Gus Hall
Encyclopedia
Gus Hall, born Arvo Kustaa Hallberg (October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000), was a leader and Chairman of the Communist Party USA
(CPUSA) and its four-time U.S. presidential candidate. As a labor leader, Hall was closely associated with the so-called "Little Steel" Strike of 1937, an effort to unionize the nation's smaller, regional steel manufacturers. During the Second Red Scare, Hall was indicted under the Smith Act
and was sentenced to eight years in prison. After his release, Hall led the CPUSA for over 40 years, often taking an orthodox Marxist-Leninist stance.
In 1910 he was born Arvo Kustaa Halberg to Matt (Matti) and Susan (Susanna) Halberg in Cherry
, a rural community on Northern Minnesota
's Mesabi Iron Range. Hall's parents were Finnish immigrants from the Lapua
region, and were politically radical: they were involved in the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW) and were early members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1919. The Mesabi Range was one of the most important immigration settlements for Finns, who were often active in labor militancy and political activism. Hall's home language
was Finnish
, and he conversed with his nine siblings in that language for the rest of his life. He did not know political terminology in Finnish and used mostly English
when meeting with visiting Finnish Communists.
Hall grew up in a Communist home and was involved early on in politics. According to Hall, after his father was banned from working in the mines for joining an IWW strike
, the family grew up in near starvation
in a log cabin
built by Halberg.
At 15, to support the impoverished ten-child family, Hall left school and went to work in the North Woods
lumber camps, mines and railroads. Two years later in 1927, he was recruited to the CPUSA by his father. Hall became an organizer for the Young Communist League
(YCL) in the upper Midwest. In 1931, an apprenticeship in the YCL qualified Hall to travel to the Soviet Union
to study for two years at the International Lenin School
in Moscow
, where he learned sabotage
and guerrilla tactics.
. In 1934, Hall was jailed for six months for taking part in the Minneapolis Teamster's Strike
(led by Trotskyist Farrell Dobbs
). After serving his sentence, Hall was blacklist
ed and was unable to find work under his original name. He changed his name to Gus Hall, derived from Kustaa (Gustav) Halberg. The change was confirmed in court in 1935.
's Mahoning Valley
. Following the call for organizing in the steel industry, Hall was among a handful hired at a steel mill in Youngstown, Ohio
. During 1935–1936, he was involved in the Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO) and was a founding organizer of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee
(SWOC), which was set up by the CIO. Hall stated that he and others persuaded John L. Lewis
, who was one of the founders of CIO, that steel could be organized.
. They were married in 1935. Hall's wife for 65 years, Elizabeth was a leader in her own right, among the first women steelworkers and a secretary of SWOC. They had two children, Barbara (Conway) (born 1938) and Arvo (born 1947).
, Bethlehem Steel
and the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, as opposed to the industry giant U.S. Steel
. It had previously entered into a contract with SWOC without a strike. The strike was ultimately unsuccessful, and marred by the deaths of workers at Republic plants in Chicago
and Youngstown. Hall was arrested for allegedly transporting bomb-making materials intended for Republic's plant in Warren, Ohio
. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was fined $500. SWOC became the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) in 1942. Philip Murray
, USWA founding president, once commented that Hall's leadership of the strike in Warren and Youngstown was a model of effective grassroots organizing.
After the 1937 strike, Hall focused on party activities instead of union work, and became the leader of the CPUSA in Youngstown in 1937. His responsibilities in the party grew rapidly, and in 1939 he became the CPUSA leader for the city of Cleveland. Hall ran on the CPUSA ticket for Youngstown councilman and also for governor of Ohio, but received few votes. In 1940 Hall was convicted of fraud and forgery in an election scandal and spent 90 days in jail.
Hall volunteered for the U.S. Navy when World War II
broke out, serving as a machinist
in Guam
. During the first years of the war in Europe, the CPUSA held an isolationist stance, as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany
were cooperating based on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
. When Hitler broke the treaty by invading the USSR in June 1941
, the CPUSA began to officially support the war effort. During his naval service, Hall was elected in absence to the National Committee of the CPUSA. He was honorably discharged from the Navy on March 6, 1946.
Seen as a Moscow loyalist, Hall's reputation in the party rose after the war. In 1946 he was elected to the national executive board of the party under the new general secretary
, Eugene Dennis
, a pro-Soviet Marxist-Leninist, who had replaced Earl Browder
after the latter's expulsion from the party.
Released on bail, Hall rose to the secretariat of the CPUSA. When the Supreme Court upheld the Smith Act (June 4, 1951), Hall and three other men skipped bail
and went underground. Hall's attempt to flee to Moscow failed when he was picked up in Mexico City
on October 8, 1951. He was sentenced to three more years and eventually served over five and a half years in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. In prison he distributed party leaflets and lifted weights. He was located in a cell adjacent to that of George Kelly
, a notorious gangster of the prohibition
era. The U.S. Supreme Court later reversed some convictions under the Smith Act as unconstitutional.
