Early American Marxism

Document Download Page for the Year

1921

JANUARY

“Hillquit Repeats His Error,” by Max Eastman [Jan. 1921] In the fall of 1920, Morris Hillquit responded to Max Eastman’s article entitled “Hillquit Excommunicates the Soviet,” which drew this additional lengthy round of polemical prose from The Liberator’s editor. Eastman accuses Hillquit of failing to accurately know or to accurately state the position of the Left Wing. “The essential point of the Communist position, in contrast to the position of the ‘Centrists,’ is its absolute and realistic belief in the theory of the class struggle, and the theory that all public institutions— whether alleged to be democratic or not— will prove upon every critical occasion to be weapons in the hands of the capitalist class,” Hillquit declares. All of Hillquit’s errors are held by Eastman to flow from this fundamental blunder. Eastman also upbraids Hillquit for failure to read and contemplate the writings of the Socialist Party’s Left Wing, which predated by years the Russian Revolution. The revolutionary Socialist perspective of the Communists is in no way “new,” as Hillquit claims, but rather a restatement of long-existing Marxian tenants. “The actual experience of a successful revolution has only confirmed the opinions of the revolutionary or thoroughgoing Marxian factions in all the Socialist parties of the world. It is transforming these factions from weak and seemingly ‘academic’ minorities into powerful and active majorities everywhere,” Eastman asserts. While Hillquit claims the Bolsheviks are both “dogmatic” and “opportunistic,” Eastman characterizes them as highly principled and unwilling to water down their revolutionary doctrine, but conscious that they are engaged in hand-to-hand combat with capitalism and thus willing to “grab every advantage, every probability of defeating the enemy” that comes to mind. Eastman then returns to the question of the Soviets v. the Constituent Assembly in Russia, arguing convincingly the long time theoretical support of the Bolsheviks for the institution of the Soviets and attempting to force Hillquit to “lay aside all his pride of authority and acknowledge that he was flatly and absolutely wrong” in asserting that the Bolsheviks’ support of the institution of the Soviets was hastily and opportunistically put forward only when they had won a majority in the All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

“The Young Communist League of America. Resolution Adopted by the 2nd Convention of the United Communist Party, Kingston, NY—January 1921.” The 2nd Convention of the UCP for the first time set in motion the establishment of a formal Communist youth organization in the United States. This is the text of the Convention Resolution which established the “Young Communist League, Section of the Young Communist International.” The resolution stated that “The Party shall recognize the importance of a young people’s movement. It is the duty of the Party to prepare them with all the means at its disposal. An intensive cooperation between both organizations is an absolute necessity.” To this end financial support and organizational effort by the organizations District Organizers was pledged, space in the official organ committed to youth matters, and literature planned. An additional legal organization “to carry on the legal work of the Young Communist League of America” and to provide “education, recreational, and social facilities” was called for in the resolution, presaging the establishment of a parallel Workers Party of America and Young Workers League in 1922.

“BoI Informant’s Undercover Report of the UCP Legal Defense Convention, Chicago,” by “Mike Benton” [event of Jan. 9-10, 1921]” The Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation (forerunner of the FBI) managed to infiltrate the underground Communist movement with a small handful of secret informants, including “Mike Benton” from Mason City, Iowa—previously employed as a labor spy for one of the city’s brickmaking firms. On Jan. 9, 1921, “Benton” traveled to Chicago with leading Mason City radical Harry Keas, where he attended a convention of the United Communist Party’s legal defense organization, the National Defense Committee. Sixty-three delegates from all over the United States and Canada were in attendance, according to “Benton,” attending a marathon 13-hour session held in an inconspicuous hall attached to a saloon located at 228 W Oak Street. “Benton” notes that the various UCP leaders are “hard-boiled fellow that have been revolutionaries for the last 15 or 20 years, most of them have been indicted and some of them have got good beatings, been in jail serving sentence, and some will be tried in the future. They are all getting more radical every day. They are not working as openly as they used to do and all this radical propaganda is going to be handled through underground work.” “Benton” frantically warns his government handlers that “If the radicals are let alone with their propaganda for a couple of years we will have a mighty hard task to deal with them because they take men like William Z. Foster, National Secretary of the Steel Workers Union. He is just about to unite with the UCP. If he does he will pull over about 150,000 union members and with them and then the United Miners of America next.”

“Open Letter to the Central Executive Committee of the CPA, Jan. 11, 1921” by Maximilian Cohen. Outvoted on the Central Executive Committee of the CPA by a majority who paid little heed to the Comintern’s directive to unite with the United Communist Party by Jan. 1, 1921, Maximilian Cohen issued this aggressive challenge to the CEC’s line regarding unity, which he viewed as being intent on “crushing” the rival Communist organization. Instead of printing this letter in the party press and opening its pages to a debate of the issue, as Cohen requested, the CEC majority instead initiated expulsion proceedings against him. This strong pro-unity critique of CPA policy is interesting both as an analysis of the politics of Communist unity in 1920-21 and as an object lesson of the limits of intraparty dissent within the old CPA.

“Letter to the Executive Committee of the Communist International in Moscow from Alfred Wagenknecht, Executive Secretary of the United Communist Party in New York, Jan. 12, 1921.” This document was obtained by the Department of Justice in the April 29, 1921 raid on the national headquarters of the United Communist Party in New York. After obtaining it, there could have been little doubt about the organization’s actual Comintern funding situation for the year. The document is the form of a report from two CLP/UCP delegates to the 2nd Convention, Alexander Bilan and Edward Lindgren. The two recount the official request for appropriation from the CI for the American movement ($210,000), which was reduced by the Small Bureau of ECCI to $110,000. This sum was to be divided as follows: $25,000 for general organizational work, $25,000 for defense (prisoner bail and legal fees), $25,000 for literature publication, $25,000 towards establishment of a daily English-language newspaper, and $10,000 for IWW defense. Of this $110,000 budgeted sum for the coming year until the next world Congress, $25,000 had been granted as an emergency appropriation to stem the UCP’s “urgent need for money.” This $25,000 had been readied in the form of gold; this had been “taken away” from Bilan and Lindgren at the last minute by a sub-committee of the Small Bureau, however, and turned over to a Comrade Matsen from Norway, who was to be in charge of getting the gold through the Allied blockade of Soviet Russia. However, “careless handling” of the gold had led to its loss by Matsen. Bilan and Lindgren reiterated that they took no responsibility for the loss of the first UCP appropriation for 1920-21, the mistake being one made by Matsen. Thus the reality of “Moscow Gold” and the United Communist Party of America as of Jan. 12, 1921: $110,000 budgeted, $25,000 appropriated, $0 delivered. And the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation knew this fact from this internal document no later than May 1921.

