political views

Hughes, like many black writers and artists of his time, was drawn to the promise of communism as an alternative to a segreated America.In 1932, Hughes became part of a group of black people who went to the Soviet Union to make a film depicting the plight of African Americans in the United States. Hughes met and befriended the Hungarian author Arthur Koestler, then a Communist sympathizer and given permission to travel there. Hughes also managed to travel to China and Japan before returning to the States. Hughes was accused of being a Communist by many on the political right, but he always denied it. When asked why he never joined the Communist Party, he wrote, "it was based on strict discipline and the acceptance of directives that I, as a writer, did not wish to accept. Hughes distanced himself from Communism. He was rebuked by some on the Radical Left who had previously supported him. Over time, Hughes left his most radical poems behind.