253

p US foreign policy in the first half of the 1950s was characterized by an intensification of the cold war, a “positions-of-strength" policy against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, and the fomenting of small wars. The aggressive foreign policy of the United States during this period manifested itself in the military adventure in Korea.

p In late June 1950, world attention was riveted to Formosa Strait and events unfolding on the Korean peninsula. The US government had undertaken an attempt to liquidate the Korean People’s Democratic Republic. Under the guise of protecting the population of South Korea, it landed troops on Korean soil and unleashed a war against the KPDR. Simultaneously, on instructions from Washington, ships of the US Seventh Fleet approached the shores of Taiwan and established control over the strait.

p The frightful pictures of World War II had not yet faded in people’s memories. Its gruesome consequences were still visible, yet mankind found itself on the brink of a new catastrophe. The US aggression in Korea was fraught with the danger of a new big war. A great wave of protest swelled up in many countries. Progressive sections of the American people also took an active part in the movement, and among them were organized workers.

p As mentioned here earlier, a conference of progressive unions in October 1949 in Chicago set up a National Union Peace Conference. On the eve of the war in Korea this organization joined the movement for banning nuclear 254 weapons, and for settling international issues through negotiations between the Great Powers. The popularity of this worker organization grew rapidly. Its local branches in the form of trade union peace committees appeared not only in Chicago but in such centers as Detroit, Cleveland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Milwaukee and Minneapolis.

p In March 1950, the Permanent Committee of the World Peace Congress in Stockholm issued an Appeal to the peoples of the world to launch a struggle to ban atomic weapons. The Appeal proposed that any government that first used the atom bomb be declared a war criminal. Everyone who yearned for peace was urged to sign this document. The Stockholm Appeal, to which millions of people on all continents responded, found many supporters in the United States. In April 1950, with the participation of the eminent scholar and public figure,W.E.B. Du Bois, an Information Center of Peace Partisans was established in New York to organize a drive to collect signatures to the Appeal. Soon, hundreds of committees through which the Information Center carried out its work appeared throughout the country. More than 200 shop and factory committees operated under the direction of the National Union Peace Conference. The campaign in the United States to collect signatures to the Stockholm Appeal was one of the forms of the peace movement.

p When the American military carried out their attack on Korea in June 1950, the ruling circles of the USA sought to take advantage of the war hysteria to suppress the peace movement. People collecting signatures to the Stockholm Appeal were subjected to arrests and fines and dismissal from their jobs. The reactionary press urged the government to take harsh measures. But even in these circumstances almost 2,500,000 Americans had put their signatures to the Appeal by November 1950.

p In 1950, the World Peace Congress convened in Warsaw. It was attended by an American delegation composed of sixty-three prominent intellectuals and trade union figures. After the close of the Congress, nineteen members of the delegation paid a visit to the Soviet Union. On December 28, 1950, one of the members of this group, a Protestant minister 255 from New Haven, Connecticut, Willard Uphouse, said in a letter to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions: “No matter how dark the clouds become, all of you know now that you have many friends in the United States who are working night and day to help bring peace into the world.... There is a power in the world still greater than the most powerful of weapons—the power of all the people who demand peace through economic and cultural relations."  [255•1  Another member of the American delegation, Yolanda Hall of Chicago, wrote to the AUCCTU on February 19, 1951: “We have had a very busy time since our delegation returned home, especially fulfilling the many requests that have been made to us to make reports on the World Peace Congress and our experiences in the Soviet Union. The Chicago delegation of eight reported back to a large and very successful mass meeting on January 12th in the Chicago Coliseum. Since then we estimate we have spoken to at least 10,000 Chicagoans in meetings of various kinds.... There is also a growing sentiment for peace among the people here and a grass-roots expression of the need to end the war in Korea."  [255•2 

p The Communist Party, progressive trade unions and other democratic organizations condemned the American intervention in Korea. On June 29, 1951, the Communist Party issued a call to all working people to demand of the government the withdrawal of US troops from the Far East.

p On July 7, Ford workers in Dearborn, Michigan, sent a letter to Senator Vandenberg, urging the cessation of the aggression in Korea. Similar messages were sent to the President of the United States by the Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers, the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, and the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards.

p The slogan “Hands Off Korea!" rang out loud and clear at meetings of progressive organizations. On August 2, 1950, a mass demonstration, organized by the Information Center of Peace Partisans, was held in New York. The demonstrators were attacked by police. However, repressive actions of this 256 kind only added fuel to the movement of protest against the intervention in Korea. A week later, an organization called Women Strike for Peace emerged in New York. On October 24, some 1,000 women went to the United Nations headquarters to demand an end to the US aggression against the Korean people. In another development, over 100 figures from the AFL, the CIO and independent unions signed a statement for the press, demanding the cessation of the aggression.

p The Communist Party held its 15th convention in New York, December 28-31, 1950. It was a period of growing anti-Communist hysteria, repressive actions were being taken against the party, and most of its leaders had been brought to trial. On May 12, 1950, General Secretary of the Party’s National Committee Eugene Dennis had been sent to prison for “contempt of Congress" under a sentence passed by a New York court back in 1947. He was to remain in prison until March 12, 1951. In the summer and autumn of 1950, local authorities in the states struck out against a number of party organizations. A trial was staged of a party committee in Alabama. In Birmingham, Alabama, the local authorities declared the party outlawed. Preparations were being made for a trial of Communists in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on charges of sedition. The party organization in the state of Indiana was outlawed. In October, in accordance with the anti-Communist provisions of the McCarran-Wood Internal Security Act of 1950, the Subversive Activities Control Board was preparing to enforce the requirement that the Communist Party register with the Department of Justice.

p It was under these circumstances that the 15th convention of the Communist Party was held. Gus Hall delivered the National Committee’s political report, devoting primary attention to the struggle for peace and against the US intervention in Korea.

p After discussing these questions, the convention resolved that the party’s central tasks should include exposure of the imperialist plans of the ruling circles of the USA and the struggle for halting the aggression in Korea.  [256•1 

257

p During that period, as the anti-Communist hysteria mounted and repression of Communists increased, liquidationist sentiments appeared in the Communist Party, and this found expression at the convention. Thus, a number of delegates demanded that party membership be reduced, saying that the party should rid itself of accidental, alien elements, which, in their opinion, had deluged it and were fighting against it, criticizing allegedly “incorrect organizational principles of party structure”. In his concluding speech, Gus Hall condemned these tendencies as liquidationist.

