A Communist front organization is an organization identified to be a front organization under the effective control of a Communist party, the Communist International or other Communist organizations. They attracted politicized individuals who were not Party members but who often followed the Party line and were called Fellow travellers.
Lenin originated the idea in his manifesto of 1902, "What Is to Be Done?". Since the party was illegal in Russia, he proposed to reach the masses through "a large number of other organizations intended for wide membership and, which, therefore, can be as loose and as public as possible," Generally called "mass organizations" by the Communists themselves, these groups were prevalent from the 1920s through the 1950s, with their use accelerating during the Popular Front period of the 1930s. The term has also been used to refer to organizations not originally Communist-controlled which after a time became so, such as the American Student Union. The term was especially used by anti-communists during the cold war (1947-1991).
Under the leadership of Grigory Zinoviev in the Kremlin, established fronts in many countries in the 1920s and after. To coordinate their activities the Communist International (Comintern) set up various international umbrella organizations (linking groups across national borders), such as the Young Communist International (youth), Profintern (trade unions), Krestintern (peasants), International Red Aid (humanitarian aid), Sportintern (organized sports), etc. In Europe, front organizations were especially influential in Italy and France, which in 1933 became the base for Communist front organizer Willi Münzenberg. These organizations were dissolved the late 1930s or early 1940s.
Communist fronts typically attracted well-known and prestigious artists, intellectuals and other "fellow travelers" who were used to advance Party positions. Often they came to the USSR for closely controlled tours, then returned home to praise the future as revealed in the Soviet experiment.
According to Kennedy (1957), after the war, especially as the Cold War took effect around 1947, the Kremlin set up new international coordination bodies including the World Federation of Democratic Youth, International Union of Students, World Federation of Trade Unions, Women's International Democratic Federation, and the World Peace Council. Kennedy says the, "Communist 'front' system included such international organizations as the WFTU, WFDY, IUS, WIDF and WPC, besides a host of lesser bodies bringing journalists, lawyers, scientists, doctors and others into the widespread net."
The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) was established in 1945 to unite trade union confederations across the world; it was based in Prague. While it had non-Communist unions it was largely dominated by the Soviets. In 1949 the British, American and other non-Communist unions broke away to form the rival International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The labor movement in Europe became so polarized between the Communists unions and the Social Democratic and Christian labor unions, and front operations could no longer hide the sponsorship and they became less important.
With the end of the Cold War in 1989, and the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, funding and support systems collapsed and many front organizations shut down or were exposed. For example, post-Communist Moscow newspapers reported the World Peace Council, based in Helsinki, Finland, had received policy guidance and 90% of its funding from Moscow.
The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS) was set up in 1927 by the Profintern (the Comintern's trade union arm) with the mission of promoting Communist trade unions in China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and other nations in the western Pacific. Trapeznik (2009) says the PPTUS was a "Communist-front organization" and "engaged in overt and covert political agitation in addition to a number of clandestine activities."
There were numerous Communist front organizations in Asia, many oriented to students and youth.
In Japan in the labor union movement of the 1920s, according to one historian, "The Hyogikai never called itself a communist front but in effect, this was what it was." He points out it was repressed by the government "along with other communist front groups." In the 1950s, Scalapino argues, "The primary Communist-front organization was the Japan Peace Committee." It was founded in 1949.
Poppino argued that the effectiveness of Communist propaganda in Latin America "depends largely on the existence of a wide range of interlocking front groups that supplement and draw upon the Communist-led mass organizations."
When nations turned toward the Soviet Union, they typically joined in numerous international front organizations, as Nicaragua did under the Sandinistas in 1983.
West Germany (and West Berlin) were centers of East-West conflict during the Cold War, and numerous Communist fronts were established. For example, the Society for German–Soviet Friendship (GfDSF) had 13,000 members in West Germany, but it was banned in 1953 by some Länder as a Communist front. The Democratic Cultural League of Germany started off as a series of genuinely pluralistic bodies, but in 1950–51 came under the control of Communists. By 1952 the U.S. Embassy counted 54 'infiltrated organizations', which started independently, as well as 155 'front organizations', which had been Communist inspired from their start.
The Association of the Victims of the Nazi Regime was set up to rally West Germans under the antifascist banner, but had to be dissolved when Moscow discovered it had been infiltrated by "Zionist agents".
