Ayn Rand was one of the
"friendly" witnesses who cooperated with the committee during the
1947 hearings. Rand's testimony, like that of the other friendly witnesses, was
given just before the debacle of the "Hollywood Ten." She did not
testify during either the earlier (1940) or later (1950s) investigations that
HUAC conducted about Hollywood.
At the time she was called to
testify, Rand was already well-known in Hollywood for her opposition to
Communism. She originally planned to testify about two movies -- Song of Russia
and The Best Years of Our Lives. The former was made during World War II, with
the fairly obvious purpose of making Americans feel more comfortable about
being allies with the Soviets during the war. The latter was a popular post-war
film that had won several Academy Awards, including the Oscar for best picture.
Rand was later asked to testify only about Song of Russia. Some members of the
committee thought it was too risky to criticize a popular film like The Best
Years of Our Lives. Upset by that she was only allowed to discuss one older
movie that was obvious propaganda, Rand demanded a chance to give additional
testimony. After some argument, Chairman Thomas eventually offered to recall
her later in the hearings. He never did recall her. Her testimony as it stands
concerns only Song of Russia.
Asked years later about the
hearings, Rand said that they were a "dubious undertaking,"
"futile," and "nothing but disappointments." She did not
think the government could not legitimately investigate the ideological penetration
of Communism into the movies. It could only show that there were members of the
Communist Party working in the industry. She did believe, however, that it was
acceptable for the committee to ask people whether they had joined the
Communist Party, because the Party supported the use of violence and other
criminal activities to achieve its political goals, and investigating possible
criminal activities was an appropriate role of government. "I certainly
don't think it's any kind of interference with anybody's rights or freedom of
speech," she said.3
Regardless of the effectiveness
of the hearings as a whole, Rand was glad to have the opportunity to gain media
exposure on the subject. She also supported the efforts of private employers to
reduce the influence of Communists on the movies. As she put it in an earlier
essay she had written on the subject, "The principle of free speech
requires ... that we do not pass laws forbidding [Communists] to speak. But the
principle of free speech ... does not imply that we owe them jobs and support to
advocate our own destruction at our own expense."
Transcript of Rand's Testimony
Rep. J. Parnell Thomas1, Chairman
of the Committee: Raise your right hand, please, Miss Rand. Do you solemnly
swear the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Ayn Rand: I do.
Chairman Thomas: Sit down.
Mr. Robert E. Stripling2, Chief
Investigator: Miss Rand, will you state your name, please, for the record?
Rand: Ayn Rand, or Mrs. Frank
O'Connor3.
Stripling: That is A-y-n?
Rand: That is right.
Stripling: R-a-n-d?
Rand: Yes.
Stripling: Is that your pen name?
Rand: Yes.
Stripling: And what is your
married name?
Rand: Mrs. Frank O'Connor.
Stripling: Where were you born,
Miss Rand?
Rand: In St. Petersburg, Russia.4
Stripling: When did you leave
Russia?
Rand: In 1926.
Stripling: How long have you been
employed in Hollywood?
Rand: I have been in pictures on
and off since late in 1926, but specifically as a writer this time I have been
in Hollywood since late 1943 and am now under contract as a writer.5
Stripling: Have you written
various novels?
Rand: One second. May I have one
moment to get this in order?
Stripling: Yes.
Rand: Yes, I have written two
novels.6 My first one was called We the Living, which was a story about Soviet
Russia and was published in 1936. The second one was The Fountainhead,
published in 1943.
Stripling: Was that a best seller
-- The Fountainhead?
Rand: Yes; thanks to the American
public.
Stripling: Do you know how many
copies were sold?
Rand: The last I heard was
360,000 copies. I think there have been some more since.
Stripling: You have been employed
as a writer in Hollywood?
Rand: Yes; I am under contract at
present.7
Stripling: Could you name some of
the stories or scripts you have written for Hollywood?
Stripling: Now, Miss Rand, you
have heard the testimony of Mr. [Louis B.] Mayer?11
Rand: Yes.