“Report of Hungarian Organizer,” by J. Burok" [January 12, 1921] In October of 1920, the United Communist Party and the legal Hungarian-language Communist paper Elöre sent organizer J. Burok on the road to firm up connections for distribution of the Hungarian language press and to establish groups for the underground UCP. Burok established a total of 15 groups during his 11 1/2 week mission—5 in Pittsburgh, 4 in Chicago, 2 in Detroit, and 1 each in Cleveland, Newark, Milwuakee, and West Pullman, IL. This is the report which Burok wrote upon completion of his task. The document was originally composed in Hungarian but was seized by the Department of Justice in the April 29, 1921 raid on the New York apartment of Helen Ware (the Lindren/Jakira/Amter case). The Federal agents translated the document into English and relegated it to their archives, thus preserving the information for future historians. Burok complains that existing branches of another left wing membership organization, the American Hungarian Workers Federation, reduced the number of groups he was able to form—the cost of monthly dues to both organizations being prohibitive. Burok recommended a drastic reduction of the UCP dues rate for members of such organizations.

“Socialists of Buffalo as One Man Swing Over to Left: The Largest Meeting of Party Members Ever Held Endorses Program Promulgated by Left Wing of Local New York.” [event of April 13, 1919] This article from Buffalo Socialist Party weekly The New Age chronicles the move of the Buffalo party into the ranks of the fledgling Left Wing movement at a meeting held April 13, 1919. A special meeting held to consider the Left Wing program of Local New York, which was approved by a unanimous vote according to the article. The resolution sought the elimination of social reform agenda, declaring instead that “the party must teach, propagate, and agitate exclusively for the overthrown of capitalism, and the establishment of Socialism through a proletarian dictatorship.” Demands were made for a party-owned press, repudiation of the Berne international in favor of a new international incorporating the Bolshekiks of Russia and the Spartacans of Germany, and for the immediate convocation of an Emergency National Convention of the Socialist Party.

“Unemployment.” (leaflet of the Communist Party of America) [circa Jan. 15, 1921] ** REFINES ESTIMATED DATE OF PUBLICATION AND ALTERS TYPOGRAPHY. ** This leaflet of the “illegal” underground CPA observes that “a terrific industrial slump has hit this country.” Retailers were overstocked, manufacturers were unable to get orders and were cutting back production and jobs accordingly, and farmers were forced to dump their products on the market at prices below the actual cost of production. “The working class could very easily consume more food, more clothing, more of all the products that they have produced. But under the present capitalist system of production commodities are produced for profit and not primarily for use. The workers get back in wages only about one-fifth of what they produce. The rest, after deducting the portion used by the capitalist class and their henchmen, is held for export to foreign markets. This surplus must be sold for profit to foreign countries.” However, foreign markets were in disarray and were unable to absorb this surplus production and a major crisis was impending. There was only one solution, the leaflet states: “The only way in which you can put an end to this profit system which keeps you in poverty, misery, and degradation, and gives all the good things of life to the rich, is to conquer political power for your class, and make the working class the ruling class in society. You must first destroy the present capitalist government and establish a workers’ or Soviet government in its place by force—just as did the workers and peasants of Russia!” The call for the use of armed force by the working class is repeated: “The capitalist government cannot be destroyed by peaceful means, such as the ballot box. The ballot box is itself an instrument of capitalist domination, cleverly developed so as to fool the workers into believing that they gain their ends through parliamentary action. Nor can you abolish the capitalist system by seizing the factories without at the same time seizing the political power.... The only way to overthrow the capitalist government is by means of MASS ACTION—demonstrations, protests, mass strikes, general strikes, political strikes, and culminating finally in open collision with the capitalist state—armed insurrection and civil war.”

Letter from Arnold Petersen to N. Lenin, January 15, 1921. Text of a massive (26 page) letter from the National Secretary of the Socialist Labor Party to V.I. Ul’ianov (N. Lenin) in Russia from a copy in the Comintern archive. As might be expected, Petersen is harshly critical of all other groups in the American left—the Socialist Party of America (reformist practitioners of a “species of fraud”), the Communist Parties (“Burlesque Bolsheviki” with a “predilection for repeating meaningless and undefined phrases because of their ‘revolutionary’ sound”), the IWW (“infested with police spies” and “in a state of decay”), and the AF of L (“officered by agents of the bourgeoisie”). Petersen defiantly defends the SLP’s dual unionism and militant hostility against the AF of L (“there is not the slightest reason to believe that any outside influence, however powerful, is going to make the SLP throw away the fruits of its toil of a quarter of a century”) as well as the use of the ballot as the main mechanism for revolutionary change (“not everything that has arisen during capitalism is a sham and a delusion”). Regardless of these differences, Petersen calls the existence of the Soviet Republic an “inspiration” and pledges that the SLP will do its utmost to bring about a revolutionary industrial republic in the United States.

Minutes of the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of America: New York City—Jan. 11-16, 1921. The Central Executive Committee of the old Communist Party of America held frequent extremely lengthy plenums—taking up evenings for the better part of a week. This plenum dealt with the issue of Maximilian Cohen, accused of violating party discipline and misrepresenting the position of the CEC with respect to proposed merger with the United Communist Party.

“The American Labor Alliance for Trade Relations With Russia.” [January 1921]. An unsigned report (Alexander Trachtenberg a likely author) outlining the origins and activies of the American Labor Alliance for Trade Relations With Russia. According to this account, the ALA had its roots in an anti-blockade organization called the American Women’s Emergency Committee, which called for New York trade unions to join the anti-blockade effort in October of 1921. A conference of the “Humanitarian Labor Alliance” was subsequently held in New York City, attended by 512 labor delegates. This Nov. 21, 1920 gathering passed a resolution on the Russian Blockade (see above) and elected a permanent Executive Committee, which changed the name of the organization to the (more descriptive) American Labor Alliance for Trade Relations With Russia.

“Financial Report, Soviet Russia Medical Relief Committee, Western District,” by Charles L. Drake [Jan. 15, 1921] This report by Director Charles Drake closes the book on the 4-1/2 month tenure of the Chicago office of the Soviet Russia Medical Relief Committee. The accounts presented here show the receipt of over $24,500, which was offset by about $14,000 in office, travel, salary, and other fundraising expenses. $9600 had been sent to New York to support the Society’s work, while over $800 remained on account at the time of the Chicago office’s Jan. 15, 1921 termination. The discontinuance of the Western Office comes at a time when the heaviest financial drain was being made for organization, and before opportunity has been given to reap the benefits that would more than justify the expenditures. Thousands and thousands of dollars would come in from the preparatory work already done were this office open to receive it. Those who know even the slightest about the collection of funds on a large scale will heartily appreciate the great financial results accomplished, especially those cognizant of the immense obstacles to be overcome. Systematized sabotage and organized antagonism maliciously opposed the work from the start—elements that would stop at nothing to destroy the work and prevent even the slightest relief reaching the dying women and children of Soviet Russia,”Drake asserts.

