"Rules for Underground Party Work." (leaflet of the CPA) [circa March 1920] Full text of the often-reprinted "rules for underground party work" issued as a leaflet by the Communist Party of America. The leaflet includes commentary on the following 10 "rules" of conduct for party members: "(1) DON'T betray Party work and Party workers under any circumstances. (2) DON'T carry or keep with you names and addresses, except in good code. (3) DON'T keep in your rooms openly any incriminating documents or literature. (4) DON'T take any unnecessary risks in Party work. (5) DON'T shirk Party work because of the risk connected with it. (6) DON'T boast of what you have to do or have done for the Party. (7) DON'T divulge your membership in the Party without necessity. (8) DON'T let any spies follow you to appointments or meetings. (9) DON'T lose your nerve in danger. (10) DON'T answer any questions if arrested, either at preliminary hearings or in the court." The leaflet firmly advises those arrested to take advantage of the right to remain silent: "I you are arrested, ...if they have sufficient evidence, or sufficient grounds for suspicion, that you are a Communist, and therefore, as a deathly enemy of the present order, subject to suppression and imprisonment, law or no law -- but first to be made use of in getting hold of other Communists, in destroying the whole organization, if possible -- first to be questioned and grilled, to be pumped for various information, to be put through the Third Degree -- then the only correct thing to do, the best thing in the circumstances, is absolute refusal to answer any questions. (Ask for a lawyer. You have the right for that. And you have the right to refuse to answer questions, whatever that may help you.)"

 

"Another Renegade." [H.F. Kane] by James P. Cannon [Dec. 11, 1920] Jim Cannon, editor of the Communist Party's legal English weekly, The Toiler, takes aim at the editor of the editor of The Industrial Worker, the Western organ of the Industrial Workers of the World. Cannon charges editor H.F. Kane with being a "renegade" for parroting the line advanced by John Spargo and Charles Edward Russell that Soviet Russia was "propped up by bayonets," had "sent invading armies into other countries," and was a country in which workers were not "permitted to freely travel through the interior looking for employment." Cannon indicates that "We have confidence that the western members of the IWW will deal promptly with this man Kane who has attacked the revolution in their name." "...You can't fool them about the Russian Revolution, Mr. Kane!" Cannon declares, adding that "They know, as the workers all over the world know, that the Workers' Republic of Russia represents their highest hopes and aspirations. They know that the enemies of the Russian Revolution are the enemies of the working class!"

 

"They Are Making One Front," by Robert Minor [Dec. 18, 1920] Shortly after the 3rd anniversary of the Russian Revolution, former anarchist Robert Minor unveils his perspective that the world in splitting into two warring camps in this well-crafted essay. "Little groups, little cliques, little sects, are quickly melting into and crystallizing in either one or the other of two giant forms. Every little formation may still scream of its separateness, but the monster iron dividing line -- the "front!" -- is flung calmly and silently through the multitude and divides all things and men whether they will or not, into two and only two hard-crystallizing divisions." On one side of the barricades: "Everywhere we hear the cry of the herders -- monarchists, republicans, liberal-bourgeois, Catholic, atheist-bourgeois, and Protestant; reformer--pacifist and military reactionist -- all together the herders whip men into line of the new loyalty that will make men slaves -- loyalty to the one great Capitalist International." On the other: "Everywhere the working class, too, is stirring, jolted and bruised and rudely wakened from its daylight dreams. The cries of mobilizing men come also from the depths, from the alleys and kennels where workmen live. Men who have been dreaming of this time, have dreamed of its being in a different way. Some are still dreaming." But Minor refuses to dream any longer about theoretical possibilities, he puts aside his prior convictions in light of the actual situation and chooses sides: "The past few years have settled many questions. One question is Parliamentarism, and it was settled to the extreme dislike of most Socialist lawyers. Another question is the question of a temporary military organization resembling a State, and that was settled to the distaste of many Anarchists. But history has settled it. It has proven that the working class, whether we like it or not, is going to win its fight by means of a temporary dictatorship, and we take our choice between being out of the fight or in the fight in the form which it takes, not in any imaginary form. The one front has been drawn by history, and no man can draw it otherwise. Whether we like it or not, there will be one front. And I think that one front is the Third International."

