"Stalin's Speeches on the
American Communist Party," by I. Stalin. Full text of a pamphlet published by the CPUSA
early in 1931, containing three of Stalin's speeches on the American
factional situation, delivered before the Presidium of the Executive
Committee of the Communist International. Stalin is harshly critical
of the lack of discipline and unprincipled factionalism of both
of the Lovestone majority faction and the Foster-Bittelman minority
faction. CPUSA Executive Secretary Jay Lovestone drew particularly
heavy fire, with Stalin noting that "In factional scandalmongering,
in factional intrigue, Comrade Lovestone is indisputably an adroit
and talented factional wirepuller. No one can deny him that.
But factional leadership must not be confused with Party leadership.
A Party leader is one thing, a factional leader is something
quite different. Not every factional leader has the gift of being
a Party leader. I doubt very much that at this stage Comrade
Lovestone can be a Party leader." As part of Stalin's proposed
solution, Lovestone and Bittelman were to be held in Moscow and
reassigned to Comintern work elsewhere -- a decision which precipitated
the split of Lovestone and his closest circle. Includes an unsigned
preface emphasizing Stalin's correctness and dismissing allegations
made by the Left Opposition movement that publication of the
document marked a first step towards Foster's removal from the
ranks of party leaders.
MARCH
"Revive Bridgman Case, Try
to Jail Communist Workers." (Daily Worker) [March
26, 1931] In March
of 1931, the all-but-forgotten 1922 Bridgman raid was suddenly
vaulted back into the news, the long-delayed case apparently
seen by the American state security apparatus as a means of decapitating
the troublesome Communist Party USA. Some 27 indicted "conspirators"
remained in jeopardy for their purported crime -- accused of
having met with their fellows at a summer camp on the shores
of Lake Michigan as part of a convention of the underground Communist
Party of America. Those imperiled by possible 10 year prison
terms for this alleged violation of the Michigan Criminal Syndicalism
law included William Z. Foster, Earl Browder, Max Bedacht, William
F. Dunne, Ella Reeves Bloor, Robert Minor, and Rose Pastor Stokes.
To make matters worse for the indicted Communists, the judge
in the case reversed the ruling he made in 1923 and combined
the cases of the entire group, making it easy for a single mass
political trial to be conducted. The CP's legal aid arm, the
International Labor Defense, called upon American workers to
"immediately rally in militant fashion to save these leaders
from a long term in prison.... Organize defense meetings, mass
demonstrations, and fight for the immediate freeing of our militant
membership."
"After 8 Years, the Michigan
Cases Come to Life Again Through Ham Fish's Attacks: Capitalists
Insist on Trial of Foster, Browder, Bedacht, Minor, Weinstone,
and Others." (Daily Worker) [March 31, 1931] This article provides additional
information about the miraculously revitalized case revolving
around the 1922 raid of the Communist Party of America's convention
at Bridgman, Michigan. The decision to reopen the case is said
to be related to the assumption of office by a new Michigan Attorney
General on Jan. 1, 1933, an individual characterized as "evidently
eager to share the national laurels for red-baiting with Hamilton
Fish." Hearings before Judge White in Berrien Co. were said
to have been unsuccessful, the prosecution being "ably and
energetically" assisted by the judge in hearings held March
26. As a result, the cases of the 27 indicted party members were
combined into a single trial. "The Assistant Attorney General
sat through the proceedings without opening his mouth. The judge
pleaded his case. The motion of the prosecution wasn't even read.
The judge granted it without hearing it. It was directed against
the accused and that was sufficient ground for granting it. All
the rights Judge White condescended to grant to the accused was
that, if they didn't like this ruling, they can go to the Supreme
Court and try to have it reversed," the article states.
A trial date of June 1, 1931 was set.
JULY
"The Menace of Communism,"
by Hamilton Fish, Jr. [July 1931] Lengthy article by the Chairman and namesake of
the first U.S. House of Representatives "Special Committee
to Investigate Communist Activities in the United States"
(1930-31). Fish unintentionally provides an interesting study
of anti-Communist ideology in the early 1930s. Fish vastly, and
with clear ulterior motive, overestimates the number of Communists
in America at "5 or 600,000" well disciplined adherents
who "take their orders from Moscow and are proud of it."
