearly every case the applicant gives first his real name and then sets forth the fictitious name under which he desires to be known in Communist circles. The majority of Communist members are registered in other legal parties, and in recent years have concentrated in the Democratic Party. In the period under discussion, the Communists in California were able practically to cap- ture the Young Democrats of this State, and had strong working frac- tions in nearly every official Democratic County Committee.
Your committee is in possession of a mass of evidence concerning many individuals throughout the State of California and their rela- tionship with the official secret, conspiratorial Communist Party.
3— L-2275
34 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
Where such an individual is of prominence, and therefore of great value to the Communist strategy, no record whatsoever is made of such an individual's affiliation. Among the Communists themselves such an individual is referred to as " a member at large. ' ' Because of his or her importance, no formal application for membership is ever demanded and no party-book or other indicia of membership is issued. For general purposes such individuals are generally listed as "fellow travelers." He or she is easily catalogued once the observer under- stands the policies of Soviet Russia and its agents in California and in the United. States. The "fellow traveler" follows the party line with- out deviation. If his activities tally with the changing policies of the periods of Communist strategy outlined herein, there can be little doubt of his close association with the Communist Party of America. The real liberal or progressive, retaining intellectual independence and freedom of thought, is not for any great length of time a fellow traveler in this sense. The true fellow traveler is one who called Roosevelt a war monger from 1939 to June 22, 1941 and who subse- quently took the breath taking flip-flop on June 22, 1941 when Hitler invaded Soviet Russia. The fellow traveler is never registered in the legally constituted Communist Party.
Typical of witnesses who deny affiliation with the Communist Party but whose activities and philosophy meticulously follow the Communist Party line was Laurence B. Smith (Volume VIII, pp. 2432-2437). Mr. Smith told the committee that he had never affiliated with the Communist Party but that he had attended many of their functions. He told of attending a function given for the benefit of the People's Daily World, Communist Party newspaper, in the C. I. 0. Hall on Eighth Street, in San Diego, in April of 1941 and of attending a meet- ing in Los Angeles in November of 1941 to hear Robert Minor, National Chairman of the Communist Party of the United States. He admitted having made contributions for the defense of William Schneiderman. He had been a member of the American Civil Liberties Union for some seven or eight years. He frankly told the committee that he was against sending aid to Great Britian until they were "united to defeat Fascism." (Great Britain united, according to Communist reasoning, to "defeat Fascism" when Soviet Russia was invaded by Nazi-Germany.) Mr. Smith added : "If that's the party line, I agree with it."
The people of California should recall that practically every appel- late court decision passing on Communism in California has adjudicated it to be a criminal conspiracy to destroy the government of the State and of the Nation and the property of the citizenry by force, violence, sabotage and treason. In the case of the People vs. Taylor, 187 Cal. 378, the court stated: "There seems to be no doubt that its aims, objectives and purposes were in full accord and in entire sympathy of that body (Communist Party of Russia) in Russia." The court went on to further state that : ' ' Taylor disclaimed any hope of success of change through the ballot, and advocated getting results by force. He favored sabotage as a weapon of the working class against the employers and capitalists * * *. During the time he was advocat- ing all such measures, Taylor was active in the work of the Communist Labor Party."
COMMUNISM 35
The agitation-propaganda department of the Communist Party, known to the Communist as the "Agit-Prop" has laid down a policy of disloyalty to the United States. This has been confirmed by testi- mony of Earl Browder under oath. When questioned as to the attitude of the American Communist in event of war between the United States and Soviet Russia, Mr. Browder stated as follows: ''The American workers, when called upon to go into this war against the Soviet Union, must refuse to fight against the Russian workers, and go over on the side of the Red Army. The American workers, like the Russian workers in 1917, must turn the imperialist war into a civil war against the real enemies — the capitalist class of the United States which exploits and oppresses the American working class." Earl Browder further testified that if America made "an aggressive war against the Soviet Union, I would stand as absolutely opposed to such a war, and as doing everything possible to stop it. * * * Even to turning such a war into a Civil war. * * * I can only answer for myself per- sonally, and I can not say * My country, right or wrong. ' If I thought my country was wrong, I would oppose its entrance into such a war and conduct of such a war, just as I opposed the entrance of America into the war in 1917, when I thought it was wrong."
We have heretofore quoted William Z. Foster, who was the Chair- man of the Communist Party of the United States and three times its candidate for the presidency of our country in reference to the Communist use of the ballot. It will not be remiss again to quote this leading light of Communism in the United States. He said: « * * * q^e Communist International is a world Party, based upon the mass parties in the respective countries. * * * I stated very clearly the Red Flag is the flag of the revolutionary class, and we are part of the revolutionary class * * * and all capitalist flags are flags of the capitalist class, and we owe no allegiance to them. No Communist, no matter how many votes he should secure in a National election, could, even if he would, become President of the present government. When a Communist heads a government of the United States, and that will come just as surely as the sun rises, that govern- ment will not be a capitalistic government, "but a Soviet government, and behind this government will stand the Red Army to enforce the dictatorship of the proletariat."
The attempt of the Communist Party of America to appear as a legally constituted political party is purely a fiction in full conformance with other fictions developed from time to time during its existence in the United States. The California Legislature of 1940 outlawed the Communist Party of California by statute. This statute has been attacked in the courts of this State and through typical Communist maneuvering, the Communist Party was able to avoid the issue in a trial court and subsequently placed its candidates on the 1942 primary election ballot. Your committee recommends that steps be taken to strengthen the statute wherever necessary to the end that this fiction of legality and respectability of a foreign-controlled subversive organi- zation in the State of California be forever ended.
36 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
TROTSKYISM
Leon Trotsky was one of the group that signed the Manifesto launch- ing the Comintern in March of 1919. Undoubtedly Lenin distrusted Stalin and preferred Trotsky as his successor. All contemporary writers of the time and evidence available now indicates this fact clearly. Certainly Leon Trotsky was Lenin's closest associate and confidant. Stalin had moved cautiously and it was apparent in 1926 or 1927 that Trotsky's pretensions to the dictatorship were doomed. Charles E. Ruthenberg, "the American Lenin," died suddenly early in 1927 and the American Bolsheviks started a mass scramble for power in the United States. Jay Lovestone, Benjamin Gitlow, William Z. Foster and other pretenders to the throne vacated by the "American Lenin, " Charles E. Ruthenberg, dashed madly off to the Kremlin in their scramble for Ruthenberg 's crown. Jay Lovestone and his group, being luckier guessers than the others, for the time, at least, took the lead in demanding Trotsky 's ouster from the International. Lovestone and his followers, subsequently slated for the same fate, viciously attacked Trotsky and his adherents as Trotskyites, a sort of ' ' left-wing ' ' Communism. Those who had espoused the cause of Leon Trotsky were branded as Trotskyites and the first major purge in the Communist Party of America occurred in 1928 when James Cannon, Max Schacht- man and other bad-guessers on the outcome of the Stalin-Trotsky contest in Russia, were expelled from the party. Jay Lovestone and his American group later guessed wrong in a contest that developed between Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin. Although Stalin was reported as ridiculing rumors of an impending break between himself and Bukharin, clever Stalinists veered away from Bukharin. Jay Love- stone, representing the great majority of Communists in the United States, was foolish enough to believe Stalin's protestations and main- tained friendly relations with Bukharin. Intrigue and plotting inside the Communist Party of the United States soon culminated in a smear campaign directed against Jay Lovestone and his adher- ents because of their friendship with Bukharin and they were attacked as "Bukharin Right Deviators." A Comintern Commission was set up in Moscow under the supervision of Viacheslav Molotov and Lovestone and his followers, although representing the greatest number of American Communists, were charged with treachery, stupidity and unprincipled opportunism and were thrown out of the party. Hence, the second great American purge by the Communist Party occurred in America and the expelled members became known as Lovestoneites.
The so-called orthodox Communists — orthodox because they follow the Stalin school and Stalin is on the throne in Moscow — undoubtedly reserve their deepest hatred for the Lovestoneites and the Trotskyites— and in any choice between these two factions and capitalism — the Stalin- ists would unhesitatingly take the latter. A person who merely mur- ders his grandmother is a nice fellow compared to a Trotskyite, from the Stalinist point of view.
Don Morton, a former Communist Party member, told your com- mittee (Volume VI, pp. 1783-1794) that the Communist Party planted spies in the Socialist Party and in the Fourth International and that
COMMUNISM 37
these spies reported to the Stalinist group on the activities of the Trotskyites.
William Schneiderman (Vol. V, pp. 1260-1342), Secretary of the Communist Party in California, testified that the Communist Party regarded the Trotskyites as "agents of Fascism" and that they have held them in this light ever since they were expelled from the party. The Lovestoneites, according to Mr. Schneiderman, are viewed in the same category — "agents of Fascism." Illustrating the venom and bitterness with which the orthodox Stalinites look upon the Trotskyites, Mr. Schneiderman told the committee that Alexander Noral had denounced his sister, Norma Perry, for Trotskyite activities in San Francisco at a convention of the Communist Party in 1938.
Mr. William Schneiderman (Volume V, p. 1341) regarded the reading of Max Eastman "a waste of time." Mr. Eastman, he stated, belonged to the "Trotskyite element."
Mr. Bert Hanman, a self -admitted former member of both the Stalinist and Trotskyist variety of Communism in California, testified before your committee in San Francisco (Volume VI, pp. 1695-1727). Mr. Hanman testified that he had entered the University of California from Chowchilla in the Fall of 1925 and that he graduated from the College of Commerce in 1929 with a degree of B.S. He received his Masters Degree in Economics in 1930.
Returning to Chowchilla, Mr. Hanman took over his father 's business and later decided to be a writer. He studied Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. About this time he met Norman Mini and William Gannon in Sacra- mento and also met Carl Patterson, the then State Organizer for the Communist Party. It was Mr. Patterson who started the United Farmers' League in California for small farmers. Mr. Hanman testi- fied that this was a Communist Party front. Mr. Hanman stated that the movement began early in 1933 when most of California's small farmers were destitute. All of the members of the United Farmers' League were bona fide farmers except Patterson, the organizer. Mr. Hanman stated that he worked with the United Farmers' League and that he then joined the Communist Party, helping Patterson organize the farmers into a Communist Party Unit in Chowchilla. He stated that this became a unit of some 30 members.
Mr. Hanman was invited by, Sam Darcy through Louise Todd to attend a district committee meeting of District 13 of the Communist Party in San Francisco. He told your committee that this meeting was held in a very secret manner in a garage. Among those present, Mr. Hanman named Lillian Monroe, Caroline Decker, Pat Chambers, Paul and Violet Orr, Elmer Hanoff, Sam Darcy, Louise Todd and Carl Patterson. Mr. Hanman stated that Elmer Hanoff was known, at that time as the "Red Star Man," which term indicated a member of the Communist Party disciplinary body. Mr. Hanman testified that the vaunted and confusing term of Communist Party lingo, "Demo- cratic centralism" really meant dictatorship. He stated that he had been led to believe that the Communist Party was a democratic organi- zation but soon learned that it was built and functioned only on dictatorship lines. He testified that the Communist Party in Cali- fornia is completely controlled by a very small group sitting at the top.
00 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
He stated that party functionaries agreed with him that the Communist Party was not all that it should be.
One of the tactics used by the Communist Party in winning the farmers was by acting as the "Pied Piper" through the United Farmers' League. Through the activities of the league the county was induced to supply squirrel poison and the United Farmers' League members put it out helping the farmers thus rid themselves of a squirrel plague. Mr. Hanman said this tactic gave the farmers a feeling of unity and that it strengthened their morale. It was then easy enough for the Communist controlled United Farmers' League to lead them in requesting a reduction in power rates. Mr. Hanman testified that the United Farmers' League collapsed in 1934 after he moved from Chowchilla to Berkeley.
Mr. Hanman went to Salt Lake in 1934, at about the time Norman Mini and others were arrested and charged with criminal syndicalism. He stated that he was gone about three months and during this time he became interested in Trotsky's writings. He stated that he believed the Fourth International movement corrected many ills of the Third International. He discussed this matter with Norman Mini who agreed with him, mainly because criticism had become impossible in the Com- munist Third International.
