The Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders were a series of trials held from 1949 to 1958 in which leaders of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) were accused of violating the Smith Act, a 1940 statute that set penalties for advocating the violent overthrow of the government. The defendants argued that they advocated a peaceful transition to socialism, and that the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech and of association protected their membership in a political party. Appeals from these trials reached the US Supreme Court, which ruled on issues in Dennis v. United States (1951) and Yates v. United States (1957).
The first trial of eleven communist leaders was held in New York in 1949; it was one of the lengthiest trials in United States history. Numerous supporters of the defendants protested outside the courthouse on a daily basis. The trial was featured twice on the cover of Time magazine. The defense frequently antagonized the judge and prosecution; five defendants were jailed for contempt of court because they disrupted the proceedings. The prosecution's case relied on undercover informants, who described the goals of the CPUSA, interpreted communist texts, and testified of their own knowledge that the CPUSA advocated the violent overthrow of the US government.
While the first trial was under way, events outside the courtroom influenced public perception of communism: the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon, and communists prevailed in the Chinese Civil War. In this period, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) had also begun conducting investigations and hearings of writers and producers in Hollywood suspected of communist influence. Public opinion was overwhelmingly against the defendants in New York. After a 10-month trial, the jury found all 11 defendants guilty. The judge sentenced them to terms of up to five years in federal prison, and sentenced all five defense attorneys to imprisonment for contempt of court. Two of the attorneys were subsequently disbarred.
After the first trial, the prosecutorsencouraged by their success prosecuted more than 100 additional CPUSA officers for violating the Smith Act. Some were tried solely because they were members of the Party. Many of these defendants had difficulty finding attorneys to represent them. The trials decimated the leadership of the CPUSA. In 1957, eight years after the first trial, the US Supreme Court's Yates decision brought an end to similar prosecutions. It ruled that defendants could be prosecuted only for their actions, not for their beliefs.
Background
After the revolution in Russia in 1917, the communist movement gradually gained footholds in many countries around the world. In Europe and the US, communist parties were formed, generally allied with trade union and labor causes. During the First Red Scare of 1919–1920, many U.S. capitalists were fearful that Bolshevism and anarchism would lead to disruption within the US.Murray, Robert K. (1955), Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919–1920, University of Minnesota Press, pp 82–104, 150–169, . In the late 1930s, state and federal legislatures passed laws designed to expose communists, including laws requiring loyalty oaths, and laws requiring communists to register with the government. Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a free-speech advocacy organization, passed a resolution in 1939 expelling communists from its leadership ranks.Walker, pp 128–133.
Following Congressional investigation of left-wing and right-wing extremist political groups in the mid-1930s, support grew for a statutory prohibition of their activities. The alliance of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the August 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and their invasion of Poland in September gave the movement added impetus. In 1940 the Congress passed the Alien Registration Act of 1940 (known as the Smith Act) which required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the government, and made it a crime "to knowingly or willfully advocate ... the duty, necessity, desirability, ... of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence ... with the intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any government in the United States...."Levin, p 1488, available online, accessed June 13, 2012The Smith Act was officially called the Alien Registration Act of 1940. Text of 1940 version. The Act has been amended since then: Text of 2012 version. The portion of the 1940 Act that was relevant to the CPUSA trials was: "Sec. 2. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person— (1) to knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; (2) with the intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any government in the United States, to print, publish, edit, issue, circulate, sell, distribute, or publicly display any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence. (3) to organize or help to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any government in the United States by force or violence; or to be or become a member of, or affiliate with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof...." Five million non-citizens were fingerprinted and registered following passage of the Act.Kennedy, David M., The Library of Congress World War II Companion, Simon and Schuster, 2007, p 86, . The first persons convicted under the Smith Act were members of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Minneapolis in 1941.Belknap (1994), p 179. President Roosevelt insisted on the prosecution because the SWP had challenged a Roosevelt ally. Leaders of the CPUSA, bitter rivals of the Trotskyist SWP, supported the Smith Act prosecution of the SWPa decision they would later regret.Smith, Michael Steven, "Smith Act Trials, 1949", in Encyclopedia of the American Left, Oxford University Press, 1998, p 756. In 1943, the government used the Smith Act to prosecute American Nazis; that case ended in a mistrial when the judge died of a heart attack.Belknap (1994), pp 196, 207. See also: Ribuffo, Leo, "United States v. McWilliams: The Roosevelt Administration and the Far Right", in Belknap (1994), pp 179–206. Anxious to avoid alienating the Soviet Union, then an ally, the government did not prosecute any communists under the law during .