In the early 1960s, Hall was in danger of facing yet another indictment, this time under the Internal Security Act of 1950, known as the McCarran Act, but the Supreme Court found the Act partly unconstitutional, and the government abandoned its charges. The act required "Communist action" organizations to register with the government, it excluded party members from applying for United States passports or holding government jobs. Because of the Act, Hall's driver's license was revoked by the State of New York.
After his release, Hall continued his activities. He began to travel around the United States, ostensibly on vacation but gathering support to replace Dennis as the general secretary. He accused the general secretary Dennis of cowardice for not going underground as ordered in 1951 and also claimed Dennis had used funds reserved for the underground for his own purposes. Hall's rise to the position of general secretary was generally unexpected by the American Communist circles (the post was expected to go to either Henry Winston
or Gil Green
, both important figures in the YCL) although Hall had held the office of acting general secretary briefly in the early 1950s during Dennis's arrest. In 1959, Hall was elected CPUSA general secretary and afterward received the Order of Lenin
.
era had taken a heavy toll on the Communist Party USA, as many American members were called to testify to Congressional committees. In addition, due to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, many members became disenchanted and left the party. They were also moved by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev
's dismissal
of Stalinism
. In the United States, the rise of the New Left
and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 created hostility between leftists and the CPUSA, marginalizing it.Anti-semitic statements published in Pravda caused major splits. In 1968 Hall condemaned US anti-war gropus and hippies as "adventurist dogs".
Hall, along with other Party leaders who remained, sought to rebuild the party. He led the struggle to reclaim the legality of the Communist Party and addressed tens of thousands in Oregon, Washington, and California. Envisioning a democratization of the American Communist movement, Hall spoke of a "broad people's political movement
" and tried to ally his party with radical campus groups, the anti-Vietnam War movement, civil rights
organizations, and the new rank-and-file trade union movements in an effort to build the CPUSA among the young “baby boomer
” generation of activists. Ultimately, Hall failed to forge a lasting alliance with the New Left.
Hall spoke regularly on campuses and talk shows as an advocate for socialism
in the United States. He argued for socialism in the United States to be built on the traditions of U.S.-style democracy rooted in the United States Bill of Rights
. He would often say Americans didn't accept the Constitution without a Bill of Rights and wouldn't accept socialism without a Bill of Rights. He professed deep confidence in the democratic traditions of the American people. He remained a prolific writer on current events, producing a great number of articles and pamphlets, of which many were published in the magazine Political Affairs.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Hall also made frequent appearances on Soviet television, always supporting the position of the Soviet Communist Party and the Leonid Brezhnev
regime. Hall guided the CPUSA in accordance with the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU), rejecting any liberalization efforts such as Eurocommunism
. He also dismissed the radical new revolutionary movements that criticized the official Soviet party line of "Peaceful coexistence
" and called for a world revolution
. After the Sino-Soviet split
, Maoism
likewise was condemned, and all Maoist sympathizers were expelled from the CPUSA in the early 1960s.
Hall had a reputation of being one of the most convinced supporters of the actions and interests of the Soviet Union outside the USSR's political sphere of influence
. From 1959 onward, Hall spent some time in Moscow each year and was one of the most widely known American politicians in the USSR, where he was received by high-level Soviet politicians such as Leonid Brezhnev. Hall defended the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan
, and supported the Stalinist principle of "Socialism in One Country
". Hall gave his support to the pro-Soviet regime of Pol Pot
—untilthe Soviet-backed Vietnam invaded Kampuchea in 1978. In the early 1980s, Hall and the CPUSA criticized the Solidarity movement in Poland. In 1992, the Moscow daily Izvestia
claimed that the CPUSA had received over $40 million in payments from the Soviet Union, contradicting Hall's long-standing claims of financial independence. The former KGB
General Oleg Kalugin
declared in his memoir that the KGB had Hall and the American Communist Party "under total control" and that he was known to be siphoning off "Moscow money" to set up his own horse-breeding farm."
In the 1964 presidential election, Hall's party supported Lyndon B. Johnson
, saying it was necessary to prevent the victory of the conservative Barry Goldwater
. During the 1972 presidential election, the CPUSA withdrew its support from the Democratic party and nominated Hall as its candidate. Hall ran for president four times—in 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1984—the last two times with Angela Davis
. Of the four elections, Hall received the largest number of votes in 1976, largely because of the Watergate scandal
bringing protest votes for minor parties. But Hall ranked only in eighth place among the presidential candidates. Owing to the great expense of running, the difficulty in meeting the strenuous and different election law provisions in each state, and the difficulty in getting media coverage, the CPUSA decided to suspend running national campaigns while continuing to run candidates at the local level. While ceasing presidential campaigns, the CPUSA did not renew support for the Democratic party.