Returning to Berkeley Mr. Hanman was reinstated in the Communist Party. Meanwhile Caroline Decker, Norman Mini and others were in jail in Sacramento on the Criminal Syndicalism charge and the Com- munist Party had made no attempt to bail them out. Mr. Hanman attended a joint county meeting of the East Bay Section of the Com- munist Party about this time and learned that the Communist Party was "disciplining" Caroline Decker and the others because of some trouble between a fraction of the California Workers' Industrial Union and the "Darcy Bureaucracy" over management of that organization. At this meeting, Mr. Hanman requested the Sacramento trial be placed on the agenda. This was refused. Mr. Hanman insisted on speaking of the Sacramento trial anyway. Miles Humphrey was the chairman of this meeting. Being unable to do anything for his com- rades in Sacramento at the Communist East Bay Section meeting, he prepared a paper on the Sacramento cases and submitted same to Sam Darcy, sending a copy of the paper to Caroline Decker in Sacramento. Mr. Hanman testified that this action made Sam Darcy very angry. He was called before a general membership meeting of the Communist Party over which Elmer Hanoff, the "Red Star Man" presided. The witness told your committee that this was, indeed, bureaucracy ' ' really at work. ' ' He testified that only members friendly to the bureaucracy were notified of the meeting and that he was not allowed to speak in his own behalf. He was charged with being a Trotskyite and the chief evi- dence in support of this charge was that he had had a cup of coffee with a known Trotskyite. Mr. Hanman testified that all rights of lower Communist Party organizational bodies were ignored. Despite the steam-roller methods used in expelling him, Hanman stated that there were several dissenting votes.
After his expulsion from the Communist Party Hanman immedi- ately contacted a Trotskyite group in the bay area headed by one Barney Mayes. Mayes was at that time the editor of The Voice of the
COMMUNISM 39
Federation of the Maritime Federation. Hanman then joined the Workers' Party, the American section of the Fourth International, headed by Leon Trotsky. (Leon Trotsky was at that time in exile in Norway.) Hanman contacted the Non-Partisan Labor Defense (which is to the Fourth Communist International what the International Labor Defense is to the Communist Third International) on behalf of the Communist defendants charged with criminal syndicalism in Sacra- mento. He stated that the Non-Partisan Labor Defense raised money through the Socialist Party in New York and offered to put up bail for these defendants. When the Communist Party heard of this move on the part of the Trotskyist Non-Partisan Labor Defense it immediately ordered the Sacramento defendants to refuse "counter-revolutionary" bail. Hanman 's activities for the defendants, however, caused the Communist Party immediately to busy itself in behalf of its "dis- ciplined" members languishing in the Sacramento jail.
Mr. Hanman told your committee that after these events he acted as an organizer for the Workers' Party for a time and that he brought Lillian Monroe, Charles Cornell and a Joe Hanson of Salt Lake City into the Fourth International. Charles Cornell, the witness testified, later became a bodyguard for Leon Trotsky in Mexico and Joe Hanson became Trotsky's secretary.
The witness concluded his testimony by stating that after a time he began to run into the same sort of bureaucracy in the Fourth Inter- national as he had encountered in the Third; that he uncovered the same kind of double-dealing and the same lack of democracy under Trotsky that he found in the Stalin faction.
Mr. Hanman now looks upon himself as something of a "political derelict. ' *
6
SIX PERIODS OF COMMUNIST STRATEGY IN THE UNITED STATES
The average man can not be blamed for being confused by the Com- munist conspiracy in America. Distorted news items, lying editorials and articles profusely and generously scattered through Communist Party organs and the periodicals of front organizations and Innocent Clubs have carefully smudged and obscured the real objectives of these cheap conspirators in the American picture. This program of deceit and hypocrisy is part and parcel of Communist Party tactics. The greater part of the Communist press is disguised and for public consumption purports to be anything but what it really is. Front organizations, periodicals and magazines do most of the Trojan Horse work. Like its cowardly members, hiding their Communist Party affiliations under fictitious names, many of these disguised Communist periodicals and magazines find their way into the homes of unsuspect- ing and ordinarily patriotic Americans. There is little wonder that the average citizen is confused when confronted with Communism.
Although it is termed the Third or Communist International, the Communist International has never been international in the generally accepted sense of the term. The Bolshevik revolution which overthrew the Kerensky government under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky culminated in what is now known as the Communist International (also known as the Comintern). It was founded in the Kremlin in Moscow
40 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
in March of 1919 by 35 delegates and 15 guests. It is significant, in considering the international aspects of the so-called Communist Inter- national, that all but one of the founders were Russian. From its beginning up to the present time it has been characterized by a greedy and stubborn nationalism. The Communist parties that later developed in the other countries of the world, including the United States, have, in fact, only been branch parties of the Russian Home Office of the Comintern and these parties scattered throughout the world reflect in every instance, from the very beginning down to the present time, the foreign policy and the interest of Soviet Russia. Thus it is, that the policies, purges, leadership and the "party line" of the Communist Party in the United States have always turned on Soviet events, ambi- tions and needs.
The key to the strange activities, machinations and twisting policies of the torturous ' * Party Line ' ' of the American Communist is found in the unchanging Communist slogan "Defend the Soviet Union." It explains, also, the pitiful failures of the Communist Party in the United States to capture Yankee interest and support. Because its slogans and its policies were based on conditions existing in Soviet Russia and on the foreign policy of that country, the American people failed to respond to the ill-fitting and foreign-sounding slogans of a group of American lunatics concerned only with the protection of a foreign dictatorship. The turnover of membership in the Communist Party of the United States has been tremendous since its inception in 1919. The mortality rate in membership from year to year is significant of its failure to capture the American mind. Yankee practicality blinks unresponsively at slogans such as " Defend the Soviet Union" and "The Americanism of Lenin and Lincoln." But, year after year, many a tricked and duped American has become in actuality the agent-stooge of the foreign, totalitarian, dictatorship of Soviet Russia.
To understand clearly so-called American Communism, it is necessary to examine its history since its inception in Chicago in 1919. This can only be intelligently done by a parallel examination of the history of the Soviet Union for the same period. Eugene Lyons has roughly divided Communist development in the United States into five ages, each period turning on events in Soviet Russia and reflecting in each period the needs, ambition and foreign policy, NOT of the United States, its workers or its people, but of Soviet Russia. To the five ages of Eugene Lyons your committee has added a sixth, and prognosticates a seventh. In order better to clarify the findings of your committee in the field of Communism, we briefly outline these six periods of Communist conspiracy in the United States.
FIRST PERIOD (1919 TO 1921)
The Bolshevik Government found its territory invaded and besieged by foreign armies and effectually blockaded in 1919. It needed a mili- tant internationalism in non-Bolshevik countries to break the strangle hold of the economic blockade and it sorely needed a pro-Bolshevik sentiment in non-Bolshevik countries to bring about the withdrawal of the armies that were invading its boundaries. Consequently the Com- munist parties throughout the world were ordered to be militantly revo- lutionary and to work in their respective countries for the succor of the
COMMUNISM 41
Soviet Union. Hence, in the United States, the Communist Party, emerging from its Chicago convention in 1919, was fanatically revolu- tionary and conspiratorial and openly rebellious, calling for the imme- diate overthrow by force and violence of the Government of the United States and the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat. It likewise propagandized for the Soviet Union and attempted to create pro-Bolshevik sympathies in America.
SECOND PERIOD (1921 TO 1928)
This period saw the launching of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in Russia. The new economic policy was, in fact, a compromise between state and private economy. The Soviet Union found itself in many economic difficulties and began to feel the need for exchange and traffic with other governments. To effectuate this it created the fiction of a separation between the Soviet Government and the Communist Party of Russia. This fiction was embellished and carried further by apparently effecting a separation between the Communist International and the Russian Communist Party. These fictions, it was believed, would soften the attitude of capitalistic governments and permit the Soviet Union to deal with them. As a result of this desperate need for exchange and traffic with other governments, the Communist Parties scattered throughout the world were ordered to retreat from their plotting and to soft-pedal their demand for open revolt and to do their propagandiz- ing within the laws of their respective countries. A lull in world-wide revolutionary propaganda ensued and the comrades in the United States busied themselves with trapping and exploiting sympathetic liberals and progressives and in creating friends for Soviet Russia. The key phrases of this period were "United Front " and "Boring from Within. "
THIRD PERIOD (1928 TO 1935)
This period saw the launching of the first "five-year plan" in Russia and the exiling of the so-called Communist Party "leftist," Leon Trotsky. NEP, the new economic policy, was violently wiped out. Private farming came to an end and the forcible socialization of farm- ing began. The most brutal "speed-up" in the world's history began in Russian industry. Soviet Russia more and more turned to greedy nationalism. Workers' control in industry was completely abolished and Soviet Bureaucracy took over. History will undoubtedly reveal that the Fascization of Soviet Russia began in this era. Purges and official mass murders terrorized the entire country. The old Bolsheviks and the heroes of the revolution were slaughtered without compunction, sympathy or trial. Soviet Russia began to look for military alliances and started to woo Germany and Italy. A new revolutionary upsurge was ordained for the Communist Parties in the United States and throughout the world — a new revolutionary upsurge, not so much against capitalism, but more against socialists, conservative labor leaders and trade unionists, liberals and progressives — all lumped in one ter- rible category — "Social Fascists." This period of Soviet need and ambition undoubtedly cleared the way for Hitler and Mussolini.
42 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
FOURTH PERIOD (1935 TO 1939)
Soviet Russia's unsuccessful wooing of Hitler and Mussolini led to the change of policy introduced to the world in 1935. The Seventh World Congress, held in Moscow in 1935, gave birth to the new Trojan Horse policy of Dimitrov and the subsequent creation of * ' Peoples ' ' and "Popular" fronts. The fear of a German and Japanese invasion of Soviet Russia gave rise to a "collective security" policy and the Com- munist Parties in the United States and throughout the world were ordered to carry these new policies into effect. Despairing of any alli- ance with Germany or Italy, Soviet Russia decided to appear to be "democratic" and "anti-Fascist" and ordered the branches of the party throughout the world to propagandize and advertise Soviet Russia on this basis. The Communist Party in the United States became "Twentieth Century Americanism" — the real "friend" of democracy and the * ' guardian ' ' of every tradition of freedom and civil liberty. The Communist Party of the United States went to great lengths to advertise Soviet Russia in this new "democratic" light. Soviet Russia, meanwhile, subscribed to the Kellogg Pact and made nonaggression pacts with her neighbors. Although Lenin had called the League of Nations the "League of Robber Nations," Stalin now entered the league. A phoney constitution for the Soviet Union was drawn but never put into effect and a short time later Stalin physically liquidated two-thirds of the members of the committee who drew the constitution. The threat of world-wide Communist revolution was laughed away and Stalin later lightly described it all as a "comic misunderstanding. ' '
Anti-Nazi leagues flourished in the United States and the Anti- Nazi League of Hollywood grew to considerable proportions. The comrades in America and California exploited to the fullest the growing horror in the minds of all Americans of the brutality rampant in Hitler's Third Reich. The ruthless and barbarous persecution of the Jews by Hitler and his bloody minions, the unspeakable and unbelievable tortures inflicted on the innocent scapegoats of "Fuehrer Aryanism," stirred up a righteous indignation in the hearts of every liberty-loving American citizen. V. J. Jerome (whose true name is Isaac Romaine), personally supervised the organization of the Holly- wood Anti-Nazi .League. Mr. Jerome had been sent to Hollywood some time before by the Communist Party Central Committee to take over the duties of Stanley Lawrence in "improving cultural work" in California. It was V. J. Jerome who brought John Howard Law- son to Hollywood. He helped organize study clubs and coordinated Communist Party work between Hollywood groups and downtown Los Angeles sections. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the United States and co-editor of its maga- zine, The Communist, as well as being Chairman of the Cultural Com- mission of the Communist Party of the United States. The Anti-Nazi League banked some $89,892.51 between May 14, 1935, and August 16, 1939.
In spite of this exploitation by the Communist Party of the emo- tional upsurge against Hitler and his regime, the American Com- munists regarded the war in Europe as purely an imperialistic struggle. The party line during this period was to heap abuse and
COMMUNISM 43
vilification upon, not only Nazi Germany and its Axis partners, but upon the victims of its aggression. Some 30 days before the amaz- ing and abrupt termination of this fourth period of Communist strategy, Foreign Commissar Y. M. Molotov stated :
«* * * there is nothing surprising in the fact that at the end of April the head of the German state in one speech scrapped two important international treaties — the naval agreement with Great Britain and the non- aggression pact between Germany and Poland. There was a time when great international significance was attached to these treaties. But Germany made short work of them, disregarding all formalities. Such was Germany's reply to the proposal of Mr. Roosevelt, Presi- dent of the United States — a proposal permeated with the peace-loving spirit. " (Soviet Union and the Peace Front, by V. M. Molotov, International Publishers, Inc., page 5.)
