Immersed In Red

by Mike Shotwell

  Following the divorce, my mother railed on about Orville’s numerous faults and marital incompetence for the next 45 years. (However, those complaints did not include anything about his communist politics.) It wasn’t until her dementia developed that her complaints faded away.

  Orville’s last days. During his later years, I never heard Orville repent or make any comments that perhaps he had made mistakes in regard to his political viewpoints or former political life. He was proud of his motivation to change the world.

  Nearing the end of his life, he did voice some minor disillusionment with what had happened with politics in Russia, namely that people within Russia had installed some of the same type of bureaucracy that had existed at the time of the czar. He felt one of the primary reasons was what Lenin expressed, that the Russian people were uncultured (actually Lenin used the word “uncivilized”), and therefore were drifting back to old ways. Orville complained that even “ex-Reds” talked positively about Russia having been a grain exporter even under the czar, but not under the new order. He said they had forgotten the fact that the czars realized the profits from the exports after robbing the populace of the grain. Forgotten in this storytelling was the fact of Stalin’s Ukrainian genocide for the same reasons.

  This was a prime example of Orville’s myopic views. Regardless of any chinks in his armor, Orville remained a diehard pro-Stalin and pro-Mao advocate to his death, never wavering from Marxism and the communist ideal; his fantasies remained largely intact. His health compromised by heavy smoking, he died in 1986 at age 78.

  * * *

  PART III

  THE COMMUNIST UNDERWORLD AT WORK: ALLEGIANCE TO STALIN

  CHAPTER 4

  POLITICAL ACQUAINTANCES, FAMILY FRIENDS, AND RELATED PROMINENT FIGURES

  What follows are short bios, along with my personal remembrances, of many of the people who frequented our home and were otherwise socially involved with Orville and my mother. Many of these people were actively involved with communist cells and intelligence gathering. The importance of this work is spelled out in The Comintern (Communist International) Guidelines on the Organizational Structure of Communist Parties, on the Methods and Content of their Work, III. No. 12, which stresses intelligence gathering and communications in furthering communist goals:

  Communist nuclei are to be formed for day-to-day work in different areas of party activity: for door-to-door agitation, for party studies, for press work, for literature distribution, for intelligence gathering, communications, etc. [emphasis added]

  In addition, No. 8 of the same Comintern Guidelines states, “The Communist Party should be the working school of revolutionary Marxism.”

  Communist cells were part of the structure of the Soviet-directed espionage activities, and were known by various code names, including those of individuals heading them up. These cells were numerous, and many will be noted in the following pages.

  The other major cog in the Soviet machine was the NKVD, the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, which was associated with the Soviet Secret Police, and directly executed the rule of power of the Communist Party. It was known for its political repression during the Stalin era and for activities on the behalf of the Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB), the predecessor of the KGB. (Other names for the KGB were Okhrana, Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKGB, MGB, and the MVD). Most notably, the NKVD ran the Gulag system of forced labor camps, where millions died from the barbaric conditions, starvation and disease. They also conducted mass executions and deportations, along with protecting Soviet borders; more broadly, the NKVD was involved with espionage, which included political assassinations abroad, influencing foreign governments, and enforcing Stalinist policy within communist movements in other countries.

  Solomon “Sol” Adler: Orville’s and my mother’s very dear friend, Sol Adler was deeply committed to communist ideology. They both often voiced deep admiration for him and his lifelong commitment to the cause. Adler spoke several languages and was described as a “very bright man” by friends and associates. He was a chief intelligence agent for the US Treasury Department of the Roosevelt Administration in China during WWII. Whittaker Chambers correctly reported that Adler supplied weekly reports to the American Communist Party.

  In 1945, Elizabeth Bentley identified Adler as a member of the Silvermaster Espionage Group. A 1948 memo written by Anatoly Gorsky, a former NKVD agent then living in Washington, DC, identified Adler as a Soviet KGB agent with the Soviet code name, “Sax” (alternately spelled “Sachs” or “Saks”). Sax appears in the Venona Decrypts as supplying information to the Chinese Communists, through both Gorsky and American Communist Party head Earl Browder. Adler’s other KGB cover name was “Hello.”

