Investigation of Communist Activities in Seattle, Wash., Area, Hearings, Part 1

by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities

TESTIMONY OF EUGENE VICTOR DENNETT, ACCOMPANIED BY HIS COUNSEL, KENNETH A. MacDONALD

Mr. Tavenner. What is your name, please, sir?

Mr. Dennett. Eugene Victor Dennett.

Mr. Tavenner. Are you accompanied by counsel, Mr. Dennett?

Mr. Dennett. I am, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Will counsel please identify himself for the record.

Mr. MacDonald. Kenneth A. MacDonald, attorney at law, of Seattle, Wash.

Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Dennett, you were subpenaed as a witness before this committee in June of 1954, and you were called on the first day of that hearing, which was June 14.

Mr. Dennett. Yes, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. At that time you stated some special considerations you had in mind under which you felt that you desired not to testify and, as a result, you refused to testify on the ground of the fifth amendment.

Mr. Dennett. Correct.

Mr. Tavenner. Later on during the hearings, in fact on the next to the last day of the hearings, you and your counsel came to me and stated that after further considering the matter, you desired to appear as a witness.

Is that correct?

Mr. Dennett. That is correct.

Mr. Tavenner. As a result of that you were again called before the committee.

Mr. Dennett. Yes, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. The record of the hearing at that time reflects that neither you nor your counsel was approached by any member of the committee or the staff, or any representative of either the committee or the staff in an effort to get you to change your testimony.

Mr. Dennett. That is absolutely correct.

Mr. Tavenner. That is true, is it not?

Mr. Dennett. Yes, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. As a result of that the committee proceeded to ask you a few questions. However, the record also shows that counsel was of the opinion that your knowledge of Communist Party activities in the Northwest was so extensive that at that late point in the hearing it would be impractical to try to take your testimony unless the committee would cancel the rest of its hearings, and there were a number of witnesses waiting to be heard at that time. Consequently the committee decided that it would have to interrogate you at another time. So you are here this morning for that purpose.

Mr. Dennett. That is correct, sir. As a result of that decision I conferred with the then subcommittee chairman—who was at that time Mr. Jackson—following that session, and Mr. Jackson was unable to advise me when I might be called again. He referred me to Mr. Wheeler. I asked Mr. Wheeler at that time when I might be called again. I anticipated some problem of preparation. I wanted to look at some of my old material and refresh my knowledge. But Mr. Wheeler was unable to give me any information at that time.

Later, on January 28, I wrote to the new chairman of the committee asking him what I might expect from the committee by way of further interrogation. He did not reply directly. Instead, later I received a letter from Mr. Wheeler advising that they expected to hold the hearings in June.

The day after that I received another letter advising that they were going to hold the hearings at this date. So I still was unable to do the preparation that I wanted to do.

Mr. Tavenner. You have a great wealth of Communist Party literature and documents in your possession, do you not?

Mr. Dennett. Well, I saved them over a period of 20 years. I have quite a few.

Mr. Tavenner. In the limited time that we have here this week, have you made some of that material available to the staff?

Mr. Dennett. That is correct.

When Mr. Wheeler came to town he left word in his letter to me that he wanted to reach me at a certain time. I called the hotel and saw him, asked him what he wanted to know. He wasn’t too certain what he wanted specifically, but he wanted to know what I knew.

So I said, “Well, the simplest way to find that out is to come up to my house, and you can look at everything I have got.” So Mr. Wheeler came out to my house and he looked at everything I had.

Mr. Tavenner. During the course of the hearing in June 1954 you were asked a number of questions regarding your background. But the present chairman of the subcommittee was not present with the committee on that occasion, and I think it would be well to begin as if we had taken no testimony whatever.

Will you tell the committee, please, when and where you were born?

Mr. Dennett. I was born in Revere, Mass., April 26, 1908.

Mr. Tavenner. Where do you now reside?

Mr. Dennett. 7324 34th Avenue SW., Seattle 6, Wash.

Mr. Tavenner. When did you move to the general area of Seattle, or may I say to the State of Washington?

Mr. Dennett. In 1932.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you give the committee, please, a brief outline of your formal educational training?

Mr. Dennett. I graduated from high school in Rickreall, Oreg. I was out of school a year, unable to raise the finances to go on to college. The second year I made arrangements to finance going to normal school by carrying a paper route.

I graduated from the Oregon Normal School in 1928, and started teaching school. That was a 2-year college at that time, or 2-year normal school. It has since been changed to a college of education, and it is a 4-year school now. That was at Monmouth, Oreg.

After receiving my teaching certificate and starting to teach, I carried on extension work with the University of Oregon, and later, at a later year, I took a couple more quarters of advanced work at the University of Oregon in the School of Education, Sociology, and Philosophy. I did not graduate.

Mr. Tavenner. When did you complete your work at the university?

Mr. Dennett. Well, the work that I took, which was not sufficient for a degree or graduation, ended in 1931.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee, please, briefly, what your employment record has been since that time.

Mr. Dennett. Well, after I left teaching I was unemployed for quite a long period of time. The great depression had started, and I became active in the unemployed work.

Later on when the CCC’s were organized, that is, the Civilian Conservation Corps, since I was in a soup line here in Seattle and saw an announcement that it was possible for us to leave the soup line and go out in the woods in the CCC’s, I chose to do so, and spent a year there, about 15 months, in fact.

When I came out of the CCC’s one of the fellows whom I had worked with in the CCC shanghaied me onto a boat here in the sound. And, unbelievable as it may sound, I actually was shanghaied to work on the waterfront, working on one of the Puget Sound freight boats. I didn’t know a thing about it. And that is how I got started, a fellow just shoved me on and fed me, and the boat pulled away from the dock without my knowing what was going on. Then I got started working in the waterfront work and continued.

Mr. Tavenner. What year was that?

Mr. Dennett. 1935. I continued at that work off and on practically until the beginning of the Second World War, doing various kinds of work, deckhand and freight handling, and some longshore work. I also worked on some of the tugboats and some of the barges.

Mr. Tavenner. You say that type of employment continued until the war. Were you a member of our Armed Forces?

Mr. Dennett. I was. There was an intervening period there, however. I was screened off the waterfront in 1942. After being screened off the waterfront in 1942 I was searching for work again, and I saw a big advertisement in the paper that Bethlehem Steel Co. was hiring everybody and anybody. So I went out there to work.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee what you mean by screened off the waterfront? Briefly, not in detail.

Mr. Dennett. There was an intelligence unit of the Army which seemed to have information which convinced them that I was some sort of a dangerous person, and they were convinced that I should not be permitted to work on the waterfront. So my passes were lifted and I was denied opportunity to do any further work longshoring or work anywhere on the waterfront. By the way, according to my information, I am the only one who never did get his pass back that was lifted at that time.

Mr. Tavenner. Did the lifting of your pass have anything to do with Communist Party activities on your part?

Mr. Dennett. Well, I was asked to go down to the security office at that time. It was in charge of a Mr. John J. Sullivan, I believe. And he put it to me rather bluntly. He said, “We think that you are still a Communist. And so we just don’t think we should have Communists on the waterfront. That is why we are lifting your pass.”

Mr. Tavenner. Will you continue with your narrative of employment?

Mr. Dennett. I went to work at Bethlehem Steel Co.

Mr. Tavenner. What year was that?

Mr. Dennett. In 1942, October 19.

