"Letter to the Workers Party
of America from the Communist International, January 1923."
The Second Convention
of the legal Workers Party of America, held in New York in December
of 1922, formally applied for admission to the Communist International.
This reply of the CI informs the WPA that its party is admitted
only as a "sympathizing party" rather than as a fully
affiliated organization. The CI calls on the Americans to support
the workers in every strike and carefully follow their daily
life so as to better bring the proletariat into alliance with
the party "against the capitalist offensive." Trade
union work is particularly important, the Comintern advises,
stating that in the "correct application of united front
tactics" it was essential to "unite the masses over
the heads of the yellow leaders" of the trade union movement.
"Minutes of the Meeting of
the Central Executive Committee of the Workers Party of America:
New York City -- Jan. 3, 1923." On Jan. 3, 1923, the governing Central Executive
Committee of the Workers Party of America met to reorganize itself
after the recently completed 2nd Annual Convention. A new body
called the "Executive Council" was created to replace
the former "Administrative Council" as the CEC's executive
committee, "to function between the sessions of the CEC."
Eleven were elected to sit on the body: Alex Bittelman, Jim Cannon,
Bill Dunne, Marion Emerson, Louis Engdahl, Edward Lindgren, Ludwig
Lore, Theo Maki, Moissaye Olgin, C.E. Ruthenberg, and Harry Wicks.
Various new Federation Bureaus, elected by conventions of the
Federations, were approved and other personnel matters addressed.
Resolutions from locals demanding action against Jacob Salutsky
for his behavior at the December conference of the Conference
for Progressive Political Action were referred to Salutsky's
local so that disciplinary action might be begun.
"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.
"Red Raid Scribe in Nonunion
Clan: Connections is Shown Between Michigan Cases and the Labor
Movement," by Robert M. Buck [Jan. 6, 1923] The grandfather of Right Wing
ultra-politicized "history" of American radicalism
was journalist R.M. Whitney, who was granted special access to
documents seized at the August 1922 raid of the Communist Party's
convention at Bridgman, Michigan by the Department of Justice
and then used this material as background for a sensational and
sensationalized series of articles in the Boston Transcript
and a 1924 book called Reds in America. In this article
Robert Buck of the Farmer-Labor Party reveals the linkage between
the organized anti-labor movement in America and the "red
raids" of the early 1920s. Historian Whitney is revealed
as the Washington, DC director of the "American Defense
Society," a nationalistic pro-business organization which
sought to establish "Home Defense Committees" around
America to stand ready to break the strikes of " irresponsible
agitators" and to work for the elimination of "labor
reds and outlaw strikes." The ADS also provided printed
propaganda to employers for insertion into pay envelopes urging
increased productivity as a means of reducing the cost of living.
The American Defense Society "folds itself in the American
flag and makes itself out a kind of an industrial Ku Klux Klan,"
Buck declares.
"Letter to Ella Wolfe in
Mexico from Jay Lovestone in Chicago." [Jan. 8, 1923] One of many surviving letters
from Jay Lovestone to and from the beautiful wife of his factional
ally, Bert Wolfe, a man who had boldly fled the anti-Communist
repression of 1919-20 in New York for an assumed identity in
San Francisco and thence to Mexico, all without party permission.
Lovestone thanks Ella for a letter which "made me feel momentarily
at least that I was free from boring Party routine and tiresome
Party company." He proceeds to pass along a brief account
of the Dec. 1923 Workers Party convention held in New York: "For
the second time in 2 years I have finished a Convention in the
minority though coming to it as a member of the majority ruling
administration. This time as at Bridgman [Aug. 1922] I was trimmed,
I got trounced and trounced rather handily. I made a more vigorous
[effort] than I did at Bridgman, but this was due only to the
fact that the majority against my position here was much more
decisive than in Michigan." He adds: "By this time
you must think that there is nothing I enjoy more than fighting
losing battles or fighting for the sake of fighting. That is
not so at all. In my opinion there was [a] very important point
of view at stake." Lovestone continues: "On the surface
they adopted our proposals and formally voted for it in the convention.
But throughout the year and even in the debates in the convention
it was definitely established that some comrades were afflicted
with a narrow point of view towards the class conflict. The broad
political point of view of communists was narrowed in their cases
by a too strong emphasis on the importance of the Party being
in the good graces of certain progressive labor leaders... Practically
everything our side stood for was adopted. Yet we were voted
down. There was considerable enmity to Pepper. Most of the opposition
to him was petty, personal, and conceived in jealousy and reared
in infamy. "
"Organize National Council
for Protection of Foreign Born: News Release from the Workers
Party of America Press Service, Jan. 23, 1923." News release from the Workers Party Press Service
announcing the formation of a National Council for Protection
of the Foreign Born. The new organization had been "initiated"
by the Workers Party at its 2nd National Convention, held in
December of 1922, according to the press release. A "provisional
National Committee" was being established which would "likely"
include members of the Farmer-Labor Party, the Trade Union Educational
League, the Chicago Federation of Labor, the Minnesota State
Federation of Labor, and the Workers Party. In additiion, officials
in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union had expressed approval
of the project and were also anticipated to participate. After
the permanent National Council was established "a call will
be issued by that body for the organization of local councils
in every industrial center of the country," according to
a statement. The report includes a short direct quote by William
Z. Foster, stating "The proposed laws for registration,
fingerprinting, photographing, and punishment of foreign born
workers for strike activities are a blow directed at the whole
American labor movement. The bosses hope by keeping the foreign
workers unorganized through such oppressive measures to weaken
the whole organized labor movement."
"Letter to the Workers Party
of America and all its Language Federations from the Executive
Committee of the Communist International, January 25, 1923."
The ECCI salutes
the seeming unity of action coming from the WPA's Dec. 1922 Second
Convention and congratulates it for solving the question of Language
Federations in a "satisfactory way, in that it regards the
Federations merely as propaganda sections of the Party."
The 16 foreign-language sections of the WPA are unique among
the world communist movement, it is noted, and represent both
a beneficial way to communicate with the most hyper-exploited
segment of the American working class, the foreign born workers,
as well as a fetter to broad revolutionary propaganda. The immediate
task facing the party is the establishment of an English-language
daily organ, the letter states, contrasting the existence of
ten foreign-language WPA dailies with the lack of a single daily
in English. The Language Federations are directly challenged
to take up this "most urgent" task and to "demonstrate
whether the WP is a unit or not." Without an English daily
newspaper, the WPA would have no means to reach sufficiently
broad masses of American workers with its revolutionary message;
the slogan of "An English daily for the WP by November 7,
1923" -- Russian Revolution Day -- is proposed.
FEBRUARY
"Statement to the Members
of the Society for Technical Aid to Soviet Russia," by C.E.
Ruthenberg [circa Feb. 1923] The
Society for Technical Aid to Soviet Russia was established by
the Communist Party as a parallel mass organization dedicated
to fundraising to purchase tools and agricultural machinery for
Soviet Russia. The organization served as a means for emigrés
from Tsarist Russia to return to their homeland as participants
in model agricultural communes established in conjunction with
the technology being imported. In practice, these new communes
were economic failures and did little to alleviate the difficulties
of Soviet agriculture during immediate post-revolutionary period.
Furthermore, economic scandal swept the organization when some
of the top leadership of "the TA" were implicated in
economic activity for private gain as part of the business operations
of the organization. Early in 1923 the Workers Party brought
the troubled "TA" under direct party control, ousting
the members of the group's governing Central Bureau and replacing
them with a group including the top leadership of the WPA (Ruthenberg,
Pepper, Jakira) and others regarded as disciplined members of
the WPA. This news release announces the change in leadership
of the "TA," assures members of the group that it is
not to be liquidated and merged into the Friends of Soviet Russia
organization, announces changes of policy, and asks for the loyal
support of members of the organization.
"Letter No. 6 to the Executive
Committee of the Communist International in Moscow from C.E.
Ruthenberg in New York, February 6, 1923." Message from the Executive Secretary of the American
Communist Party to the CI that not only would the CPA be acting
on the instructions of the Comintern to amalgamate the underground
CPA and the "legal" Workers Party of America, but that
even prior to the CI statement "the CEC decided to take
steps to convert the Party into an open Party." Ruthenberg
states that since the 1922 Bridgman Convention, the CPA has been
working harmoniously, with the three former factional groupings
(Goose Caucus, Liquidators, Central Caucus) actively working
to advance policies that had previously been underappreciated
or even regarded as anathema. The division of the American bourgeoisie
over the question of repression of the Communist movement and
expansion of sympathy for the Communist movement among the working
class and the ability of the WPA to work more and more as an
open Communist Party had changed the situation in the country,
Ruthenberg notes. "We trust that we will be able to carry
out the reorganization of the Party without a crisis. It is possible
that a few sectarian elements will leave the Party. But we are
convinced that no organized faction will fight against the policy
of the CEC and the CI, and that we will be able to lead the Party
into the open without a split," Ruthenberg concludes.
