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

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518 COMMUNISM IN MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY Mr. Tavenner. State the year, please. Mr. Brewer. 1947; there appeared Vincente Lombardo Toledano, who pledged the support of the World Federation of Trade Unions and the Latin-American Federation of Labor. Mr. Wood. Who was that ? Mr. Brewer. Vincente Lombardo Toledano. He is an interna- ionally known Communist figure who was an officer in international trade unions and at that time was head of Latin-American Federation of Labor. I have a file of these papers showing that Communists from South America and from Egypt appeared at these meetings. There is a very interesting story of one night when Paul Robeson appeared and walked down the aisle to thundering applause of the audience, and sang without accompaniment some of his songs. This is all in their own publications. For the purpose of explaining one of the problems we have, I want to point out that at one of these meetings there was a priest by the name of Father Dunne, and Father Dunne gave out some very unre- liable information on this strike, and I understand that there has been circulated some material which he put out at that time. At this same meeting, as reported in their own publication, Toledano appeared. Toledano is an internationally known Communist and had been particularly noted, in his Communist activities, for his attacks on the Catholic Church. I think his record will show that was one of the fields in which he contended the church was an exploiter of the people. And at this meeting at which Toledano appeared, this Jesuit priest appeared, and he paid a very great tribute to Toledano, and said he felt very humble in the presence of this great man. I would like to submit this publication, and if you desire I can give you a whole series of publications tracing the Communist activity. Mr. Tavenner. I would like 3^011 to furnish the committee with the issues you have spoken of for purposes of analysis. Mr. Brewer. I thought they might be pertinent. Mr. Tavenner. Let me hand this back to you that you can attach it to the others which you will file with the committee. During the testimony of Mr. Dmytrvk, a rather general explana- tion was made of the part that Communist fronts played in the plan for membership campaigns of the Communist Party. Did Communist fronts play an important part in the development of the Communist plan with regard to labor unions? Mr. Brewer. Well, yes; the Communist fronts did. The Communist fronts played a very important part in publicizing the class struggle and publicizing their efforts to infiltrate and take control of all trade- union activities which they felt would promote the philosophy of their party. But in this Hollywood situation the fronts played an even more important part in this control of the thought of the community, which certainly followed over into the unions and made it very difficult for those of us who were trying to expose the Communist nature of this thing to get that idea across. During this period the fronts played a very important part in con- trolling the thought of the community, which I testified to yesterday. This was really the instrument by which they got all these people,