Did anyone ever have any doubt that during its heyday and throughout the Cold War, the American Communist Party, or C.P.U.S.A., was anything but a vehicle controlled lock, stock and barrel by the Soviet Union and its Politburo? Now, the FBI has released the first in a long series of previously classified material—-that of the so-called Operation Solo effort.
SOLO referred to the secret recruitment of two bitter ex-Communists, Morris and Jack Childs. The Bureau urged them to rejoin the Party, and work within its ranks to feed information to them. Before long, Morris Childs became what in effect was the CP’s Secretary of State, traveling around the world to meet top Communist leaders, including those of both the Soviet Union and China. From his perch, he passed on to the U.S. Government all he learned first hand from Moscow’s top leaders.
You can find all of the releases here. They contain many gems. One of my favorites concerns the orders from one of the chiefs of the Soviet Politburo, Mikhail Suslov, who tells the comrades that the Party has to give up its thesis that American blacks composed a separate nation and had to fight for the right of self-determination for its majority in the black belt of the South. Suslov, who under Brezhnev would become the chief ideologue of Moscow, told them they cannot make policy based on 30 year old Comintern directives, at a time when American blacks lived in urban areas and were fighting for civil rights and desegregation. He gave them the go ahead to get involved in the freedom movement that was then beginning to emerge, and join its fight in order to try and give it direction.
Read the releases for yourself. You will find more proof that in the old Cold War days, it was the anti-Communists who were right, and not their legion of apologists.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member