Davidson argues that in Australia with the onset of the Great Depression, "Support for Communist front organizations increased." Examples include the Movement Against War and Fascism and the Australian Writers' League.
British intelligence infiltrated several Communist fronts in Australia, looking for organized efforts to block Britain's Cold War policies.
A report of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities of the United States House of Representatives published a four-pronged definition of a "Communist front" in March 1944. Frequently repeated in official government documents, this definition asserted that Communist fronts shared (1) a common origin; (2) organization upon a "Communist pattern"; (3) interlocking personnel; and (4) methods intended to deceive the public.
Historian Bernard K. Johnpoll states:
Thousands of Americans joined Communist fronts during the 1930s. Few of them realized the true nature of the organizations they joined. The fronts paraded as independent, nonpartisan groups under the facade of non-Communist control. They were actually satellites of the Communist Party whose primary aim was to create the impression of mass support for an essential part of the party line. To maintain the illusion of non- Communist control, the formal leadership of these organizations was almost invariably composed of non-party members; the actual control was, however, in the hands of party activists.
In the late 1940s, at the start of the cold war, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) investigated and listed a number of suspected organizations. In 1955, SSIS 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.
Schrecker says that anti-Communist leaders believed that the Party used front groups to attract "fellow travelers," who were "unsuspecting liberals and well-meaning dupes drawn into the Communist orbit without realizing that the party was using them for its own purposes." Schrecker says that on the contrary, "most of these people knowingly collaborated with the party, believing it to be the most effective ally they could find." Theodore Draper asks, "To what extent was it possible, at least in the nineteen-twenties, to belong to a Communist front without being a Communist sympathizer?" His answer is that, "Only the most naive could have belonged to a front for any considerable length of time without realizing its political coloration. The top leaders of the early fronts were not merely Communists; they were top-ranking Communists."
Starting in 1939, Attorney General Biddle began compiling a list of fascist and Communist front organizations. It was called "Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations" (AGLOSO), but was not at first made public. Political pressures from Congress forced President Harry S. Truman to act. Truman's Attorney General Tom C. Clark expanded the list, which was officially authorized by presidential Executive Order 9835 in 1947 and was administered by the new Loyalty Review Board. The Board became part of the Civil Service Commission. The list was used by federal agencies to screen appointments during the Truman Administration. The program investigated over 3 million government employees, of whom 300 were dismissed as security risks. Adverse decisions could be appealed to the Loyalty Review Board, a government agency set up by President Truman.
On March 20, 1948 the Loyalty Review Board published the previously secret Attorney General's "List of Communist classified organizations" in The Federal Register. This list included the name and date founded, as well as headquarters address and names of chief officers for active groups. The complete list included about 200 organizations.
Attorney General's consolidated list November 1, 1955, includes also wartime German, Japanese, and Italian influenced organizations as well as white nationalist groups:
Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Abraham Lincoln School, Chicago, 111.
Action Committee To Free Spain Now
Alabama People's Educational Association (See Communist Political Association.)
American Association for Reconstruction in Yugoslavia, Inc.
American Branch of the Federation of Greek Maritime Unions
American Christian Nationalist Party
American Committee for European Workers' Relief (See Socialist Workers Party.)
American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
American Committee for Spanish Freedom
American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan, Inc.
American Committee for Yugoslav Relief, Inc.
American Committee to Survey Labor Conditions in Europe
American Council for a Democratic Greece, formerly known as the Greek American Council; Greek American Committee for National Unity
American Council on Soviet Relations
American Croatian Congress
American Jewish Labor Council
American League Against War and Fascism
American League for Peace and Democracy
American Lithuanian Workers Literary Association (Also known as Amerikos Lietuviu Darbininku Literatures Draugija.)
American National Labor Party
American National Socialist League
American National Socialist Party
American Nationalist Party
American Patriots, Inc.
American Peace Crusade
American Peace Mobilization
American Poles for Peace
American Polish Labor Council
American Polish League
American Rescue Ship Mission (A project of the United American Spanish Aid Committee.)
American-Russian Fraternal Society
American Russian Institute, New York (Also known as the American Russian Institute for Cultural Relations with the Soviet Union.)