The CPUSA's membership peaked at around 80,000 members during World War II under the leadership of Earl Browder, who was not a strict Stalinist and cooperated with the US government during the war.Hoover, J. Edgar, Masters of Deceit: the Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It, Pocket Books, 1958, p 5 (80,000 peak in 1944). In late 1945, hardliner William Z. Foster took over leadership of the CPUSA, and steered it on a course adhering to Stalin's policies. The CPUSA was not very influential in American politics, and by 1948 its membership had declined to 60,000 members. Truman did not feel that the CPUSA was a threat (he dismissed it as a "non problem") yet he made the specter of communism a campaign issue during the 1948 election.Belknap (1994), p 210. Truman quoted by Belknap. Belknap writes that Truman considered the CPUSA to be "a contemptible minority in a land of freedom".
The perception of communism in the US was shaped by the Cold War, which began after World War II when the Soviet Union failed to uphold the commitments it made at the Yalta Conference. Instead of holding elections for new governments, as agreed at Yalta, the Soviet Union occupied several Eastern European countries, leading to a strained relationship with the US. Subsequent international events served to increase the apparent danger that communism posed to Americans: the Stalinist threats in the Greek Civil War (1946–1949); the Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948; and the 1948 blockade of Berlin.Belknap (1994), p 210.
The view of communism was also affected by evidence of espionage in the US conducted by agents of the USSR. In 1945, a Soviet spy, Elizabeth Bentley, repudiated the USSR and provided a list of Soviet spies in the US to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).Theoharis, Atahn, The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999, p 27, . The FBI also had access to secret Soviet communications, available from the Venona decryption effort, which revealed significant efforts by Soviet agents to conduct espionage within the US.Haynes, pp 8–22. The growing influence of communism around the world and the evidence of Soviet spies within the US motivated the Department of Justicespearheaded by the FBIto initiate an investigation of communists within the US.Belknap (1994), p 209.
1949 trial
In July 1945, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover instructed his agents to begin gathering information on CPUSA members, leading to a 1,850-page report published in 1946 which outlined a case for their prosecution.Redish, pp 81–82, 248. Redish cites Schrecker and Belknap. Belknap (1994), p 210. Powers, p 214. As the Cold War continued to intensify in 1947, Congress held a hearing at which the Hollywood Ten refused to testify about alleged involvement with the CPUSA, leading to their convictions for contempt of Congress in early 1948.Tyler, G. L., "House Un-American Activities Committee", in Finkelman, p 780. The same year, Hoover recommended to the Department of Justice that they bring charges against the CPUSA leaders, with the intention of rendering the Party ineffective.Belknap (1994), p 210. Redish, pp 81–82.
John McGohey, a federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York, was given the lead role in prosecuting the case and charged twelve leaders of the CPUSA with violations of the Smith Act. The specific charges against the defendants were first, that they conspired to overthrow the US government by violent means, and second, that they belonged to an organization that advocated the violent overthrow of the government. The indictment, issued on June 29, 1948, asserted that the CPUSA had been in violation of the Smith Act since July 1945.Belknap (1994), p 211. The twelve defendants, arrested in late July 1948, were all members of the National Board of the CPUSA:Belknap (1977), p 51.Belknap (1994), p 207.Lannon, p 122.Morgan, p 314.Powers, p 215.
Benjamin J. Davis Jr. – Chairman of the CPUSA Legislative Committee and New York City Councilman Eugene Dennis – Chairman of the CPUSA William Z. Foster – General Secretary of the CPUSA (indicted, but not tried due to illness) John Gates – Editor of the Daily Worker Gil Green – Member of the CPUSA National Board (represented by A.J. Isserman) Gus Hall – Member of the CPUSA National Board Irving Potash – Furriers Union official Jack Stachel – Chairman of the CPUSA Education, Agitation and Publications Department Robert G. Thompson – Chairman of the New York branch of the CPUSA John Williamson – Member of the CPUSA National Board (represented by A.J. Isserman) Henry Winston – Member of the CPUSA National Board Carl Winter – Chairman of the Michigan branch of the CPUSA
Hoover hoped that all 55 members of the CPUSA's National Committee would be indicted and was disappointed that the prosecutors chose to pursue only twelve.Powers, p 215. A week before the arrests, Hoover complained to the Justice Departmentrecalling the arrests and convictions of over one hundred leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1917"the IWW was crushed and never revived, similar action at this time would have been as effective against the Communist Party."Morgan, p 314. Hoover quoted by Morgan. Powers, p 215.