Eugene Dennis
| Eugene Dennis | |
|---|---|
Eugene Dennis in 1950
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| Chairman of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA | |
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In office 1957 – 31 January 1961 |
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| Preceded by | William Z. Foster |
| Succeeded by | Elizabeth Gurley Flynn |
| General Secretary of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA | |
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In office 1945–1959 |
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| Preceded by | Earl Browder |
| Succeeded by | Gus Hall |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Francis Xavier Waldron August 10, 1905 Seattle, Washington, United States |
| Died | January 31, 1961 (aged 55) Mount Sinai Hospital Manhattan, New York, United States |
| Political party | Communist Party USA |
| Spouse(s) | Peggy Dennis (née Regina Karasick) |
| Children | Eugene Jr. |
| Residence | New York |
| Occupation | Lumberjack, teamster, electrician, politician |
Francis Xavier Waldron (August 10, 1905 – January 31, 1961), best known by the pseudonym Eugene Dennis and Tim Ryan, was an American communist politician and union organizer, best remembered as the long-time leader of the Communist Party USA and as named party in Dennis v. United States, a famous McCarthy Era Supreme Court case.
Francis Xavier Waldron was born on August 10, 1905 in Seattle, Washington. He worked in various jobs and was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, for which was active in California as a union organizer.
Waldron joined the Workers (Communist) Party in 1926.
In 1929, Waldron fled to the Soviet Union to avoid criminal charges for his political activities under the California Criminal Syndicalism Act.
Waldron returned to the United States in 1935 and assumed the pseudonym of Eugene Dennis. Dennis became General Secretary of the party after the expulsion of Earl Browder and was a staunch supporter of the Moscow line.
On July 20, 1948, Dennis and eleven other party leaders, including Party Chairman William Z. Foster were arrested and charged under the Alien Registration Act. Foster was not prosecuted due to ill health.
As Dennis and his co-accused had never openly called for the violent overthrow of the United States government, the prosecution depended on passages from the works of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin that advocated revolutionary violence and on the testimony of former members of the party who claimed that Dennis and others had privately advocated the use of violence.
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