In the late 1980s, when liberalization and democratization were under way in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Hall maintained his Marxist-Leninist
stance. Concerning Joseph Stalin
, he admitted that even leaders of a socialist country might err sometimes but suggested that the Soviet historians were exaggerating Stalin’s crimes. Hall declared that he had not become a member of the CP because of Stalin and would not leave because of him.
The 1980s were a politically difficult decade for Hall and the CPUSA, as one of Hall's trusted confidants and the deputy head of the CPUSA, Morris Childs, was revealed in 1980 to be a longtime Federal Bureau of Investigation
informant
. Although Childs was taken into the United States Federal Witness Protection Program
and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom
in 1987, Hall continued to deny that Childs had been a spy. Also, Henry Winston, Hall's African-American deputy, died in 1986. The black party base questioned the fact that the leadership was exclusively white.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union
in 1991, the party faced another crisis. In a press conference that year, Hall warned of witch hunts and McCarthyism
in Russia, comparing that country unfavorably with North Korea
. Hall led a faction of the party that stood against Glasnost
and Perestroika
and, for the hardliners of the CPSU, accused Mikhail Gorbachev
and Boris Yeltsin
of "demolishing" socialism. Hall supported Vietnam and Cuba but criticized the Peoples Republic of China for failing to oppose the West. In late 1991, members wanting reform founded the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
, a group critical of the direction in which Hall was taking the party. When they were unable to influence the leadership, they left the party and Hall purged them from the membership, including such leaders as Angela Davis
and Charlene Mitchell
.
During the last years of his life, Hall lived in Yonkers, New York
, with his wife, Elizabeth. Along with following political events, Hall engaged in hobbies that included art collecting, organic gardening, and painting
. In 2000, shortly before his death, Hall resigned the post of party chairman in favor of Sam Webb and was appointed honorary chairman.
Gus Hall died on October 13, 2000, at Lenox Hill Hospital
in Manhattan
from diabetes complications . He was buried in the Forest Home Cemetery
near Chicago.
His pro-Soviet stance led him into conflict with various Trotskyist groups and individuals. When the Socialist Workers Party
(SWP) was prosecuted under the Smith Act in Minnesota in 1949, Hall supported the government actions, although he later admitted this had been a mistake. Hall was accused of holding a vision of class struggle rooted in the early 20th century and of not understanding the socioeconomic changes taking place in the postwar society. In the early 1990s, disgruntled party members demanded more openness and democratization of the party.
Former party members claimed Hall had used $2 million received from the USSR for the CPUSA to help detained comrades for his own chauffeured car
use and for a private golf club. Soviet officials criticized Hall for poor leadership of the CPUSA. Young American Communists were advised to distance themselves from Hall and the CPUSA, as the party was seen lacking any capacity for revolutionary action. The CPUSA was under FBI surveillance and infiltration and thus had no potential.
Many conservatives saw Hall as a threat to America, with J. Edgar Hoover
describing him as "a powerful, deceitful, dangerous foe of Americanism
." An inflammatory anti-Christian statement was falsely ascribed to Hall, earning him the hostility of some Christian groups, including Jerry Falwell
's Moral Majority
.
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
(CPUSA) and its four-time U.S. presidential candidate. As a labor leader, Hall was closely associated with the so-called "Little Steel" Strike of 1937, an effort to unionize the nation's smaller, regional steel manufacturers. During the Second Red Scare, Hall was indicted under the Smith Act
Smith Act
The Alien Registration Act or Smith Act of 1940 is a United States federal statute that set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the U.S...
and was sentenced to eight years in prison. After his release, Hall led the CPUSA for over 40 years, often taking an orthodox Marxist-Leninist stance.
Background and early political activism
Cherry Township, Minnesota
Cherry Township is a township in St. Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 860 at the 2010 census.-Transportation:State Highway 37 serves as a main arterial route in the township.-Notable people:...
, a rural community on Northern Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
's Mesabi Iron Range. Hall's parents were Finnish immigrants from the Lapua
Lapua
Lapua is a town and municipality of Finland.It is located next to the Lapua River in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Southern Ostrobothnia region. The town has a population of and covers an area of ofwhich is water...
region, and were politically radical: they were involved in the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(IWW) and were early members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1919. The Mesabi Range was one of the most important immigration settlements for Finns, who were often active in labor militancy and political activism. Hall's home language
Home language
Following a widely accepted definition by Valdes , a heritage language is a language that is acquired by individuals raised in homes where the dominant language of the region, such as English in the United States, is not spoken or not exclusively spoken...
was Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, and he conversed with his nine siblings in that language for the rest of his life. He did not know political terminology in Finnish and used mostly English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
when meeting with visiting Finnish Communists.