FIFTH PERIOD (1939 TO JUNE 22, 1941)
The Soviet Union amazed the world and many of its deluded Com- munist members in the United States, by signing a pact with Nazi Germany, August 23, 1939. The Comintern immediately ordered its parties in the United States and throughout the world to renew their revolutionary character. " Collective Security" was immedi- ately scuttled and the Communist parties everywhere became isola- tionists and belabored Great Britain and the "British Imperialist War." In the United States, the Communists launched the slogan "The Yanks Are Not Coming" and attacked President Roosevelt viciously as a " warmonger. ' ' Strikes in war and defense industries were fomented and viciously carried on by Communists throughout the United States. Meanwhile, Soviet Russia attacked Finland and partitioned Poland with her Nazi comrade-in-arms. Nazi Bundsters and American Communists joined hands in sabotaging United States aid to Great Britain. Members of both organizations began a pene- tration of the America First Committee. Conscription and lend- lease proposals were viciously and bitterly opposed. Anti-Nazi leagues in America were quickly abandoned for American Peace Mobilization fronts and new name-calling, including "warmonger" and "imperial- ist," were shouted at anyone who decried Nazi brutality and aggres- sion. The fifth period of Communist development in the United States will always be remembered for its sharp curve in 1939 with the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact and its breath-taking . flip-flop June 22, 1941 when Hitler's hordes swept into the Ukraine.
About a week after the signing of the Stalin-Hitler nonaggression pact, Foreign Commissar Molotov wrote in The Meaning of the Soviet- German N on- Aggression Pact, Workers' Library Publishers, August 31, 1939, page 3 :
«# * * ^e conclusion of a pact of non-aggression between the U. S. S. R. and Germany is of tremendous positive value, eliminating the danger of war between Germany and the Soviet Union."
44 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
Commissar Molotov continued in the same article (page 8) :
"As you see, Stalin hit the nail on the head when he exposed the machinations of the Western Europe politi- cians who were trying to set Germany and the Soviet Union at loggerheads. It must be confessed that there were some short-sighted people in our own country who, carried away by over-simplified anti-fascist propaganda, forgot about this provocative work of our enemies. Mindful of this, Stalin even then suggested the possibil- ity of other unhostile, good-neighborly relations between Germany and the U. S. S. R. It can now be seen that on the whole Germany correctly understood these state- ments of Stalin and drew practical conclusions from them. The conclusion of the Soviet-German Non- Aggres- sion Pact shows that Stalin's historic prevision has been brilliantly confirmed." (Committee's italics.)
In Molotov' s report to the Supreme Soviet, October 31, 1939, Work- ers' Library Publishers, Inc., page 5, the foreign commissar further solidified Soviet Russia's new policy toward Germany, in the follow- ing language:
«* * * Germany is in a position of a state which is striving for the earliest termination of war and for peace, while Britain and France, which only yesterday were declaiming against aggression, are in favor of continuing the war and are opposed to the conclusion of peace. The roles, as you see, are changing.'7
And further in the same report, page 8, Molotov continues : "The relations between Germany and the other Western European Bourgeois states have in the past two decades been determined primarily by Germany's efforts to break the fetters of the Versailles Treaty, whose authors were Great Britian and France, with the active collaboration of the United States. This, in the long run, led to the present war in Europe * * *. The relations between the Soviet Union and Germany have been based on a dif- ferent foundation, which involved no interest whatever in perpetuating the post-war Versailles system. We have always held that a strong Germany is an indispensable condition for a durable peace in Europe." (Committee's italics.)
On page 23 of his report to the Supreme Soviet, Foreign Commissar Molotov asks some questions about the United States :
"In any event, our country, as a neutral country, which is not interested in the spread of war, will take every measure to render this war less devastating, to weaken it and hasten its termination in the interests of peace. From this standpoint, the decision of the American Gov- ernment to lift the embargo on the export of arms to
COMMUNISM 45
belligerent countries raises just misgivings. It can scarcely be doubted that the effect of this decision will not be to weaken the war and hasten its termination, but, on the contrary, to intensify, aggravate and protract it. Of course, the decision may insure big profits for American war industries. But, one asks, can this serve as any justification for lifting the embargo on the export of arms from America? Clearly, it can not."
Thus it was, in compliance with Soviet foreign policy, that the Com- munists in the United States and in California launched a campaign for isolation and nonintervention, joining hands with the America First Committee, The German- American Bund and many other anti- war, isolationist organizations. Harry Bridges' Union, the Maritime Federation of the Pacific, originated the slogan "The Yanks Are Not Coming !" and this defiant expression of nonintervention became the password in every Communist front organization. Labors' Non- Partisan League of California circulated thousands of paper book- matches bearing this slogan. It was heard from the rostrum of every Communist front organization, such as the American Peace Mobiliza- tion and the American Student Union.
So that no doubt be left in the minds of anyone, the Committee quotes the above-mentioned V. J. Jerome, the American Communist bell- wether of the fellow-traveling cultural clique, in Social Democracy and the War. Workers' Library Publishers, Inc., 1940 (pages 45-46) :
"Since the warmongering campaign opened, innumerable trade unions and other mass organizations have adopted resolutions against this country's involvement. A. F. of L. and C. I. 0. State labor bodies and city councils, national unions and locals, the unemployed, church bodies, and the vital youth movement are saying, with the national convention of the C. I. 0. : Labor wants no war or any part of it. * * * The voice of militant labor rings forth in ever-swelling volume in the slogan first sounded by the Maritime Federation of the Pacific : ' The Yanks Are Not Coming!' The Communist Party of the United States declares: ' * * * we Communists will continue the broadest collaboration with all elements in the labor movement to advance the struggle for working class unity by educating, rallying, and unifying the workers against capitalist reaction and exploitation and to keep America out of the imperialistic war '. ' '
In April of 1941 circulars were being generously and copiously cir- culated throughout California, carrying to the uninformed and the innocent, the Americanized version of the foreign policy of Soviet Russia. Pamphlets demanding and proclaiming: "Get Out and Stay Out of the Imperialist War ! No Convoys ! No A. B. F. ! The Yanks Are Not Coming! Friendship With the Soviet Union!" were distrib- uted at the University of California at Berkeley and throughout the United States.
46 UK-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
Your committee finds that the Communist Party in California, act- ing through unions which it dominated and controlled, launched an amazing epidemic of strikes in key defense industries and were suc- cessful in many cases in tying up production of armament, die-casting, steel, planes and ships.
Mr. Hugh Ben Inzer, who was president of Local 216 of the United Automobile Workers Union, C. I. 0., testified under oath before your committee, October 16, 1941. Mr. Inzer stated that he had been an assemblyman for General Motors in South Gate since November 16, 1936. He stated that he was acquainted with Lew Michener, Wynd- ham Mortimer, Philip M. (Slim) Connelly and other leaders of the C. I. 0. We quote Mr. Inzer's testimony verbatim from Volume IV of the committee's transcript, beginning at page 1215:
"A. (Inzer) When I was elected to the presidency of Local 216, I was asked by the Regional Director to take time oif and come down to the Regional Office for a couple of days at the expense of the International. In other words, the International would pay my expenses. So that was around the 8th of May, 1940, and at that time I took this time off and went down and I reached the office about 9.30 in the morning and from that time until noon I was introduced to different people in the CIO Building, who worked in the offices and he stated those were the people I would now have to cooperate with — I was the new president of Local 216, and they were all in the CIO movement. So, then, we proceeded to go out for luncheon.
Q. Now, where are the headquarters you spoke of ?
A. (Inzer) That's the Currier Building at Spring and Third, I believe.
Q. In this city?
A. (Inzer) In Los Angeles, yes, sir.
Q. All right, Mr. Inzer.
A. (Inzer) About twelve we went out to lunch and I went out to lunch with Michener and a person known as Slim Connelly.
Q. Now, is that Philip M. Connelly?
A. (Inzer) That's Philip M. Connelly.
Q. What position, if any, did he occupy in the C. I. 0 ?
A. (Inzer) He holds a position as President of State C. I. 0.
Q. He is still?
A. (Inzer) Yes, he is —
Q. And — pardon me.
A. (Inzer) — he was also Secretary to the Council here in Los Angeles.
Q. Now, while you were there, did you have a conver- sation with Mr. Michener and Mr. Connelly relative to the general situation among the automobile workers ?
A. (Inzer) I did, yes, sir.
Q. And the Union situation in the vicinity of Los Angeles in that industry ?
COMMUNISM 47
A. (Inzer) That's right.
Q. And did that conversation occur while you were at lunch y
A. (Inzer) No, after lunch we \vent into the Regional Office and he said there were some more people coming in and we were going to get together on a program to follow for the next year and it took place after lunch in the Regiona: Office.
Q. And after you went back to the Currier Building, following your luncheon, did you go upstairs in the build- ing or we re you on the ground floor ?
A. (Inzer) We went upstairs in the building, I believe the Regional Office at that time was on the fourth floor — I know it was on one of the floors above the first floor.
Q. Yes.
A. (Inzer) So we went up to the Regional Office and went into the Regional Director's Office and we were seated there.
Q. Did some other people come in ?
A. (Inzer) Two men came in, other than Connelly, Mortimer and Michener and myself, two other men. One came in and was introduced to me as Mr. Diebel ; another man came in and was introduced to me as Mr. Perry.
Q. Now, were you present here when Mr. Diebel testi- fied before this Committee ?
A. (Inzer) Yes, sir, I was.
Q. Did you have an opportunity to observe him?
A. (Inzer) No, other than his back walking up and from the witness stand.
Q. Were you able to tell whether or not that is the same Mr. Diebel you met at the Currier Building?
A. (Inzer) I am positive of it.
Q. You are sure it was ?
A. (Inzer) I am sure it was.
Q. I hand you a photograph and ask you if that is a photograph of Mr. Diebel? (Handing to witness.)
A. (Inzer) That is.
Q. You recognize him as the same person who was present at the meeting you are now testifying about?
A. (Inzer) Yes, sir.
Q. Are you sure of that ?
A. (Inzer) Yes, sir, I am positive.
Q. Who else came in ?
A. (Inzer) There was a colored fellow came by the name of Perry. They introduced him as Mr. Perry.
Q. Was that Mr. Pettis Perry?
A. (Inzer) I found out later it was, I found out later it was Pettis Perry.
CHAIRMAN TENNEY : He is a Negro, is he not ?
A. (Inzer) He is a Negro, yes, sir.
MR. COMBS: Go ahead.
48 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
A. (Inzer) These men came in and sat in. I didn't know who these people were any more than I know the people out in the audience, all I thought was they are some part of the Labor Movement. So Mr. Connelly and Mr. Michener began to tell me that we would have to set up an organization among all the Locals, that is, to have the Presidents of the Locals and the Executive Board of each Local to be ready to cooperate with the Regional Office at any time in case of an emergency, and what I gathered from the conversation of the meeting, the emer- gency was this : Any time they wanted to call a strike at any plant that has a C. I. 0. contract that they could put so much pressure on the management by calling the other plants in Los Angeles out in sympathetic strike with the plant trying to get a contract, by so doing they could force the management of that company to sign the contract that the Union wanted. So they also stated that this man who they introduced as Mr. Diebel had cooperated with them in the past in putting out literature. They went ahead to state they cooperated in literature known as ' 'The Yanks Are Not Coming" and he said also any time we needed any literature printed that this man had a print shop and would be glad to cooperate in putting out any literature that we needed.
Q. That was said in the presence of Mr. Diebel ?
A. (Inzer) That was said in the presence of Mr. Diebel and the rest of the men in the meeting.
Q. When that portion of the conversation occurred, Mr. Inzer, were you seated any place in the room?
A. (Inzer) We were seated in the room in chairs (indicating).
Q. Around a table?
A. (Inzer) No, the chairs were just pulled out and seated in the room (indicating).
Q. The conversation was perfectly audible to all persons present ?
A. (Inzer) Yes.
Q. All right, go ahead, and give us the substance of what occurred.
A. (Inzer) This statement in regards to putting out the literature and he agreed he would do that. Then they stated Mr. Perry was the head of an organization who could furnish us with men, with a lot of man power, and also furnish us with pickets, men to put out literature and men to do any kind of a job that we needed so long as our men were tied up on the picket line and by so getting that cooperation we would be able to force the management of the plants to sign an agreeable contract with the Union.
