"Cooperation in Publishing Socialist Literature," by Charles H. Kerr [Feb. 1903] The man behind America's leading Marxist publishing house of the first two decades of the 20th Century explains his operation to prospective financial supporters in this essay, published as a pamphlet in 1903. Kerr notes the origins of Charles H. Kerr & Co. as a publisher of Unitarian literature in 1886; his turn to populism in 1893, which severed him from his Unitarian base of support; his launching in 1897 of the magazine The New Time, with former editor of The Arena B.O. Flower of Boston at the editorial helm; and his move to "International Socialism" in 1899 and hiring of A.M. Simons, former editor of The Chicago Socialist, in 1900. Kerr explains the economics of book publishing in some detail, as well as his plan of selling $10 shares of stock in the company, which entitled the shareholder to purchase socialist publications at cost. Kerr also makes a pitch for donations and loans (interest free or 5%) to fund an advertising campaign to spread the message of scientific socialism through ads in the socialist and capitalist press.

 

"Rand School, IWW Headquarters, and Communist Victims of Raids: Lusk Raiders Seize Letters and Documents of Local IWW: Search Warrant is Served on Rebel Worker - Union's Central Body Named: Trooper Draws Gun on Man Who Tries to Escape from Meeting Hall." [June 22, 1919] Unsigned news report from the Socialist daily The New York Call detailing the June 21 Lusk Committee raids on the New York headquarters of the IWW and The New York Communist. Primary attention is paid to the IWW raid, which was conducted by 20 state and local law enforcement officers, armed with a search warrant. The raiding party took assorted documents, providing a receipt to the IWW for materials taken. In the course of the raid, an IWW member attempted to escape through a back window, which was stymied by an officer drawing a gun.

 

"Minutes of the Central Executive Committee of the old Communist Party of America, Sept. 7, 1919." The first physical meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the old CPA was held in Chicago immediately after the conclusion of the founding convention of the organization. Attended by 14 of the 15 individuals elected by the Convention, the CEC elected five additional members to join Executive Secretary C.E. Ruthenberg and Editor of Party Publications Louis Fraina on an "Executive Council": I.E. Ferguson, Charles Dirba, K.B. Karosas, John Schwartz, and Harry Wicks. The CEC named the Executive Council as the party's legal bureau and committed to undertake the legal defense of Dennis Batt, naming Isaac Ferguson as party legal counsel. Ferguson was also named Associate Editor of Party Publications. A standard party wage of $45 for those with families and $35 for single employees was established. The New York members of the CEC were named a subcommittee to organize a NY state district, with Max Cohen as secretary of the organization committee. The CEC agreed to conduct its ongoing activities by mail through executive motions with the next physical meeting set for October 1. Party funds were to be deposited in a bank account under the name of C.E. Ruthenberg, with I.E. Ferguson a necessary co-signer for all party checks -- a decision which would eventually haunt the CEC when Ruthenberg and Ferguson bolted the party in April 1920, taking with them thousands of dollars in misappropriated CPA funds.

 

"Executive Motions of the Central Executive Committee of the old Communist Party of America, Oct. 23, 1919." As was the case with the rival CLP, the Central Executive Committee of the old Communist Party of America initially used the mails rather than frequent physical meetings to make its organizational decisions. This document from the Comintern Archive details the results of Motion #1 (to approve reply to CLP on unity -- passed) and Motion #2 (To postpone the next physical meeting of the CEC from Nov. 1 to Dec. 20 -- failed). It also reveals the limitations of this slow and tedious method of making decisions, with Motion #3 (to delay the reply to the CLP approved by Motion #1) arbitrarily terminated by Executive Secretary Ruthenberg to prevent a defeated minority from arbitrarily halting action, and Motion #5 (calling for International Secretary Fraina to delay his letter to the Comintern until after the next physical meeting of the CEC) announced as being moot, the letter having already been sent. Motion #4 (to delay the next physical meeting of the CEC from Nov. 1 to Nov. 15 to allow members to be in their cities to help conduct Nov. 7 Revolution Day activities had to be voted on by wire due to the proximity of the Nov. 1 date and the need to make necessary travel arrangements to Chicago. The motion to delay ultimately passed.