And after being employed there for some little time I was classified I-A in the draft. I didn’t know until after it was all over, but the company evidently thought enough of my work to get at least two deferments for me unbeknownst to myself. You remember there was something of a manpower shortage at that time.

I was finally inducted into service on the 27th of August 1943, took my 3-week furlough which was permitted to married men at that time, and reported to the service. I think it was the 17th of September of 1943, reported for active duty.

I remained in the service until, I think it was about October 10 of 1945, at which time I received an honorable discharge. But I was in somewhat broken health. So upon my return to Seattle I had to take some little time to recuperate, and spent a little time at the naval hospital which was conducted by the Navy at that time. It is now known as Firlands.

By the time I got out of the hospital the steelworkers were in their famous 1946 strike. So I couldn’t return to work until the strike was over. I did, however, return to work shortly after the strike was over. I think it was in April of 1946. And I have been working continuously there ever since.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee whether or not you were a member of the Communist Party at the time that your pass was lifted?

Mr. Dennett. I was.

Mr. Tavenner. How long had you been a member?

Mr. Dennett. Well, originally I joined the Communist Party in 1931.

Mr. Tavenner. 1931?

Mr. Dennett. I was in active membership in the Communist Party until the time I went into the Civilian Conservation Corps. During the year I was in the CCC I was not an active member of the Communist Party. As a matter of fact, I was under some cloud. The leadership of the party at that time disapproved of some of my activities and some of my policies, and I certainly disapproved of some of theirs. It was sort of a mutual disagreement. And they were satisfied to leave me alone while I was in the CCC, and I was satisfied that they did.

However, upon my return from the CCC, as soon as I went to work on the waterfront, the conditions under which we were working at that time were so repulsive that it was no wonder that the workers there were seriously contemplating strike action. With my prior knowledge about trade unions and some knowledge of political activity, it was only natural that I should assume a position of leadership among those workers. And when the strike was called I was elected to leadership in that strike committee. It was at that moment that the Communist Party found it very convenient to make new approaches to me and to try to enlist my efforts in their behalf. I was willing and I did cooperate and I became a member again in good standing.

Mr. Tavenner. What date was that?

Mr. Dennett. 1935.

Mr. Tavenner. I think it may be well at this point, before I ask you any detail about your knowledge of Communist Party activities, as a matter of general background for the committee, you should state briefly the various positions you have held in the Communist Party, and the opportunity you have had to know of Communist Party activities.

Mr. Dennett. I have held nearly all the organizational positions in the lower ranks of the party. That is, I have been a branch organizer, sometimes called branch, sometimes called unit. I have been an educational director in a branch, I have been a section organizer, I have been a fraction secretary, I have been a district agitprop director. That is a combination of two words—agitation and propaganda. I doubt that the term is used very much any more. It would be comparable to educational work now.

I have been a member of the district bureau of the Communist Party. I was a member of the secretariat of the Communist Party in district 12 on 2 different occasions. The secretariat is a group of perhaps 2 or 3 persons who are responsible for the daily activities of the Communist Party and the way in which the various branches and sections are carrying out the Communist Party policy program. I think that covers it.

Mr. Tavenner. What was the last position you held in the Communist Party?

Mr. Dennett. I think the last position was that of an educational director in a branch.

Mr. Tavenner. What was the date?

Mr. Dennett. I think that would be in 1946 or 1947.

Mr. Tavenner. Are you a member of the Communist Party now?

Mr. Dennett. I am not.

Mr. Tavenner. Over what period of time were you an active member in the Communist Party?

Mr. Dennett. With the 2 exceptions of the CCC and the term of service in the Army, from 1931 to 1947.

Mr. Tavenner. I believe in 1947 you were expelled from the Communist Party?

Mr. Dennett. That is correct.

Mr. Tavenner. With that general background I would like to go back, Mr. Dennett, to the inception of your membership in the Communist Party.

You have said that that was in 1931. And the committee would be interested to learn what the circumstances were under which you became a member of the Communist Party. By that I mean why you joined the Communist Party as well as the mechanics that were used in your becoming a member.

Mr. Dennett. Well, I would remind the committee and those who have read the record of a statement I made at the other hearing. I was named after Eugene V. Debs. I am very proud of that. It should be remembered that Eugene V. Debs was the leading Socialist in the United States of America for a great many years.

I was virtually born into the Socialist movement. My parents admired Debs very much, and my father was an active leading Socialist. Therefore, I had a great deal of knowledge of the Socialist movement as a child. In fact, I had the honor of appearing on the same platform with Eugene V. Debs in Old Peoples Hall in Boston. He was making a political speech. I had a great admiration for the man and I felt greatly honored to be named after him.

In the period following the First World War after my mother’s death, my father and I moved to the farm in the West. That was in 1919. Those who may have some knowledge of the history of that period will remember that following the First World War there was a depression in agriculture. Those who farmed suffered a continuing crisis, and we were trying to farm.

So we were confronted daily with the problem of how in the world do you get out of a depression. And, frankly, we did not find any solution to it.

I went on to school being firmly convinced, as a result of what I had seen as a child, having seen workers defeated time after time in strikes and in disputes, I became thoroughly convinced that the most priceless thing that anyone could obtain would be a full and complete education. And I hoped to receive one. I don’t think I ever received as much as I wanted.

Finally, after obtaining my teaching certificate and beginning to teach—you remember the year was 1928. And in 1929 the stock market crashed. And it wasn’t very long before the effects of that economic interruption began to be felt throughout the land. And among the first to feel it were the teachers, at least in the State of Oregon with which I was then familiar.

The teachers were required to accept great discounts in order to cash their warrants—15, 20, and in some cases 25 percent discounts were taken by the banks to cash the teachers’ warrants. And teachers were generally receiving at that time about $100 per month.

I was fortunate. I was teaching in a district which was a rather wealthy district, and they were not on a warrant basis.

But I began to have great apprehension because most of the teachers I knew were suffering this way. And this was in 1931.

Of course, I had been concerned about economic problems over most of my life. And when I was a high school boy I read Marx’s Das Kapital, and I was somewhat acquainted with his theory of economics. And I was quite disturbed at this economic crash which began with the stock market crash of 1929.

So I was looking for some organization which might give some kind of an answer. In fact, I think that I told some of my friends that I was actually looking for the Communist Party for 2 years before I found it.

In 1931 my father sent me a notice of a Civil Rights Conference to be held in Portland, Oreg. This conference was being called to organize a defense for some people in Portland who had been accused of violating the criminal syndicalism law in the State of Oregon. They were alleged to be Communists. Some of them I later learned actually were Communists. My father was unable to attend the conference. So he asked me to go. I went. There I met the first Communists. The first one that I met was Mr. Fred Walker, and a person by the name of Paul Munter.

Mr. Moulder. May I interrupt? Is that the Civil Rights Congress?

Mr. Dennett. It wasn’t a congress, it was a conference.

Mr. Moulder. Civil Rights Conference?

Mr. Dennett. Yes, sir.

Mr. Moulder. Was it an organization?

Mr. Dennett. No. It was certainly a temporary organization for that particular case.

Mr. Moulder. Who was the leadership of that?

Mr. Dennett. It was organized under the auspices of the International Labor Defense, better known as the ILD.

And they had their attorney at this conference who gave an explanation of the case, an explanation of the law, and outlined the program of the International Labor Defense for the purpose of trying to win that case.

I was very much impressed by his presentation. Later on, years later, I was still more impressed when I learned that he actually had met with success, because after the persons who were charged then had been convicted he appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court, and the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of Dirk De Jonge which held that the criminal syndicalism statute in the State of Oregon was invalid. And the decision was reversed. Those convictions were reversed that way.