“Circular Letter on the Closing of the Chicago Office of the Soviet Russia Medical Relief Committee from Charles L. Drake.” [Jan. 15, 1921] The Soviet Russia Medical Relief Committee was the medical relief arm of the Communist-directed Friends of Soviet Russia organization. The group worked hand in glove with the Russian Soviet Government Bureau headed by Ludwig Martens, which served as the official purchasing agent for the fundraising organization. Undercover investigation by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation assured that authorities were well apprised of bitter criticism in the radical community of the ethics and accounting practices of Soviet Russia Medical Relief, charges levied with particular vehemence by the Anarchist-dominated Russian radical movement of the Detroit area. While the BoI believed that the “American Red Star League” organization which emerged in early 1921 was a parallel organization initiated as in response to the improprieties of the Soviet Russian Medical Relief Committee headed by A.M. Rovin and Boris Roustam-Bek, this document reveals an altogether different origin. Rather than an insurgent parallel organization motivated by accountability and fiscal reform, the Red Star League had its roots in the sudden decision of the New York main office to terminate its Chicago, headed by attorney Charles L. Drake. With the deportation of Martens and the shuttering of the Soviet Bureau clearing in the offing, the Soviet Medical Relief organization saw itself as left with no means of transporting its sanitary and medical supplies to Soviet Russia. The determination to shutter the Western Office was abrupt -- two days before Christmas a letter was sent by Secretary Joseph Michael to Drake in Chicago (reprinted here) instructing him to immediately terminate all engagements and close the office. Drake obtained an extension of this deadline to Friday, Jan. 15, 1921, which was the final day of operation of the Western Office of the Soviet Russia Medical Relief Committee. The American Red Star League seems to have been launched immediately thereafter, using the same physical office space being abandoned and with Drake taking on the role of Secretary and guiding figure of the new medical relief fundraising organization.

“Circular Letter to Trade Union Locals from the National Executive Committee of the World War Veterans, circa Jan. 25, 1921.” This widely circulated fundraising letter from the Left Wing ex-soldiers organization, the World War Veterans, gives new meaning to the term “doughboys.” The WWV’s efforts at Fort Dodge, Iowa against the open shop and in a Minneapolis counterdemonstrating against the Right Wing American Legion are played up, as is their intervention in Clinton, Iowa on behalf of a progressive city government. During the latter enterprise the macho toughguy WWV purportedly met American Legion force with force ("5 Vets cleaned up 11 bullies and cleaned ‘em right") and turned out 500 supporters to canvas door to door, effectively winning the election. The circular asks organized labor to “Give us your 5 million labor men of America, put $100,000 into our hands or at our disposal, and we will organize the ex-doughboys of America into a combat organization that will save America from the economic, industrial, financial, and political anarchy into which you know as well as we do that she is drifting.” The bottom line: “Whip your Central body into line and shoot us 250 bucks, a range for our organizers, and enjoy life again.”

“Letter to Henry J. Ryan, National Director, Americanism Commission, the American Legion in Indianapolis, IN, from J. Edgar Hoover, Special Assistant to the Attorney General in Washington, DC, January 31, 1921.” This short letter from J. Edgar Hoover to the head of the American Legion’s “Americanism Commission” emphasizes the way that the ultra-nationalist organization of former soldiers worked hand-in-glove with the anti-radical contingent of the Justice Department. Hoover passes along the text of a bill proposed to congress in Nov. 1919 by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer as a “proposal in order that there might be something concrete to work upon” in the way of anti-radical legislation. “Of course, legislation dealing with sedition and criminal anarchy must be carefully drafted so that it may not infringe upon the rights of free speech and freedom of the press. However, it should always be born in mind that while freedom of speech is a liberty it is not a license and that it must be exercised within reasonable bounds,” Hoover notes.

FEBRUARY

“Summary of the Central Executive Committee’s Report to the Extraordinary 3rd Convention of the Communist Party of America.” An extended excerpt of the report delivered by the CEC to the delegates at the February 1921 convention of the CPA held in Brooklyn and published in the organization’s membership bulletin. This obscure document was saved for posterity in the pages of the theoretical journal of the British Communist Party, where it was published it for the edification of the members of the CPGB. Excellent detail on the old CPA’s organizational size and finances in the aftermath of the departure of C.E. Ruthenberg, I.E. Ferguson, and others to join the CLP in forming the United Communist Party of America. Includes copious footnotes for the contemporary reader by Tim Davenport.

“Unemployment.” (leaflet of the Communist Party of America) [circa Feb. 1921] This leaflet of the “illegal" underground CPA observes that “a terrific industrial slump has hit this country.” Retailers were overstocked, manufacturers were unable to get orders and were cutting back production and jobs accordingly, and farmers were forced to dump their products on the market at prices below the actual cost of production. “The working class could very easily consume more food, more clothing, more of all the products that they have produced. But under the present capitalist system of production commodities are produced for profit and not primarily for use. The workers get back in wages only about one-fifth of what they produce. The rest, after deducting the portion used by the capitalist class and their henchmen, is held for export to foreign markets. This surplus must be sold for profit to foreign countries." However, foreign markets were in disarray and were unable to absorb this surplus production and a major crisis was impending. There was only one solution, the leaflet states: “The only way in which you can put an end to this profit system which keeps you in poverty, misery, and degradation, and gives all the good things of life to the rich, is to conquer political power for your class, and make the working class the ruling class in society. You must first destroy the present capitalist government and establish a workers’ or Soviet government in its place by force—just as did the workers and peasants of Russia!” The call for the use of armed force by the working class is repeated: “The capitalist government cannot be destroyed by peaceful means, such as the ballot box. The ballot box is itself an instrument of capitalist domination, cleverly developed so as to fool the workers into believing that they gain their ends through parliamentary action. Nor can you abolish the capitalist system by seizing the factories without at the same time seizing the political power.... The only way to overthrow the capitalist government is by means of MASS ACTION—demonstrations, protests, mass strikes, general strikes, political strikes, and culminating finally in open collision with the capitalist state—armed insurrection and civil war."