"Letter to Vasil Kolarov
in Moscow from Edgar Owens in Chicago and C.E. Ruthenberg, Feb.
17, 1923." This is an informative
review of the status of "political" cases in the United
States, in response to a request from Moscow for information
in conjunction with the formation of a new international legal
defense organization. Owens details the activities of the National
Defense Committee for Deportees and Political Prisoners (which
he headed) and the Labor Defense Council in fighting against
the prosecutions initiated by federal and state authorities against
the radical movement. According to Owens, as a result of recent
releases on bail, only three prisoners were being held for explicitly
Communist activities: Israel Blankenstein, Joseph Martinowitz,
and Charles Spinack. Others were held in jail on political charges
which predated establishment of the Communist movement, including
J.O. Bentall and a host of IWW prisoners. Still others, including
Benjamin Gitlow, Harry Winitsky, I.E. Ferguson, C.E. Ruthenberg,
and 35 Philadelphia party members, were free on bail pending
appeals or initial legal proceedings. Owens summarizes the results
of the 1922 Bridgman prosecution as a positive for the party,
which was said to have established solid new contacts with the
progressive wing of the labor movement and to have exposed the
nature of the spycraft of private detective agencies as a result
of the trials. The new "International Relief for the Fighters
of the Revolution" organization is welcomed by Owens, who
promises close cooperation through the party's legal defense
organizations.
"Letter to Vasil Kolarov
in Moscow from C.E. Ruthenberg in New York, Feb. 17, 1923."
The early Communist International
is frequently misrepresented in the literature as a paramilitary
command-and-control system, issuing binding orders arbitrarily
deduced in Moscow to blindly obedient Communist Parties around
the world. In reality, there was a give-and-take, with information
flowing from the periphery to Moscow, which was often called
upon to provide tactical advice, to mediate disputes, and to
rectify factional schisms. This letter from Workers Party of
America Executive Secretary C.E. Ruthenberg to General Secretary
of the ECCI Vasil Kolarov is an example in which the Comintern
was used by national parties as a mediator. Ruthenberg protests
the establishment of a new Soviet relief organization, the Volunteer
Fleet, noting three relief organizations are already in existence:
the Friends of Soviet Russia, Technical Aid, and the Yidgescom.
The Workers Party was attempting to centralize these relief efforts
in the hands of the FSR, a task which Ruthenberg argued was being
needlessly complicated by the ill-considered establishment of
the Volunteer Fleet fundraising apparatus. Concrete suggestions
are made to make use of the ECCI's Ausland Committee to transmit
information on future relief campaigns to the Friends of Soviet
Russia, which was to coordinate such drives.
"Letter to Grigorii Zinoviev
in Moscow from William Z. Foster in Chicago, February 17, 1923."
A personal letter from prominent
American Communist and Trade Union Educational League founder
William Z. Foster to the head of the Communist International.
Presumably, Zinoviev directed a query to Foster soliciting his
personal opinion about the "new policy" for the American
Communist movement -- that is, the termination of the primary
underground Communist Party of America and the merging of that
organization's leadership with that of the "open" Workers
Party of America, with "underground" work a subsidiary
department of the new organization. Foster gives his ringing
endorsement to the new organizational form, stating that he was
"convinced that it fits American conditions and that a powerful
Communist movement can be built upon it." Interestingly,
Foster gives high praise to the man who would soon become his
greatest factional opponent in the American Communist movement,
Josef Pogány ["John Pepper"], stating that "The
underground apparatus, as outlined in the new policy, should
amply take care of the work which cannot be done openly. The
splendid work of Comrade Pogány has made unlikely the
prospect of any very serious split in the application of this
policy." Foster calls the establishment of an American Labor
Party "one of the first essentials in the development of
a militant labor movement, both political and industrial, in
this country." He has harsh words for the American labor
movement, deriding not only Gompers and the AF of L establishment,
but also the "so-called progressive wing" as "almost
as bad, its leaders lacking the foresight, honesty, and courage
to declare even in favor of independent working class political
action." He similarly lambastes the syndicalists of the
IWW, calling them "only a small sect" and "chronic
dual unionists" who are "detached physically and intellectually
from the organized masses." The open Party and its "industrial
department," the TUEL, are in an excellent position to achieve
its strategic objective of bringing militant American workers
into the organization, Foster believes.
"Foster Admits Bridgman Meet
Held Secretly: Radical Chieftain Declares "Power and Cash"
to Decide Issue." [Feb. 20, 1923]
Unsigned contemporary news account from the daily newspaper serving
St. Joseph/Benton Harbor/Bridgman, Michigan. This short article
quotes a Foster speech made at Grand Rapids in which he states
that "the Communist Party in January 1920 was subjected
to the heaviest persecution ever experienced by the movement
when 5,000 persons were thrown into jail after raids. Was it
going to walk into the lion's mouth like the Christians in the
arena? It now is only for the public to assume a more tolerant
attitude. Then it will come out in broad daylight with its message.
You can't kill living ideas with terrorism. If the Communist
Party can't function legally, it will function secretly."
"Letter No. 7 to the Executive
Committee of the Communist International in Moscow from C.E.
Ruthenberg in New York, February 20, 1923." Communication from the head of
the American Communist Party to the ECCI informing them that
administrative amalgamation of the underground Communist Party
of America and the legal political party, the Workers Party of
America, had taken place as per the Comintern's instructions.
Only one member of the CEC of the CPA, L.E. Katterfeld ("Carr")
had failed to agree with the CI's decision to dissolve the formal
underground apparatus, and he had accepted the decision of the
majority as a matter of party discipline. Ruthenberg also provides
a short update on the Cleveland Conference for Progressive Political
Action's failure to endorse a Labor Party, noting that instead
various state Labor Parties had been established, some of which
included the Workers Party as participants. Also includes brief
notes on the Michigan Foster case, the campaign for protection
of the foreign-born, trade union work (said to key on the struggle
in the United Mine Workers of America), and forthcoming literature.
"Call for the Third National
Convention of the Communist Party of America, February 23, 1923."
Convention call
for the 3rd and final Convention of the underground unifed CPA,
signed by that organization's Executive Secretary Abram Jakira
["J. MIller"]. The call announces that "conditions
in the country have undergone changes which call for revision
of the decision adopted at our last Convention on the question
of an Open Party." To wit, a letter from the Comintern "specifically
instructs the CEC to proceed with transforming the LPP into an
open Communist Party as soon as possible, preparing at the same
time a strong apparatus to enable the Party to meet emergency
situations and to carry on the necessary underground activities."
While the official organ is to be opened to discussion of this
matter to the party membership, the convention call definitely
implies the gathering is to provide formal ratification of a
fait accompli rather than a venue for debate and decision
of a controversial matter. Representation is to be on the basis
of one delegate for each 250 average paid members (or major fraction
thereof) for the period 11/22 to 1/23, with each district entitled
to at least one delegate. The 3rd Convention was ultimately held
in New York City on April 7, 1923, and was attended by 19 regular
delegates and a total of 35.
"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."
"Letter from Robert Minor
in New York to the Editorial Committee, WPA, February 24, 1923."
A lengthy letter from member of
the Workers Party of America Editorial Committee Robert Minor
to his colleagues bluntly critical about the failings of the
party press. Keying on the English language weekly, The Worker,
Minor cites failings of both form and content, arguing the the
massive and bold masthead of the publication makes it nearly
impossible to run "scare headlines" which catch attention.
Worse yet, Minor feels that these headlines do not illicit the
interest of readers that factual information is to be imparted,
but rather "that we are going to panhandle him for something
-- service or money." Minor likens the publication to an
amateurish advertising sheet, erroneously editorializing and
sermonizing and making false calls to action in place of the
presentation of factual news items. Minor calls for a strict
segregation of opinion to a designated section of the paper and
arguing that "the propaganda effect shall be obtained as
the New York Times gets its propaganda effect in news
articles -- by sequence and juxtaposition of fact and by analytical
treatment in the news writing, without permitting one sentence
or phrase of opinion to be printed in a news item." As an
aside, Minor indicates the desire to return to political cartooning
and asks the Editorial Committee to moot the question of excusing
him from all obligatory writing chores so that he can concentrate
once again on his craft.
MARCH
"Are the Communists Ready?"
by Max Bedacht. [March 1923] A brief summary of the development of the Communist
International by a leading American participant. "The working
class has only one rallying point in its struggle against capitalism
-- the Communist International," states Bedacht, noting
that the opponents of working class revolution have also learned
from experience "the seriousness of the claims of the proletariat
to political domination." As a result, Bedacht indicates
that the capitalists "organize a complete counter revolution
even before a complete revolution has occurred -- as in Italy."
