Gus Hall
American politician (1910–2000)
Gus Hall (born Arvo Kustaa Halberg; October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was an American communist activist who served as the general secretary of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) from 1959 to 2000. As a labor leader, he was closely associated with the "Little Steel" strike of 1937, an effort to unionize the nation's smaller, regional steel manufacturers. Hall was indicted under the Smith Act during the Second Red Scare and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. After his release, Hall led the CPUSA for over 40 years, generally taking an orthodox Marxist-Leninist stance and becoming a perennial candidate for president of the United States.
Born to Finnish immigrants in Cherry Township, Minnesota, Hall's parents were active communists and had been involved with the CPUSA and the Industrial Workers of the World. Hall's family had ten children, and to support them, Hall left school and started working blue-collar jobs at age 15. He joined the CPUSA two years later, and by 1931, his apprenticeship in the Young Communist League allowed him to study abroad at the International Lenin School in the Soviet Union.
Hall moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota after returning from Moscow and became involved with various labor strikes there. He had been blacklisted after his participation in the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934, for which he spent six months in jail. It was then that he began calling himself Gus Hall, as he could no longer find work under his original name.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gus Hall” as american politician (1910–2000). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american politician (1910–2000). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q534128. VIAF identifies the subject as 91646098. The Library of Congress control number is n79123694. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1910, 2000, 1959 and 1937.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Gus Hall”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Gus Hall primary sources, Gus Hall archive and Hall research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gus Hall”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Gus Hall” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.