Chapter 20

, we shall see this aspect of fronts.

A single front can generate terrific communist pressure. Take this case, for example:

Time: shortly after lunch. Agnes G, executive secretary of the DEF Committee to Fight the High Cost of Living, is reading a letter.

Dan H enters the office. “It’s happened. The legislature just passed the Anticommunist Bill.”

This bill must be stopped.

As a first step Agnes dictates a letter to Professor Frank Y, a “good friend” at the university. “Issue a statement right away. This bill threatens freedom of speech. It must be vetoed.”

Then more letters are sent to teachers, clergymen, several lawyers. Contact is made with key Party members and sympathizers.

“The Anticommunist Bill has passed. Send telegrams to the governor, urging a veto. Start a petition circulating.”

Next, a bold step: Agnes places a telephone call to the governor.

“Mr. Governor, I’m speaking for the DEF Committee to Fight the High Cost of Living. We are disturbed about the passage of the Anticommunist Bill. We feel you should veto it. Would it be possible to have our representatives meet with you?”

The governor agrees. He wants to hear all points of view. The DEF Committee sounds like one of many groups interested in this legislation.

An appointment is made.

Pressure was being built up. The front could enter where the Party never dreamed of going. Three ministers, an attorney, and a newspaperman were contacted. Would they see the governor as part of the delegation?

“I want Larry R to go along,” Agnes says. “He’s not too bright a guy, but he’s easy and willing. I can tell him what to say. Besides, he’s from a very respectable organization.”

Nothing was said about the fact that this delegation was serving a communist purpose.

Every point had to be planned. “Be sure the right people do the talking.” About one fellow the Party organizer had commented, “Better have him stay quiet.” You never know, maybe a dupe will say something out of place.

How to talk to the governor? The delegation could act like “nice, little people,” but that wouldn’t be very impressive. Or it could be vaguely threatening. The latter suggestion was ruled out as too dangerous.

Not everything went according to plan. One minister refused to go. Agnes became angry. “It takes this kind of work,” she fumed, “to see what ministers are made of—dishwater.”

A wonderful guy, if you cooperate; if not, you’re a “bum.”

The delegation was dispatched, a delegation made up chiefly of noncommunists, yet fighting for communist aims, a delegation organized exclusively by a communist front. The DEF Committee was not interested in opposing the high cost of living. _It was fighting for communism._

Fronts exist not in isolation but as part of a vast, interlaced front system. Communist pressure can be greatly increased by manipulating these organizations.

Take, for example, roof, or compound, fronts. Here a number of fronts, as in the nationality field, will form a super, over-all front such as the old American League Against War and Fascism, which at its peak claimed 7,500,000 members. Often the propaganda value is to show unity: all these organizations, representing many different nationalities, are working together for common aims.

Or consider the National Negro Labor Council, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. This also was a roof, or compound, front created by already existing fronts. Let’s see how this works.

First, “delegates” must be “elected” to a “national founding convention.” Immediately, communist fronts across the nation “elect delegates,” and communist-controlled labor unions choose as their delegates those best suited for convention service.

At the convention all arrangements are made by Party leaders, including the selection of officers, the issuing of press releases, the passing of resolutions. This includes the actual running of the convention to ensure security. To illustrate, a newspaper reporter went to the convention. He had once been a Party member but had been expelled. On the first day of the convention one of the officials invited him outside and asked if he had been expelled. The reporter admitted that he had, and was ordered not to come back into the convention hall.

Hailed as representing “thousands of members,” the new organization is a front created out of fronts.

Another technique of manipulation is the continuing front. Here the same front is maintained by changing the name to meet current conditions. In 1940 the American Peace Mobilization was formed, urging mobilization for peace and no aid to Britain. In 1941, after Germany’s invasion of Russia, the name was changed to American People’s Mobilization, and the demands to all-out aid to Britain and a second front. This was the same group with a different name.

Again, on October 16, 1943, the Young Communist League was dissolved and the very next day the American Youth for Democracy was formed. Later the group was called Labor Youth League. All were designed to recruit young people for communism.

The continuing front is well suited for “victim” agitation cases; for example, the Committee to Save John Doe. This group, so active for Doe, had lapsed into disuse. A new “victim,” Richard Roe, was now at hand. Resurrect the old front!

That is exactly what happened. A communist arrived in town and contacted leaders of the old Committee to Save the Martinsville Seven. Where had it achieved the best results while agitating for the Seven? What were the problems? How could it best be used again?

A few days later the new front was already in action; the Committee to Save Albert Jackson, the same old faces under a new name. On Sunday morning its members were handing out leaflets in front of churches. In this instance Jackson was executed and the comrades turned to other fields.

Still another device is the satellite front, a cluster of minor fronts around a larger front. A new issue, like higher transit rates or the draining of a swamp, arises. The DEF Committee to Fight the High Cost of Living (the larger front) starts satellites, such as related committees in various sections of the city. Many of these satellites are paper organizations; however, they make a formidable showing to the uninformed.

These fronts are a vehicle for communist pressure. They are highly fissionable. From many comes one; from one come many. They can be cut, sliced, slivered, or compounded to fit any need. No wonder the Party makes so much use of them in mass agitation.

The campaign is launched, urging the veto of the Anticommunist Bill. Let’s see how the Party’s front system is brought into play.

Suddenly telegrams, letters, petitions pour in on the governor from all kinds of groups such as organizations protesting higher taxes; youth, women’s, union, and veterans’ organizations; free-speech groups; civil-rights organizations. To an uncritical eye it must seem that a wide stratum of population is interested in a veto of the anticommunist legislation. Then messages arrive from other countries (from international fronts), as if the whole world, “millions of people” as the communists like to say, is vitally interested in the bill.

Many noncommunists may oppose the legislation for a variety of reasons and express their opinions by letter, telegram, and petition. That, very emphatically, does not make them communists. They are only exercising their democratic privileges. What we are interested in here, however, is how the Communist Party, through its front system, can stimulate a vast and often effective propaganda barrage—a barrage which, within hours, can be turned off or shifted elsewhere.

Many times fronts appear bewildering in their variety; agitating on countless issues; based on different groups and occupations; and working in many ways. But actually their technique of formation is virtually identical.

Let’s look briefly inside a communist front and see how it operates. At the center is always the Party, organizing, manipulating, seeing that the right persons are in charge. Noncommunists might well ponder this comment by a Party organizer:

Experience has shown that most sponsors are unwilling to give of themselves sufficiently to stop the secretary from directing policy.

So true! The communists realize that if the secretary (or other key officer) is a communist (almost always a concealed member), the Party can dominate the organization. Let the letterhead glitter with noncommunist names: president, vice-president, members of the executive board. They serve as lightning rods, camouflaging the communist interest. To the sponsors, the prestige; to the communists, the power.

Around this communist core come layer after layer of noncommunists. As we have seen in