"The Communist parties everywhere must rise to the occasion
and meet it with revolutionary strategy, which neutralizes, paralyzes
and fights the forces of the bourgeoisie, and at the same time
recruits all the forces of the working class for the final battle,"
Bedacht states.
"An Open Challenge,"
by C.E. Ruthenberg. [March 1923] At the end of February 1923, jury selection for
the first trial resulting from the August 1922 Bridgman, Michigan
raid was begun. The best-known public figure among the defendants
(regarded by the prosecution as the most threatening public enemy),
William Z. Foster, was chosen by the prosecution to first face
the jury. This article by C.E. Ruthenberg, published in the March
1923 issue of The Liberator, marks the beginning of this
trial. Ruthenberg charges that the Palmer Raids of 1919-20 had
as their goal not prosecution for crime but rather destruction
of the radical movement and that the "bugaboo of violence"
alleged of the revolutionary socialist left would be belied by
the evidence presented at the Michigan trials. "No Communist
advocates the use of violence in the class struggle in the United
States today.... No Communist has been convicted of an overt
act of violence in the United States," Ruthenberg notes.
"The Secret is Out,"
by Otto Branstetter [March 1923] This article by Socialist Party Executive Secretary
Otto Branstetter attempts to make political hay out of the Workers
Party's attempt to gain admittance in the Conference for Progressive
Political Action, ostensibly to work alongside organizations
upon which they had for years poured venom and vilification,
such as the Socialist Party, the Farmer-Labor Party, AF of L
unions, and the Committee of 48. This effort at admission to
the CPPA had been turned back by the Socialists, causing Louis
Engdahl to protest on behalf of the Workers Party. Branstetter
mockingly remarks that "the matter is now perfectly clear.
The aggregation of camouflaged communists and government agents
known as the Workers Party is revolutionary because it wants
to affiliate with the 'yellow' Socialist Party. The Socialist
Party is reactionary because it won't let them. What a shame!"
Branstetter also smirks that "Another decided difference
has been brought to light by the testimony of Ruthenberg at the
Bridgman trial. Ruthenberg quoted Lenin as saying that all talk
of armed insurrection in the United States at present is 'nonsensical.'
That settles it. The difference between a Socialist and a Communist
is that the Socialist knew this all the time and said so -- which
made him 'yellow'; the Communist didn't know it until Lenin told
him, which makes him 'red.'"
"Report on CPA District #9
[Pacific Northwest]," by "Ex-DO Gilbert" [circa
March 1923] A rare and extremely
valuable glimpse of organizational disarray in the late underground
period in the states of Washington and Oregon. "Gilbert,"
a former member of the CEC of the CPA, was dispatched to the
Pacific Northwest to serve as District Organizer for District
9 of the underground CPA. He arrived to find an organization
on the brink of oblivion: "From [July 1922] until November
when I arrived the CP did not function (except in Portland to
a limited extent). No news was received by them. No need to argue
about liquidation there, for the CP as such had already dissolved."
Party members were "bewildered," organizational records
seized, destroyed, or lost as a byproduct of the raid of the
WPA's district convention in July 1922 and the frightened aftermath.
The organization was impoverished, the membership scattered and
out of contact with each other and the center. Even party members
had a poor understanding of the program and tactics of the party.
No effort was made at recruitment, logical choices for party
membership stood outside of the organization due to the low regard
in which party officials were held. As a result "Many of
the very best fighters who made the labor movement of Seattle
famous are now doing nothing." Concrete suggestions for
"building up the CP anew" are provided -- but the task
promised to be daunting, expensive, and slow, as the underground
organization had completely collapsed.
"Statement to the Central
Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America from the
Lithuanian Bureau on the Proposed Reorganization of the Party,"
by K. Povas [circa March 1923] Communique of the Secretary of the Lithuanian
Bureau of the unified CPA to the governing Central Executive
Committee taking issue with the decision to amalgamate the underground
and legal wings of the organization. "The latest reorganization
of the proposed CEC is contrary to the decisions and spirit of
the 2nd Convention [Bridgman, MI: Aug. 17-22, 1922]; it actually
forces upon the Party such a basic reform for which the CEC has
no mandate," Povas notes. Povas adds: "The attempt
to force the Party into open existence is in full swing at a
time when the CEC itself admits that the underground organization
is still very weak. Such an experiment may result in a great
chaos among the membership and may entirely cast aside the most
important task of the hour -- the reorganization of the underground
Party and the strengthening of its forces... If in view of the
proposed reorganization we will start a discussion on the advisability
of coming into the open, then the most important campaign, the
slogan to build up the Party will be in vain; it will disappear
in the midst of a pro and con talk about liquidation." Povas
declares that "in its attempt to artificially raise the
Party to open existence, the CEC should have had at least the
majority of the Party membership solidly behind the proposed
plan. Is this so? The overwhelming rejection of the CEC's plan
by the membership almost everywhere in the presence of the representatives
of the CEC does not indicate such a condition."
"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.
"Inviting Debs to Soviet
Russia: Letter from Israel Amter in Moscow to the Presidium of
the Comintern, March 9, 1923. Despite his decision to stick with the Socialist
Party of America which he helped to found, the American Communists
continued to hold out hope that Eugene Debs would turn his back
on the SPA's increasingly conservative leadership. This letter
from the CPA's man in Moscow, Israel Amter, noted that Debs had
at last been persuaded to visit Soviet Russia to see the situation
first-hand and requested that an invitation be cabled to Debs
by the Soviet railway union, central trade union body, or government.
Amter remarks that "when Debs came from prison, he was very
angry with the Communists for their failure to do anything to
obtain his release. Undoubtedly he was right in his contention,
but the American Party not understanding proper tactics and incensed
that he did not break away" from the Socialist Party and
consequently "did not feel inclined to speak in his behalf."
A sentimental disposition, Ill-health, and his "yellow Socialist"
brother had prevented closer collaboration between the Communists
and Debs -- who instead fell victim to the "trickery"
of the SPA. Nevertheless, Debs' honesty and love for the working
class combined with "repugnance at the brutal attacks of
the Socialist press on Soviet Russia have made him at last desire
to see Soviet Russia with his own eyes and judge for himself."
"Communists Throw Challenge
In Face of Michigan Authorities: Ten of Participants in Bridgman
Convention Walk into Courtroom at St. Joseph," by C.E. Ruthenberg
[March 10, 1923] Press release
by WPA Executive Secretary C.E. Ruthenberg detailing the surrender
en mass of 10 indicted participants at the 1922 Bridgman Convention
of the Communist Party of America, a gathering infiltrated by
a government agent-provocateur and raided by state and federal
law enforcement authorities. The surrender of the ten (decided
upon by the CEC of the WPA) was not being made "because
they have any faith in the justice of the capitalist courts and
prosecuting authorities," Ruthenberg indicates, as the defendants
"have had too many experiences with these institutions showing
the willingness of judges and prosecutors to ignore their own
laws and rules in order to put Communists in prison." Rather
the matter was being put into the hands of the American working
class, Ruthenberg states. Those surrendering included: John Ballam,
Max Bedacht, Ella Reev Bloor, Jay Lovestone, Robert Minor, Edgar
Owens, Rebecca Sacharow, A. Schulenberg,Rose Pastor Stokes, and
William Weinstone. The ten were released on $1,000 bail each
and freed on their own recognizance to raise the money over the
weekend.
Berrien County Courthouse, St.
Joseph, MI. [Circa 1910 postcard] *** PDF GRAPHICS FILE (420
k.) *** This postcard depicts
the site of the sensational 1923 trials of William Z. Foster
and C.E. Ruthenberg for having allegedly violated the Michigan
"Criminal Syndicalism Law" by atttending the August
1922 convention of the Communist Party of America at Bridgman.
The card notes that the courthouse was also the residence of
the county sheriff. The old Berrien Co. Courthouse is no longer
standing, having been removed to make way for a parking lot.
"Rose Pastor Stokes Gives
Self Up: Walks Calmly into Court This Morning: Nine Others Appear
in Court with Gotham Woman, Charged with Attending Communist
Meeting at Bridgman." [March 10, 1923] Unsigned news report from the local St. Joseph,
Michigan daily newspaper detailing the sensational surprise surrender
of 10 members of the Communist Party under blanket indictment
for participation in the ill-fated August 1922 Bridgman Convention
of the Communist Party. Interesting in its depiction of "settlement
worker" and "protege and close associate of Jane Addams"
Rose Pastor Stokes as the leading figure surrendering, despite
the presence in the group of other top-level party officials,
including Ballam, Bedacht, Lovestone, and Minor. The surrender
is dismissed as a grandstand play designed to elicit sympathy
and aid the Communists' effort to spread their propaganda by
one of the prosecuting attorneys.
