The Big Lie in Hollywood: The Hollywood Ten Were Not
Victims But Villains
BY MICHAEL BERLINER | NOV 24, 2018 | CLASSIC,
COMMUNISM, POLITICS
The Big Lie in Hollywood: The Hollywood Ten Were Not
Victims But Villains
November 24 marks the anniversary of fifty of
Hollywood’s leading executives and moguls firing the Hollywood Ten. These ten
filmmakers had been cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to divulge
their political affiliations to the House Un-American Activities Committee
[HUAC] investigation into communist infiltration in Hollywood.
The anniversary of the Hollywood blacklist against the
Hollywood Ten and other communists in Hollywood has brought an outpouring of
sympathy and apologies to the “victims,” along with incessant moral lessons
from the media about this “dark” period in American history.
This much is true: Morality and justice are at issue.
But the story has been twisted and the characters grossly miscast. The
screenplay as written by politically correct Hollywood should be titled “Three
Big Lies.”
Lie Number One: By requiring them to testify and then
jailing them for refusing, the House Un-American Activities Committee violated
the First Amendment, free speech rights of the Hollywood Ten.
The truth: No one interfered with their freedom of
speech. In fact, freedom of speech was not even an issue. HUAC was
investigating a question of fact, the fact being membership in the Communist
Party. The Committee did not ask anyone whether he believed in communism, but
asked only whether he had joined the Communist Party. By joining the Party (an
undisputed fact), the filmmakers were not merely making an ideological
statement but were agreeing to take orders to commit actions — criminal and
treasonable actions, since the Party, and the Soviet government it served, was
openly dedicated to the overthrow of the U.S. government. Therefore, there was
a national security reason for the Committee to determine membership in the
Party. In notes to herself prior to testifying as a “Friendly Witness” in 1947,
Ayn Rand wrote that “Under American law, there is no such thing as a political
crime; a man’s ideas do not constitute a crime, no matter what they are. And
precisely by the same principle, a man’s ideas — no matter what they are —
cannot serve as a justification for a criminal action and do not give him
freedom to commit such actions on the ground that they represent his personal
belief.” Legal issues aside, there is an obscene irony in the Communist writers
complaining that their right to freedom of speech was violated, since that
right was precisely what the Communist Party was out to destroy.
Lie Number Two: The Hollywood Ten were persecuted by
being refused jobs.
The truth: They were denied employment by executives
who were exercising the right to hire whom they wished — a fundamental right in
a free society. It was within the employers’ right (and self-interest) not to
hire writers who wanted to use their positions to eliminate all private
property and private business. What the writers wanted — in refusing to testify
— was the “right” to hide their ideology on the grounds that, were it known,
they’d be fired. In other words, they wanted the “right” to defraud their
employers. In a free society, there is a private right to boycott (which the
Hollywood leftists used against hundreds of anti-Communists). The right to
freedom of speech prohibits the government from interfering with the expression
of ideas, and that means that an employer cannot be forced to propagate ideas
he’s opposed to.
Lie Number Three (the biggest lie): The blacklisted
writers were humanitarian idealists.
The truth: Their “ideal” was the sacrifice of the
individual to the collective, a moral viewpoint endorsed by Marxism and put
into practice by the Soviet government. It was an “ideal” that destroyed
millions of human lives. The Communist Party championed by the Hollywood Ten
was the same Party that — under the leadership of Joseph Stalin — exterminated
millions of peasants in the Ukraine. The “persecuted” writers dutifully paid
their dues to the Party whose reign of terror included murdering or banishing
to Siberia anyone who remotely threatened its power. The Hollywood Ten littered
their movie scripts with Soviet propaganda, the same Soviets who signed a
non-aggression pact with Adolph Hitler. While the Hollywood Communists and
apologists talked of peace, brotherhood, and workers’ rights, their spiritual
masters were perpetrating what is arguably the most murderous tyranny in world
history, its victims estimated at 20-40 million people — not including the tens
of millions relegated to a sub-human existence. Far from being pitiable
victims, the Hollywood Ten and their followers have the blood of millions on
their hands.
An intriguing question remains: Why is Hollywood so
intent on perpetuating these Big Lies? Why are we asked to apologize to
apologists of mass murder? Why are the opponents of tyranny still portrayed as
hysterical witch-hunters? The answer lies in ideology. The Hollywood Ten openly
hated America and the individualism on which it is based. Little has changed
but the concretes. The Soviets are gone, but Hollywood’s anti-capitalist,
left-liberal political agenda lives, now in such forms as animal rights and
environmentalism. Selling “The Big Lies” helps Hollywood to keep alive the
fantasy that the Left is the victim rather than the perpetrator of injustice.
Dr. Berliner is the senior advisor to the Ayn Rand
Archives. He was the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute from its
founding to January 2000.