“The American Red Star League $10,000,000 Relief Fund to Save the Women and Children of Soviet Russia: A leaflet of the American Red Star League.” [leaflet, circa Feb. 1921] This leaflet by the new American Red Star League, a left wing rival medical relief organization to the American Red Cross, presents much of the case made by Irwin St. John Tucker in a longer pamphlet published by the Red Star League at about the same time. “Confronted with the terrific destitution in Europe as a result of wars and blockades, the working class of America has been asked to give generously for the relief of suffering in those countries. Millions of dollars have been raised in America for the relief of Europe. How much of this money has actually been of service to the working class? Two MILLION dollars’ worth of medical supplies desperately needed in Russia were burned by the American Red Cross in the Crimea to prevent it falling into the hands of the Workers’ Government. Supplies to the value of 10 MILLION dollars were allowed to rot at Archangel because the Red Cross would not permit the starving and dying Russians to use them.” Capitalist machinations in Russia, Hungary, Austria, Italy, and elsewhere had given a political coloration to the Red Cross’ work, while “under the leadership of Herbert Hoover a joint committee of relief organizations has been formed, which is openly using the funds collected for anti-labor propaganda,” the leaflet asserts. In response to this ideological orientation of the American Red Cross, the American Red Star League had been formed. “THE AMERICAN RED STAR LEAGUE is organized as First Aid to the Working Class in every country. Our first and most pressing duty is to save the women and children of Soviet Russia!” the leaflet declares. Financial contributions to the organization for its work are solicited.

“30,000 Babies Starving!! A leaflet of the American Red Star League,” by Charles L. Drake [circa Feb. 1921] This leaflet of the new American Red Star League makes use of a cable of the American Friends’ Service Committee from Moscow highlighting the shortage of milk, cod liver oil, and soap in Moscow which had resulted in an infant mortality rate estimated at an astronomical 40%. “America’s warehouses are full to bursting with good things. Let us send them to Russian babies! In the name of Humanity, ACT NOW!” the leaflet implores, noting that a $10 donation “will save 10 Russian babies.”

“The American Red Star League: First Aid to the Working Class.” [circa Feb. 1, 1921] “The ghastly failure of the present organized relief forces to be of any real service to the working class and their official refusal in many cases to help the workers where help is most needed has made necessary the organization of a relief force that will be of, by, and for the working class, and for the working class alone,” declares this leaflet of the newly-organized American Red Star League. This group is said to be “organized solely for the purpose of giving relief to members of the working class in acute need, everywhere in the world.” While aid to the working class in war ravaged Europe was clearly a priority, the leaflet notes that “such need is not confined to foreign countries. The anti-labor drive which has been begun by the moneyed powers in this country, headed by the United States Steel Corporation and assisted by every Chamber of Commerce, will lead to terrible conflicts and nationwide destitution.” The leaflet exhorts recipients to give financial donations to a $10 million Relief Fund: “The workers must be prepared now to aid their own distressed comrades. The want in Europe and Asia is terrible, appalling, and the official relief agencies use the contributions of Americans against the workers who are seeking to control their own governments. We must help them!”

“Circular Letter to All District Organizers of the United Communist Party of America From Executive Secretary Alfred Wagenknecht, February 1, 1921.” A cover letter for the first two copies of the organ of Alexander Bittelman’s “Communist Unity Committee,” sent out by Executive Secretary Wagenknecht of the United Communist Party so that the UCP’s DOs might “be better able to meet the propaganda of this ’third party’ committee.” Wagenknecht relates Bittelman’s saga—failing to be able to keep the Jewish federation neutral in the CPA/CLP split, then joining the UCP. Bittelman was offered the job of editor of the UCP’s legal Jewish newspaper, but he declined, seeking to edit a narrow theoretical journal instead. Wagenknecht says he then led 15 Jewish members out of the UCP and into the CPA—which accepted the rank-and-filers and refused membership to Bittelman. Outside of both organizations, Bittelman established his “Communist Unity Committee” so as to “establish a leadership for himself,” Wagenknecht says.

“Bibliography: Press of the Communist International (Till February 1st, 1921).” There was an explosion of interest and activity in the revolutionary socialist movement around the world during the first 2 years of the Communist International which resulted in a vast literature emerging. This document lists the official CI and English-language portions of an extensive bibliography which appeared in the pages of the official organ of the Comintern. Of particular note is the list of languages in which the underground official organs of the CPA and UCP appeared. For the CPA, in addition to English: Latvian, Ukrainian, and Polish—Russian not mentioned. The CPA also published an underground Yiddish organ called Die Rot Fahne. For the UCP, in addition to English: Hungarian, Yiddish, Latvian, Polish, Russian, Finnish, Croatian. From June 1920 the Russian language Novyi Mir, previously a legal publication, had been published on an illegal basis, the bibliography notes. The bibliography is not perfect, scholars should be made aware, listing two defunct publications of the former CLP—Voice of Labor (first variant) and The Class Struggle. Also interesting are the claimed circulation figures of the English language legal organs of the two parties: 5,000 for the CPA’s The Workers Challenge and 15,000 for the UCP’s The Toiler.

“Letter to Alfred Wagenknecht in Brooklyn from Bishop Willam Montgomery Brown in Galion, OH - Feb. 4, 1920.”The Palmer Raids of January 1920 unleashed a wave of fear among American radicals, as leading figures were jailed, party organizations disrupted, and dissent stifled. Membership rolls plummeted for all organizations of the American left, particularly those of the Communist movement. This letter from “Bad Bishop” William Montgomery Brown to Executive Secretary of the Communist Labor Party Alfred Wagenknecht demonstrates the sort of fear instilled in the left wing public by the secret police terror of the Wilson administration. Brown and his wife, despite professing a continuing belief in Marxian socialism, resign from the CLP with this letter due to “he fact that we are old and feeble and that the feebleness of Mrs. Brown is increased by the fear of my imprisonment.” Brown states that he will again join the organized Communist movement when he can do so without fear of arrest. He encloses “the usual monthly check, but with the distinct understanding that you will use the money for the promotion of a knowledge of Marxian socialism only, in some way which comes within the boundary of the law and does not pass beyond it. If the Communist Labor Party knows of no such way, please return the check.”

“In the Matter of Abraham Zanan, Under Telegraphic Warrant of Arrest: Philadelphia -- Feb. 11, 1921.” (Interview of Abraham Zanan of the CPA by A.G. Benkhart, Immigrant Inspector.) Attempting a social history of the early American Communist movement is problematic. While there are many hundreds, even thousands, of Slavic and Baltic and Hungarian names and addresses recorded in the voluminous records of the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation -- readily available on microfilm as part of the National Archives and Records Administration’s collection M-1085 -- these are ultimately faceless mentions of individuals deported from or absorbed into America without leaving a trace. Those interrogation transcripts which are extant, a fraction of the larger whole, tend to be uninformative , the prisoners understandably tending to lie and obfuscate in the interest of self-preservation rather than to truthfully enlighten their interrogators. This particular document, however, provides a significant glimpse at the history of American Communist Party life “from below,” from the perspective of a committed rank and file member. Abraham Zanan answered the questions of Immigration Inspector A.G. Benkhart fully and truthfully because he was (somewhat lamentedly) seeking deportation to Soviet Russia. Zanan was a 20 year old unemployed garment cutter from Philadelphia, a member of the Young Peoples Socialist League (youth section of the Socialist Party) from 1915 and the Yiddish language federation of the Socialist Party of America not long thereafter, a founding member of the Communist Party of America who departed the old CPA with the Ruthenberg group in 1920 to membership in the United Communist Party. Zanan provides details of group life in the UCP, with meetings held at rotating homes at irregular intervals, rare activity in distributing the leaflets of the organization, the organization collecting its 75 cent monthly dues without the use of receipt stamps or party cards. Zanan attempts to explain to the inspector the UCP’s position on force and violence, that it was both defensive and inevitable in the struggle for state power. He takes umbrage to the government’s assertion that he and his party are “Anarchist” or against all organized government -- these being, along with the charge advocacy of force and violence, the sole statutory rationale for state repression of the Communists. Unable to find employment in his trade for a protracted period and not seeking to be a burden to his family, Zanan turned himself in to the authorities on Feb. 3, 1921, and confessed his party membership, believing himself to be a fugitive from justice since the unsuccessful raid of his home during the so-called Palmer Raids of Jan. 2/3, 1920. He sought deportation to Soviet Russia, believing that he might there find employment and make a living, despite the testimony of his mother and uncle, included here, to keep the “good boy” Zanan in America.