So you see that my interest and introduction was of a twofold character: One, I was impressed with the economic problems that were not being solved. I was also impressed with what appeared to me to be an invasion of the civil rights of individuals to think and act as they pleased in political matters.

Mr. Tavenner. Did you state the first person you knew as a Communist was a man by the name of Walker?

Mr. Dennett. Yes, Fred Walker.

Mr. Tavenner. Do you know whether Mr. Fred Walker held any position in the Communist Party at that time?

Mr. Dennett. At that time he was the section organizer of the Communist Party in Portland, Oreg.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee whether or not, as a result of your attendance at that conference and your discussions with Mr. Fred Walker, you became a member of the Communist Party?

Mr. Dennett. It was not immediate, but it was soon after that that I became a member of the Communist Party. Actually I wanted to become a member of the Communist Party, and they were a little bit fearful that since I was a teacher that maybe there was some kind of bourgeois corruption there that they were afraid of. And they insisted that if I wanted to join the ranks of the Communist Party it would be necessary for me to take a little schooling.

So they offered me an opportunity to attend some classes which they had organized, classes in labor history, classes in analyzing the role and functions of the Communist Party? And they had other classes. I do not recall exactly what they were. But these 2 were the 2 main groups.

Mr. Tavenner. Was this a recognized school of the Communist Party or what was it?

Mr. Dennett. Well, it was a school that was organized by the section in Portland under Fred Walker’s leadership. It had the approval of the district leadership.

Mr. Tavenner. Of the Communist Party?

Mr. Dennett. And they were following the outlines which were sent out by the Workers School of New York, which was the center of the Communist Party.

Mr. Tavenner. Was it unquestionably a Communist Party function that was being performed?

Mr. Dennett. Very distinctly so. We used 2 important textbooks, 1 by Bimba, and 1 by Forner, in those schools. Both of them on labor history.

Mr. Tavenner. Who were the teachers in that school?

Mr. Dennett. Fred Walker taught some of them. Munter taught some of them.

Mr. Tavenner. Do you know his first name?

Mr. Dennett. Paul Munter, I believe.

And then there was another fellow by the name of Rodney. His last name was Rodney, R-o-d-n-e-y.

My recollection of him is due to the fact that at that time he was some kind of under secretary or employed by the YMCA in Portland. I did not then know him as a member of the Communist Party either. I heard later that he did join the Communist Party. But at the moment or at the time that he was teaching this class in labor history I did not understand him to be a member of the Communist Party.

Mr. Tavenner. Was your attendance at this school prior to your becoming a member or after you had become a member?

Mr. Dennett. It was prior; it was before joining.

Mr. Tavenner. Were there others in this school besides yourself?

Mr. Dennett. Yes.

Mr. Tavenner. How many?

Mr. Dennett. My recollection is between 15 and 20.

Mr. Tavenner. Due to the fact that you have told us that you, yourself were not a member at that time, is it possible that others in attendance likewise were in a similar category and not actual members of the Communist Party at that time?

Mr. Dennett. I am quite sure that was true, that most of them who attended that class were not members of the Communist Party, but they were curious, and their curiosity had been aroused because of what appeared to all of us was an attempt at oppression by the use of the criminal syndicalism statute against unemployed veterans and unemployed workers and other people, and particularly some foreign-born people.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee, please, to what extent did this training that you had in this particular school prepare you for the role you later played in the Communist Party? Did it amount to anything? Was the instruction effective? Did it serve to instill the spirit of the Communist Party in you?

Mr. Dennett. I certainly felt that it did. As a matter of fact, I was one of those teachers who considered that most of our teaching methods were quite inappropriate for the best benefit to the child. I felt that what is characterized as the lock-step system of education is inadequate to our modern needs. And I finally despaired of ever hoping to be able to do what I felt should be done as a teacher.

Mr. Moulder. Just what do you refer to there? I mean in what respect?

Mr. Dennett. The rigidity with which big school systems are straitjacketed. Courses of study are laid out in an ironclad fashion, and there is no opportunity for teachers to attempt to satisfy the needs or the growing needs of the child.

Now remember this was in 1932. There have been a great many changes in most of the school systems since then. And while I was personally not under that kind of restraint, I knew many teachers in the city of Portland who felt that they were at that time. And I was an active member of the Classroom Teachers Association in Portland—or not in Portland, but in the State of Oregon.

We were always concerned with this problem, and we felt that it was very difficult, almost hopeless to expect to make the improvement which needed to be made.

The Communists introduced me to some of the writings of Frederick Engels and Nicolai Lenin, and I found these writings to be very illuminating. I found them to throw a great deal of light on the development of economic and political crises. And they intrigued me by showing me a set of what is known as the Lenin library. I believe there were about 8 or 10 volumes of it published at that time. And I purchased the whole business. I think it cost me about $15. And I proceeded to read voraciously. I read everything there was in it, and I was very much impressed by the analysis, the penetrating analysis which Lenin made of all of the various political movements that existed way back at the turn of the century in 1900. All these things caused me to feel that there was more here than the average person realized, and I hoped that I was finding the solution to the problems which beset mankind.

Mr. Tavenner. Inasmuch as all persons in attendance were not members of the Communist Party, I am not going to ask you to give me the names of all who participated in that school. But I will ask you to give us the names of any of those who participated in that school who later became functionaries in the Communist Party during the period of time that you were a member.

Mr. Dennett. That is an awfully long time ago, and I did not keep any record of those persons.

Frankly, outside of Fred Walker and Paul Munter and this fellow Rodney, I do not recall distinctly enough to be certain in my own mind. I think that a couple of persons attended there whose names would come up at a later period. But I couldn’t be certain of identifying them in that period.

Mr. Tavenner. How long did you attend this course of training?

Mr. Dennett. I think it was about 3 months.

Mr. Tavenner. Was it an intensive training course?

Mr. Dennett. Yes; it was. I believe the classes were at least twice a week, and there was a great deal of reading and study to be done with it. And they found that I was a ready and willing subject. So they assigned reports to me very frequently. And I made many of them.

Mr. Tavenner. How soon after the completion of that work, or was it during the period of that course of training that you became a member of the Communist Party?

Mr. Dennett. It was during that time. I think within 6 weeks after I started they satisfied themselves that I was sincerely trying to be a good Communist.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee, please, what mechanics were used for bringing you into the party?

Mr. Dennett. Well, at that time the party was what is generally referred to as underground. They were very much afraid of their own existence and their own identity. And they were particularly fearful of agents of the police entering their ranks. And they viewed all persons with great suspicion, especially these foreign-born workers. And they used to spend a great deal of time talking with me, inquiring into every phase of my life and my background and my existence, giving me in their own way the third degree to determine whether or not I was trustworthy and whether or not I was worth being a member of the ranks.

Mr. Tavenner. Now as you look back upon it, do you think that that careful study of your past and your capabilities was rather in the way of choosing you for future leadership in the party as distinguished from membership in the Communist Party?

Mr. Dennett. No. I think that so far as they were concerned, they looked upon all persons entering the party as equals. That is, they did not predetermine who was going to be a leader and who wasn’t going to be a leader. But they were determined to work each new member to the utmost until they got the most out of each one that they could. And in my case I responded by studying very intensely, and they had great hopes that I would develop into the kind of leader which they needed.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you proceed, please, to tell us about your induction into the Communist Party?