"Venue Change Denied Foster:
Trial Will be Started Here and Attempt Made to Get Jury."
[March 10, 1923] Unsigned news
report from the local St. Joseph, Michigan daily newspaper detailing
the last minute pre-trial jousting between defense attorney Frank
P. Walsh and O.L. Gray for the prosecution. An attempt by Walsh
to obtain a change of venue to another county in Michigan was
denied by the judge in the case, who did, however, quash three
of the four counts in the indictment against Foster, charging
him with spreading a violent doctrine. The sole remaining count
of the indictment charged that Foster met with an illegal organization,
the CPA, "created for the purpose of advocating doctrines
of criminal syndicalism."
"'Not Yet!' Frantic Cry Against
Seating Workers Party Delegates in NY Labor Party Conference,"
by J. Louis Engdahl [March 10, 1923] Participant's account of the effort of the Workers
Party of American to seat its delegates for participation in
the 2nd Conference of the American Labor Party, held March 3-4,
1923 in New York City. As was the case at the 1st Conference
of the ALP, the Workers Party found itself blocked by Credentials
Committee and the convention itself, dominated by activists in
the arch-rival Socialist Party of America. Leading the charge
on the floor of the convention against the Workers Party was
James Oneal, former member of the SPA's National Executive Committee
and one of the leaders of the anti-Left Wing party purge that
preceded the split at the 1919 Emergency National Convention.
The Workers Party sought to seat four delegates at the ALP Conference,
including Engdahl, Alexander Bittelman, Ludwig Lore, and Harry
Wicks. The WPA delegates and their program enjoyed the sympathy
of "up to 30 to 40 percent of the entire delegation,"
Engdahl notes, including delegates from trade unions, Workmen's
Circles, and "even a few of the Socialist Party delegates,
who are anxious and sincere in their desire to build up a real
United Front of the independent political forces of the workers,
no merely a 'Socialist front.'" Engdahl quotes the WPA's
nemesis Oneal as telling the assembled delegates: "The time
will come when the Workers Party will be admitted here, but that
time has not arrived yet." Includes a list of the 25 members
elected by the conference as the new Executive Committee of the
ALP -- a list heavy in members of the Socialist Party.
"The 1923 Foster Trial: The
Reports of the WPA Press Service." [March 12 to April 10,
1923] The Workers Party of Society
Press Service covered the nearly month-long trial of William
Z. Foster in St. Joseph, Michigan exhaustively, sending out reports
of each day's events to the party press. Only a fraction of this
material was ever published in the of the weekly English-language
organ, The Worker, the bulk being translated and run in
the non-English daily press of the WPA. This 21-page document
collects all 25 of these reports for the first time and provides
what now stands as the best single blow-by-blow account of the
landmark Foster "Criminal Syndicalism" case. The tone
is, of course, sympathetic to the Defense, emphasizing the lies,
distortions, and crass machinations of the Prosecution; a few
non-factual statements of the Defense are reported without being
challenged. These daily reports were authored by some of the
WPA's best journalistic talent, including C.E. Ruthenberg, Robert
Minor, Edgar Owens, Joe Carroll, Earl Browder, Clarissa Ware,
John Hearley, and Jay Lovestone.
"'Foster at Bridgman': Spolansky.
Identified by Testimony of US Operative: Defense Paves Way to
Claim Evidence 'Planted.'" [March 16, 1923] Details of the cross-examination
of Department of Justice agent Jacob Spolansky and Berrien Co.
Michigan Sheriff George Bridgman in the trial of William Z. Foster
for alleged violation of the Michigan Criminal Syndicalism Law
in association with the August 1922 convention of the Communist
Party of America at Bridgman, Michigan. Sheriff Bridgman described
the scene of the convention as "a deeply wooded ravine hidden
away from the Wolfskeel dunes, 20 miles south of St. Joseph and
on the shore of Lake Michigan," according to this report
in the St. Joseph, Michigan daily press. He also noted that Spolansky
came to him to make an arrest of convention participants on Friday,
Aug. 19, the actual raid being conducted on the morning of Tuesday,
August 22. Three federal agents were named as being part of the
arresting party, in conjunction with the sheriff's posse.
"Open Letter to John Keracher,
Executive Secretary of the Proletarian Party of America in Chicago
from C.E. Ruthenberg, Executive Secretary of the Workers Party
of America in New York, March 17, 1923." The Workers Party sought to consolidate
their growth in 1923 by incorporating the members of the Proletarian
Party of America into their ranks. The PPA (formerly based in
the Socialist Party of Michigan) is lauded by Ruthenberg as "an
earnest self-sacrificing group inspired by the determination
to help realize the goal of the Communist movement." Membership
in the Workers Party, with its "20,000 members" would
enable these individuals to "render vastly greater service"
to the Communist movement in America, Ruthenberg notes. Understanding
the PPA's fundamental belief that the current task of the Communist
movement is to educate and enlighten the working class to prepare
it for an eventually assumption of the reins of state and economy,
Ruthenberg holds up the attractive possibility that PPA members
might well play "very great" service "along the
line of assisting in carrying on the educational work within
the party." Ruthenberg asks Keracher to take the issue of
joining the WPA en masse up with the National Committee of the
Proletarian Party.
"Memo to All WPA District
Organizers from C.E. Ruthenberg on Infiltration of the Socialist
Party, March 17, 1923." A memo from Executive Secretary C.E. Ruthenberg
to all District Organizers of the Workers Party of America that
a "left wing" movement seemed to be emerging in the
Socialist Party and that "it is necessary for us to help
crystallize that left movement." The DOs are instructed
to "select some trustworthy and capable comrades who should
be instructed to make an effort to join one of their branches
in their locality. This is to be done in every city of your district
where they are strong. One or two comrades is sufficient for
every branch. The comrades must be absolutely trustworthy."
This operation is to be secret: "The entire question is
absolutely confidential and should not be made subject for discussion
among the general membership for obvious reasons," Ruthenberg
notes.
"Letter to J. Louis Engdahl,
Editor of The Worker, in New York from Eugene V. Debs
in Chicago, March 17, 1923." Short letter by Socialist Party leader Gene Debs
to his former party comrade Louis Engdahl in reply to Engdahl's
letter of March 12, 1923, apparently bringing to Debs' attention
the action of SPA delegates in blocking Workers Party participation
at the 2nd conferences of the Conference for Progressive Political
Action (Cleveland, Dec. 1922) and the American Labor Party (New
York, March 1923). In effort to explain the actions of the Socialist
delegates to those gatherings, Debs sarcastically notes that
"it may be that the Socialist Party delegates at Cleveland
and New York voted as they did in order that the delegates of
the Workers Party might not suffer humiliation and imperil their
revolutionary reputation by affiliating with 'yellow-legged renegades,'
'agents of the petite bourgeoisie,' and 'traitors to the working
class.'" He adds that "had I been a delegate of the
Socialist Party I should have voted to admit the delegates of
the Workers Party notwithstanding their organs and speakers having
screamed themselves hoarse in their denunciation of the party
I represented. This would have been my answer to their silly
screeds and their vicious calumnies." Debs expresses the
belief that WPA exclusion "will be adjusted in due course."
"Report on the United States:
Up to March 20, 1923." [Selections] by Israel Amter Extensive excerpts taken from
the lengthy digest of the news prepared for the Comintern by
Israel Amter. Includes a long section of original reportage on
the trial of William Z. Foster at St. Joseph, MI for his participation
in the August 1922 Bridgman Convention of the CPA. Also includes
information that provocateurs were being embedded by the WPA
in the Socialist Party to sow dissention in the ranks; news of
the affiliation of Scandinavian, Czechoslovak, and Romanian Federations
with the Workers Party of America; details on the Olgin court
saga in which he was hauled to court for publishing an unsigned
letter making charges against the officials of the Furriers'
Union; info on the struggle in the miners' union; and commentary
about the emergence of a fascist movement in the United States,
among other matters.
"Memo to All WPA District
Organizers on Maintenance of Underground Apparatus from C.E.
Ruthenberg, March 21, 1923." The decision to move the "seat of party authority"
from the underground to the "legal" political apparatus
did not mean an end for secret operations for the American Communist
movement. This communique from WPA Executive Secretary C.E. Ruthenberg
to the District Organizers of the party makes clear. Ruthenberg
instructs that pending the decision of the CEC on future underground
operations, "you are to see to it that safe connections
are being kept with the CEC and with the lower units, that safe
addresses are being kept and transmitted in code, that Party
names are used in written documents, etc." In addition,
Ruthenberg added, it was essential that each party functionary
maintain a substitution "who shall be supplied with all
necessary connections and information, so that he would be able
to proceed with the work without interruption in case of emergency."
"Assembling With is Foster's
Crime: Steel Strike Secretary First Person Ever Tried on Such
Trashy Accusation," by Robert M. Buck [March 24, 1923] Staunch defense of William Z.
