COMMUNISM

COMMUNISM

A system of social organization in which goods are
held in common.
Communism in the United States is something
of an anomaly. The basic principles of
communism are, by design, at odds with the free
enterprise foundation of U.S. capitalism. The
freedom of individuals to privately own property,
start a business, and own the means of production
is a basic tenet of U.S. government, and
communism opposes this arrangement. However,
there have been, are, and probably always
will be communists in the United States.
As early as the fourth century B.C., Plato
addressed the problems surrounding private
ownership of property in the Republic. Some
early Christians supported communal principles,
as did the German Anabaptists during the
sixteenth-century religious Reformation in
Europe.
The concept of common ownership of
goods gained a measure of support in France
during the nineteenth century. Shortly after the
French Revolution of 1789, François-Noël
(“Gracchus”) Babeuf was arrested and executed
for plotting the violent overthrow of the
new French government by revolutionary
communists. Etienne Cabet inspired many
social explorers with his Voyage en Icarie (1840),
which promoted peaceful, idealized communities.
Cabet is often credited with the spate of
communal settlements that appeared in mid-nineteenth-century North America. Louis-
Auguste Blanqui offered a more strident version
of communism by urging French workers
during the 1830s to organize insurrections and
establish a dictatorship for the purpose of reorganizing
the government.
Communism received, however, its first
comprehensive intellectual foundation in 1848,
when Germans KARL MARX and Friedrich Engels
published The Communist Manifesto. As technology
increased and industry expanded in
nineteenth-century Europe and America, it
became clear that the GENERAL WELFARE of
laborers was not improving. Although the new
democratic governments gave new freedoms to
workers, or “the proletariat,” the capitalism that
came with democracy had created different
means of oppression. By drawing on existing
theories of materialism, labor, and historical
evolution,Marx and Engels were able to identify
the reasons why, despite periodic drastic changes
in government, common laborers had been
doomed to abject poverty throughout recorded
history.
In the first chapter of The Communist Manifesto,
Marx and Engels argued that human history
was best understood as a continuing struggle
between a small exploiting class (the owners of
the means of production) and a larger exploited
class (laborers in factories and mills who often
worked for starvation wages). At any point in
time, the exploiting class controlled the means of
production and profited by employing the labor
of the masses. In the capitalism that developed
alongside democracy, Marx and Engels saw a
progressive concentration of the powers of production
placed in the hands of a privileged few.
Although society was producing more goods and
services, the general welfare of the middle class,
they believed, was declining. According to Marx
and Engels, this disparity or internal contradiction
in capitalistic societies predicted capitalism’s
doom. Over time, as the anticipated numbers of
the middle class, or “bourgeoisie,” began to
decrease, the conflicts between laborers and capitalists
would sharpen, and social revolution was
inevitable. At the end of The Communist Manifesto,
Marx and Engels wrote that the transfer of
power from the few to the many could only take
place by force. Marx later retreated from this
position and wrote that it was possible for this
radical change to take place peacefully.
The social revolution originally envisioned
by Marx and Engels would begin with a proletariat
dictatorship. Once in possession of the
means of production, the dictatorship would
devise the means for society to achieve the communal
ownership of wealth. Once the transitional
period had stabilized the state, the purest
form of communism would take shape. Communism
in its purest form would be a classless
societal system in which property and wealth
were distributed equally and without the need
for a coercive government. This last stage of
Marxian communism has as of the early 2000s
never been realized in any government.
Russia
In October 1917, VLADIMIR LENIN and Leon
Trotsky led the Bolshevik party in a bloody revolution
against the Russian monarch, Czar
Nicholas II. Lenin relied on violence and persistent
aggression during his time as a Russian
leader. Although he professed to being in the
process of modernizing Marxist theory, Lenin
stalled Marx’s communism at its transitional
phase and kept the proletariat dictatorship to
himself.
Lenin’s communist philosophy was designated
by followers as Marxist-Leninist theory in
1928. Marxism-Leninism was characterized by
the refusal to cooperate and compromise with
capitalist countries. It also insisted upon severe
restrictions on HUMAN RIGHTS and the extermination
of actual and supposed political opponents.