Mr. Dennett. Some of that is rather indistinct at this period. There are only snatches of it that are vivid.

One thing that is quite vivid is one of the foreign-born workers warning me that they had to deal rather vigorously with traitors. That seemed to be their chief obsession.

Mr. Tavenner. Do you mean traitors to the cause of communism?

Mr. Dennett. Yes. That seemed to be their chief concern.

Mr. Moulder. In what period of time are we now?

Mr. Dennett. That is still in 1931.

Finally they told me that my name had been submitted to the party as a candidate for membership. And after—I think it was about a month delay—they informed me that the membership had passed upon my name, and that I had been accepted. And they invited me to party meetings.

Mr. Tavenner. Did you become a member under your own name or were you given a pseudonym?

Mr. Dennett. I was given what is known as a party name. All the party records and documents were kept in that name. However, it always seemed rather ridiculous to me because alongside of the party name there was always my real name anyway.

Mr. Tavenner. What was your party name?

Mr. Dennett. Victor Haines, H-a-i-n-e-s.

Mr. Tavenner. Did you have anything to do with the selection of it, or was it selected for you?

Mr. Dennett. Yes; I had something to do with selecting it. When they told me that I had to choose a party name I asked for help on it, and the only help they could offer was to use the name of J. P. Morgan or John D. Rockefeller or Henry Ford or something like that. They were always suggesting the most prominent capitalists as the party pseudonym.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee, please, what your first activity was in the Communist Party after becoming a member?

Mr. Dennett. I believe that I was first assigned to carry on this classwork in Portland, to keep this school going that was started. But that didn’t last very long because at that time the district organizer of the party was a man by the name of Alex Noral, who was here in Seattle.

And Noral was troubled because they were unable to get someone to fill the function of a district agitprop director here in Seattle. So he was asking Fred Walker to come to Seattle to be the agitprop director because Fred Walker had organized such a successful school in Portland and had done such splendid work which met with the district approval.

Walker, however, had personal reasons for not wanting to leave Portland. So he requested me to accept the assignment to Seattle. And I was perplexed as to what to do. I was in the middle of a school teaching year, but I was becoming more convinced all the time that there was no future in teaching—at least the way I wanted to do it. So I accepted, under a great deal of pressure, the assignment to come to Seattle. And that was, I say, under a great deal of pressure, too, because the way I was approached on it was that “Well, now you are a member of the party. You do what the party tells you to do, and you go where the party wants you to “go.”

Mr. Moulder. May I interrupt at that point before you start on your Seattle testimony?

I am curious to know, during that period of time when there were no laws prohibiting membership in the Communist Party, why there was direction that you operate underground or under false names?

Mr. Dennett. You remember I spoke about the criminal syndicalism prosecutions in Oregon. The members of the party were being accused of violating the criminal syndicalism statute.

Mr. Moulder. A statute?

Mr. Dennett. In Oregon, yes. And they considered that they were under attack for illegality.

Mr. Velde. May I ask a question?

Mr. Velde. I would like to know at the time you joined the Communist Party, I believe it was in 1931, if you had any idea at that time that the policy of the Communist Party of the United States of America was being dictated by Soviet Russia?

Mr. Dennett. Well, there is a sort of mixed answer to that.

I had been reading the Daily Worker. I had been reading the Butte Daily Bulletin. I was somewhat familiar with the international politics in which there was conflicting interest between the United States and the Soviet Union. But it was reconciled in my thinking with the firm conviction that the Communist Party was attempting to serve the interests of the working class all over the world and that in doing so there would be no conflict so far as we were concerned. Now that was the way it was resolved in my mind at that time.

Mr. Velde. I think that is true of many early Communist Party members.

Mr. Tavenner. Without going into detail, did your views continue to be the same or were they altered as time went on in the course of your Communist Party work?

Mr. Dennett. It didn’t take very long after I reached Seattle before I had my first rude awakening. I was naive enough to believe that it was proper for anyone to ask any question at any time in a party meeting. But after coming to Seattle and being assigned as the district agitprop director, believing that my duty required that I should supervise the production of leaflets and propaganda which was being issued, I was naive enough to ask what were my various duties. And the answer I got from Mr. Noral was to the effect that anybody knows what that is, which left me completely in the dark.

So I turned to the nearest associate who, at that time was Mr. John Lawrie, Sr., who more or less agreed with me that it was time to get some clear definition as to what the function was. Later on when I insisted upon criticizing a leaflet which Noral had issued he accused me of being some kind of a deviationist. I had only been in the party about 3 months. I didn’t know what the term meant.

Later on he accused me of being a Trotskyite. I think he used the term “Trotskyite,” which was a term of derision. And that conflict led ultimately to my being removed as district agitprop director. As a matter of fact, if Noral had carried out his wishes at that time I would have been liquidated.

I didn’t know what he meant by liquidation then, and I think the term was used rather loosely. But he did declare that liquidation was the proper thing to do with deviators such as I at that time.

However, there was another leader in the district by the name of Ed Leavitt, L-e-a-v-i-t-t, who was the organizational secretary, and Leavitt felt that it was improper to deal with me in that fashion, and he felt that since I was a young man at that time that I should be given an opportunity to prove my worth and prove myself. And he prevailed upon the district secretariat, namely, himself, Noral, and Lawrie, to assign me to section organizer in Bellingham. It wasn’t very long before I was banished from the district headquarters and sent to Bellingham to prove myself, which I think I did.

Mr. Moulder. Were you then being compensated?

Mr. Dennett. No, sir.

Mr. Moulder. Or reimbursed for your travels?

Mr. Dennett. I was not. We just bummed our way around.

Mr. Moulder. Were you employed then?

Mr. Dennett. I was unemployed. But we were just living as best we could, from hand to mouth.

I never was on the payroll of the Communist Party.

Mr. Tavenner. I think you should define more specifically what was meant by the term “liquidate.”

Mr. Dennett. Well, in that connection, I believe it occurred during a meeting of the district bureau, in which I had insisted that the grammar of one of Mr. Noral’s leaflets was in need of repair. He insisted that he knew what he was saying and that if anybody else didn’t know it was just too bad. And he proceeded to describe the importance of party discipline.

And in a very boastful way remarked that he was in the Fosterite faction that went to the Soviet Union in 1928 to the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern, and that following the decision of the Sixth World Congress to liquidate factionalism in the American section of the Communist Party, that the Comintern set up a special commission to deal with the American section delegates, dealing with the Foster faction, the Lovestone faction, and the Cannon faction. And he said that since he was in the Foster faction that they, being the largest faction, were called up first.

And when they were called before the commission the chairman of that commission was Josef Stalin, and that Stalin leaned over the rostrum, shook his finger at them, and demanded to know, “Do you or do you not submit to the authority of the Comintern and its decisions?”

Noral said that he very proudly was the first to arise and say that he did submit to it. And he gave that to us as an illustration of the kind of discipline that we must expect and that we must follow.

Mr. Moulder. Mr. Dennett and Mr. Tavenner, would you like to have a recess at this time?

Mr. Tavenner. Yes.

Mr. Moulder. The committee will stand in recess for a period of 5 minutes.

(Whereupon a short recess was taken.)

Mr. Moulder. The committee will be in order.

Proceed, Mr. Tavenner.

Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to call the witness, Mr. Jerry O’Connell.

Mr. Jerry O’Connell. Is he present?

(There was no response.)

Mr. Tavenner. May I ask that he be called in the corridor?