Fosters and the Communists denied their constitutional freedom
of assembly by state and federal authorities in the August 1922
raid of the CPA's convention at Bridgman, Michigan. "William
Z. Foster is on trial in this city on a charge that has never
before been preferred against an individual in a criminal tribunal
in this or any other country, so far as legal records show. He
is charged with the 'crime' of 'assembling with,'" Buck
declares. Even the West coast workers railroaded and imprisoned
for membership in the Industrial Workers of the World were at
least accused of organizational membership -- Foster faced prison
merely for his association, Buck indicates. Adding to the unscrupulousness
of the "trashy" indictment was the sordid fact that
it was the vote of a government agent that tipped the CPA convention
to retain the party's "underground" status; thus government
action directly perpetrated the continued organizational illegality
that the government was prosecuting, a perspective emphasized
by Foster's chief counsel, prominent liberal attorney Frank P.
Walsh.
"On the Foster Trial,"
by Grigorii Zinoviev [circa March 29, 1923] With Secretary of the Trade Union Educational
League William Z. Foster embroiled in a trial for "criminal
syndicalism" over his participation in the August 1922 Convention
of the Communist Party of America at Bridgman, MI, head of the
Communist International lends his support with this article in
the press. "The record of the American labor movement is
one of persecution and attacks by the capitalist class through
the means of armed guards and detective agencies striving to
destroy the labor organizations," Zinoviev says, noting
that the charge against Foster are "old tactics employed
by the capitalists in every country whenever the workers organize
for the purpose of improving their conditions." Zinoviev
states that "America today is under the absolute dictatorship
of Wall Street.... The radical workers advocate a government
of the workers and farmers operating in the interests of the
workers and the exploited farmers, just as the capitalist government
is operating in the interests of the capitalists." Zinoviev
calls Foster "a true friend of the interests of the American
workers and farmers" and states that he "cannot understand
how a thinking worker or farmer living in America under the oppression
of billionaire capitalism hesitates to accept" the program
of the Workers Party of America.
"Judge Rules that Everything
is Admissable at the Communist Trial in Michigan," by Edgar
Owens [March 31, 1923] Brief
news article from the pages of The Worker, English language
official organ of the Workers Party of America, on the progress
of the William Z. Foster trial at St. Joseph, Michigan. Foster
was charged with violation of the Michigan state criminal syndicalism
law for his participation in the secret convention of the Communist
Party of America at Bridgman, MI during August of the previous
year. Article author Edgar Owens notes that Judge White had allowed
a questionnaire purported to have been filled out by William
Z. Foster introduced into evidence, despite Bureau of Investigation
undercover agent Francis Morrow admitting that he had been 15
feet away from Foster when he filled out the form, with about
20 people between Morrow and Foster, and that the form had been
deposited on a table along with 74 others. The judge also allowed
the introduction, over defense objections, of the program and
constitution of the Communist Party of America, two articles
from the underground official organ, the theses and statutes
of the 3rd Congress of the Comintern, and a copy of Nikolai Bukharin's
The ABC of Communism.
"Foster's Fate is in Balance:
US Agents Keep Reporters Hootched Up and Have Free Access to
Jury," by Robert M. Buck [March 31, 1923] A new accusation is made against
the behavior of the Department of Justice and its lackeys in
this article from the pages of the offical organ of the Farmer-Labor
Party of the United States: that reporters had been plied with
booze and entertained by prosecuting authorities seeking favorable
coverage in the press. "Dicks of the United States Department
of Justice and others associated with the prosecution keep the
newspaper reporters liberally liquored up with hootch and wine
and nightly parties are held to insure that the reporters will
be as enthusiastic in their thirst for the blood of the defendants
as are the Department of Justice spies themselves," Buck
declares. "The attentions of the stool pigeons, showered
upon reporters, show results in the sending out of stories of
things that did not happen in court, and otherwise unfair to
the defense," Buck adds, singling out in particular the
Chicago Tribune for its slanted coverage.
APRIL
"The Trial of William Z.
Foster," by Robert Minor. [April 1923] Labor cartoonist and Communist
Party leader Robert Minor writes here about the start of the
William Z. Foster trial. Foster was charged in conjunction with
the 1922 raid of the CPA's Bridgman, Michigan Convention with
"unlawful assemblage" under the state's Criminal Syndicalism
Law, for which he could have been imprisoned for up to ten years.
Particular attention is paid to the seating of the jury and efforts
of the government -- in conjunction with the Burns Detective
Agency -- to sway public opinion in the case. Minor states that
"the prosecution of Foster is a bald attempt of the Harding
Administration to mold the American labor movement in its own
image. Before the jury was completed the prosecution had definitely
outlined its purpose to eliminate the Trade Union Educational
League from the American Federation of Labor, the imprisonment
of Foster being one of the intended means."
"Michigan Trial Shows Fidelity
to Truest Interests of Workers, Arouses Bitter Enmity of Capitalism,"
by Rose Pastor Stokes [April 7, 1923] First-hand account of the Michigan trial of William
Z. Foster by Workers Party members Rose Pastor Stokes, herself
a delegate to the ill-fated August 1922 Bridgman Convention of
the CPA. Stokes provides bits of local flavor, including an account
of the detectives gathering for lunch daily at the Lake View
Hotel in St. Joseph, across the street from the Whitcomb, where
the defense gathered -- the better to keep an eye on the intermingling
of sympathizers with the "terrible Reds." None of the
Bureau of Investigation detectives on the stand did a particularly
effective job, Stokes states, saying that Chicago-based agent
Jacob Spolansky was "not believed" by the jury and
that "hardly a question he answered was credited."
Star prosecution witness Felix Morrow is accused of having told
tall tales about handling a key document inadvertently dropped
by Alfred Wagenknecht ("Duffy") which enabled him to
in a single blow identify to the court the participation of 74
individuals at the convention. Morrow is quoted as saying of
the laundry list of participants, "I remember every one
of them except two who weren't there, and those two are Cook
[Jim Cannon] and Raphael [Alex Bittelman]." Stokes writes
of Morrow that and then he named names, "Christian names,
surnames, and party names, until you are certain that the "Stool"
has studied daily and nightly since the raids, and not unaided,
to acquire his extraordinary knowledge. Even those who weren't
there he has named....Thus 76 men get 'identified' at one whack."
This testimony was nothing more than "lying," Stokes
notes.
"Foster Case in Hands of
Jury: Verdict is Momentarily Expected; Only Defendant and Ruthenberg
Testify," by Robert M. Buck [April 7, 1923] On April 4, 1923, the case of
William Z. Foster for alleged violation of the Michigan state
criminal syndicalism law went to the jury in St. Joseph, Michigan.
Buck contrasts the "childish brain" and "juvenile
bunk" spouted by one of the prosecuting attorneys in his
closing arguments and the far-fetched accusation by another that
Foster had been fomenting armed insurrection at Bridgman with
the "quiet, logical defense" made by Humphrey Gray
and the "impassioned plea" of lead attorney Frank P.
Walsh, which "held the crowded courtroom spellbound, interesting
even the newspaper reporters." Buck quotes a couple choice
epigrams from Walsh, including, "There is more menace to
you and to me in the mahogany desks in one building in Wall Street
than there is in the 45 men who voted at the Bridgman convention"
and "It is a very poor American indeed, one without faith
in the institutions of his country or in the quality of his countrymen,
who sees a menace in communism."
"Capitalism's Howling Jackals
Are Heralds of the New Day," by J. Louis Engdahl [April
7, 1923] New York
weekly Worker editor Louis Engdahl unleashes a torrent
of vituperation against the multipronged anti-Communist offensive
which erupted concurrently with the Foster trial in Michigan.
Engdahl hammers Sec. of State Hughes and Sec. of Commerce Hoover
for their "broadside of old falsehoods" against Soviet
Russia. Journalist and American Defense Society functionary R.M.
Whitney, author of a series of articles in the Boston Evening
Transcript based upon seized documents from the Bridgman
raid, is attacked for heading an amalgam of "100 Percent
Plus" organizations which were engaged in an offensive against
"such friends of Soviet Russia" as Paxten Hibben, Charles
Recht, and Anna Louise Strong. The Socialist Party is attacked
for "trailing with the same crowd," a reference to
the SP's ongoing effort along with others in the international
Socialist movement to win release of the members of the Socialist
Revolutionary Party imprisoned in Soviet Russia in 1922. Former
SP publicist William Walling is singled out for his ongoing diatribes
against Soviet Russia in the pages of The American Federationist.
All of these disparate critics of Soviet Russia and the Workers
Party of America are likened to a pack of cowardly jackals, hunting
in a group and attempting with their howls to keep out of the
newspapers "any small particle of Communist truth that might
drift into them from the Michigan courtroom."