p The 15th convention analyzed the results of the 1950 congressional election campaign and took a critical view of the assessment of the political sentiments of the masses that had been made at the previous convention. In contrast to the 14th convention, the 15th pointed out that there were no visible signs of a mass breakaway from the two old parties.  [257•1  The working class and the Negro people, it stressed, still believed in the Democratic Party and considered it a lesser evil than the Republican Party.

p In January 1951, trade union locals in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, came out with the demand for the withdrawal of American forces from Korea and other countries. At about the same time, Local 600 of the UAW in Detroit issued a protest against the continuing war.

p In February 1951, the trade union organization of the steelworkers in Lorain, Ohio, took a poll of 12,000 workers on the question: Should the US government withdraw its forces from Korea and ban the atom bomb? Almost seventy-five per cent of those polled replied in the affirmative. Similar polls were taken in Cleveland, Detroit, New York and elsewhere. At the steel mills of United States Steel and Republic Steel in Chicago, the overwhelming majority of the workers answered in the affirmative to the question: Are you in favor of an immediate cease-fire in Korea and bringing the American troops back home?

p Protest against the Korean adventure also came from Negro organizations. Numerous facts indicating an unwillingness to fight in Korea were registered in the Negro units of the US 258 Army. Quite a few Negroes refused to carry out military orders for which many were court-martialed. Wide publicity was given to the trial in August 1950 of Lt.Leon A.Gilbert, who was condemned to death for anti-war activity.  [258•1  The authorities sought to use the trial to inhibit Negro servicemen and the whole Negro population in the USA. The numerous actions in his defense compelled the authorities to commute the death sentence to 20 years’ imprisonment.

p The Second World Peace Congress in Warsaw in November 1950 and the first session of the World Peace Council in Berlin in February 1951 opened a new stage in the peace movement. In the forefront now was the struggle against the remilitarization of West Germany and actions in defense of the Korean people.

p At that time, 65 public and labor figures launched the American Peace Crusade. At a conference of this organization in Chicago it was decided to stage a march on Washington in protest against the war in Korea. On the eve of the march, CIO and AFL union leaders urged Truman to begin negotiations to settle the Korean conflict.

p The anti-war movement was active in many states. On March 15, 1951, 2,500 marchers from 36 states, most of them trade union members, arrived in Washington and presented a petition to Congress and the White House, demanding an end to the war. Hugh Bryson, president of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards, in a letter to the AUCCTU, dated March 31, 1951, wrote from San Francisco that his union was resolutely opposed to the intervention in Korea and as early as June 29, 1950 had called for removal of all foreign troops.  [258•2  In April, a convention of the ILWU adopted a resolution on the need to intensify the struggle for peace. It contained proposals for universal curtailment and cessation of the arms race, and recognition of the possibility of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. The longshoremen called for expansion of trade with all countries, abandonment of the policy of rearming Germany and Japan, and a ban on sending American troops to Indochina. Finally, the resolution 259 demanded an immediate end to the war in Korea, the withdrawal from its territory of all foreign troops, and steps to ensure peace in the Far East.  [259•1 

p Many unions took an active part in May Day demonstrations in which the peace slogan and the demand for an end to the war in Korea were prominent. An impressive demonstration took place in New York, for example, where 75,000 marched in the streets for peace. On May 9, 59 officials of local CIO unions addressed a letter to a conference of deputy foreign ministers of the USSR, USA, Britain and France being held in Paris, in which they urged that every effort be made to prevent the Korean war from developing into a world war. In late June, a peace congress was held in Chicago, with about 5,000 representatives of various organizations taking part. The main theme of all the speeches and resolutions was “End the War Now!”

p At the same time, the Korean question became the subject of heated debate in Congress. On February 14, 1951, Congressman Lawrence Smith (Rep., Wisconsin) read a statement in the House of Representatives on behalf of 118 Republicans, which said that government propaganda was again beating the war drums. The people were alarmed and confused. They had lost confidence in the President and Congress and were demanding measures to save Americans from catastrophe. Reflecting the growing anxiety of the masses, Senator Edwin Johnson (Dem., Colorado) introduced a draft resolution calling for an armistice in Korea by June 25, 1951.  [259•2  The trade unions hailed the resolution and urged its immediate adoption. But Congress hesitated making such a “hasty” decision on the question. The executive committee of the Fur and Leather Workers Union, in a message to the membership, dated August 10, 1951, wrote: “It is now more than a year since the bloody fighting in Korea began. Already, this war has cost us over 80,000 American casualties.... We supported the resolution introduced into the Senate by Senator Johnson, calling for a ‘cease-fire’ in Korea and the negotiation of differences over the 260 conference table.... We call upon ... every member of our Union to speak up now for an immediate cease-fire in Korea....”   [260•1 

p In 1952, conventions of the fur and leather, electrical and radio, and mine, mill and smelter workers’ unions demanded restoration of peace in Korea, the convening of a conference of the Great Powers on easing international tension, a return to a peaceful economy, and the elimination of trade barriers between the United States and other countries. The newspapers of the miners, railroad workers, and packinghouse workers emphasized the desire of American workers to put an end to the war in Korea.

p The movement for peace and against the war in Korea could have been more massive and effective had the leaders of the AFL, the CIO and the Railroad Brotherhoods shared the views and sentiments of the progressive workers and supported the peace movement. In this connection, it is important to examine the attitude of the leading trade union officials to the war in Korea and the arms race.

p In January 1950, Truman ordered work to begin on the creation of the hydrogen bomb. How did the leading figures in the American trade unions react to this? On February 14, the CIO executive board adopted a resolution supporting the government’s policy and its decision to create the hydrogen bomb. Some of the board members voted against the resolution. Following this, they were subjected to harassment and then expelled from the CIO. These were representatives of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers, the Communications Association of America, the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards, the United Office and Professional Workers. Having secured the executive board’s resolution, a group of CIO leaders headed by Murray paid a visit to US Secretary of State Dean Acheson on February 18, and announced their approval of Truman’s order. In a letter to Acheson they said that “respect for the American viewpoint ... can be won by militant democratic policies, not by appeasement".  [260•2 

261

p It was at that time that the CIO leaders completed the process, which they had begun in 1949, of expelling progressive unions. We might recall that in November 1949, at the llth national convention of the CIO in Cleveland, the Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers and the United Farm Equipment Workers were expelled. This was followed by improvised “trials” of other unions. On December 19, a CIO commission headed by Allan Haywood conducted an investigation of the CIO California Labor Council, and expelled it in January 1950 for opposing CIO policy r.nd the Marshall Plan.

p The United Office and Professional Workers in Washington was accused of having taken an active part in the movement for opening the Second Front in Europe, and of demanding, after the war, the withdrawal of American forces from Europe and Asia.

