Communist front

A Communist front organization is an organization identified to be a front organization under the effective control of a Communist party, the Communist International or other Communist organizations.[1] They attracted politicized individuals who were not Party members but who often followed the Party line and were called Fellow travellers.

Lenin originated the idea in his manifesto of 1902, "What Is to Be Done?". Since the party was illegal in Russia, he proposed to reach the masses through "a large number of other organizations intended for wide membership and, which, therefore, can be as loose and as public as possible,"[2] Generally called "mass organizations" by the Communists themselves,[3] these groups were prevalent from the 1920s through the 1950s, with their use accelerating during the Popular Front period of the 1930s. The term has also been used to refer to organizations not originally Communist-controlled which after a time became so, such as the American Student Union. The term was especially used by anti-communists during the cold war (1947-1991).

International

Under the leadership of Grigory Zinoviev in the Kremlin, established fronts in many countries in the 1920s and after.[4] To coordinate their activities the Communist International (Comintern) set up various international umbrella organizations (linking groups across national borders), such as the Young Communist International (youth), Profintern (trade unions),[5] Krestintern (peasants), International Red Aid (humanitarian aid), Sportintern (organized sports), etc. In Europe, front organizations were especially influential in Italy[6] and France, which in 1933 became the base for Communist front organizer Willi Münzenberg.[7] These organizations were dissolved the late 1930s or early 1940s.

Communist fronts typically attracted well-known and prestigious artists, intellectuals and other "fellow travelers" who were used to advance Party positions. Often they came to the USSR for closely controlled tours, then returned home to praise the future as revealed in the Soviet experiment.[8]

According to Kennedy (1957), after the war, especially as the Cold War took effect around 1947, the Kremlin set up new international coordination bodies including the World Federation of Democratic Youth, International Union of Students, World Federation of Trade Unions, Women's International Democratic Federation, and the World Peace Council. Kennedy says the, "Communist 'front' system included such international organizations as the WFTU, WFDY, IUS, WIDF and WPC, besides a host of lesser bodies bringing journalists, lawyers, scientists, doctors and others into the widespread net."[9]

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) was established in 1945 to unite trade union confederations across the world; it was based in Prague. While it had non-Communist unions it was largely dominated by the Soviets. In 1949 the British, American and other non-Communist unions broke away to form the rival International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The labor movement in Europe became so polarized between the Communists unions and the Social Democratic and Christian labor unions, and front operations could no longer hide the sponsorship and they became less important.[10]

With the end of the Cold War in 1989, and the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, funding and support systems collapsed and many front organizations shut down or were exposed. For example, post-Communist Moscow newspapers reported the World Peace Council, based in Helsinki, Finland, had received policy guidance and 90% of its funding from Moscow.[11]

Asia

The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS) was set up in 1927 by the Profintern (the Comintern's trade union arm) with the mission of promoting Communist trade unions in China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and other nations in the western Pacific.[12] Trapeznik (2009) says the PPTUS was a "Communist-front organization" and "engaged in overt and covert political agitation in addition to a number of clandestine activities." [13]

There were numerous Communist front organizations in Asia, many oriented to students and youth.[14]

In Japan in the labor union movement of the 1920s, according to one historian, "The Hyogikai never called itself a communist front but in effect, this was what it was." He points out it was repressed by the government "along with other communist front groups."[15] In the 1950s, Scalapino argues, "The primary Communist-front organization was the Japan Peace Committee." It was founded in 1949.[16]

Latin America

Poppino argued that the effectiveness of Communist propaganda in Latin America "depends largely on the existence of a wide range of interlocking front groups that supplement and draw upon the Communist-led mass organizations."[17]

When nations turned toward the Soviet Union, they typically joined in numerous international front organizations, as Nicaragua did under the Sandinistas in 1983.[18]