"Open Letter to the Members
and the CEC of the Proletarian Party of America from O.W. Kuusinen,
Secretary-General of ECCI, April 7, 1923." In the spring of 1923, the Workers
Party of America put on a full court press attempting to win
over the members of the Proletarian Party of America to its ranks.
This letter by the Secretary-General of the Executive Committee
of the Communist International makes the appeal in no uncertain
terms: "The whole Proletarian Party must join the Workers
Party of America. All who accept the leadership of the Communist
International must be inside the ranks. The Proletarian Party
as the last detached organized remnant today asserting communist
principles and adhering to the ideas of the Communist International
must no longer delay in becoming part of the unified revolutionary
working class movement of America." The PPA is lauded for
its "valuable educational work in Marxism" through
the conducting of study classes, lectures, and street meetings.
At the same time, it is held that the PPA "overestimated
the value of purely educational activity," which to be effective
must be applied through participation in the mass revolutionary
movement. "The party organizing the workers must have as
its tactic the getting of larger and larger masses into action
until ultimately the big mass of workers will be prepared for
the final struggle for power," Kuusinen states. Kuusinen
calls the isolation of the small Proletarian Party "tragic"
and urges the members of the PPA to "join the Workers Party,
to accept the program, constitution, and decisions adopted by
the last convention of the party, and help to develop it into
the revolutionary mass party of the American working class."
"C.E. Ruthenberg in New York
to the Executive Committee of the Communist International in
Moscow on the Dissolution of the Communist Party of America,
April 11, 1923." Official
notification by the Secretary of the Workers Party of America
that the Third National Convention of the Communist Party of
America [April 7, 1923] had adopted a decision "to dissolve
the underground party, leaving the Workers Party of America as
the only Party having relations with the Comintern." Ruthenberg
states while at present the name of the Workers Party and formal
status of its affiliation with the Comintern as a "fraternal
party" needed to remain unchanged, nevertheless the new
unitary body should be accorded full rights of a member party
of the Communist movement -- the right of its members to transfer
into membership of other member parties, including the Russian
Communist Party, and full voice and vote for its delegates to
Congresses and other sessions of the Communist International.
"Official Notification of
Dissolution from the Communist Party of America to the Workers
Party of America, April 11, 1923."
Pro forma letter by C.E. Ruthenberg to himself announcing the
unanimous decision of the Communist Party of America by that
organization's Third National Convention to dissolve the organization.
The letter states that henceforth, any organization calling itself
"Communist" is actually "an impostor and an enemy
of the Communist International" which "should be exposed
as such by every Communist and every class conscious worker."
Communists are called upon to accept the discipline of the Workers
Party of America as "a sacred duty" and that organization
was duly authorized "when it deems it desirable, to adopt
the name 'Communist Party of America.'" The Third Convention
of the CPA was a one day affair held on Saturday, April 7, 1923;
this letter and a similar letter to the Communist International
written in the name of the CPA on the following Wednesday may
be regarded as the moment of formal termination.
"Report on the American Party
Situation to the Enlarged Executive Committee of the Communist
International, April 11, 1923." This
is an official report by the "Secretariat" of the Workers
Party of America (C.E. Ruthenberg - Executive Secretary; Josef
Pogány - Political Secretary; Abraham Jakira - Secretary
for Confidential Work) to the Enlarged ECCI summarizing the American
party's work. A monthly dues-paying membership of "approximately
18,000" is claimed. The three old factions ("Liquidators,"
"Goose Caucus" and the "Opposition" [Central
Caucus faction] are declared eliminated. Instead, three "tendencies"
are said to now exist in the party -- a small "right"
group opposed to underground organization, a small "left"
group which considers underground operations the most important
aspect of the party, and "the great majority" of party
members who support the primacy of the open party. Details are
provided about the Labor Defense Committee, the campaign to protect
Foreign-born workers, the amalgamation campaign in the trade
unions, the anti-Fascist campaign intitated by the WPA's Itallian
section, and the ongoing drive to establish an American labor
party. The costs of legal defense of the Bridgman defendants
are held to be oneroous: "We have been obliged to put all
our energy into the work of raising money for the defense of
the comrades arrested at Bridgman, for which tens of thousands
of dollars have been needed. This has made it impossible for
us to raise money for other party purposes and has left us in
a very difficult financial situation. The needs of defense will
require all the money we can raise for a considerable time to
come."
"American Legion Has Another
Brainstorm: Break Up Labor Defense Council Meeting in Kansas
City Thus Preventing Another Revolution." (Miami Valley
Socialist) [report of April 13, 1923] Brief journalistic account of unconstitutional
action engaged in by the ultra-nationalist ex-soldiers' organization,
the American Legion. A peaceful public meeting in Kansas City
of the Communist Party's legal defense organization, the Labor
Defense Council, was raided by the unholy alliance of American
Legionnaires and local police. "According to reports appearing
in the Kansas City daily press the raid was made on information
given by the local American Legion Secret Service," it is
noted, with this news report adding sarcastically that "it
was not explained why it was necessary for any undercover sleuths
to 'discover' the meeting, which was given all the publicity
and advertising that the local Labor Defense Council could secure."
Four local trade unionists were arrested at the meeting. "Ella
Reeve Bloor, who was the speaker at the meeting, was not molested.
She announced as the crowd was being chased out of the hall by
the dicks and Legion that a mass meeting would be held on Sunday,
April 15 [1923], and the authority of the police and the power
of the Legion to stop peaceful assemblages will be tested."
"William Z. Foster -- Revolutionary
Leader," by John Pepper [April 14, 1923] Given the two fought a factional
war to the knife for most of the rest of the 1920s, there is
a certain element of irony in this Worker article by John
Pepper holding that William Z. Foster was a living composite
of the "splendid, typical characteristics of the American
workers." Pepper gushes about Foster in the waning hours
of his trial in St. Joseph, Michigan, calling him "at once
blood of the blood, flesh of the flesh, of the working masses
-- a worker himself, a leader of the masses, a trade unionist,
a revolutionist, a Marxian, and a Communist." Pepper escapes
the charge of hagiography by listing a set of Foster's "mistakes,"
including misestimation of revolutionary tactics as a member
of the Socialist Party, failure to appreciate the importance
of political action and the role of the vanguard party as a member
of the IWW, and a failure to recognize the importance of the
"revolutionary minority" as an organizer in the AF
of L. Pepper adds that "these mistakes were never his own
individual errors but always in quest of possible steps of advance
for the American workers. Foster himself has always been honest
and militant.... In every movement in which he participated Foster
picked up all that was good and worthwhile and left behind what
was harmful and worthless." Pepper concludes that "the
American revolutionary will, after St. Joseph, know that Foster
is their leader."
"Foster Verdict a Triumph
for Communism in the United States," by C.E. Ruthenberg
[April 21, 1923] Executive
Secretary of the Workers Party C.E. Ruthenberg hails the hung
jury at the end of the lengthy trial of William Z. Foster for
alleged violation of the Michigan Criminal Syndicalism Law at
St. Joseph as "a great victory for Communism in the United
States." Particularly important, in Ruthenberg's view, was
the judge's instruction that simple advocacy of Communist principles
that historical change had been closely interlinked with resort
to violence was not enough; rather, the prosecution needed to
show that the Communist Party "taught and advocated crime,
sabotage, violence, and terrorism as the method or one of the
methods of accomplishing the changes in the organization of society
desired by the Communists." Ruthenberg remarks that "Under
these instructions it is surprising that there should have been
any struggle in the jury room and that a disagreement was the
final result, for these instructions fully uphold the Communist
right to do everything which they have done in the state of Michigan
or elsewhere in the United States." The thinking of the
jury is revealed by jury member Russel Durm, who is quoted as
saying: "The prosecution didn't prove that the Communist
Party advocated violence.That was the only thing we split on.
We all agreed that Foster attended the Bridgman convention, knowing
what was going on there and sympathizing with the movement."
"NY Call in Conspiracy
Against Russia; Also in War on American Communists; NY Socialists
Hold Underground Meeting," by H.M. Wicks [April 21, 1923]
**CHANGE OF ATTRIBUTION,
FROM ENGDAHL TO WICKS BASED ON STYLE** During the winter of 1922-23 and the spring of
1923, the Workers Party and the Socialist Party simultaneously
engaged in an escalation of rhetoric, making permanent a rift
in the ranks of the American Left that would last for decades.
Aspects of this "Divided Front" included the ongoing
effort of the Socialist Party to exclude and isolate the Workers
Party from the Conference for Progressive Political Action (Dec.