Q. Well, now,
A. (Inzer) Mr. Perry agreed he was at the head of an organization and could supply any amount of men that were needed.
COMMUNISM 49
Q. Was that organization identified at that time or subsequently ?
A. (Inzer) No, it was not.
Q. All right.
A. (Inzer) No, it was not.
Q. You did not know the organization they were referring to?
A. (Inzer) I did not know the organization, no, sir.
Q. Had you ever seen either Mr. Diebel or Mr. Perry before, to your knowledge?
A. (Inzer) No, sir, I had never seen them before in my life.
Q. All right, go ahead.
A. (Inzer) So after these two points were brought up these men disappeared, they got up and left the room.
Q. Did they leave the room together?
A. (Inzer) No, they didn't.
Q. Who left first?
A. (Inzer) I believe Mr. Diebel, and in five or ten minutes Mr. Perry followed out.
Q. All right.
A. (Inzer) So, then, we continued with our conversation and in the meantime though, I had been used to running into the Communist activities in the C. I. 0. before that time, and I could see that this program was leading right up to the same thing, Communist C. I. 0. on the Coast. So the next day, — after these fellows left we talked about ten or fifteen minutes, and I went back to my office. The next day I was supposed to go down again but I went back to my own office and called up the Regional Office and told them I was there in case they needed me. Mr. Michener wanted to know what was wrong and I told him I had investigated and found out who these men were and I, as President of Local 216, I would not be connected with the Regional Office, my rank and file would not cooperate, — by the way, our Local consists of 1800.
Q. They didn't approve of it?
A. (Inzer) They don't approve of that influence in the Union.
Q. They are aware the influence is there?
A. (Inzer) Absolutely, yes, sir.
Q. Now, Mr. Inzer, you say you did make an investiga- tion following this meeting which you have testified about ?
A. (Inzer) That's right.
Q. Did you find out what organization Mr. Perry spoke of when he mentioned that he had an organization through which he could furnish pickets, and so forth ?
A. (Inzer) Yes, I went back to the Union and asked some of my Executive Board if they had heard of these men and they said they had heard of them and they
-2275
50 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
i-elieved one was on the German- America n Bund and the other the Communist Party. I had a friend who was very active in different work in Los Angeles and I knew he was well acquainted or would know of them, so I asked him and he was quite shocked to know that I had 1 een to such a meeting, and he readily told me that this one, Hans Diebel, was at the head or active in the German- American Bund in Los Angeles and he did have a bookstore on 15th Street and also Perry was the head of the Communist Party and he took me down to the places and I looked in and satisfied myself as to who they were, — they were there.
Q. You went to both addresses?
A. (Inzer) I saw both persons.
Q. You conducted an investigation that satisfied you that the statements you had obtained concerning their activities were correct?
A. (Inzer) Absolutely, yes, sir.
Q. What happened to you then in your Local 216?
A. (Inzer) Well, as soon
Q. Of course, there was the declaration of war between Russia and Germany?
A. (Inzer) That's right. As soon as the Regional Director mentioned or found out I was not going to cooperate with him and the reason he wanted me to cooperate with him was the Communist Party here in Los Angeles controls the C. I. 0., and I don't mean partly, I mean they control it, they do what they want to with it. Any time they send a Communist out to my Local to sell the rank and file that all he wants to do is to have them work with him and help put it over, and after I would refuse any issue he'd attack me for not cooperating with the Regional Office and he also brought Mortimer out to do the same thing, and try to poison the minds of the rank and file, who I represented, so they 'd not pay any atten- tion to me and be against my act."
The committee has included the above excerpt from the testimony of Hugh Ben Inzer as proof of the collaboration and cooperation of the Communist Party and the German- American Bund with such Communist-dominated union organizations as the C. I. 0. under the leadership of Philip M. Connelly and Lew Michener during the fifth period of Communist strategy. The identity and affiliation of Pettis Perry, then the Secretary of the Communist Party of Los Angeles County, and Hans Diebel, of the German-American Bund, in the City of Los Angeles, are well known.
SIXTH PERIOD (JUNE 22, 1941, TO ?)
The Sixth Period of Communism in the United States began with Hitler's invasion of Soviet Russia. The Communist press in the United States up to this event was still attacking President Roosevelt as a * ' warmonger ' ' and belaboring the ' * British Imperialist War. ' ' Strikes
COMMUNISM 51
all over the country were instituted by Communist dominated unions. With the startling news that the "Fatherland" had been attacked by Hitler's hordes, the strikes stopped in defense and war industries throughout the United States. Peace mobilization fronts and leagues evaporated into thin air. "All Out Aid to Soviet Russia, Great Brit- ain and China" replaced the former slogans of "Stop the British Imperialist War" and "The Yanks Are Not Coming." This latter slogan was soon considerably amended to read "The Yanks Are Not Coming Too Late." President Roosevelt became an overnight hero instead of being a ' l warmonger. ' ' Every Communist in California and throughout the United States became a chauvinistic patriot and ' t Unity Leagues" of this and that for "Victory" mushroomed throughout California and the United States. Although the anti-religious cam- paign of Soviet Russia was flourishing up to the violation of the Soviet- Nazi Pact and Soviet Russia's League of the Militant Godless was still vigorously functioning, the Communist Party of America began, in this period, to extol the religious tolerance of Communism. The American Communists were ordered to emphasize the "democracy" of Soviet Russia and its fervent championship of civil liberty.
Dictator Stalin's "historic prevision," as Foreign Commissar Molo- tov had hailed it, was thrown in the ash can as Hitler's panzer divisions went crashing over the Soviet frontiers and the non-aggression pact simultaneously. New slogans and proclamations appeared on the familiar mimeographed circulars and pamphlets of the Communist Party pamphleteers as soon as the comrades had caught their breath and determined the new foreign policy of the "Fatherland." On September 16, 1941, another circular appeared at the University of California at Berkeley, this time urging the students to: "Unite the campus to defeat Hitler and Hitlerism ! Defend America by full and immediate aid to Great Britain and the Soviet Union! Aid China! Embargo Japan! Make the campus a fortress of Democracy! For unity and victory — Join the American Student Union!"
Your committee here wishes to point out that on June 22, 1941, it was Russia, and NOT the United States that was invaded by Germany. The news of this event, however, was attended with repercussions in the United States and in California which were immediate and profound. A strange and significant quiet prevailed over America's labor front. Overnight the Imperialist War *of June 21, 1941, was changed by some strange, international magic, into a people's war which involved the Soviet Union. The American Communists would now take all the Yanks they could get. American Communists were now declaring that "Now * * * this is OUR war * * *, " as did Rose Segure and other California Communists and fellow travelers. Foreign Com- missar Molotov now ordained that it would be all right for America to lift the embargo on arms to belligerents; particularly to the Soviet Union and Britain.
Your committee wishes to emphasize the significant lesson to be learned from this period of Communist strategy. Americans every- where should concern themselves seriously with the changes which came to California and the United States ; changes which effected the release of defense industries from the strangle hold of Communist dominated unions, the sudden change in propagandizing in our State educational
52 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
institutions. It should carefully be noted by all students of these matters that these changes were caused, not by anything happening directly in or to the United States. Again they turned on the need and foreign policy of a foreign government thousands of miles away. Your committee wishes to emphasize the fact that there exists in the State of California an organized group of subversive individuals, com- pletely dominated by a foreign power, which has sufficient influence in our American Labor movement to launch a strike epidemic in our defense or war industries when the purpose suits the foreign power, and to turn it off again like water from a tap when the foreign policy of the dominating foreign power commands. While the needs of the foreign power dominating this group in California and the United States may correspond presently with our own needs, it may well be, in the future, that the needs of the dominating force exerted on these American subversives may be detrimental in the extreme to our own needs and purposes. Your committee believes that it is high time for the people of this State thoroughly and completely to understand and realize that the members of the Communist Party are organized into an iron disciplined group and controlled, unquestionably, by a foreign power, Soviet Russia. These people should be regarded for what they actually are — agents of a foreign power, and should not be, in any way, looked upon as super-patriots and saviors of the working class of America and California, as they would like to lead us to believe.
The official mass murders of Soviet Russia's Fifth Period, together with its amazing trials in which every defendant attempted to out- confess the other ; literally bubbling over with the admission of treason- able crimes against the Soviet Government, fantastically, eagerly and enthusiastically inviting the death penalty are now being sold to the American people by the Communists as far-visioned statesmanship on the part of Dictator Stalin. Ambassador Joseph B. Davies' book, Mission to Moscow, is now pounced on by the Communists of America as corroborating evidence of the statesmanship of Joseph Stalin in defending the "democracy" of Soviet Russia and the United Nations. This phase of Ambassador Davies' book, Mission to Moscow, should be read in conjunction with the report on the trials by Dr. John Dewey, Men and Politics by Louis Fisher and writers who were in actual attendance at the trials in Russia and who possessed a knowledge of Communist ideology and tactics.
Hewlett Johnson, the aged Dean of Canterbury, has written a book, Soviet Power, and this volume is now being given widespread circula- tion by the Communist Party of America. Eugene Lyons, who spent considerable time in Soviet Russia, calls this book of the Dean of Canterbury "a topsy-turvy book * * * an Alice-in-Wonderland volume that can only be catalogued as literature of hallucina- tion * * *."
The members of your committee realized on the morning of June 23, 1941 that an era of Communist strategy had come to an end in California and in the United States. The committee had been pre- paring a series of hearings connected with the strikes at the North American Aircraft Company in Inglewood. This plant had been closed June 6, 1941 by the C. I. 0. but had been reopened several weeks later by the United States Army acting under the direction of
COMMUNISM 53
the President of the United States. "While the committee did not have an opportunity fully to investigate this strike it learned that its leaders in the C. I. 0. were the same old Communist and fellow-traveling crowd. Wyndham Mortimer — whose Communist Party name was Baker — Lew Michener, Elmer Freitag— who was registered as a Communist in 1938 — and lesser lights such as Jeff Kibre and Don Healy, were the Stalinist leaders of this piece of defense sabotage in America. It was all over, of course, when Hitler's panzer divisions drove into Russia June 22, 1941. Your committee knew that the Communist Party of the United States would receive new instructions ; that the revolutionary character of the Communist Party of America would be disguised ; that the com- munists of California would, as long as it assisted Soviet Russia, be the most enthusiastic patriots for the defeat of Hitler and the enemies of the Red Fatherland. What love of the United States, its Constitution, Flag, traditions and way of life could not accomplish in its appeal to men like Wyndham Mortimer and Lew Michener, invasion of a foreign totalitarian dictatorship accomplished overnight. The people of Cali- fornia and the United States should never forget that the defense efforts of our great Nation would have been ruthlessly sabotaged by what purported to be an American labor movement — the C. I. 0. — had it not been for the need of a foreign dictatorship thousands of miles away.
Your committee reports, therefore, that, in this, the Sixth Period of Communist development and strategy in California and the United States, the war efforts of our State and Nation are presently safe from Communist interference and sabotage. Every real Communist in the United States will sacrifice, fight, and die if need be, just so long as the sacrificing, fighting and dying assists the Red Fatherland — Soviet Russia. Meanwhile, Americans should make no mistake about the true situation. The Communist Party of the United States of America is NOT willing to sacrifice, to fight or to die, to preserve American Democracy, its Constitution, its Flag, its tradition, or its way of life. The long range objective has not changed and will not change. The revolutionary spirit is temporarily on ice and the Seventh Period of Communist development in this country may see it in all its grim horror if the needs, ambitions and foreign policy of Soviet Russia so ordain.
Those who have read thus far are well capable of drawing their own conclusions. Your committee's* investigators already report plans of the Communist Party in California for the formation of soldiers' and sailors' councils in the Army and the Navy, patterned after similar councils set up in the armies and navies of the Czar and the Kerensky government in Russia in 1917. Reports reaching your committee from closed meetings of Communist groups throughout California tell of plans for soviet governments throughout Europe upon the collapse of Hitlerism and the weakening of the Nazi-yoke. While it is not the province of your committee to prognosticate the future, the committee, must, nevertheless, state to you with all the emphasis at its command that this, the Sixth Period of Communist development and strategy, is not the last period. The committee warns the people of California and of the United States that there WILL BE a Seventh Period of Communist strategy in America. Only the vigilance of the American people and the devotion to the Constitution and traditions of the
54 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
United States on the part of public officials can successfully block the Seventh Period of Communism from being the last period of the Amer- ican way of life.