In these respects,Marxist-Leninist theory
was unrecognizable to democratic socialists and
other followers of Marxist doctrine, and the
1920s saw a gradual split between Russian communists
and other European proponents of
Marxian theory. The Bolshevik party, with Lenin
at the helm, renamed itself the All-Russian
Communist party, and Lenin presided over a
totalitarian state until his death in 1924.
JOSEPH STALIN succeeded Lenin as the Communist
party ruler. In 1924, Stalin established
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(U.S.S.R.) by colonizing land surrounding Russia
and placing the territories within the
purview of the Soviet Union. The All-Russian
Communist party became the All-Union Communist
party, and Stalin sought to position the
Soviet Union as the home base of a world revolution.
In his quest for worldwide communism,
Stalin sent political opponents such as Trotsky
into exile, had thousands of political dissidents
tortured and murdered, and imprisoned millions
more.
Stalin saw the Soviet Union through WORLD
WAR II.Although it joined with the United States
and other democratic countries in the fight
against Nazism, the Soviet Union remained
strongly opposed to capitalist principles. In the
scramble for control of Europe after World War
II, the Soviet Union gained power over several
Eastern European countries it had helped liberate
and placed them under communist rule. Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany,
Poland, and Romania were forced to comply
with the totalitarianism of Stalin’s rule. North
Korea was also supported and influenced by the
Soviet Union. More independent communist governments emerged in Yugoslavia and Albania
after World War II.

For nearly 50 years after the end of World
War II, the Soviet Union and the United States
engaged in a “cold war.” So named for the
absence of direct fighting between the two
superpowers, the COLD WAR was, in reality, a
bloody one. The Soviet Union and the United
States fought each other through other countries
in an effort to control the expansion of each
other’s influence.
When a country was thrown into civil war,
the Soviet Union and the United States aligned
themselves with the competing factions by providing financial and military support. They
sometimes even supplied their own troops. The
United States and Soviet Union engaged in warby-
proxy in many countries, including Korea,
Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala,
and Angola.
Cuba officially adopted communism in 1965
after Fidel Castro led a band of rebels in an
insurrection against the Cuban government in
1959. Despite intense opposition by the United
States to communism in the Western Hemisphere,
Cuba became communist with the help
of the Soviet Union.
China
Communism was also established in China.
In 1917, Chinese students and intellectuals,
inspired by the Bolsheviks’ October Revolution,
began to study and promote Leninist Marxism.
China had been mired in a century-long civil
war, and many saw Lenin’s brand of communism
as the solution to China’s internal problems.
In 1919, at the end of WORLD WAR I, China
received a disappointing settlement from Western
countries at the Versailles Peace Conference.
This outcome confirmed growing suspicion of
capitalist values and strengthened the resolve of
many Chinese to find an alternative basis for
government.
On July 1, 1921, the Chinese Communist
party (CCP) was established. Led by Chinese
intellectuals and Russian advisers, the CCP initially
embraced Russia’s model of communism
and relied on the organization of urban industrial
laborers. By 1927, CCP membership had
grown from fewer than 500 in 1923 to over
57,000. This increase was achieved in large part
because the CCP had joined with another political
party, the Kuomintang (KMT). KMT leader
Chiang Kai-shek and KMT troops eventually
became fearful of CCP control of the state, and
in July 1927, the KMT purged communists from
its ranks. CCP membership plummeted, and the
party was forced to search for new ways to gain
power.
Throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s,
the CCP sought to change its strategies. The
party was divided between urban, Russiantrained
students and a wing made up of peasants
led by Mao Tse-tung. At the same time, the CCP
was engaged in battles with the KMT over control
of various cities, and several CCP attempts
to capture urban areas were unsuccessful.
Mao was instrumental in switching the concentration
of CCP membership from the city to
the country. In October 1934, the CCP escaped
from threatening KMT forces in southern
China. Led by Mao, CCP troops conducted the
Long March to Yenan in the north, recruiting
rural peasants and increasing its popularity en
route. In 1935,Mao was elected chairman of the
CCP.
