Ayn Rand Publishes Anti-Communist “Screen Guide for Americans”
Conservative writer and ideologue Ayn Rand on this day published a 12-page anti-communist pamphlet, Screen Guide for Americans, with 13 points on how to spot communist messages in films, and also how to avoid supporting communist messages in films.
The pamphlet was published shortly after the famous HUAC hearings investigating alleged communist influence in Hollywood, which resulted in ten directors and screenwriters (The “Hollywood Ten”) were cited for contempt of congress for refusing to answer questions about their political affiliations and subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison. See the first day of testimony on October 27, 1947. The pamphlet was published by The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, which was established to fight alleged communist influence in Hollywood.
Ayn Rand’s 13 points included, “2. Don’t Smear the Free Enterprise System” (“Don’t attack individual rights, individual freedom “private property”); “4. Don’t Smear Wealth” (“Only savages and Communists get rich by force; “9. Don’t Deify ‘The Common Man’,” (” ‘The Common man’ is one of the worst slogans of Communism”); “11. Don’t Smear an Independent Man” (“The Communists’ chief purpose is to destroy every form of independence . . . “).
Rand is most famous for her 753-page novel The Fountainhead (1943), about architect Howard Roark and his battles against all the forces limiting his creative freedom. The novel is virtually a holy text among Rand’s followers.
Read The Screen Guide for Americans here.
Learn more: Michael Freedland, with Barbara Paskin, Witch-Hunt in Hollywood: McCarthyism’s War on Tinseltown (2009)
Read a biography of Ayn Rand: Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (2009)
Visit the official Ayn Rand web site.