Editing Gus Hall (section)

==Criticism==
When the [[Trotskyist]] [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] (SWP) and its leaders in the Midwest Teamsters were prosecuted under the Smith Act in Minnesota in 1941, some Communist Party members supported the government actions. Later, Hall admitted it was a mistake for the party to not openly fight against imprisonment of SWP members under the Smith Act.<ref>{{Cite book| first=Gerald| last=Horne| title=Black liberation/red scare| publisher=University of Delaware Press| year=1993| page=[https://archive.org/details/blackliberationr00horn/page/213 213]| isbn=0-87413-472-2| url=https://archive.org/details/blackliberationr00horn/page/213}}</ref> The Trotskyist movement held strong negative opinions against Hall; upon his death, the Trotskyist [[World Socialist Web Site]] denounced him for what they perceived as his incompetence, loyalty to the Soviet Union and accused abandonment of the working class.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/11/hall-n06.html|title=Gus Hall (1910-2000): Stalinist operative and decades-long leader of Communist Party USA|website=World Socialist Web Site|last1=Mazelis|first1=Fred|date=November 6, 2000|access-date=March 3, 2021}}</ref>

At times, some Soviet officials criticized Hall by accusing him of poor leadership of the CPUSA.<ref name ="kalugin">{{Cite book | first=Oleg | last=Kalugin | title=The First Directorate | publisher=St. Martin's Press | year=1994 | page=[https://archive.org/details/firstdirectorate00kalu/page/56 56] | isbn=0-312-11426-5 | url=https://archive.org/details/firstdirectorate00kalu/page/56 }}</ref> Young American communists were advised to distance themselves from CPUSA, as the party was under intense FBI surveillance, and these officials believed that under such conditions the party could not be successful.<ref name ="kalugin" />

Many conservatives saw Hall as a threat to the United States, with [[J. Edgar Hoover]] describing him as "a powerful, deceitful, dangerous foe of [[Americanization|Americanism]]."<ref name="nyt" /> An inflammatory [[Criticism of Christianity|anti-Christian]] statement was falsely ascribed to Hall, earning him the hostility of some Christian groups, including [[Jerry Falwell]]'s [[Moral Majority]].<ref>{{Cite book| first=Paul F. Boller| last=John H. George| title=They never said it| publisher=Oxford University Press| year=1989| page=[https://archive.org/details/theyneversaiditb00boll/page/44 44]| isbn=0-19-505541-1| url=https://archive.org/details/theyneversaiditb00boll/page/44}}</ref> In a 1977 speech, future U.S. president [[Ronald Reagan]] planned to quote this alleged 1961 statement as proof of the evils of communism: "I dream of the hour when [[Jean Meslier|the last congressman is strangled to death on the guts of the last preacher]]&nbsp;— and since the Christians seem to love to sing about the blood, why not give them a little of it? Slit the throats of their children [and] draw them over the mourner's bench and the pulpit and allow them to drown in their own blood, and then see whether they enjoy singing those hymns." The statement, which Reagan ultimately excised from his speech because he claimed he did not have the "nerve" to say it, was falsely claimed to have been said by Hall at the funeral oration of former CPUSA party chairman [[William Z. Foster]].<ref>Kiron K. Skinner, Martin Anderson, Annelise Anderson, eds., Reagan, In His Own Hand (New York, 2002), 34; David C. Wills, The First War on Terrorism: Counter-Terrorism Policy During the Reagan Administration (Lanham, MD, 2003), 22.</ref> Hall would later make positive comments about Christianity; in 1963, he called the papal [[encyclical]] [[Pacem in terris]] "the work of a great Pope".<ref name="lee">{{Cite journal |last=Lee |first=Francis Nigel |author-link=Francis Nigel Lee |title=Biblical Private Property Versus Socialistic Common Property |date=1988 |journal=Ex Nihilo Technical Journal |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=16–22 |url=https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j03_1/j03_1_016-022.pdf}}</ref> According to [[Francis Nigel Lee]], Hall held [[Pope John XXIII]] in high regard and hoped for dialogue between Catholics and Communists, writing in ''[[Political Affairs (magazine)|Political Affairs]]'' that "Marxists have shown their remarkable willingness to go along with Pope John's giant step forward."<ref name="lee"/> Gus Hall is also reported to have said: “Our quarrel is with capitalism, not God.”<ref name="maxey">{{Cite book |last=Maxey |first=Mark |publisher=PCUSA Religious Affairs Commission |title=Communism & Religion |date=February 15, 2019 |isbn=9780359434404 |url=https://archive.org/details/communismandreligion_201906}}</ref>