Japan’s invasion of China in 1937 spurred a
resurgence in CCP popularity. The CCP fought
Japanese troops until their surrender in 1945.
The CCP then waged civil war against the KMT.
With remarkable organization and brilliant military
tactics, the CCP won widespread support
throughout China’s rural population and eventually
its urban population as well. By 1949, the
CCP had established Beijing as the capital of
China and declared the People’s Republic of
China as the new government.
Chinese communism has been marked by a
willingness to experiment. In 1957, Chairman
Mao announced China’s Great Leap Forward, an
attempt to advance industry within rural communes.
The program did not flourish, and
within two years,Mao concluded that the Soviet
Union’s emphasis on industry was incompatible
with communal principles. Mao launched an
ideological campaign in 1966 called the Cultural
Revolution, in which students were employed to
convert opponents of communism. This campaign
also failed, as too many students loyal to
Mao carried out their mission with violent zeal.
After Chairman Mao died in 1976, powerful
CCP operatives worked to eliminate Jiang
Quing,Mao’s widow, and three other party officials
from the party. This Gang of Four was
accused of undermining the strength of the
party through adherence to Mao’s traditional
doctrines. The Chinese version of communism
placed enormous emphasis on conformity and
uniform enthusiasm for all CCP policies. With
the conviction of the Gang of Four in 1981, the
CCP sent a message to its members that it would
not tolerate dissension within its ranks.
Also in 1981, the CCP Central Committee
declared Mao’s Cultural Revolution a mistake.
Hu Yaobang was named chairman of the CCP,
and Deng Xiaoping was named head of the military.
These changes in leadership marked the
beginning of CCP reformation. The idolization
of Mao was scrapped, as was the ideal of continuous
class struggle. The CCP began to incorporate
into Chinese society technological advances
and Western production management techniques.
Signs of Western culture, such as blue
jeans and rock and roll music, began to appear
in China’s cities.
In 1987, Hu Yaobang was removed as CCP
chairman and replaced by Zhao Ziyang. Zhao’s
political philosophy was at odds with the
increasing acceptance of Western culture and
concepts of capitalism, and China’s urban areas
began to simmer with discontent. By May 1989,
students and other reformists in China had
organized and were regularly staging protests
against Zhao’s leadership. After massive demonstrations
in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the
CCP military crushed the uprisings, executed
dozens of radicals, and imprisoned thousands
more.
Thus, the CCP maintained control of
China’s government. At the same time, it made
attempts to participate in world politics and
business.
The Demise of Communist States
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several
communist states transformed their governments
to free-market economies. In 1985,
Mikhail Gorbachev was named leader of the
Soviet Union, and he immediately embarked on
a program to liberalize and democratize the
Soviet Union and its Communist party. By 1990,
the campaign had won enough converts to
unsettle the power of communism in the Soviet
Union. In August 1991, opponents of Gorbachev
attempted to oust him from power by force, but
many in the Soviet military supported Gorbachev,
and the coup failed.
The Soviet Union was formally dissolved in
December 1991. The republics previously controlled
by the All-Union Communist party held
democratic elections and moved toward participation
in the world business market. Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, and
Poland also established their independence.
Romania had conducted its own revolution by
trying, convicting, and executing its communist
dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, at the end of 1989.
Communist control of governments may be
dwindling, but communist parties still exist all
over the world. China and Cuba have communist
governments, and Spain and Italy have
powerful Communist parties. In the United
States, though, Communism has had a difficult
time finding widespread support. The justice
system in the United States has historically singled
out Communists for especially harsh treatment.
For example, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, a U.S.
senator from Wisconsin, led an anti-Communist
campaign from 1950 to 1954 that disrupted
many lives in the United States.
Communism in the United States
Anti-Communist hysteria in the United
States did not begin with Senator McCarthy’s
campaign in 1950. In Whitney v. California, 274
U.S. 357, 47 S. Ct. 641, 71 L. Ed. 1095 (1927),
Charlotte Whitney was found guilty of violating
the Criminal Syndicalism Act of California for organizing the Communist Labor Party of California.
