POLITICAL ORGANIZATION AT HARVARD

FOR YEARS John Reed '10, who fought in the Russian revolution, who is buried in the Kremlin, and whose portrait hangs in an airless corner of Adams House, has been Harvard's most public Communist.

The heyday of Communism at "Little Moscow on the Charles" has passed and the Students for a Democratic Society have come of age. But the influence of the Communists in New Left groups remains a subject of much speculation not only among habitual red-baiters, but also among members of SDS.

Commenting on the influence of the Communist Party in SDS, a representative of Students for a Democratic Society said that to his knowledge there were only two or three Party members in the Harvard chapter.

A Harvard undergraduate who is a member of the Communist Party, USA, reported that an attempt had been made within SDS to pressure Communists into identifying themselves. The Communists, he said, remained anonymous both for personal and tactical reasons. The undergraduate had not become a spokesman for the Communist Party Boston Area Youth Club because there were numerous personal disadvantages; tactically, however, there are two sides to the problem.

What is the best way to recruit a potential member, he asked. Do you gain their confidence and then tell them you're a Communist, or do you warn them you're a Communist first? Obviously, the latter method has the disadvantage of building an unnecessary barrier. On the other hand, spokesmen are desperately needed to disseminate information about the Party and make it more accessible to potential recruits. "One of the reasons I joined the Party," this undergraduate admitted, "was to find out what it did. Until I joined, almost no one dared to tell me much about it."

In New York, the CP, USA, has been coming out with more and more campus spokesmen. Phyllis Kalb, a student at Brooklyn College, recently ran for student-body president as a member of the Communist Party and, out of 3500 votes lost by a piddling 27. Although Brooklyn College has long had a record as New York's most radical college, the statistics are still significant: many traditionally non-radical students voted for Miss Kalb because she had worked hard on campus activities, and because her program to solve student problems was well thought and attractive. "Most students were not really disturbed about my being a Communist," she said, "but rather asked questions about Communism and what the Party was like."

Miss Kalb said that since she became a spokesman, the number of students that had joined the Party club at Brooklyn College jumped from 2 to 17.

Michael Zagarelle, chairman of the National Youth Committee of CP, USA emphasized that if Communists identified themselves publicly, it would take a great deal of pressure off other radical (but non-Communist) groups which are presently being Red-baited. How could anyone say that SDS is a Communist front if the handful of Communists involved make their Party affiliation a matter of record, he asked?

Furthermore, Zagarelle continued, the Party is convinced that anti-Communism will only subside when people have a chance to confront Communists and discover that they also are human. "We feel it is our duty," Zagarelle said, "to confront anti-Communism in this country because it is the justification for U.S. foreign policy." The U.S. would not be in Vietnam today, he stressed, if it were not for the irrational American hatred of Communism.

Zagarelle added that although Red-baiting still exists in the universities, the frost is beginning to thaw. The consequences of "going public" are not as formidable as they used to be, he said.

The Harvard SDS representative claimed that SDS and SNCC have a greater influence on the Party than the Communists have on them. "We wouldn't dream of asking the Communists to leave SDS," he continued, "because we feel it is important for our membership to come in contact with Communists and learn that they aren't devils." The neurotic American phobia of Communism must be overcome, he continued. It is equally important, he said, that our membership learn to formulate their own ideology, distinct from the Communist ideology.

Many members of SDS, he continued, disagree with the Communist united front strategy because they feel it compromises their principles. "One is tempted to think," he continued, "that the Communist Party is more concerned with becoming the official Left of the Democratic Party, than it is with promoting revolution."

Packing or Backing?

One of the associations that the Communists have had to disprove in the last few years, Zagarelle continued, is that "we are out to take over other Leftist organizations." The "meeting packing methods" of the late 30's proved to be an abysmal failure in the long run because "you can't get people to trust or respect you by tricking them." Furthermore, he continued, "the Party gains nothing by sponging off the movement." Suppose the Party took over the leadership of SDS, he continued. "We'd only have to infiltrate the next organization that the SDS followers fled to." It is far more practical, Zagarelle contended, to allow diversity among radical groups and work within the membership of each group. History has proved, he continued, that the support from the rank and file is more important than control of the leadership.

The Work

But what do the Communists at Harvard do? With only a "handful" of members, a demonstration or parade would be embarrassing; with little overt support, teach-ins would be poorly attended. So instead the Harvard Communists work as members of other organizations. They are inevitably among the hardest working, most vociferous members of non-Communist organizations, and often win respect simply by dint of compulsive industry. They also serve a major communicative function: by meeting together with other Boston Communists and reading reports to each other, they can keep abreast of the events in each area of the radical movement. Then when they report back to the non-Communist organization with which they are affiliated, they can serve a coordinating function.

The local Youth club meetings not only serve to facilitate communications between groups which may officially be isolated from each other, but also serve as a forum for progress reports. "We are an organization of organizers," one student Communist explained. In their bi-weekly sessions, the Communists discuss what innovations would advance the "movement" and "what groups are ready to take the next step." An example of this is the traveling representative who visits a number of universities in this area of the country and tries to initiate some kind of radical activity. A Party member from New York University said that in general urban schools tend to be "more advanced than suburban schools." At a "backwards university" the Communists may call for some form of civil rights activity or community organizing instead of pushing for a demonstration against the war or a discussion of Marx. Thus the Communists maintain that they serve the whole movement as well as their own goals-the theory being that any radicalization of the society is a step towards socialism and the eventual downfall of American capitalism.

The decision to go from being a Party member to a public spokesman is a big step; the personal investment is not to be discounted. A number of spokesmen admit that they have significantly limited the range of future job opportunities by "going public." Not only is it impossible for an avowed Communist to get employment with the government (assuming he would want the job) but he may also find teaching and medicine ruled out. Many Communists, however, have joined the Party because of the penalties, reasoning that the government shouldn't be able to decide which organization an individual belongs to.

But there are advantages as well as disadvantages. First is the feeling that one is a member of a select group of activists, unified in the face of adversity. There is a pride in being a "professional and not just a dabbler"--a professional because of the sacrifices one must make to become a member. And, as in any club, there are fringe travel benefits which go along with membership. The Communist is received in style in Cuba, Guatemala (in the hills), France, Italy, Russia, and China, to mention a few. Furthermore, there are those pretty girls and after Party parties.

A final reward for being a Communist, according to the Communists, is that from a tactical point of view it can be advantageous to be the "most radical organization" in a society where a sizeable percentage of the population is rapidly becoming disenchanted with the establishment. "Some people join the Party because they are angry at what the government has or hasn't done, and this is the most radical form of protest they can think of," a student Party member said.

Members of the Harvard Chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, however, argue that the CP, USA is to the right of their position. Harvard members of Progressive Labor also deny that the Communists are the most radical group around and claim the extreme Left for themselves--but then this is the proverbial geography game of the New Left.