  Besides his contacts with US espionage groups, Adler also shared a house with Chinese Communist secret agent Chi Cha’o-ting, and State Department officer John Stewart Service, while serving as Treasury attaché in China in 1944. Service and five others were arrested the following year in the Amerasia magazine case. Harvey Klehr’s 1996 book about the affair describes in detail the one thousand stolen government classified documents that were found in their possession, including US naval and military intelligence, British intelligence, Office of Strategic Services and US State Department reports; all involving Soviet espionage.

  Adler, in his role as one of the US’s leading diplomats, had attended the early meetings of the United Nations, first proposed at the secret Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944, where the framework was developed. He worked on the plans and organization for the conference, attended by American, Russian, English and other diplomats, which was coordinated by Alger Hiss. Hiss was later convicted of perjury and exposed as a Soviet agent when Whittaker Chambers defected and later exposed the labyrinth of the Soviet underground. More on this later.

  To avoid the HCUAA hearings, Adler and his wife, Pat, defected, initially to England where he taught for a few years at Cambridge University, and then, in the late 1950s, to China. He never returned to the US. In China, he rose to be a senior advisor in the Chinese Intelligence Service where he worked closely with fellow American communist defector, Frank Coe, who had formerly been a member of the Silvermaster espionage ring and who had refused to answer questions regarding his Communist Party affiliations (he plead the fifth amendment) at the HCUAA committee hearings. In a memoir by Chen Hansheng regarding Cold War history and Chinese espionage, and in Prof. Chen Lin’s memoirs, it is noted that Adler, from at least 1963 on, worked for China’s Central External Liaison Department, an agency involved in foreign espionage. Adler’s apartment in Beijing was also provided to him by the Liaison Department, which would indicate Adler’s close working relationship with that unit.

  My brother, Peter, apparently still remembering the warm feelings between Adler, Orville, and my mother, visited him in China in 1984, and later in the early 90s. Adler told Peter that he was lucky to survive the Cultural Revolution, and was able to do so due to the intercession of Chou En-Lai, who was himself under suspicion by the leaders of the Cultural Revolution.

  Henry A. Wallace: Wallace was chosen to run for president on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948. He had been the third-term vice president under Franklin Roosevelt, but was replaced by Harry Truman for Roosevelt’s fourth term. During the 40s, he had moved to the left of the political spectrum. He was a staunch opponent of the Marshall Plan and United States relations with Britain who favored closer ties with Stalin and Soviet Russia, making him a desirable choice as a candidate. Orville claimed in his interviews that he was not directly involved with recruiting Wallace; however, the issue is debatable. After the selection had been made, Orville was appointed as Minnesota chairman of the Wallace For President Committee.

  Harvey Klehr, an expert on the Progressive Party and Minnesota politics of the 30s and 40s, wrote in a 2013 article that within the Progressive Party structure, “Wallace’s chief speechwriters included such Communists as Victor Perlo, the head of the Perlo Espionage Group, David
Ramsey, and Millard Lampell.” Attorney’s John Abt and Lee Pressman, prominent communists, were also key players in Progressive Party affairs.

  Cambridge historianChristopher Andrew, author of The Defense of the Realm, as well as the authorized history of the British Secret Service, MI5, encountered references to Wallace in his study of the Mitrokhin Archive. He stated publicly in a lecture in Raleigh, NC, in 2003, that he believed Wallace was a KGB agent. Andrew continued from the podium, stating that, “Wallace’s plan, had he been elected to the presidency, was to appoint Harry Dexter White as Secretary of the Treasury and Henry Duggan as Secretary of State.”

  Incredibly, the Mitrokhin documents list both White (KGB code name “Jurist”) and Duggan (KGB code name “Frank”) as Soviet agents. Unknown to the American public, both had been involved with Soviet espionage before and during the war.