Criminal syndicalism was defined to
include any action even remotely related to the
teaching of violence or force as a means to effect
political change.

Whitney argued against her conviction on
several grounds: California’s Criminal Syndicalism
Act violated her DUE PROCESS rights
because it was unclear; the act violated the
EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE of the FOURTEENTH
AMENDMENT because it did not penalize
those who advocated force to maintain the
current system of government; and the act violated
Whitney’s FIRST AMENDMENT rights to free
speech, assembly, and association.
The Court rejected every argument presented
by Whitney. Justices LOUIS D. BRANDEIS
and OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR., concurred in
the result. They disagreed with the majority that
a conviction for mere association with a political
party that advocated future revolt was not violative
of the First Amendment. However,Whitney
had failed to challenge the determination that
there was a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER of
serious evil, and, according to Brandeis and
Holmes, this omission was fatal to her defense.
Forty-two years later, the decision in Whitney’s
case was expressly overruled in Brandenburg v.
Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 89 S. Ct. 1827, 23 L. Ed. 2d
430 (1969).
The political and social protests of the 1960s
led to an increased tolerance of unconventional
political parties in the United States. However,
this tolerance did not reach every state in the
Union. In August 1972, the Indiana State Election
Board denied the Communist party of
Indiana a place on the 1972 general-election ballot.
On the advice of the attorney general of
Indiana, the board denied the party this right
because its members had refused to submit to a
LOYALTY OATH required by section 29-3812 of
the Indiana Code. The oath consisted of a promise
that the party’s candidates did not “advocate
the overthrow of local, state or National Government
by force or violence” (Communist Party
v. Whitcomb, 414 U.S. 441, 94 S. Ct. 656, 38 L. Ed.
2d 635 [1974]).
The Supreme Court, following its earlier
Brandenburg decision, held that the loyalty oath
violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
In Brandenburg, the Court had held that a
statute that fails to differentiate between teaching
force in the abstract and preparing a group
for imminent violent action runs contrary to the
constitutional rights of free speech and FREEDOM
OF ASSOCIATION. Although the Communist
party missed the deadline for entering its
candidates in the 1972 general election, it succeeded
in clearing the way for its participation in
future elections.
In the twentieth century communism
gained a hold among the world’s enduring political
ideologies and its popularity continues to
ebb and flow with the shifting distribution of
wealth and power within and between nations.

FURTHER READINGS
Bentley, Eric, ed. 2002. Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from
Hearings before the House Committee on Un-American
Activities, 1938-1968. New York: Thunder’s Mouth
Press/Nation Books.
Berlin, Isaiah. 1985. Karl Marx: His Life and Environment.
New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Gentry, Curt. 1991. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets.
New York: Norton.
McLellan, David. 1979. Marxism after Marx. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin.
Powers, Richard G. 1987. Secrecy and Power: The Life of J.
Edgar Hoover. New York: Free Press.
Pozner, Vladimir. 1990. Parting with Illusions. New York:
Atlantic Monthly.
Rosenn, Max. 1995. “Presumed Guilty.” University of Pittsburgh
Law Review (spring).
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. 1973. The Gulag Archipelago. London:
Collins/Fontana.
—. 1963. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. New
York: Bantam.

CROSS-REFERENCES
Cuban Missile Crisis; Dennis v. United States; First Amendment;
Fourteenth Amendment; Freedom of Association and
Assembly; Freedom of Speech;Marx, Karl Heinrich;McCarran
Internal Security Act; Smith Act; Socialism; Socialist
Party of the United States of America; Vietnam War.

House Un-American Activities Committee

Between 1938 and 1969, the House
Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC) hunted political radicals. In
hundreds of public hearings, this congressional
panel set out to expose and
punish citizens whom it deemed guilty of
holding “un-American” views—fascism
and communism. From government to
labor, academia, and Hollywood, the
committee aggressively pursued so-called
subversives. It used Congress’s subpoena
power to force citizens to appear before
it, holding them in CONTEMPT if they
did not testify. HUAC’s tactics of scandal,
innuendo, and the threat of imprisonment
disrupted lives and ruined careers.
