Mr. TAVENNER. I don’t want you to repeat them. I want to make certain.
Mr. DENNETT. The only ones I knew in the Inlandboatmen’s Union--two are
deceased.
Mr. TAVENNER. We are not interested in that.
Mr. DENNETT. I think that is of no value.
There was a person known to me in the Inlandboatmen’s Union by the
name of Gene Robel, who was a member of the Communist Party in the
Inlandboatmen’s Union. I think that he was one of the witnesses
subpenaed before this hearing.
Mr. TAVENNER. Did he testify several days ago?
Mr. DENNETT. I believe so.
Mr. TAVENNER. Did you at a later time become a member of the Steel
Workers’ Union?
Mr. DENNETT. That is true.
Mr. TAVENNER. What date did you become a member?
Mr. DENNETT. Some time in 1942, I think it was. Yes, it was in 1942.
Mr. TAVENNER. Will you tell the committee, please, if any members of
that union were known to you to be members of the Communist Party.
Mr. DENNETT. I have this recollection about that:
Remember now all of that transpired more than 7 years ago. I have been
expelled from the party for the past 7 years, going on 8.
My recollection is positive about 2 persons. There are others about
whom I have a very indistinct recollection, and I would be afraid to be
positive about. But the two that I can be positive about--one’s name
was Andrew Marshall. He was referred to in Barbara Hartle’s testimony
as Andy. She did not finish the name. He was well known to me.
Another person was Alex Harding. H-a-r-d-i-n-g.
I know that there were around 6 or 7 active members of the Communist
Party in the steelworkers at that time, but I am so uncertain about the
other names that I would hesitate to mention them for fear I might be
wrong and might speak of the wrong person.
Mr. TAVENNER. There are other matters that I wanted to obtain
information about, but there is apparently not time to do it.
I wanted particularly to inquire into examples of discipline exercised
by the Communist Party over its members. We shall not have time to
cover that even in a general way, but I know from what you have said
during the course of your testimony that on a number of occasions the
Communist Party disciplined you. You have told us of two occasions
so far. I wish you would tell the committee of other examples of
discipline.
Mr. DENNETT. Well, the most important one was my expulsion and that of
my former wife.
This occurred after my return from the service. You will recall that
I have previously indicated that by the time I was inducted into
service I was beginning to fall into some disrepute in the party, and
the reason for that was that I had been actively engaged in trying to
develop a struggle for equal rights for Negroes.
I was very much impressed by cases of police brutality against Negroes
in the city of Seattle way back in 1940 and 1941. And some special
cases had been brought to my personal attention, and I had developed a
rather broad struggle on behalf of those people through my connections
with the Washington Commonwealth Federation.
Of course, I was trying to build a considerable corps of Negro people
in the Communist Party.
Without going into the detail of that, I simply want to say that my
activities at first met with the approval of the Communist Party, but,
with the outbreak of the war and the changed policy of the Communist
Party, my activities met with the sharp disapproval of the party.
In other words, the party adopted the policy during the war of
subordinating all other things in supporting the war. They had a slogan
of “Subordinate the sectional or local interests to the national
interest.” This was quite a sharp change in policy.
Mr. TAVENNER. Do you construe that as a sharp interest in the policy of
the United States or of some other country?
Mr. DENNETT. It was not with respect to the policy of the United
States. It was intended to guarantee that the full strength of the
United States would be brought to bear on the side of the Soviet Union
in the war which was then raging with Nazi Germany; and to guarantee
that it would be complete, the Communist Party ordered that the fight
for equal rights for Negroes should be subordinated and that Negroes
would have to wait for their equal rights, they would have to cease
being troublemakers over this question. And they used that term. They
used that term against me, that I was simply a troublemaker organizing
diversionary interests.
Well, I felt that if the war that was being fought was worth anything
it certainly was worth applying the principle of equal rights
throughout the length and breadth of this Nation of the United States,
especially when I knew of the heavy burden which the Negroes were
carrying in parts of this country. And I knew that there were some
attitudes around here which were extremely offensive to the Negro
people. They certainly do object to segregation, and they certainly
have a right to object to it.
