ABSTRACT
The Communist Party has complained that Seeing Red adopts the political perspective of the John Gates "wing" of the Party, which largely left it in the late 1950s and has criticized the movie for leaving the impression that the present-day Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is irrelevant. Seeing Red does not explain that the CPUSA was revolutionary from 1929 to 1935 because the Communist International ordered such policies. Although Seeing Red suggests that it was natural to become a Communist during this era, relatively few people did and even fewer stayed in the Party. The absence of any historical perspective contributes to errors in both fact and interpretation in Seeing Red. Some are minor, but cumulatively they leave a distorted picture of American Communism. From late 1935 to 1939, the Communist Party, in line with Comintern direction, called for a Popular Front against fascism.