After years of mounting criticism,
Congress renamed HUAC
in 1969 and finally abolished it
in 1975.
In the late 1930s, HUAC
arose in a period of fear and
suspicion. The United States
was still devastated by the
Great Depression, and fascism was on the
rise in Europe. Washington, D.C., feared
spies. In early May 1938, Representative
Martin Dies (R-Tex.) called for a probe of
fascism, communism, and other so-called
un-American (meaning anti-patriotic)
beliefs. The idea was popular with other
lawmakers. Two weeks later, HUAC was
established as a temporary committee,
with Dies at its head.
Because Chairman Dies was in
charge, the press referred to HUAC as the
Dies Committee. The chairman had
ambitious goals. At first, he set out to stop
German and Italian propaganda. Early
investigations focused on two pro-Nazi
groups, the German-American Bund and
the Silver Shirt Legion. But Dies had a
partisan agenda as well. An outspoken
critic of Roosevelt, he wanted to discredit
the president’s NEW DEAL programs.
Contending that the Federal Writers’ Project
(a program to compile oral histories
and travel guides) and Federal Theatre
Project (employing out-of-work actors to
help produce plays) were rife with Communists,
HUAC urged the firing of thirtyeight
hundred federal employees. In this
atmosphere of conflict between the committee
and the White House, the JUSTICE
DEPARTMENT found the numbers grossly
exaggerated; its own probe concluded that
only thirty-six employees had
been validly accused. The committee’s
first great smear ended
with dismal results.
HUAC’s limited success in
its early years was largely due to
its chairman’s political mistakes.
Besides alienating Roosevelt
and the Justice Department, Dies
made an even more powerful enemy in J.
EDGAR HOOVER, director of the FEDERAL
BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
(FBI). After Dies publicly criticized the
director, Attorney General ROBERT H.
JACKSON went on the attack, accusing
HUAC of interfering with the FBI’s
proper role. Hoover himself saw to it that
the turf battle was short-lived. In 1941
Dies was quietly informed that the FBI
had evidence of his accepting a bribe.
Although no charges were brought and
Dies retained the title of chairman until
1944, he conspicuously avoided HUAC’s
hearings from that point on.
HUAC grew in both power and
tenacity after WORLD WAR II, for several
reasons. A deterioration in U.S.-Soviet
relations started the COLD WAR, a
decades-long battle of words—and, as in
Korea and Vietnam, of bullets—in which
Communism became identified as the
United States’ single greatest enemy. Both
bodies of Congress, the White House, the
FBI, and numerous conservative citizens’
groups such as the John Birch Society rallied
to the anti-Communist cause.Moreover,
HUAC had new leadership. With
Dies gone, Hoover was more than willing
to assist with the committee’s investigations,
which was fortunate, since no congressional
committee had the resources
available to the FBI. When HUAC chairman
J. Parnell Thomas announced in
1947 that the committee would root out
Communists in Hollywood, he had nothing
but HEARSAY to go on. No Hollywood
investigation would have taken
place if Hoover, responding to Thomas’s
plea, had not provided HUAC with lists
of suspects and names of cooperative
witnesses.
Thus began a pattern of FBI and
HUAC cooperation that lasted for three
decades. Hoover’s testimony before
HUAC in March 1947 illuminated their
common interest in driving the enemy
into the open:
I feel that once public opinion is
thoroughly aroused as it is today,
the fight against Communism is
well on its way. Victory will be
assured once Communists are
identified and exposed, because
the public will take the first step of quarantining them so they
can do no harm. . . . This Committee
renders a distinct service
when it publicly reveals the diabolic
machinations of sinister
figures engaged in un-American
activities.
The FBI director’s prediction was
right: quarantining of a sort did indeed
follow.