American Russian Institute, Philadelphia
American Russian Institute of San Francisco
American Russian Institute of Southern California, Los Angeles
American Slav Congress
American Women for Peace
American Youth Congress
American Youth for Democracy
Armenian Progressive League of America
Associated Klans of America
Association of Georgia Klans
Association of German Nationals (Reichsdeutsche Vereinigung)
Association of Lithuanian Workers (Also known as Lietuviu Darbininku Susivienijimas.)
Ausland-Organization der NSDAP, Overseas Branch of Nazi Party
Baltimore Forum
Benjamin Davis Freedom Committee
Black Dragon Society
Boston School for Marxist Studies, Boston, Mass.
Bridges-Robertson-Schmidt Defense Committee
Bulgarian American People's League of the United States of America
California Emergency Defense Committee
California Labor School, Inc., 321 Divisadero Street, San Francisco, Calif.
Carpatho-Russian People's Society
Central Council of American Women of Croatian Descent (Also known as Central
Council of American Croatian Women, National Council of Croatian Women)
Central Japanese Association (Beikoku Chuo Nipponjin Kai)
Central Japanese Association of Southern California
Central Organization of the German-American National Alliance (Deutsche-Amerikanische Einheitsfront)
Cervantes Fraternal Society
China Welfare Appeal, Inc.
Chopin Cultural Center
Citizens Committee for Harry Bridges
Citizens Committee of the Upper West Side (New York City)
Citizens Committee to Free Earl Browder
Citizens Emergency Defense Conference
Citizens Protective League
Civil Liberties Sponsoring Committee of Pittsburgh
Civil Rights Congress and its affiliated organizations, including:
Civil Rights Congress for Texas
Veterans Against Discrimination of Civil Rights Congress of New York
Civil Rights Congress for Texas (See Civil Rights Congress.)
Columbians
Comite Coordinador Pro Republica Espanola
Comite Pro Derechos Civiles (See Puerto Rican Comite Pro Libertades Civiles.)
Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy
Committee for Constitutional and Political Freedom
Committee for Nationalist Action
Committee for Peace and Brotherhood Festival in Philadelphia
Committee for the Defense of the Pittsburgh Six
Committee for the Negro in the Arts
Committee for the Protection of the Bill of Rights
Committee for World Youth Friendship and Cultural Exchange
Committee To Abolish Discrimination in Maryland (See
Congress Against Discrimination;
Maryland Congress Against Discrimination;
Provisional Committee To Abolish Discrimination in the State of Maryland.)
Committee To Aid the Fighting South
Committee To Defend Marie Richardson
Committee To Defend the Rights and Freedom of Pittsburgh's Political Prisoners
Committee To Uphold the Bill of Rights
Commonwealth College, Mena, Ark.
Communist Party, United States of America, its subdivisions, subsidiaries, and affiliates
Communist Political Association, its subdivisions, subsidiaries, and affiliates, including:
Alabama People's Educational Association
Florida Press and Educational League
Oklahoma League for Political Education
People's Educational and Press Association of Texas
Virginia League for People's Education
Congress Against Discrimination (See Committee To Abolish Discrimination in Maryland.)
Congress of American Revolutionary Writers
Congress of American Women
Congress of the Unemployed
Connecticut Committee "To Aid Victims of the Smith Act
Connecticut State Youth Conference
Council for Jobs, Relief, and Housing
Council for Pan-American Democracy
Council of Greek Americans
Council on African Affairs
Croatian Benevolent Fraternity
Dai Nippon Butoku
Daily Worker Press Club
Daniels Defense Committee
Dante Alighieri Society (between 1935 and 1940)
Dennis Defense Committee
Detroit Youth Assembly
East Bay Peace Committee
Elsinore Progressive League
Emergency Conference To Save Spanish Refugees (founding body of the North
Ameiican Spanish Aid Committee)
Everybody's Committee To Outlaw War
Families of the Baltimore Smith Act Victims
Families of the Smith Act Victims
Federation of Italian War Veterans in the U. S. A., Inc. (Associazione Nazionale
Combattenti Italiani, Federazione degli Stati Uniti d'Americu)
Finnish-American Mutual Aid Society
Florida Press and Education League (See Communist Political Association ) Frederick Douglass Educational Center
Freedom Stage, Inc.