(Number apparently generated by taking total circulation of the
Communist daily press and multiplying). But this group -- nearly
half as large as the total number of Communists in the larger
USSR asserted by Fish -- are not to be feared of "having
a revolution in the United States at this time" since in
the event of such an uprising "the regular army and the
National Guard and the American Legion, using a Russian word,
could 'liquidate' all the Communists in the United States in
a few weeks' time." (Note especially the envisioned role
of the American Legion.) Communists are said by Fish to be defined
by their acceptance of 6 fundamental principles: (1) the abolition
of all forms of religious belief; (2) the abolition of all forms
of private property and inheritance; (3) the promotion of the
bitterest kind of class hatred; (4) the promotion through the
Communist International of strikes, riots, sabotage, and industrial
unrest; (5) the promotion of class or civil war in order to obtain
their final objective; being (6) "the establishment of a
Soviet form of government, the dictatorship of the proletariat,
with headquarters in Moscow." (Note especially the position
of primacy attributed to the question of religion). Fish states
that "The Communist Party is not an American party; it is
a section of the Communist International, taking its orders from
Moscow" and that its access to the ballot should be arbitrarily
denied since its candidates "could not take the oath of
office and allegiance to our government." He states that
his committee found that "70 percent of the Communist in
the United States were aliens, that 20 percent were naturalized
citizens, and that only 10 percent were American-born citizens,
whether they were white or black" and he rails that "We
have tolerated their insults too long, and if they will not cease
this propaganda or go home of their own accord, I can assure
you that the next session of Congress will enact legislation
to see that all alien Communists are deported to their native
lands." (The method by which deportations were to be made
to one particular country whom the United States did not diplomatically
recognize is not mentioned.) Racial fear is another fundamental
aspect of Fish's anti-Communist ideology, noting "Whenever
there is a Communist meeting, the white and the colored people
assemble together and dance together. The Communists mean just
what they say, so their propaganda has some little appeal. Colored
men and women are going to Moscow all the time to be trained
in the revolutionary schools." Fish states that he had "personally
seen order after order from Moscow to the Communists in this
country, demanding that an intense campaign be conducted among
the Negroes, both North and South, in order to turn them against
the government," attributing the lack of success to the
churchgoing nature of American blacks. "The Communists cannot
understand why the Negroes have not succumbed to their propaganda
of social equality, or intermarriage and racial equality, and
so on." Fish's view of the American left wing movement is
almost comically undifferentiated, lumping together "Communists
and Socialists and pink intellectuals" and the American
Civil Liberties Union, and stating that "the Communists
and the Socialists are joining hands" -- an altogether unique
view of political reality during the Third Period.
OCTOBER
"Letter from Tom Mooney in
San Quentin Prison to Joseph Stalin in Moscow, Oct. 17, 1932."
This letter was promoted on the
cover of the November 1932 issue of The Labor Defender, the official
organ of the CP's legal defense organization, International Labor
Defense. While the greetings to Stalin on the occasion of the
15th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia are largely
pro forma, the document is interesting both as a snapshot of
Mooney's personal politics ("All Hail to the Russian Revolution
and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. I'm for it hook, line
and sinker, without equivocation or reservation.") as well
as to the way that a Cult of Personality was beginning to emerge
among the Communist faithful even at this early date (the person
of Stalin beginning to be regarded as a human embodiment of the
Russia revolution). Mooney expresses his belief that had it not
been for the demonstration on his behalf of Petrograd workers
on April 25, 1917, he would have been executed.
OCTOBER
"Manifesto and Program of
the American League Against War and Fascism.: Adopted at the
First U.S. Congress Against War, New York City, Sept. 29-Oct.
1, 1933." Founding declaration fo the Communist Party's
1930s mass organization dedicated to anti-militarism and defense
of the USSR. In the face of increasing war danger and the development
of fascism abroad and fascist tendencies at home, the American
League Against War and Fascism advocated "mass resistance"
uniting workers, impoverished farmers, oppressed blacks, women,
and youth in a "nationwide agitation and organization against
war preparations and war." The group pledged to "support
the peace policies of the Soviet Union for total and universal
disarmament" and to oppose the machinations of imperialism
abroad as well as "developments leading to Fascism"
at home.