Totalitarian rattlesnakes apparently find satisfaction in warning their prospective victims before striking. The democracies of the world can not complain that Hitler had not warned them of his world aggression ambitions in the pages of Mein Kampf. The purpose of the Third International, from the beginning and throughout its history, has been boldly stated as world domination and the destruction of all existing forms of government. Even the Japanese Imperialists, while not quite so blatant and open in their avowed objectives, have indi- cated the course that they would pursue at the proper moment. Similarly the Comintern today indicates the course of its next period of strategy. Manchester Boddy, writing in his column Views of the News, in the Los Angeles Daily News for Wednesday, February 24, 1943 brilliantly records an historical moment that may cast a dark and sinister shadow in the Seventh Communist era that is to come :
"Views of the News
" 'Russia stands alone/ says Mr. Boddy.
' ' That is what Stalin said to his people.
"His speech delivered yesterday on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Red Army is perfectly clear. Russia stands alone. Russia is fight- ing for one and only one purpose: to defend the homeland.
' ' Nowhere in his long address does Stalin even acknowl- edge any help of any kind given Russia.
"Nowhere does he allude, by word or implication, to any sharing of the ideals we claim to be fighting for.
"There is no hint with respect to the 'Four Free- doms,' nor even the slightest hope for a world at peace.
"He does point out that there is no second front in Europe. But he implies no obligation on the part of his allies to create such a front. Nowhere does he state why a second front should be established.
"Stalin hammers again and again and again on one point only: Russia fights on Russian soil. Russia fights to drive out the invader. The Russian Army will liberate Russian land from the hated enemy.
"Beyond that — nothing. Stalin's speech is, however, consistent with the few but cogent statements he has made since the beginning of this war. Always the safety and security of Russia have been Stalin's sole concern.
"Back in 1939, he said:
« i * * * if we accept the Reich's offer of collabora- tion, the latter will not hesitate to crush Poland ; England and France will thereupon be drawn fatally into war. There will result a thorough destruction of western Europe, and remaining outside the conflict we can advan- tageously await our hour. If Germany wins, she will emerge from the war too exhausted to dream of an armed conflict against us. We must accept the pact proposed
COMMUNISM 55
by Germany and work to prolong the war the maximum possible * * *.'
"But the war didn't work out this way, and in June, 1941 Joseph Stalin announced :
" 'In June 1931, Hitlerite Germany perfidiously attacked our country, rudely and foully violating the non- aggression agreement, and the Red Army found itself compelled to launch a campaign to defend its native land against the German invader and to drive him from the borders of our country.'
" Nothing could be clearer.
"Russia intended, just as official Pravda had previously explained, to sit tight while all Europe was being overrun. Only when Hitler actually invaded Russian soil did the Red Army 'find itself compelled to launch a campaign to defend its native land against the German invader and to drive him from the borders of Russia. *
"Joseph Stalin devoted yesterday's speech to a reitera- tion of that single theme. He comes back to it again and again.
"Russia battles 'against the invasion of the German Fascist hordes.'
" 'The beginning of the massed drive of the enemy from Soviet lands has begun. '
" 'It should not be considered an accident that the command of the Red Army is not only liberating Soviet soil from the enemy, but it is also not allowing the enemy to leave our soil alive by carrying out operations to sur- round and wipe out the enemy. * * * '
"Stalin merely mentions the absence of a second front. He does not chide his allies for their failure.
"The Red Army struggles against the invasion of the German Fascist hordes. Does Stalin hint that Russia is fighting against 'militarism' or dictatorship or on behalf of the 'four freedoms'? Not at all. Russia is fighting invaders. Nothing more. Nothing less.
"Stalin points out that the Red Army is bearing the whole weight of the war. 'Not half — not three-quarters — not 99 per cent. The whole weight. And how about the food and the machines and the munitions we have been sending to Russia? How about the men who have died in the icy waters of the North Sea while battling to get through to Murmansk ? Are they no part of the weight of the war? No. Not from Stalin's viewpoint. We are not fighting for Russia. Russia is not fighting for us. Russia stands alone bearing the whole weight of the war, .to drive the enemy out of Russia!
'The Red Army,' Stalin says, 'has only to pursue it (the German Army) to the western frontiers of our country. It would be stupid to suppose the Germans will give up even one kilometer of our land without a struggle!'
56 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
"His order of the day is even more specific. His army will continue to fight 'for the sake of liberation of our country from the hated enemy, for the sake of final vic- tory over the German Fascist invaders. * * *'
"The theme and all its variations are clear and con- sistent :
"Russia fights for the right to ~be let alone.
"Russia did not enter the war — as a defense measure — when the Germans overran France and the low countries ; nor when Great Britain stood alone with only a thin strip of water between her and total destruction. She entered the war only when Russian soil was invaded !
"Obviously we are disappointed in the Stalin speech. We know there are perfectly good reasons why American soldiers should invade Europe. "We feel certain that Stalin, too, knows and understands those reasons. But our men are fighting many thousands of miles from home, while the Russian men are fighting to recover their homes from an invader.
"We can not talk to our armies about driving the enemy off our own soil as Joseph Stalin talks to his armies. So we must substitute other reasons: a United Nations cause, for example; a future world free from war and fear of war. Above all else we must talk about a common front between Russia, China, the United States and Great Britain. We had hoped Stalin might have had one little word for these ideals, and a nod of recognition to our soldiers who are fighting so far from home. Not because the enemy has invaded their homeland, but for an ideal.
"We must say, however, that Joseph Stalin talks straight from the shoulder and says what he means. For a leader reputed to be adept at propaganda he has proved himself to be exactly the opposite.
"What he says, boiled down to a few words, is that if he were an American he would stay in America. His speech will be exultantly accepted and used by our iso- lationists.
"It will make the Allied effort all the more difficult."
The Los Angeles Examiner for March 9, 1943, carries a news item by the International News Service under date of March 8, 1943, head- lined, "U. S. Envoy Charges: 'Stalin Suppresses Facts on U. S. Aid*. Unlike former American Ambassador Davies, Ambassador Admiral William H. Standley looks beneath Soviet window-dressing. The news item is as follows :
"Moscow, March 8 — (INS) — American Ambassador Admiral William H. Standley declared tonight he saw no evidence of official Soviet recognition of the aid Russia is receiving from the United States and indicated this silence might have an unfavorable effect on Congress.
COMMUNISM 57
" Inf erentially urging that Russia acknowledge to her own people and the world the assistance extended to her from America, the 71-year-old ambassador made his blunt remarks to correspondents in Moscow even as renewal of the lease-lend program was up for consideration in Wash- ington.
"Long Way to Enactment
"Pointing out that it is 'a long way from the foreign affairs committee to enactment' of the Lease-lend bill by Congress, Admiral Standley said :
'The United States Congress is rather sensitive. It is generous and big-hearted as long as it feels it is helping someone, but give it the idea that it is not helping and it might be a different story. '
"The white-haired ambassador, who returned to his post from Washington early in the year and who is sched- uled to confer with Premier Josef Stalin shortly, asserted frankly that the Soviet Government seems to be keeping the Russian people in the dark concerning the aid . . . . ' '
An editorial from the Los Angeles Examiner for March 10, 1943, also indicates things to come in the Seventh period of Communist strategy:
"Stalin's Monstrous Double- Dealing Revealed
' ' The almost incredible story of the execution of Victor Alter and Hendryk Erlich, two Jewish Polish Socialist leaders in December, 1941, by the Russians, does not augur well for the 'Four Freedoms' and the principles of the Atlantic Charter, to which Joseph Stalin has given some lip-service.
"Although Alter and Erlich were, as Polish labor lead- ers, the foes of Naziism they were arrested nearly four years ago as 'Socialists' while Germany and Russia had a 10-year non-aggression pact in force and when Stalin had taken nearly half of Poland as his 'divvy' on the murder of Europe, which Hitler was systematically engaged in.
"Maxim Litvinoff, Soviet Ambassador in the United States, has officially informed William Green, President of the A. F. of L., that Erlich and Alter were executed in December, 1941, on Soviet soil.
"They were executed, said the Ambassador, because they had urged the Reds to make a separate peace with Germany.
"As these men were Poles, Jews and anti-Nazis, of course, this statement must be taken as one of those ' save- face' excuses in which Russia's ally, Japan, is so expert.
' ' The worst of the matter is that for four years Ameri- can labor unions have been sending presents to these dead men and Messrs. Murray and Green of the C. I. 0. and A. F. of L., have been cabling pleas to the Kremlin for
58 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
their release — not knowing that the men had been dead for a year.
"This cowardly double-dealing on the part of one of our military allies is nothing short of monstrous.
"We are sending billions in money and material to Russia to aid her in her fight to get the Germans out of Russia while she has been making a perfect fool out of our labor leaders and out of the Jewish people, who were naturally interested in the fate of their fellow-religionists.
"The question of American and Russian postwar rela- tions looms larger every day.
"The secret execution of Erlich and Alter and the duplicity and dishonesty in the matter of their deaths do not promise well for the future. ' '
COMMUNIST ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
Your committee has been exceedingly careful in its selection of wit- nesses on the subject of Communism. During the two-year period of the committee's investigation, it has refrained from making accusa- tions against anyone appearing before the committee and has been content to let the testimony of the witnesses speak for itself.
The Communist Party, by tactics formulated and cleverly carried into operation by the so-called "Antiseptic Squads," attempts to dis- credit in every possible manner the testimony of any person who testi- fies concerning the intrigue and criminal machinations of the party. The mildest criticism of Communism on the part of anyone, is imme- diately hailed as l ' red-baiting ' ' and the critics are immediately labeled "Social Fascists," "red-baiters," and agents of exploiting capitalism, Hearst and Hitler. The Antiseptic Squads of American Communism reserve their most vicious and bitter denunciation for ex-Communists who find the courage publicly to expose Communist Party objectives, activi- ties and tactics. The Communist grapevine and its blatant press imme- diately proclaim such individuals as "stool pigeons," "informers," "degenerates" and "pathological liars." All faithful Communist and fellow-traveling witnesses are heralded as "progressives" and "lib- erals" and the personification of veracity. A slight scanning of the pages of the committee's volumes of transcripts of the testimony of Communist Party functionaries reveals amazing lapses of memory on the part of such witnesses as to membership in the Communist Party and of events in connection with Communist Party activity that would be readily and easily remembered by an ordinarily truthful witness. There is hardly an instance in the testimony of self-admitted Com- munist members where they remember the identification of the person to whom they paid dues. Rare, indeed, is the testimony of a Com- munist member in which he clearly remembers the identity of those in attendance at important Communist meetings or functions. In cases where the person to be identified is a well-known Communist, and admittedly so, the Communist witness has little difficulty in remem- bering.
COMMUNISM 59
Your committee wishes to emphasize, in this connection, that the laws and ethics of capitalist society are not, in the least, held to be binding on members of the Communist Party. It likewise should be remem- bered that the Communist is not burdened with any sense of religion and suffers no compunction of conscience when falsely testifying under oath. To the iron disciplined, class-conscious Communist, "oaths" and "conscience" are superstitious capitalist fictions invented by capitalist exploiters for the purpose of oppressing and dominating the work- ing class. Thus it is, that Communist witnesses will blandly deny ever having heard of the Communist movement, though it may well be (as has happened in several cases) that the committee is in possession of the Communist Party book or a photostat thereof, of the witness who sits before it brazenly prevaricating.
Illustrating the ease with which Communist Party members handle the truth is the case of Lee Gregovich testifying before the committee in San Diego, February 20, 1942 (Volume VIII, pages 2305-2319). Mr. Gregovich stated that he had never been affiliated with the Young Communist League or the Communist Party although he admitted knowing Stanley Hancock, Esco Richardson, Dan Taylor, La Verne Lym and Bert Leech as Communists. Your committee has in its files a photostatic copy taken from the office of the Secretary of State, bearing the -name of Lee Gregovich sponsoring Nathaniel Griffin for the Communist Party nomination to the office of Assembly in the Seventy-eighth Assembly District in San Diego County. Also illus- trative of the insidious tactics of these lying agents of the Comintern is the testimony of Lee Gregovich in attempting to smear a member of the Legislature from San Diego County by placing him, in his testi- mony, in suspected Communist meetings.
Every "iron disciplined" and thoroughly indoctrinated Communist is convinced that he is a soldier in a bitter and unrelenting war. He is thoroughly fired with fanatical hate of capitalism and capitalistic government and he believes that he is one of the heroes in the vanguard of the assault on the enemies of the ' ' workers, ' ' one of the generals in the class war. Military objectives include industries employing wage labor, educational institutions, churches and all functions of govern- ment, municipal, State and National. One of the chief military objec- tives of the Communist Party is Democracy — all Democracies, because its members war against the state in any form. They have been taught that all states are merely instruments of capitalism and exploitation, and, therefore, a Democracy is just another form of the state.