p January 1950 was a month of disgraceful procedures which showed how far the leaders of the CIO had sunk. The executive board ended its sessions in Washington with a series of expulsions: on February 15, 1950, it expelled the mine, mill and smelters’ union, the food, tobacco and agricultural workers’ union, and the United Office and Professional Workers. This was followed by the expulsion on March 1 of the United Office and Professional Workers; on June 15, of the Fur and Leather Workers; and on June 25, of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards. And, finally, on August 29, the executive board expelled the militant International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, widely known for its democratic traditions.

p The leaders of the AFL and CIO supported the war of American imperialism in Korea. Upon Murray’s proposal, the 12th convention of the CIO (November 20-24, 1950, Chicago) adopted a foreign policy declaration in which it again approved the practical activity of the CIO leadership supporting the militarization of the economy and an aggressive foreign policy.

p As for the AFL, at Green’s proposal its 69th convention held in Houston, Texas, approved President Truman’s actions with respect to the intervention in Korea.

p At the beginning of 1951, the AFL executive council rejected a resolution calling for peaceful settlement of the Korean 262 question, and insisted instead on a blockade of the Korean People’s Democratic Republic, continued occupation of Taiwan, and assistance to the Chiang Kai-shek clique. At the 70th convention of the AFL held in September of that year in San Francisco, Green said that the US government should continue the war in Korea for as long as necessary. And at the 71st convention in September 1952, in New York, Green admitted of no possibility whatever of a compromise with the KPDR.

p With this kind of policy it was no wonder that the movement against the war in Korea could not gather enough momentum to influence the government to seek an immediate cease-fire. Many big unions in the major industries confined themselves to making general declarations about the need to stop the war, but did not actually get into the fight for peace.

p To desire peace and to actively fight for it are not the same thing. This was the essential difference in the attitude to the Korean war between the unions headed by rightist leaders and the progressive unions. The masses of workers did not want war, but only a minority took an active part in the peace movement. As the Communist press noted at the time, the peace movement in the United States was “considerably weaker than the movements in the capitalist countries of Europe".  [262•1  The American working class was still under the potent influence of reactionary labor leaders, and that was why it was not taking as active a part in the struggle for peace as the working class of the European countries. But even so, as the magazine Political Affairs noted, “the American peace movement, though relatively weak, continues to make, in increasing measure, an important contribution to the struggle for peace".  [262•2  The armistice agreement signed in Panmunjom on July 27, 1953, was the result of the mass movement of peace forces on an international scale. Progressive Americans who took part in this movement contributed their bit to the struggle to end the war in Korea.

p From the very outset of the anti-war movement the power elite started looking for stronger measures to restrain the 263 progressive forces and the working class. In Congress reactionaries demanded more stringent repressive legislation.

p On September 23, in an atmosphere of war hysteria, the 81st Congress passed the Internal Security Act of 1950. Introduced by Patrick McCarran (Dem., Nevada), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security, and John S. Wood (Dem., Georgia), member of the House of Representatives and chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, it came to be known also as the McCarran-Wood Act.  [263•1 

p Similar bills had been introduced into Congress back in 1948, authored by Senator Karl Mundt (Rep., South Dakota) and Representative Richard Nixon (Rep., Calif.), who was to become President of the United States in 1969. However, at that time their efforts failed. In 1950, after the incursion of American forces into Korea, the political atmosphere was more favorable for these aims. The splitting campaign in the CIO was at its height, preventing the working class from closing ranks, and weakening its ability to resist. The fact that nearly all the officers of the AFL and CIO had by the end of 1950 signed affidavits swearing that they did not belong to the Communist Party, as required under the Taft-Hartley Act, would indicate that they recognized that law and had actually given up active struggle for its repeal.

p In September 1949, the National Labor Relations Board reported that 184 unions had filed such affidavits; these included 99 AFL, 34 CIO and 51 independent unions. A total of 9,246 union locals had filed non-Communist affidavits. In the first months, 84,466 union officials had filed such affidavits,  [263•2  and by November 1952, the number reached 232,000. They represented 25,935 national and international unions and locals. All this encouraged the extremist elements in Congress to undertake new steps to strengthen reactionary legislation, evidence of which was the McCarran-Wood Act of 1950.

p The stated purpose of the Act was “to protect the United States against un-American and subversive activities”. One of the chief means of accomplishing this objective was to require 264 registration of Communist organizations.  [264•1  Title I of the Act, entitled Subversive Activities Control, states: “The Communist movement in the United States is an organization numbering thousands of adherents, rigidly and ruthlessly disciplined. Awaiting and seeking to advance a moment when the United States may be so far divided in counsel, or so far in industrial or financial straits, that overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence may seem possible of achievement, it seeks converts far and wide by an extensive system of schooling and indoctrination.... The Communist organization in the United States, pursuing its stated objectives, the recent successes of Communist methods in other countries, and the nature and control of the world Communist movement itself, present a clear and present danger to the security of the United States and to the existence of free American institutions, and make it necessary that Congress, in order to provide for the common defense, to preserve the sovereignty of the United States as an independent nation ... enact appropriate legislation recognizing the existence of such worldwide conspiracy and designed to prevent it from accomplishing its purpose in the United States."  [264•2 

p The Act divided all “subversive” organizations into two categories: (1) Communist-action organizations, or the Communist Party as such; (2) Communist-front organizations, or any organization in the United States which in essence is under the direction, control or subordination of a Communist-action organization.

p Into the latter category, the Act put any organization suspected of being sympathetic to or having links with the Communist Party. This definition made it possible to put any labor organization into the second category on the ground that its demands coincided with points in the Communist Party program. Such an organization could be listed as a Communist-front organization, declared “subversive”, and subjected to prosecution.

p Section 4 of Title I listed a number of proscribed actions (“to unite”, enter into a “conspiracy”, transmit information 265 affecting the security of the United States, etc.).  [265•1  Violation of any provision of this section was punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both. Section 5 provided for measures to restrict and prohibit the employment of members of Communist-action or Communist-front organizations. Members of the Communist Party and persons sympathetic to them were deprived of the right to obtain US passports to go abroad.

p Sections 7 and 8 required the Communist Party and all Communist-front organizations to register with the Attorney General and file annual financial reports and lists of the members of organizations or other persons taking an active part in them. Only after compliance with these conditions would they receive limited opportunity to use postal, radio and telegraph communications. Notification of what was sent through the mails and transmitted over the radio or telegraph by such Communist or Communist-front organizations was made mandatory.  [265•2  Section 12 provided for the establishment of a Subversive Activities Control Board, consisting of five members, whose functions included that of determining whether a given group was a Communist-action or a Communist-front organization subject to the registration requirements of the Act.

