Mr. TAVENNER. Did you have any experience in youth work within the Communist Party while you were at Bellingham?
Mr. DENNETT. Not too much in Bellingham. There was a little work of the Young Communist League there. They did interest a few students at the normal school. There was a normal school in Bellingham, and they did organize, I think, a half dozen young people who became interested in the theoretical work of Marx and Lenin. Most of those later became members of the Communist Party.
Mr. TAVENNER. Was there an organization known as Pioneers, or Young Pioneers, in the Communist Party?
Mr. DENNETT. Yes; Young Pioneers of America.
Mr. TAVENNER. Are you now speaking of that group?
Mr. DENNETT. No. That group I have just referred to was the Young Communist League, which dealt with a group in the younger age, but mature people. The Young Pioneers was an effort on the part of the Communist Party to organize a group which would be comparable to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
In the Soviet Union the Young Pioneers occupied that position. It is a position of support to the Government. It is a position of support to the Communist Party similarly as the Scouts are here to the Government and service organizations and patriotic organizations occupy a similar position, parallel organization.
Mr. VELDE. There is one distinct difference, is there not?
Mr. VELDE. The Young Pioneer movement is financed by the Soviet State, and here in America the Boy Scout movement is financed by good will of the American people.
Mr. DENNETT. I don’t know too much about how they finance it there. I have an idea that they probably do finance a lot of it through individual contributions, however, there. I think that there are dues, membership, and that sort of thing which carries the big part of the financing. Of course, it receives approval by the Government, and receives favors.
Mr. TAVENNER. Were you called upon in connection with your Communist Party duties to either organize or supervise the operation of any of the Young Pioneer groups?
There was one occasion when I was falling in some disfavor in the eyes of the district leadership, and they wanted to get me out of their hair. At the time a young woman by the name of Yetta Stromberg came to Seattle from California for the purpose of organizing a Young Pioneer summer camp. And she requested the district leadership to assign someone from the district leadership to work with her in the organization and supervision of this camp.