Mr. Moulder. Mr. Officer, would you call the witness Jerry O’Connell in the corridor?

Is there anyone here, an attorney representing the witness Mr. O’Connell?

(There was no response.)

Mr. Moulder. Proceed, Mr. Tavenner.

Is there any announcement you wish to make on that, Mr. Tavenner?

Mr. Velde. May I inquire of Mr. Tavenner or Mr. Wheeler, was Jerry O’Connell served with a subpena?

Mr. Tavenner. Yes, sir; he was.

Mr. Moulder. For appearance here today?

Mr. Tavenner. Yes, sir.

Mr. Velde. I think it would be appropriate at this point to have the subpena and the return thereon entered in the record.

Mr. Tavenner. I would like to interrupt the course of this testimony and produce to the committee a copy of the subpena served on Mr. Jerry O’Connell, and call the committee’s attention to the return which shows that it was served at 12 minutes to 9 p. m., March 8, 1955, at his residence, 3415 Central Avenue, Great Falls, Mont., signed Harold Mady, chief of police.

I desire to offer the document in evidence and ask that it be marked as “O’Connell Exhibit No. 1,” for identification purposes only and to be made a part of the committee files.

Mr. Moulder. It is so ordered.

Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Dennett, you were asked a question by one of the members of the subcommittee with reference to your knowledge at the time you became a member of the Communist Party as to what control, if any, that a foreign power had, over the Communist Party in this country, and you explained that.

I would like to carry that point a little further at this time.

While you were a member of the Communist Party were you acquainted with an organization known as the Trade Union Unity League?

Mr. Dennett. I was.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee, please, briefly, what that organization was?

Mr. Dennett. Well, it was an effort on the part of the Communist leadership in this country to bring about the organization of unorganized workers. It had the idea that they should be organized in industrial unions. This is because its leader was William Z. Foster, and William Z. Foster had been an active leader in A. F. of L. unions. As a matter of fact, he was the leader of the great steel strike of 1919, and in the course of that strike he drew certain conclusions about the way it was conducted, namely, that it was next to impossible for the workers to obtain the kind of solidarity they needed to win when they were divided into so many different craft organizations.

So it was Foster who gave the greatest attention to this question of getting the maximum strength through organization of the workers in unions. And the Trade Union Unity League was an effort to organize these unorganized workers.

Now to the best of my knowledge some of the greatest success of the Trade Union Unity League occurred right here in the Northwest.

When I came into the district in 1932 there was a comparatively young fellow by the name of James Murphy who was the head of the Trade Union Unity League here. He was a lumberworker. He was a bona fide worker. He knew the language, he knew the habits, and he was able to get around the same as any “bindle stiff.”

For fear some might not understand the use of the term, in the old days loggers had to carry their own blankets when they went from place to place. And the way they carried them caused them to be called bindle stiffs.

These fellows were very adaptable. They were very skillful at traveling under adverse conditions, overcoming all kinds of physical difficulties. The stories of Paul Bunyon are not something out of the figment of the imagination entirely; they grew out of the huge efforts that the Northwest lumberworkers had to make in order to live.

So Murphy was a very successful organizer. He organized a very large number of people in the National Lumberworkers Union. He had an assistant by the name of Roy Brown who was almost equally successful. I do not recall the names of the others who were active in that organization, but I do know that they met with great success organizing miners here in the Northwest. They organized fishermen.

Mr. Tavenner. What connection did those organizations have with the Trade Union Unity League?

Mr. Dennett. They were all national unions in the Trade Union Unity League. And one of the greatest successful organizing drives was conducted among fishermen here in the Northwest.

A person who is now deceased, by the name of Emil Linden, was profoundly successful in organizing fishermen on the Columbia River and here in Puget Sound.

Mr. Tavenner. Was he successful in the organization of groups affiliated with the Trade Union Unity League?

Mr. Dennett. That is right.

The fishermen’s unions, as a matter of fact, had the distinction of having been organized and affiliated directly with the Red International of Labor Unions, which had a headquarters in Prague at that time.

Mr. Tavenner. What do you mean by saying that the Trade Union Unity League was affiliated with or a part of the Red International of Labor Unions?

Mr. Dennett. Well, they paid dues to an international organization, and this particular fishermen’s group which originated here were affiliated directly with the Red International of Labor Unions, and they paid dues directly to the headquarters in Prague.

Mr. Tavenner. Did that make them virtually a part of the Red International of Labor Unions?

Mr. Dennett. They were.

Mr. Moulder. What period of time was that?

Mr. Dennett. That was way back in about 1931 or 1932, or 1932 or 1933.

Mr. Tavenner. Where was the seat of the headquarters of the Red International of Labor Unions?

Mr. Dennett. At that time it was in Prague.

Mr. Tavenner. Among the documents which you have turned over to the staff of the committee and which we have examined is one entitled “The Trade Union Unity League, Affiliated to the Red International of Labor Unions.”

Will you examine it and state whether or not you can identify it as one of the documents which you turned over to us?

(Document handed to the witness.)

Mr. Dennett. If it has got my initials on it is mine; and it has.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you return it, please?

Mr. Chairman, I think I should read into the record at this point several paragraphs which I see in this document.

Mr. Moulder. Very well.

Mr. Tavenner (reading):

The national center of the revolutionary industrial union movement in the United States is the Trade Union Unity League, organized in Cleveland, August 31, 1929. The TUUL coordinates and binds all the revolutionary union forces into one united organization. It leads and directs the general struggle of the new union movement. It is the American section of the Red International of Labor Unions.

Is that just what you have been telling us, Mr. Witness?

Mr. Dennett. Correct.

Mr. Tavenner. I desire to read again from page 35 of this document.

In the event of an imperialist war it will mobilize the workers to struggle against American imperialism and to transform this war into a class war against the capitalist system itself.

Do you recall that as one of the objectives of the Trade Union Unity League?

Mr. Dennett. Yes, of course, I do. It is very plain. It is in black and white. I think that it has to be admitted by anyone with any knowledge of the subject that that was the objective, that was the policy. That goes back a long way. That goes back to Lenin’s teaching. It goes back to the teachings of Marx. In fact, it goes back to the teachings of almost any of the philosophers, the idea that when a given set of circumstances becomes impossible to withstand it is to be expected that somebody is going to break the bonds somewhere.

Mr. Tavenner. I find this following paragraph on the same page under the title “Defend Soviet Union”:

The Trade Union Unity League especially organizes and educates the masses to fight in defense of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is the stronghold of the world’s working class. It is the cause of the workers in all countries. The overthrow of the Soviet Union by the capitalists would mean not only the slaughter of tens of thousands of Russian workers but would mark the beginning of the worst period of reaction internationally that the world has ever known. It would lead to widespread Fascist terrorism, and wholesale destruction of workers’ economic, political, and cultural organizations and the wiping out of conditions won by the workers through a century of sacrifice and struggle. It would throw back for decades the development of the world labor movement.

The workers must fight to the end in defense of the Soviet Union.

Is that paragraph in accord with what you understood at the time to be the objectives of the Trade Union Unity League?

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.

There was great apprehension on the part of our district bureau about the action. We feared that perhaps the Communist Party was going nationalist on us, and we thought that was a heinous crime, that you should always be internationalists. And Browder was reassuring us that the Communist philosophy was still internationalist and would continue to be internationalist, but that the formal connection and the formal affiliations would have to be dispensed with.

He felt that the party was strong enough to travel along the road, as it needed to, without the direct intervention of the Comintern.