"Beginnings of Revolutionary
Political Action in the USA," by Vern Smith [Oct. 1933]
A pamphlet-length
historical survey of the development of the American radical
movement from 19th Century utopianism to the formation of the
Socialist Party of America, as published in the pages of the
theoretical journal of the CPUSA. While tendentious treatments
of controversial topics do creep into the work, as might be expected,
the article remains useful as a brief summary of the main course
of left wing political development throughout the last part of
the 19th Century and first part of the 20th. Smith emphasizes
the continuity between the American sections of the First International
and the formation of the Socialist Labor Party, from which sprang
the Socialist Party of America; from which in turn sprang the
American Communist movement. Of particular interest is the rather
heroic portrayal of the Chicago Anarchist movement of the 1880s
-- depicted as fundamentally sound revolutionists who were pushed
into the position of becoming "more and more extreme in
the course of their reaction against the sickening legalism of
the SLP." Also interesting is the accusation that the Socialist
Labor Party took a position of national chauvinism during the
Spanish-American War of 1898, ignoring the transparently obvious
imperialist basis of the conflict and explicitly regurgitating
the official slogan that this was a war to "Free the oppressed
Cubans!"
JUNE
"C.P. Proposes Joint Actions
on Daily Issues: Statement of the Central Committe, CPUSA to
the National Executive Committee, Socialist Party, June 19, 1934." In
the aftermath of HItler's attainment of power in Germany and
in mortal fear of the perceived "fascist" tendencies
of the new Roosevelt administration, the Communist Party made
an appeal for a "United Front of Action" with the Socialist
Party, delivered as a letter to the SP's 1934 National Convention
in Detroit. This commuique was not answered, motivating the CP
to make the concrete pitch more publicly -- publishing the text
in the June 26 edition of the Daily Worker. Noting that
the majority of the newly-elected NEC of the Socialist Party
had previously announced themselves in favor of united front
action with the Communists but had been blocked by "Hillquit,
Oneal, Waldman & Co.," the SP leadership was directly
challenged: "Today, the National Executive Committee, which
claims that its policies represent a repudiation of that group,
and which poses as a leftward group, can no longer offer the
old excuse for an inability to establish the united front with
the Communist Party on issues which concern the most immediate
and vital interests of all the toilers."
SEPTEMBER
"The Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial,"
by Alexander Bittelman [Sept. 1936] From August 19-24, 1936, was held in Moscow the
first of three sensational public "show trials" featuring
prominent former members of the Soviet elite accused of complicity
in counterrevolutionary conspiracies to commit murder and overthrow
the Soviet state. Chief defendants in the first trial, the so-called
"Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center,"
were G.E. Zinoviev and L.B. Kamenev -- former members of the
Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party and of the Council
of Peoples' Commissars. All 16 defendants in this case were tried,
sentenced to death, and executed in short order. This article,
published as part of the lead essay of the September 1936 issue
of the CPUSA's theoretical journal, The Communist, was
an initial to orientate party members to the situation in the
USSR. Bittelman accuses Trotsky of being a "petty-bourgeois
'revolutionist'" and likens his alleged criminal complicity
in the plot to assassinate Soviet Communist leaders to the effort
of the Socialist Revolutionaries to assassinate Bolshevik leaders
(including Lenin) during the Russian Civil War. "In this
'transformation' of Trotskyism there is nothing especially new.
It is no news that certain ideologists of petty-bourgeois 'revolutionism'
have turned fascist. Mussolini is an outstanding case,"
Bittelman notes. Trotsky's critique of the Soviet constitution
is likened to that of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels and
the implication of this purported convergence is stated with
certitude in the wake of the trial by Bittelman, who declares
that "Trotskyism is fascist terrorism."
MARCH
"Where is Juliet Stuart Poyntz?"
by Carlo Tresca [March 1938] Article by the well known syndicalist labor organizer
Carlo Tresca in the pages of V.F. Calverton's Modern Monthly,
charging foul play by the Soviet secret police in the mysterious
May 1937 disappearance of the "personal friend of mine for
twenty years," Juliet Stuart Poyntz. Poyntz (who in 1925
was formally rebuked for "Loreism" -- the American
stalking horse for "Trotskyism") retired from public
political work in 1934, Tresca states. Thereupon, "she became
a GPU agent," being seen in Moscow in the company of know
secret police employee George Mink as late as 1936. According
to Tresca's testimony here: "In May 1937, I met her on the
street and at that time she told me that she had become disgusted
with the Soviet regime and the Communist Party in this country.