Hall grew up in a Communist home and was involved early on in politics. According to Hall, after his father was banned from working in the mines for joining an IWW strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
, the family grew up in near starvation
Starvation
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...
in a log cabin
Log cabin
A log cabin is a house built from logs. It is a fairly simple type of log house. A distinction should be drawn between the traditional meanings of "log cabin" and "log house." Historically most "Log cabins" were a simple one- or 1½-story structures, somewhat impermanent, and less finished or less...
built by Halberg.
At 15, to support the impoverished ten-child family, Hall left school and went to work in the North Woods
North Woods
The Laurentian Mixed Forest Province, also known as the North Woods, is a forested ecoregion in Canada and the United States. In Canada it is found in Ontario around the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River through Quebec to Quebec City...
lumber camps, mines and railroads. Two years later in 1927, he was recruited to the CPUSA by his father. Hall became an organizer for the Young Communist League
Young Communist League, USA
The Young Communist League USA is the fraternal youth organization of the Communist Party USA. Although the name of the group has changed a number of times over the years, it dates its lineage back to 1920, shortly after the establishment of the first communist parties in America.-Early years:The...
(YCL) in the upper Midwest. In 1931, an apprenticeship in the YCL qualified Hall to travel to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to study for two years at the International Lenin School
International Lenin School
Situated in Moscow and shrouded in secrecy, the International Lenin School was founded in 1926 as an instrument for the "Bolshevisation" of the Communist International and its national sections, following the resolutions of the fifth Congress of the Comintern. Between 1926 and 1938 the school...
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, where he learned sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
and guerrilla tactics.
Move to Minneapolis
After his studies, Hall moved to Minneapolis to further the YCL activities there. He was involved in hunger marches, demonstrations on behalf of farmers, and various strikes during the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. In 1934, Hall was jailed for six months for taking part in the Minneapolis Teamster's Strike
Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934
The Minneapolis General Strike of 1934 grew out of a strike by Teamsters against most of the trucking companies operating in Minneapolis, a major distribution center for the Upper Midwest. The strike began on May 16, 1934 in the Market District and ensuing violence lasted periodically throughout...
(led by Trotskyist Farrell Dobbs
Farrell Dobbs
Farrell Dobbs was an American Trotskyist and trade unionist.He was born in Queen City, Missouri where his father was a worker in a coal mine. They moved to Minneapolis, and he graduated from North High School in 1925. In 1926, he left for North Dakota to find work, but returned the following fall...
). After serving his sentence, Hall was blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
ed and was unable to find work under his original name. He changed his name to Gus Hall, derived from Kustaa (Gustav) Halberg. The change was confirmed in court in 1935.
Ohio activism and WWII
In late 1934, Hall went to OhioOhio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
's Mahoning Valley
Mahoning Valley
The Mahoning Valley is a geographic valley encompassing the area of northeast Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania that drains into the Mahoning River. The Mahoning River empties into the Beaver River, which empties into the Ohio River. The Mahoning River flows through Lawrence and Mercer counties in...
. Following the call for organizing in the steel industry, Hall was among a handful hired at a steel mill in Youngstown, Ohio
Youngstown, Ohio
Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Mahoning County; it also extends into Trumbull County. The municipality is situated on the Mahoning River, approximately southeast of Cleveland and northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
. During 1935–1936, he was involved in the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
(CIO) and was a founding organizer of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee
Steel Workers Organizing Committee
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee was one of two precursor labor organizations to the United Steelworkers. It was formed by the CIO in 1936. It disbanded in 1942 to become the United Steel Workers of America....
(SWOC), which was set up by the CIO. Hall stated that he and others persuaded John L. Lewis
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...
, who was one of the founders of CIO, that steel could be organized.
Marriage and family
In Youngstown Hall met Elizabeth Mary Turner (1909–2003), a woman of Hungarian backgroundHungarian American
Hungarian Americans Hungarian are American citizens of Hungarian descent. The constant influx of Hungarian immigrants was marked by several waves of sharp increase.-History:...
. They were married in 1935. Hall's wife for 65 years, Elizabeth was a leader in her own right, among the first women steelworkers and a secretary of SWOC. They had two children, Barbara (Conway) (born 1938) and Arvo (born 1947).
Strike and arrest
Hall was a leader of the 1937 “Little Steel” strike, so called because it was directed against Republic SteelRepublic Steel
Republic Steel was once the third largest steel producer in the United States.The Republic Iron and Steel Company was founded in Youngstown, Ohio in 1899....
, Bethlehem Steel
Bethlehem Steel
The Bethlehem Steel Corporation , based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was once the second-largest steel producer in the United States, after Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based U.S. Steel. After a decline in the U.S...
and the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, as opposed to the industry giant U.S. Steel
U.S. Steel
The United States Steel Corporation , more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States, Canada, and Central Europe. The company is the world's tenth largest steel producer ranked by sales...