 

"Minutes of the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of America, Chicago -- Nov. 15-17, 1919." The second physical meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the old CPA reaffirmed the organization's opposition to unity with the Communist Labor Party "on account of fundamental differences of principle." It decided to send International Secretary Louis Fraina as soon as possible to establish contacts with the European communist movment and elected Nicholas Hourwich and C.E. Ruthenberg delegates to the forthcomng 2nd Congress of the Communist International (ultimately attended by alternate Alexander Stoklitsky in lieu of Ruthenberg). Charles Dirba was elected alternate National Secretary, should Ruthenberg be absent; Ruthenberg was named alternate Editor of Party Publications, should Ferguson and Fraina both be unable to serve; Jay Lovestone and Max Cohen were appointed Associate Editors, to fill editorial vacancies in that order. Ruthenberg was instructed to draft a letter to the Scandinavian and Finnish Federations calling upon them to join the Communist Party. Fraina, Hourwich, and Fred Friedman of the German Federation were named a committee of 3 to draft a statement on unity to the CLP. Executive Secretary Ruthenberg was also unanimously authorized to purchase a printing plant for party publications.

 

"The Red Raids." [leaflet of the Communist Labor Party, January 1920] This leaflet was produced in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 2, 1920 mass raids conducted under the direction of Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and serves as an answer to that coordinated assault on the organization's existence. "The Capitalist Government of the United Sates in a mad hysterical rage is trying to stave off the inevitable collapse of Capitalism," the manifesto contends, stating that "ignorant, vicious, and corrupt officials are persecuting thousands of men and women who have declared their allegiance to the revolutionary working class movement." The foreign-born workers at the focus of this assault are the very same whose "sweat and blood" has built the billions of dollars in wealth which enabled the capitalist class to live in luxury. "Most of the workers now held for deportation will be more than pleased to be shipped out of the country where there is no semblance even of Capitalist law, where governmental anarchy reigns supreme, and where it is dangerous for one even to think," the leaflet raged. The examples of the treatment administered to the steelworkers and mine workers in their respective strikes, and the refusal to seat democratically-elected Socialist representatives served to illustrate the fundamental rottenness of American capitalism and its governmental appendage. "The Communist Labor Party realizes that the only way out of the Capitalist Anarchy now reigning supreme is through the overthrow of Capitalism and the establishment of the rule of the working class. Capitalism in Europe is fast crumbling to pieces, and American Capitalism, dependent upon Europe, will meet the same fate," the leaflet warns.

 

"Agreement for the Unification of the American Communist Party and the American Communist Labor Party." [signed Jan. 12, 1920] Anxious to end the division of the American communist movement into two hostile organizations, a deal was brokered in Moscow by the Comintern between John Reed, international delegate of the Communist Labor Party, and John Anderson [née Kristap Beika], who had been sent to Soviet Russia on behalf of 5 of the main Language Federations which were to emerge in September 1919 as the Communist Party of America. This deal called for a 6 member Bureau of Unity, to which each party would contribute 3 members, which would temporarily handle joint publishing and organizational work and would convene a unity convention to establish the "United Communist Party of America." Delegates to the convention were to be assigned proportionate to the actually paid memberships of the two organizations as of Jan. 1, 1920.The role of federations in the new organization was explicitly defined, to conduct propaganda in their own language and to have freedom to use whatever special funds they could generate from among their members, but not to collect and remit party dues or to have the right of admission or expulsion of members and branches. The language press was to be subjugated to control of the center. This agreement was dispatched to America with Reed and Anderson, together with approximately $50,000 in Comintern funds, primarily in the form of gemstones -- none of which reached its destination. After leaving, Anderson abandoned any attempt at implementing the terms of the unity agreement that he signed, and his lack of a mandate from the CPA led that organization to completely repudiate the terms of the deal.

