Part 2

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

Mr. TAVENNER. What date was that?

Mr. DENNETT. 1935.

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. TAVENNER. What was the date?

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

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

Mr. DENNETT. I am not.

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

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

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

Mr. DENNETT. That is correct.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. MOULDER. Civil Rights Conference?

Mr. DENNETT. Yes, sir.

Mr. MOULDER. Was it an organization?

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

Mr. MOULDER. Who was the leadership of that?

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. DENNETT. Yes, Fred Walker.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. TAVENNER. Of the Communist Party?

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. TAVENNER. Do you know his first name?

Mr. DENNETT. Paul Munter, I believe.

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. DENNETT. Yes.

Mr. TAVENNER. How many?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. TAVENNER. Was it an intensive training course?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. DENNETT. That is still in 1931.

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

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

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

Mr. TAVENNER. What was your party name?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. MOULDER. A statute?

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

Mr. VELDE. May I ask a question?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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