. It had previously entered into a contract with SWOC without a strike. The strike was ultimately unsuccessful, and marred by the deaths of workers at Republic plants in Chicago
Memorial Day massacre of 1937
In the Memorial Day massacre of 1937, the Chicago Police Department shot and killed ten unarmed demonstrators in Chicago, on May 30, 1937. The incident took place during the "Little Steel Strike" in the United States....
and Youngstown. Hall was arrested for allegedly transporting bomb-making materials intended for Republic's plant in Warren, Ohio
Warren, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 46,832 people, 19,288 households and 12,035 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,912.4 people per square mile . There were 21,279 housing units at an average density of 1,322.9 per square mile...
. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was fined $500. SWOC became the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) in 1942. Philip Murray
Philip Murray
Philip Murray was a Scottish born steelworker and an American labor leader. He was the first president of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee , the first president of the United Steelworkers of America , and the longest-serving president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations .-Early...
, USWA founding president, once commented that Hall's leadership of the strike in Warren and Youngstown was a model of effective grassroots organizing.
After the 1937 strike, Hall focused on party activities instead of union work, and became the leader of the CPUSA in Youngstown in 1937. His responsibilities in the party grew rapidly, and in 1939 he became the CPUSA leader for the city of Cleveland. Hall ran on the CPUSA ticket for Youngstown councilman and also for governor of Ohio, but received few votes. In 1940 Hall was convicted of fraud and forgery in an election scandal and spent 90 days in jail.
Hall volunteered for the U.S. Navy when World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
broke out, serving as a machinist
Machinist's Mate
Machinist's Mate is a rating in the United States Navy's engineering community.- Description :According to the Bureau of Naval Personnel , the job of an MM is to "operate, maintain, and repair ship propulsion machinery, auxiliary equipment, and outside machinery, such as: steering engine,...
in Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
. During the first years of the war in Europe, the CPUSA held an isolationist stance, as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
were cooperating based on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
. When Hitler broke the treaty by invading the USSR in June 1941
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, the CPUSA began to officially support the war effort. During his naval service, Hall was elected in absence to the National Committee of the CPUSA. He was honorably discharged from the Navy on March 6, 1946.
Seen as a Moscow loyalist, Hall's reputation in the party rose after the war. In 1946 he was elected to the national executive board of the party under the new general secretary
General secretary
-International intergovernmental organizations:-International nongovernmental organizations:-Sports governing bodies:...
, Eugene Dennis
Eugene Dennis
Francis Xavier Waldron , best known by the pseudonym Eugene Dennis was an American communist politician and union organizer, best remembered as the long-time leader of the Communist Party USA and as named party in Dennis v...
, a pro-Soviet Marxist-Leninist, who had replaced Earl Browder
Earl Browder
Earl Russell Browder was an American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. He was expelled from the party in 1946.- Early years :...
after the latter's expulsion from the party.
Indictment during the 'Red Scare' and rise to the head of the CPUSA
Now a major American communist leader in the post-war era, Hall caught the attention of US officials. On July 22, 1948, Hall and 11 other Communist Party leaders were indicted under the Alien Registration Act, popularly called the Smith act, on charges of "conspiracy to teach and advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government by force and violence," although his conviction was based on Hall's advocacy of Marxist thought. Hall's initial prison sentence lasted for five years.Released on bail, Hall rose to the secretariat of the CPUSA. When the Supreme Court upheld the Smith Act (June 4, 1951), Hall and three other men skipped bail
Jump bail
To jump bail, or skip bail, is a legal idiom in which a person who has posted bail and been released on bail subsequently fails to appear in criminal court with the intention of avoiding prosecution, sentencing or imprisonment...
and went underground. Hall's attempt to flee to Moscow failed when he was picked up in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
on October 8, 1951. He was sentenced to three more years and eventually served over five and a half years in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. In prison he distributed party leaflets and lifted weights. He was located in a cell adjacent to that of George Kelly
Machine Gun Kelly
George Kelley Barnes , better known as "Machine Gun Kelly", was an American gangster during the prohibition era. His nickname came from his favorite weapon, a Thompson submachine gun. His most famous crime was the kidnapping of oil tycoon & businessman Charles Urschel in July 1933 for which he,...
, a notorious gangster of the prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
era. The U.S. Supreme Court later reversed some convictions under the Smith Act as unconstitutional.
In the early 1960s, Hall was in danger of facing yet another indictment, this time under the Internal Security Act of 1950, known as the McCarran Act, but the Supreme Court found the Act partly unconstitutional, and the government abandoned its charges. The act required "Communist action" organizations to register with the government, it excluded party members from applying for United States passports or holding government jobs. Because of the Act, Hall's driver's license was revoked by the State of New York.
