The Autobiography of an American Communist: A Personal View of a Political Life, 1925-1975

302 Pages·1977·5.665 MB·English

by  Peggy Dennis

THE
AUTOl310GRAPHY
OFAN
AMERICAN
COMMUNIST
Eugene and Peggy Dennis, New York City, 1950.
THE
AUTOl310GRAPHY
OFAN
AMERICAN
COMMUNIST
A PERSONAL VIEW
OF A POLITICAL LIFE
m5-i975
DYPEGGYDEMMIS
Lawrence Hill & Co.
Creative Arts Book Co.
Westport/Berkeley
Acknowledgments
At the very beginning there was the grant from the Louis M. Rabinowitz
Foundation, New York. At the end there was Barry Gifford, author and editor,
who brought the manuscript and publishers together, then edited and saw the
project to fruition.
In between there was: Dorothy Healey, both enthusiastic and critical in her
readings of first draft versions, who was most helpful, as throughout our
twenty-five-year friendship, when we heatedly disagreed, forcing me to more
clearly delineate my viewpoints.
Rose Perry, friend of many years, who gave fulsomely of her recollections
of the 1950s and 1960s, much of which we experienced together.
My sister, Mini Carson Bock, my brother-in-law Albert and my niece
Laura, who separately and collectively served as "preview audience" to my first
draft chapters, and whose responses sometimes sent me back to my desk to
clarify and simplify.
Jackie, who brought me a young woman's unique views on matters political
and personal, and during these years transformed a traditional daughter /
mother-in-law relationship into a treasured friendship.
And Gene-no longer son alone, now friend and mentor, supportive critic.
Patiently he read, criticized, encouraged and edited, demanding I write with
candor and without looking over my shoulder. Relentlessly he goaded me
through the frequent moments when I almost gave up.
It has been a long and lonely and difficult road back in time. To each of
these who have helped, my gratitude.
-P.D.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:
Dennis, Peggy.
The autobiography of an American communist.
Includes index.
1. Dennis, Peggy. 2. communists-United States-bibliographical. 3. com
munist-United States-1917-
1. Title.
HX84.B56A32 335.43'092'4 [BJ 77-23607
ISBN 0-88208-081-4
ISBN 0-88208-090-3 pbk.
Copyright © 1977 by Peggy Dennis.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without per
mission in writing from the publisher.
First U.S. Edition, October, 1977.
Published by Creative Arts Book Company (Berkeley, California)
and Lawrence Hill & Company (Westport, Connecticut).
Manufactured in the United States of America.
To Gene
(1905-1961)
It was the best of times,
It was the worst of times,
It was the age of wisdom,
It was the age of foolishness,
It was the epoch of belief ..
-Charles Dickens
and
To Mini,
my sister, my friend
CONTENTS
Preface
One: THE BEGINNINGS ..............
13
Family backgrounds -Gene's I.W.W. contact
Joining the Party - Gene and I meet-Full-time
revolutionaries.
Two: INTO THE CRUCIBLE .........
34
1929-1931 - Southern California - Strikes -
Unemployed struggles - Union organizing -
Arrests and Trials - Underground activity -
Fugitives - Soldier of the Revolution - Tim's
birth.
Three: WORLD'S EYE VIEW. .......
58
1931-1935 - Life in Moscow - The Comintern
- Gene's travels: South Africa, the Philippines,
China - My work: School for Foreign Children
- Red International of Labor Unions - Lenin
School - Travels in Europe and Asia.
Four: SINKING HOME ROOTS
AGAIN ............................
88
1935-1937 -Return to U.S.A. -Tim remains in
Moscow - Wisconsin party organization -The
People's Front - Building the C.1.0. - Aid to
Spain.
Five: MOSCOW AGAIN, NOT
MADRID .........................
112
1937-1938 - Work at the Comintern - Stalin
purges - Browder and Foster in Moscow -
Gene-in-the-middle - Back home.
Six: VIEW FROM THE TOP .....
126
1938-1940 - Life in New York and Washington
- United Front - Hider-Stalin Pact - Break
with New Deal Coalition - Underground again.
Seven: WORLD AT WAR .........
138
1941-1944 - Wartime Moscow - Wartime New
York - Birth of Gene, Jr. - National Unity
policies - Achievements and Mistakes.
Eight: BROWDER DREAM,
