‘The Maltz Affair’ revisited: How the American Communist Party relinquished its cultural influence at the dawn of the Cold War

Abstract

In 1946, Albert Maltz – Communist, screenwriter, novelist and future member of the Hollywood Ten – penned a controversial article in which he made a plea for artistic freedom. The article drew the condemnation of many of Maltz's peers, and the incident has been invoked as an example of Communist thought control since Maltz, under pressure, quickly recanted his views. This article argues, however, that the controversy was significant because it heralded the decline of Communist cultural strength. For by reigning in Albert Maltz, the Party rejected its earlier, more accommodating approach to popular culture, and in doing so, unwittingly forfeited a large measure of its cultural influence.

Notes

John Sbardellati obtained his PhD on ‘Cold War, Culture War: The FBI and the Battle over Film Propaganda’ from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has recently been appointed to a professorship at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. His other interests include US politics and Diplomatic History.

 [1] Schlesinger, The Vital Center, 122.

 [2] The ‘Maltz Affair’ figures prominently in the literature on Hollywood's Cold War. See, for instance, Andersen, ‘Red Hollywood’, 247–52; Lloyd Billingsley, Hollywood Party, 136–45; Buhle and Wagner, Radical Hollywood, 263–6; Ceplair and Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood, 232–7; Giovacchini, Hollywood Modernism, 178–81; Horne, The Final Victim of the Blacklist, 213–6; Navasky, Naming Names, 287–302; and Radosh and Radosh, Red Star Over Hollywood, 123–36.

 [3] Denning, The Cultural Front.

 [4] ‘The Citizen Writer in Retrospect’, Albert Maltz interviewed by Joel Gardner, Oral History Program, University of California, Los Angeles, 1983, 308–20.

 [5] ‘The Citizen Writer in Retrospect’, Albert Maltz interviewed by Joel Gardner, Oral History Program, University of California, Los Angeles, 1983, 236–41.

 [6] ‘The Citizen Writer in Retrospect’, Albert Maltz interviewed by Joel Gardner, Oral History Program, University of California, Los Angeles, 1983, 280–90.

 [7] Giovacchini, Hollywood Modernism.

 [8] ‘The Citizen Writer in Retrospect’, 501.

 [9] ‘The Citizen Writer in Retrospect’, 364–5, 535–6.

[10] Bosley Crowther, ‘Films about Veterans: “Pride of the Marines” a Fine Example of a Literal, Constructive Approach’, New York Times, 2 September 1945, 35. Letter, Frank Sinatra to Albert Maltz, 31 August 1945, Box 11, Folder 1; script for The House I Lived In in Box 3; both in Albert Maltz Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

[11] Giovacchini, Hollywood Modernism.

[12] Albert Maltz, ‘What Shall We Ask of Writers?’, New Masses, 12 February 1946, 19.

[13] Albert Maltz, ‘What Shall We Ask of Writers?’, New Masses, 12 February 1946, 19–20.

[14] Albert Maltz, ‘What Shall We Ask of Writers?’, New Masses, 12 February 1946, 20–2.

[15] Samuel Sillen, ‘Which Way Left Wing Literature? 1. Mischarting the Course’, Daily Worker, 11 February 1946, 6; Samuel Sillen, ‘Which Way Left Wing Literature? 2. Art and Politics’, Daily Worker, 12 February 1946, 6, 8; Samuel Sillen, ‘Which Way Left Wing Literature? 3. Art as a Weapon’, Daily Worker, 13 February 1946, 6, 8; Samuel Sillen, ‘Which Way Left Wing Literature? 4. Ideology and Art’, Daily Worker, 14 February 1946, 6, 9; Samuel Sillen, ‘Which Way Left Wing Literature? 5. The Path Before Us’, Daily Worker, 15 February 1946, 6; Samuel Sillen, ‘Which Way Left Wing Literature? 6. Spectators or Creators’, Daily Worker, 16 February 1946, 8.

[16] Mike Gold, ‘Change the World’, Daily Worker, 12 February 1946.

[17] Alvah Bessie, ‘What is Freedom for Writers?’, New Masses, 12 March 1946, 8–10; John Howard Lawson, ‘Art is a Weapon’, New Masses, 19 March 1946, 18–20. Maltz, however, received support from other Hollywood Communists, such as John Bright. See, for instance, Letter, John Bright to Albert Maltz, 28 February 1946, Albert Maltz Papers, Box 15, Folder 14, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.

[18] Albert Maltz, ‘Moving Forward’, New Masses, 7 April 1946.

[19] William Z. Foster, ‘Elements of a People's Cultural Policy’, New Masses, 23 April 1946, 6–9. See also, Johanningsmeier, Forging American Communism, 304–9. On the Soviet origins of the Duclos letter, see Klehr et al., The Soviet World of American Communism, 95–100.

[20] ‘The Citizen Writer in Retrospect’, 576.

[21] Navasky, Naming Names, 294.

[22] Foster, ‘Elements of a People's Cultural Policy’, 6, 8.

[23] Lawson, Film in the Battle of Ideas, 19–20. Here Lawson disapproves of his previous work, Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting from which his 1949 quote is drawn. In a recent article, Larry Ceplair traces the debate over the relationship between industrial form and cultural product that continued among Hollywood Communists in the 1950s. See, Ceplair, ‘The Base and Superstructure Debate’.

[24] Albert Maltz, ‘War Film Quality: A Screen Writer Scans the Elements That Make – or Break – Such Fare’, New York Times, 19 August 1945, X3.

[25] Abraham Polonsky interview by Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner, in Tender Comrades , eds. McGilligan and Buhle, 493–4.

[26] ‘Albert Maltz Eats Red Crow’, The Vigil 1, no. 2 (May 1946), in Vertical Files, Box 348, Folder 14, J.B. Matthews Collection, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University. Members of the Motion Picture Alliance worked closely with the FBI's Los Angeles Office. On the FBI's reporting on the Maltz affair, see Report, SAC, Los Angeles to Hoover, 10 May 1946, COMMUNIST INFILTRATION OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY, FBI 100-138754-125.

[27] Testimony of James K. McGuinness, 12 May 1947, Executive Session transcripts, 106–8; and Testimony of John C. Moffitt, 12–13 May 1947, Executive Session transcripts, 139–47; both in Box 1.153-75-2, Records of the US House of Representatives, HUAC, Record Group 233, National Archives, Washington, DC. For more on the collaboration between HUAC and the FBI during the 1947 investigation of Hollywood, see Sbardellati, ‘Cold War, Culture War’, chapters 4–5.

[28] Testimony of John C. Moffitt, 21 October 1947, 119–20; Testimony of James K. McGuinness, 22 October 1947, 150–62; both in Hearings Regarding the Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry .

[29] Schlesinger, The Vital Center, 125.