After his release, Hall continued his activities. He began to travel around the United States, ostensibly on vacation but gathering support to replace Dennis as the general secretary. He accused the general secretary Dennis of cowardice for not going underground as ordered in 1951 and also claimed Dennis had used funds reserved for the underground for his own purposes. Hall's rise to the position of general secretary was generally unexpected by the American Communist circles (the post was expected to go to either Henry Winston
Henry Winston
Henry M. Winston was an African American political leader and Marxist civil rights activist.Winston, committed to equal rights and communism, was an advocate of civil rights for African Americans decades before the idea of racial equality emerged as a mainstream current of American political...
or Gil Green
Gil Green (politician)
Gil Green was a leading figure in the Communist Party of the United States of America until 1991. He is best remembered as the leader of the party's youth section, the Young Communist League, during the tumultuous decade of the 1930s....
, both important figures in the YCL) although Hall had held the office of acting general secretary briefly in the early 1950s during Dennis's arrest. In 1959, Hall was elected CPUSA general secretary and afterward received the Order of Lenin
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin , named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union...
.
General Secretary of the CPUSA
The McCarthy Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
era had taken a heavy toll on the Communist Party USA, as many American members were called to testify to Congressional committees. In addition, due to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, many members became disenchanted and left the party. They were also moved by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's dismissal
On the Personality Cult and its Consequences
On the Personality Cult and its Consequences was a report, critical of Joseph Stalin, made to the Twentieth Party Congress on February 25, 1956 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It is more commonly known as the Secret Speech or the Khrushchev Report...
of Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
. In the United States, the rise of the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 created hostility between leftists and the CPUSA, marginalizing it.Anti-semitic statements published in Pravda caused major splits. In 1968 Hall condemaned US anti-war gropus and hippies as "adventurist dogs".
Hall, along with other Party leaders who remained, sought to rebuild the party. He led the struggle to reclaim the legality of the Communist Party and addressed tens of thousands in Oregon, Washington, and California. Envisioning a democratization of the American Communist movement, Hall spoke of a "broad people's political movement
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
" and tried to ally his party with radical campus groups, the anti-Vietnam War movement, civil rights
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
organizations, and the new rank-and-file trade union movements in an effort to build the CPUSA among the young “baby boomer
Baby boomer
A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even...
” generation of activists. Ultimately, Hall failed to forge a lasting alliance with the New Left.
Hall spoke regularly on campuses and talk shows as an advocate for socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
in the United States. He argued for socialism in the United States to be built on the traditions of U.S.-style democracy rooted in the United States Bill of Rights
United States Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...
. He would often say Americans didn't accept the Constitution without a Bill of Rights and wouldn't accept socialism without a Bill of Rights. He professed deep confidence in the democratic traditions of the American people. He remained a prolific writer on current events, producing a great number of articles and pamphlets, of which many were published in the magazine Political Affairs.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Hall also made frequent appearances on Soviet television, always supporting the position of the Soviet Communist Party and the Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
regime. Hall guided the CPUSA in accordance with the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
(CPSU), rejecting any liberalization efforts such as Eurocommunism
Eurocommunism
Eurocommunism was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties to develop a theory and practice of social transformation that was more relevant in a Western European democracy and less aligned to the influence or control of the Communist Party of the Soviet...
. He also dismissed the radical new revolutionary movements that criticized the official Soviet party line of "Peaceful coexistence
Peaceful coexistence
Peaceful coexistence was a theory developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of its ostensibly Marxist–Leninist foreign policy and was adopted by Soviet-influenced "Communist states" that they could peacefully coexist with the capitalist bloc...
" and called for a world revolution
World revolution
World revolution is the Marxist concept of overthrowing capitalism in all countries through the conscious revolutionary action of the organized working class...
. After the Sino-Soviet split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
, Maoism
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
likewise was condemned, and all Maoist sympathizers were expelled from the CPUSA in the early 1960s.
Hall had a reputation of being one of the most convinced supporters of the actions and interests of the Soviet Union outside the USSR's political sphere of influence
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
. From 1959 onward, Hall spent some time in Moscow each year and was one of the most widely known American politicians in the USSR, where he was received by high-level Soviet politicians such as Leonid Brezhnev. Hall defended the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
, and supported the Stalinist principle of "Socialism in One Country
Socialism in One Country
Socialism in One Country was a theory put forth by Joseph Stalin in 1924, elaborated by Nikolai Bukharin in 1925 and finally adopted as state policy by Stalin...
". Hall gave his support to the pro-Soviet regime of Pol Pot
Pol Pot
Saloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....