It is my feeling, and always has been, that it is the duty of the white
people to see to it that they are not treated as inferiors.
So I was pressing that point, and I defied the leadership of the
district in the party to show me anything anywhere which justified
their change of attitude.
For my militant determination on it I was falling into bad graces so
rapidly that they removed me from the district bureau.
Before I went into the service I also quarreled with them over some
of the literature published under the name of Earl Browder, under
the title of “Victory and After,” in which I challenged some of the
contentions of Browder that it was possible to get along with some of
the big capitalists of the United States in the interest of the war
effort and forget the interest of the workers who were employed by
those capitalists, because in too many instances the capitalists were
making enormous profits in the war but the workers were not increasing
their wages.
This was an issue which was of extreme importance to me. I was working
in a steel mill and I felt that the steelworkers’ wages at that time
were altogether too inadequate. I think that history since has borne
out the justification of my attitude in it, and I think the Communist
Party policy which flip-flopped all over the place at that time has
proven how unstable it was, and has proven that it was not genuinely
trying to improve the condition of the workers.
Mr. VELDE. When were you removed from the district bureau of the
Communist Party?
Mr. DENNETT. Some time in 1941 or 1942, I believe it was. Then, of
course, I went into the service.
Upon return from the service I tried to become as active as possible in
the party work, tried to restore organization of the party apparatus.
I was first advised by Mr. Andrew Remes when he came--he had just
returned from the service ahead of me. He advised me that when he was
in the service, evidently, Mr. Huff, who had been left in charge of the
district, had permitted the entire district to collapse, because when
he came back from the service--I am speaking of Mr. Remes--he told me
there was not a single functioning branch of the Communist Party in
the entire district, that it took him several weeks to get together
the membership of any one branch. And he could only do it by legwork,
walking from house to house, to the old addresses of the people he knew
before he went into the service. And he was dumfounded to find that
condition existing.
When he had gone in the service the party numbered in the neighborhood
of 5,000 in this district.
In other words, it was baffling to us as to why that thing had happened.
Later on I came to the conclusion that Mr. Huff was either representing
the Federal Bureau of Investigation or somebody else who was as
opposed to the party as anybody could be because I couldn’t account for
any explanation for that development.
I soon found that I was running into a stone wall. Everything I
proposed by way of reorganization or by way of organizational
activities--I, for instance, felt that a fundamental policy of the
party was to concentrate in the mass production industries, to
concentrate in basic industries. I had always been taught that that was
one of the party’s chief concerns.
But, lo and behold, when I approached the district leaders asking
for assistance to concentrate on making a strong party in the
steelworkers, they said, “Oh, we’re not interested in them. We have
got other problems that are more important to us than just a bunch
of steelworkers.” Which was an attitude expressing to me a certain
contempt for the workers, which didn’t go very well because I have the
greatest respect for men who have the audacity to try to work for a
living. And I didn’t like this business of people who were sitting up
on top sneering, speaking about the membership in such a cursory way.
Mr. TAVENNER. Did the question of Communist Party activity in veterans’
organizations come up at that time?
Mr. DENNETT. Yes; it did.
Mr. TAVENNER. Just touch on it very briefly, please, because we have
very little time.
Mr. DENNETT. I was called to a fraction meeting of returned veterans
to try to work out some kind of veterans’ policy, and some of these
veterans reported boastfully that they had just walked into some
veterans’ posts and had captured the leadership--no trouble at all.
I chastised them for being so naive as to think that the Communists
could capture a veterans’ organization when the purpose of the
veterans’ organization was to oppose the Communist Party. And I told
them they were foolish to undertake such a task and that they shouldn’t
embark upon that policy. They told me I was nuts and that they knew
what they were doing because they had the success of having captured a
post.
Mr. TAVENNER. Time, however, proved that you were correct, did it not?
Mr. DENNETT. I think it did.
Mr. TAVENNER. You said both you and your wife were disciplined by the
Communist Party.
Mr. DENNETT. That is true.
When I returned from the service it didn’t take very long before rumor
was circulated to the effect that I was alleged to be an FBI agent.
Mr. MOULDER. Was your wife a member of the Communist Party, too?
Mr. DENNETT. Yes, sir.
