Gus Hall (1910–2000), born October 8, 1910, was a lifelong communist, steelworker, and general secretary of the Communist Party USA. His life embodied the inseparable links between the labor movement, the fight for free speech, the struggle against racism and class exploitation and national oppression, and the struggle for socialism. Test your knowledge of his contributions through a Marxist lens.

1. Gus Hall was a founding organizer of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) and a leader of the 1937 “Little Steel” strike in Warren, Ohio. For Marxists, this strike was significant because

c. it helped build industrial unionism and showed the class power of solidarity across racial lines.

2. During the Cold War, Gus Hall was convicted under the Smith Act and imprisoned for eight years. The CPUSA saw this state repression as

b. a use of the courts to repress trade union, socialist, and communist organizing.

3. In 1962, Gus Hall’s scheduled speaking tour of Oregon campuses sparked a major free speech controversy, with some university presidents refusing to let him speak. For Marxists, the fight to allow Hall to speak was important because

a. it tested whether universities could be spaces for working-class ideas and theory.

4. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Gus Hall worked to build the Communist Party among young activists in the peace, civil rights, and labor movements. This approach reflected the CPUSA’s understanding that

a. the working class must build broad alliances with the oppressed, women, and youth.

5. Gus Hall was a four-time presidential candidate of the Communist Party USA. From the CPUSA’s perspective, these campaigns were most valuable as

b. a platform to spread communist ideas and expose the limits of capitalist parties.

6. In his book Working Class USA: The Power and the Movement, Gus Hall argued that the ruling class has always suppressed the notion of class struggle. This reflects the Marxist-Leninist insight that

b. the working class must develop its own independent, political consciousness.

Your score:

0 wrong: Theoretician. Write an article! Teach a class!
1 wrong: Developed Marxist. Form a study group, join the party.
2 to 3 wrong: Class-conscious worker – study harder.
4 to 6 wrong: Danger! Deviations possible. Study and then study some more lest you drift into the marsh of opportunism!