Communist infiltration of Hollywood motion-picture industry : hearing before the Committee on Un-American activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-second Congress, first session (1951)

COMMUNISM IN MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 433 demonstrated by the fact that Duclos' letter came out, and there was a tremendous crisis in the American Communist group. Browder and his supporters were thrown out of the party, and the strong Com- munist Party line people were put into control. This even had some repercussions in Hollywood, because John Howard Lawson, who had been a Browder supporter and who had been a strong preacher of the cooperative policy, immediately, of course, was in trouble, too, and he had to do a lot of very fast tight- rope walking in order to save himself. A lot of the Communists in Hollywood were a little bit happy about this, because even they had resented the Lawson touch, the fact that he was the final answer to everything. And so they hoped he would get thrown out, too, but he made his peace with the new group and was back in his original posi- tion in not too much time. Mr. Tavenner. Now, do any other instances occur to you which would indicate a strong party discipline within the Communist Party % Mr. Dmytryk. Just offhand I can't. Mr. Tavenner. Of course, the reversal of Albert Maltz in his letter was one which you have mentioned. Mr. Dmytryk. Yes; I have mentioned that. Mr. Tavenner. Well, do you recall any instance in which a leader in the party may have argued in behalf of one thing at one time and then very shortly afterward been compelled to change entirely ? Mr. Dmytryk. This went on all the time. There was a well- known incident that everybody got a good laugh out of in Hollywood, even the Commuists, I must say. They were the only ones who actually knew about it. It was where Herbert Biberman had made a very powerful speech, impassioned speech, in favor of—I don't know if it was a personality or party line, one day. The official party line changed the following afternoon. The following day he made an equally impassioned speech in direct contrast to the speech he had made 2 days before. Mr. Tavenner. When do you consider your withdrew from the Communist Party ? Mr. Dmytryk. Well, I consider that I withdrew from the Com- munist Party in the fall of 1945. However, as I say, I was active in what are now called Communist Party fronts. I want to make this clear. I was still teaching at the People's Education Center until 1947. I was on the board of the arts, sciences, and professions council. I was a member of the "Hollywood Ten." So actually I didn't break, I want to explain that, too, because I was in a peculiar position. As a man who had taken a gamble, who had made his choice in my appear- ance before the 1947 committee, I felt even though I had serious doubts about my position even during the hearings and shortly after that certainly, I felt that having taken this choice that I should follow it out to its logical conclusion. That is until such a time as the Supreme Court either decided we were right or we were wrong and went to jail. I felt if I suddenly started crying "Uncle" I was doing it simply to avoid the consequences of the decision, which was going to jail, al- though I had already before I went to jail made up my mind as soon as my jail sentence was over I would issue an affidavit and disclose Avhether I had or had not been a member of the party. Actually, I issued such an affidavit, a partial disclosure, not a complete disclosure, because a complete disclosure would have taken far too much time