 

"Soviet Envoy Martens' Farewell Message to America," by Ludwig C.A.K. Martens [Feb. 5, 1921] At the time of his expulsion the de facto Ambassador of Soviet Russia to the United States, Ludwig Martens, takes time to thank the Americans who showed him such "great personal kindness and courtesy." Martens indicates that his departure was "the logical and inevitable consequence of the policy of the American government toward Soviet Russia." For the past 2 years, two American administrations had shown "an absolute refusal to recognize even the de facto existence of the Soviet government, and a refusal to permit the resumption of trade between Russia and America." The US government had adamantly refused to accept any communications which Martens had addressed to it. Martens notes that the Soviet government had "accepted this declaration of the policy of the American government toward Russia and instructed me to close my bureau and to withdraw from the United States without delay." Martens concludes without rancor, stating that "industrial and economic conditions of the world, not excepting America, are such that the resumption of normal economic relations with Russia has become an imperative necessity upon all nations" and that "when the American people are prepared to approach this problem, the government of the Russian workers and peasants will be ready to meet them in a reasonable and friendly spirit."

 

"NJ Court Frees Communist." [Walter Gabriel] News report in The Toiler [event of March 3, 1921 This short article from the UCP legal weekly, The Toiler, announces the March 3, 1921 release of former New Jersey State Secretary of the Communist Labor Party Walter Gabriel. Gabriel had been arrested as part of the January 1921 Palmer Raids and was sent to prison for 2-10 years for ""advocating the overthrow of the government of New Jersey and the government of the United States by force." The New Jersey Supreme Court overturned this decision, however, ruling that mere belief in the need for overturning either the state or federal governments was not sufficient to constitute an offense against the state of New Jersey. At the time of the decision, Gabriel's attorney, Rose Weiss, claimed that the New Jersey court's invalidation of sections of the New Jersey law could have an impact on similar laws passed in other states, many of which were modeled after the New Jersey provisions.

 

"Soviets Would Trade American War Prisoner for Convicted Communist: Would Swap Kirkpatrick for Either Larkin or Gitlow." News report in The Toiler [April 16, 1921] This news report, originating with Soviet Russia's official ROSTA Press Agency, states that the Soviet government stood ready to swap an American military prisoner, Captain Kirkpatrick, captured during the Red Army's offensive against Baron Wrangel in 1920. In exchange for Capt. Kirkpatrick, the Soviet government is said to have sought the pardon of one of two political prisoners incarcerated in American penitentiaries -- either New York journalist Benjamin Gitlow or Irish labor leader "Big Jim" Larkin. Gitlow's sentence had been affirmed by the Appellate division of the New York Supreme Court on April 1, 1921, pushing his case back into the news and quite likely serving as an inspiration for the Soviet prisoner trade offer. The article details a visit by American journalist Louise Bryant to the Andronevsky Prison Camp where Capt. Kirkpatrick was held, which was portrayed in glowing terms as a model facility by Bryant. Nevertheless, the original ROSTA account is quoted as saying that "Captain Kirkpatrick feels very peeved because the United States government has not made decisive efforts to secure his release and has requested political friends here to intercede in his behalf." Hope is held up for the possible future prisoner exchange, given the more tempered perspective of the new Harding administration towards wartime political prisoners compared to the draconian Woodrow Wilson regime.

 

"On Unity: Telegram Sent Jointly to the Communist Parties in America by their Representatives in the Communist International," by Nicholas Hourwich and Max Bedacht [April 21, 1921] Brief cable sent from the Moscow-based representatives of the Communist Party of America and United Communist Party to their respective Central Executive Committees disavowing the authority of the "American Agency" of the Comintern to establish specific preconditions for a unity convention -- such details to be left to be decided by the convention iteslf. The cable reads: "Authorized by [ECCI] to state [American Agency] has no authority to press 5 conditions. Equal basis [in size of party delegation] and [neutral] chairman [Unity Convention] with voice but no vote is enough and all is necessary. Other conditions are not pertaining to preliminary arrangements and are subject to decision of [Unity Convention]."

