There is no evidence that Garvey was ever sympathetic to socialism. While in the U.S., he strongly opposed attempts by socialist and communist groups to recruit African Americans into the trade union movement, and urged African Americans not to support the Communist Party. He viewed the communist movement as a white person's creation that was not in the interests of African Americans. He stated that communism was "a dangerous theory of economic or political reformation because it seeks to put government in the hands of an ignorant white mass who have not been able to destroy their natural prejudices towards Negroes and other non-white people. While it may be a good thing for them, it will be a bad thing for the Negroes who will fall under the government of the most ignorant, prejudiced class of the white race." In response, the Communist International characterised Garveyism as a reactionary bourgeois philosophy.