Finnish-American labor militant and CPUSA General Secretary for 41 years, Moscow loyalist, four-time presidential candidate
'Socialism in America will come through the ballot box' — Hall to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1996.
A Finnish immigrant's son forged in the steel strikes, Hall led the CPUSA for 41 years as an orthodox Marxist-Leninist. Trained at Moscow's International Lenin School and imprisoned under the Smith Act, he seized party leadership in 1959, hewed unflinchingly to the Soviet line through every crisis, and ran for president four times, becoming the face of American communism during the Cold War.
Career Timeline
- 1927Joined CPUSA; Young Communist League organizer
- 1931–1933Studied at International Lenin School, Moscow
- 1935–1937SWOC founding organizer; led 'Little Steel' strike
- 1939CPUSA leader, Cleveland
- 1942–1946US Navy machinist's mate, Guam
- 1948–1957Smith Act indictment; imprisoned 5+ years, Leavenworth
- 1959–2000General Secretary / Chairman, CPUSA
- 1972–1984CPUSA presidential candidate (4 elections)
Related historical events
The "Little Steel" Strike and Labor Organizing
In 1934, Gus Hall moved to Ohio's Mahoning Valley and found work at a steel mill in Youngstown, becoming a founding organizer of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC). Organizing had to be conducted in secrecy: any worker who signed a union card was immediately fired. Hall later recalled in a letter to the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) that "it was not until we had collected thousands of such signed cards that Lewis agreed to set up the SWOC." Hall served on the committee that presented the cards to John L. Lewis at a miners' rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and was subsequently hired as a full-time SWOC organizer, ultimately recruiting 10,000 workers to the steel union across the Mahoning Valley.
On May 26, 1937, SWOC, fresh from its contract victory with U.S. Steel, launched a strike against the so-called "Little Steel" companies: Republic Steel, Bethlehem Steel, and Youngstown Sheet and Tube. Hall served as chairman of the strike committee in Warren and Youngstown. The strike became one of the most violent labor disputes of the 1930s. At Republic Steel's Chicago plant on Memorial Day (May 30, 1937), police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, killing ten in what became known as the Memorial Day Massacre. In total, eighteen workers died and hundreds were injured. Hall himself was arrested for allegedly transporting bomb-making materials to Republic's Warren plant; he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and paid a $500 fine.
The strike ended after five months without achieving its primary goal of union recognition, but it laid the groundwork for the eventual unionization of the Little Steel industry, achieved in 1942 during World War II. SWOC evolved into the United Steelworkers of America that same year. USWA founding president Philip Murray later called Hall's leadership of the strike in Warren and Youngstown "a model of effective grassroots organizing." The Little Steel campaign established Hall's reputation as a national-caliber labor leader and became the foundation for his rise through the CPUSA ranks.