Stripling: You have read the
letter I read from Lowell Mellett?12
Rand: Yes.
Stripling: Which says that the
picture Song of Russia13 has no political implications?
Rand: Yes.
Stripling: Did you at the request
of Mr. Smith, the investigator for this committee, view the picture Song of
Russia?
Rand: Yes.
Stripling: Within the past two
weeks?
Rand: Yes; on October 13, to be
exact.
Stripling: In Hollywood?
Rand: Yes.
Stripling: Would you give the
committee a break-down of your summary of the picture relating to either
propaganda or an untruthful account or distorted account of conditions in Russia?
Rand: Yes.
First of all I would like to
define what we mean by propaganda. We have all been talking about it, but
nobody --
Stripling: Could you talk into
the microphone?
Rand: Can you hear me now? Nobody
has stated just what they mean by propaganda. Now, I use the term to mean that
Communist propaganda is anything which gives a good impression of communism as
a way of life. Anything that sells people the idea that life in Russia is good
and that people are free and happy would be Communist propaganda. Am I not
correct? I mean, would that be a fair statement to make -- that that would be
Communist propaganda?
Now, here is what the picture
Song of Russia contains. It starts with an American conductor, played by Robert
Taylor,14 giving a concert in America for Russian war relief. He starts playing
the American national anthem and the national anthem dissolves into a Russian
mob, with the sickle and hammer on a red flag very prominent above their heads.
I am sorry, but that made me sick. That is something which I do not see how
native Americans permit, and I am only a naturalized American. That was a
terrible touch of propaganda. As a writer, I can tell you just exactly what it
suggests to the people. It suggests literally and technically that it is quite
all right for the American national anthem to dissolve into the Soviet. The
term here is more than just technical. It really was symbolically intended, and
it worked out that way. The anthem continues, played by a Soviet band. That is
the beginning of the picture.
Now we go to the pleasant love
story. Mr. Taylor is an American who came there apparently voluntarily to
conduct concerts for the Soviets. He meets a little Russian girl15 from a
village who comes to him and begs him to go to her village to direct concerts
there. There are no GPU16 agents and nobody stops her. She just comes to Moscow
and meets him. He falls for her and decides he will go, because he is falling
in love. He asks her to show him Moscow. She says she has never seen it. He
says, "I will show it to YOU." They see it together. The picture then
goes into a scene of Moscow, supposedly. I don't know where the studio got its
shots, but I have never seen anything like it in Russia. First you see Moscow
buildings -- big, prosperous-looking, clean buildings, with something like
swans or sailboats in the foreground. Then you see a Moscow restaurant that
just never existed there. In my time, when I was in Russia, there was only one
such restaurant, which was nowhere as luxurious as that and no one could enter
it except commissars and profiteers. Certainly a girl from a village, who in
the first place would never have been allowed to come voluntarily, without
permission, to Moscow, could not afford to enter it, even if she worked ten
years. However, there is a Russian restaurant with a menu such as never existed
in Russia at all and which I doubt even existed before the revolution. From
this restaurant they go on to this tour of Moscow. The streets are clean and
prosperous-looking. There are no food lines anywhere. You see shots of the
marble subway -- the famous Russian subway out of which they make such
propaganda capital. There is a marble statue of Stalin thrown in. There is a
park where you see happy little children in white blouses running around. I
don't know whose children they are, but they are really happy kiddies. They are
not homeless children in rags, such as I have seen in Russia. Then you see an
excursion boat, on which the Russian people are smiling, sitting around very
cheerfully, dressed in some sort of satin blouses such as they only wear in
Russian restaurants here. Then they attend a luxurious dance. I don't know
where they got the idea of the clothes and the settings that they used at the
ball and --
Stripling: Is that a ballroom
scene?
Rand: Yes; the ballroom -- where
they dance. It was an exaggeration even for this country. I have never seen
anybody wearing such clothes and dancing to such exotic music when I was there.
Of course, it didn't say whose ballroom it is or how they get there. But there
they are -- free and dancing very happily.