 

"Letter to the Central Executive Committee of the United Communist Party in New York from Max Bedacht ["James A. Marshall"], Representative of the UCP to ECCI in Moscow, April 25, 1921." First of a flurry of 5 letters to the CEC of the United Communist Party about the urgent need for immediate unification with the Communist Party of America penned between the last week of April and the third week of May by the UCP's man in Moscow, Max Bedacht. Bedacht notes that the stock of the American Communist movement had fallen to its nadir among the councils of the Comintern: "Matters have reached the point that the [ECCI leadership] considers the American branch more as a nuisance than as a bona fide [viable Communist organization]. I know that you will say: 'But why don't you tell them and explain to them.' I will answer that nobody wants to listen to me, that most of the doors are closed to me, and that wherever one of the doors is reluctantly opened, they do not leave me in doubt that they consider me but one of those more numerous 'representatives,' each one of whom had a different story to tell." Bedacht states that Grigorii Zinoviev had stated definitely that "as far as [the Comintern] is concerned, there will be no further action. Its last decision [on the American situation, calling for unification with a drop-dead deadline of June 1, 1921] is final." Unless such union were achieved, both the UCP and CPA would be barred from the forthcoming 3rd World Congress of the Comintern and a new Communist Party established in America ignoring the previously existing organizations, Bedacht warns. Bedacht details the twisted saga of the Comintern's "American Agency" of Janson, Fraina, and Katayama, noting that the group initially "had full power to settle [the unity] question once and for all." However, the AA had shown itself unable to take "decisive action," forcing ECCI to grudgingly take up the American question again. Thereafter, the American Agency had lost its backing as a plenipotentiary force. Bedacht quotes Zinoviev as saying "it would seem very peculiar indeed if this agency, so long unable to fulfill its mission, would again be instructed to do the thing which it proved itself unable to do." Consequently, Zinoviev had told Bedacht that the unity matter now rested with the Americans themselves.

 

"The Philadelphia Red Raids," by Erasmo S. Abate [raids of April 25/26, 1921] During the night of April 25/26, 1921, some 38 members and sympathizers of the American Communist movement were arrested in Philadelphia in conjunction with the planned distribution of May Day leaflets and charged under the state Anti-Sedition Act, which called for penalties of 1-20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. This article from the UCP's legal English language weekly, The Toiler, details the background and judicial outcomes of many of these cases. One meeting in a private residence was raided without warrant, Erasmo Abate recounts, resulting in the arrest of 12 men and women "upon the seeming presumption that a meeting of the United Communist Party was being conducted there." The police ransacked the home, stealing "valuable articles" and $100 in cash, and raiding the wine cellar -- "the 'honest' guardians of the law got drunk, came to a fight, and shot each other," Abate notes. Pennsylvania test cases of the state's Anti-Sedition Law had gone both directions, with a defendant named Harry Belavsky convicted and the constitutionality of provisions of the law seriously questioned by the court in the case of W.B. Brukas. All 38 defendants of the April 25/26 raid were released on $5,000 bail, with an additional $1,000 tagged on to 20 defendants who faced possible deportation. An appeal for funds on behalf of the "Workers Defense and Relief Committee of Pennsylvania" is made.

 

"Letter to the Central Executive Committee of the United Communist Party in New York from Max Bedacht ["James A. Marshall"], Representative of the UCP to ECCI in Moscow, May 4, 1921." Second of a flurry of 5 letters to the CEC of the United Communist Party about the urgent need for immediate unification with the Communist Party of America penned between the last week of April and the third week of May by the UCP's man in Moscow, Max Bedacht. A range of matters are covered, including the need for the American party to send (open) addresses to receive Comintern publications by mail, the establishment by the UCP's European Comintern contact "Latimer" of an office in Christiana, Norway (presumably) to serve as a distributing center for Comintern "goods" throughout the world, brief comment about Morris Zucker and Leonid Belsky ("Ed Fisher") being in the bad graces of the Cheka in Soviet Russia, news that the Proletarian Party of America had attempted to attain status as American Comintern affiliate, and emphasis of the need for all American Communists traveling to Moscow to carry letters of recommendation including extensive reviews of their personal political histories. Bedacht once again emphasizes his desire to eliminate Nicholas Hourwich from the Moscow scene -- not only as a representative of the American Party to the Comintern, but also as a delegate to the forthcoming 3rd World Congress of the Comintern, if possible. "If you find yourself powerful enough to do that, make a thorough job of it," Bedacht urges. Bedacht closes with a personal note to Executive Secretary of the UCP Alfred Wagenknecht sharply criticizing him for his failure to send word from Bedacht's wife to him in Moscow. " During the whole period of my absence I have not had a line from home. And you in your letters do not find it necessary to even mention the state of affairs at home. This is unbearable. You had better prepare now for the championship fight you will have on hand when I get back," Bedacht warns, adding that he has found the role of UCP representative to the Comintern to be, instead of an honor, "quite a tedious and disagreeable job."

