"The Second Convention," by C.E. Ruthenberg [Jan. 6, 1923] Executive Secretary C.E. Ruthenberg dons his rose-colored glasses to portray the recently completed 2nd Convention of the Workers Party of America in an extremely upbeat manner. Factional warfare over delegate credentials was nonexistent and with each resolution introduced by a member of the Central Executive Committee "practically every resolution was adopted unanimously at the close of the debate, although wide differences of opinion sometimes manifested themselves during the debate," Ruthenberg proudly declared. The convention was declared to be a "landmark in the history of the Communist movement in this country" in that the WPA had firmly established itself. General topics of discussion are briefly mentioned in a list. "The relations of the party with the Communist International was a special point on the agenda and was thoroughly discussed and a resolution establishing fraternal relations adopted," Ruthenberg notes.

 

"We Go Forward to Victory! Second National Convention of Workers Party Makes History in American Class Struggle," by J. Louis Engdahl [Jan. 6, 1923] Editor of WPA English-language weekly, The Worker , J. Louis Engdahl, recounts the events of the 2nd Convention of the WPA, held in New York City from Dec. 24-26, 1922. Principle decisions of the convention included (1) the sending of delegates to the forthcoming Convention for Progressive Political Action and endorsement of the CEC's decision to work for establishment of a Labor Party; and (2) endorsement of the tactic of working within existing unions for the amalgamation of craft organizations into powerful industrial unions in accord with the program of the Trade Union Educational League. Decisions were additionally taken to defend foreign-born workers from the legislative assault which they were facing; against mass emigration to Soviet Russia; for the continuation of foreign language groups within the WPA, albeit under the central control of the party; for establishment of a party educational program; and for dedicated work directed towards women and youth. The convention heard speeches from four of the recently-released CPA Bridgman convention defendants, elected a new Central Executive Committee of the WPA and attended a banquet hosted by Local New York, Engdahl notes. The successful 2nd Convention was heralded by Engdahl as a refutation of the claim that the Communist movement had been crushed by state repression in 1920.

 

"Scott Nearing and the Workers Party," by James P. Cannon [Feb. 24, 1923] Recently elected National Chairman of the Workers Party of America Jim Cannon attempts to make hay from material recently published in the Socialist daily, The New York Call, which quoted economist Scott Nearing as asserting "The Socialist Party has had its day.... Since 1912 membership has steadily declined.... Through the Middle West recently I found the Socialist Party almost extinct" and concluding "the Workers Party has fallen heir to the present radical political situation in the United States." Cannon sees "the rebel professor" Nearing as a significant figure, representative of a whole stratum of former members of the Socialist Party who stood outside of all organizational affiliations since the implosion of the SPA in 1919 and the driving of the Communist movement underground by state repression shortly thereafter. "Tens of thousands of radical workers in America are in that position today. More than half of the former members of the Socialist Party stand outside of any political organization. The collapse of the IWW as a revolutionary factor has left many good proletarian fighters without a center to call their own. The trade unions are honeycombed with virile militants who are looking for a lead. This is the living material out of which we must build our party," Cannon writes. Cannon does not fail to criticize Nearing for singling out the Workers Party's reliance upon "Moscow Dictators" to determine its line, pointing out that those same "Moscow Dictators" were the very same who pushed the American Communist movement out of its sectarian underground seclusion towards becoming an open and broad-based movement. Citing the failure of the federalized Second International, Cannon declares that "We flatly reject the idea of a decentralized International because it is fundamentally unsound in theory and has worked out most disastrously in practice. We think in terms of the International class struggle. That struggle can be waged successfully only if the proletarian vanguard in all countries is firmly united into one centralized Communist World Party."

