Communist front
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Communist Front was originally the term used by the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA)[citation needed], and then later by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) to label Comintern organizations found to be under the effective control of the (CPUSA), with special emphasis on those groups most active during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The term also refers to organizations not originally Communist-controlled which after a time became so, such as the American Student Union.
In 1955, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee published a list of what it described as the 82 most active and typical sponsors of Communist fronts in the United States; some of those named had literally dozens of affiliations with groups that had either been cited as Communist fronts or had been labelled "subversive" by either the subcommittee or the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
Perhaps the best-known - and most successful - 'Communist Front' in the United States was the Progressive Party which nominated Henry A. Wallace for President in the 1948 election. The party was on the ballot in 45 states, though under various names. For instance, in California it was known as the Independent Progressive Party. In New York State it was the American Labor Party, founded a number of years earlier, which repeatedly elected Vito Marcantonio and, in a by-election in the Bronx in February, 1948, Leo Isacson, to Congress. Isacson was defeated by a coalition candidate in November, 1948. Marcantonio was re-elected then, the only Progressive candidate to win office, but was defeated in 1950.
Wallace himself was neither a Communist nor a fellow traveller. A devout Christian and believer in capitalism, he was the wealthiest presidential candidate in 1948.
Some scholars have challenged the view that his Progressive Party was Communist-dominated. Karl M. Schmidt, in Henry Wallace: Quixotic Crusade 1948, argues that the question cannot be answered: the ideas of the true Wallace supporters and the Communists coincided until the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. This event produced a crisis in the party. Wallace supported the American side in the war while the other Progressive leaders did not. Curtis D. Macdougall, in his three-volume work, Gideon's Army, argues in meticulous detail that not only most Progressives but also most of the Progressive leaders were not Communists. Both authors were active in the party in 1948, Macdougall as its candidate for the U. S. Senate in Illinois, and their scholarly diligence cannot be gainsaid, however one judges their conclusions.
The Progressive Party, having lost the overwhelming bulk of its support, lasted through the 1952 election, in which it ran Vincent Hallinan for President. Hallinan received few votes, and the Progressive Party was soon disbanded.
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[edit] Alleged CPUSA front organizations, circa 1944
- World Federation
- Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians, CIO, Chairman: L.A. Berne, Deputy Chairmen: Marcel E. Scherer; 1928
- International Workers Order, 80 Fifth Avenue, New York; Chairman: W. Weiner, Attorney J. Brodsky; 1930
- International Jurist Association, 1931
- American League Against War and Fascism, 1933; became the American League for Peace and Democracy, 1937
- Friends of the Soviet Union
- International Labor Defense, 112 East Nineteenth Street, New York; Chairman: Vito Marcantonio, J. Brodsky
- Young Communist League, USA (YCL-USA) , 464 Sixth Avenue, New York; Carl Ross, Celeste Srack, Angelo Herndon.
- American Youth Congress, 55 West Forty-second Street, New York (organized from the Young Communist League), chairmen: W. Hinckley, Joseph P. Lash; 1934
- League of American Writers, 1935
- American Labor Party, 1936
- National Negro Congress, 35 East Twelfth Street, New York; Chairman: A.P. Randolph, J.W. Ford, A. Herndon, J.P. Davis; 1936
- National Lawyers Guild, 31 Union Square, New York; 1937
- International Coordinating Committee for Aid to Republican Spain
- North American Committee to Aid Spanish Dmeocracy
- Abraham Lincoln Brigade, George Washington Battalion and other affiliates, 1937-38;
- American Congress for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, 1939
- International Red Aid
- International Federation for Constitutional Liberties
- American Peace Mobilization, 1940; became the American People's Mobilization
- Washington Bookshop
- National Federation for Constitutional Liberties
- Washington Committee for Democratic Action
- Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee
- National Council for American-Soviet Friendship [1]
- American Committee for Yugoslav Relief
- American Relief for Greek Democracy
- Russian War Relief
- American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born, 100 Fifth Ave., New York; Chairman: Rev. Hermann F. Reissig, Charles Right, Carol White King.[2]
- Civil Rights Congress and its affiliated organizations including: Civil Rights Congress for Texas, Veterans Against Discriminations of Civil Rights Congress of New York
- International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers
- Labor Research Association Inc.
- Labor Youth League
- International Workers Organization, its subdivisions, subsidiaries and affiliates
- Council on African Affairs;
- Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy;
- California Labor School Inc., 321 Dvisadero Street, San Francisco, California
- American Peace Crusade
- National Negro Labor Council
- United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America
- Congress of American-Soviet Friendship
- Washington Committee for Aid to China
- United China Relief
- American-Russian Institute
- Communist Political Association
- Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
- League of Women Shoppers, 220 Fifth Avenue, New York; E. Preston (Mrs. R.N. Baldwin), M. Forsyth
[edit] Further reading
[edit] References
- Federal Register 13, 20 March 1948: Attorney General's List of Communist classified organizations.
