Why the lies of ‘Trumbo’ matter

Forget the movie, just Commie propaganda.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Why-the-lies-of-Trumbo-matter-6730745.php

The movie “Trumbo,” currently in Bay Area theaters, makes a hero of Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and others of the Hollywood Ten, and villainizes their political opponents in Hollywood, including actors John Wayne and Robert Taylor and columnist Hedda Hopper.

Since its release, several historians, led by Ronald Radosh and Ron Capshaw, have come forward to expose how the movie whitewashes both Trumbo’s support of repressive regimes, especially the Soviet Union of the Stalinist period, and his attempts to silence anti-communist opponents. As someone once involved in the anti-communist left, I’d like to add a few words on why the movie’s lies should not go unchallenged, and why the issues raised are timely today.

As historians Radosh and Capshaw have set out, this portrayal of Trumbo and party activities in California could not be further from the truth. Trumbo was an apologist for the 1930s Stalinist purges, secret police and state control in the Soviet Union. He continued to support Stalin up through the 1950s — calling Stalin one of the “democratic leaders of the world.” When the German-Soviet Pact was signed in 1939, Trumbo became a critic of Great Britain’s opposition to Hitler’s Germany, and urged America to stay out of the war. It was only when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 that Trumbo turned against Germany, and became a supporter of American war efforts.

Further, our understanding of the period has been enriched in the past two decades with the opening of the Soviet archives documenting Moscow’s ties with Americans during the 1940s and 1950s. One fact most relevant to the movie: the claims of the villainized Trumbo opponents, John Wayne and Hedda Hopper, turn out to be correct regarding the ties of Hollywood Communists to Moscow, as well as the party’s efforts to control the ideology in movies.