p Section 15 provided for punishment by a fine of not more than $10,000 for violation of any provision of Section 10 by an organization, and by the same fine or imprisonment for not more than five years or both for violation of any provision in sections 5, 6 or 10 by an individual.

p Some of the sections of the law amended the Acts of 1918 and 1940 relating to aliens. Amendments to the law of October 16, 1918, prohibited the entry into the United States of aliens who were members of the Communist Party of the USA, or a Communist-front organization, or “with respect to whom there is reason to believe that such aliens would, after entry, be likely to (A) engage in activities which would be prohibited by the laws of the United States..., (B) engage in any activity a 266 purpose of which is the opposition to, or the control or overthrow of, the Government of the United States by force, violence, or other unconstitutional means; or (C) organize, join, affiliate with, or participate in the activities of any organization which is registered or required to be registered under Section 7 of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950" (Sec. 22).  [266•1 

p Amendments to the Smith Act of June 28, 1940, known as the Alien Registration Act of 1940, required that all aliens listed by the investigating agencies as persons connected with a Communist-action organization, register annually with the Attorney General. All “suspect” aliens (mainly from among those Americans who were not yet citizens in 1950) were subject to detainment, trial, the exclusion and deportation (Sec. 22).  [266•2  The law provided that no person would thereafter be naturalized as a citizen of the United States “who advocates or teaches, or who is a member of or affiliated with any organization that advocates or teaches, opposition to all organized Government; or who is a member of or affiliated with any Communist-action organization...".  [266•3  Persons who had been naturalized in the preceding five years and were found to be suspect could lose their citizenship (Section 25). Persons applying for naturalization were required to undergo a loyalty check and to take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution and laws of the United States. Title II of the McCarran-Wood Act empowered the President of the USA to declare a state of emergency and the Attorney General to confine all “suspicious persons" in jail or concentration camps for the duration of the emergency.

p To understand the full meaning of these amendments, we should bear in mind that a sizable part of the American working class consisted of just this kind of “aliens”, often denied citizenship precisely because they were leaders or activists in democratic organizations or held progressive views. This is what happened, for example, to the head of the 267 International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, Harry Bridges.

p The McCarran-Wood Act amendments essentially repeated the provisions of the Smith Act of 1940 which made it possible to prosecute any organization or its members on charges of “conspiracy” to establish a “totalitarian dictatorship" in the United States. As the progressive American press noted, such charges could be brought against the leaders of any big strike, especially at a defense plant. The necessary “evidence” could easily be found or fabricated with the help of hired false witnesses. After investigating the Communist Party’s activities in 1951 and 1952, the Subversive Activities Control Board headed by S. Richardson on the pretext that the Party operated on orders from abroad ruled that it must register with the Attorney General.

p At the same time numerous arrests were made, and in a number of places Communists were brought to trial. The Communist Party appealed the decision of the SACB, but the court left the decision in force. Then the National Committee of the Communist Party appealed the case of the eleven Communist Party leaders, convicted in Foley Square in 1949, to the Supreme Court. However, on June 4, 1951, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the New York district court and the constitutionality of the Smith Act. On June 20, another 17 prominent Communists were arrested. And on July 2, in accordance with the June 4 decision of the Supreme Court, seven members of the National Committee, including Eugene Dennis, went to jail to serve the terms meted out to them by the court in Foley Square.  [267•1  That same month, 12 leaders of the Communist Party organization of California were arrested.

p In upholding the convictions of the leaders of the North Carolina Communist Party organization, the circuit court of appeals hearing the case in July 1952 held that the Communist Party was itself a “criminal conspiracy”, that mere membership in it could be construed as unlawful, and that circulation of Marxist classics was not protected by constitutional 268 guarantees of freedom of the press.  [268•1  In 1951 and 1952, arrests of Communists took place in Maryland and Pennsylvania. On August 17, 1951, a group of trade union figures in Pittsburgh were arrested under the Smith Act on false charges of “conspiracy to teach and advocate the overthrow of the government by force and violence”. All of them were veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Republican Spain and had fought against Franco’s fascist forces. Among the defendants was the leader of the local Communist Party organization in the state of Pennsylvania, Steve Nelson, who was sentenced on June 10, 1952 to twenty years’ imprisonment, with a fine of $10,000. In a letter from the Blawnox Workhouse jail in Pittsburgh, Nelson wrote: “My ‘crime’ is that I opposed the US war policy, and its criminal war in Korea and that my friends and I fought for peace."  [268•2  Although the sentence was annulled in response to wide protest by progressive forces, nonetheless Nelson was soon prosecuted again and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on charges of sedition.

p The anti-union hysteria gripped Congress, which devoted the greater part of its sessions in 1952 to new anti-union bills. The election campaign of 1952 diverted attention from the anti-labor bills for a while; however, by the summer of that year Congress passed the McCarran-Walter bill,  [268•3  which sought to regulate the national composition of the population by establishing stiffer immigration quotas. Truman vetoed the bill on June 25, but both houses of Congress overrode the veto, and the bill became law, going into effect on December 24 as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.  [268•4  Serving as a supplement to the McCarran-Wood Act, it was directed against the penetration into the United States of politically “undesirable" aliens by introducing new and stricter quotas and increasing the control over their entry. It also served as the juridical basis for deporting “undesirable” Americans of foreign origin. The overall immigration quota was set at 269 154,600 persons per year instead of the 340,000 permitted under the relevant laws of 1948 and 1950.  [269•1 

p The McCarran-Walter Act was clearly racist in character. It almost completely banned the entry of immigrants from Africa, and set a limit of 2,000 per year from Asian countries.  [269•2  It forbade entry into the US of persons suspected of disloyalty or affiliation with organizations advocating the “overthrow of the government by force and violence”. The Act created especially difficult conditions for unnaturalized Americans of foreign origin. It considered political loyalty to be one of the main conditions for granting citizenship.

p The McCarran-Wood and McCarran-Walter acts, together with the Smith and the Taft-Hartley acts, represented essentially a single system aimed at weakening the political activity of the working class, undermining the militant spirit in the labor movement, and restricting strikes. These acts created conditions for increasing government control over trade unions, their members, their meetings and their publications.

p In the years under review, reaction increased its pressure on progressive CIO unions and democratic forces in such organizations as the American Labor Party of New York, the American Slav Congress, the International Workers Order, and the Labor Youth League. All were on the lists of subversive and Communist-front organizations.