11-12, 1922) and from the American Labor Party (March 3-4, 1923)
and a covert operation of the WPA to infiltrate its members in
the SPA down to the branch level (per March 17, 1923 memo by
Ruthenberg). As was the case during the 1919 Socialist Party
internal war, the SP daily New York Call was dragged from
a position of relative neutrality in the internecine scuffle
into the position of being an instrument of factional warfare
on behalf of the SP Regulars. This article from the WPA weekly
organ, The Worker, reports (on the basis of unnamed sources
providing "absolutely trustworthy and authentic information")
a "secret meeting" held on the evening of Thursday,
March 23, 1923. At this meeting, said to include representatives
of the Call Managing Board, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers,
the Jewish Daily Forward, and the Rand School -- Call
Editor David Karsner was said to have been subjected to serious
criticism for pulling punches in the factional war and for soft-pedaling
defects in the political practice of Soviet Russia. A resolution
was unanimously adopted, according to the Worker exposé,
which launched a systematic attack on the Communists and their
efforts at "boring from within" in the labor movement,
and directing Karsner to ignore Soviet Russia as much as possible.
The Worker article cites New York Call content
from the issues of April 3, 4, 6, and 7, indicating that this
direction to Editor Karsner was put into practice. The Call
was thus engaged in a "campaign of slander against the
Communists and the Russian Revolution" and was further taking
positions at odds with those of SP leader Gene Debs, who supported
the Russian Revolution, the constitutional rights of the Michigan
trial defendants, and the work of the Trade Union Educational
League, the Worker article charged.
"An Open Letter to David
Karsner," by J. Louis Engdahl [April 21, 1923] Engdahl, a former leading editor
of the official publications of the Socialist Party (now editor
of the Workers Party's English weekly), writes this open letter
to David Karsner, managing editor of the New York Call,
making an effective personal appeal to Karsner's philosophy of
intellectual liberty on behalf of the Workmen's Circle Mandolin
Orchestra and Jewish comedian Ludwig Salz, both threatened with
repressive measures if they performed at organized gatherings
on behalf of the Workers Party or its institutions. Engdahl intimates
that The Call, financially supported by the vociferously
anti-Communist Jewish Daily Forward and the anti-Communist
leadership of the Workmen's Circle, was complicit in the heavy-handed
efforts to deprive these Jewish artists of their freedom of action,
impinging upon the development of working class culture. "I
was just wondering how you felt in the atmosphere created by
those who fear for the existence of their own little dictatorship
so much that they must needs resort to such diabolical suppression,"
Engdahl asks of Karsner.
"Ruthenberg Second Michigan
Defendant: Prosecution Jolted When First Juror Called Voices
Opposition to Criminal Syndicalism Law," by Joe Carroll
[April 27, 1923] Federated
Press news account of the first day of the C.E. Ruthenberg trial
for alleged violation of the Michigan Criminal Syndicalism law
for participation in the August 1922 Convention of the Communist
Party of America at Bridgman, MI. "The veniremen questioned
seemed to be either overanxious to get on the jury, or else equally
overanxious to avoid such service," reporter Carroll notes.
Interestingly, the prosecution listed the name of Louis Loeber
among the potential witnesses in the trial, an individual who
was believed by Carroll to be a second undercover government
agent attending the Bridgman Convention as a delegate. Two veniremen
had passed muster and been named to the jury after the first
day of questioning; there were no women in the venire of 30 for
the Ruthenberg trial.
"Cahan Dictator of The
Call as Karsner, Editor, Resigns; More Light on Anti-Soviet
Plot," by J. Louis Engdahl [April 28, 1923] The sudden resignation of New
York Call editor David Karsner "confirmed" the
reporting of The Worker on a change of political line
at the New York Call, states this follow-up article by
Worker editor Louis Engdahl. In reality, rather than regurgitating
the melodramatic tale told April 21 of a "secret meeting"
of New York's leading "yellow Socialists," this report
retells the complete tale with more nuance, due in no small measure
to the cooperation of "the best sources in the New York
Call office" -- meaning, it would seem from the content
here, Karsner himself. The revised and enlarged saga is as follows:
a dire financial situation in the call necessitated a March 29,
1923, meeting of the Board of Directors of the New York daily
(previously described as the "secret meeting"). It
was determined to bring the paper closer to the (anti-Communist)
political line of the prosperous Jewish Daily Forward
in hopes of winning temporary financial support from that quarter.
A resolution introduced by Algernon Lee bound editor Karsner
to follow this line. A committee of 3, including staunch Red-fighter
James Oneal, was appointed to ensure Karsner's obedience to this
directive. Material critical of the Workers Party defendants
in Michigan had been published before the Foster jury had arrived
at a verdict at Oneal's direction, over the objections of Karsner.
A piece of anti-Soviet reportage from the New York Herald
had been directed to editor Karsner from the Call's city desk,
and Karsner had run it on his own authority, attempting to follow
the new line established for the publication. A firestorm of
reader anger had resulted, and at the regularly scheduled April
6 meeting of the Call's Board of Directors, Karsner had
been subjected to harsh criticism for his failure in judgment.
"In the quarrel which ensued, Karsner gave his resignation
as editor, to become effective a few days later," Engdahl
states. The Board wrote an apologetic retraction of the story
which had first appeared in the Herald and ordered its
publication in the Sunday and Monday editions of the paper. The
retraction had run in the Sunday edition, but Abraham Cahan of
the Jewish Daily Forward raised an objection to the retraction
and the Board had retreated, scrapping plans to run the apology
again in the Monday edition. Engdahl concludes that "The
reactionary "Abe" Cahan and the yellow Socialist Forward
dictates the policy of The Call. It is a policy of war
against Soviet Russia and the Communists. In this war the Socialists
gladly ally themselves with the capitalist agents. It is the
duty of all workers to boycott these prostituted sheets."
"Problems of the Party (I):
Limits of the United Front," by John Pepper [April 28, 1923]
Workers Party
leader John Pepper begins a series of articles on "Problems
of the Party" with a discussion of United Front tactics,
spotlighting the broad-based United Front against Fascism built
by the Italian section of the WPA. Absent from Pepper's analysis
are mechanical and dogmatic formulae about "United Front
From Above" vs. "United Front From Below." Instead,
Pepper states that only those who loose any notion of their party
while conducting joint actions with a broader Left are mistaken;
In his words: "We become bad Communists when we forget our
own Party within the United Front." Pepper states that "We
cannot allow a so-called Left group to stand outside of the United
Front -- not even if this group is not a real Left group, but
one that is confused, unorganized, and at times even hostile."
On the other hand, "it is impossible to forget the hatred
against the yellow leaders at the moment when the Socialist Party
makes a formal conspiracy in an underground meeting against Soviet
Russia, and against Communists in general," he states. "We
should form the United Front with every workers' organization,
and when it is necessary, even with yellow Socialist leaders,
with confused Anarchists. But we should not forget for a moment
our distrust and hatred for these misleaders." Of particular
interest is the primacy that Pepper places on the anti-Fascist
struggle of the Italian Federation, a broad United Front which
he calls for expansion to German, Polish, Jewish, Hungarian,
Czechoslovak, and other language groups inside the party. Pepper
also indicates the anti-Fascist struggle is being expanded on
an international basis under the chairmanship of Clara Zetkin.
"The Workers Party and May
Day," by C.E. Ruthenberg. [April 28, 1923] A short May Day message from The Worker in
which the head of the Workers Party of America contrasts the
current situation with the grim days of 1920, when outcast American
Communists, "despised and ignored," were "driven
underground, their organization destroyed." By way of contrast,
the party was in 1923 "on the road to becoming that powerful
influence in the labor movement" in providing "leadership
and direction in the struggle against capitalism." It was
the successful launch of the legal WPA that was responsible for
this change of fortunes, this article implies.
"Circular Letter to the CEC
of the WPA from Otto Kuusinen for the Secretariat of the Communist
International, April 30, 1923." Perhaps moved in part by the howling of Shachno
Epstein to the Communist Party of America for their denial of
his purported status as a Comintern emissary, at the end of April
1923, Otto Kuusinen dispatched this circular letter to the member
parties of the Comintern noting that ECCI "very rarely attempts
to influence directly the tactical measures adopted by the Sections
of the Communist International. When it does, however, it gives
its representatives a direct mandate. No comrade, however closely
and intimately he stands in contact with the Executive of the
Communist International, who cannot produce such a mandate, is
authorized to act as the representative or delegate of the Comintern
or the Russian Party, or to attempt to influence the labors and
discussions of the conferences of any section of the Communist
International." The exact wording of the credentials provided
to Comintern Representatives are to be closely examined as containing
the essence of the organizational mandate, Kuusinen states.