 

"Note to Leon Trotsky Regarding a Survey on Conditions in America Distributed in Advance of the 1st World Congress of RILU from Earl Browder, Delegate, in Moscow, May 9, 1921." Short addendum to responses made by others to a survey circulated by Leon Trotsky among delegates to the 1921 World Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions. UCP member and RILU congress delegate Earl Browder writes to Trotsky about future revolutionary possibilities in America. Browder declares that "mass-action of the workers in America almost invariably springs from the ranks of organized labor or finds its expression in the attempt to organize. It is usually defeated and dispersed by some definite act of submission of the union officials to the capitalists or to the capitalist state." The volatile events of 1919, with strikes in steel, mining, and on the railroads, demonstrated "that it is within the realm of possibility, in the immediate future, for the Communists of America to take over the direction of the labor movement if they could be given a clear idea of the technical requirements for labor union leadership and administration. A compact, well educated Communist minority in the great mass organizations, united upon a clear program of practical action, can obtain the strategical positions of power in organized labor. With these positions the masses can be thrown into direct conflict with the state whenever a similar situation arises, like that of 1919." Browder therefore feels it of primary importance that Communist activists be instructed so as to be able to fulfill the technical requirements needed for union leadership."

 

"Letter to the Central Executive Committee of the United Communist Party in New York from Max Bedacht ["James A. Marshall"], Representative of the UCP to ECCI in Moscow, May 13, 1921." Third of a flurry of 5 letters to the CEC of the United Communist Party about the urgent need for immediate unification with the Communist Party of America penned between the last week of April and the third week of May by the UCP's man in Moscow, Max Bedacht. Bedacht continues to attempt to inform Executive Secretary Wagenknecht and the CEC that it is urgently necessary that they solve the unification question themselves. Bedacht writes: "You ask me to give you exact description of negotiations. Well, comrades, that is what I would like to get from you, because no negotiations are carried on. That is your work now and here I am being asked every day whether I have some news about the stand of negotiation. The Board of Directors [ECCI] here has given its decision in March [1921] at the first meeting I attended and that was final." Bedacht quotes Radek as saying of the American situation, ""We've decided that we want to have absolutely nothing more to do with the affair;" Zinoviev told Bedacht, "We have done all we could, now it is up to you to do what you can do. We will not act any more in the matter."

 

"Letter to the Central Executive Committee of the United Communist Party in New York from Max Bedacht ["James A. Marshall"], Representative of the UCP to ECCI in Moscow, May 16, 1921." Fourth of a flurry of 5 letters to the CEC of the United Communist Party about the urgent need for immediate unification with the Communist Party of America penned between the last week of April and the third week of May by the UCP's man in Moscow, Max Bedacht. Bedacht passes on information from Nicholas Hourwich's "own mouth" that the CPA had -- like the UCP -- received $25,000 in Comintern funding during the previous 12 months. Bedacht notes that the American UCP delegates to the First World Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions were working on a program for the gathering, about which Bedacht expresses reservations for its hardline spirit and its controversial nature. "But all these matters will be discussed tonight," Bedacht remarks, adding that "Should the amalgamation take place then it will be necessary for me and for us to take into our conference, before the great event, also the representatives of the other side."