Incidentally, I must say at this
point that I understand from correspondents who have left Russia and been there
later than I was and from people who escaped from there later than I did that
the time I saw it, which was in 1926, was the best time since the Russian
revolution. At that time conditions were a little better than they have become
since. In my time we were a bunch of ragged, starved, dirty, miserable people
who had only two thoughts in our mind. That was our complete terror -- afraid
to look at one another, afraid to say anything for fear of who is listening and
would report us -- and where to get the next meal. You have no idea what it
means to live in a country where nobody has any concern except food, where all
the conversation is about food because everybody is so hungry that that is all
they can think about and that is all they can afford to do. They have no idea
of politics. They have no idea of any pleasant romances or love-nothing but
food and fear. That is what I saw up to 1926. That is not what the picture
shows.
Now, after this tour of Moscow,
the hero -- the American conductor -- goes to the Soviet village. The Russian
villages are something -- so miserable and so filthy. They were even before the
revolution. They weren't much even then. What they have become now I am afraid
to think. You have all read about the program for the collectivization of the
farms in 1933, at which time the Soviet Government admits that three million
peasants died of starvation. Other people claim there were seven and a half
million, but three million is the figure admitted by the Soviet Government as
the figure of people who died of starvation, planned by the government in order
to drive people into collective farms. That is a recorded historical fact.17
Now, here is the life in the
Soviet village as presented in Song of Russia. You see the happy peasants. You
see they are meeting the hero at the station with bands, with beautiful blouses
and shoes, such as they never wore anywhere. You see children with operetta
costumes on them and with a brass band which they could never afford. You see
the manicured starlets driving tractors and the happy women who come from work
singing. You see a peasant at home with a close-up of food for which anyone
there would have been murdered. If anybody had such food in Russia in that time
he couldn't remain alive, because he would have been torn apart by neighbors
trying to get food. But here is a close-up of it and a line where Robert Taylor
comments on the food and the peasant answers, "This is just a simple
country table and the food we eat ourselves."
Then the peasant proceeds to show
Taylor how they live. He shows him his wonderful tractor. It is parked
somewhere in his private garage. He shows him the grain in his bin, and Taylor
says, "That is wonderful grain." Now, it is never said that the
peasant does not own this tractor or this grain because it is a collective
farm. He couldn't have it. It is not his. But the impression he gives to
Americans, who wouldn't know any differently, is that certainly it is this
peasant's private property, and that is how he lives, he has his own tractor
and his own grain. Then it shows miles and miles of plowed fields.
Chairman Thomas: We will have
more order, please.
Rand: Am I speaking too fast?
Chairman Thomas: Go ahead.
Rand: Then --
Stripling: Miss Rand, may I bring
up one point there?
Rand: Surely.
Stripling: I saw the picture. At
this peasant's village or home, was there a priest or several priests in
evidence?
Rand: Oh, yes; I am coming to
that, too. The priest was from the beginning in the village scenes, having a
position as sort of a constant companion and friend of the peasants, as if
religion was a natural accepted part of that life. Well, now, as a matter of
fact, the situation about religion in Russia in my time was, and I understand
it still is, that for a Communist Party member to have anything to do with
religion means expulsion from the party. He is not allowed to enter a church or
take part in any religious ceremony. For a private citizen, that is a nonparty
member, it was permitted, but it was so frowned upon that people had to keep it
secret, if they went to church. If they wanted a church wedding they usually
had it privately in their homes, with only a few friends present, in order not
to let it be known at their place of employment because, even though it was not
forbidden, the chances were that they would be thrown out of a job for being
known as practicing any kind of religion.18
Now, then, to continue with the
story, Robert Taylor proposes to the heroine. She accepts him. They have a
wedding, which, of course, is a church wedding. It takes place with all the
religious pomp which they show. They have a banquet. They have dancers, in
something like satin skirts and performing ballets such as you never could
possibly see in any village and certainly not in Russia. Later they show a
peasants' meeting place, which is a kind of a marble palace with crystal
chandeliers. Where they got it or who built it for them I would like to be
told. Then later you see that the peasants all have radios. When the heroine
plays as a soloist with Robert Taylor's orchestra, after she marries him, you
see a scene where all the peasants are listening on radios, and one of them
says, "There are more than millions listening to the concert."