—untilthe Soviet-backed Vietnam invaded Kampuchea in 1978. In the early 1980s, Hall and the CPUSA criticized the Solidarity movement in Poland. In 1992, the Moscow daily Izvestia
Izvestia
Izvestia is a long-running high-circulation daily newspaper in Russia. The word "izvestiya" in Russian means "delivered messages", derived from the verb izveshchat . In the context of newspapers it is usually translated as "news" or "reports".-Origin:The newspaper began as the News of the...
claimed that the CPUSA had received over $40 million in payments from the Soviet Union, contradicting Hall's long-standing claims of financial independence. The former KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
General Oleg Kalugin
Oleg Kalugin
Oleg Danilovich Kalugin , is a former KGB general. He was a longtime head of KGB operations in the United States and later a critic of the agency.-Early life and the KGB career:...
declared in his memoir that the KGB had Hall and the American Communist Party "under total control" and that he was known to be siphoning off "Moscow money" to set up his own horse-breeding farm."
Presidental candidate and later years
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
, saying it was necessary to prevent the victory of the conservative Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
. During the 1972 presidential election, the CPUSA withdrew its support from the Democratic party and nominated Hall as its candidate. Hall ran for president four times—in 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1984—the last two times with Angela Davis
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
. Of the four elections, Hall received the largest number of votes in 1976, largely because of the Watergate scandal
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
bringing protest votes for minor parties. But Hall ranked only in eighth place among the presidential candidates. Owing to the great expense of running, the difficulty in meeting the strenuous and different election law provisions in each state, and the difficulty in getting media coverage, the CPUSA decided to suspend running national campaigns while continuing to run candidates at the local level. While ceasing presidential campaigns, the CPUSA did not renew support for the Democratic party.
| Election year | Running mate Running mate A running mate is a person running together with another person on a joint ticket during an election. The term is most often used in reference to the person in the subordinate position but can also properly be used when referring to both candidates, such as "Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen were... |
Received votes (absolute) | Received votes (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 United States presidential election, 1972 The United States presidential election of 1972 was the 47th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 7, 1972. The Democratic Party's nomination was eventually won by Senator George McGovern, who ran an anti-war campaign against incumbent Republican President Richard... |
Jarvis Tyner Jarvis Tyner Jarvis Tyner is an American activist and the current Executive Vice Chair of the Communist Party USA. He is a resident of Manhattan, New York City. In 1972 and 1976, he ran for Vice President of the United States of the CPUSA.-Biography:... |
25,597 | 0.03 % |
| 1976 United States presidential election, 1976 The United States presidential election of 1976 followed the resignation of President Richard Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal. It pitted incumbent President Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate, against the relatively unknown former governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic... |
Jarvis Tyner | 58,709 | 0.07 % |
| 1980 United States presidential election, 1980 The United States presidential election of 1980 featured a contest between incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent... |
Angela Davis Angela Davis Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party... |
44,933 | 0.05 % |
| 1984 United States presidential election, 1984 The United States presidential election of 1984 was a contest between the incumbent President Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate, and former Vice President Walter Mondale, the Democratic candidate. Reagan was helped by a strong economic recovery from the deep recession of 1981–1982... |
Angela Davis | 36,386 | 0.04 % |
In the late 1980s, when liberalization and democratization were under way in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Hall maintained his Marxist-Leninist
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
stance. Concerning Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, he admitted that even leaders of a socialist country might err sometimes but suggested that the Soviet historians were exaggerating Stalin’s crimes. Hall declared that he had not become a member of the CP because of Stalin and would not leave because of him.
The 1980s were a politically difficult decade for Hall and the CPUSA, as one of Hall's trusted confidants and the deputy head of the CPUSA, Morris Childs, was revealed in 1980 to be a longtime Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
informant
Informant
An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
. Although Childs was taken into the United States Federal Witness Protection Program
United States Federal Witness Protection Program
The United States Federal Witness Protection Program is a witness protection program administered by the United States Department of Justice and operated by the United States Marshals Service that is designed to protect threatened witnesses before, during, and after a trial.A few states, including...
and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
in 1987, Hall continued to deny that Childs had been a spy. Also, Henry Winston, Hall's African-American deputy, died in 1986. The black party base questioned the fact that the leadership was exclusively white.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in 1991, the party faced another crisis. In a press conference that year, Hall warned of witch hunts and McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
in Russia, comparing that country unfavorably with North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
. Hall led a faction of the party that stood against Glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
and Perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
and, for the hardliners of the CPSU, accused Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
and Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
of "demolishing" socialism. Hall supported Vietnam and Cuba but criticized the Peoples Republic of China for failing to oppose the West. In late 1991, members wanting reform founded the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism is a democratic socialist group in the United States which originated in 1991 as the Committees of Correspondence, a moderate, reformist wing of the Communist Party USA...
