Guthrie was a philosophical communist. While Guthrie claimed to have joined the American Communist Party, there is no conclusive evidence that he ever did. What he did do was write 174 columns under the title of Woody Sez for the Communist Party newspaper, The Daily Worker. Among these columns, he heaped praise upon Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, even defending Stalin’s unprovoked invasion of Poland in 1939!I have no respect for him.
Pete Seeger said that the Communist Party refused to let him join because Guthrie refused to give up his belief in God. Anyway, that’s what Seeger said.