First Hearing on "Subversive List"

...Members of the armed forces with excellent military records have been denied honorable discharges solely because they had belonged to listed organizations before induction...

...The government's whole attitude in this proceeding has been such that neither the organizations nor their counsel have much hope that it will be settled short of the courts...

...government by force and violence...

...Robinson was asked whether, in his opinion, a Leninist organization would support the present regime in Russia as a socialist society, and would have supported the Stalinist coup in Czechoslovakia as a practical application of Leninism...

...But in the more recent versions, these categories have been dropped in favor of a simple alphabetical listing...

...In short, from the government's compilation of quotations it became clear that in the minds of its lawyers, subversion is equated to any vigorous advocacy of a new economic and political system...

...He admitted that he was totally unfamiliar with their press...

...That is the more or less official side of the matter...

...Much of the material dealt with their opposition to the American government's policies in World War II and the Korean War...

...The government's first witness was Professor Geroid T. Robinson of Columbia University, who spent three days on the witness stand reading and interpret...

...Under prodding from Rauh, he finally recalled some arti cles in Labor Action on the Tito regime...

...And, if you find this hard to believe, here is the record: Rauh: "You say it is implicit...

...Since then, the Attorney General's list has become an effective blacklist covering wide areas of American life...

...After eight years of persistent effort, three of the organizations have finally succeeded in getting a hearing from the Department of Justice which cast a glaring light on just what it means to have the government set itself up as an arbiter of political vews...

...Although a revision of the government's procedure was made in April 1953 which provides for hearings for listed organizations which want them, the first such hearing was concluded on July 11, 1956...

...The ISL (which term we will use as synonymous for the three organizations) has a few hundred members who devote themselves primarily to publishing Labor Action, a weekly, and The New International, a quarterly...

...THERE is no telling how long it will be before the Attorney General finally issues a ruling based on the findings of the hearing examiner...

...The rest of the government's "proof" against the organizations consisted in submitting passages from their voluminous literature...

...Burnham's expert testimony got worse as he went along, and ended when he admitted on the stand thaq against Communists "you lie as part of your duty to your country" if this is necessary in the interests of the nation...

...THE ORGANIZATIONS then presented their side of the case...

...Rauh: "Because they use a class analysis of the Tito government, on that you build your case that they're for the overthrow of the U.S...

...It proudly proclaims itself a socialist organization in the tradition of the revolutionary wing of Marxism...

...At one time, the list was divided into three categories: "Communist," "Subversive" and "seek to alter the form of government of the United States by unconstitutional means...

...Burnham: "The class analysis of the Tito government and its relations with Russia...

...What is explicit...

...To be sure, he could remem ber few, if any, articles he had read in its press since 1940...

...Under crossexamination, Robinson admitted that he had never so much as heard of the organizations before government agents approached him a few weeks before the hearing...

...How DID the government go about deciding the basis for this list of organizations...

...Hours upon hours were spent in discussions of some of the most disputed aspects of the Russian Revolution...

...From this exposed position he was forced to beat a hasty retreat when passages from the writings of Bertram Wolfe (a man whose authority of Leninism he had accepted) were read to him which differed markedly in interpretation from his selected emphases...

...ing excerpts from Lenin...

...But the impact of the list on freedom of political association has gone far deeper than a summary of the areas of its application would indicate...

...The government has refused to state its criteria for declaring an organization "subversive...

...From the outset, the government refused to define its use of the term "Communist," and after much prodding stated that in effect its charge against the organization boils down to the single assertion that they advocate overthrow of the government by force and violence...

...These are revolutionary socialist propaganda groups which have been vigorously anti-Stalinist from the day the Workers Party was founded as the result of a split in the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party in 1940...

...He replied that there could be no question about it, as all that was pretty much pure Leninism...

...Private industries doing "classified" work for the government use it to fire suspect workers...

...People who have a class view of society "must be for force and violence...

...It is applied to university research projects subsidized by the government...

...How did these articles demonstrate that the ISL is for the violent overthrow of the American government...

...At the time the Attorney General's "subversive list" was published, the proscription was supposed to extend only to government jobs for persons who had been members of or "sympathetically associated" with the listed organizations...

...Burnham re plied: the article employed a class anal ysis of the Tito government...

...It wasan administrative measure which formed the Corner-stone of the "loyalty and security" program...

...But, he said, he knew all about Leninism, and insofar as the organizations had at one time or another referred to themselves as favoring the "basic principles" of "Leninism," he was an expert on what they really stand for...

...The organizations which finally got a hearing are the Workers Party (discontinued in 1949) , its successor, the Independent Socialist League, and their former youth organization, the Socialist Youth League...

...To this day, no one outside the Department of Justice really knows...

...Informed that the ISL took a diametrically opposite point of view, he had to admit that in this respect, at least, they were not "Leninist" as he understands the term...

...Nor was that all...

...The entertainment industry blacklist uses the list as a guide...

...Ordinary citizens, whose occupations have no connection with governmental affairs, are reluctant to subscribe to the publications or attend meetings of the listed organizations...

...Burnham: "Not exclusively...

...Despite Shachtman's repeated protests that his views on this or that event which took place in Russia thirty years ago could have no possible bearing on the "subversiveness" of the organizations, the government attorneys were intent on trying to back up their preposterous claim that the ISL proposes as a "recommended formula" for political action in the United States in 1956 every tactic and policy of the Bolsheviks in 19171 In the last three days of the hearing, the government was finally able to produce one more "witness," James Burnham, member of the Workers Party for three weeks in 1940, and in recent years one of the editors of the McCarthyite publication National Review...

...EIGHT YEARS AGO the Truman administration issued the first list of governmentally proscribed organizations in American history...

...The government's whole case was based on nothing more solid than Burnham's "evidence" that the organizations advocate the violent overthrow of democratic governments as an inference from an implication of an hypothesis about a theory of class relations in society...

...Other material showed that the organizations had attacked the capitalist system and had advocated socialism...

...Every effort by Joseph L. Rauh, the attorney who had been secured for the organizations through the help of the Workers Defense League, to get the government to state the theory of its case, or to demonstrate the relevance of its "evidence", failed...

...Members of such organizatlons can expect visits from FBI agents, as can curious subscribers to their press who have neither joined nor are particularly sympathetic to their views...

...Implicit in such analysis is a class view of society...

...That gave a hint of what might be involved...

...When Rauh pointed out that his interpretation of Leninism might be altogether different from that of the ISL, Robinson replied that this was impossible, since all, experts on Leninism agree on exactly what it is...

...It is indicative...

...Finally, Max Shachtman, national chairman of the ISL, spent over ten days on the witness stand under direct and cross examination setting forth the history, views and activities of the organizations...

...Harry Fleischman, former national secretary of the Socialist Party, Dwight Macdonald, Norman Thomas, and Daniel Bell all testified that though they disagree with many ISL views, they know that it does not advocate overthrow of the government by force and violence...

...In addition to these expert witnesses, members or former members of the ISL testified to the damaging effects they had suffered due to the listing of the organizations...

...The Justice Department's hearing was conducted by a hearing examiner who performs a similar function for the Subversive Activities Control Board...

...Burnham claimed to know a lot more about the organization than Geroid T. Robinson...

...In the meantime, the ISL and the Workers Defense League need all the support they can get from every person concerned with civil liberties...