Her attitude was known to the Stalinists. They had reason to
fear her because she might break with them and disclose secret
matter. About a year ago, Miss Poyntz took a room, in the American
Women's Association headquarters. She was seen by friends as
late as June 4 or 5, 1937. She has never been seen since."
Tresca alludes to the complicity of "agent of the GPU"
Shauchno Epstein in the Poyntz disappearance and states "I
am convinced that an effort was made to recall or kidnap Miss
Poyntz to Moscow, and that, if it wasn't found necessary to kill
her during the efforts, she was, in fact, taken to Moscow."
Carlo Tresca was assassinated in the United States in 1943, purportedly
by agents of the Mussolini regime.
APRIL
"The Moscow Trial: Its Meaning
and Importance," by Joseph Starobin [April 1938] With the executions of Bukharin
and his purported cohorts completed in the 3rd and most sensational
of the 3 great show trials of the 1936-38 period, the CPUSA had
a serious "educational opportunity" on its hands, as
"there are many people who do not yet understand even the
elementary facts about the trials. Some of these are liberals,
who try hard to find new ways to maintain their persistent misunderstanding
of the nature of the Soviet Union. And numbers of people, with
whom we cooperate on many domestic issues, are still troubled."
Starobin outlines the rationale for the trial in this April 1938
article from the monthly magazine of the Young Communist League.
The trial shattered the "elaborate baloney" about torture,
Starobin states as "the Bukharin-Trotsky conspirators had
the full right to defend themselves." Second, Starobin writes,
all the defendants had long-running programmatic differences
with the Russian Communist Party; third, "Personal vanity,
individual corruption, ambition, self-delusion, all played a
part in motivating the conspiracy." But in the final analysis,
he states, the defendants sold out the revolution because of
their "opposition to the construction of Socialism."
By eliminating this internal threat, the "agents of corruption
and treachery," Starobin writes that "the trials have
struck a blow for world peace." Parallels to American treason
trials from the new pamphlet by Earl Browder are emphasized.
Starobin concludes in the spirit of the day, "Of course,
we are not idealists, and are working for Socialism, with and
through, the human material at our disposal. In the struggle
against actual and potential corruption within our own ranks,
it is necessary to pay attention to personal habits and morals
throughout the movement. We should begin today to build that
new morality, that generous, intelligent, modest, new human being,
that new humanity which we know will emerge with the destruction
of capitalism and the birth of a Socialist world." Includes
two pieces of stellar anti-Trotsky artwork and a contemporary
photograph of Young Communist Review editor Joe Starobin.
AUGUST
"To All Active Supporters
of Democracy and Peace." [Aug. 14, 1939] An
open letter signed by "400 leading Americans" published
on the eve of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact stating that
"The Fascists and their allies are well aware that democracy
will win if its supporters are united" and that efforts
were being made to sow suspicion "between to Soviet Union
and other nations interested in maintaining peace." Domestic
"reactionaries" were similarly attempting to "split
the democratic front" by "turning anti-fascist feeling
against the Soviet Union" by encouraging "the fantastic
falsehood that the USSR and the totalitarian states are basically
alike," according to the document. A list of achievements
of the USSR aimed "to make it clear that Soviet and Fascist
policies are diametrically opposed" was provided.
SEPTEMBER
"The Meaning of the Non-Aggression
Pact." [Sept. 1939]
On August 23, 1939, Soviet Russia
and Nazi Germany suddenly signed a 10 year treaty of mutual non-aggression,
promising to refrain from violence against one another and to
refuse to aid any third party engaged in an attack of the other.
A secret provision of the treaty provided for the territorial
division of Poland by Germany and the USSR. This unsigned editorial
in the September 1939 issue of Soviet Russia Today was
a first attempt by the American Communist Party to acclimate
the readers of this mass, "non-party" publication to
the new political situation. Stalin is quoted extensively in
making the argument that the pact was necessary by the unwillingness
of the "dominant powers" of Britain and France to "go
beyond words and declarations" and uniting with the USSR
to stop Nazi aggression. Included is the text of the public portion
of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact.
