NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Communist front

Communist front was originally the term used by the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), and then later by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) or the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) to label Comintern organizations found to be under the effective control of the (CPUSA), with special emphasis on those groups most active during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The term also refers to organizations not originally Communist-controlled which after a time became so, such as the American Student Union. The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is one of several Marxist-Leninist groups in the United States. ... The House Committee on Un-American Activities or HUAC (1945-1975) was an investigating committee of the United States House of Representatives. ... The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee or more commonly know as SISS was a key player in the role of finding communists during the McCarthy era in America. ... The first edition of Communist International, journal of the Comintern published in Moscow and Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) in May 1919. ... The Great Depression was a massive global economic recession (or depression) that ran from 1929 to 1941. ... // Events and trends The 1930s were spent struggling for a solution to the global depression. ...

In 1955, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee published a list of what it described as the 82 most active and typical sponsors of Communist fronts in the United States; some of those named had literally dozens of affiliations with groups that had either been cited as Communist fronts or had been labelled "subversive" by either the subcommittee or the House Committee on Un-American Activities. 1955 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Subversion is an overturning or uprooting. ...

Perhaps the best-known - and most successful - Communist front in the United States was the Progressive Party which nominated Henry A. Wallace for President in the 1948 election. The party was on the ballot in 45 states, though under various names. In California it was the Independent Progressive Party. In New York State it was the American Labor Party, founded a number of years earlier, which repeatedly elected Vito Marcantonio and, in a by-election in the Bronx in February, 1948, Leo Isacson, to the U.S. Congress. Isacson was defeated by a coalition candidate in November, 1948. Marcantonio was re-elected then, the only Progressive candidate to win office, but was defeated in 1950. The term Progressive Party is used to describe several groups, both past and present, around the world. ... Henry Agard Wallace Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 â€“ November 18, 1965) served as the 33rd Vice President of the United States. ... 1948 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... ... The American Labor Party was a socialist political party in the United States active almost exclusively in the state of New York. ... Vito Anthony Marcantonio (December 10, 1902 August 9, 1954) was an American lawyer and politician. ...

Wallace himself was neither a Communist nor a fellow traveller. A devout Christian and believer in capitalism, he was the wealthiest presidential candidate in 1948.

Some scholars have challenged the view that his Progressive Party was Communist-dominated. Karl M. Schmidt, in Henry Wallace: Quixotic Crusade 1948, argues that the question cannot be answered: The ideas of the true Wallace supporters and the Communists coincided until the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. This event produced a crisis in the party. Wallace supported the American side in the war while the other Progresive leaders did not. Curtis D. Macdougall, in his three-volume work, Gideon's Army, argues in meticulous detail that not only most Progressives but also most of the Progressive leaders were not Communists. Both authors were active in the party in '48, Macdougall as its candidate for the U. S. Senate in Illinois, and their scholarly diligence cannot be gainsaid, however one judges their conclusions.

The Progressive Party, having lost the overwhelming bulk of its support, lasted through the 1952 election, in which it ran Vincent Hallinan for President, received very few votes, and disbanded soon after.