Because he believes himself living in a state of war, the Communist has discarded all of the ways of peace. Each Communist in the United States and in California considers himself a spy in a hostile country, waging a desperate warfare with his bare hands, his wits — a spy in the land of the enemy — a secret agent living in constant jeopardy of his life. He considers himself in continual combat, surrounded by ruthless enemies who, if they could, would eliminate him. It is the duty of a soldier to kill his country's enemies, and if a Communist kills the enemies of Communism, he becomes one of the heroes in the vanguard of the proletariat. Among themselves they proudly admit that they lie — that they commit perjury — glorious deeds on the pages of the history of the class war. Do capitalist presidents, premiers and diplomats hesi-
60 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
tate to lie and to commit perjury in the furtherance of their country's cause f Of course not! Then, reasons the Communist, why should a soldier or a spy in the vanguard of the proletariat hesitate to do that which furthers his fanatical cause? Any good spy or secret agent caught in the toils of enemy courts or enemy investigating bodies would not be worth his salt if he hesitated to lie thereby to fool the enemy. Every Communist in a capitalist nation must protect the Red Father- land— must protect his fellow conspirators and comrades; hide their identities, activities and objectives, at all cost to himself. Your commit- tee is convinced that they believe their actions and conduct in this con- nection proper and completely orthodox. This fanatical belief of being a soldier and a spy in an alien and hostile land must be understood in evaluating and weighing the sworn testimony of known Communists and fellow travelers.
The witnesses subpenaed to testify in public hearings before your committee on the subject of Communism in California may roughly be divided into two classes, hostile and friendly witnesses. Your com- mittee does not wish to intimate that this classification is necessarily significant or that the hostile witnesses were, in fact, members of the Communist Party. It is merely a fact that they were unfriendly and in many cases defiant and impudent. The hostile witnesses on this subject, examined by your committee, are as follows:
Samuel Albert, Frederick Langton,
Mischa Altman, Bert Leech,
Otto W. Benziger, Frances Lym,
George B. Bodle, La Rue McCormick,
Reuben W. Borough, Lucile McNeil,
Louise Bransten, Frances Moore,
Carl Brant, Jack Moore,
Wilmer Breeden, June Orr,
Archie Brown, Pearl Ossman,
James H. Burford, Pettis Perry,
Manuel Cabral, Max Radin,
Philip Connelly, Mervyn Rathborne,
Frances Decker, Dorothy Ray,
Judy Dunks, William Schneiderman,
Julius Furman, Laurance B. Smith,
Maxine Furman, Herbert K. Sorrell,
Oscar Fuss, John F. St. Cyr,
Philip Gardner, Vaughn A. K. Tashjian,
Kate Crane Gartz, James Toback,
B. S. Gorin, Clarence Vernon Jack Greenberg, Wahlenmaier,
Lee Gregovich, Robert E. Warren
Aubrey Grossman, John M. Weatherwax,
Carrol E. Hunnwell, Helen Wheeler,
Frieda Jasmagy, A. L. Wirin,
John A. Jones, B. Joseph Zukas.
Of the above group, Archie Brown, Philip Gardner, Bert Leech, Mrs. La Verne (Frances) Lym, Jack Moore, Pettis Perry, William Schneiderman, Dorothy Ray and Dr. Vaughn A. K. Tashjian all
COMMUNISM 61
admitted joining the Communist Party. To this list should be added the name of B. Joseph Zukas, who, though he denied ever being a member of the Communist Party, was proved by documentary evidence to be a member In this category, also, should be placed the name of James H. Burford, who undoubtedly lied many times under the ques- tioning of the committee.
Friendly witnesses testifying concerning Communist activities in California are as follows :
Charles G. Bakesy, Hugh Ben Inzer,
Aubrey Blair, Thomas Kirk,
J. Frank Burke, Floyd Matthews,
J. "W. Buzzell, Don Morton,
Oliver Carlson, John Mustak,
Tom Cavett, Mrs. Edward Suchman,
Matthew G. Guidera, J. W. Thornton,
Gene Hagberg, Rena M. Yale,
Bert Hanman, George Wallace,
Edward Heim, Earl Warren,
L. C. Helm, A. H. Webber,
John G. Honeycombe, Esther A. McCarthy,
Miles G. Humphrey,
Of this group Bert Hanman admitted having joined the Communist Party and having later joined the Trotskyites. His testimony is illum- inating and informative on this internal fight between the Stalinist group of Communists and the Trotskyite group. Thomas Kirk, Don Morton, John G. Honeycombe and Rena M. Vale were all former members of the Communist Party.
Charles G. Bakesy had done considerable investigating as an under- cover operator among the Communists in California and made a con- siderable amount of information available to the committee.
Aubrey Blair, J. W. Buzzell, Edward Heim and L. C. Helm are all A. F. of L. officials who have had a long experience fighting Communist infiltration into the American Federation of Labor.
J. Frank Burke is the owner and operator of Radio Stations KFVD and KPAS in Los Angeles County, a news-analysist and commentator noted for his American progressiveness, tolerance and liberalism. He testified concerning certain programs released over his radio station KFVD conducted by Ed Robbin of the People's Daily World. (Vol- ume I, pp. 267-272.) It has been Mr. Burke 's policy to make his radio stations available to everyone, believing thoroughly in the right of free speech and the right of individuals and groups to enjoy chan- nels of public expression. He stated that Ed Robbin had begun to broadcast some time in 1938 and that the broadcasts were partly paid for by a tire company located at Twelfth and Main Streets in Los Angeles. When Hitler and Stalin joined hands in 1939 Burke noticed that Robbin followed along with the current Communist Party "line" and Burke stated that he came to the conclusion that he was not expressing his own opinions but merely echoing things he was ordered to say. It was no longer a matter of free speech. When Robbin defended Russia 's invasion of Poland, Mr. Burke ordered him off of his station.
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Oliver Carlson testified as an expert on Communist strategy, Com- munist history, activities and theory, and practical objectives. Mr. Carlson is a writer and a research associate of the University of Chicago in the Department of Political Science. He has traveled extensively in Europe. He translated a book from German into English by Chicherin, Foreign Minister for the Soviet Government. He studied at the University of Berlin and attended the London School of Economics. Mr. Carlson traced the history of the Com- munist International and explained its methods and ideology in detail to your committee. He outlined disciplinary methods and tech- niques of the Communist International. He elaborated on the Com- munist preparations to seize state power in all countries. He empha- sized the intolerance of the Communist Party and its il-liberality and non-progressiveness, contrary to self-proclaimed and advertised virtues. He outlined the similarity between Naziism and Communism. He described the various so-called "Internationals" set up by the Communists for subtle indoctrination purposes, which included even an international philatelic society. He told the committee of the schisms within the Communist Party itself; of the Lovestonites and the Trotskyites. He elaborated on the so-called Communist "party line" and explained the causes and reasons for its changes. He testi- fied of seeing the marriage bureaus and divorce bureaus maintained by the Soviet Government in Russia. He told the committee that over the door of the marriage bureau was the slogan, taken from the Communist Manifesto: "Workers of the World Unite." The slogan over the divorce bureau, also taken from the Communist Manifesto, was: "You Have Nothing to Lose but Your Chains."
Many persons were called throughout the State to testify generally on Communist Party activities in California and the committee's tran- script of testimony presents a rounded picture of the insidious machina- tions and plottings of this underground group of conspirators. The committee's hearing briefs were designed in each case to draw out at least a fragment of the truth from each witness and, by planning the entire investigation to cover the State from San Diego to San Fran- cisco, the pieces began to fit, and the jigsaw puzzle thus began to take shape and form. The general, overall scope of Communist activities in California is easily discernible through the mental fencing of many of these witnesses. For the greater part, this group represents the rank and file of Communist Party members and fellow travelers.
Mr. Carroll E. Hunnwell represents one of the missing pieces. He testified before your committee in San Diego. (Volume VIII, pp. 2449-2464.) He stated that he was a member of Post No. 6 of the American Legion. He is acquainted with Stanley Hancock, Vernon Wahlenmaier, La Verne Lym, Bert Leech and Bessie Keckler. He attended a number of functions for a drive to raise money for the Communist paper, the People's Daily World. He denied ever having affiliated with the Communist Party, but admitted that he had been approached twice, "maybe," with the proposition of joining. He does not think that the Communist Party is un-American. He stated that he felt that "we should have a change in system" and that "the main thing is to get something for the working class." In this connection, the witness testified that this would be "pretty hard to do" with the
COMMUNISM 63
ballot. He concluded his testimony by suggesting that the need for the Communist Party would disappear if the capitalist forces would give up.
Mr. John A. Jones represents another fragment. He testified that he became a member of the Communist Party in 1935 or 1936 but that he severed connections with it in about 1941. (Volume VIII, pp. 2421-2432.) He knew Stanley Hancock, the Communist Party organ- izer for San Diego County, Sol and Hermine Hilkowitz, Carroll Hunn- well and Clara Stevenson. He admitted having attended the Lenin Memorial Dinner in January, 1942, held either in the U. S. Grant Hotel or Fraternal Hall in San Diego. One of his reasons for leaving the party was that the work was too strenuous. He has continued to attend meetings of the party since his alleged severing of connections. Although he surrendered his party book he could not remember the identity of the person to whom he gave it.
J. \\~. Thornton came into the Communist Party through the Indus- trial Workers of the World (I.W.W.). He testified that he joined this organization in 1913. (Volume I, pp. 131-145.) He joined the Socialist Party in 1914 and remained a member until about 1921. In 1919 the I.W.W. sent delegates to a conference of the Third Interna- tional of the Communist Party which was being held in Moscow. The result of the conference brought about the merging of the I.W.W. in the United States with the new Comintern organization, the Red Trade Union International. Thornton joined the Communist Party in Portland in 1921 and dropped out of its activities in 1924. In 1930 he again became active in the Communist Party and participated in the formation of unemployed councils. He cooperated with Com- munist Party fractions and groups in various activities, particularly in fund-raising campaigns for the Tom Mooney Defense Committee. In 1932 he met Sam Darcy and Elmer Hanoff and participated in the Communist Party meeting in Sacramento on the occasion of a plea to Governor Rolph for the unemployed through the Cooperative Relief Association. In 1933 Thornton wTas expelled from the Communist Party for collaboration with the Socialists.
Gene Hagberg, of Los Angeles, testified concerning both Nazi and Communist activities in Los Angeles County. He told your committee of beach parties in Santa Monica where white girls were used as lures in recruiting Negroes into the Communist Party. He told of the "pros- titution squad" of Communist Party girls who acted as lures in this endeavor. He testified as to the method used by the Young Communist League in luring Filipinos into the Communist Party by the use of marijuana. He testified as to the activities of the Communists among the Japanese and of the Japanese Communist section known as the Doho Jin Sha and of a meeting held by this group May 23, 1941, in Los Angeles at which Ed Robbin, Communist radio commentator for the People's Daily World, was reported to have collected over $1,000. He stated that Ed Robbin had donated $25 to Doho, the Japanese- Communist newspaper in Los Angeles. Mr. Hagberg stated that the Doho Jin Sha group worked with the German- American Bund during the collaboration of Stalin and Hitler.
Mr. Thomas Kirk, a former member of the Communist Party, testified before your committee at its Los Angeles hearing, August 1, 1941.
64 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
(Volume II, pp. 560-589, 590-591.) He told the committee that he was an organizer for the Friends of the Soviet Union in 1930, and became interested in the Communist Party through the American Civil Liber- ties Union. He was active in the International Labor Defense and told your committee of their meetings. He outlined the activities of the Communist Party in the cotton strike at Pixley in 1933, of the activities of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, the League Against War and Fas- cism and the Pen and Hammer Club. He traced the activities of the Communist Party in the Relief Workers' Protective Union and other Communist front organizations such as the Unemployed Councils, the Workers' Alliance, Labor's N on-Partisan League and others.
8
ORGANIZATION AND OPERATION
The technique, the organization and the operation of the Communist Party in California and in the United States should be known to every American* Far too few of our loyal Americans realize the intricate and efficient organization of this subversive group. The success of the Communist Party in certain trade unions and other mass movements is directly attributable to the ignorance of responsible labor leaders and the rank-and-file of both labor and other mass movements of Com- munist organization, operation and tactics.
Your committee has studied the manuals of the Communist Party and its textbooks, minutely cross-examined paid Communist function- aries and through investigators working both inside the Communist Party and in many of its front organizations have been able to ferret out much of its intricate organization and operation.
