Dreiser was a committed socialist and wrote several nonfiction books on political issues . These included '' Dreiser Looks at Russia '' ( 1928 ) , the result of his 1927 trip to the Soviet Union , and two books presenting a critical perspective on capitalist America , '' Tragic America '' ( 1931 ) and '' America Is Worth Saving '' ( 1941 ) . He praised the Soviet Union under Stalin during the Great Terror and the nonaggression pact with Hitler . Dreiser joined the Communist Party USA in August 1945 . Although less politically radical friends , such as H.L. Mencken , spoke of Dreiser 's relationship with communism as an " unimportant detail in his life , " Dreiser 's biographer Jerome Loving notes that his political activities since the early 1930s had " clearly been in concert with ostensible communist aims with regard to the working class . " Dreiser died on December 28 , 1945 , in Hollywood , California at the age of 74
Great Terror
Great Purge
Theodore Dreiser