 

"Letter to the Central Executive Committee of the United Communist Party in New York from Max Bedacht ["James A. Marshall"], Representative of the UCP to ECCI in Moscow, May 18, 1921." This 5th letter from the UCP's man in Moscow provides fascinating detail about the structure and operating procedure of the Communist International. Bedacht summarizes the three-sided unity dance of the previous months from his vantage point in Moscow: "The AA [American Agency] had full power and did not understand to use it. Had the instructions, which they finally agree upon to give, been given 3 months or so ago, and had the AA [American Agency] then, instead of asking the [ECCI] to OK this, asked that same body to throw out the disobedient bunch [anti-unity elements in the CPA], all trouble would have been settled." With regards to CI funding of the American movement, Bedacht holds out little hope: "In the matter of money I again tell you that it is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE to do anything. Not only are the present conditions in America in the way, but even otherwise the Main Office [CI] is somewhat reluctant to unhesitatingly consider all demands for money. Some of the [national parties] have overdone the thing so much that a plan is now being considered to change the procedure in regard to financial transactions completely. I have made requests for the support of our wounded [legal defense of prisoners]. I was permitted this support, but it is impossible to find out now whether it was ever passed. By what I see in your letter in regard to the AA [American Agency], it rather seems that it did pass. If the money was turned over to the AA, it would only be in conformity with their new policy in this matter." Bedacht attempts to illuminate his American comrades about the way the CI actually functions: "Firstly, the Board of Directors [ECCI] is the supreme body, is fully conscious of that, and is influenced in its actions neither by threats nor by any other method. Secondly, in the Board of Directors [ECCI] there are never discussed any details. Thirdly, the body meets only about every 3 weeks, and then only for a session of about 6 to 8 hours. This alone can prove to you the impossibility of discussing or taking up any details. The body is concerned with POLICIES, and WITH POLICIES ONLY. Fourthly, the matters discussed at the meetings of the Board of Directors [ECCI] are not the choice of its members but are prepared by the Small Bureau, which generally meets the day previously."

 

"Liberator to Have Second Class Rates: Communist Magazine Gets Favorable P.O. Ruling. Will Receive Refund." News report in The Toiler [event of May 25, 1921] This brief news article from the pages of The Toiler, the United Communist Party's legal English-language weekly, announces that US postal authorities had recently restored the 2nd Class mailing privileges of The Liberator, the party's monthly artistic and theoretical magazine. This decision was in accordance with new Postmaster General Will Hays' ruling that any publication mailable under the law was entitled to the rate without regard to its political content. The Liberator was to be refunded over $11,000 of the more than $14,000 it had paid in postage charges since being arbitrarily stripped of its 2nd Class status by former Postmaster General Albert Burleson. "The ruling is looked upon as an important one in respect to the post office censorship of the public press. Inasmuch as a number of radical and socialist magazines and papers were deprived of second class rates while being allowed to pass through the mails as mailable matter under the Wilson-Burleson-Palmer administration, the new Hays ruling comes as a welcome rift in the clouds of official suppression of public expression," the article declares.

 

"National Defense Committee News," by Edgar Owens [May 1921 Report] Monthly report of the American Communist movement's legal defense arm, the National Defense Committee, by its Secretary, Illinois UCP veteran Edgar Owens. Owens notes the progress of the Lindgren-Jakira-Amter case (arrested April 29, 1921 when the apartment housing UCP headquarters in New York was raided) in which the defendants are said to have been "kidnapped by police" and held without warrant for a grand jury to return an indictment following their release from the April raid on lack of evidence. Owens also details a coordinated raid in Philadelphia on April 25, 1921, in which 48 had been arrested and 38 of these later indicted for violation of the Pennsylvania "Anti-Sedition" Law. (The round up of leaflet distributors was probably tipped by the Camden, NJ SDO and police spy Francis A. Morrow). Owens notes in the Philadelphia case that "In ransacking the place the police found some homemade wine and proceeded to get gloriously drunk and indulged in a fight among themselves to demonstrate their respect for law and order." Owens also mentions 3 additional cases in New York, 20 in the Midwestern Division of the NDC, 2 deportation cases in Chicago, 4 in Milwaukee, 10 in Kansas City, and 1 case in San Francisco. Owens also notes the May 8, 1921, arrest of (San Francisco District Organizer) William Costley and UCP touring speaker Floyd Ramp for speaking at a hall meeting. After being held in jail overnight, the pair were released for lack of evidence, Owens notes. Owens also note a number of continuing cases: the appeal of those arrested in the mass Illinois CLP trial, the Reed-Ragsdale case in San Francisco, the Carney-Bentall case in Minneapolis, and ongoing deportation proceedings against Alex Georgian, also of Minneapolis. An appeal for funds to assist the NDC in the defense of all these cases is made, not surprisingly.