The Communist Party itself has divided the United States into some 30 districts. California is designated in this division as District XIII. Each district is divided into some 250 sections and these sections are again divided into what they term shop, town, street, farm units and, in California, in and during periods of open development, into Con- gressional and Assembly districts. Each unit or division is known as a unit bureau and is governed by a committee under which it operates and organizes. Smaller subdivisions of the lesser units are called 1(1 fractions " and " cells." Fractions and cells are immediately created in trade unions and other mass organizations wherever three or more Communist members find themselves.
Communist fractions or cells are continually subdivided as recruits are added to each cell or fraction. It is seldom that a fraction or cell contains more than eight members. By this method the Communist Party is enabled to spread its network of propaganda and influence in factories, mines, on ships, in shops, and other mass organizations. It is mandatory on Communist Party members to join the union in the place where they work and cells and fractions must be organized immediately.
The Communist Party Manual provides that "Every party member * * * must be a real organizer of mass struggles." This same manual provides that the "task" of each fraction, cell or shop unit is "to establish strong connections with all the workers in the factories" in order that these workers be mobilized for "quick action when the need arises." Every Communist member is mandated to prevent
COMMUNISM 65
exposure of comrades in their illegal work. For this purpose special groups of Communists are trained. A group of this type is known to the comrades themselves as the "Antiseptic Squad." The work of the Antiseptic Squad is to defend Communists and Communism. One of its most important jobs in recent years is the smearing and discrediting of such committees as the Dies Committee and your Committee Investi- gating Un-American Activities in the United States and California.
Don Morton, former Communist member, testified that during his membership in the party he had charge of the League Against Yellow Journalism. (Volume VI, pp. 1783-1794.) This activity of the Anti- septic Squad was particularly organized to propagandize against anti- Communist papers and magazines and, according to Mr. Morton, was particularly anti-Hearst because the Hearst papers were most consistent in their editorial attacks against Communism. Mr. Morton testified that part of his duty was contributing approximately 500 cards a week urging the people not to read the Hearst papers and that through his supervision some ten to twelve thousand cards were distributed between April and September of 1936.
Street fractions or cells are mandated to assist shop units in strikes, picketing, street demonstrations and in the collection of strike relief. To these fractions and cells is given the task of organizing people in the neighborhood for the purpose of carrying on "mass work (street meetings, house to house canvassing, etc. ) , and to win election votes for the Communist Party." (Communist Party Manual, pages 49, 65 and 66.)
The Communist Party Manual, on page 25, states :
* one of the organizations of the Communist Party is suitable for legal existence * * * and the other for * * * underground, illegal existence/'
The manual mandates that Communist Party members organize and lead the other Workers in order to safeguard the organization and prevent its members from being discharged in any shop or factory where they are caught agitating or propagandizing. It demands that party members "must submit to the iron discipline of the party." The manual commands that the Communist Party be "rooted in the factories, mines, ships, docks, offices, et cetera," and demands that its organization in these places be such that it will "best safeguard the party members and other militant workers from bosses, stool- pigeons and thugs." Shop units or cells are ordered to secure jobs for party members and the manual commands that all Communists work together in "a conspirative manner" to organize and lead the workers.
The above briefly outlines the underground, secret and conspira- torial organization and operation of the Communist Party in the United States and California. In addition to this organizational sot-un. which is particularly designed for the illegal work of the party, there has existed for many years The Young Pioneers, the Young Com- munist League, and the Communist Party itself, which may be either open or secretive.
5— L-2275
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The Young Pioneers is a Communist youth organization for girls and boys of grade-school age. It is built along the same lines as the Boy Scout movement, but dedicated, instead, to hatred of American institutions and the American Flag. The Young Spark is one of the publications for the Communist Young Pioneers. We quote from one of its issues: "The Young Pioneers of America is a workers' children's organization, and the Red Flag is their Flag. * * * We Pioneers are proud to stand by the Red Flag. ' '
The following is an excerpt from Who are the Young Pioneers?, a Communist publication (pages 26 and 27) :
"Then why do we say the workers' children should join the Pioneers or the Nature Friend Scouts or the I. W. 0. Juniors instead of the Boy Scouts? For this reason: You can use all knowledge either for the working class and against the boss class, or for the boss class and against the working class. And the Boy Scouts teach you to use your knowledge for the boss class. They teach you to be 'patriotic.'
"And what does the 'patriotism' of the Boy Scouts and the bosses mean? It means that when the bosses of this country want markets for their goods and decide to go to war to get the markets from other countries, YOU should put on a uniform and go to war for those bosses and their profits. * * *
"The 'patriotism' of the Boy Scouts and the bosses means defending the government and the property of rich and corrupt millionaires and their politicians and preventing the workers from getting a living from their labor by fighting against strikers and the unemployed who demonstrate for relief."
We quote a poem from the April, 1935, issue of. the New Pioneer, one of the publications of the Young Communists (page 18) :
"Our Leader" "Lenin is leading the way He won't let the capitalists lead us astray 'Away with Capitalism and the King! 'Lenin and Soviet Russia!' The cry will ring. Workers stop your toil! Farmers, don't till the soil! We march today under the blood stained red We will fight to have our families fed. We march amid mothers' and fathers' applause; We will fight for a just cause. Lenin is our leader today — Under Lenin we can not lose the way. We will destroy the capitalists; They won't be able to resist, Because we march under blood stained red, And we have Lenin at our head."
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This poem is not only interesting because of its revolutionary con- tent but because it was written by a ten year old boy named Theodore Lerner of Brooklyn, New York. Sufficient has been shown thus far proving the foreign control of the Communist Party. Mr. Moore testified (Volume 1, p. 16) that he had joined the Young Communist League in 1934. He stated that the organization was an affiliate of the Young Communist International with headquarters in Moscow and that it was a training ground for Communists; that it partici- pated in various non-Communist school and civic activities as well as in trade unions, unemployed organizations, etc., in order to spread Communism.
COMMUNIST FUNCTIONARIES
One of the most important witnesses on the subject of Communism with authority to. speak was Jack Moore, the Secretary of the Com- munist Party for Los Angeles County in 1941. The committee sub- penaed Jack Moore at its first hearing held in the Assembly Chamber of the State Building in Los Angeles on July 28th of 1941. (Tran- script Volume I, pages 3 to 113, inclusive.) He was attended by a stenographer and Leo Gallagher, whom he identified as his attorney.
Jack Moore is a paid functionary of the Communist Party with offices at the Communist Party headquarters, located at 124 "W. Sixth Street, in the City of Los Angeles. His wife was formerly Marion Brooks, Young Communist League organizer, and one of the Com- munists utilized by the party in mobilizing the Communists in the Musicians' Union, Local 47, of Los Angeles. (Mrs. Marion Moore was subsequently expelled from the Musicians' Union in Los Angeles because of her Communist activities.) Jack Moore has a long Com- munist record. He sponsored Pettis Perry for the Communist Party nomination for the office of Lieutenant Governor of California in August of 1934 and sponsored Harold J. Ashe for the Communist Party nomination for Secretary of State at the same time. In 1936, he was a member of the Young Communist League. He joined the Communist Party in Los Angeles on October 23, 1936, and became a member of the Relief Workers' Protective Union, International Labor Defense and the League Against War and Fascism. He was a member of the board of directors of the Communist Party Workers' School in Los Angeles. In 1938 he sponsored Pettis Perry for the Communist Party nomination to the office of State Board of Equalization and Anita Whitney for the Communist Party nomination to the office of Controller. He was a candidate for the Communist Party nomination for the office of Assembly from the Sixty-fourth District in August of 1940. In this same year, he sponsored Anita Whitney for the Communist Party nomination for the office of United States Senate from California. He registered as a Communist in Los Angeles County June 15, 1940. He attended the Communist Party convention in San Francisco May 12, 1940. On February 19, 1941, he filed as a candidate for the City Council of Los Angeles from the Twelfth District. For some time he headed the Los Angeles branch of the Young Communist League and was the organizer of the Harbor Section for the Los Angeles Communist Party. In 1942, he was again a Communist candidate for the Assembly. For some time he handled Communist literature for
68 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
the Workers' Book Shop located at 224 South Soring Street in San Pedro. He was the secretary of the militant Fish Cannery Workers' Union in Long Beach. He has a police record.
The committee found Jack Moore, as the titular head of the Com- munist Party in the most populous county of the State, an unusually frank witness. His testimony as set forth in the first volume of the committee's transcripts is considered by many persons, not connected with the committee, to be of vital significance. He explained the physical structure and commented in detail on the doctrine and ideology of the Communist Party of the United States of America. He admitted the so-called "fraction" set up in unions and the Communist Party's general infiltration into the California trade union movement by such methods. He admitted the existence of Communist fractions in the Workers' Alliance. He admitted that he was familiar with the Party Organizer and familiar with plans set forth in this official Communist Party publication for recruiting members into the party and the technique used in penetrating trade unions.
He testified concerning the part played by the Communist Party in unionizing the Ford plant. He told the committee of the indoctri- nation of children as young as nine to 16 years of age ; how they were taught the principles of world-revolution and class antagonism through the Young Pioneers, and thereafter how these children were further indoctrinated through the medium of the Young Communist League. He told the committee of his work as a member of the Young Com- munist League and his assistance in the organization of the Relief Workers' Protective Union in Los Angeles County. He related his work in organizing the A. F. of L. Fish Canneries Union and how he and an entire group of Communists in the Union were finally expelled, the charter of the Union being lifted by the Central Labor Council of Los Angeles. He stated that the Communists had been the moving force in organizing the C. I. 0. United Auto Workers' Union.
He admitted that Communist front organizations, such as Labor's Nonpartisan League, Federation for Political Unity, the Motion Picture Democratic Committee, the International Labor Defense and the Inter- national Workers' Order took part in political elections. He testified that the Communists in California and in the United States firmly believe in the objectives of the party as enunciated by Lenin and Stalin.
Miles G. Humphrey, a former Communist Party functionary, told the committee under oath in San Francisco (Volume V, pp. 1616-1631) that he knew Aubrey Grossman when Grossman was very active in the Young Communist League and that he also knew him as a member of the Communist Party. Humphrey stated that he joined the Commu- nist Party in Oakland in 1924 and attended several beginners classes in Communism in that city and later in New York City. He testified that he taught classes in Communism in Oakland and that he became a functionary of the party in San Jose in 1924 and that he was a unit organizer for about a year. He made a trip to Russia in 1926, the expenses of which were paid by the Soviet Union. He spent four months in Siberia and four months in Moscow doing industrial work. During his stay in Russia he contacted the Section Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Siberia to discuss conditions
COMMUNISM 69
in industry. Before going to Russia, Humphrey testified, he contacted an organization in New York called ( ' Kuqbas ' ' which preceded * ' Intour- ist ' ' and his trip to the Soviet Union was arranged through this organi- zation. He met a man in connection with "Kuqbas" by the name of Golos whom he later saw in Siberia. He was acquainted with Robert Minor, of the Communist Party of the United States and met him in Russia. He discussed with Minor his transfer from the Communist Party of the United States to the Communist Party of Soviet Russia which was arranged through the Comintern. During this time, Hum- phrey testified, Minor represented the Communist Party of the United States in Soviet Russia in the Communist International. Humphrey resided in New York City for some years after his return from Russia, during which time he helped organize the International Labor Defense, working through Communist Party channels. He was a member of the Bronx section of the Communist Party while in New York City.
Upon returning to Oakland, he became the secretary of the Com- munist Party for Alameda County and held this position for one year. He met John Leech, Secretary and organizer for the Communist Party in Los Angeles at that time. He knew Rudy Lambert as a party func- tionary in charge of the Communist Campus Unit at Berkeley. Hum- phrey stated that the Communist Party, during 1934, derived most of its funds from donations. The Campus Unit at the University of California paid its dues directly to a district or section organizer, rather than risk exposure of membership through following regular procedure. He knew Bert Hanman as a Communist Party member and admitted that he attended the meeting at which Hanman was expelled by the Communist Party Control Commission which then was composed of Elmer Hanoff, Walter Lambert and 10 others, on charges that Hanman had associated himself with the Trotskyites.
After this, Humphrey testified, he became a trade union organizer for the Communist Party, which position he held for some time. He met James Burford at Burford's apartment in Berkeley and attended the meeting at which Burford joined the party in 1934 or 1935. He testified that James Burford became a member of Unit Number 5 in Berkeley. It was Humphrey, according to his testimony, who took Burford's application for membership in the party.