I don't know whether there are a
hundred people in Russia, private individuals, who own radios. And I remember
reading in the newspaper at the beginning of the war that every radio was
seized by the government and people were not allowed to own them. Such an idea
that every farmer, a poor peasant, has a radio, is certainly preposterous. You
also see that they have long-distance telephones. Later in the picture Taylor
has to call his wife in the village by long-distance telephone. Where they got
this long-distance phone, I don't know.
Now, here comes the crucial point
of the picture. In the midst of this concert, when the heroine is playing, you
see a scene on the border of the U.S.S.R. You have a very lovely modernistic
sign saying "U.S.S.R." I would just like to remind you that that is
the border where probably thousands of people have died trying to escape out of
this lovely paradise. It shows the U.S.S.R. sign, and there is a border guard standing.
He is listening to the concert. Then there is a scene inside kind of a
guardhouse where the guards are listening to the same concert, the beautiful
Tschaikowsky music, and they are playing chess.
Suddenly there is a Nazi attack
on them. The poor, sweet Russians were unprepared. Now, realize -- and that was
a great shock to me -- that the border that was being shown was the border of
Poland. That was the border of an occupied, destroyed, enslaved country which
Hitler and Stalin destroyed together.19 That was the border that was being
shown to us -- just a happy place with people listening to music.
Also realize that when all this
sweetness and light was going on in the first part of the picture, with all
these happy, free people, there was not a GPU agent among them, with no food
lines, no persecution -- complete freedom and happiness, with everybody
smiling. Incidentally, I have never seen so much smiling in my life, except on
the murals of the world's fair pavilion of the Soviets. If any one of you have
seen it, you can appreciate it. It is one of the stock propaganda tricks of the
Communists, to show these people smiling. That is all they can show. You have
all this, plus the fact that an American conductor had accepted an invitation
to come there and conduct a concert, and this took place in 1941 when Stalin
was the ally of Hitler. That an American would accept an invitation to that
country was shocking to me, with everything that was shown being proper and
good and all those happy people going around dancing, when Stalin was an ally
of Hitler.
Now, then, the heroine decides
that she wants to stay in Russia. Taylor would like to take her out of the
country, but she says no, her place is here, she has to fight the war. Here is
the line, as nearly exact as I could mark it while watching the picture:
"I have a great
responsibility to my family, to my village, and to the way I have lived."
What way had she lived? This is
just a polite way of saying the of life. She goes on to say that she wants to
stay in the country because otherwise, "How can I help to build a better
and better life for my country." What do you mean when you say better and
better? That means she has already helped to build a good way. That is the
Soviet Communist way. But now she wants to make it even better. All right.
Now, then, Taylor's manager, who
is played, I believe, by Benchley20, an American, tells her that she should
leave the country, but when she refuses and wants to stay, here is the line he
uses: he tells her in an admiring friendly way that "You are a fool, but a
lot of fools like you died on the village green at Lexington."21
Now, I submit that that is
blasphemy, because the men at Lexington were not fighting just a foreign
invader. They were fighting for freedom and what I mean -- and I intend to be
exact -- is they were fighting for political freedom and individual freedom.
They were fighting for the rights of man. To compare them to somebody, anybody
fighting for a slave state, I think is dreadful. Then, later the girl also says
-- I believe this was she or one of the other characters -- that "the
culture we have been building here will never die." What culture? The
culture of concentration camps.22
At the end of the picture one of
the Russians asks Taylor and the girl to go back to America, because they can
help them there. How? Here is what he says, "You can go back to your
country and tell them what you have seen and you will see the truth both in
speech and in music." Now, that is plainly saying that what you have seen
is the truth about Russia. That is what is in the picture.