MAY
"The American Foreign-Born
Workers," by Clarissa S. Ware [Circa May 1923] Full text of a pamphlet published early in 1923
by the Workers Party of America. Clarissa Ware worked in the
WPA's Research Department; this is her only publication as she
died later in 1923. The pamphlet details the demographic composition
of the American working class, measures being implemented and
contemplated by the capitalist regime against foreign-born workers
in America, and announcing the formation of a new mass organization
called the "Council for Protection of the Foreign-Born Workers,"
dedicated to organize the nearly 35% of first- or second-generation
Americans and their allies in the labor, labor political, and
benefit society movements against the legislative offensive against
the foreign-born. A National Committee of the Council for Protection
of Foreign-Born Workers containing representatives of national
organizations is called for, as well as the formation of Local
Councils established on the same basis. The work of this new
organization was to be financed through "voluntary contributions
from the affiliated organizations," according to the pamphlet.
"All the American Workers -- native and foreign-born --
have but one enemy -- the capitalist class that exploits and
oppresses them," Ware states, noting that "the executive
committee of the capitalist class, the Government" was active
in evicting striking foreign-born miners, suppressing the labor
movement via the injunction, and sending armed troops against
striking foreign textile, mine, and steel workers. "Let
there me one mighty army of labor! The United Front of the Workers
against the United Front of the Capitalists! One front against
the one enemy -- the employinbg class that robs and oppresses
all the workers!" the pamphlet concludes.
"The Fifth Year of the Russian
Revolution: A Report of a Lecture," by James P. Cannon [Circa
May 1923] Full
text of a pamphlet published by the Workers Party of America
in 1922 by party leader Jim Cannon, detailing a 7 month stay
in Soviet Russia dating from June 1, 1922. Cannon notes that
Soviet Russia was well on the way recovering from Civil War --
the famine had ended, White armies had been defeated, production
was being steadily restored, buildings were being renovated,
and the Soviet government was supported by the Russian workng
class. Commentary is also provided on the Show Trial of the Socialist
Revolutionary Party leaders then taking place. Cannon attended
the first day of the trial and he unhesitatingly recalls here:
"It was a fair trial -- nothing like it ever occurred in
America. The defendants were allowed to talk as freely and as
much as they pleased. There was no restriction whatever on their
liberty to speak in their own defence. The trouble with them
was that they had no defence. The Soviet government had the goods
on them. A number of the prisoners had repented of their crimes
against the revolution, and they testified for the Soviet government.
The case was clear. These leaders of the SR Party, defeated in
the political struggle with the Communist Party, resorted to
a campaign of terror and assassination. They murdered Uritsky
and Volodarsky. They dynamited the building which housed the
Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party and killed 14
people. They had Trotsky and Zinoviev marked for assassination.
It was an SR bullet that brought Lenin down and from which he
still suffers today. They went even further than that. They went
to the point that all the opponents of the Soviet system go in
the end. They collaborated with the White Guards and they took
money from the French government to do its dirty work in Russia.
All this was clearly proven in the trial; most of it out of the
mouths of men who had taken active part in the campaign."
This pamphlet was originally to be called Russia To-day, 1923!
"On Trial in Michigan,"
by William Z. Foster. [May 1923] On April 4, 1923, after 31 hours of deliberation
and 36 ballots, the jury in the William Z. Foster case resulting
from the Aug. 1922 Bridgman Raid was declared deadlocked 6-6
and dismissed, resulting in a mistrial. This is Foster's interesting
personal account of the trial, written in the immediate aftermath
of the proceeding and published in the pages of the monthly TUEL
journal, The Labor Herald. Foster noted that his case
had been rightfully made into a test of Free Speech rights and
that the mistrial represented a major defeat to the forces behind
the case: the federal Department of Justice and the Burns Detective
Agency. Foster asserts that government agent Francis Morrow was
a provocateur who voted repeatedly for maintenance of the underground
party at the Bridgman convention and who lied repeatedly on the
stand in an effort to bolster the government's case for conviction.
"Michigan in the Muck,"
by Eugene V. Debs. [May 1923] Article on the heated legal battle in Michigan
over the August 1922 raid of the Communist Party of America's
Bridgman, Michigan convention published in the pages of The
Liberator. Debs, the most widely recognized member of the
Socialist Party's National Executive Committee, unleashes a barrage
on the "idiotic and criminal 'criminal syndicalist' law
enacted by political crooks to seal the lips of industrial slaves"
in Michigan. Debs charges that "The communists had as good
a right to hold a convention in the state of Michigan and to
discuss their affairs and formulate their program, any kind of
a program that stopped short of the actual commission of crime
penalized under the law, as the graft-infested Republican and
Democratic parties have to hold such a convention." The
Michigan prosecutions were nothing but a "foul assault upon
the Constitution and upon the elemental rights of citizenship,"
according to Debs.
"Party United Front Policy
is Approved," by C.E. Ruthenberg [WPA Executive Council
actions of May 7-8, 1923] Published
summary of the actions of the 11 member Executive Council at
its May 7-8 meeting. The Executive Council was a smaller group
elected by the unwieldy 25 member CEC to conduct the business
of the CEC between its plenary meetings. Ruthenberg indicates
that the body decided the following: (1) to approve the United
Front policy and instruct the Political Committee to launch an
educational program on the limits of this policy; (2) to instruct
the Organization Committee to work out a plan for party reorganization
with more and smaller districts, and new units based in the workplace;
(3) favoring the moving of WPA headquarters to Chicago, when
practicable; (4) to accept the resignation of M.J. Olgin as editor
of the Freiheit, and replacing him in that position with
Benjamin Gitlow. The question of merging the two English language
weeklies, The Worker (New York) and The Voice of Labor
(Chicago) was also discussed, with this decision to be linked
to plans for an English language daily. Final decision was delayed
on this matter as was fundraising for a daily, due to demands
on party funds to cover legal expenses.
"The United Front,"
by Upton Sinclair [May 12, 1923] Invited by editor Louis Engdahl of The Worker
to provide his views on whether the Workers Party should be admitted
to the newly organized Labor Parties around the nation, author
Upton Sinclair says yes and then unleashes a torrent upon the
sectarians who dominated both the Workers Party and Socialist
Party. He states: "I believe in the 'United Front'; I have
always practiced it, to the best of my humble ability, making
it the motto of my life to keep my guns trained on the enemies
of the working class, and to exclude personalities from my criticisms
of working class tactics and activities. I regard it as the great
tragedy of our time that so many leaders and would-be leaders
of the working class can find nothing better to do with their
time and energies than to fight one another. I quite understand
that it is necessary to disagree about tactics, and where the
life and future of the working class are at stake it is inevitable
that men should differ vehemently. But they can do it without
becoming personal enemies, and without splitting up their organizations
and playing into the hands of the enemies of the working class.
If they cannot learn to do it, they should be deposed as leaders,
and other men should be put in positions of authority who can
and will do it." Sinclair indicates that the Trade Union
Educational League was correct in its estimation that the best
policy was to "bore within" the existing mass organizations
of labor to make them more radical and asks: "We had a working
class organization, the Socialist Party, and it was not satisfactory
to some of its members. If so, why was it not wise tactics to
bore from within that party -- to stay in it and fight to make
it more radical?"
"Problems of the Party (II):
A Discussion with Upton Sinclair About the United Front,"
by John Pepper [May 12, 1923] Reply by Workers Party leader John Pepper to Upton
Sinclair's call for a political amalgamation of the Workers Party
with the Socialist Party. Pepper argues that a United Front of
workers is possible due to the limited program of the unions
-- for more wages, fewer hours, and against incursions of the
ruling class against the foreign-born workers, etc. Political
parties, on the other hand, had large programs based on fundamental
conceptions of tactics. The Communists and the Socialists differed
on a whole array of ideological and tactical matters. Pepper
states that Communists believed (1) that Capitalism was in a
period of irreversible decay; (2) that imperialism was inherent
in the system, not an accident; (3) that advantage must be taken
of the "present world-crisis of Capitalism" by the
radical movement and a "dictatorship of the proletariat"
establishes so that capitalists could be eliminated; (4) that
never in history had a ruling class surrendered its privilege
without the resort to force; (5) that the revolutionaries must
destroy the existing form of government and replace it with a
new form, the Soviets; (6) that trade unions should be militant
in purpose and that old conservative leaders must be cast aside.
"Communists and Socialists -- fire and water, revolution
and reform, struggle and betrayal. How can Upton Sinclair for
a moment imagine that these two elements can live in the same
organization?" Pepper asks. Pepper also upbraids Sinclair
for his contention that the 1919 split was caused by the Left
Wing; rather, "the split in the United States was made by
the same Hillquits and Victor Bergers who today sabotage amalgamation
and the Labor Party." Sinclair's published work is saluted,
but he is held to be possessed of "unclear" ideas --
concepts which are either in accord with the Workers Party in
contradiction to the Socialist Party or which, Pepper says, not
only stand in opposition to every Marxist analysis, but also
contradict the facts.
"For a Labor Party: Addenda
to the Second Edition, May 15, 1923," by John Pepper.