West Germany

West Germany (and West Berlin) were centers of East-West conflict during the Cold War, and numerous Communist fronts were established. For example, the Society for German–Soviet Friendship (GfDSF) had 13,000 members in West Germany, but it was banned in 1953 by some Länder as a Communist front.[19] The Democratic Cultural League of Germany started off as a series of genuinely pluralistic bodies, but in 1950–51 came under the control of Communists. By 1952 the U.S. Embassy counted 54 'infiltrated organizations', which started independently, as well as 155 'front organizations', which had been Communist inspired from their start.[20]

The Association of the Victims of the Nazi Regime was set up to rally West Germans under the antifascist banner, but had to be dissolved when Moscow discovered it had been infiltrated by "Zionist agents".[21]

Australia

Davidson argues that in Australia with the onset of the Great Depression, "Support for Communist front organizations increased."[22] Examples include the Movement Against War and Fascism and the Australian Writers' League.

British intelligence infiltrated several Communist fronts in Australia, looking for organized efforts to block Britain's Cold War policies.[23]

United States

A report of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities of the United States House of Representatives published a four-pronged definition of a "Communist front" in March 1944. Frequently repeated in official government documents, this definition asserted that Communist fronts shared (1) a common origin; (2) organization upon a "Communist pattern"; (3) interlocking personnel; and (4) methods intended to deceive the public.[24]

Historian Bernard K. Johnpoll states:

Thousands of Americans joined Communist fronts during the 1930s. Few of them realized the true nature of the organizations they joined. The fronts paraded as independent, nonpartisan groups under the facade of non-Communist control. They were actually satellites of the Communist Party whose primary aim was to create the impression of mass support for an essential part of the party line. To maintain the illusion of non- Communist control, the formal leadership of these organizations was almost invariably composed of non-party members; the actual control was, however, in the hands of party activists.[25]

In the late 1940s, at the start of the cold war, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) investigated and listed a number of suspected organizations. In 1955, SSIS published a list of what it described as the 82 most active and typical sponsors of communist fronts in the United States; some of those named had literally dozens of affiliations with groups that had either been cited as Communist fronts or had been labelled "subversive" by either the subcommittee or the House Committee on Un-American Activities.[26]

Schrecker says that anti-Communist leaders believed that the Party used front groups to attract "fellow travelers," who were "unsuspecting liberals and well-meaning dupes drawn into the Communist orbit without realizing that the party was using them for its own purposes." Schrecker says that on the contrary, "most of these people knowingly collaborated with the party, believing it to be the most effective ally they could find."[27] Theodore Draper asks, "To what extent was it possible, at least in the nineteen-twenties, to belong to a Communist front without being a Communist sympathizer?" His answer is that, "Only the most naive could have belonged to a front for any considerable length of time without realizing its political coloration. The top leaders of the early fronts were not merely Communists; they were top-ranking Communists."[28]

Attorney General list of alleged Communist fronts, 1948

Starting in 1939, Attorney General Biddle began compiling a list of fascist and Communist front organizations. It was called "Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations" (AGLOSO), but was not at first made public.[29] Political pressures from Congress forced President Harry S. Truman to act.[30] Truman's Attorney General Tom C. Clark expanded the list, which was officially authorized by presidential Executive Order 9835 in 1947 and was administered by the new Loyalty Review Board. The Board became part of the Civil Service Commission.[31] The list was used by federal agencies to screen appointments during the Truman Administration. The program investigated over 3 million government employees, of whom 300 were dismissed as security risks. Adverse decisions could be appealed to the Loyalty Review Board, a government agency set up by President Truman.[32][33]

On March 20, 1948 the Loyalty Review Board published the previously secret Attorney General's "List of Communist classified organizations" in The Federal Register. This list included the name and date founded, as well as headquarters address and names of chief officers for active groups.[34] The complete list included about 200 organizations.