“Report on the United Communist Party,” by BoI Undercover Employee “P-140” [Feb. 15, 1921] This report of a Hungarian employee of the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation paints the United Communist Party of America in most alarming tones: “I beg to report that I established the fact that it is the intention of the United Communist Party to try to establish within this year the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” The unidentified “P-140” emphatically declares: “It is namely known that the local factions of the Third International are receiving from Moscow all the directions. It is the intention of the Communists of Europe to celebrate the 1st of May with a general strike and the Communists of America adopted the same program. I was informed by the people who are members of the Communist Party to the effect that the laborers of this province are provided with arms.” “P-140” also sensationally adds: “I will also mention a few new points in connection with my investigation of the Wall Street explosion. I was always positive that the outrage was done by the communists, but now I obtained proofs to that effect. The young man who is known only under the name of “Rudy” told me that a great deal of this affair is known to the “comrades” in Detroit, who are the most revolutionary elements.” Slightly unhinged and factually erroneous reports like this one stoked the fires of the engine of repression, culminating in the mass arrests in Philadelphia during the night of April 25/26 and the raid of UCP headquarters in New York City on April 29, 1921.

“British Espionage in the United States: A Secret Memorandum Prepared by the United States Dept. of Justice, Feb. 15, 1921.” This secret US Department of Justice memorandum, forwarded under a cover letter by J. Edgar Hoover, reviews the activities of the British Intelligence Service in America. “There are several classes of investigation which the British were, and I assume still are, particularly interested in. These included Sinn Féin activities, Hindu activities, Negro activities (especially as they affect and became part of the activities of all darker peoples), International radical organizations and individuals, and radical affairs of all kinds in the United States,” the memo states. The memo dates Britain’s active pursuit of intelligence on radicalism in America to the spring of 1918, when Robert Nathan arrived from England. A lengthy list of known and suspected British agents is provided, including Marcus Garvey of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Rev. R.D. Jonas, Louis Fraina, Big Jim Larkin, Santeri Nuorteva, and former Bureau of Investigation and Lusk Committee investigator Raymond W. Finch. Some of these identifications are dubious. With respect to Fraina, the memo states that “sometime ago, approximately 6 months,” an unnamed “prominent State Department official was advised by Sir Basil Thompson, head of the British Secret Service” that Fraina “had been in the employ of the British Secret Service, but at that time, he was not.” The memo states that “when Fraina returned to England after the Amsterdam conference of the 3rd International [Feb. 10-11, 1920] he was placed in jail. I have been confidentially informed that Fraina at this time was subjected to a thorough examination by the British authorities and whether or not he was actually placed upon a salary basis with them is unknown but he shortly thereafter departed for Russia where today he is in the intimate confidence of the Soviet authorities.” This specific account of Fraina’s path to Moscow is at odds with the existing literature (Draper, Buhle) as well as the State Dept. memo of March 5, 1920 and the Hicks/MID memo of Nov. 2, 1920, it should be noted.

“Statement of Ludwig C.A.K. Martens on the Activities of the Soviet Mission: Moscow— Feb. 24, 1921.” Upon arriving back in Moscow after being forced to leave the United States, former Russian emissary Ludwig Martens summarized the activities of the Russian Soviet Government Bureau which he headed in the Soviet press. Martens retrospectively categorizes the activity of the RSGB into three sections: Information, Commercial work, and Technical work. Martens feels the propagation of information about Soviet Russia had been successful, as had the development of technical information and assistance for his country. Commercial work was a mixed bag, in Martens’ estimation, the big failure to open up trade relations being only partially offset by the export of $750,000 worth of goods from Soviet Russia and by the execution of a number of successful purchase orders. Martens also emphasizes the importance of having made contact with the 3 million member Russian colony in America, the mass of which were “undoubtedly supporters of Soviet Russia.” Martens concludes that it is his conviction “that our return to America will take place in the very near future. The program put forward by the Republicans during the Presidential election contained a paragraph demanding the resumption of trade relations with all countries with which America is not in a state of war. This of course applies to Soviet Russia. I think that as soon as Harding becomes President of the USA, Soviet Russia will be given the opportunity of opening the necessary negotiations."

“The American Legion and Civil Service ‘Preference’ for Soldiers,” by Victor D. Berger [Feb. 24, 1921] This front page editorial by Congressman Victor Berger from the front page of his Milwaukee Leader takes on a local American Legion proposal to establish near-monopolistic preferences for veterans of the European war in Milwaukee civil service hiring. Berger notes that veterans already had a 5 point preference in civil service exams. Further, that veterans of the European war were “98%” conscripts rather than volunteers—and many of the 2% of volunteers joined up only due to the threat of being drafted. “These army men deserve a great deal of sympathy and even praise, because they did what they considered their duty—but they deserve no special honors or distinction or monopolistic privileges,” Berger states. Berger goes on to note the sordid history of the American Legion—the “Praetorian Guard of capitalism in America” which was initially employed as strikebreakers in the east before settling upon a policy of neutrality in the struggle between capital and labor. “the fact alone that the workingmen who join the American Legion - for a good time or getting a special advantage - bind themselves to become “neutrals” in the struggle of labor for better conditions, which is really their own struggle. This marks an immense advantage for the American capitalist class,” Berger declares.