And, of course, it was shortly after that the Comintern itself was dissolved.

Mr. Tavenner. How long did this organization, the Trade Union Unity League, remain in effect in this area? And when I say in effect, I mean in existence.

Mr. Dennett. Until the organization of the CIO.

As the organization of the CIO approached or became clear that it was going to come in, the policy of the Red International of Labor Unions was modified by the international headquarters in Prague. It was modified because the 12th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International had reviewed the developing world situation, had noted with alarm the rise of fascism in Germany, and resolved that somewhere their policies were not being too effective and, therefore, they must make certain modifications and allow for a little more flexibility than they had before.

You must understand that one of the conditions which existed as a condition for organizing these Red trade unions was that those workers so organized were virtually obliged to declare their loyalty to the cause of the Communist Party. Now that did not mean that they had to be members of it, but it meant that they had to express their sympathy with the efforts of the Soviet people and they had to accept the idea that the objectives of the working class and of the Communist Party were the same.

Therefore, they didn’t meet with much success in the United States in organizing these Red trade unions because the average worker who was confronted with this choice would say, “The devil with you.” He wouldn’t make a choice of that kind.

Mr. Tavenner. In other words, they realized they could not sell communism to the rank and file of American labor if it knew what they were buying.

Mr. Dennett. They certainly couldn’t sell it under that label to the American worker. They rejected it.

Mr. Tavenner. A label is for the purpose of describing an item; is it not?

Mr. Dennett. I can accept your statement; I think you are right. I think that confirms our experience.

Mr. Moulder. This was in a period, the conditions and circumstances of which offered a ripe opportunity for the exploitation of labor in this country by the Communist organizations.

Mr. Dennett. That is very true. And you must understand that we met with an uneven success.

I have described to you that in the Northwest we did meet with great success among the lumber workers, among the miners, and among the fishermen. We did meet with great success there because a very large number of those workers originally had been with the Industrial Workers of the World. And they weren’t afraid of a Red label. Wherever you found workers who were not afraid of a Red label they could accept such organization in good faith. But in most of the industrial centers in the East except in places where desperation was at the breaking point they did not meet with success.

I am thinking now of the situation which obtained in the textile mills of Lowell, Lawrence, and Haverhill following the First World War. In those places the Industrial Workers of the World were successful in offering leadership to those workers. And it is true that in some parts of the South, contrary to the usual idea, in some parts of the South the Red leaders were quite successful in organizing.

I remember vividly the Gastonia strike, and that was completely Red leadership. There is no question about it. They were the only ones that had the tenacity to stay with it under such adverse circumstances. But they stayed with it and they met with great success. They organized thousands and thousands and thousands of workers.

Mr. Tavenner. Would you say, generally speaking, the rank and file of labor would not accept the Communist Party if the Communist Party label were on it?

Mr. Dennett. That is true. They wouldn’t accept even the red cards which were used.

It was a peculiar thing. It seemed as though it was a badge of honor to some people, but something of a shock and surprise to others that the membership cards very often were printed in a very deep red color in the various unions of the Trade Union Unity League. And, of course, some of the membership cards of the Communist Party at that time were in identically the same color. The only addition was the hammer and sickle was imposed upon it as well. And it would be a very easy matter to become mixed up or confused if you didn’t look carefully at some of those cards in that period of time.

But to complete the point that you are concerned with at this moment, it is true that the program as set forth by the Red International of Labor Unions did not meet with the uniform success which they hoped for in the United States. So in 1935—I believe it was in 1935, it may have been a little bit earlier than that—following the 12th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International’s decision that a sharp turn must be made in the mass work, that they must combat the rise of fascism by allowing greater flexibility to organize masses to resist the onrush of fascism, they took note of the situation in the United States and concluded that they could not prescribe the exact conditions under which to organize the workers in the United States.

That gave the opening which permitted the top leadership of the Communist Party in the United States to grant the request of most of the organizers in the Trade Union Unity League to dissolve their organizations and permit them to join the new rising organizations which were developing as industrial unions, and also to join the appropriate American Federation of Labor unions.

In other words, at the time of the split between the A. F. of L. and the CIO in the United States of America the Communist movement declared that it was logical and necessary to give up its own identity, which it did when it sacrificed the industrial unions that it had organized. And by 1935 they issued instructions that the industrial unions under the Trade Union Unity League must dissolve.

And I recall the regret which some of the fishermen had in having to give up their affiliation with the Red International of Labor Unions and go into what they call the “finky” organization, the International Seamen’s Union. They didn’t like it. They resented it. But nevertheless, as good soldiers, they obeyed the order. Later on it didn’t take them more than a couple of years when they were embarrassed whenever I would remind them that they had a Red origin. And the leadership there came to dislike me with a very firm resolve because I would never permit them to forget that they did have a Red origin and that I was ashamed of them being backward about taking progressive steps.

They caused me no end of concern because they were trying to be as conservative as the stanchest Republican when, in fact, they had a very, very Red origin.

Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Dennett, would it be correct to analyze the situation you have described generally in this way: Beginning in 1935, and from then on, when the Red international of labor unions gave up the idea of having its own organizations within labor under its own label in this country, was the principal problem in dealing with the question of communism a matter of infiltration or attempted infiltration by the Communists into the leadership of all the unions in which they had a chance to gain leadership?

Mr. Dennett. Well, I recognize that the term infiltration is used to imply generally that somebody did something with a secret purpose.

Now that may have been true. So far as my own knowledge is concerned, we took it in stride. We didn’t think that there was anything special about it. We declared our objective to be the organization of all the workers. And, of course, we were part of all the workers. And as long as we could maintain that philosophy we were satisfied that we were part of the organization.

Mr. Tavenner. When you say part of the organization, what do you mean?

Mr. Dennett. I mean that those members that were organized by the Communist Party in the Trade Union Unity League, when they gave up their identity as members of a Trade Union Unity League organization, such as the national lumberworker’s union or the fishermen’s union or the miner’s union or something of that kind, they had the opportunity to become members of the appropriate union which was organizing in that field. In the case of the Northwest it was at that time the woodworkers federation, which was organized, in part, under the leadership of the carpenters and joiners, but against the wishes of the top leadership of the carpenters and joiners.

The top leadership, especially Mr. Hutcheson (William), was fearful of these rebels from the Northwest. He was afraid that if they became organized strong that they might cause him some trouble in his organization. And he put in a great deal of effort to see to it that they didn’t succeed in that.

Well, it is true that these rough-and-ready lumberworkers were willing to take on all comers so far as opposition was concerned. And Mr. Hutcheson seemed to be no bother to them, no more than anyone else would be. They didn’t fear anyone. They just proceeded to organize as best they could. But they were so thoroughly indoctrinated with the old Wobbly notions, that is, the Industrial Workers of the World ideas, they were very strong individualists, and they didn’t take kindly to the kind of discipline which doesn’t explain why it gives an order, and, consequently, the Communists in the woodworkers had a great deal of trouble.

As a matter of fact, the organization of the woodworkers federation was punctuated with stormy upheavals at every convention. The various caucuses which were led by the Communists and led by some of the old Industrial Workers of the World and led by some of those who wanted their loyalty to the carpenters and joiners and some who wanted their loyalty to the new organization of the CIO, these various groups were unable to compose and resolve their differences. It was never completely resolved. To this day it is not completely resolved.