Attorney General's list issued in 1955

Attorney General's consolidated list November 1, 1955, includes also wartime German, Japanese, and Italian influenced organizations as well as white nationalist groups:[35]

Alleged CPUSA front organizations, c. 1980

By late Cold War, Richard Felix Staar alleged that Soviet intelligence had infiltrated many peace movements in the West, most importantly, the World Peace Council.[36] In addition to WPC, important communist front organizations included its affiliate the U.S. Peace Council, the World Federation of Trade Unions, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, and the International Union of Students.[37] Staar asserted that somewhat less important front organizations included: Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organisation, Christian Peace Conference, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, International Federation of Resistance Movements, International Institute for Peace, International Organization of Journalists, Women's International Democratic Federation and World Federation of Scientific Workers.[38] Numerous peace conferences, congresses and festivals have been staged with support of those organizations.[39]

See also

References

  • Federal Register 13, 20 March 1948: Attorney General's List of Communist classified organizations.

Further reading

  • Caute, David. The Fellow-Travellers: A Postscript to the Enlightenment (1973). excerpt and text search
  • Chafee, Jr., Zechariah. "The Registration of 'Communist-Front' Organizations in the Mundt-Nixon Bill," Harvard Law ReviewVol. 63, No. 8 (Jun., 1950), pp. 1382–1390 in JSTOR
  • Draper, Theodore. American Communism and Soviet Russia (2003)
  • Heale, M. J. American anticommunism: combating the enemy within, 1830-1970 (1990)
  • Klehr, Harvey. The Heyday of American Communism: The Depression Decade Basic Books, 1984.
  • Klehr, Harvey and John Earl Haynes. The American Communist Movement: Storming Heaven Itself (Twayne, 1992).
  • Klehr, Harvey, Kyrill M. Anderson, and John Earl Haynes. The Soviet World of American Communism (Yale University Press, 1998)
  • McMeekin, Sean. The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West, 1917-1940 (Yale University Press, 2004)
  • Ottanelli, Fraser M., The Communist Party of the United States: From the Depression to World War II (Rutgers University Press, 1991)
  • Rosswurm, Steve. "Records of the Subversion Activities Control Board, 1950-1972," Journal of American History, March 1991, Vol. 77 Issue 4, pp 1447–1448
  • Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes (1999)
  • Schrecker, Ellen. Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History With Documents (2001)
  • Service, Robert. Comrades!: a history of world communism (2007)
  • Sherman, John W. A Communist Front at Mid-Century: The American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born, 1933-1959 (2001)