OCTOBER
"Motive-Patterns of Socialism,"
by Max Eastman [October 1939] Rather than dividing the adherents of socialism
by the tactics they espouse -- revolutionary upheaval vs. the
ballot box -- in this provocative essay radical publicist Max
Eastman is concerned rather with the generalized motivations
of the various advocates of socialism. Eastman sees three fundamental
"motive-patterns." The first of these Eastman characterizes
as "rebels against tyranny and oppression," who based
their motivation upon the fundamental concept of "human
freedom." The second motive-pattern Eastman calls the "united-brotherhood
pattern," based upon a mixture of "religious mysticism"
and "animal gregariousness for human solidarity." In
the third motive-pattern group Eastman includes "those anxious
about efficiency and intelligent organization," for whom
"a cerebral anxiety capable of rising in times of crisis
to a veritable passion for a plan." It is as a function
of these underlying motive-patterns that the various responses
by American radicals to the reality of Soviet Union emerged.
"To libertarian socialists, therefore, no matter how monolithic
it may become, nor how much industrial planning and solving of
unemployment problems it may do, Stalin's Russia is a counterrevolutionary
state," Eastman observes. On the other hand, the "human-solidarity
socialists" concerned with constructing a quasi-religious
movement in which the will of the individual is subjugated to
the needs of the collective had come to see the USSR under Stalin
as a sort of promised land. As for the third typology, those
concerned with the business-like reorganization of society in
the face of capitalist collapse, while not necessarily a promised
land, "Russia seems at least a promising land." Eastman
includes much of the American liberal intelligentsia in this
latter camp and asserts that the "neo-Marxian ex-liberals
are at present a greater menace than the Stalinists to the cause
of freedom in America." This he holds to be true because
"they not only apologize for totalitarianism in Russia,
but they help to camouflage its propaganda-stratagems and pressure-plots
in this country. By abandoning their faith in popular intelligence,
lending their pages to the manipulation as well as the enlightenment
of public opinion, condoning political immoralism, adopting an
attitude of realpolitik wherever such antique concepts
as the Rights of Man are in question, and in general outdoing
Marx in being hard-boiled on all questions except that of proletarian
power, they are, while professing themselves friends, giving
aid and comfort to the enemies of democracy."
"Exchange of Cables between
J.B. Matthews, Chief Investigator of the House Special Committee
on Unamerican Activities in Washington, DC and Leon Trotsky in
Mexico City, October 12, 1939." On October 12, 1939, the chief investigator of
the Dies Committee in Washington, DC extended an invitation to
Leon Trotsky to give testimony before HUAC in Austin, Texas,
"a city designed with a view to your personal convenience."
Trotsky's visa and security were to be handled by the committee.
Matthews stated that "The committee desires to have a complete
record on the history of Stalinism and invites you to answer
questions which can be submitted to you in advance if you so
desire. Your name has been mentioned frequently by such witnesses
as Browder and Foster. This committee will accord you opportunity
to answer their charges." Trotsky accepted the invitation
that same day "as a political duty" in a collect cable
to Matthews. He sought similar travel permission for his wife,
said to be intimately familiar with his papers; a list of questions
so that he might collect documents for his reply; and "exact
quotations from depositions of Foster and Browder concerning
me personally."
DECEMBER
"Lenin and Stalin as Mass
Leaders," by William Z. Foster [Dec. 1939] This literary genuflection by
The Great Foster was part of a special 60th Birthday issue in
honor of The Great Stalin in the theoretical monthly of the CPUSA.
Foster waxes lengthily and passionately on the "unmatched
ability" of the "masters of Marxian theory, Lenin and
Stalin." Lenin was "bold, resourceful and flexible
in his political strategy," writes Foster, while Stalin,
"'the best pupil of Lenin,' also displays a high genius
of political strategy." Foster notes that "a strategic
move of great importance was Stalin's bold purge of spies and
wreckers from Soviet life, which gave fascism its biggest defeat,
upsetting Chamberlain's and Hitler's plan of a united attack
on the Soviet Union." Foster also hails "Leninism-Stalinism"
(observe rare use of this term) as "the theoretical basis
of the international policy of the people's front." Foster
hails the "veritable miracles of mass activation and struggle"
achieved by the superhuman duo. "Wiseacres" ridiculed
especially the plan to collectivize Soviet agriculture, Foster
notes, "but the Communist Party, headed by Stalin, was undeterred
by this pessimism, by the sabotage of Trotskyites and other wreckers"
and it "proceeded to a tremendous mobilization and activization
of the whole Soviet people." Foster declares that the CPUSA
could successfully teach the masses that "this is an imperialist
war, in mobilizing them to struggle for peace and to keep America
out of the war," to organize them to defend their civil
rights and enlighten them in the principles of socialism "only
if it learns and practices the profound lessons that Lenin and
Stalin have to teach us in Marxian theory, political strategy,
mass organization, and mass activization."
