“The American Communist Party will not perish. It will live and flourish to the dismay of the enemies of the working class.”
-Joseph Stalin, 1929 1
Established in 1919, the American Communist Party infiltrated the boulevards of Hollywood, grabbing the attention of filmic elite displeased with both the governmental, and—in their particular case—big studio system, which they hoped the Party’s left-leaning ideals would improve. 2
After the Socialist Party of America’s renunciation of the Russian Revolution in January 1919, approximately two-thirds of the Party’s 104,000 members were either suspended or expelled on the basis of support for the Soviet government. 3 By August of that same year, the newly founded Communist Party of America counted around 60,000 members, the majority of whom identified as Socialist Party exiles. 4
Initially consisting of two factions—one supporting a strategy of class warfare and another proposing the construction of a more radicalized AFL—the Party’s identity was eventually defined by Stalin himself. 5 Convinced that “when a revolutionary crisis develops in America, [it] will be the beginning of the end of world capitalism as a whole,” Stalin declared that any factionalism or similar conflict which may cause disruption, ought to be instantly eradicated, for it was “essential” that the American branch “be capable of meeting that historic moment fully prepared.” 6
By 1929, the American Communist Party numbers were dwindling; yet, by 1932, benefitting from what appeared to be a broken, seemingly unfixable capitalist-based economic system, numbers grew. Moreover, relentlessly supporting shifting Soviet policies, the Party’s popularity increased as Stalin decreased his animosity towards FDR (a potential anti-Hitler ally) and the New Deal, leading many people to believe that perhaps Communism really was “twentieth-century Americanism.” 7
It was during this time that the Hollywood Communist Party achieved its greatest membership, not just as a result of the prior mentioned causes, but of as a consequence of the emergence of Screen Writers and Screen Actors Guilds in 1933. 8 Unsurprisingly, members of both guilds—including SWG co-founders (and Hollywood Ten blacklistees) Lester Cole and John Howard Lawson—who hoped to unionize and combat what they saw as a corrupt, hierarchical studio system, in order to regulate wages, royalties and conditions also support the dogmatically similar Communist cause. 9
After the outbreak of WWII, much of the Hollywood CP sector worked closely with their right-minded adversaries in order to boost home front morale, putting out anti-Nazi films and military and educational documentaries. 10 At the same time, the American Communist Party, under the temperate leadership of Earl Bower, became the more lenient Communist Political Association, accepting more recruits with far less pure, Soviet-supporting Communist conviction. 11
This cooperation and tolerance conveyed an image of a more patriotic, less threatening Communist Party, which—members believed—would aid in laying the foundations for the Party’s future as an American institution. Yet, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, along with the conservative studio heads remained deeply suspicious, and the interactions of the 1940s accorded them enough evidence to entirely destroy their Communist competition, beginning with the 1947 trials of the Hollywood Ten.
1 Stalin’s Speeches on the American Communist Party, http://darrow.law.umn.edu/documents/Stalin_Speeches%20on%20the_American_communist_party.pdf
2 Humphries, Reynold. Hollywood’s Blacklists: A Political and Cultural History. Edinburgh University Press Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. 2008.
3 Socialist Party of America, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsocialismP.htm
4 Socialist Party of America, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsocialismP.htm
5 Socialist Party of America, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsocialismP.htm
6 Stalin’s Speeches on the American Communist Party, http://darrow.law.umn.edu/documents/Stalin_Speeches%20on%20the_American_communist_party.pdf
7 Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. 6th Edition. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. 2010.
8 Humphries, Reynold. Hollywood’s Blacklists: A Political and Cultural History. Edinburgh University Press Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. 2008.
9 Humphries, Reynold. Hollywood’s Blacklists: A Political and Cultural History. Edinburgh University Press Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. 2008.
10 Buhle, Paul and Patrick McGilligan. Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist. St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY. 1997.
11 Buhle, Paul and Patrick McGilligan. Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist. St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY. 1997.