School of DarknessSchool of Darkness

Bella Dodd ranks with Whittaker Chambers as a leading converted communist. Her testimony before investigating committees revealed the extent to which communist infiltration had taken place in America, particularly among teachers in schools and colleges. This record of her life describes how she came to be a member of the Communist Party, the reasons for her gradual disillusionment and final break with the party, and her eventual return to the Catholic Church into which she was born. Her conversion to Communism was a slow usurpation of the mind by an appeal to love of humanity, a vision of a better society, and wider social justice. In time she became a member of the Party's National Committee, and was intensely active in combating the Rapp-Coudert investigation of communist teachers, in supporting Loyalist Spain, and in the "united democratic front" maintained during World War II. But she was gradually repelled by the dictatorial methods of the Party and the constant struggle for power. Her divorce from her husband, and her own ill health speeded her estrangement from Party leaders and resulted in her expulsion from the Party in 1949.