MARCH

“Workingmen of America! Stand By Soviet Russia!” (leaflet of the Communist Party of America) [March 1921] Some 483,000 copies of this CPA leaflet were produced in an effort to rally the American working class to the defense of Soviet Russia. “Do not be fooled by the lying and prostitute capitalist press! Victorious Soviet Russia means a triumphant working class. If Soviet Russia is defeated, the whole advancing working class movement will be halted for years to come and black reaction will set in. Show the arrogant and murderous capitalists and imperialists of America, England, and France that we, the workingmen of America, are in full sympathy with Soviet Russia,” the leaflet urges. Not only defensive action, but offensive revolutionary action is advocated: “Let us resolve to break the chains of wage slavery. Let us prepare for the overthrow of the hypocritical and bloody capitalist state and establish in its place the Soviet Republic of America. Let us destroy the REPUBLIC OF THE RICH and erect the REPUBLIC OF LABOR. Let us join hands with the Soviet Republics of the World in the glad confederation of free peoples united by the bonds of working class solidarity.”

“Organization Rules of the Young Communist League of America (Adopted by the National Committee of the YCL)” [circa March 1921] According to the literature, there was no organized youth section of the American Communist movement until a founding convention of the Young Communist League held at Bethel, CT on April 20, 1922. This document from the Comintern Archive indicates that fully a year earlier the United Communist Party was moving to establish just such an organization at a First National Convention “in the near future.” This document sets down the basic structure of the organization that was to follow—the “Young Communist League of America—Section of the Young Communist International.” The YCLA was to be an underground organization build on the UCP model, with local groups of no more than 10 members which elected their own group organizer, who in turn participated in the “city central unit.” Dues were to be 25 cents a month, the initiation fee was to be 50 cents, and the organization was to work for “the communist education of the young workers; active participation in the struggle to overthrow capitalism; (defense of the proletarian dictatorship and the workers soviets after the seizure of power); reorganization of labor; and the cultural development of the working youth along the lines of communist principles.” Based upon this and a programmatic document in the archives, it now seems likely that some sort of formal underground American communist youth organization existed in 1921—earlier than previously believed.

“Constitution of the [old] Communist Party of America, Section of the Communist International,” as published in the March 1, 1921, issue of The Communist by the old (preunification) CPA. This document of organizational law was adopted by the 3rd Convention of the old CPA, held in Brooklyn, New York, during February 1921 and attended by about 30 delegates. This constitution outlines the structure of the organization and its relationship to its component Language Federations, who were characterized as being subject to the “dictatorship and control of the Party.”

“Martens Files Libel Suit Against the Washington Post.” [event of March 2, 1921] Around the first of March, 1921, claims were made in the Washington Post against head of the Russian Soviet Government Bureau, Ludwig Martens, charging that he he was a member of the American Communist Party, had directed secret organizations aiming at the overthrow of the American government, had associated with and incited criminal anarchists, and that he was himself a German revolutionist. The Post additionally editorialized in favor of delivering Martens “over to the tender mercies of Noske, who knows how to deal with Sparticides, Bolsheviki, and their ilk.” Martens responded through his lawyer, former Senator Hardwick, who hired additional counsel in order to bring suit against the Post. “Their contention is that the above and other allegations by the Post are utterly false and are refuted by the official record of the Senate hearings,” this news account from the Socialist press declares. The Post’s editorial offensive against Martens was seen as part of a final effort by an increasingly desperate Department of Justice and the Lusk Committee of New York to justify their policy of repression of Martens and his Soviet Government Bureau in New York.

“Special Report on Undercover Operations in the UCP by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation at Mason City, IA,” by Special Agent H.W. Hess [March 4, 1921]” This extensive report by Bureau of Investigation Special Agent H.W. Hess reviews the information gathered by the undercover operations of the Bureau. B.C. Keeler of the Mason City Brick & Tile Co. had placed his undercover operative ("Mike Benton") at the service of the BoI; this individual had worked himself into the good graces of the local organization of the United Communist Party, headed by cartoonist and writer Harry Keas, a founding member of the Communist Labor Party. The BoI believes that “Carl Alton,” UCP District Organizer for the Chicago District, was a pseudonym for Ludwig Katterfeld—an assertion which has not been positively confirmed at this time. Also figuring largely in the Chicago District of the UCP were Edgar Owens of Moline, IL, and Harry Keas of Mason City, IA. A Dec. 12, 1920 visit to the district by CEC member Edward Lindgren is recounted; Lindgren is represented as having made the (preposterous) claims that “the Russian government would have 5,000 agents in this country within 6 months; that the Russian Soviet Government was appropriating $120,000 per year in the support of the United Communist Party.” This document includes an extensive set of footnotes by Tim Davenport clarifying various esoteric points and misstatements.”

“Report of the United Communist Party's District Organizer 10 [San Francisco] to Exec. Sec. Alfred Wagenknecht in New York, March 7, 1921,” by W. Costley. This is terrific stuff, a colorful local report that social historians will be able to sink their teeth in, chronicling the affairs of the United Communist Party's California District Organizer, W. Costley. Costley is outspoken in his advocacy of open, legal political action: “...To my way of thinking the results are not commensurate with the time and expense put into the work. I attribute the slow growth of the movement here to the fact that the right sort of open work up to the present has not been done, because we have had no comrades capable of doing it. I find myself so busy doing the routine work of the office and attending on men whom I know are good timber. But this is slow work when you have to spend time and money in calling on a party three or four times before you catch him and when you finally see him he has to read up and decide what he will do.” Instead, at open meetings great numbers might be addressed and directed into party work simultaneously, Costley notes, with literature sales covering the cost of the operation. Costley bemoans the attitude of the Finns in not wanting to jump into the UCP and transfer ownership of their halls to the party: “It made me as mad to the bone to see them have the psychology of the bourgeoisie deeply embedded in their systems, and I told them so. And I told them furthermore that they were covering themselves with disgrace by refusing to enlist in the ranks NOW, and every moment of delay was a discredit to them.” He expresses a wish to begin open work and suggests “Albric” [Bertram Wolfe] as a potential candidate for the DO position. He also seeks to launch a free speech fight in Oakland, to pave the way for a return of Bob Minor and other radical speakers.

