The Death of Communism in California

By Cliff Kincaid

January 11, 2025

The devastating fires in California have hit a major base of operations for communism in America, as Hollywod liberals are up in arms over incompetence by local and state authories. In addition to the lives and property that have been lost, the ideology of communism, on display for decades since the days of Governor Ronald Reagan, has suffered a monumental hit.

The movie “Reagan” shows how the conservative governor and future two-term Republican president confronted unrest on college campuses such as Berkeley. The communist presence, however, extended far beyond the campuses.

California Dynasty of Communism, a book by Karl Prussion, a former FBI informant in the Communist Party, has a history of what happened to the “Golden State.”

The tragedy of course is that so many people have suffered, a typical outcome for communism, in this case the result of “climate action” and “social justice” that has exposed hundreds of thousands to a human death toll that is still rising.

The cries of “climate change” are still coming, to mask the deliberate efforts of local and state officials to transform the state into a model of Soviet/Chinese communism.

As we have learned, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was in Ghana, in a presidential mission authorized by Joe Biden on behalf of an African country that is China’s largest trading partner in Africa. She was attending the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a member of the Socialist International .

In the performances of officials on all levels, from Mayor Karen Bass to Governor Gavin Newsom, the results of communism in California have been exposed for all to see.

Under Newsom, California has been a major recipient of Chinese foreign direct investment. Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, the China reporter for Axios, assembled the facts and figures about Chinese aid-and-trade with the United States, confirming that California is “hooked” on China. Of the top 10 states with the highest net trade with China. California is number one by far.

According to the state government, “The trade relationship between California and China is one of the largest in the world, with two-way trade valued at $177 billion in 2018.” The state even has a China Trade and Investment Network (CTIN) and China-California Business Forum.

Newsom traveled to China in 2023 and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, discussing trade relations, climate change and fentanyl – but not COVID-19.

The Los Angeles mayor is a well-known Marxist, having traveled to Cuba with the Weather Underground-sponsored Venceremos Brigades. Her “friend and mentor,” Oneil Marion Cannon, was a top member of the Communist Party USA for decades.

The role of communists in California and therefore the national Democratic Party has been a national story and this is why, back in 2019, I had predicted California Senator Kamala Harris would be the Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. What I didn’t foresee was that she would be the vice-presidential candidate and then replace Biden at the top of the ticket in 2024.

Trevor Loudon had analyzed Kamala’s backing from the “Brown is the New White” strategist Steve Phillips and the billionaire Sandler family. Loudon reported, “In her sophomore year of college at Howard University, Harris worked as an intern for the senior senator from California at the time, Alan Cranston.” Cranston was a one-worlder, a leader of the World Federalists. This set the stage for her leftism.

Alan Cranston was head of the foreign languages unit of the communist-ridden Office of War Information during World War II and his assignment was cracking down on radio broadcasts negative to the Sovet Union.

Cranston’s role in a communist network in California was also explored in the Karl Prussion book California Dynasty of Communism.

For her part, Harris had the backing of California Governor Gavin Newsom and one-time secret communist operative California Rep. Barbara Lee. These were key endorsements.

Herb Romerstein’s masterful report, “From Henry Wallace to William Ayers – the Communist and ‘Progressive’ Movements,” examines the most important details about the communist background of Rep. Barbara Lee. She became a top officer of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), a spin-off from the Communist Party after the Soviet “collapse.”

Lee served in the House for more than two decades years before deciding not to run for reelection to instead seek the Senate seat vacated by the death of former Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). She lost to now-Senator Adam Schiff (D) and is now running for mayor of Oakland.

The Bass mentor, Oneil Cannon, was described by the communist paper as a member of the Communist Party USA “who became the education director in the Southern California District, and a member of the Party’s Southern California and National Central Committees.”

The paper continued, “Oneil Cannon counted among his friends many leaders and later elected officials of the African-American community. Paul Robeson was one of his valued friends; he would see him whenever he came to Los Angeles.”

Regarding his role in California, it said he “was committed to electing Black and Latino representatives at all levels of government” and helped to elect Augustus “Gus” Hawkins, Tom Bradley, Ed Roybal, Diane Watson, Maxine Waters, and Karen Bass.

Paul Robeson was a black communist actor and singer who was a member of the Moscow-funded Communist Party, had professed love for Soviet mass murderer Joseph Stalin, and supported the Hitler-Stalin Pact that paved the way for World War II.

There was a time when Karen Bass was being considered a vice-presidential candidate on Joe Biden’s ticket. In the end, of course, Kamala got the job.

The Trump Campaign had issued a press release, “Will Joe Biden Put Castro-Loving Communist Karen Bass A Heartbeat Away from the Presidency?,” on August 1, 2020.

With Hollywood liberals angry about losing their homes and belongings, the time may have come for a reckoning. The once communist-dominated Hollywood may have had enough with communism, at least to the extent it has affected them. It may be time to examine how California became a communist state in America and why it’s imperative to re-establish congressional committees on internal security and un-American activities.

Such a committee wouldn’t have to start from scratch. The report, “Un-American Activities in California,” was published in 1970 by a California Senate Fact-finding Subcommittee and devotes almost 300 pages to analyzing the growth of communism and other Marxist groups in the state and how they organized protests on campuses and then manipulated the electoral process to achieve power.

E-Mail Cliff Kincaid: kincaid@comcast.net

Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org