"Defend the Civil Rights
of Communists," by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn [Dec. 1939] CPUSA leader Elizabeth Gurley
Flynn makes an appeal for the defense of the Communist Party
against a new offensive by the government during the first days
of the second great European war. "Hungry for huge war profits,
the barons of Wall Street are speeding to involve the American
people in the imperialist war raging in Europe. The blackout
of civil liberties is part of Wall Street's war drive. Capitalist
reaction is intent upon depriving the Communists of their civil
rights as the preparation for an attack on the economic standards
and civil rights of the trade unions, of the working class, of
all who oppose American involvement in the imperialist war. Immediate
and powerful defense of the civil rights of the Communists is,
therefore, of the utmost urgency for the entire labor movement
and all who stand for progress and peace." Blithely ignoring
the recently-abandoned anti-fascist line of the Popular Front
period, Flynn declares: "It is neither new, strange, nor
accidental that the Communist Party, the only party of socialism
in the United States, should be the object of the most vicious
attacks by the reactionary bourgeoisie and its apologists. Born
in the anti-war struggles of the American people against the
first imperialist World War, the Communist Party today is the
main organizer of mass resistance against America's involvement
in the second imperialist war." Flynn calls upon "all
members of the Communist Party, all workers, friends, sympathizers
and others who believe in democratic rights and civil liberties"
to contribute $100 to a "People's Bail Fund" to win
the freedom of victims of state persecution.
"Extract of the Testimony
of Jay Lovestone, Secretary of the Independent Labor League of
America, Before the House Special Committee to Investigate Un-American
Activities, December 2, 1939." Extended extract of former Secretary of the Communist
Party Jay Lovestone's testimony before the "Dies Committee"
of the US House of Representatives. While Lovestone's appearance
was not voluntary, once he appeared he testified expansively
as a friendly witness of the committee. Lovestone's testimony
took nearly four hours and over 90 pages of the printed transcript
(including appended documents), here distilled to 32 edited pages
of committee interrogation and response. Lovestone's main analytical
idea is that (1) the function of Communist International evolved
from a bona fide revolutionary organization intent on establishing
an international socialist society in a crumbling world to a
"puppet organization" with policies which were merely
the mechanical reflection of Russian foreign policy; and (2)
there took place a parallel evolution of the nature of Comintern
decision-making process, from democratic participation of equals
to a top-down rule by administrative fiat. In the beginning,
Lovestone testifies, the Russian members of ECCI led "through
prestige, through achievement, through the fact that they had
conquered one-sixth of the world for socialism," He declares
that the Russians "were living a dream we had, and naturally
we looked up to them. Besides, they treated us as equals, with
equal respect..." Gradually a culture of "kowtowing
to the potentates" emerged and worked itself into a formal
system which Lovestone likens to "the story of Caligula"
and the "Roman consul system." Lovestone asserts that
this shift began to take place not with the rise of Stalin to
supreme authority, but before -- with Lenin's departure from
politics and the rise of Zinoviev. With regard to his own time
at the helm of the Communist Party, Lovestone reveals that average
Comintern funding of the American movement in 1926-1928 averaged
"no more than about $20 to 25,000 a year" with periodic
additional funding for special projects and an independent channel
of funding to the Profintern. He alleges that Profintern funding
was used by the Foster faction to fund its factional war against
the Lovestone faction. He also asserts that his late predecessor
as Executive Secretary, C.E. Ruthenberg, was vigorously hostile
at an earlier date than he to Moscow's meddling in the American
party's political affairs. Lovestone asserts that the forced
shift to the ultra-Left policies of dual unionism and the primacy
of the fight against "social fascism" prompted the
1929 split. Lovestone advises the Congressmen that "you
cannot fight Stalinism in this country, or elsewhere, by repression,
by outlawing legislation," which only strengthens the movement
repressed by extending to them the mantle of martyrdom, but that
rather that the battle must be fought by publicity on the nature
of "Stalinism" and the action of the labor movement
to cleanse itself. On the other hand, Lovestone acknowledges
the right of nations to defend themselves against intervention
in internal affairs via espionage or external control of unions
by foreign governments.