“Debate on the Press and the Society for Medical Aid to Soviet Russia at the 3rd Russian All-Colonial Congress: New York City,” by Bureau of Investigation Undercover Agent “P-132” [March 8, 1921] The Russian All-Colonial Congresses were ostensibly non-partisan biannual gatherings of the “Russian colony in the United States and Canada” sponsored by the anarchist Union of Russian Workers. This material is an extract from the report of the 3rd Russian All-Colonial Congress was provided by “P-132,” a Russian-speaking undercover Special Agent of the Bureau of Investigation (a full BoI employee who wrote his own reports, as opposed to a paid informer who funneled information to a reporting Special Agent). Topics of debate here are the ideological line to be pursued by the new official organ of the All-Colonial and the financial controversy over the Detroit branch of the Medical Aid to Soviet Russia organization. With regard to the press, the All-Colonial (Union of Russian Workers) had launched a paper called Amerikanskaia Izvestiia [American News] to replace the suppressed anarchist weeklies Rabochii i Krest'ianin and Khleb i Volia. Calls were made by anarchist delegates to the 3rd Congress for the publication to adopt an explicitly anarchist line. Delegate Mikhailov declares” “Comrades, you all know that we are Anarchists. Why should we cover up our beliefs and teachings by organizing schools and various educational societies? And that applies to Amerikanskaia Izvestiia. Once for all we ought to say clearly that it is an Anarchist newspaper and establish definitely its true character and purpose.” This perspective is opposed by Delegate Sivko, who states: “You are an Anarchist; well, I am a Communist, and if you demand the Anarchist policy I demand the Communist, and I will never consent that Anarchist propaganda be taught through Amerikanskaia Izvestiia.” Despite their control of the convention, the multi-tendency orientation of the newspaper was maintained by the final resolution of the 3rd All-Colonial Congress. That same evening a “special meeting or session” was held to deal with the alleged improprieties of the Medical Aid to Soviet Russia organization. At this “special session,” the same “Communist” delegate Sivko (probably a communist-anarchist as opposed to a CPA member) detailed the fraudulent practices which he uncovered in the Detroit organization of the Medical Aid for Soviet Russia organization. Rovin, Saks, Mendelsohn, and Boris Roustam-Bek are accused of having pocketed organizational funds, nearly $2,000 being unaccounted for by a snap audit. A parallel (anarchist) Medical Aid to Soviet Russia organization had been launched. Adding color is the comment by “P-132” that “during [Sivko's] speech several members of the Communist Party were trying to break up the meeting, but they were beaten up by members of the Union of Russian Workers, especially by Kiselev, who threw them down the stairs."

“Branstetter in Interview With Eugene V. Debs: Wilson Gag on Socialist Prisoner.” [Milwaukee Leader] [March 19, 1921] Following the November 1920 election, Atlanta prison authorities, apparently acting on directions of officials in the Wilson administration, seem to have cracked down on imprisoned Socialist leader Gene Debs, taking away his privilege to send or receive mail or to receive visitors. This period of holding Debs incommunicado was finally broken in March 1921 with a visit by Executive Secretary of the SPA Otto Branstetter to Debs in prison. Branstetter dispelled rumors that Debs had been physically mistreated, noting that “His guards have the deepest respect and even affection for him, and the matter of personal mistreatment is unthinkable.” Branstetter states that Debs’ “rights have been restored, at the discretion of the warden, and it seems as if the matter of his gagging is an ugly incident of the past, the last foul smelling act of the discredited Wilson regime.” The article also makes not that Debs’ fellow political prisoner in Atlanta Joseph Coldwell of Rhode Island, had refused an opportunity at parole on more than one occasion with the words, “While Gene is in, I will not voluntarily get out.”

“L.A.K. Martens Not Deported; Allowed to Go: Former Labor Secretary Now Gives New Explanation,” by Laurence Todd [March 22, 1921] This article distributed by the Federated Press notes that former Soviet representative in the United States Ludwig Martens had not been deported, as was implied in the press, but rather had been permitted to depart under his own volition and at his own expense. The article quotes outgoing Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson as saying in his defense, “The decision against Martens did not end Martens’ legal resources. He could still have recourse to the courts on habeas corpus proceedings. Under such circumstances it would have been months before Martens could have been deported, if at all. Consequently the Secretary of Labor permitted Martens to leave the United States without executing the deportation warrant on condition that he would leave not later than Jan. 22, 1921, and proceed to Russia at his own expense instead of at the expense of the United States.”

“Daugherty Acts on Debs Monday: Gene Returns to Cell from Capital Without Guards: Leaves Washington After Secret Conference with Attorney General on Case - Trial Judge Also Called: Prisoner Came and Left in Silence,” by Paul Hanna [March 25, 1921] This article distributed by the Federated Press details a surprising and largely unknown episode from the life of Eugene Debs—that in March 1921 he was permitted to leave the federal penitentiary in Atlanta without escort to travel by train to meet with new Attorney General Daugherty. “I could not go to see Debs, so Debs came to see me,” Daugherty told reporters after Debs had safely returned to Atlanta. “I wanted his own answer to certain questions and Debs gave them,” Daugherty said. Debs was sworn to silence on the trip, a promise which he did not violate."His sensational round trip from Atlanta to Washington is regarded as being in part a move by the administration to show the public that Eugene V. Debs is a man of spotless personal honor, no less than of unflinching devotion to his political principles. The administration has learned how to share in the drama of Debs, and to set off the villain’s role played by a prominent Democrat,” reporter Paul Hanna remarks. The Attorney General also sought the counsel of Judge Westenhaver of Ohio, who sentenced Debs to 10 years imprisonment on Sept. 11, 1918. Resolution of the call for amnesty in the case of Debs and all other political prisoners remaining from the late European war was expected shortly.

APRIL

“The Story of Alex Howat,” by James P. Cannon. [April 1921] Article from the legal Communist monthly The Liberator on Alexander Howat, one of the most important left-wing labor leaders of the day as President of District 14 of the United Mine Workers of America. Cannon deals at length with his fellow Kansan’s protracted battle with the Southwestern Coal Operators’ Association, who had made use of the Kansas legislature to establish an Industrial Court as a mechanism for suppressing labor discord. Lack of support by the UMWA for Howat’s cause was alleged to be a contributing factor in the mine owners’ uninterrupted battle with Howat.

“Report to the 2nd World Congress of the Young Communist International by the Young Communist League of America and the United Communist Party of America, April 1921” This document by Young Communist League of American national organizer “H. Edwards” fully substantiates the theory that there was a communist youth section in America one year previous to the “April 1922” date claimed in the literature. Edwards gives the April 1921 Jena World Congress of the YCI a brief synopsis of the history of the radical youth movement in America. After the split of the Socialist Party in 1919, the SP’s Young People’s Socialist League was similarly effecte. “Edwards” states that “many of the younger comrades left the League and the remaining part of the League as a whole decided to remain independent of any party while the controversy between the two Communist parties was going on.” The SP regulars fought to gain control of the organization, League members were unclear of their mission, financial crisis set in, and the YPSL’s national organization dissolved. “Only a few of the local or sectional organizations of it managed to remain more or less intact,” says “Edwards.” While the CPA and CLP indicated support in principle of a youth section, it was not until the 2nd Convention of the United Communist Party in January 1921 that real work began to organize a Young Communist League of America. In the subsequent three months, leaflets and a pamphlet were prepared, provisional rules drawn up, and organizational work done in the main cities with a UCP presence, resulting in the organization of “about 20 groups.” “At the earliest possible moment a national convention of the YCL will be called, at which time the members will outline the ways, means, and policies of the organization and elect their own officials,” the national organizer stated.