p Thus, the history of the labor movement in the first half of the 1950s was characterized by an intensification of political reaction. Striving to secure a reliable rear for new acts of aggression, the American monopolies, through the government, undertook a whole series of legislative measures to undermine the labor movement in the United States.

p There is perhaps no other area of political activity in which the American working class so obviously reveals its ideological and organizational weakness, its traditional political dependence on the bourgeoisie and its parties, as in the sphere of election campaigning. In 1948, the overwhelming majority of worker votes went to the Democratic Party. For this, the latter 270 was largely obliged to the political activity of the powerful machinery of the trade unions, whose political action committees and the non-partisan labor league in the states and in Washington, D.C., waged a hard campaign to elect a “good president" and “good congressmen”.

p The year 1952 was again a presidential and congressional election year. On June 7, 1952, the national convention of the Republican Party opened in Chicago. There the Republicans nominated General Eisenhower for President, and Senator Richard Nixon of California for Vice-President. The influence of the Republicans, who enjoyed the support of the big monopolies and banks, had grown. This was helped to a certain extent by Eisenhower’s popularity as a “brave and incorruptible soldier”, and also his promise to end the war in Korea and amend the Tart-Hartley Act.

p The AFL and CIO leaders were, as before, oriented toward the Democratic Party, and spared no efforts to sway trade unionists to vote for its candidates. Many of the delegates to the Democratic Party convention, which was held in Chicago, July 21-26, 1952, were from the ranks of AFL and CIO unions. Among them were well-known labor figures like Harrison and Dubinsky of the AFL, and Murray, Reuther and Kroll from the CIO. A Committee of Ten which they selected conducted virtually all the negotiations with the leaders of the Democratic Party and submitted its proposals to the convention committee. The proposals received full approval since they were not at variance with the general spirit of the Democratic platform.

p The AFL and CIO leaders supported the candidates nominated at that convention: Adlai Stevenson for President, and Senator John Sparkman of Alabama for Vice-President. The 71st convention of the AFL, held in September 1952, in New York, came out in support of Stevenson.

p In August 1952, the executive board of the CIO declared that Stevenson’s election would mean the continuation of the best traditions and ideals of the New Deal and Fair Deal. A delegation headed by Murray paid a call on Truman and, calling him “a great friend of labor”, assured him that the Democrats would have labor’s unanimous support in the elections.

p To help in the campaign, a National Trade Union 271 Committee to Elect Stevenson and Sparkman was created. Headed by AFL vice-president and president of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks George Harrison, the committee, which included more than 75 representatives of the AFL, CIO and independent unions, launched a fund-raising drive.

p The Progressive Party, which also waged an election campaign in 1952, found that its positions and influence had deteriorated sharply. It had continued its activity after 1948, but experienced great difficulties. The AFL, CIO and the independent railroad and coal miners’ unions remained hostile to it, while the progressive unions that had been expelled from the CIO were too absorbed in the fight for survival to give it the support it needed. The contradictions in the party leadership increased. Wallace showed signs of nervousness. Increasingly, he expressed dissatisfaction with actions taken by the national committee and a number of state committees. In August 1950, he announced his withdrawal from the party.

p In November 1951, the national committee of the Progressive Party called a conference of its organizations in the northern and mid-western states. About 300 party functionaries attended. The conference outlined measures to revitalize the movement for a cease-fire in Korea and the convening of a conference of the heads of the Great Powers for this purpose. In July 1952, the party held its third national convention in Chicago, with some 2,000 delegates representing local organizations in forty states in attendance. The convention voiced sharp criticism of the foreign policy of the government. Lawyer Vincent Hallinan was nominated for President, and Black journalist Charlotte Bass for Vice-President.

p The party, again subjected to repression, had little chance against the two major parties. Indeed, in the 1952 election, Hallinan gathered only 140,000 votes. Soon after this, the party found itself in even worse straits. It lost financial support even from progressive circles, and by the mid-1950s ceased to exist.

p The overwhelming mass of Americans again gave their votes to the major bourgeois parties. A considerable percentage of the unionized workers (36 per cent, as compared with 26 per cent in 1948), disappointed in the domestic and foreign policies of the Democrats, voted for the Republican candidates. 272 The Republicans won. Of the 61,500,000 votes cast, Eisenhower received 33,900,000, or 55.1 per cent, and Stevenson—27,300,000, or 44.4 per cent. Thus Eisenhower became the thirty-fourth President of the United States.

p In Congress, a new lineup emerged as a result of the elections: the House of Representatives now consisted of 221 Republicans, 213 Democrats, and one independent; the Senate, of 48 Republicans, 47 Democrats, and one independent.  [272•1 

p The monopolies did not conceal their satisfaction with the elections, nor were their hopes left unrealized, for there were twice as many capitalists in Eisenhower’s administration as in Truman’s. Appointed as Secretary of Defense was ex-president of General Motors Charles Wilson, who in that post had received an annual salary of $566,000. John Foster Dulles, who had a salary of $150,000 a year as head of the firm of Sullivan and Cromwell prior to entering the Eisenhower administration, became Secretary of State. The Secretary of the Treasury was financier George Humphrey, whose income in 1951 amounted to $305,000. Other cabinet posts also went to capitalists: Sinclair Weeks, Secretary of Commerce; Arthur E. Summerfield, Postmaster General; Herbert Brownell, Attorney General; Douglas McKay, Secretary of the Interior; and Ezra Benson, Secretary of Agriculture. The only exception to this pattern was the appointment of Martin Durkin, president of the AFL United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the USA and Canada, as Secretary of Labor. It was, as some people remarked wryly, a cabinet of ten capitalists and one plumber.

p The Republicans publicized this fact, presenting it as the embodiment of “national unity”. Durkin’s stand in the administration was defined by AFL union leaders as one of cooperation with the capitalist cabinet members. To all intents and purposes, the 15th convention of the CIO, held in Cleveland in 1953, also gave its stamp of approval to this position. AFL president George Meany, president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union David Dubinsky, and other AFL leaders hastened to assure President 273 Eisenhower of their sincere intention to cooperate with his administration. A United Automobile Workers convention in 1953 expressed the hope that “President Eisenhower will and can carry out the commitments he made to protect the public interest".  [273•1 

p This hope, however, was not realized. The Eisenhower administration had no intention of abandoning the domestic and foreign policy principles of its predecessor. It merely improved on them in the interests of the monopolies. The leaders of the AFL and CIO had to maneuver between the two parties and the rank-and-file union members who were expecting Eisenhower to fulfil his promises. The Taft-Hartley Act was not repealed. Durkin remained as Secretary of Labor only a few months, then resigned “in protest”. He was replaced by a man who was more reliable from the standpoint of the monopolies, James P. Mitchell. In an address to the trade unions he unequivocally stated that he supported the TaftHartley Act.

