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{{Short description|American politician (1905–1961)}}
{{about||the Liberian footballer|Eugene Dennis (footballer)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2022}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name        = Eugene Dennis
|image       = Individuals - Dennis, Eugene (sitting). undated Slide 19 Edit Crop.png
|caption     = Dennis {{circa}} 1954
|alma_mater  =
|birthname   = Francis Xavier Waldron
|birth_date  = {{Birth date|1905|8|10}}
|birth_place = [[Seattle, Washington]], U.S.
|death_date  = {{Death date and age|1961|01|31|1905|8|10}} 
|death_place = [[New York City]], U.S.
|resting_place = [[Forest Home Cemetery (Forest Park)|Forest Home Cemetery]]
|office1     = General Secretary of the National Committee of the [[Communist Party USA]]
|term_start1 = February 12, 1957
|term_end1   = December 14, 1959
|predecessor1= [[William Z. Foster]]
|successor1  = [[Gus Hall]]
|office2     = Chairman of the National Committee of the [[Communist Party USA]]
|term_start2 = July 29, 1945
|term_end2   = January 31, 1961
|predecessor2 = [[William Z. Foster]]
|successor2  = [[Elizabeth Gurley Flynn]]
|residence   = [[New York (state)|New York]]
|party       = [[Communist Party USA]]
|occupation  = [[Lumberjack]], [[teamster]], [[electrician]], [[politician]]
|partner     = [[Peggy Dennis]] (née Regina Karasick)
|signature   =
|children    = {{flatlist|
* Tim
* Eugene Jr.
}}
|website     =
}}
'''Eugene Dennis''' (born '''Francis Xavier Waldron''', also known as '''Tim Ryan'''; August 10, 1905 – January 31, 1961),<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J6Cbjcvw354C&q=communist+party+usa+Tim+Ryan&pg=PA296 |title= The Cold War: Cold War espionage and spying|isbn= 9780815332411|last1= Bogle|first1= Lori Lyn|year= 2001|publisher= Taylor & Francis}}</ref> was an American [[communist]] politician and [[trade union|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.

== Biography ==
=== Early years ===
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 he was active in [[California]] as a union organizer.

=== Political career ===
Waldron joined the [[Communist Party USA|Workers (Communist) Party]] in 1926.<ref>Joseph R. Starobin, ''American Communism in Crisis, 1943-1957.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972; p. 13.</ref>

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]] Eugene Dennis. Dennis became [[General Secretary]] of the party after the expulsion of [[Earl Browder]] and was a staunch supporter of the [[Comintern|Moscow]] line.

[[File:DennisEugene.jpg|thumb|left|Dennis's [[FBI]] mugshot, 1948]]

On July 20, 1948, Dennis and eleven other party leaders, including Party Chairman [[William Z. Foster]] were [[Foley Square trial|arrested and charged]] under the [[Alien Registration Act]].<ref>{{cite video|year=1948|title=Video: Berlin Siege. Gen. Clay Returns To Report On Red Crisis, 1948/07/22 (1948)|url=https://archive.org/details/1948-07-22_Berlin_Siege|publisher=[[Universal Newsreel]]|access-date=February 20, 2012}}</ref> 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 Dennis and others had privately advocated the use of violence.

[[File:Convicted Communists Pose Outside Court 1949 Crop.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.2|The Communists convicted in the [[Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders|Smith Act trials]] stand outside [[Foley Square Courthouse]] following the verdict, December 6, 1949.<br /><small>'''(L-R):''' [[Henry Winston]], '''Eugene Dennis''', [[Jack Stachel]], [[Gil Green (communist)|Gil Green]], [[Benjamin J. Davis Jr.]], [[John Williamson (communist)|John Williamson]], [[Robert G. Thompson]], [[Gus Hall]], [[Irving Potash]], [[Carl Winter (activist)|Carl Winter]] and [[John Gates]].</small>]]

After a nine-month-long trial and the imprisonment of the defense lawyers for [[contempt of court]], Dennis and his co-defendants were found guilty and sentenced to five years imprisonment. They appealed to the [[Supreme Court of the United States]], which ruled 6–2 against the defendants on June 4, 1951, in ''[[Dennis v. United States]]'', {{ussc|341|494|1951}}. The Court later scaled back its Dennis opinion in ''[[Yates v. United States]]'' and rendered the broad conspiracy provisions of the Smith Act unenforceable.{{cn|date=August 2022}} Eugene Dennis was imprisoned in the years 1951–1955, according to the verdict in his case.<ref>[http://bse.sci-lib.com/article023410.html Деннис Юджин], [[Great Soviet Encyclopedia]]</ref>

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

=== Espionage connections ===
Though never charged with any act of [[espionage]], Dennis was identified in the [[Venona project]] as being a source for [[KGB|Soviet intelligence]] in the [[Soviet espionage in the United States|United States]] during [[World War II]]. In the transcripts, Dennis is referenced as a contact for a group of concealed Communists in the [[Office of Strategic Services]] and the [[Office 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

=== Death ===
[[File:Grave of Eugene Dennis (1905–1961) at Forest Home Cemetery, Forest Park, IL.jpg|thumb|right|Dennis's grave at Forest Home Cemetery]]
Dennis died of [[cancer]] at [[Mount Sinai Hospital (Manhattan)|Mount Sinai Hospital]] on January 31, 1961.

He was buried at the [[German Waldheim Cemetery|Waldheim Cemetery]] (now Forest Home Cemetery) in [[Forest Park, Illinois|Forest Park]], Illinois.

== Writings ==
* ''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 by [[Max Weiss (activist)|Max 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.
* [http://digitool.fcla.edu:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?application=DIGITOOL-3&owner=resourcediscovery&custom_att_2=simple_viewer&forebear_coll=&user=GUEST&pds_handle=&pid=360092&con_lng=ENG&search_terms=convention%20AND%20communist&adjacency=N&rd_session=http://digitool.fcla.edu:80/R/BK8JFVKCNI7SRGYFLMLEAUQ4Y5IGJVK7LKLSK1SYUT7E9JMBY8-01748 ''Eugene Dennis indicts the Wall Street conspirators.'']{{Dead link|date=January 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} 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.
<!-- * Source: ([http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?hd=1,3&Search_Arg=Eugene%20Dennis&Search_Code=NAME%40&CNT=25&PID=fka1fkaj22LJOVrMazSdwhFR2T&HIST=0&SEQ=20100429010918&SID=1 Eugene Dennis in [[Library of Congress]] Online Catalog]). -->

== Footnotes ==
{{reflist|2}}

== Further reading ==
* Louis Budenz, ''Men Without Faces: The Communist Conspiracy in the USA.'' New York: Harper, 1948; p.&nbsp;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, "The ''Dennis'' Case, Communist Bail Jumpers, and Oliver Ellsworth's 'Outlawry' Bill," ''American Communist History,'' vol. 14, no. 2 (August 2015), pp.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;375–434. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3109693 in JSTOR].

== External links ==
* {{commons-inline}}

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{{succession box|title=General Secretary of the CPUSA|before=[[Earl Browder]]|after=[[Gus Hall]]|years=1957–1959}}
{{s-end}}
{{Communist Party USA}}
{{Authority control}}

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