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COMMUNISM IN MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 411 are Communist China and Communist Russia. This, too, disturbed me tremendously, and made me realize there is a Communist menace and that the Communist Party in this country is a part of that menace. The third thing was the spy trials, the development of the Hiss, Coplon, and Gneenglass cases, and the Fuchs case in England. To me there is a significant thing about the spy trials. The thing that impressed me was that these people did not get any money, or not much. There are spies who work for their country, and we have respect for them. There are other spies who receive money for their work, and there may be a certain admiration for them, because they risk their necks. These people are doing it for love of the party. This is treason. I think the party that has used them is treasonable also. I don't say all members of the Communist Party are guilty of trea- son, but I think a party that encourages them to act in this capacity is treasonable. For this reason I am willing to talk today. Mr. Tavenner. I would like to have you state to this committee, from your own experience in the Communist Party and your study of its activities and what knowledge you have on the subject, what the real object of the Communist Party is in its efforts to organize and infiltrate the moving-picture industry in Hollywood. Mr. Dmytrtk. Well, I had no access to inner-party circles, so I can't tell you officially, but my opinion is they had probably three chief purposes. The first one was to get money. Hollywood is a very wealthy com- munity, and it is a great source of capital. The next one was to get prestige. And the third and most important one was, through the infiltra- tion and eventual taking over of Hollywood guilds and unions, to control the content of pictures. The only way they could control the content of pictures was to control studios, and the only way they could do that was to completely take over the guilds and the unions. Mr. Tavenner. Let us go back to the first of those purposes that you mentioned, the matter of money. What information do you have regarding the effort of the Communist Party to obtain sizable sums of money out of its membership in Hollywood ? Mr. Dmytryk. I have no exact information, but I heard a great deal of talk about it at the time, and I know that at least some of the members were making sizable salaries. This was not true in all cases, but there was in some cases a tithing system under which members gave a percentage of their salaries. Sometimes it amounted to quite a bit of money. There was also the opportunity to hold a great many affairs— parties, dinners, meetings of various sorts—not so much directly for the Communist Party as for Communist-front organizations, for which they were always able to get very sizable donations, and I think over a period of years, particularly when the love feast was on between Russia and America during the war and for some years afterwards, a great deal of money was taken from Hollywood. Mr. Tavenner. Did you make any sizable contribution to the Com- munist Party ? 81595—51—pt. 2 8