About Gus Hall
Gus Hall (born Arvo Kustaa Halberg; October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was an American communist activist who served as the general secretary of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) from 1959 to 2000. As a labor leader, he was closely associated with the "Little Steel" strike of 1937, an effort to unionize the nation's smaller, regional steel manufacturers. Hall was indicted under the Smith Act during the Second Red Scare and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. After his release, Hall led the CPUSA for over 40 years, generally taking an orthodox Marxist-Leninist stance and becoming a perennial candidate for president of the United States. Born to Finnish immigrants in Cherry Township, Minnesota, Hall's parents were active communists and had been involved with the CPUSA and the Industrial Workers of the World. Hall's family had ten children, and to support them, Hall left school and started working blue-collar jobs at age 15. He joined the CPUSA two years later, and by 1931, his apprenticeship in the Young Communist League allowed him to study abroad at the International Lenin School in the Soviet Union. Hall moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota after returning from Moscow and became involved with various labor strikes there. He had been blacklisted after his participation in the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934, for which he spent six months in jail. It was then that he began calling himself Gus Hall, as he could no longer find work under his original name. He was a founding member of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee in the mid 1930s. He was a leader of 1937's unsuccessful "Little Steel" strike, which led to his arrest for allegedly transporting bomb-making materials, to which he pled guilty and paid a $500 fine. Afterwards, he began climbing the ranks of the Communist Party, leading the party in Youngstown and then Cleveland, and he was the candidate for multiple Communist Party tickets in the state of Ohio, although he didn't garner many votes. In 1940, he spent 90 days in jail after an election scandal for which he was convicted of fraud and forgery. He served in the Navy from 1942 until 1946. Indicted under the Smith Act in 1948, Hall was sentenced to 5 years in prison, and served over 5 more after getting caught trying to skip bail. He was elected general secretary of the CPUSA in 1959. The rise of the New Left in the 1960s hurt the Communist Party, and Hall tried but ultimately failed to form an alliance with New Left activists. He was consistently one of the staunchest supporters of the actions of the Soviet Union and became one of the best-known American politicians in the country. He made appearances on Soviet television in the 1960s and '70s, in which he always supported the Soviet government. He also frequently spoke on American talk shows to advocate for socialism in the United States. Hall and his party endorsed Lyndon B. Johnson for president in 1964 in opposition to conservative Barry Goldwater. Beginning in 1972, rather than endorsing another party, Hall ran as the CPUSA's presidential candidate. He would do this four consecutive times until the party ceased presidential campaigns after 1984. Hall resigned party leadership in 2000, leaving the post to Sam Webb. Hall lived with his wife in Yonkers, New York during his last years and died in Manhattan from complications relating to diabetes. During the first years of the war in Europe, the CPUSA held an isolationist stance, as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were cooperating based on the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Hall became an organizer for the Young Communist League (YCL) in the upper Midwest. After the 1937 strike, Hall focused on party activities instead of union work, and became the leader of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in Youngstown in 1937. As a labor leader, Hall was closely associated with the so-called "Little Steel" Strike of 1937, an effort to unionize the nation's smaller, regional steel manufacturers.
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