MAY
"Minutes of the Convention
of the Communist Party, New York, May 20, 1944." Immediately
prior to the convention founding the "Communist Political
Association" there was a short pro forma convention of the
Communist Party USA (technically the organization's 12th) held
to officially dissolve the CPUSA to make room for establishment
of the CPA. After singing "The Star Spangled Banner,"
the assembled 220 delegates and 173 alternates heard opening
remarks by National Chairman William Z. Foster who set the stage
for General Secretary Earl Browder, who made the formal motion
for dissolution of the CPUSA. The convention approved Browder's
motion unanimously before voting to adjourn. This document contains
the full text of the official published minutes of this short
gathering.
"Constitution of the Communist
Political Association: Adopted by the Constitutional Convention,
May 20-22, 1944."
The basic document of organizational
law for the Communist Party during its brief interlude as the
"Communist Poltical Association." The completely new
organizational structure called for in this document began at
the local level with geographic "clubs," democratically
electing officers annually as part of democratically elected
state organizations. Governing the party would be a set of national
officers, headed by (all democratically elected) a "President"
and with an indeterminate number of "Vice-Presidents,"
a Secretary, a Treasurer, and an indeterminately sized "National
Committee" -- which in turn was to democratically elect
a "National Board" of indeterminate size. This National
Organization was to have the power to establish regional District
organizations, headed by (democratically elected) District Committees.
The constitution stated "Every member is obligated to fight
with all his strength against any and every effort, whether it
comes from abroad or from within, to impose upon the American
people the arbitrary will of any sellfish minority group or party
or clique or conspiracy, or to interfere with the unqualified
right of the majority to direct the destinies of our country."
For all such pious protestations of its adherence to democratic
norms, in practice the 1944 Constitutional Convention elected
the Nominating Committee's entire slate of 40 proposed members
and 20 proposed alternates as a National Committee as well as
a slate of officers without contest or dissent.
APRIL
"On the Dissolution of the
Communist Party of the United States," by Jacques Duclos.
[April 1945] One of the seminal documents in the history of
the American Communist movement. In 1944, head of the CPUSA Earl
Browder launched the party on a "new course," disavowing
the "political party" model for the organization and
replacing it with a "Communist Political Association. This
change was formally ratified by the 12th National Conference
of the CPUSA, held in May 1944. This article by French CP leader
Jacques Duclos appeared in the April 1945 issue of the French
party's theoretical magazine and was quickly recognized by American
Communists as a signal from Moscow as to the inappropriateness
of the "new course" undertaken in 1944. When Browder
refused to change course again, a factional struggle ensued,
resulting in short order in Browder's removal from power and
expulsion from the party. Despite the document's length and detail,
Duclos' unleashes only one particularly harsh paragraph: "Despite
declarations regarding recognition of the principles of Marxism,
one is witnessing a notorious revision of Marxism on the part
of Browder and his supporters, a revision which is expressed
in the concept of a long-term class peace in the United States,
of the possibility of the suppression of the class struggle in
the postwar period and of establishment of harmony between labor
and capital."
POST
1946 MATERIAL COMMENTING ON EARLIER EVENTS
DECEMBER
"Letter to Theodore Draper
in New York City from Max Bedacht in Frenchtown, NJ, Dec. 13,
1954." This
letter to historian Ted Draper from Communist Labor Party founding
member Max Bedacht serves as a reminder of the limitations inherent
in oral history and memoirs produced decades after the fact vs.
careful examination of archival documents and the contemporary
press. Despite having the benefit of whatever limited materials
were available to him in his personal library in answering a
number of Draper's queries, and despite having time to compose
his answers in writing, the participant Bedacht is unable to
reconstruct a correct timeline of major events (divergences from
the archival record being cataloged here in a very extensive
set of footnotes). This is intended as no reflection on Bedacht's
honesty or competence -- he was both honest and competent --
but rather a much more important illustration of the inevitable
deficiencies of ex-post facto memoir accounts, be they written
or verbal. Historians should bear in mind always that participant
memoir accounts (particularly those provided many years after
the fact) are in no way the "last word" on various
questions of history. Indeed, the contrary is true: distant recollections
are but the first word, from which point examination of
archival material and the contemporary press might be more profitably
made to "settle" the various questions of history which
emerge. Of particular interest to historians of the early American
Communist Party is Bedacht's account here of the origin of the
name of Abram Jakira's underground-oriented "Goose Caucus"
of 1922: "We had given them the name of geese because they
had only a few talking leaders. And when one of them flapped
his wings and quacked, they all flopped and all quacked in exact
imitation."
