"Minutes of the Central Executive Committee, (unified) Communist Party of America: New York City - May 30-June 3, 1921." The minutes of the first plenum of the CEC of the unified CPA, which brought together 5 members of each the old Communist Party of America and the United Communist Party of America to establish the structure of the new organization. Charles Dirba (ex-old CPA) is elected Executive Secretary of the new CPA, Ludwig Katterfeld (ex-UCP) is elected Assistant Secretary. The new CEC spends much of its time and energy establishing boundaries for the new district system, arriving at a 9 District system which most closely resembles the boundaries of the old-CPA (which had 8 districts in theory, of which 6 were functioning in practice). The paid District Organizer positions also are bitterly contested. The CEC also carefully considers and ultimately approves its own procedural rules, which are appended to the minutes document. All known "real names" and their former organizational affiliations are included in the edited version of the minutes here, which make the document comprehensible to non-specialists in the underground period. The initial 10 members of the CEC of the unified CPA were: George Ashkenuzi, John Ballam, Charles Dirba, Joseph Stilson, and J. Wilenkin (ex-old CPA); also Ludwig Katterfeld, Jay Lovestone, William Weinstone, Joseph Zack (Kornfeder), and the yet-inidentified "Post" (ex-UCP).

 

"To the CEC of the CPA in New York from Max Bedacht in New York," [late October 1921]. The decision of the Communist Party of America to establish a parallel "Legal Political Party" came at the beheast of the 3rd World Congress of the Communist International [June 22-Aug. 12, 1921] and a supplementary meeting of the American delegation with Lenin held in the Kremlin on July 7, 1921. Bedacht reported to the CEC of the American Party in New York at its meeting of Sept. 1, at which -- based largely upon Bedacht's depiction of Lenin as emphatically in favor of a legal party -- the CEC resolved to create such an organization "parallel with the underground organization and controlled by it." Bedacht was directly contradicted by an ex-old CPA member pseudonym "Stepan" at the October 5 meeting of the CEC, however, and this written statement about the meeting with Lenin was a byproduct of the CEC's investigative process attempting to rectify the contradiction in testimony between the two. Bedacht notes that Nicholas Hourwich and he constituted a committee of 2 to prepare a proposal on legal activity in America for the ECCI. It was Bedacht who drafted the document on July 6(without input from Hourwich) and delivered it at the meeting of the full delegation with Lenin on the next day. At the meeting, attended by Bedacht, Hourwich, Bill Haywood, Robert Minor, Oscar Tyverovsky, "Stepan," and "Gorney," Lenin "immediately went to the point. First he told us of the necessity of the establishment of a daily press. He made it clear at all times that this was expected of us. Then he opened the question of a legal party. He told us of the absolute necessity of the formation of such a body and he even suggested a name for it. Maybe if the other delegate tries hard enough to remember he will recollect that Comrade Lenin suggested 'Anti-Capitalist Party' in contradistinction to all other parties which are pro-capitalist." Lenin and Bedacht were both surprised at the apparent unanimity of the American delegation with regard to establishing a Legal Political Party, but Bedacht bitterly notes that "the opponents of the decisions of the congress did not have the courage to speak up in this conference [with Lenin] although they do not seem to lack the courage to now lie about the proceedings in this conference."

 

"Make It a Party of Action! A Declaration of theCentral Executive Committee to the Membership." [circa November 1921] Full text of a 4 page leaflet of a statement by the majority group of the Central Executive Committee of the CPA to the rank and file on the heated factional situation developing in the party. Citing the directive of the Comintern expressed at the Third World Congress that it is the duty of the American Party "to try all ways and means to get out of their illegalized condition into the open, among the wide masses" the CEC here notes that "It is necessary to build a machinery that can make the fullest use of all legal possibilities" -- a "legal political organization which would centralize the legal activities of the Party." An opposition had appeared, however, a faction which in "both in the content of their criticism and in their methods...show themselves incapable of understanding or applying the tactics of the Communist International." Already "19 members who refused to recognized its authority, flagrantly violated its instructions, and threatened its representatives with violence" had been suspended. A circular letter of the Russian Federation is quoted to illustrate the factional activies of the opposition in the party and the exhortation is made that "every member knows that without a solid, united, and well disciplined party, victory over capitalism is impossible." Similar factional troubles relating to the editor of the Lithuanian Federation's underground official organ is detailed at some length and the withholding of funds by opponents of the current policy is noted. "The CEC declares that it will stop these destructive activities by decisive action. It will brook no disruption of the Party. The day for disruption is over! We must build a united and invincible front! We must build a party of revolutionary action!"

 

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