Update 13-31: Sunday, Dec. 22, 2013.
"Letter to 'Dr. Ball,' from John Reed in New York City, January 6, 1919." Previously unpublished letter between war correspondent and future Communist Labor Party leader John Reed and a Socialist correspondent. Reed defers in providing answers specific questions, instead pointing his correspondent to articles on the Russian revolution published in The Liberator in 1918. Apparently the idea for the tome Ten Days That Shook the World (1919) was not formed at this date, as Reed writes "I am very sorry that I cannot help you more, but if I answered your questions I should have to write a book, and I haven’t the time." Reed notes that the Communists "are Marxians -- as a matter of fact, they call themselves the only real Marxists. They believe in proletarian revolt followed by a dictatorship of the proletariat and the forcible expropriation and socialization of private property." Reed takes pleasure in the "latest news from Russia" that the Bolsheviks were "whipping hell out of the Allies."
(Proposed Draft) Program: Fighting Methods and Organization Forms of the Unemployed Councils: A Manual for Hunger Fighters. [1932] Full text of an ultra-rare mimeographed pamphlet by the National Committee of the Unemployed Councils of the USA, not listed in WorldCat. The document details the program and structure of the Unemployed Councils, a mass organization launched and controlled by the Communist Party USA. The Unemployed Councils were not to be a dues based membership organization, but rather were to be open to all workers accepting the group's program, without regard to race, gender, political affiliation, or employment status. No mention is made of organization on the basis of language groups. Funds were to come from the sale of "Registered Supporter" cards, costing 5 cents for 3 months, plus voluntary weekly or monthly donations receipted with "Fighting Fund Stamps." Social events, picnics, lectures, and other occasional fundraisers were to help supplant this income stream. The primary unit of the organization was to be the "Unemployed Committee" consisting of 3 to 15 members, generally elected on the basis of geography rather than shop or industry. These Unemployed Committees in turn elected from 1 to 3 of their members to delegated bodies called Unemployed Councils. These Unemployed Councils in turn were to elect representatives to a City Council in metropolitan areas with a sufficient number of these groups. Committees and Councils were instructed to form 8 member "Self Defense Groups" which would "operate in an organized manner to defend headquarters, meetings, demonstrations, and delegations against violent attacks by hoodlums and police." The radical "immediate demands" of the committees seems to have been generated on the initiative of their local membership; the delegated councils seem to have had more centralized direction, "[guiding] the movement in line with the general program and aims."