Now, here is what I cannot
understand at all: if the excuse that has been given here is that we had to
produce the picture in wartime, just how can it help the war effort? If it is
to deceive the American people, if it were to present to the American people a
better picture of Russia than it really is, then that sort of an attitude is
nothing but the theory of the Nazi elite -- that a choice group of intellectual
or other leaders will tell the people lies for their own good. That I don't think
is the American way of giving people information. We do not have to deceive the
people at any time, in war or peace. If it was to please the Russians, I don't
see how you can please the Russians by telling them that we are fools. To what
extent we have done it, you can see right now. You can see the results right
now. If we present a picture like that as our version of what goes on in
Russia, what will they think of it? We don't win anybody's friendship. We will
only win their contempt, and as you know the Russians have been behaving like
this.
My whole point about the picture
is this: I fully believe Mr. Mayer when he says that he did not make a
Communist picture. To do him justice, I can tell you I noticed, by watching the
picture, where there was an effort to cut propaganda out. I believe he tried to
cut propaganda out of the picture, but the terrible thing is the carelessness
with ideas, not realizing that the mere presentation of that kind of happy
existence in a country of slavery and horror is terrible because it is
propaganda. You are telling people that it is all right to live in a
totalitarian state.
Now, I would like to say that
nothing on earth will justify slavery. In war or peace or at any time you
cannot justify slavery. You cannot tell people that it is all right to live
under it and that everybody there is happy. If you doubt this, I will just ask
you one question. Visualize a picture in your own mind as laid in Nazi Germany.
If anybody laid a plot just based on a pleasant little romance in Germany and
played Wagner music and said that people are just happy there, would you say
that that was propaganda or not, when you know what life in Germany was and
what kind of concentration camps they had there. You would not dare to put just
a happy love story into Germany, and for every one of the same reasons you
should not do it about Russia.
Stripling: That is all I have,
Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Thomas: Mr. Wood.
Rep. John S. Wood23: I gather,
then, from your analysis of this picture your personal criticism of it is that
it overplayed the conditions that existed in Russia at the time the picture was
made; is that correct?
Rand: Did you say overplayed?
Wood: Yes.
Rand: Well, the story portrayed
the people --
Wood: It portrayed the people of
Russia in a better economic and social position than they occupied?
Rand: That is right.
Wood: And it would also leave the
impression in the average mind that they were better able to resist the
aggression of the German Army than they were in fact able to resist?
Rand: Well, that was not in the
picture. So far as the Russian war was concerned, not very much was shown about
it.
Wood: Well, you recall, I presume
-- it is a matter of history -- going back to the middle of the First World War
when Russia was also our ally against the same enemy that we were fighting at
this time and they were knocked out of the war. When the remnants of their
forces turned against us, it prolonged the First World War a considerable time,
didn't it?24
Rand: I don't believe so.
Wood: You don't?
Rand: No.
Wood: Do you think, then, that it
was to our advantage or to our disadvantage to keep Russia in this war, at the
time this picture was made?
Rand: That has absolutely nothing
to do with what we are discussing.
Wood: Well --
Rand: But if you want me to
answer, I can answer, but it will take me a long time to say what I think, as
to whether we should or should not have had Russia on our side in the war. I
can, but how much time will you give me?
Wood: Well, do you say that it
would have prolonged the war, so far as we were concerned, if they had been
knocked out of it at that time?
Rand: I can't answer that yes or
no, unless you give me time for a long speech on it.
Wood: Well, there is a pretty
strong probability that we wouldn't have won it at all, isn't there?
Rand: I don't know, because on
the other hand I think we could have used the lend-lease supplies25 that we
sent there to much better advantage ourselves.
Wood: Well, at that time --
Rand: I don't know. It is a
question.
Wood: We were furnishing Russia with
all the lend-lease equipment that our industry would stand, weren't we?
Rand: That is right.
Wood: And continued to do it?
Rand: I am not sure it was at all
wise. Now, if you want to discuss my military views -- I am not an authority,
but I will try.
Wood: What do you interpret,
then, the picture as having been made for?
Rand: I ask you: what relation
could a lie about Russia have with the war effort? I would like to have
somebody explain that to me, because I really don't understand it, why a lie would
help anybody or why it would keep Russia in or out of the war. How?