The result of it today is that, well, of course, I realize there is a new merger in prospect, but the lumber workers in the Northwest were divided between the A. F. of L. and the CIO to such an extent that they were unable to use their full strength to bring it to bear during negotiations with their employers, and they have suffered very, very much here in the Northwest.

Mr. Velde. You are making a very fine story of the methods used by the Communist Party in infiltrating labor unions.

I want to ask you this: from your experience as a member of the Communist Party, which of the unions in this area were most successfully infiltrated by the Communist Party?

Mr. Moulder. May I ask during what period of time?

Mr. Velde. During the whole period of time since the Communists started infiltrating.

Mr. Dennett. I think it would have to be said that it was lumber. Actually, to begin with, it was the marine unions. The organization of the Maritime Federation of the Pacific was something that was inspired by the Communist Party because the Communist Party called for the organization of industrial unions, industrial organization. And that was a result of Foster’s leadership.

Mr. Velde. You think they were more successful in lumber than in the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union?

Mr. Dennett. Yes, I do. I do for the reason that in the maritime unions at the outset the Communists furnished the aggressive leadership which initiated the organization of all of the maritime unions, but it didn’t take very long before those workers, upon getting together, found that they had differences with those leaders. And the sailors union particularly made a sharp break with the Communists early in 1935, not over the issue of Communists but over tactical application of policy.

The Communists at that time were opposed to Harry Lundeberg’s organization of the tanker strike. And Mr. Lundeberg felt that he had the right to go out and improve the conditions of a contract by a process known as job action.

Now the Communists couldn’t possibly condone a thing like that because that permits individual action, and the Communist philosophy and theory did not permit variations of that kind.

It is also true that the old conservative leaders in the labor movement likewise frowned upon such an action. So you will find that if you have familiarity with it you will very often find that the most conservative people and the most radical people, if you go to the point of referring to the Communists, you very often will find that they are in agreement more on policy and on discipline than other people in between. Because both extremes depend upon centralized authority in order to maintain their positions, whereas the other people in between are a little bit more apt to make their decision on the basis of the merits of the given situation—a little more flexibility.

Mr. Velde. Before you get back to your story, let me ask you this:

The distinguished chairman was not present at our hearings here last June, but I am sure that counsel and our investigator and Mr. Dennett, too, recognize the fact that the great majority of the loyal labor unions in this area cooperated with this committee 100 percent last June. While our gratitude was expressed at that time, I again want to express gratitude to these local labor unions who cooperated with this committee and did everything within the bounds of reason to eliminate the Communist movement from this area.

Mr. Dennett. Mr. Chairman, may I be privileged to just make one comment about that?

Mr. Moulder. Yes.

Mr. Dennett. I have conferred with Mr. Wheeler, and I have expressed the idea to Mr. Tavenner that I think that it is a mistaken idea to refer to me as a cooperative witness or to refer to another witness as an uncooperative witness. I am here to testify to facts that I know. And I think that the question of cooperation is sometimes subject to misconstruction.

And the reason I say that, is because the other day while I was conferring with Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Tavenner and my counsel, I received a phone call, and this phone call had a conversation of two words that came from the other end. A person said, “Rat—stool pigeon.”

I am sorry that people who have been my friends over the years cannot see that I feel that it is my duty and my obligation to testify as to facts. I am sorry that they feel as embarrassed or bitter as they do.

I suppose before these hearings are over I will probably have as many people hate me as people even know me. That is not my concern.

I recognize that we do have some major problems to resolve, and I am fully aware that the Congress of the United States has made efforts in many different directions, many of which I am not in agreement with.

But I think that I do owe the obligation to you gentlemen and to the Congress and to my fellow Americans, that to the best of my knowledge, I will give you the benefit of my knowledge and my experience, and we will just let the chips fall where they may.

Mr. Velde. I don’t want to become involved in an argument with you.

Mr. Dennett. I don’t either.

I wanted to take an opportunity to say that, so I said it.

Mr. Velde. In my use of the word cooperate, and saying that the great majority of the labor unions cooperated with us, possibly I did misuse the term, but I wanted to again express my appreciation for the way they responded, let us say, to the evidence we produced here at the last hearings.

Mr. Moulder. I would like to say I think you are entitled to be complimented, and to the respect of the Congress of the United States and fellow American citizens, for the sincere and conscientious manner in which you are now testifying as to the facts.

Mr. Dennett. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Velde. I think you will find, Mr. Dennett, that you will have a lot more friends now after you get through testifying in this area than you had when you relied on the fifth amendment and refused to answer questions at a previous hearing.

Mr. Dennett. Without trying to prolong this, I would just say that I feel a keen obligation to one group of people, and that is the fellows that I work with on the job. The fellows that I have worked closest with have always had confidence in my integrity, and even when I have been under the sharpest attacks they have remained confident that my integrity would stand up.

Mr. Moulder. You should have more of them now.

Mr. Dennett. To them I feel the greatest obligation. And it is mainly for them that I am testifying here today, and I hope that it will be of satisfactory use to you.

Mr. Tavenner, for your benefit, during the recess I found something which I did not know that I could find, on this question of Mr. Stalin’s insistence upon iron discipline, and I found it in a little pamphlet: The Soviets and the Individual. I do not recall the year in which this was published. I will see if I can find a date on it. Well, this is an address that he delivered to the Red Army Academy, in the Kremlin, on May 4, 1935, and in the course of it he makes a remark like this:

Of course, it never even occurred to us to leave the Leninist road. More, having established ourselves on this road, we pushed forward still more vigorously brushing every obstacle from our path. It is true that in our course we were obliged to handle some of these comrades roughly. But you cannot help that. I must confess that I, too, took a hand in this business.

Mr. Tavenner. I believe that was after the first set of purges but before the second.

Mr. Dennett. I read that to corroborate the oral information which was passed on to me from Alex Noral.

(The witness confers with his counsel.)

Mr. Tavenner. Let us return at this point to that period of your Communist Party experience when you were assigned as agitprop or agitation propagandist in Seattle.

You have told us that you were relieved from that position. But how long did you serve in that capacity here?

Mr. Dennett. My memory is a little indistinct as to how long. It was only a very few months. It seems to me that it was between April of 1932 and some time in the summer of 1932 because I am quite sure that I went to Bellingham as the section organizer late in 1932.

Mr. Tavenner. The committee would be interested in learning the nature of your activities while engaged as an agitprop in Seattle.

Mr. Dennett. Actually in that first assignment no one seemed to know exactly what my duties were. I was struggling to find out. In the process of it I learned that the head of an agitprop department had to do almost all of his work through the organizational apparatus of the party, and it was his responsibility to see to it that the organizational structure of the party became thoroughly indoctrinated with the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism, as it was called.

Now the main thing that they were concerned with was to spread the knowledge of the theory and tactics of the class struggle. And I believe from my own study that it must be acknowledged that Lenin was the greatest master of that because Lenin proclaimed that every act has a class character to it, and he contended that every act of the employer is a class-conscious act, every act of the bourgeois politician is a class-conscious act. That was his contention.

And it was his contention that it was necessary for the workers to become thoroughly conscious that this is the nature of our present-day society, and they must learn the methods by which to overcome the ruling class.

Now this stems from the teachings of Marx. Marx originally stated that the capitalist state is the executive committee of the ruling class.

That is an abstraction which is very difficult for the average person to comprehend. I used to think that the reason it was so difficult was because these people had not come into contact with the material experiences which would be convincing.

In later years, since my leaving the party, I have had to reflect upon that a little bit more carefully, and I am rather inclined today to believe that both Marx and Lenin were in error in trying to apply a uniform rule.