The Hollywood probe marked a new
height for HUAC. The committee investigated
the film industry three times, in
1947, 1951–52, and 1953–55. The first
hearing produced the so-called Hollywood
Ten, a group of screenwriters and
professionals who refused to answer
questions about whether or not they were
Communists. Despite invoking their
FIRST AMENDMENT right to FREEDOM
OF SPEECH, they were subsequently
charged with contempt of Congress,
tried, convicted, and jailed for between
six months and one year. In later HUAC
hearings, other film industry professionals
invoked the Fifth Amendment—the
constitutional protection against selfincrimination—
and they too suffered.
HUAC operated on the dubious premise
that no innocent person would avoid
answering its questions, and members of
Congress frequently taunted witnesses
who attempted to “hide,” as they said,
behind the FIFTH AMENDMENT. Not
everyone subpoenaed was a Communist,
but the committee usually wanted each
person to name others who were, who
associated with, or who sympathized
with Communists. Intellectual sympathy
for leftists was considered evil in itself;
such “dupes,” “commie symps,” and “fellow
travelers” were also condemned by
HUAC.
These investigations had a tremendous
effect. Hollywood executives, fearing
the loss of profits, created a blacklist
containing the names of hundreds of
actors, directors, and screenwriters who
were shut out of employment, thus ending
their careers. In short time, television
and radio did the same. For subpoenaed
professionals, an order to appear before
HUAC presented a no-win situation. If
they named names, they betrayed themselves
and others; if they did not cooperate,
they risked their future. Some
cooperated extensively: the writer Martin
Berkeley coughed up 155 names. Some
did so in order to keep working, but lived
to regret it: the actor Sterling Hayden
later described himself as a worm in his
autobiography Wanderer. Others, like the
playwright Lillian Hellman, remained
true to their conscience and refused to
cooperate. The HUAC-inspired blacklist
caused a measurable disruption to
employment as well as more than a dozen
suicides.
HUAC’s postwar efforts also transformed
U.S. political life. In 1948, the
committee launched a highly publicized
investigation of ALGER HISS, a former
high-ranking government official, on
charges of spying for the Soviet Union.
Hiss’s subsequent conviction on perjury
helped inspire the belief that other Communist
spies must exist in federal government,
leading to lavish, costly, and
ultimately futile probes of the STATE
DEPARTMENT by HUAC and Senator
JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY. HUAC had laid
the groundwork for the senator’s own
witch-hunt, a reign of unfounded accusation
that came to be known as McCarthyism.
By 1950,McCarthyism so influenced
U.S. political life that HUAC sponsored
the most sweeping anti-Communist law
in history, the McCarren Act (50 U.S.C.A.
§ 781 et seq.), which sought to clamp
down on the Communist party but
stopped short of making membership
illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately
stripped it of any meaningful
force.
HUAC came under fire in the late
1950s and early 1960s. After turning its
attention on labor leaders, the committee
at last provoked the U.S. Supreme Court:
the Court’s 1957 decision in Watkins v.
United States, 354 U.S. 178, 77 S. Ct. 1173,
1 L. Ed. 2d 1273, overturned the contempt
conviction of a man who refused
to answer all of HUAC’s questions, and,
importantly, set broad limits on the
power of congressional inquiry. Yet
HUAC pressed on. In 1959 an effort to
expose Communists in California schools
resulted in teachers being fired and
prompted some of the first public criticisms
of the committee. By the late 1960s,
as outrage over the VIETNAM WAR made
public dissent not only feasible but
widely popular, many lawmakers began
to see HUAC as an anachronism. In 1969
the House renamed it the Internal Security
Committee. The body continued on
under this name until 1975, when it was
abolished and the House Judiciary Committee
took over its functions (with far
less enthusiasm than its progenitors).
HUAC’s legacy to U.S. law was a long,
relentless campaign against personal liberty.
Its members cared little for the constitutional
freedoms of speech or
association, let alone constitutional safeguards
against SELF-INCRIMINATION.
Much of its work would not have been
possible without the steady assistance of
the FBI, whose all-powerful director
Hoover (1895–1972) died shortly after
the committee’s heyday had ended.
HUAC is remembered today, along with
Hoover and McCarthyism, as characterizing
the worst abuses of federal power
during the cold war.