Hall was also accused of homophobia, as the CPUSA followed a Stalinist doctrine of declaring homosexuality a "fascist tendency". As a result, openly gay party members such as [[Harry Hay]] were expelled from the party in the 1950s.<ref name="workers">{{Cite news |last=Feinberg |first=Leslie |url=http://www.workers.org/2005/us/lavender-red-40/ |title=Harry Hay: Painful partings |date=June 28, 2005 |work=Workers World |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930015105/http://www.workers.org/2005/us/lavender-red-40/ |archive-date=September 30, 2007}}</ref> The Communist Party was critical of newly emerging social movements in the 1960s and 1970s, keeping its distance from the [[New Left]]. Nevertheless, some CPUSA members attempted to appeal to the youth, with [[Gil Green (communist)|Gil Green]] arguing that “the correct line should have been to try to turn this upheaval amongst young people into a permanent kind of movement while letting its dynamics work itself out with our participation.”<ref name="green">{{Cite journal |last=Rosenberg |first=Daniel |title=From Crisis to Split: The Communist Party USA, 1989–1991 |date=April 22, 2019 |journal=American Communist History |volume=18 |issue=1–2 |pages=1–55 |doi=10.1080/14743892.2019.1599627|s2cid=159619768 }}</ref> Despite the fact that the [[Mexican Communist Party|Communist party of Mexico]] and some Afro-American communists such as [[Jarvis Tyner]] and Kendra Alexander opposed homophobia, CPUSA was opposed to [[gay rights]], with the official party programme from early 1970s condemning any behaviour “which encourages or promotes homosexual relationships as an alternative to sound, healthy, male–female relationships or distracts from the family as the basic unity of society and the fundamental component of the future we see to bring into being” and repudiating “as false any attempt to depict the so-called gay lifestyle as part of advanced and even revolutionary movements, or to promote it in the guise of a progressive ideology".<ref name="green"/> However, Hall himself was not homophobic.<ref name="marquit">{{Cite journal |last=Marquit |first=Erwin |author-link=Erwin Marquit |title=Memoirs of a Lifelong Communist |journal=Memoirs of a Lifelong Communist – 2 |date=2014 |page=148 |editor-last1=Shifman |editor-first1=Mikhail |editor-link=Mikhail Shifman |url=https://www.academia.edu/38348677 |series=Part II}}</ref> According to [[Erwin Marquit]], Hall sought to moderate the party's hostile stance towards gay groups, and when questioned by the [[student council]] of the [[University of Minnesota]], he stated his opposition to expelling homosexual members from the party.<ref name="marquit"/> Hall had also intervened on behalf of Bernard Koten, a party member who was arrested in [[Kiev]] in August 1963 and charged with homosexuality.<ref name="Savonen">{{Cite book |last=Savonen |first=Tuomas |publisher=The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters |title=Minnesota, Moscow, Manhattan: Gus Hall's Life and Political Line Until the Late 1960s |location=Helsinki |date=December 11, 2020 |isbn=9789516534520 |editor-last=Sundberg |editor-first=Jan |pages=277–278}}</ref> Hall reacted strongly to the news of Koten's arrest and called for the charges to be dropped "unless a more serious crime is involved".<ref name="Savonen"/> After protests from Hall and a number of progressive activists, Koten was released without trial.<ref name="Savonen"/>