JANUARY
"Letter to Theodore Draper
in New York City from Max Bedacht in Frenchtown, NJ, Jan. 20,
1955." In
this letter to historian Ted Draper, Communist Party leader Max
Bedacht provides interesting impressionistic answers to a number
of Draper's questions about the early American Communist movement.
Bedacht offers an intelligent critique of Left Wing thinking
in the party split of 1919: "I think I am justified in saying
that all of us -- at least subconsciously -- believed that world
events had relieved us and our revolutionary organizations of
the tedious and patience-consuming job of weaning the American
working masses away from their bourgeois illusions. Since such
a belief is wrong under any conditions, the propaganda of the
Left based upon it became mere radical-sounding phrases with
little or no concrete meaning." He sees the division of
the Communist movement into two organizational streams as a product
of different paces of "sobering up" about the prospects
of imminent revolutionary transformation in the USA. Bedacht
also provides an extensive account of the factional division
in the Communist Party which swirled around the Labor Party question
in 1922-24. Bedacht tesifies that "It was in the course
of the discussions and deliberations about efforts for the development
of a broad Labor Party movement that the concepts about the possibility
and the need of a legal, respectively illegal Communist Party
in America crystallized. Out of these discussions the Geese were
born as an organized group. They had ghosted about before around
questions such as 'force and violence.' But the discussions about
our approach to the masses via a Labor Party touched off the
'final conflict.' Our side became more and more convinced that
the successful and effective functioning with and within a Labor
Party would require and make possible the open functioning of
a legal Communist Party. The illegalists-in-principle, on the
other hand, for whom control meant leadership, could see a protection
for the purity of the principles of the Party only in the underground."
The botched handling of the Farmer-Labor Party question in 1924
"broke up the behind the scenes bridge between us and Fitzpatrick"
and "initiated the bitter and destructive fight within the
CP between the Foster group and the Ruthenberg (later Lovestone)
group," Bedacht recalls. "Foster accused the National
Committee of the Party that it broke faith with Fitzpatrick,"
Bedacht notes.
MARCH
"Letter to Theodore Draper
in New York from Cyril Briggs in Los Angeles." (extract)
[March 17, 1958] This
is a fascinating first-hand account of the origins and development
of the African Blood Brotherhood by its founder and leading force,
Cyril Briggs. Briggs states that he was never a member of the
Socialist Party, not believing that the SPA had anything of import
to offer American blacks, but that he was won to the CPA by Rose
Pastor Stokes, who competed with Robert Minor of the UCP in attempting
to win Briggs to the movement. Briggs states that he thus became
the 3rd black in the CPA, joining Otto Huiswoud and a certain
Hendricks. (The rival UCP actually had a black District Organizer
in this period, it should be noted, William Costley.) Briggs
says that he quit The Amsterdam News in 1918 over editorial
censorship at the behest of Federal authorities, and launched
The Crusader soon there after. This publication preceded
the formation of the African Blood Brotherhood, Briggs states.
"The Brotherhood never attained the proportions of a real
mass organization. Its initial membership was less than a score,
and all in Harlem. At its peak it had less than 3,000 members,"
Briggs says, noting that most of the group's members were recruited
through the pages of the magazine, which had a peak circulation
of 36,000. Briggs dismisses the assertion made in the press that
the ABB was behind the Tulsa race riots of 1919 as a "canard,"
probably related to the military-sounding name of the group's
primary organizational units, "posts." The ABB morphed
into the Crusader News Service, Briggs indicates, a free service
which exerted a great influence in the pages of the American
black press. "If organizing the Brotherhood was not inspired
by any particular event or development, the creation of the Crusader
News Service was inspired by our fight against certain policies
and tactics of Garvey and his lieutenants. We wished to set the
widest possible audience for our polemics against those tactics
and policies," Briggs states. Briggs tells Draper that he
is "quite correct in assuming that the Communist Party had
no part in initiating the organization of the Brotherhood. Nor
did the Brotherhood owe its inspiration to the Communist movement."
While he is unsure of the date of founding of the ABB, Briggs
believes that it was launched shortly after the founding of The
Crusader in Nov. 1918 -- that is, in early 1919.