 

"Ellis Island -- A Dantean Hell," by Edgar Owens [June 11, 1921] Secretary of the unified CPA's National Defense Committee Edgar Owens reminds readers of the party's legal organ, The Toiler, of the plight of 38 of their comrades, along with a dozen of their wives and 24 of their children, held at Ellis Island, New York, for an indeterminate time pending completion of deportation proceedings. Owens notes: "Ellis Island is a cheerless place at best. But the detention rooms are desolate indeed, especially for those classified as politically undesirable. For them Ellis Island is a prison, stone walls, steel bars, locked doors... They are charged heavily for food of inferior quality; the women complain that the milk contains chalk and is unfit for the children, and when they ask for boiled water for their babies, they are informed that sink water is good enough for them. Are they not Communists? What right have they to expect human consideration? Down with them!" Only the NDC is working on behalf of these unfortunates, Owens declares: "Plans have been made to remove our comrades from the Island. The men can be released providing bail is secured. But bail is expensive, and premiums must be paid. Arrangements are in preparation to establish a place near New York in which to put the women and children where there will be plenty of fresh air and room for the children to play without danger to life or limb." Contributions to further this end are solicited.

 

"The Economic Basis of the Tulsa Race Riot," by Elmer T. Allison [June 18, 1921] Beginning on June 1, 1921, genocidal racial violence erupted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with widespread killings and arson -- violence which was ultimately answered by a section of the city's black population. This article by Communist journalist Elmer Allison attempts to expound upon the economic basis of the explosion frenzied ultra-violence that gripped Tulsa. "The main purpose and object of all white aggressions upon the Negro are to KEEP HIM DOWN, down under the feet of the white rulers, the white's laws, the white politicians, the white masters," Allison asserts, adding that amidst oil riches and rising cotton prices, a parallel black-owned economy had emerged in the southwest in competition with the region's historic white capitalists. The downturn of the economy made blacks expendable in the eyes of the white ruling class of the region, and the Tulsa race riot is portrayed as a long-brewing and consciously directed policy. Allison declares that, "it was the white business interests that fomented the Tulsa riot. Whatever differences there may have been between white workers and black workers on account of undercutting of wages by Negroes because of unemployment, it must not be assumed that these differences counted for anything with the white master class," Allison says. "The Negroes were becoming an established competitive factor to white business. And because of it they were outlawed, and the sentence of death passed upon them. The riot ensued." Allison likens the plight of America's southern blacks to that of the Jews in Eastern Europe: "White capitalist society is as clearly in a conspiracy against the Negro here as is any pogrom-ridden Eastern nation against the Jews. Here the lynching bee and the race riot, there the pogrom. The causes are the same as are, too, the results."

 