Wood: You don't think it would
have been of benefit to the American people to have kept them in?
Rand: I don't believe the
American people should ever be told any lies, publicly or privately. I don't
believe that lies are practical. I think the international situation now rather
supports me. I don't think it was necessary to deceive the American people
about the nature of Russia. I could add this: if those who saw it say it was quite
all right, and perhaps there are reasons why it was all right to be an ally of
Russia, then why weren't the American people told the real reasons and told
that Russia is a dictatorship but there are reasons why we should cooperate
with them to destroy Hitler and other dictators? All right, there may be some
argument to that. Let us hear it. But of what help can it be to the war effort
to tell people that we should associate with Russia and that she is not a
dictatorship?
Wood: Let me see if I understand your
position. I understand, from what you say, that because they were a
dictatorship we shouldn't have accepted their help in undertaking to win a war
against another dictatorship.
Rand: That is not what I said. I
was not in a position to make that decision. If I were, I would tell you what I
would do. That is not what we are discussing. We are discussing the fact that
our country was an ally of Russia, and the question is: what should we tell the
American people about it -- the truth or a lie? If we had good reason, if that
is what you believe, all right, then why not tell the truth? Say it is a
dictatorship, but we want to be associated with it. Say it is worthwhile being
associated with the devil, as Churchill said, in order to defeat another evil
which is Hitler. There might be some good argument made for that. But why
pretend that Russia was not what it was?
Wood: Well --
Rand: What do you achieve by
that?
Wood: Do you think it would have
had as good an effect upon the morale of the American people to preach a
doctrine to them that Russia was on the verge of collapse?
Rand: I don't believe that the
morale of anybody can be built up by a lie. If there was nothing good that we
could truthfully say about Russia, then it would have been better not to say
anything at all.
Wood: Well --
Rand: You don't have to come out
and denounce Russia during the war; no. You can keep quiet. There is no moral
guilt in not saying something if you can't say it, but there is in saying the
opposite of what is true.
Wood: Thank you. That is all.
Chairman Thomas: Mr. Vail.
Rep. Richard B. Vail26: No
questions.
Chairman Thomas: Mr. McDowell.
Rep. John R. McDowell27: You
paint a very dismal picture of Russia. You made a great point about the number
of children who were unhappy. Doesn't anybody smile in Russia anymore?
Rand: Well, if you ask me
literally, pretty much no.
McDowell: They don't smile?
Rand: Not quite that way; no. If
they do, it is privately and accidentally. Certainly, it is not social. They
don't smile in approval of their system.
McDowell: Well, all they do is
talk about food.
Rand: That is right.
McDowell: That is a great change
from the Russians I have always known, and I have known a lot of them. Don't
they do things at all like Americans? Don't they walk across town to visit
their mother-in-law or somebody?
Rand: Look, it is very hard to
explain. It is almost impossible to convey to a free people what it is like to
live in a totalitarian dictatorship. I can tell you a lot of details. I can
never completely convince you, because you are free. It is in a way good that
you can't even conceive of what it is like. Certainly they have friends and
mothers-in-law. They try to live a human life, but you understand it is totally
inhuman. Try to imagine what it is like if you are in constant terror from
morning till night and at night you are waiting for the doorbell to ring, where
you are afraid of anything and everybody, living in a country where human life
is nothing, less than nothing, and you know it. You don't know who or when is
going to do what to you because you may have friends who spy on you, where
there is no law and any rights of any kind.
McDowell: You came here in 1926,
I believe you said. Did you escape from Russia?
Rand: No.
McDowell: Did you have a
passport?
Rand: No. Strangely enough, they
gave me a passport to come out here as a visitor.
McDowell: As a visitor?
Rand: It was at a time when they
relaxed their orders a little bit. Quite a few people got out. I had some
relatives here and I was permitted to come here for a year. I never went back.
McDowell: I see.
Chairman Thomas: Mr. Nixon.
Rep. Richard M. Nixon28: No
questions.
Chairman Thomas: All right. The
first witness tomorrow morning will be Adolph Menjou.