The Code Word “Proletarian Internationalism”

Gus Hall and the Soviet Union

Authors

• Tuomas Savonen Helsingin yliopisto

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37456/tvt.109576

Keywords:

Gus Hall, Finnish Americans, communist parties, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Communist Party of the United States of America

Abstract

Gus Hall, the longtime general secretary of the Communist Party of the United States, was a model representative of proletarian internationalism. The unity of the international communist movement was everything to him, albeit on the condition that unity took place within the framework defined by the Soviet Union. Hall’s pro-Sovietism dates back to his childhood, when he as a small kid eagerly followed the progress of the October Revolution. Studies at the Lenin International School in Moscow reinforced the young Hall’s pro-Sovietism in the early 1930s. During his term as the general secretary, Hall’s pro-Sovietism was strengthened by financial support from Moscow, the use of which he was able to decide quite autocratically. However, the narrow-minded pro-Sovietism of the party leadership tended to isolate the Communist Party from mainstream American politics and the NGO field, and the party and its general secretary ended up in a position of marginal curiosity in U.S. political life.

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