"The Story of the National
Defense Committee in New York." [1922] One of the American Communist movement's first
and most effective mass organizations was the National Defense
Committee, an organization that jointly provided legal assistance
and financial relief to victims of anti-radical repression conducted
by state and federal police authorities in the 1919-1922 period.
This is the full text of a pamphlet issued in 1922 in conjunction
with a series of fundraising events of the LDC in New York City.
It provides interesting detail about a series of legal cases
in New York, including those of Ignatz Mizher (CPA); Carl Paivio
and Gus Alonen (IWW); Ben Gitlow (CLP); Harry Winitsky (CPA);
Jim Larkin (CLP); C.E. Ruthenberg and I.E. Ferguson (UCP); Abram
Jakira, Israel Amter, and Edward Lindgren (UCP); Minnie Kalnin,
Anna Leisman, and T. Jerson (CPA); Paul Manko (CPA); and deportation
operations. The multiparty, civil liberties orientation of the
radical NDC should be clear. Particularly noteworthy is the charge
made that routine certificates of reasonable doubt, which would
have allowed defendants to remain free during the appeals process
in the series of novel and virtually unprecedented cases, were
systematically denied by the legal authorities, with those convicted
sent immediately to prison for lengthy terms. Includes supplemental
footnotes detailing the disposition of the various cases.
APRIL
"CEC Settles Defense Policy.
A document sent by the Workers Party of America to its press,
DOs, and Language Bureaus, April 1922." A document announcing an agreement on the structure
of the WPA's defense committee, reached between a subcommittee
of the governing Administrative Council of the Workers Party
of America and the previously-existing National Defense Council.
A structure of local organizations, separate holding of treasuries,
and new defense cards and 5 cent assessment stamps was part of
the new system. The new National Defense Council was to be headed
by a "Secretary of the National Defense Committee"
appointed by the CEC of the WPA. Edgar Owens of Illinois was
to remain in this role due to his experience with the task and
"widespread satisfaction" with the quality of his work.
OCTOBER
"Nine Questions and Eight
Answers About the Michigan "Red Raid" Cases: A leaflet
of the Labor Defense Council, circa Oct. 1922." This leaflet was an early attempt by the Communist
Party's new defense organization, the Labor Defense Council,
to build popular support and raise funds for the defendants of
the police raid on the August 1922 Bridgman, Michigan, Convention
of the CPA. The attack on the "constructive revolutionaries"
at Bridgman was an attack on the labor movement itself, the leaflet
indicates: "In looking over the records of these 19 labor
militants, it is not difÞcult to imagine why these men
have been singled out for persecution. When the employing class
finds the time ripe for an attack on the labor movement, it is
always the outstanding labor militants who have to bear the heaviest
burden." Includes short biographies of six leading defendants
(Foster, Ruthenberg, Dunne, Krumbein, Harrison, and Browder --
in that order) and union affiliations of 13 others. This version
includes a contrived police propaganda photograph showing the
notorious Bridgman defendants seated behind an array of typewriters
and mimeograph machines -- an image used with effect in another
contemporary leaflet of the LDC.
FEBRUARY
"Letter from Edgar Owens
and C.E. Ruthenberg in Chicago to Vasil Kolarov in Moscow, 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.
APRIL
"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."
MARCH
"As to the Labor Defense
Council," by Eugene V. Debs [March 1925] Although initially organized by
the Communist Party as a broad-based non-party legal defense
organization to aid the victims of the August 1922 raid on the
party's convention at Bridgman, Michigan, by 1925 the Legal Defense
Council had begun to take a more partisan cast. Lips began to
wag about the presence of Socialist Party National Chairman Eugene
V. Debs on the LDC's letterhead -- to the effect that Debs was,
in deeds if not in words, sympathetic to the Communist cause.
This prompted a reply by Debs in the official organ of the Socialist
Party to discount any such speculation. "was organized to
provide defense for Communists prosecuted under so-called criminal
syndicalism and other laws because of their activities in the
labor movement, the purpose of the defense being the preservation
of the right of free speech, free assemblage, and other civil
rights in the United States. I gladly accorded to this body the
use of my name in raising funds and consented to be named as
Vice President in its list of officers. I did this not so much
for Foster, Ruthenberg, Minor, and others as individuals, but
to back then up in the defense of their civil rights. That fight
is also my fight," Debs declares. He bitterly notes that
while the Communist Party "refused to lift a finger to help
me out of prison," he nevertheless stood ready to defend
the civil rights of Communists. Debs forcefully states that the
"surreptitious" reports of his support of the Communists
as against the Socialists are "on a par with some other
falsehoods published in Communist organs to which my attention
has been called." After this statement of his true allegiance,
Debs insists that "if hereafter any Communist whispers it
into your ear that I am with the Communists in anything except
their right to free speech and other civil rights, just answer
by turning your back upon him and leaving the vulgar falsifier
to himself."