"Proceedings of the SP National Convention at Detroit: Nationalistic Spirit Rules. Delegates Repudiate Affiliation with 3rd International. Left Wing Hopelessly Weak. 'Milwaukee Socialism' in Complete Control," by Thurber Lewis [events of June 25-29, 1921] An extensive first-hand account of the 1921 Socialist Party convention in Detroit, at which the SPA stepped away definitively from any possible affiliation with the Third International. Since no stenogram exists for this gathering , Lewis' account has the effect of filling in blank spots in our information. One scene related by Lewis is particularly dramatic: on the last day of the gathering, some 100 nationalists from the "Disabled Veterans of the World War" marched into the high school auditorium where the convention was being held. There were only 39 regular and 11 fraternal delegates to the convention -- they were thus outnumbered by 2:1. Their spokesman, a man named Horr from Seattle, attempted intimidation, as Lewis recounts: "He said that the news had reached them that there was evidence of disloyalty at the convention. He 'hoped to God the reports were untrue.' But if it were true that someone said the red flag of Internationalism was the only flag (Engdahl), if there were those here who advocated force, he went on in a passion, let them come outside. Of course, no one arose to comply. He then warned the convention that 'force would be met with force.'" Lewis expresses grudging admiration for the brave response by the Socialists' chairman of the day, Cameron King of California, who told the veterans: "As Americans we demand the right of free speech, free press, and free assemblage. You have suffered, it is true, but we, too have suffered," he went on. "If we had had our way, you would not have had to suffer." Lewis comments that "The Vets were of course whipped, and they showed it as they meekly filed out," although he cattily remarks that the Right Wing veterans had been "applauded by the delegation, coming in and going out."

 

"The Future of the Socialist Party," by Thurber Lewis [July 23, 1921] Communist commentator on the Socialist Party Thurber Lewis provides a surprisingly analysis of the future path of the SPA in this article from The Toiler, a legal weekly of the Communist Party. Lewis, having recently attended the June 1921 convention of the SPA in Detroit, is well versed on the situation facing the party -- its membership down from a 100,000 to about 15,000 in just 2 years, its finances depleted to the point that organizers were being pulled in, $20,000 in debt staring the organization in the face. Lewis foresaw three possible outcomes: a Left line in which the party would endorse the Third International, cleanse itself of a major part of its remaining membership, and liquidate itself to become part of the Communist Party (which Lewis saw as an extraordinarily unlikely possibility); a Center line in which the group attempted to tread water -- condemning the Third International but refusing to form alliances with other organizations; and a Right line (pushed by the powerful Milwaukee organization) in which fusion with other like-minded political organizations would prove the order of the day. Lewis saw this move to opportunistic alliance with other "progressive" groups to be by far the most likely outcome for the SPA, as in alliance with the Farmer-Labor Party and the Non-Partisan League the Socialist Party would prove an adept partner, would regain organizational strength and prestige, and would be saved from financial oblivion. Failure to achieve this alliance in a broad Labor Party on the British model, on the other hand, would consign the SPA to the position of an irrelevant sect. Failure to form a broad alliance would, n Lewis' view, render the party "a politically lifeless organization, destined to travel much the same road as the SLP has so unwillingly yet gloriously traversed for the past years, a sterile admiration society."

 

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U P D A T E S

(fixes of broken links)

"Notification to the Socialist Party of America of Changes to the State Executive Board of the Socialist Party of Minnesota by Charles Dirba, Secretary." [Aug. 25, 1919] On Sunday, August 24, 1919, an Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party of Minnesota was held in Minneapolis at which it was decided to make the recent referendum vote recalling the State Executive Board (Regular faction) effective immediately. A new 7 member Left Wing SEB was elected including future Communist Party stalwart Clarence Hathaway. "Please take immediate notice of this," Left Wing State Secretary Charles Dirba writes.

 

"'Farewell!' to the Socialist Party: An Appeal to Its Remaining Members: Statement by the Committee for the Third International of the Socialist Party to the Members of the Socialist Party." [Circa July 1921]. The Committee for the Third International was the organized faction for Left Wing realignment of the Socialist Party of America in 1920-21, after the departure of the great bulk of the Left Wing Section for the Communist Party of America, Communist Labor Party of America, and Proletarian Party of America. Headed by Secretary J. Louis Engdahl and including such future Communist leadership cadres as William F. Kruse, Benjamin Glassberg, Alexander Trachtenberg, J.B. Salutsky, and Moissaye Olgin, the Committee for the Third International formally left the SPA with this statement, published as a pamphlet in the aftermath of the June 25-29, 1921 Convention of the party. "A new home for constructive revolutionary Socialism must be built. Another political party of the working class must be established with the passing of the Socialist Party," the farewell statement declared. In the interim, a formal organization called The Workers' Council was established -- a group which merged with the American Labor Alliance and elements of the majority underground CPA to form the Workers Party of America in December 1921.

 

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