 

"What Kind of a Party?" by James P. Cannon [March 3, 1923] National Chairman of the Workers Party of America Cannon, recently returned from Moscow, where he sat on the Executive Committee of the Communist International, reflects on the two possible courses for the future of the WPA in America. On the one hand, some in the organization seek a small and doctrinally pure organization. This Left Wing feared the incursion of "Centrists" and opportunists into the party's ranks, resulting in a dilution of the party's theory and defeat of its revolutionary mission. Cannon, on the other hand, speaks for a broad and inclusive organization. Cannon remarks: "We see the best organized and most powerful capitalist class on earth; we see a highly developed labor movement and a strongly entrenched bureaucracy at the top of it, and we say: Only a big party can cope with this situation. Our greatest danger, from which we must flee as from a pestilence, is the tendency toward sectarianism, the tendency to let the party degenerate into a small, self-satisfied, exclusive circle of narrow partisans without influence on events about it and without receiving any control from them." Cannon holds up the TUEL as a model, with its comparatively broad membership giving the Gompers regime in the AF of L "more concern than any small group of pure disciples ever did." Cannon supports his call for a "mass party" by citing the words of the "great leaders" of the world Communist movement, such as Comintern President Zinoviev, who advocated this slogan of "A Million Members for the Party!" to the Communist Party in Germany -- a smaller country than the United States. "Communist principles are living things. They have no significance standing alone. They are made to mix with the mass labor movement and from that mixture fruitful issue comes.... The movement to broaden the party, in its membership and in its activities, is not a departure from communist principles and tactics. On the contrary, it is based on the desire to really begin to apply them in America," Cannon declares.

 

"Extract of the Testimony of Jay Lovestone, Secretary of the Independent Labor League of America, Before the House Special Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities, December 2, 1939." Extended extract of former Secretary of the Communist Party Jay Lovestone's testimony before the "Dies Committee" of the US House of Representatives. While Lovestone's appearance was not voluntary, once he appeared he testified expansively as a friendly witness of the committee. Lovestone's testimony took nearly four hours and over 90 pages of the printed transcript (including appended documents), here distilled to 32 edited pages of committee interrogation and response. Lovestone's main analytical idea is that (1) the function of Communist International evolved from a bona fide revolutionary organization intent on establishing an international socialist society in a crumbling world to a "puppet organization" with policies which were merely the mechanical reflection of Russian foreign policy; and (2) there took place a parallel evolution of the nature of Comintern decision-making process, from democratic participation of equals to a top-down rule by administrative fiat. In the beginning, Lovestone testifies, the Russian members of ECCI led "through prestige, through achievement, through the fact that they had conquered one-sixth of the world for socialism," He declares that the Russians "were living a dream we had, and naturally we looked up to them. Besides, they treated us as equals, with equal respect..." Gradually a culture of "kowtowing to the potentates" emerged and worked itself into a formal system which Lovestone likens to "the story of Caligula" and the "Roman consul system." Lovestone asserts that this shift began to take place not with the rise of Stalin to supreme authority, but before -- with Lenin's departure from politics and the rise of Zinoviev. With regard to his own time at the helm of the Communist Party, Lovestone reveals that average Comintern funding of the American movement in 1926-1928 averaged "no more than about $20 to 25,000 a year" with periodic additional funding for special projects and an independent channel of funding to the Profintern. He alleges that Profintern funding was used by the Foster faction to fund its factional war against the Lovestone faction. He also asserts that his late predecessor as Executive Secretary, C.E. Ruthenberg, was vigorously hostile at an earlier date than he to Moscow's meddling in the American party's political affairs. Lovestone asserts that the forced shift to the ultra-Left policies of dual unionism and the primacy of the fight against "social fascism" prompted the 1929 split. Lovestone advises the Congressmen that "you cannot fight Stalinism in this country, or elsewhere, by repression, by outlawing legislation," which only strengthens the movement repressed by extending to them the mantle of martyrdom, but that rather that the battle must be fought by publicity on the nature of "Stalinism" and the action of the labor movement to cleanse itself. On the other hand, Lovestone acknowledges the right of nations to defend themselves against intervention in internal affairs via espionage or external control of unions by foreign governments.

 

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