  In 1944, Wallace made a trip to the Soviet slave labor camp at Magadan. Unbeknownst to him, Stalin and NKVD generals had set up the Potemkin Village to appear as a volunteer labor camp. The village was staffed by NKVD personnel dressed as happy volunteers who were well-fed and content. Wallace’s entire visit was coordinated by Stalin, including his being watched at all times by his hosts. The dance was well choreographed, and Wallace thoroughly swallowed the bait, believing everything presented to him.

  Wallace was a badly misguided and naïve soul who, in 1951, after hearing from his friend, former Soviet spy Vladimir Petrov, about the true nature of Wallace’s Soviet visit, admitted he was duped by Stalin. (Petrov miraculously survived the brutal purges of Stalin under Yagoda, Yezhov, and Beria. Even though a great number of his friends, colleagues, and superiors were arrested and executed, Petrov escaped unscathed.)

  In his later years, Wallace turned away from his life as a Soviet apologist, became a Republican, and a supporter of both the US role in the Korean War, and Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

  By the time we had moved to California, Wallace had begun his “mea culpa” period, and consequently became persona non grata in our household. Orville never forgave Wallace for deserting the communist cause. The former friendship and reverence had dissolved into venomous denouncements. From the early 1950s on, Orville described Wallace in such terms as a “consummate dimwit,” a “cheapskate” and a “malleable nincompoop” who was nothing more than a front man.

  One can only shudder to contemplate the impact on American history if Wallace had remained vice president for Roosevelt’s fourth term. The pro-Stalinist Wallace would have been eighty-two days away from being sworn in as president upon the death of Roosevelt on April 12, 1944. Luckily for the sake of the country, the anti-communist vice president, Harry Truman, stepped into that role.

  During his campaign for president, Wallace was strongly supported by Paul Robeson, the famed opera star, all-American athlete, leading black militant, communist sympathizer, and unrepentant Stalin apologist to his death. At one point, he was strongly considered as Wallace’s Progressive Party running mate in 1948. Robeson was a towering figure in our household, and his recordings and pro-Soviet political viewpoints were revered.

  He was radicalized during his college years at Rutgers (1915–19), and later at Columbia Law School (1920–23), largely due to the painful legacy of segregation that he and other black Americans suffered in the US at the time. He was heavily influenced by the communist message to the black community in the 20s and 30s, which promised fairness and equality to everyone, and promoted Lenin and Stalin as the saviors of mankind.

  From that point on, in both his professional and political career, Robeson identified with Soviet Russia as the superior example to follow. During a 1935 visit to Russia, Robeson was quoted in the Daily Worker as saying, “I was not prepared for the happiness I see on every face in Moscow …. It is obvious that there is no terror here, that all the masses of every race are contented and support their government.” It is hard to imagine his enthusiasm given that this was at the beginning of Stalin’s Great Terror and the unimaginable sufferings of the Soviet citizenry. However, he continued for years to share his effusive support during his world-wide tours and speeches.

  In 1954, during the Khrushchev reign, Robeson stated, “The big lie is the fairy tale that the American people are somehow threatened by communism.” Robeson’s personal unhappiness may or may not have been associated with his divorcing of himself from American society, and his life spent in angry protestation, but is significant at some level. In 1961, after a wild party in Moscow, feeling empty and depressed, he locked himself in a bathroom and attempted suicide by slitting his wrists. Recurring depression was to follow him for the rest of his life.

  Perhaps to protect Robeson’s reputation, leftists and Communist Party members, including Robeson’s son, pointedly maintained that he was never a member of CPUSA. However, the fiction was laid to rest with HCUAA testimony in 1949 of ex-communist Manning Johnson. In addition, political science professor and writer, Paul Kengor, described the 1998 centennial celebration of Robeson’s birth by noting that CPUSA head, Gus Hall, announced at the function: “Paul was a member of the Communist Party … a man of communist conviction … in every way, every day of his life. He never forgot he was a communist.”