, a group critical of the direction in which Hall was taking the party. When they were unable to influence the leadership, they left the party and Hall purged them from the membership, including such leaders as Angela Davis
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
and Charlene Mitchell
Charlene Mitchell
Charlene Mitchell is an African-American international socialist, feminist, labor and civil rights activist...
.
During the last years of his life, Hall lived in Yonkers, New York
Yonkers, New York
Yonkers is the fourth most populous city in the state of New York , and the most populous city in Westchester County, with a population of 195,976...
, with his wife, Elizabeth. Along with following political events, Hall engaged in hobbies that included art collecting, organic gardening, and painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
. In 2000, shortly before his death, Hall resigned the post of party chairman in favor of Sam Webb and was appointed honorary chairman.
Gus Hall died on October 13, 2000, at Lenox Hill Hospital
Lenox Hill Hospital
Lenox Hill Hospital, on Manhattan's Upper East Side in New York City, is a 652-bed, acute care hospital and a major teaching affiliate of New York University Medical Center. Founded in 1857 as the German Dispensary, today's 10-building Lenox Hill Hospital complex has occupied its present site since...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
from diabetes complications . He was buried in the Forest Home Cemetery
German Waldheim Cemetery
German Waldheim Cemetery, also known as Waldheim Cemetery, was a cemetery in Forest Park, a suburb of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois. It was originally founded in 1873 as a non-religion specific cemetery, where Freemasons, Roma, and German-speaking immigrants to Chicago could be buried without...
near Chicago.
Criticism
During his long political career as the general secretary of the CPUSA, Hall was criticized by nearly every part of the American political landscape.His pro-Soviet stance led him into conflict with various Trotskyist groups and individuals. When the Socialist Workers Party
Socialist Workers Party (United States)
The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...
(SWP) was prosecuted under the Smith Act in Minnesota in 1949, Hall supported the government actions, although he later admitted this had been a mistake. Hall was accused of holding a vision of class struggle rooted in the early 20th century and of not understanding the socioeconomic changes taking place in the postwar society. In the early 1990s, disgruntled party members demanded more openness and democratization of the party.
Former party members claimed Hall had used $2 million received from the USSR for the CPUSA to help detained comrades for his own chauffeured car
Chauffeur
A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine.Originally such drivers were always personal servants of the vehicle owner, but now in many cases specialist chauffeur service companies, or individual drivers provide...
use and for a private golf club. Soviet officials criticized Hall for poor leadership of the CPUSA. Young American Communists were advised to distance themselves from Hall and the CPUSA, as the party was seen lacking any capacity for revolutionary action. The CPUSA was under FBI surveillance and infiltration and thus had no potential.
Many conservatives saw Hall as a threat to America, with J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
describing him as "a powerful, deceitful, dangerous foe of Americanism
Americanization
Americanization is the influence of the United States on the popular culture, technology, business practices, or political techniques of other countries. The term has been used since at least 1907. Inside the U.S...
." An inflammatory anti-Christian statement was falsely ascribed to Hall, earning him the hostility of some Christian groups, including Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
's Moral Majority
Moral Majority
The Moral Majority was a political organization of the United States which had an agenda of evangelical Christian-oriented political lobbying...
.
Works
- Peace can be won!, report to the 15th Convention, Communist Party, U.S.A., New York: New Century Publishers, 1951.
- Our sights to the future: keynote report and concluding remarks at the 17th National Convention of the Communist Party, U.S.A., New York: New Century Publishers, 1960.
- Which way U.S.A. 1964? The communist view., New York: New Century Publishers, 1964.
- On course: the revolutionary process; report to the 19th National Convention of the Communist Party, U.S.A. by its general secretary., New York: New Outlook Publishers and Distributors, 1969.
- Ecology: can we survive under capitalism?, International Publishers, New York 1972.
- Imperialism today; an evaluation of major issues and events of our time., New York, International Publishers, 1972 ISBN 0-7178-0303-1
- The energy rip-off: cause & cure., International Publishers, New York 1974, ISBN 0-7178-0421-6.
- The crisis of U.S. capitalism and the fight-back : report to the 21st convention of the Communist Party, U.S.A., New York: International Publishers, 1975.
- Labor up-front in the people's fight against the crisis : report to the 22nd convention of the Communist Party, USA., New York: International Publishers, 1979.
- For peace, jobs, equality : prevent "The Day after," defeat Reaganism : report to the 23rd Convention of the Communist Party, U.S.A., New York, NY : New Outlook Publishers and Distributors, 1983. ISBN 0-87898-156-X
- Karl Marx: beacon for our times, International Publishers, New York 1983, ISBN 0-7178-0607-3.
- Fighting racism: selected writings, International Publishers, New York 1985, ISBN 0-7178-0634-0.
- Working class USA: the power and the movement, International Publishers, New York 1987, ISBN 0-7178-0660-X.