We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
COMMUNISM IN MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 415 Mr. Dmytryk. I know the three guilds got together and appointed committees to investigate the strike. In almost every case they came out in favor of the Conference of Studio Unions. Mr. Tavenner. Yon were speaking of the craft unions. What do you know about the existence of communism in the craft unions? Mr. Dmytryk. Well, I know very little except that within the Con- ference of Studio Unions, in particular, they were quite well organ- ized. I also believe that they were actually very few. I don't believe there were over 50 or so in that group. I believe there are people who can tell you more about this than I can. I didn't have much contact with the craft unions. Mr. Tavenner. Did you have sufficient contact to be able to tell us what program the Communist Party expected to follow in regard to the craft unions? Mr. Dmytryk. I used to hear a good deal of talk about this from other Communists, and the general purpose seemed to be this: That the existing unions, if possible, would be defeated by the CSU or broken up; that the guilds would be kept independent until such time as they thought they could succeed in bringing CIO to Hollywood and affiliating these guilds and independent units with CIO, with the eventual hope that all the craft unions and guilds would be a part of CIO. They seemed to feel that could work more freely within CIO than within AFL. Mr. Tavenner. That was before the time CIO expelled various organizations because of their Communist infiltration? Mr. Dmytryk. It was, yes. Mr. Tavenner. Will you state what you know about the activity of the Communist Party within the Screen Writers' Guild, if you know ? Mr. Dmytryk. Well, I don't know a great deal about that except many of my friends were in the Screen Writers' Guild. The Com- munsts elected enough members to the board directors to control that guild for a large number of years, actually until 1947,1 believe. As a result of that, they largely led the fight in Hollywood on various Com- munist—front activities. They usually led the fight to get the other talent guilds— what we call prestige guilds—they tried to get them to take the side of the CSU against the IATSE. In general, the Screen Writers' Guild led in that kind of work. Mr. Tavenner. Do you know of your own personal knowledge the names of individuals within that group who were members of the Communist Party at that time ? Mr. Dmytryk. Yes. I know several. John Howard Lawson was one of them. Lester Cole was a leader in that group. Those are the only two whom I can positively identify as Communists whom I knew as leaders in that group. Gordon Kahn, by the way, was also rather important in the group. Mr. Tavenner. How do you spell his last name ? Mr. Dmytryk. I believe K-a-h-n. He was editor of the guild publi- cation for a long period of time. Mr. Tavenner. Were you familiar with the activities in the Screen Actors' Guild ? Mr. Dmytryk. I know practically nothing about any activities within the Screen Actors' Guild. I know that of the three talent