Friends of the New Germany (Freunde des Neuen Deutschlands)
Friends of the Soviet Union
Garibaldi American Fraternal Society
George Washington Carver School, New York City
German-American Bund (Ameiikadeutscher Volksbund)
German-American Republican League
German-American Vocational League (Deutsche-Ameiikanische Berufsgemeinschaft)
Guardian Club
Harlem Trade Union Council
Hawaii Civil Liberties Committee
Heimusha Kai, also known as Nokubei Heieki Gimusha Kai, Zaibel Nihonjin. Heiyaku Gimusha Kai, and Zaibei Heimusha Kai (Japanese Residing' in America Military Conscripts Association)
Hellenic-American Brotherhood
Hinode Kai (Imperial Japanese Reservists)
Hinomaru Kai (Rising Sun Flag Society—a group of Japanese war veterans) Hokubei Zaigo Shoke Dan (North American Reserve Ofhcers Association)
Hollywood Writers Mobilization for Defense
Hungarian-American Council for Democracy
Hungarian Brotherhood
Idaho Pension Union
Independent Party (Seattle, Wash.). (See Independent People's Party)
Independent People's Party. (See Independent Partv.)
Independent Sociahst League
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
International Labor Defense
International Workers Order, its subdivisions, subsidiaries and affiliates
Japanese Association of America
Japanese Overseas Central Society (Kaigai Dobo Chuo Kai)
Japanese Overseas Convention, Tokyo, Japan, 1940
Japanese Protective Association (recruiting organization)
Jefferson School of Social Science, New York City
Jewish Culture Society
Jewish People's Committee
Jewish People's Fraternal Order
Jikyoku linkai (The Committee for the Crisis)
Johnson-Forest Group. (See Johnsonitcs.)
Johnsonites (See Johnson-Forest Group.)
Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee
Joint Council of Progressive Itahan-Americans, Inc.
Joseph Weydemeyer School of Social Science, St. Louis, Mo.
Kibei Seinen Kai (Association of United States Citizens of who Japanese Ancestry have returned to America after studving in Japan)
Knights of the White Camellia
Ku Klux Klan
Kyffhaeuser, also known as Kyffhaeuser League (Kyffhaeuser Bund) Kyffhaeuser
Fellowship (Kyffhaeuser Kameradschaft)
Kyffhaeuser War Relief (Kyffhaeuser Kriegshilfswerk)
Labor Council for Negro Rights
Labor Research Association, Inc.
Labor Youth League
League for Common Sense
League of American Writers
Lictor Society (Itahan Black Shirts)
Macedonian-American People's League
Mario Morgantini Circle
Maritime Labor Committee to Defend Al Lannon
Maryland Congress Against Discrimination (See Committee to Abolish Discrimination in Maryland.)
Massachusetts Committee for the Bill of Rights
Massachusetts Minute Women for Peace (not connected with the Minute Women of the U. S. A., Inc.)
Maurice Braverman Defense Committee.
Michigan Civil Rights Federation
Michigan Council for Peace
Michigan School of Social Science
Nanka Teikoku Gunyudan (Imperial Military Friends Group or Southern California War Veterans)
National Association of Mexican Americans (Also known as Association Nacional Mexico- Americana.)
National Blue Star Mothers of America (Not to be confused with the Blue Star
Mothers of America organized in February 1942.)
National Committee for Freedom of the Press
National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners
National Committee to Win Amnesty for Smith Act Victims
National Committee to Win the Peace
National Conference on American Policy in China and the Far East (a Conference called by the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy.)
National Council of Americans of Croatian Descent
National Council of American-Soviet Friendship
National Federation for Constitutional Liberties
National Labor Conference for Peace
National Negro Congress
National Negro Labor Council
Nationalist Action League
Nationalist Part}^ of Puerto Rico
Nature Friends of America (since 1935)
Negro Labor Victory Committee
New Committee for Publications
Nichibei Kogyo Kaisha (The Great Fujii Theatre)
North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy
North American Spanish Aid Committee
North Philadelphia Forum
Northwest Japanese Association
Ohio School of Social Sciences
Oklahoma Committee to Defend Political Prisoners
Oklahoma League for Political Education. (See Communist Political Association.)