I think that it is foolhardy for anyone today to deny that there are many evidences of class warfare which do exist, but I believe that it is also foolhardy to think that those points of conflict are going to be resolved by engaging in class warfare because they lead ultimately to the destruction of either one or both participants in that combat.

Mr. Moulder. May I interrupt you?

You made a very interesting and impressive statement a while ago, that both extreme radicals and extreme conservatives are inclined to assume a position of dictatorship.

In what year are we now on his associations here?

Mr. Tavenner. We are still in Seattle during the period that he was agitprop here.

Mr. Dennett. We are dealing with the question of the theory and tactics of the Communist Party in which it was the responsibility of the agitprop to make certain that it spreads through the ranks so that all the members understand it.

You see, there has been a great deal of effort put in to try to describe the role and function of the Communist Party. The leaders from time to time have gone to great lengths to explain it. But under Stalin’s leadership he resolved that question very firmly and very positively, that the members of the party were soldiers in the ranks, and they were obliged to obey the orders of their superiors. And he enforced that with a determination which I think is unequaled in history.

Mr. Tavenner. Throughout your experience in the Communist Party did you observe instances of iron discipline to which you have referred?

Mr. Dennett. Well, I have been told since my expulsion from the Communist Party that I had the reputation of being one of the worst offenders in the matter of enforcing that discipline. I was very vigorous, and I did try to insist that everyone I came in contact with follow the party line to the very letter. I was among the first to sense any deviation, and I was among the first to insist that steps be taken to correct such deviation. In doing so I thought I was following the party line.

Mr. Tavenner. Let us proceed now to the period when you were transferred to another area.

Will you tell us about that?

Mr. Dennett. I went to Bellingham, Wash., in 1932, and found a party membership, I believe, there of seven persons.

Unemployment was our greatest problem at that time. Everyone was unemployed. And, of course, the Communist Party policy then was to organize unemployment councils. And, of course, we had an unemployment council, and it consisted of seven members.

It was the exact duplicate of the membership in the Communist Party.

No one else would join it. No one else would have anything to do with it.

Mr. Tavenner. In what capacity were you sent to Bellingham?

Mr. Dennett. As section organizer.

I was in charge of the party. I immediately questioned the wisdom of the policy that they had been pursuing where they had two organizations consisting of the same people, doing exactly nothing.

So I began to take rather vigorous steps. I contacted people in the district center and advised them that this was a ridiculous situation and was very unrealistic.

Mr. Tavenner. What do you mean by district center?

Mr. Dennett. Seattle was the district headquarters of the party, and I was trying to win the agreement of Alex Noral to permit me to do something to get more members, at least in the unemployed council, in the hope that if I got them in the unemployed council I might be able to work upon them to win them to membership in the Communist Party.

But Noral was very adamant. He insisted that I must follow the exact directions which the national leader, Herbert Benjamin, had issued with respect to the policy of unemployment councils. And, of course, Herbert Benjamin had earlier outlined that the organization of the unemployed was one of the most important political tasks confronting the party because he called attention to the fact that the Russian revolution had obtained its greatest strength because it had organized the unemployed prior to the 1905 revolt, and that during the course of the 1905 revolt these unemployed organizations became Soviets, they became councils, and that when the 1917 revolution broke out these soviets had been reconstituted and the unemployed had comprised a very essential part of the organization to begin with, and therefore the masses of unemployed in the United States were looked upon as the elementary core around which it might be possible to develop a Soviet power in the United States.

Mr. Moulder. To what period of time are you now referring?

Mr. Dennett. That was in 1932.

We had another situation in Bellingham at that time. Noral had been there prior to my assignment. He wasn’t their section organizer, but he had been there on a visit as the district representative, and he had taken part in disciplining some people who apparently, prior to my arrival, had had ideas similar to my own, namely, that the people who were unemployed should be organized for the purpose of getting some assistance to solve their problems of hunger and housing and clothing, and that that should be the center of our attention.

But Noral was adamant with my predecessor as he was with me and had brought about the expulsion of a person there. A person who is known by the name of M. M. London.

Mr. London had adopted this name of London in honor of Jack London. It was not his real name at all.

But Mr. London was a very sharp-thinking person and very devoted to his neighbors and associates, and felt that the unemployed, the people who were suffering should be fighting for immediate relief whereas the unemployment councils had offered the slogan that the solution must be in the form of unemployment insurance.

Well, to the person who is hungry the hope of unemployment insurance, which required the adoption of legislation, which would take a longer period of time, wasn’t a very realistic thing.

But the demand for immediate relief was a very realistic thing. And the people in Bellingham flocked to the banner of London, and London organized what was known as the people’s councils.

He had as his able assistant a man by the name of George Bradley. George Bradley had had no connection with the Communist Party at that time or prior to that time. George Bradley at that time was an unemployed railroad worker. London, I believe, was an unemployed seaman at that time, who was actually living on a farm.

Mr. Tavenner. What was London’s real name?

Mr. Dennett. I do not know. I never have known. I think he took legal steps to have London established as his proper name. I think that is his legal name.

Mr. Tavenner. Do you know in what court and at what time he took that action?

Mr. Dennett. I have no knowledge of that. I say that I think that is true.

Mr. Tavenner. Proceed.

Mr. Dennett. In a county with a population of, at that time, about 40,000—there were, I guess, about 60,000 in the county, and there were about 40,000 in the city. London had succeeded, London and Bradley had succeeded in organizing the people’s councils until it actually had a dues-paying membership of over 60,000, and we were stewing around with 7 people. And we were trying to contend that our program was a better program than his.

I finally violated district discipline and joined the people’s councils myself. It caused great consternation in the district. The district leader, Mr. Alex Noral, threatened to have me expelled because I had violated discipline. The leaders of the people’s councils were fearful that I had joined to infiltrate their ranks.

So I was damned on both sides. It seems to have been my lot through the biggest part of my life.

It is immaterial to me, however. I think that my decision was correct because before the year was over we changed the situation until we had approximately 150 members in the Communist Party, and the unemployed movement was under the leadership of the people’s councils, and practically all of our people were in those people’s councils exerting an influence in them. It was not a decisive influence but it was an influence, and it did have a lasting effect because we recruited some people who later rose to great heights in the party, and they served the party very well and ably and as devotedly as they knew how.

Mr. Moulder. Mr. Tavenner, we will resume the hearings after the noon recess. It is now 12 o’clock.

Congressman Velde, do you wish to make a statement before taking the noon recess?

Mr. Velde. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think that most of us remember our hearings last June as a result of which two witnesses who appeared before us were cited for contempt.

I was very pleased and happy to learn that both of these witnesses, who were unanimously cited for contempt by the House of Representatives, were found guilty.

I want at this point to express my appreciation to Judge Bolt, to United States Attorney Moriarty, and United States Attorney C. E. Luckey for the promptness and efficiency and fairness exhibited during the trial of these two cases.

We all remember that the witness, George Tony Starkovich, was one of the most contumacious witnesses who has ever appeared before this committee in my experience.

I certainly hope that the Supreme Court, upon his appeal—while he certainly has the right of appeal—will affirm the decision of the United States district court.

Mr. Moulder. Thank you, Mr. Velde.

Mr. Dennett, you will return promptly at 1:30. The committee will stand in recess until 1:30 o’clock.

(Whereupon, at 12 o’clock noon, the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene at 1:30 p. m.)