During her 21 years as a Communist, pale, spectacled Barbara Hartle served the party with unflinching and selfless fervor. She was second in command of its activities in the Pacific Northwest for almost a decade, and she was one of twelve women Communists to be convicted, under the Smith Act, of conspiring to advocate overthrow of the Government by force and violence. But despite this outward dedication, she was beset by doubts about the party during many years of her service to Marxism. She was actually steeling herself to escape it, when the FBI put her under arrest in 1952.
After being indicted, she decided to keep her mouth shut and take her punishment. She stood trial, was convicted with four other Northwest Communist leaders, and was sentenced to pay $1,000 and serve five years in prison. Last week she became the first party leader convicted under the Smith Act to publicly renounce Communism. Mrs. Hartle's act was obviously one of deep disillusionment. "If I had wanted leniency." she said, "I could have gone to the FBI before the trial."
Absolute Certainty. Like many another U.S. Communist, Barbara Hartle, now 45, joined the party because she was "troubled about the Depression." She was a "bookworm" who had earned a Phi Beta Kappa key at Washington State College and aspired to be a writer. "At first," she recalls, "I didn't feel any real need of the C.P.—it just seemed to be doing more about the Depression." But by 1940 she was chairman of the Spokane section, and was given great authority. "That was the one year in which I felt I actually was a Communist and entertained no thought of ever being anything else. I was absolutely certain that the C.P. was right."
But soon doubts, vague at first, deeply troubling later, crept into her mind. As an underpaid ($45 a week), hard-driven organizer, speaker and party executive in Seattle, she had little time to reflect on them. She lived frugally, seldom thought of her personal needs. Her marriage broke up—she had no time for home or husband. The party permeated her life. Then, in 1950, she was ordered to go underground to avoid arrest; she got a job as a waitress in a Eugene, Ore. restaurant.
Pure Agony. Suddenly, she had time to go to the movies, to read what she chose to read, to live away from the constant authority of the party. She reflected on the party's complete disregard for the feelings, health or personal lives . of its people. "I came to realize that the average American's judgment of the C.P. is the correct one—it is teaching and advocating the overthrow of the Government of the U.S. by force and violence, and it does put Soviet Russia first." "
One day I thought. 'My God, don't I care about the party any more?' I didn't." She completely broke contact. "I was so surprised when I was arrested. I somehow thought [the FBI] must know so much about me they would realize I no longer wanted to be a Communist." Her six-month trial was "pure agony." Her Communist co-defendants felt that she was no longer one of them, and she simply sat silent. But she spent two delightful months in the King County jail before she was released on bail pending appeal.