Among others identified by Humphrey in his testimony were Dr. Samuel Twain, Examining Physician for the International Workers' Order in Oakland. Humphrey did not state that Dr. Twain was a member of the Communist Party but stated that he was very close to it. The International Workers' Order, testified Mr. Humphrey, was organ- ized by the Communist Party to take over the members of a socialist organization known as the Workmen's Circle. He stated that Dr. Twain's brother is the Secretary of the International Workers' Order in Oakland. (Your committee should report, at this juncture, that Dr. Twain held a commission in the State Guard in 1942.) Humphrey knew Signa Ludlow as a member of the Communist Party in Berkeley and Roy Noftz as a member of the Communist Party in Oakland. He stated that Noftz later became active in the Workers' Alliance, the Communist Party having appointed him to a position in that front organization.
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People's Daily World
The People's Daily World is the successor to the Western Worker. It is the official West Coast motor-drive for Communist Party transmis- sion belts, although it has attempted to disguise its red character under the cloak of labor. In order that its identity be thoroughly established the committee has traced its genealogy. The hammer and sickle, together with the statement "Western Organ of the Communist Party, U.S.A., Section of the Communist International" appeared on the masthead of the Western Worker until Monday, March 8, 1937. The hammer and sickle disappeared from the masthead of the Western Worker with the issue of March 8, 1937, and instead of the statement "Western Organ of the Communist Party, U.S.A., Section of the Communist International," appeared the slogan "People's Champion of Liberty, Progress and Peace. ' ' In the notice of publication column, however, the hammer and sickle, together with the statement ' ' Western Organ of the Communist Party, U. S. A.," was carried. The hammer and sickle still appeared in the official notice of publication column until the issue of April 5, 1937.
The last edition of the Western Worker appeared December 30, 1937. It was still listed as the "Western Organ of the Communist Party, U.S.A.," however, and page 2 of this issue contained a full-page advertisement announcing the "People's Daily World/' the new paper. The first paragraph entitled 1 1 Farewell " is as follows : ' ' This is the final edition of the Western Worker, as it makes way for the People's World, its successor, which will make its first appearance on Janu- ary 1st."
The first issue of the People's Daily World appeared January 1, 1938. At the head of its official notice of publication column, the name "People's Daily World" is followed by the following slogan and statement: "For Security, Democracy and Peace. Formerly Western Worker, founded 1932."
On this same page appeared a group of greetings to the People's Daily World. We quote the "greetings" "From the Communist Party":
' ' This historic occasion, the publishing of the first issue of the daily 'People's World,' marks the sixth anniver- sary of the founding of the Western Worker in 1932. It took six years of struggle since that first mimeographed edition grew into a mighty people 's organ which will speak not only for the Communist Party but for all those pro- gressive forces that will constitute the American peoples' front.
"The Communist Party could not have done it alone. It took tens of thousands of workers, farmers, and middle class people on the Pacific Coast to build a daily people's voice. They have participated in a great historic event; the inauguration of a new type of daily press, which will serve the people of the West and all America. Together with the 'Daily Worker' of New York and the 'Mid- West Daily Record' of Chicago, the People's World will be a part of a powerful chain of people 's daily papers that will
COMMUNISM 71
strike a telling blow against reaction and fascism, and for Socialism.
"We want to take this opportunity to express our thanks to all those who contributed their efforts to make the daily 'People's World ' possible. New Years greet- ings to all of its readers, party members and nonparty members alike, from the California State Committee of the Communist Party.
"(Signed) ANITA WHITNEY,
State Chairman,
WILLIAM SCHNEIDERMAN, Secretary, Communist Party."
Every effort was made on the part of the Communist Party sponsors of the new paper, the People's Daily World, to disguise its Communist character. Many labor leaders throughout the State were called and asked to express an opinion on the desirability of a daily newspaper devoted solely to labor news. Many legitimate labor leaders, unfamiliar with the Western Worker or Communist tactics, were tricked into mak- ing statements welcoming the appearance of a "real" labor paper. Thus it was that certain labor leaders throughout California were later embarrassed when learning that they had unwittingly offered congratu- lations on the appearance of a Communist publication on the West Coast.
Your committee called Bert S. Leech to testify at the committee's San Diego hearing. (Volume VIII, pp. 2133-2213.) Leech, being a well known Communist in the State of California, testified quite frankly as to his Communist Party activities, although he stated that he was registered politically as a Democrat. The committee learned that he had worked for the State Relief Administration for approximately a month in San Diego and had secured the position through a Mrs. Wooster. Leech's testimony made the secret nature of the Communist Party very clear. He had no hesitancy in admitting his own Com- munist Party affiliation, even though he was registered as a Democrat. He told the committee that there are ethical ties with the working class in the United States and the working classes in other countries and that no antagonism exists between the workers of different countries. He stated that he was very familiar with the Official History of the Com- munist Party of the Soviet Union, Soviet textbook, and that he had taught it. He stated that it sets forth the ideology of the Communist Party as well as the history of the Soviet Union. He could not remem- ber the exact time when he became a member of the Communist Party, and like most of his comrades, could not recall from whom he ever received a party book. He admitted having been a member of the Com- munist labor front infiltrating State, county and municipal govern- ments, the State, County and Municipal Workers of America, C. I. 0. He has missed few Communist Party State conventions. He admitted that he was acquainted with the chief Communist Party functionaries, such as William Schneiderman, Betty Gannet, Pettis Perry, Paul Cline, Jack Moore and others. He likewise admitted being acquainted with
72 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
Elaine Black of the International Labor Defense (who, for a time, was evacuated to the Japanese Santa Anita camp with her Japanese husband) and James Burford. He testified that he had used names other than that of Bert Leech, being known in Communist Party work as Bert Jackson. He told the committee that there was no conflict between Communist Party ideals and orthodox religion. At one point in his testimony, probably because your committee indicated its knowl- edge of his activities by its questions, he interrupted himself to remark : "I was just trying to place the stool-pigeon in this case." Once he slipped in his testimony and mentioned the official capacity of the Communist Party Control Commission (p. 2176). He stated that the Control Commission kept track of the enemies of the Communist Party, particularly in their movement from one county to another. He con- cluded his testimony by explaining that Communist Party members do not register as Communists because of their fear of economic reprisals. He explained that actual membership in the Communist Party entails a willingness to accept assignments and to undertake responsibilities but did not elaborate on the nature of the assignments or the responsibilities.
Mrs. La Verne Frances Lym testified that her husband was the chair- man of the Communist Party in San Diego County. (Volume VIII, pp. 2218-2256, 2362-2365). She stated that she had joined the Com- munist Party during the Summer of 1939 and had received a member- ship book but, again, like all other Communist witnesses, she failed to remember to whom she paid her dues, although she later thought that she might have paid them to Dan Taylor. She attended the Communist Party Workers' School in Los Angeles taught by E-va Shafran. Mrs. Lym stated that she and her husband ran the Communist Party book store in San Diego, which is managed by the International Book Store Committee and that her position with the store is merely that of acting manager. She identified a photograph taken in Tijuana on May 18, 1940, of a May Day parade. The Communist Flag with the hammer and sickle is displayed in the parade and Mrs. Lym identified herself and stated that Dan Taylor was carrying the Flag of Soviet Russia.
William Schneiderman, the Secretary of the Communist Party of California, testified at great length on the structure, organization, theory and practice of the Communist Party in California. (Volume V, pp. 1260-1342.) William Schneiderman was born in the Ukraine, Russia, and came to the United States in 1908. He has been affiliated with the Communist Party since 1924 or 1925 and prior to his joining the Party was a member of the Young Communist League which was known in those days as the Young Workers' League. The Communist Party of California does not maintain files or documents in reference to Party membership, and has kept no records since 1939. The committee learned from Schneiderman that Party membership books have been discontinued since about January of 1940 and the committee is in possession of authoritative information that this statement is true. The numerical strength of the Party in California is computed, according to Schneiderman, by per capita tax receipts from the counties of the State and it is the duty of the Financial Secretary of the Communist Party of the State to make such computations ; to keep such records for a few weeks and then to destroy them. Schneiderman 's rough esti-
COMMUNISM 73
mate of the membership of the secret Communist Party in California as of December, 1941, was between five and six thousand.
The "fraction" and "cell" technique of the Communist Party, according to Schneiderman, was discontinued in 1937 or 1938. The fractions, he contended, had been frequently "a sort of friction" in many organizations. He intimated that the Communists working in labor unions presently, only participate in open caucuses attended by non-Communist members. The committee is in possession of authorita- tive information that this statement by Schneiderman is not completely true. Small Communist fractions and cells still meet and plan strategy for open caucuses with non-Communist members. Agendas and pro- posed activities are worked out by the small fractions or cells and then carried to caucuses where they are made to appear to be the action of a sizable group, the majority of which, in most cases, is non-Communist.
Schneiderman testified that the Communist Party maintains a com- mercial account in the Bank of America in San Francisco and that they issue monthly statements. No books are kept and the statements are not kept. These records are all destroyed when the financial secretary finishes with them.
We learned from William Schneiderman that it was always cus- tomary to close Communist Party conventions with the singing of the Internationale.
Indicating the International aspect of the Communist Party, Schnei- derman explained the use of party membership books and stamps. International Solidarity Stamps, he explained, were used for anti- Fascist organizations, especially in Germany against Hitler.
Pettis Perry has a long and active record as a Communist Party member in Southern California. He was chairman of the Communist Party County Central Committee in Los Angeles County during 1940 and still held this position at the time of his appearance before the committee, February 23, 1942. (Volume IX, pp. 2640-2657.) Perry, being a Negro, is utilized by the Communist Party in California for the purpose of recruiting Negroes into the party. He has run for public office on many occasions in Los Angeles County. He has spon- sored such Communists for office as Samuel W. Jones, Leo Gallagher, Louis Rosner, and others. He has associated with such known Com- munists as Herman N. Steffens, James C. McLean, Mrs. Forrest G. Thompson, Mrs. Adele R. Young^, Walter A. Martin, Jack Moore, Mrs. Miriam Moore, Mrs. Viola M. Maddox, Mrs. Mary Butler, Mrs. Leona Chamberlin, Mrs. Gertrude Betts, Helen Maloff, Edwin J. Nelson, Sam Darcy, Elmer Hanoff, Dorothy Ray and many others.
Perry has done considerable teaching in the Communist Party worker's schools, lecturing on such subjects as Marxism and the Wav, History of the American Negro People, et cetera. He testified that he knew James McGowan, Alexander Noral and other Communist Party functionaries. He recalled meeting Sol Hilkowitz and Hermine Hilko- witz in San Diego, as well as Bert Leech and Carroll Hunnwell of San Diego. He admitted having spent some time at the Hilkowitz ranch in Mission Valley near San Diego. He admitted that the Com- munist Party had adopted the slogan "All Out Aid to the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the Allies." He stated that there were less than a hundred Negroes affiliated with the Communist Party in Los
74 UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
Angeles County and that, all together, there were between 1,500 and 2,000 members of the party in Los Angeles County.
Dr. Vaughn A. K. Tashjian, known as "Dr. Parker" in the Com- munist Party, and many times a witness before committees investi- gating subversive activities, was called before the committee in Los Angeles, February 24, 1942. (Volume IX, pp. 2679-2691.) Dr. Tash- jiaii's unique position as the disciplinary commissar of the Communist Party in Southern California and his rather sinister appearance, makes him always an interesting witness. As the head of the ruthless disci- plinary control commission, his testimony might be unusually illumi- nating were it possible to induce him to talk freely and honestly. He is undoubtedly a thoroughly-indoctrinated Communist Party function- ary, well trained in the iron discipline of the revolutionary class- struggle. He is a practicing dentist in the City of Los Angeles and has been a member of the Communist Party, by his own admission, since 1932.
The committee is in possession of authoritative evidence that Dr. Tashjian is actually a member of the Communist International. All Communist International members are introduced to Los Angeles County Communist Party functionaries through Dr. Tashjian and it is known that he maintains contact with the Filipino Committee and the Japanese Committee of the Communist Party and is in touch, at all times,. with the OGPU of the Comintern. Rumors within the Com- munist Party itself are to the effect that Dr. Tashjian actually heads the OGPU in the Western Hemisphere. Authoritative information in the hands of the committee places Dr. Tashjian in charge of the underground activities of the Communist Party in the State and indi- cates that he is a trusted contact man with the Comintern.
The present policy of the Communist Party is to deny the present existence of the control commission. This was dutifully done by several Communist Party functionaries testifying before the committee. Dr. Tashjian told the committee that when he was the head of the control commission, it