p The national election conference of the Communist Party, which took place in New York, August 7-8, 1954, noted that the illusions that certain sections of the working class had entertained in connection with Eisenhower’s election were dissipated by the anti-union measures taken by the administration, Durkin’s resignation, the administration’s attempts to make even wider use of the Taft-Hartley Act, and the demand made by Attorney General Brownell that the provisions of the McCarran Act should be extended to all unions.

p The rampage of McCarthyism in 1953-1954 (which we shall discuss further on), and indications of crisis in the economy caused widespread discontent among organized workers. A number of labor organizations condemned McCarthyism and Republican policies.

p In 1954, the Republicans sustained serious losses in the mid-term elections, and the Democrats gained a majority in Congress. Many union members who had voted for the Republicans in 1952, now voted for the Democrats.

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p At the juncture of 1952 and 1953, the ruling circles took another step along the road of restricting bourgeois democratic freedoms. This move was prompted by the onset of a recession and the failure of the Korean adventure. In an effort to overcome the difficulties of economic development and to suppress democratic tendencies, reaction launched a new offensive. In Congress, the legislators stepped up their activity. Emerging as head of the right wing was Republican Senator from Wisconsin Joseph McCarthy.

p The spread of McCarthyism was the result of the US ruling circles’ intensified imperialist foreign policies and reactionary policies at home. This intensification was attended by the Democratic Party’s gradual abandonment of Roosevelt’s political line. Anti-communist propaganda, persecution of democratic figures, and raising the communist bogey were potent means of manipulating the thoughts and feelings of many Americans. It was this atmosphere of fear and suspicion that helped bring about the rise of such an ultra-reactionary as McCarthy.

p Who was he? What harm did he inflict on the labor movement, and how did organized workers struggle against McCarthyism?

p Historians Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais called McCarthy, when he appeared on the scene, “a brashly ambitious freshman Senator from Wisconsin”; Fred Cook called him a reckless and unscrupulous fortune hunter  [274•1 ; and publicist Richard Rovere characterized him as “a political thug, a master of the mob, an exploiter of popular fears. He used the fear of Bolshevism as Hitler used it...."  [274•2  As chairman of the Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments and head of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, he concentrated great power in his hands.

p In the words of well-known public figure Corliss Lament, “Grand Inquisitor McCarthy undertook to ruin anyone—no matter what his views, affiliations or party—who stood in the way of his ambition to become supreme political boss of the 275 country, operating through intimidation and rabblerousing".  [275•1  Noting that he had assailed millions of Americans, Boyer and Morais wrote: “To the remainder of the world it seemed as if Americans had succumbed to mass insanity when McCarthy and Attorney General Brownell actually charged that former President Truman was himself a part of the so-called Communist conspiracy."  [275•2 

p Of himself, McCarthy said cynically that he expected to “end up either in the White House or in jail".  [275•3  He was elected to the Senate in 1946 with the help of the most reactionary circles of the monopoly bourgeoisie. In particular, he got support from the Du Pont family, and Colonel Robert McCormick, owner of the Chicago Tribune, and General Robert E. Wood, former chairman of the pro-fascist America First Committee, both leaders of a reactionary nationalistic organization, American Action. McCarthy’s activity in the Senate was supported by people like Texas oil magnate H.L. Hunt, president of the Republic Steel Corporation Charles White, and chairman of the board of directors of Armco Steel Charles Hook. An ambitious politician and rabid anti-Communist, the senator from Wisconsin appeared to them to be a perfectly suitable vehicle for accomplishing their ends. McCarthy did not let them down. One of his first acts upon election to Congress was to protest against punishment of the German war criminals who had perpetrated the massacre of American prisoners of war in Malmedy.

p So long as McCarthy acted alone and his activity remained within the halls of Congress he did not pose a serious danger. But it was not long before a group of ultra-right congressmen, men like Goldwater, Wood, McCarran, McCormick, Walter and Thomas, gathered around him. It was when the ultra extremist elements in the country began to count on him that McCarthy became socially dangerous.

p McCarthy made the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on 276 Investigations his center. Called up before this committee daily were dozens of trade union and public figures—journalists, scientists,leaders and rank-and-file members of such democratic organizations as the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, the Civil Rights Congress, etc. The “witnesses” called to testify were blackmailed and threatened with jail or loss of employment. The McCarthyites fanned the antiCommunist hysteria in the press and over the radio. Just about every automobile or air accident was declared to be the result of Communist sabotage, every murder an act of Communist terror, and every strike the work of Communists. The reactionary newspapers and magazines came out with blaring scare headlines:“;Flying Saucers Over America!”, “Red Submarines Off the Coast of California!”, “New York in Ruins!”, “Soviet Spies in America!”

p The imperialist forces used this device to cover up their anti-democratic schemes, frighten the public with the Communist bogey, and gain popular support for the cold war. The McCarthyites succeeded in frightening and deceiving large sections of the public, including workers. They succeeded, in the first place, because of the “pie in the sky" which McCarthy and his myrmidons promised the small businessmen, farmers, veterans and workers by wiping out corruption in the government; and in the second place because, as Supreme Court Justice William Douglas wrote, people were afraid of losing their jobs, afraid of the investigations, afraid of being pilloried. The Communist Party pointed out that McCarthyism aimed to smash the labor movement, to further enslave the Negro people, to stir up racism and anti-Semitism, to gag the young generation, and to wipe out all vestiges of liberty.  [276•1 

p In 1953, McCarthy instigated a campaign to ban “subversive" books. In an address at Dartmouth College, President Eisenhower condemned this venture, and urged the students not to join the book burners. But McCarthy was not to be stopped. In the spring of 1954, he began an investigation into the activities of Defense and State Departments’ employees.

p With respect to the State Department, McCarthy maintained that he had a list of 205 names of persons that were known to 277 the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless were still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.  [277•1  He accused the Eisenhower administration of harboring spies in the Army and State Department, at the same time adding certain Republicans to his list of “traitors”.

p Even the Protestant Church came into McCarthy’s line of fire. Many Protestant ministers were accused, if not of being Communists, at least of sympathy with communism and preaching certain of its principles. The struggle against the “Communist menace" waged by McCarthy and others of like mind—Harold Velde, member of the Un-American Activities Committee, for example—found support among the clergy. False testimony, provocations and denunciations, in a word, all the attributes of political reaction characteristic of McCarthyism, were seen in the campaign to drive out undesirables from the churches.

p A protest movement against McCarthy began to unfold across the nation. Progressive forces in the labor movement came out with exposures of McCarthyism, and resolutions denouncing McCarthyism were passed at many union conventions. The ILWU convention in April 1953, in San Francisco, declared: “Senator McCarthy has become a major political figure in the United States because of his leadership of the pack which is ‘saving’ America.

p “We have recognized, in the past couple of years, how this gimmick of communism which has been exploited by the interests of power and privilege in our country has frightened even some of our own members from speaking out.

p “At union meetings, where in the past everyone felt free to use the democratic structure to have his say and—if nothing more—at least to blow off some steam, there has been a change. Conventions and caucuses too have shown that some members, in addition to their reluctance to protest on the job have carried this fear into the top policy-forming bodies of the ILWU. And it’s understandable; a single speech might cost a man his Coast Guard pass, result in his denaturalization and deportation from the United States....