 

"Report on Unity Conferences, January 28, 1920," by Alfred Wagenknecht A succinct but detailed chronicle of the early unity discussions between the unity committees of Communist Labor Party and Communist Party of America. Wagenknecht states that the first contact took the form of a letter from CPA German Federation Translator-Secretary Fritz Friedman, who wrote to Wagenknecht attempting to set up informal talks. This was followed by the CLP's NEC electing a committee of 2, Ed Lindgren and Alfred Wagenknecht, who met directly with I.E. Ferguson and set up a meeting with the CLP committee and CPA Executive Secretary Ruthenberg. On Jan. 17, 1920, the CLP committee, now including L.E. Katterfeld, met informally with Ruthenberg and another member of the CPA. The CPA then named its own formal unity committee of 3, consisting of Alex Bittelman, Max Cohen, and Charles Dirba; this group met formally with Alexander Bilan, Katterfeld, and Lindgren of the CLP on Jan. 24, 1920, with Ruthenberg, Ferguson, and Wagenknecht also present in an informal capacity. The CPA issued a proposal that a joint call for a unity convention take place on the basis of the CPA program and constitution (i.e. semi-autonomous federations) with merged Executive Committees (the CPA's CEC had 15 members, the CLP's NEC just 5). The CLP countered asking for a joint declaration that there were no fundamental differences of principle between the two organizations, issuing a joint call based on the manifesto and program of the CPA, and recognizing that the new underground principles had rendered the constitutions of both organizations inoperable, and offering to merge executive committees in the interim, leaving the federation structure of both organizations untouched. The CPA was to consider the counterproposal and report back, Wagenknecht states.

 

"Letter to Alfred Wagenknecht in New York from Charles Dirba in New York, Feb. 9, 1920." Official reply of the CPA to the CLP's unity "counterproposal" of Jan. 24, 1920, sent by the CPA's unity committee of 3, headed by Charles Dirba. The CPA's Central Executive Committee discussed the specifics of the CLP proposal and stated (1) that they could not subscribe to a declaration that there were no differences in fundamental principles between the two organizations, but would not object if the CLP chose to make this assertion; (2) That unity must be based not only on the CPA's manifesto and program, but also upon "those parts of the Constitution setting forth the fundamental relationship of Language Federations within the Party"; and (3) that consolidation of executive committees was "positively decided against...as inconsistent with the fundamental principles of the CP" and that "the only road to organic communist unity is a joint convention." Further explanations in a face to face meeting were promised by the CPA committee if so desired by the CLP.

 

"Letter to Alfred Wagenknecht in New York from Charles Dirba in New York, Feb. 26, 1920." Owing to the disruption of the mails and the arrest of Executive Secretary of the CPA Ruthenberg in Detroit and subsequent detention in Chicago, the Feb. 9, 1920 letter of the CPA replying to the CLP's Jan. 24, 1920 unity counterproposal was not received, nor could the CPA reply to a testy CLP inquiry. This Feb. 26 letter from Acting Executive Secretary of the CPA Charles Dirba repeats the content of the undelivered Feb. 9 letter: (1) that the statement of no differences of principle could not be agreed to; (2) That unity must be based on the CPA's Language Federation structure; and (3) That merger of Executive Committees was rejected out of hand and that a joint convention was the only path to organic unity. The CLP was invited to publish correspondence on the unity discussion as they had threatened to do, with Dirba noting that the CPA had already done so itself.

 

"Letter to the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America in New York from the National Executive Committee of the Communist Labor Party in New York, March 9, 1920." Reply by Executive Secretary of the CLP Alfred Wagenknecht to the Charles Dirba's letter of Feb. 26, 1920, which dealt a severe blow to the discussions over unity between the two rival American Communist organizations. The CLP "learns with regret" that the CPA "has again refused the opportunity to unite all Communist forces in the United States under one banner," Wagenknecht writes. He rightly notes that "The form of language federations has been one of the essential points of difference between the two parties," adding that "a small clique through their control of the autonomous federation groups controlled by the Communist Party convention in Chicago [Sept. 1919] prevented unity of all the Communist elements there." Wagenknecht appeals over the heads of the CPA's CEC to the membership of that organization directly, asking them to "enforce their will" on the question of organizational unity. "If we wait six months, if we first go through a long period of steamroller building and wire-pulling to control convention delegates..., if we now once more build TWO Communist organizations until they become set and rigid, and then pit them against each other in a convention, a unity of Communist forces will be almost impossible to attain," Wagenknecht warns.

