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 HOLLYWOOD MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 4255 Mr. Schoenfeld. Well, they never mentioned, until 1947,1 think— they always spoke of the association, but they were definitely Com- munist Party meetings, each and every one of them. Mr. Tavenner. You state that at those meetings they discussed the role of the cultural worker. Will you define that a little more ? In what direction was the role of the cultural worker being aimed? Mr. Schoenfeld. Well, Mr. Roberts and I used to fight constantly on this, because it was obvious after the first half dozen meetings that we attended that the role of the cultural worker Avas to obey whatever the party told you to do as a writer. You were supposed to have no creative thoughts of your own. You were supposed to use your talent for, let us say, a strike. If there was a strike, you were told to write something pro or con, whatever the party position was at that time. In other words, the individuality of the creative writer was to be stamped on, and your own individual position was never taken into account. And this was always discussed in rather abstract terms, too, because they gave you pamphlets to read. And not being very talented in political science or in economics, I couldn't make them out, and from the very begin- ning I would be rebuked for my inability to read' or comprehend the material that they gave me to read. I was in a group which never concretely told me to write anything, but would discuss the role of the cultural worker over and over again until, frankly, I didn't know what the devil they were driving at, because they would never pin it down except philosophically. It was intellectualized constantly. I had joined thinking that there would be concrete liberal activities which, as a creative writer I could help, even as I had in war work. I thought there would be work for me to do. And they did nothing except sit and discuss pamphlets on the role of the cultural worker constantly, these first 12 meetings, before I went to New York. Mr. Tavenner. Did you consider that the way in which the role of the cultural worker was discussed and taught was an effort to influence you in your thinking? Mr. Schoenfeld. I certainly did. This is a gradual disillusionment, of course, and a gradual technique of superimposing a whole philosophy and a whole ideology on the individual member, so that whatever he thinks gradually works ih a vacuum and no longer obtains, so that he has no longer any ideas of his own. And this I kept sensing, and hoping that it was not so. Because, having made this step, idealistically, and believing that the associa- tion was following Roosevelt's policies, and since they were very smart and used many of the liberal phrases, and spoke of Mr. Roosevelt for quite a while, I kept giving them that second chance. Mr. Tavenner. Well, if the Communist Party, through its efforts in these meetings, could be successful in influencing t-he screen writers in their thinking, that would be the best way to influence the context of films, would it not? Mr. Schoenfeld. I don't think it could be done, sir, for two reasons. One, the vast majority of screen writers are highly individual, and most of the ones I know, including myself, have always wanted to think for themselves And the second reason is that the way the