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p “The energies of the ILWU and whatever strength the union can muster must be directed today to protect the rights of the rank and file to speak up, to protect the job security of the members regardless of race, color, creed or belief, and to rid the members of the inhibiting fear which has eaten into our ranks as a result of the war, the inflation and the witch hunts.”   [278•1 

p In a letter to the AUCCTU, dated January 25, 1954, Leon Straus, executive secretary of the Fur and Leather Workers Union, wrote:

p “The repressions in our country against trade unionists and those who desire peace continue without abatement. At the present time, the President of our Union is under indictment on charges of having violated the Taft-Hartley Law. His trial begins next month, and so it is with many other trade unionists. Nevertheless, a section of labor is fighting back.

p “On January 6th, a Committee of Trade Union Veterans ... organized a meeting that took place as a public trial of Senator McCarthy.... This meeting was so successful that it completely filled the St. Nicholas Arena to overflowing.... There were close to 7,000 people present, and they roundly condemned this Senator and found him guilty of crimes against the American people, against peace and humanity. This meeting was organized by the initiative of many people in our Union and other unions. This was a highly successful challenge to reaction and will help in many ways the continuing fight for the best interests of the American people for peace."  [278•2 

p A convention of the Electrical Workers, held in New York in October 1954, demanded a halt to political persecution, and the abolishment of such bodies as the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Senate Jenner and McCarthy committees.

p A resolution of the 73rd annual convention of the AFL in Los Angeles, in September 1954, deplored McCarthy’s conduct as unworthy of American traditions. It pointed out that from 279 the day he entered the Senate in 1946 he had voted against labor on every important issue, including such things as the minimum wage, social security, housing construction, the Taft-Hartley Act, education, taxes and civil rights. The New York CIO Council, in the spring of 1954, denounced the unwillingness of the Eisenhower administration to curb McCarthy.  [279•1  The International Typographical Union’s newspaper, Labor’s Daily, came out with stringent articles against McCarthyism.

p The United Automobile Workers also lashed out against McCarthyism. At its conventions and meetings, the workers demanded a halt to McCarthy’s dangerous activities. The Railway Clerk, organ of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, in its issue of December 1, 1953 described the McCarthyites as “incipient American fascists" who “will stop at nothing to accomplish their purpose".  [279•2  Similar comments were made in other labor papers.

p Thus, there were more than enough resolutions and statements condemning McCarthy. What was lacking, however, was action and struggle. A characteristic example of this was the campaign to recall McCarthy, organized by a number of unions in Wisconsin in the summer of 1954. In two months’ time it was able to collect only 335,000 signatures, not enough to result in the calling of a special election.  [279•3  The organizers of the drive could not muster enough people or influence to complete the job. In the opinion of Carey McWilliams, editor of the Nation magazine, the unions were indecisive in the struggle against McCarthyism because so many AFL and CIO members were under the influence of McCarthy’s fabrications about a “Communist threat" in the United States.

p Another reason lay in the double-dealing practised by labor leaders. James Carey was one example. In April 1953, he declared at Harvard University in Boston that McCarthyism should be fought because it threatened the existence of the trade unions and freedom’ of thought. Yet Carey himself preached anti-communism no less cynically than McCarthy. 280 Speaking at a meeting of the employers at the Hotel Astor in New York, he said: “...in the last war, we joined with the Communists to fight the fascists. In another war, we will join the fascists to defeat the Communists."  [280•1  Carey’s statement caused an outburst of indignation among many progressive workers. It also embarrassed, momentarily, the leaders of the CIO unions whom Carey was representing at the Hotel Astor conference. But they were displeased only with the manner in which he blurted out his anti-Communist convictions.

p In essence, Meany, Dubinsky, Carey and others supported McCarthy’s anti-communism and witch hunt. If they did ultimately come to denounce McCarthy, they did so largely because he had gone too far, jeopardizing their own wellbeing. Another important reason for condemning McCarthy was the indignation expressed by progressive labor forces over the witch hunts, particularly since not only broad sections of the working people, but also progressive public, political and church figures, military circles and Democratic congressmen were also demanding that McCarthy be bridled and an end be put to the McCarthyite hysteria. But the fact remains, as Sidney Lens has pointed out, that “the leaders of social unionism [the CIO leaders—Auth.] were among the last to speak out against McCarthyism—and only after it had been generally discredited—rather than the first".  [280•2 

p McCarthy’s activity finally incurred the displeasure of the Eisenhower administration and the National Association of Manufacturers. It was not surprising that the Senate deemed it necessary to take some action against him. It came in the form of charges of embezzling public funds, for which there were good grounds. As a senator, McCarthy received a salary of $15,000 a year, yet after four years of heading the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations he already had about $200,000 in his bank account. After McCarthy six times refused to appear before the Senate to give an accounting of his financial affairs, he was charged with “contempt of the 281 Senate”. On December 2, 1954, the Senate, by a vote of 67 to 22, condemned him for conduct “contrary to senatorial traditions”. This notwithstanding, McCarthy continued to serve in the Senate until his death in 1957. His political death came earlier when even his confederates turned away from him.

p The influence of McCarthyism was an important factor in Congress, which from the beginning of 1953, now with a new composition, set about to consider anti-labor bills no less reactionary than those already passed. In January and February, congressional committees began considering bills that would outlaw the Communist Party, throw Communists into concentration camps, and dismiss men from their jobs for association with so-called subversive organizations. In March, Senator Lucas Scott (Dem., Illinois) came forth with a proposal to speed up action on bills that would outlaw industry-wide collective bargaining, strikes and unions.