 

"Letter to the National Executive Committee of the Communist Labor Party in New York from the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America in New York, March 19, 1920." Reply by Executive Secretary of the old CPA C.E. Ruthenberg to the March 9, 1920 letter of the CLP on unity. Ruthenberg announces that the CPA is intent upon unity on the terms which it previously dictated, and that to this end it was beginning the process of delegate selection for a unity convention to be held "at the earliest possible date and not later than June 15th [1920]." A Joint Convention Committee of 3 had been named by the CPA with the intention of meeting a like committee from the CLP, to work towards a unity convention on the following terms: "(1) The joint call for the convention must include our Manifesto, Program, and constitutional relations of the Federations to the Party. (2) Apportionment of delegates on the basis of dues stamps sold by each organization for the months of October, November, and December [1919], the total number of delegates from both organizations not to exceed 35. Books of both organizations to be open to the opposite committee members. (3) The election of delegates to be by membership action and to be conducted secretly and to be as nearly as possible alike for the two organizations. (4) The quorum to call the convention to order to consist of two-thirds of the delegates elected by each organization." Ruthenberg states "If your committee really desires unity between the Communists of the United States and is not merely using the plea to unity as a convenient method of propaganda against the Communist Party of America, we trust you will take immediate favorable action on this proposal and elect your convention committee."

 

"Letter to the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America in New York from the National Executive Committee of the Communist Labor Party in New York, March 25, 1920." Reply by Executive Secretary of the CLP Alfred Wagenknecht to the March 19, 1920 letter on unity by the CPA. Wagenknecht reaffirms the CLP's unity stance, emphasizing in particular their position that the question of language federation structure would have to be decided by the unity convention from scratch. "If we understand your position upon this point, it is that you wish us to go into convention with you with the admission that your form of language federation organization is correct and dares us to attack and change it. In other words, you hold the fort and we are invited to make the attack. Your constitutional form of language federations has already broken down and has been eliminated in great part by the new [underground] methods you have been forced to adopt to prosecute Communist work. You are violating your own constitutional form of language federation. Why ask us to accept it as a basis for a convention call when you recognize it as obsolete?" Wagenknecht asks, adding that the CLP does not insist upon non-autonomous federations, only that the question "go before the convention without prejudice."

 

"Report to UCP Executive Secretary Alfred Wagenknecht in New York from William Costley, UCP DO10 in San Francisco, April 6, 1921." This report from the United Communist Party's San Francisco District Organizer, William Costley, deals in large part with the UCP's relationship with American blacks -- a fact which is particularly interesting given the fact that DO Costley was himself a black American. "You tell me to take those [blacks] in the party that are qualified. There are none hereabouts," Costley remarks, adding that a single correspondent in El Paso, Texas was "the only one I would pass." Costley tells Wagenknecht that "the Negroes are not a reading people, the most progressive communities have no general bookstore, there is non operated by them in the US. If you want them, special literature must be written from them. They practically know nothing of the class struggle and pending worldwide revolt of the working class. But they can be depended on to get in strong when the time comes for action." Costley also notes that German UCP groups (primary party units) in the bay area had collected $150 for the defense fund, which would be reported in his subsequent financial statement to the center.

 

"Letter to the Central Executive Committee of the Workers Party of America in Chicago from Benjamin Gitlow in Chicago, November 21, 1924." This short letter from Benjamin Gitlow to the governing CEC (of which he was a member) indicates the very real limitations of party discipline and the ability of the CEC to elicit compliance to its decisions. Gitlow absolutely refuses to accept a position as the head of the Broad Silk Weavers' Union, citing the impending collapse of the Paterson Silk Strike -- the conduct of which Gitlow says was discrediting the union. "Anyone who will take over the situation will have to shoulder the burden of all the discredit," he states, in noting that his "appointment at this time to that position is only a move to remove me as a CEC member from an important district prior to a convention." Instead, he once again applies for the post of Industrial Organizer for the Eastern District, a job for which he believed himself to be well qualified, but one to which the CEC has stubbornly refused to assign him, ostensibly for factional reasons.

 

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