Investigation of Communist Activities in Seattle, Wash., Area, Hearings, Part 1United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities
History
Investigation of Communist Activities in Seattle, Wash., Area, Hearings, Part 1
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities
Communism -- Washington (State) -- Seattle
Mr. DENNETT. Well, shortly after my induction into the
Communist Party I, as recounted earlier this morning, became the
district agitprop director. In that position at that time we had the
special privilege of receiving the first issues of all new pamphlets or
magazines or anything like that that were issued. At that time there
came into my possession a document with the title “The 21 Conditions
for Affiliation With the Communist International,” and among those
conditions these points that are set forth in this document you have
just read cover some of those conditions.
Mr. TAVENNER. In other words, was there a strict linking
together through this organization and through the action of the
Comintern, of the control of the Communist Party in this country by the
international organization?
Mr. DENNETT. I think that has to be acknowledged by anyone who
is familiar with the record at all.
However, there is one little addendum that should be inserted at this
point, that at a later point in the history of the Communist Party in
the United States--I believe it was about the time the Voorhis Act was
passed--under the leadership of Earl Browder the Communist Party in the
United States took steps by formal resolution adopted at convention
to completely disassociate itself legally from any of this previous
material. They attempted to satisfy and comply with the provisions of
the Voorhis Act.
And in their effort to do so they adopted a resolution in which they
repudiated all of this political statement and line that we are now
talking about. That was a formal act.
Mr. TAVENNER. There was considerable testimony before this
committee at the time it attempted to interrogate Max Granich and
his wife, who were connected with a news facility which transmits
from Europe to this country decisions of the Communist Party on an
international level, and we heard a number of witnesses, including
Louis Budenz, who was connected with the Daily Worker.
The testimony is very clear that that action you have spoken of was
a device, not in good faith a severance or a disavowal of what had
happened before. But it was a device, to keep the Communist Party from
being liable under provisions of the Voorhis Act to which you have
referred, of representing a foreign country.
Mr. DENNETT. Browder visited here in the Northwest during the
time this action was being taken, and he explained it to our district
bureau in this fashion, that the law was clearly aimed at putting the
Communist Party out of business, and that the Communist Party was
determined to not be put out of business, and it was going to comply
with the act to the best of its ability, but that certainly did not
mean that the Communist Party was going to disavow its sympathy with
the working class throughout the world and the various sections of the
Communist Party throughout the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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