p A bill introduced by Senator John Butler (Rep., Maryland) in the spring of 1953 provided that the Attorney General and the Subversive Activities Control Board could outlaw any union which they decided was “dominated, directed or controlled by any individual or individuals ... who are or ever have been a member or members of the Communist Party, or of any Communist-action organization".  [281•1  Moreover, Butler proposed that such a union should be outlawed as soon as the SACB charges were brought against it.  [281•2 

p The beginning of 1954 was marked by new efforts to outlaw the Communist Party, paralyze the strike struggle and hamstring the labor unions. In his message to Congress in January 1954, the President recommended that any person convicted under the Smith Act of teaching and advocating the overthrow of the US Government by force and violence be deprived of his American citizenship.

p In January 1954, the administration introduced a number of amendments to the Taft-Hartley Act into Congress. That this law would be reviewed was one of the Republicans’ main election promises. They implied before the elections that this 282 review would correspond to the interests of the workers and the demands of social justice. In fact, however, the amendments were not in keeping with these statements. They provided, in particular, for the interference of the National Labor Relations Board in the procedure wherein workers discuss and vote on the question of calling a strike.

p The drive by the federal and legal authorities against the progressive forces continued. In February 1953, a New York district court sentenced thirteen leaders of the Communist Party to various terms in jail. In October 1954, a court of appeals upheld the sentence. In 1953, more than one hundred prominent labor figures were given prison sentences or were on trial or under investigation. Trials of trade union leaders took place in Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle.

p In the autumn of 1953, charges of sedition were brought against Communists in the states of Washington and Pennsylvania. Then, too, an attempt was made on the life of Robert Thompson, a prominent Communist Party figure who was serving a jail sentence at the time. A criminal imprisoned in the same jail struck Thompson on the head with a piece of pipe. The Daily Worker characterized this attack as a political act generated by the wave of reaction and war hysteria.

p In December 1953, after three years of legal battles, the International Workers Order was dissolved as an organization by order of the New York courts, and some of its officers were subjected to deportations as suspicious persons. We spoke earlier here about the democratic activity of this organization and its role during World War II. Prior to its dissolution, the Order had some 1,700 lodges in 21 states, a membership of 162,000 in 1950, and insurance operations amounting to $110 million.  [282•1 

p The powers-that-be concentrated most of all on staging anti-Communist trials. As Brownell advised the President, since July 1948 the FBI had arrested over 140 Communist Party leaders on Smith Act charges, 108 of whom were convicted and sentenced to various terms in jail. Besides this, about 400 Communists, Americans of foreign origin, had been deported.

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p To step up the persecution of the Communist Party and left-wing figures in the labor movement, the 83rd Congress amended the McCarran-Wood Act of 1950 by passing, on August 19, 1954, the Communist Control Act of 1954 (also known as the Humphrey-Butler Act). Eisenhower signed the bill into law on August 24. The new Act declared that the Communist Party of the United States was “not entitled to any of the rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States”. Paragraph 2 of the law declared the Communist Party of the United States to be “an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United States.... Therefore, the Communist Party should be outlawed.”   [283•1  Further, it said that Communists should be prosecuted as members of Communist-action groups in accordance with the McCarran Act. They were barred from government or defense plant employment, and denied passports for travel abroad. They were obliged to register with the Department of Justice or face a five-year prison term and a 10,000-dollar fine.

p The Act contained a new definition of “Communist-infiltrated organizations”. The term meant “any organization in the United States ... which is substantially directed, dominated, or controlled by an individual or individuals who are ... knowingly giving aid or support to a Communist-action organization, a Communist foreign government, or the world Communist movement...".  [283•2  Any trade union found to fit this definition would lose its right to petition the Labor Relations Board on collective bargaining matters. This provision could be applied, in particular, against the unions expelled from the CIO in 1949 and 1950. The democratic press wrote that Congress had passed an unconstitutional law dictated by the interests of big business and carefully prepared by the NAM and the Chamber of Commerce. Any union pursuing an independent line could be suddenly branded as “Communist infiltrated”,  [283•3  thus giving the monopolies the chance to revive company organizations and speed-up conditions.

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p The persecution of democratic organizations increased. In 1955, the Subversive Activities Control Board ordered the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, the Jefferson School of Social Science, the Civil Rights Congress and the Labor Youth League to register as Communist-front organizations. The last three subsequently went out of existence.

p In 1953 and 1954 alone, several hundred thousand persons were subjected to loyalty checks; of these, thousands remained under suspicion, living from day to day in expectation of losing their jobs.  [284•1  The New York Times reported: “At least 9,394 persons have been dismissed from jobs or denied clearance. At least 15,928 more have had cases end with resignations or withdrawals while unfavorable marks remained on their records."  [284•2  The Attorney General’s list contained 255 so-called subversive organizations, while the House Un-American Activities Committee, not to be outdone, compiled a list of 733 such organizations, including all that had ever been called before a federal or state committee.

p One of the most inhuman manifestations of reactionary policy was the racist violence perpetrated against Negroes. In the first seven years after World War II, over 3,000 Negroes were killed by decision of the courts or without trial, as a result of attacks by the Ku Klux Klan or other racist groups.

There were many cases of reprisals against Negroes during those years. Willie McGee in Laurel, Mississippi, and seven Negroes in Martinsville, Virginia, were executed on the standard charge of raping a white woman. The burning and bombing of Negro homes and churches became not infrequent occurrences in the southern states In Louisiana, John Mitchell, a Negro, was killed in November 1951, because he insisted on exercising his right to vote. In December 1951, racists blew up the house of a Negro by the name of William Moore in Florida. In California, the homes of members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People were burned. During Truman’s presidency, 69 attacks against Negroes were made in various states from 1949 to 1952 alone.

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p The Negro question became increasingly acute. Discrimination against the Negro population was practised not only in the economic sphere, but in the political sphere to no lesser extent. The poll tax in the South and the movement for its abolition gave convincing proof of this. In the 1952 elections, the Republicans promised to put an end to segregation in the District of Columbia if they came to power. In an effort to undertake something in this direction, the Supreme Court ruled on May 17, 1954 that segregation of Negro pupils in the schools was unconstitutional. However, this decision produced little effect, and the persecution of Negroes kept growing.

p Such was the situation created by the political regime of a “free society”. Such were the conditions which the magnates of American capitalism considered necessary to carry out their program of militarizing the economy.

McCarthyism was a veritable ulcer of bourgeois democracy, testifying to its serious ailments. Anti-communism, the persecution of democratic forces in the labor movement, the anti-labor laws, and the suppression of strikes—all these were signs of the crisis of bourgeois democracy.