Original Southern Klans, Incorporated
Pacific Northwest Labor School, Seattle, Washington
Palo Alto Peace Club
Partido del Pueblo of Panama (operating in the Canal Zone)
Peace Information Center
Peace Movement of Ethiopia
People's Drama, Inc.
People's Educational and Press Association of Texas. (See Communist Political Association.)
People's Educational Association. (Incorporated under name Los Angeles Educational Association, Inc., also known as People's Educational Center, People's University, People's School.)
People's Institute of Applied Religion
Peoples Programs (Seattle, Wash,)
People's Radio Foundation, Inc.
People's Rights Party
Philadelphia Labor Committee for Negro Rights
Philadelphia School of Social Science and Art
Photo League (New York City)
Pittsburgh Arts Club
Political Prisoners Welfare Committee
Polonia Society of the IWO
Progressive German-Americans (also known as Progressive German-Americans of Chicago)
Proletarian Party of America
Protestant War Veterans of the United States, Inc.
Provisional Committee of Citizens for Peace, Southwest Area
Provisional Committee on Latin American Affairs
Provisional Committee to Abolish Discrimination in the State of Maryland. (See Committee to Abolish Discrimination in Maryland.)
Puerto Rican Comite Pro Libertades Civiles (CLC) . (See Comite Pro Derechos Civilies.)
Puertorriquenos Unidos (Puerto Ricans United)
Quad City Committee for Peace
Queensbridge Tenants League
Revolutionary Workers League
Romanian-American Fraternal Society
Russian American Society, Inc.
Sakura Kai (Patriotic Society, or Cherry Association—composed of veterans of Russo-Japanese War)
Samuel Adams School, Boston, Mass.
Santa Barbara Peace Forum
Schappes Defense Committee
Schneiderman-Darcy Defense Committee
School of Jewish Studies, New York City
Seattle Labor School, Seattle, Wash.
Serbian-American Franternal Society
Serbian Vidovdan Council
Shinto Temples. (Limited to State Shinto abolished in 1945.)
Silver Shirt Legion of America
Slavic Council of Southern California
Slovak Workers Society
Slovenian-American National Council
Socialist Workers Party, including American Committee for European Workers' Relief
Socialist Youth League. (See Workers Party.)
Sokoku Kai (Fatherland Society)
Southern Negro Youth Congress
Suiko Sha (Reserve Officers Association, Los Angeles)
Svracuse Women for Peace
Tom Paine School of Social Science, Philadelphia, Pa.
Tom Paine School of Westchester, N. Y.
Trade Union Committee for Peace. (See Trade Unionists for Peace.)
Trade Unionists for Peace. (See Trade Union Committee for Peace.)
Tri-State Negro Trade Union Council
Ukrainian-American Fraternal Union
Union of American Croatians
Union of New York Veterans
United American Spanish Aid Committee
United Committee of Jewish Societies and Landsmanschaft Federations (also known as Coordination Committee of Jewish Landsmanschaften and Fraternal Organizations)
United Committee of South Slavic Americans
United Defense Council of Southern California 1
United Harlem Tenants and Consumers Organization
United May Day Committee
United Negro and Allied Veterans of America
Veterans Against Discrimination of Civil Rights Congress of New ork. (See Civil Rights Congress.)
Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Virginia League for People's Education. (See Communist Political Association.)
Voice of Freedom Committee
Walt Whitman School of Social Science, Newark, N. J.
Washington Bookshop Association
Washington Committee for Democratic Action
Washington Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights
Washington Commonwealth Federation
Washington Pension Union
Wisconsin Conference on Social Legislation
Workers Alliance (since April 1936)
Workers Party, including the Socialist Youth League
Yiddisher Kultur Farband
Young Communist League
Yugoslav-American Cooperative Home, Inc.
Yugoslav Seamen's Club, Inc.
By late Cold War, Richard Felix Staar alleged that Soviet intelligence had infiltrated many peace movements in the West, most importantly, the World Peace Council. In addition to WPC, important communist front organizations included its affiliate the U.S. Peace Council, the World Federation of Trade Unions, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, and the International Union of Students. Staar asserted that somewhat less important front organizations included: Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organisation, Christian Peace Conference, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, International Federation of Resistance Movements, International Institute for Peace, International Organization of Journalists, Women's International Democratic Federation and World Federation of Scientific Workers. Numerous peace conferences, congresses and festivals have been staged with support of those organizations.
