The CIA and the American Communist Party

[John Simkin]

A lot has been written about the FBI and the American Communist Party. However, it is not very well-known that the CIA turned several members of the party.

Bertram D. Wolfe had been one of the founders of the Communist Party of the United States in 1919. He remained a loyal member of the party until Nikolay Bukharin was deprived of the chairmanship of the Comintern and expelled from the Politburo by Stalin in 1929. Attempts were now made to purge foreign communist parties who had previously supported Bukharin. Representatives from Stalin arrived in the United States and several members including Wolfe, Jay Lovestone and Ben Gitlow were expelled. They then formed the Communist Party (Majority Group). Later it changed its name to the Communist Party (Opposition), the Independent Communist Labor League and finally, in 1938, the Independent Labor League of America. The group was disbanded in 1940.

After the war these individuals came under the control of the CIA. Ben Gitlow gave evidence against the American Communist Party before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, chaired by Martin Dies of Texas. The following year he published his autobiography, I Confess: The Truth About American Communism. His second volume of autobiography, The Whole of Their Lives: Communism in America, was published in 1948. In the 1960s Gitlow was closely associated with another fanatical anti-communist, Billy James Hargis, a man who has been linked to the assassination of JFK.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAgitlowB.htm

Wolfe worked as an advisor to the State Department's International Broadcasting Office which was in charge of Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe. He also wrote anti-communist books such as Three who Made a Revolution (1956), The Marxism (1965), Strange Communists I have Known (1966), The Bridge and the Abyss (1967) and An Ideology in Power: Reflections on the Russian Revolution (1969).

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAwolfeBD.htm

Probably, the most interesting of the three is Jay Lovestone, who had been party secretary of the American Communist Party between 1927-29. After leaving the party Lovestone went to work for the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU). After the war he was active in the American Institute for Free Labor Development, an organization sponsored by the American Federation of Labor. Later it also received secret payments from the CIA. This began a long-term friendship with James Jesus Angleton, Director of Operations for Counter-Intelligence.

In 1963 Lovestone became director of the AFL-CIO's International Affairs Department (IAD), which arranged for millions of dollars from the CIA to aid anti-communist activities internationally, particularly in Latin America. The AFL-CIO president George Meany discovered in 1964 that Lovestone was involved with the CIA and instructed him to break-off contact with James Jesus Angleton. Lovestone agreed to do this but when Meany discovered in 1974 that he was still working with Angleton he forced him from office.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAlovestoneJ.htm

[John Dolva]

The final consolidation of power by Stalin was the gradual discreditation of Leon Trotsky and, then, his expulsion in 1926-7. ( and symbolically finalised with the assassination of Trotsky as the last of the original supremes except of course Stalin., the changes in the third international and the change of national anthem further underscoring stalins doctrine of communism in one state as opposed to trotskys contribution, the concept of permanent revolution. ). He left hordes of loyal followers and many visitors like James Cannon were swayed and started with the Socialist Worker Parties under the umbrella of the fourth international.

The interests of Stalinism meshed well with Capital, but you cannot as an ordinary person avoid the writings of the early persons like Marx Lenin Engels Lenin etc and not sooner or later stumble across Trotsky.

edit:er...

Edited April 1, 2010 by John Dolva

[John Simkin]

The final consolidation of power by Stalin was the gradual discreditation of Leon Trotsky and, then, his expulsion in 1926-7. ( and symbolically finalised with the assassination of Trotsky as the last of the original supremes except of course Stalin., the changes in the third international and the change of national anthem further underscoring stalins doctrine of communism in one state as opposed to trotskys contribution, the concept of permanent revolution. ). He left hordes of loyal followers and many visitors like James Cannon were swayed and started with the Socialist Worker Parties under the umbrella of the fourth international.

The interests of Stalinism meshed well with Capital, but you cannot as an ordinary person avoid the writings of the early persons like Marx Lenin Engels Lenin etc and not sooner or later stumble across Trotsky.

edit:er...

It is now clear that the FBI and CIA made full use of these divisions in the Communist Party. However, they used very different tactics. Whereas the FBI persecuted them (especially thhose favouring democratic change like Earl Browder), the CIA relied more on money to get them to change sides. One of the most interesting cases was of Max Shachtman, who was not turned until the Bay of Pigs.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbrowder.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAshachtman.htm

[John Dolva]

Yeah, that hignlights the problems faced by Labour in struggle with Capital. I think a consideration of Che' concept or contribution, being ''the new man'', where that which guides the actions of persons is not dominantly self serving. So, there we get back to the necessity of permanet revolution : there must be no end to it if it is to succeed. Reminds me of a story, maybe from Trotskys History of the Russian Revolution (which a number hold forth as being an exemplary work of history), anyaway, the mopping up was underway and the troops were sent to smash all alcohol containers in a vodka manufacturer because of the debilitating effects on the population to be able to react to the still post revolution disquiet. They didn't come out. I think it took the crack team on the third go to succeed, dragging their comrades home to sleep it off.

As long as Capital is able to funnel,what to them is nothing, to someone for whom it is a lot by the maintenance of a hugely disparate wealth distribution there will always be a price for those who are not new.

edit:typo

Edited April 3, 2010 by John Dolva

[John Simkin]

For more information on this topic see Ted Morgan's book, A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone: Communist, Anti-Communist, and Spymaster (1999).