Eugene Dennis
Dennisc. 1954
General Secretary of the National Committee of theCommunist Party USA
In office February 12, 1957 – December 14, 1959
Preceded by	William Z. Foster
Succeeded by	Gus Hall
Chairman of the National Committee of theCommunist Party USA
In office July 29, 1945 – January 31, 1961
Preceded by	William Z. Foster
Succeeded by	Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Personal details
Born	Francis Xavier Waldron (1905-08-10)August 10, 1905 Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Died	January 31, 1961(1961-01-31) (aged 55) New York City, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Home Cemetery
Party	Communist Party USA
Domestic partner	Peggy Dennis (née Regina Karasick)
Children	Tim Eugene Jr.
Residence	New York
Occupation	Lumberjack,teamster,electrician,politician

Eugene Dennis (bornFrancis Xavier Waldron, also known asTim Ryan; August 10, 1905 – January 31, 1961),^[1] was an Americancommunist politician andunion organizer, best remembered as the long-time leader of theCommunist Party USA and as named party inDennis v. United States, a famousMcCarthy Era Supreme Court case.

Francis Xavier Waldron was born on August 10, 1905, inSeattle, Washington. He worked in various jobs and was a member of theIndustrial Workers of the World, for which he was active inCalifornia as a union organizer.

Waldron joined theWorkers (Communist) Party in 1926.^[2]

In 1929, Waldron fled to theSoviet Union to avoid criminal charges for his political activities under theCalifornia Criminal Syndicalism Act.

Waldron returned to theUnited States in 1935 and assumed thepseudonym Eugene Dennis. Dennis becameGeneral Secretary of the party after the expulsion ofEarl Browder and was a staunch supporter of theMoscow line.

On July 20, 1948, Dennis and eleven other party leaders, including Party ChairmanWilliam Z. Foster werearrested and charged under theAlien Registration Act.^[3] 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 ofKarl Marx andVladimir Lenin that advocated revolutionary violence and on the testimony of former members of the party who claimed Dennis and others had privately advocated the use of violence.

After a nine-month-long trial and the imprisonment of the defense lawyers forcontempt of court, Dennis and his co-defendants were found guilty and sentenced to five years imprisonment. They appealed to theSupreme Court of the United States, which ruled 6–2 against the defendants on June 4, 1951, inDennis v. United States,341 U.S.494 (1951). The Court later scaled back its Dennis opinion inYates v. United States and rendered the broad conspiracy provisions of the Smith Act unenforceable.^{[citation needed]} Eugene Dennis was imprisoned in the years 1951–1955, according to the verdict in his case.^[4]

Dennis remained General Secretary until 1959 when he succeeded Foster as party chairman and held that position until his death in 1961.

Though never charged with any act ofespionage, Dennis was identified in theVenona project as being a source forSoviet intelligence in theUnited States duringWorld War II. In the transcripts, Dennis is referenced as a contact for a group of concealed Communists in theOffice of Strategic Services and theOffice of War Information.

Dennis is referenced in the following Venona transcripts:

• 708 KGB Moscow to Mexico City, 8 December 1944
• 1714 KGB New York to Moscow, 5 December 1944
• 55 KGB New York to Moscow, 15 January 1945

Dennis died ofcancer atMount Sinai Hospital on January 31, 1961.^[5]

He was buried at theWaldheim Cemetery (now Forest Home Cemetery) inForest Park, Illinois.^[6][7]

• The elections and the outlook for national unity., New York, Workers Library Publishers, 1944.
• America at the crossroads: postwar problems and communist policy., New York, New century publishers, 1945.
• Marxism-Leninism vs. revisionism., New York, New Century Publishers, 1946 (with William Z. Foster, Jacques Duclos, and John Williamson; foreword byMax Weiss).
• The people against the trusts; build a democratic front to defeat reaction now and win a people’s victory in 1948., New York, New Century Publishers, 1946.
• What America faces: the new war danger and the struggle for peace, democracy, and economic security., New York, New century publishers, 1946.
• Let the people know the truth about the Communists which the un-American committee tried to suppress., New York, New century publishers, 1947.
• Eugene Dennis indicts the Wall Street conspirators.^{[permanent dead link]} New York : National Office, Communist Party, 1948.
• Ideas they cannot jail., New York, International Publishers, 1950.
• Letters from prison. Selected by Peggy Dennis., New York, International Publishers, 1956.
• The Communists take a new look., New York, New Century, 1956.

• Louis Budenz,Men Without Faces: The Communist Conspiracy in the USA. New York: Harper, 1948; p. 252.
• Peggy Dennis,The Autobiography of an American Communist: A Personal View of a Political Life, 1925-1975. Westport, CT: L. Hill, 1977.
• John D. Gordon III, "TheDennis Case, Communist Bail Jumpers, and Oliver Ellsworth's 'Outlawry' Bill,"American Communist History, vol. 14, no. 2 (August 2015), pp. 105–134.
• John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr,Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.
• Ann Kimmage,An Un-American Childhood. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998; pp. 21–22, 120.
• William M. Wiecek, "The Legal Foundations of Domestic Anticommunism: The Background of Dennis v. United States,"Supreme Court Review, vol. 2001 (2001), pp. 375–434.in JSTOR.

• Media related toEugene Dennis at Wikimedia Commons

• 1905 births
• 1961 deaths
• Industrial Workers of the World members
• American communists
• American Marxists
• People convicted under the Smith Act
• Burials at Forest Home Cemetery, Chicago
• Politicians from Seattle
• American spies for the Soviet Union
• American people in the Venona papers
• Communist Party USA politicians
• Communists from California
• American expatriates in the Soviet Union

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