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COMMUNISM IN HOLLYWOOD MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 2339 by you in the course of this article. In the first line of the last para- graph, there appears the words, "a familiar canard of the white chauvinism." Do you see that expression? Mr. Blankfort. The last line? Mr. Tavenner. The first line of the last paragraph. Mr. Blankfort. No, sir; wait a minute. Mr. Tavenner. It is the last paragraph of the first column. Mr. Blankfort. Yes, sir; I have read it. Mr. Tavenner. "Would you tell the committee what meaning you intended to convey by the use of those words ? Mr. Blankfort. Yes, sir. I must preface it by saying this took place in 1934, and to ask me what I had in mind then is difficult. But I think I can say that up to Stevedore, up to the time in the theater in New York, it was difficult for Negro actors to get work, and the point that I was trying to make here is that people—I said, "A familiar canard of the white chauvinism is that Negro casts are un- reliable," and which was a stereotyped reaction that producers and directors gave about Negro actors. Mr. Tavenner. Was not the language the stereotyped language of the Communist Party? Mr. Blankfort. Well, it may well be. It may well be. I want to remind you that I was reading Communist literature. Mr. Tavenner. Were you reading it under the supervision of some leader of the Communist Party ? Mr. Blankfort. No, sir. I was reading it because I was interested. I was interested in everything that was going on around me. Mr. Tavenner. In the second column appears these words: There are no stock Mammies or night club jazz babies or comic butlers, or any other of the false characters which colored actors or actresses are called on to play in the bourgeois theater. Will you tell the committee what you meant by "bourgeois theater"? Mr. Blankfort. I was a student at that time, and most of my read- ing was directed toward an analysis of the social content of the history of the theater, and there have been many histories of the theater written. The whole French theater of the nineteenth century has been called, in many histories, not necessarily left wing, the theater of the bourgeoisie. Mr. Tavenner. Was that not the stereotyped language of the Com- munist Party in referring to anything which was not Communist? Mr. Blankfort. It may well have been at that time; yes, sir. I do not deny that the Communists had stereotypes. Believe me, I dis- liked them and I had an enormous distaste for them. I used them with a sheer part of my education. But the word "bourgeois" goes back long before the Communists took it as a stereotype. Mr. Tavenner. Yes. But at this particular time it was, and has since that time, used as a stereotype expression of the Communist Party to describe anything which is not of Communist art; is that not correct? Mr. Blankfort. I believe Mr. Velde. Do you still use that term, "bourgeoisie"? Mr. Blankfort. I don't; no sir. I think it is too inclusive. I don't use the term. I try my best not to use any general terms of that char-