Notes

  1. ↑ Sheila Suess Kennedy, Free Expression in America: A Documentary History (Greenwood Press, 1999) pp. 111-122.
  2. ↑ Quoted in Theodore Draper, American Communism and Soviet Russia (2003) p 172
  3. ↑ Donald Hindley, The Communist Party of Indonesia 1951-1963 (1966) p. 56
  4. ↑ Robert Service, Comrades!: a history of world communism (2007)
  5. ↑ Ian Birchall, "Profintern: Die Rote Gewerkschaftsinternationale 1920–1937," Historical Materialism, 2009, Vol. 17 Issue 4, pp 164-176, review (in English) of a German language study by Reiner Tosstorff.
  6. ↑ Joan Urban, Moscow and the Italian Communist Party: from Togliatti to Berlinguer (1986) p. 157
  7. ↑ Julian Jackson, The Popular Front in France (1990) p. x
  8. ↑ Michael David‐Fox, "The Fellow Travelers Revisited: The 'Cultured West' through Soviet Eyes," Journal of Modern History (2003) 75#2 pp. 300-335 in JSTOR
  9. ↑ Malcolm Kennedy, History of Communism in East Asia (Praeger Publishers, 1957) p 126
  10. ↑ Anthony Carew, "The Schism within the World Federation of Trade Unions: Government and Trade-Union Diplomacy," International Review of Social History, Dec 1984, Vol. 29 Issue 3, pp 297-335
  11. ↑ Jan S. Adams, A Foreign Policy in Transition: Moscow's Retreat from Central America and the Caribbean, 1985-1992 (Duke University Press, 1992) pp 69-70
  12. ↑ Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, The Secret World of American Communism (1996) p 42
  13. ↑ Alexander Trapeznik, "'Agents of Moscow' at the Dawn of the Cold War: The Comintern and the Communist Party of New Zealand," Journal of Cold War Studies Volume 11, Number 1, Winter 2009 pp. 124-49 quote on p 144
  14. ↑ For listings of front organizations in East Asia see Malcolm Kennedy, History of Communism in East Asia (Praeger Publishers, 1957) pp 118, 127-8, 130, 277, 334, 355, 361-7, 374, 415, 421, 424, 429, 439, 444, 457-8, 470, 482
  15. ↑ Stephen S. Large, Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan (2010) p. 85
  16. ↑ Robert A. Scalapino, The Japanese Communist Movement 1920-1967 (1967) p 117
  17. ↑ Rollie E. Poppino, International communism in Latin America: a history of the movement, 1917-1963 (Free Press, 1966) p 133
  18. ↑ Jan S. Adams, A Foreign Policy in Transition: Moscow's Retreat from Central America and the Caribbean, 1985-1992 (1992) p 109
  19. ↑ Patrick Major, The Death of the KPD: Communism and Anti-Communism in West Germany, 1945-1956 (Oxford University Press, 1997) p. 215
  20. ↑ Major, The Death of the KPD: Communism and Anti-Communism in West Germany, 1945-1956 pp 217–18
  21. ↑ Vojtech Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years (Oxford U.P., 1998) p. 162
  22. ↑ Alastair Davidson, The Communist Party of Australia: a short history (1969) p. 46
  23. ↑ Richard C. S. Trahair, Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies and Secret Operations. (Greenwood Press, 2004) p 22
  24. ↑ This definition is probably the work of Dies Committee investigator J. B. Matthews. See: Committee on Un-American Activities, US House of Representatives, Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications (and Appendices): Revised and Published December 1, 1961 to supersed Guide published on January 2, 1957: (Including Index). Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1961; pg. 1.
  25. ↑ Bernard K. Johnpoll, ed., A Documentary History of the Communist Party of the United States - Vol. 3 (1994) p 191 online
  26. ↑ Page 90-100 "COMMUNIST FRONT ORGANIZATIONS",The communist party of the United States of America, what it is, how it works; a handbook for Americans (1955) SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, UNITED STATES SENATE, DECEMBER 21, 1955, 1955 UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1955
  27. ↑ Ellen Schrecker, The age of McCarthyism: a brief history with documents (2002) p 8
  28. ↑ Theodore Draper, American Communism and Soviet Russia (2003) p. 185
  29. ↑ Robert Justin Goldstein, "Prelude to McCarthyism," Prologue, Fall 2006, Vol. 38 Issue 3, pp 22-33
  30. ↑ Francis H. Thompson, The Frustration of Politics: Truman, Congress, and the Loyalty Issue, 1945-1953 (1979)
  31. ↑ Henry L. Shattuck, "The Loyalty Review Board Of The U.S. Civil Service Commission, 1947-1953," Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1966, Vol. 78, pp 63-80
  32. ↑ Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and crisis: the presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945-1948 (1996) p 295
  33. ↑ Tim McNeese, The Cold War and Postwar America 1946-1963 (2010) p 63
  34. ↑ Federal Register 13, 20 March 1948: Attorney General's List of Communist classified organizations.
  35. ↑ Pages 722 to 727 Scope of Soviet Activity in the United States HEARINGS BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY UNITED STATES SENATE EIGHTY-FOURTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON SCOPE OF SOVIET ACTIVITY IN THE UNITED STATESAPRIL 10, 11, AND 12, 1956 PART 13, United States Government Printing Office, 1956
  36. ↑ Richard Felix Staar, Foreign policies of the Soviet Union, Hoover Press, 1991, ISBN 0-8179-9102-6, p.79, p.84
  37. ↑ Richard Felix Staar, Foreign policies of the Soviet Union, Hoover Press, 1991, ISBN 0-8179-9102-6, p.84
  38. ↑ Richard Felix Staar, Foreign policies of the Soviet Union, Hoover Press, 1991, ISBN 0-8179-9102-6, p.80-81
  39. ↑ Richard Felix Staar, Foreign policies of the Soviet Union, Hoover Press, 1991, ISBN 0-8179-9102-6, p.85

External links and further reading

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