TRUMAN NIGHTMARE ..
159
1945-1950 - Reformist policies - Browder ex
pelled - Gene becomes General Secretary -
Issues and Debates - Cold War politics -
H.U.A.C. - Smith Act trial.
Nine: POLITICAL PRISONER/
PRISON WIFE ...............
184
1950-1955 - Prison - Underground and floun
dering - The McCarthy Era - Writing and
Travelling.
Ten: UNRESOLVED CRISIS ....
219
1956-1959 - Out of prison - Stalin crimes re
vealed - Internal crisis - Views and analyses -
Political consolidation.
Eleven: THE LAST YEAR ............
240
1960 - Gene's Illness - An evening with Khru
schev and Gromyko - Meeting with Tim -
Alienation - Gene's death.
Twelve: A WOMAN ALONE .......
258
1961-1976 - Influences and Changing Views -
Young Gene - Foreign Editor -Travels in the
Socialist World - Divisions in the movement -
Final Analysis - A new outlook.
Appendix: LETTER OF RESIGNATION
FROM THE COMMUNIST
PAR TY, U.S.A ...............
289
Index ...........................
297
Preface
I do not proselytize my Marxist beliefs in this book, nor do I
undertake to define or defend them in their theoretical or
philosophical aspects. This is the personal story of two very
politically involved people, not a treatise on political or economic
theory.
Yet nothing that happened to us throughout our lives, nor
that we allowed to happen to us, can be understood unless one
recognizes the force of the total commitment that my husband
Gene and I had to the body of economic, social and political
outlook called Marxism-Leninism, and to the Communist Party,
which we believed to be the only viable vehicle for that com
mitment.
Upon joining the Communist Party, my husband at 21 in
Seattle and I at 16 in Los Angeles, and for the next thirty-three
years together, Gene and I were fulltime revolutionaries whose
daily lives were dedicated to the needs and demands (real and
imagined) of the Movement and the Party. As Gene in particular
rose rapidly into leadership positions locally, nationally and
internationally, our personal lives became our political lives.
Both were lived against the backdrop of history-as the Party
from Moscow to Shanghai to New York interpreted that history.
Although no source data nor footnote impedia have been
included, all facts and events dealt with in this account have been
verified by intensive research in the libraries and archives of the
University of California (Berkeley); University of Wisconsin and
the State Historical Society of Wisconsin (both at Madison); the
city libraries of Los Angeles and Seattle; the offices of the
American Civ ii Liberties Union and the Library of Social Sciences
(both at Los Angeles); also in the reading, in addition, of
hundreds of books of differing analyses of the political and
economic events during the five decades this book encompasses.
All interpretations of these facts are definitely my own.
The year's research served two main purposes-to refresh
my personal recollections of what happened and when it
happened; also it evoked vivid memories of personal responses
to those events. The scenes and dialogue reconstructed here are
rooted in those memories.
My husband's views, decisive to the policies and work of the
Communist Party and therefore to our personal lives, are given
here on the basis of his prolific writings-reports, speeches,
pamphlets, articles; on personal letters which recipients sent to
me after his death; on notes scribbled on margins of papers found
among his few records; and particularly have I relied upon my
intimate knowledge acquired in thirty-three years of living with
him, discoursing and often hotly arguing with him. My own
views are at all times clearly indicated as being the separate
identity they have always been.
The last chapter, "A Woman Alone," capsulizes all too
briefly the years 1961-1976. No one is more aware than I that
those sixteen years, in their rich complexity, deserve to be the
theme of a whole new book. Instead they are offered here in
summary to indicate the main influences which compelled me to
respond rather drastically, in light of my past, to new
circumstances.
-Peggy Dennis
Oakland, California
1977