Mr. TAVENNER. I would like to say at this point that it is not the
practice of this committee, and it is not my practice to ask a witness
any questions relating to the activities of his wife. There have
been several occasions when witnesses felt that, in order to give
the complete story to the committee, it was necessary to speak of
their wife’s activities. But when they did, they did it on their own
volition. Therefore, I am not asking you any questions with regard to
your wife. If you mention her it is purely on your own volition.
Mr. DENNETT. To explain this disciplinary action I have to advise that
my former wife and I were expelled from the party on the same document
with the same explanation, the same reasons. The documentary evidence
will bring her into this part of it.
And the account which I wish to make about the discipline against her
is of far more importance than the discipline against me, although I am
convinced that the purpose of the discipline was to get me out of their
hair.
It seems as though some people in the district leadership did not like
to be reminded of what the party policy used to be, and they objected
to my reminding them of the zigzags which they had followed in the
intervening period.
I was trying to find some way of bringing them to what I considered to
be the official party position, and they seemed to have an entirely
different attitude than I.
It resulted finally in a series of meetings with the district
disciplinary body known to me originally as a control commission. The
last I heard it was called a review commission. But, in effect, it
amounts to a kangaroo court because, in my case, they started out with
this rumor that I was an FBI agent, asked me to explain it, and all I
could do was explain that my former wife had done something which they
had authorized. And Mr. Huff admitted that he authorized it.
It is true that it ultimately led her to make certain reports which did
contribute to the war effort by way of eliminating bottlenecks which
she found in various parts of the war production industry. But this had
been approved by Mr. Huff.
And then when I was on the pan, Mr. Huff first admitted that he had
authorized her to engage in this activity, then later denied that
he had done so, and used the allegation that I was an FBI agent
as the excuse to cause my expulsion from the party, mainly and,
in my judgment, solely because I was in total disagreement with
them on policies relating to civil rights, policies relating to
Veterans’ Administration and veterans’ work, and policies relating to
organization in basic industry.
And the civil rights question was extremely important to me because
in the organization of civil rights struggles it was my conception
that if you are going to fight for civil rights you have to fight for
civil rights for everyone. And when we attempted to organize a civil
rights congress at the outset with that purpose in mind, and that as
our declared effort, we were advised that the Communist Party could not
afford to waste its time fighting for civil rights for everybody, that
they were only interested in fighting for civil rights for members of
the Communist Party.
Mr. TAVENNER. Is that one of the matters on which you disagreed with
the Communist Party?
Mr. DENNETT. It certainly was. Mr. Andrew Remes advised me personally
that that was the situation, the party was in so much difficulty that
it had to restrict its efforts to the defense of the Communist Party
and that the Civil Rights Congress was created solely for that purpose.
I ceased to have any interest in it whatsoever, and, as a consequence,
one thing led to another, and they finally expelled us with a notice on
the early week of October 1947.
Mr. VELDE. You were removed from the party then. Membership was taken
away from you for about the same reasons that you were removed from the
bureau, from the district bureau?
Mr. DENNETT. That is true.
Mr. VELDE. That was about 6 years before?
Mr. DENNETT. That is true.
Mr. VELDE. Do you mean they spent all that time trying to change your
mind about civil rights?
Mr. DENNETT. Well, there was an intervening period in which I was away,
you know. I was in the service.
Mr. VELDE. That is right.
Mr. DENNETT. There were several breaks there.
Mr. TAVENNER. I believe you were in the service from 1943 practically
through the year 1945.
Mr. DENNETT. That is true.
Mr. TAVENNER. I do not want you to go into great detail, but I believe
the record should be a little clearer on the character of work in which
your wife was actually engaged, which you say was authorized by the
head of the Communist Party.
Mr. DENNETT. A stranger approached her and asked her if she would
submit reports to him about any bottlenecks that she found in war
production. He advised her that he had been informed that she was a
very well-informed person, knew a lot of people, and would be capable
of doing this work. She didn’t know what to make of it. So she wrote to
me while I was in the service asking my opinion, and I told her to hold
off until I got back on furlough.
At that time I suggested to her that she take it up with the district
leadership of the party, which she did, and got this approval.