  In 1952, Robeson was awarded the Stalin International Peace Prize by the USSR, and in April 1953, shortly after Stalin’s death, he penned “To You My Beloved Comrade,” in the New World Review, in which he praised Stalin, calling him “wise and good.” His effusive letter also stated that Stalin was, “a man that the world was fortunate to have for daily guidance: Through his [Stalin’s] deep humanity, by his wise understanding, he leaves us a rich and monumental heritage.”

  Even with the knowledge of the horrors committed by the Russian secret police and repressive government policies, Robeson refused to be critical of his beloved Stalin, remaining faithful until his death in 1976.

  Folksinger, Pete Seeger, was another prominent Wallace supporter of great influence, and he was always mentioned with great affection in our household. Seeger, who admitted in later life that Stalin was a monster, and that his former opinions were misguided, still considered himself a communist up to his death.

  Seeger’s popular folk song group, begun in the 50s, was named “The Weavers.” I often wondered what the origin of the name was since none of the members had the surname Weaver. The socialist Internationalist Review (Fall 1962), and other sources explained the linkage. The term was a way to pay homage to German socialist playwright, Gerhart Hauptmann, whose 1892 play, Die Weber (The Weavers), was about the uprising of the oppressed Silesian weavers in 1844 “against capitalism and bourgeois hypocrisy.” The most famous line of the play stated, “I’ll stand it no more, come what may.” The epic script has been saddled with the honor of being called the “first socialist play.” In the 20s, Hauptmann was honored by the Soviets for his work regarding the plight of farmers in Russian famines.

  What was not publicized by leftists was the fact that Hauptmann applied for membership in the Nazi Party; signed a German loyalty oath; had a heavily annotated copy of Mein Kampf; was a founding member of the eugenics organization, the “German Society for Racial Hygiene”; and had written a play in 1902 whose main character rejected his fiancée due to concerns about her genetic makeup and the potential effects on their children.

  Calvin Benham “Beanie” Baldwin was a major figure of the Progressive Party, the assistant director of the CIO-PAC and was also a close-working associate of Orville. The Venona Decrypts, deciphered and updated in 2009, show Baldwin as a “secret communist” and “KGB US line.” His wife, Lillian Traugott, also worked for Soviet Intelligence.

  I recall Beanie Baldwin only faintly, but Orville made it clear that they shared common political views. After the 1948 election failure, Baldwin went on to be campaign manager for Vincent Hallinan, Progressive Party candidate in 1952. Prior to this, Hallinan served time in jail for perjury and contempt of court resulting from the trial of the communist head of the Longshoreman
’s Union, Harry Bridges, another acquaintance and associate of Orville. Later, Hallinan also served time for fourteen counts of tax evasion. In 1953, after Henry Wallace’s political transition from left to right, he blamed Beanie Baldwin for the communist domination of the Progressive Party.

  Baldwin’s name was always near the top of the list when Orville reminisced about his closest associates during his Minnesota political days.

  Nat and Johnnye “Janet” Ross were old friends of Orville’s. After he and my mother got together, they socialized frequently with the Ross’s, both at our home and theirs.

  Nat Ross joined the Communist Party at age twenty-four in 1928, and Janet joined in 1934 at the age of twenty-five. Janet’s brother, Don West, was also a prominent Communist Party icon in the south. Authors Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes documented the Ross’s activities in their three books, The Secret World of American Communism; Venona: Decoding Secret Espionage in America; and Dubious Alliance: the Making of Minnesota’s DFL Party. Nat was head of CPUSA activities in the Deep South in the early 30s, and directed communist activities in the Dakotas and Minnesota from 1935 to December 1938. After a four-year assignment in Moscow, he returned (1943) as State Secretary of the Communist Party in Minnesota and served until replacement shortly after World War II by Carl Ross (no relation).