“Revolutionary Industrial Unionism versus Armed Insurrection.” (leaflet of the Industrial Workers of the World) [circa April 1921] This is a rare document, a fairly thorough and quite explicit exposition of the revolutionary strategy of the Industrial Workers of the World, presented in comparison and contrast to the revolutionary strategy of the American Communist movement. The Communist strategy is regarded as being a product long on enthusiasm and short on thoughtful analysis: “Inspired by the success of the Russian Revolution, many who formerly put their faith in the ballot are now advocating armed insurrection in the United States. But these people ignore the difference between conditions in Russia at the time of the Revolution, and those now existing in this country.” The leaflet notes that unlike in peasant Russia, with its small and weak capitalist strata, in the US capitalism had held sway for a number of years and grown large and strong. “To have a reasonable chance of success by armed insurrection the workers would need to have as large and well equipped an army as the capitalists,” the leaflet declares, noting that “A good percentage of the workers would support the capitalists” and that those remaining “are unarmed and the great majority are untrained in the use of arms. They have no military organization. They have no means of securing arms.” The result of the strategy of armed insurrection, pitting primitive hand-weapons against machine guns and poison gas, would be an unimaginable bloodbath and crushing of the workers. To this is contrasted the strategy for victory of the IWW: “It aims at the root of all capitalist power, control of industry. It advocates organization of the workers in industry in such a way that they can control industry. The power of the workers is neither political nor military, but Industrial. This is the greatest power in the world, it is the foundation that underlies all other forms of power.” The leaflet declares that “The workers alone can carry on production” and observes that “in case of civil war between labor and capital, whichever side controls industry will win.” Therefore, it is the steady growth of industrial organization that will prove decisive, in the IWW’s view. In a revolutionary situation, transportation of enemy soldiers could be sabotaged and production of armaments halted by the direct action of the workers organized in Revolutionary Industrial Unions. “The best tactics on the part of the workers is to avoid armed insurrection unless it is actually forced upon them and work by all means in their power to increase their control of industry. In case of civil war, the success of the workers will be measured by the amount of control they exert over industry. Complete control of industry would mean complete and bloodless victory while lack of control would mean bloody slaughter and inevitable defeat,” the IWW leaflet insists.

“Financial Report of the National Office, United Communist Party of America. As of April 1, 1921.” Although a few conservative spinmeisters will doubtlessly remain in denial, here’s what the archives actually show were the quarterly revenue and expenses of the United Communist Party in Q1 of 1921. The legendary “several million dollars in valuables” said to have been funneled to the American Communist movement in 1920 seem to have...... vanished! It’s almost as if the inflation-era nominal ruble values listed in document RTsKhIDNI f. 495, op. 82, d. 1, l. ? were misinterpreted in a tendentious 1995 Yale University Press document collection. Reality: According to Executive Secretary Alfred Wagenknecht’s report to the May 1921 Unity Convention at Woodstock, New York (source of this document) the UCP received $25,000 out of $50,000 disbursed in Moscow. This was the SUM TOTAL of its funding up to the May 1921 Unity Convention. The document hers shows line items for Comintern and other external subsidies were a shade over $18,000 for the quarter—about double the organization’s dues stamp revenue for the period. Let there be no mistake: this represented a substantial percentage of the UCP’s total income. But the hysterically overhyped 1920 “Document 1” in the collection by Messrs. Haynes, Klehr, and Firsov is hereby shown to have been gleefully misinterpreted by hanging judges intent on politicizing archival documents. Whether a formal public apology will be forthcoming to the guy that two of the trio slagged in their follow up polemic In Denial for challenging their dubious claim remains to be seen. Here is what they said in print about that poor fellow: He iterally didn't know what he was talkng about. (pg. 73) Karma!

“May Day of Revolution.” [UCP leaflet written by Israel Amter] [distributed for May 1, 1921]” This 1921 May Day leaflet of the United Communist Party features the purple prose of Israel Amter, author of a legendary and laughable leaflet of similar vintage which attempted to use hysterical verbiage to singlehandedly create a revolutionary situation out of a Brooklyn streetcar strike. The concert violinist Amter shrilly declares: “We, American Workers, will no more stand the tyranny of the bosses and of their government. We have had enough. The United States Government stands for the bosses against the Workers! It uses the law-making bodies, the courts and its troops against the Workers. THEN WE MUST DESTROY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT! We must overthrow it and put in its place a Workers’ Government. We must uphold the Workers’ Government with a strong army, to crush the bosses and all who support them! We must prepare for the Revolution - there is no other way! May Day of Revolution is here! * * * LET US PREPARE FOR THE REVOLUTION!”

“Then and Now, April 6, 1917 - April 6, 1921.” (leaflet of the Communist Party of America) [April 6, 1921] The date at the heart of this document, April 6, 1917, was the date of American entry into the European bloodbath, a war which left over 10 million dead and millions more wounded or maimed. On this the 4th anniversary of Wilson’s about face on the question of American participation, the Communist Party asks the American working class to make an assessment of whether promises about the war were delivered upon and whether the escapade was worth the price. “The capitalists wanted war because they could greatly increase their profits. And increase them they did beyond those of any other country. The United States before the war was a debtor nation. Today the capitalists through their government in Washington hold a mortgage on almost every other country in the world,” the leaflet declares. It adds: “But the capitalists didn’t do the fighting. They stayed at home and hired out to their government for one dollar a year. Their sons were placed in positions that afforded security for life and limb. The working class was called upon to do the fighting and the paying and to produce the munitions of war.” Conscription was instituted and Communist and IWW political objectors “were ground under the Iron Heel with the brutality of the Russian Tsars. The capitalist White Terror stalked through the land.” The lessons of the world war are clear, the leaflet indicates: “There can be no peace while the few have the power to exploit the masses. The road to peace lies through world revolution.” To this end: “The working class—the overwhelming majority of the people - must become the ruling class. They must establish their own government—the DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT—THE WORKERS’ GOVERNMENT IN THE FORM OF SOVIETS. This Workers’ Government will suppress the counter-revolution of the capitalists. It will take over the factories and the railroads and the land. This Workers’ Government will gradually introduce the Communist Society.”

“Debs Tried Out One Big Union of Railroads: Plan Weakened Craft Bodies, Says Foster,” by William Z. Foster [April 6, 1921] This article distributed by the Federated Press by the former syndicalist and future Communist leader emphasizes Foster’s anti-dual union perspective. While the spirit behind the effort of Gene Debs to establish a militant industrial union of railway workers in 1893 is embraced, Foster ultimately declares that the ARU’s “brilliant” early victory only lead to “overconfidence” and a smashing of the union. “The advent of the American Railway Union, as is always the case with dual organizations, did great harm to the railroad craft unions. All of them were weakened and some nearly destroyed. Thousands of their best members quit them to take part in the ARU, only to find themselves blacklisted out of the railroad service later because of the lost strike,” Foster declares. He adds that “The case of Debs himself is a striking example of the damage done. When he resigned his position as General Secretary-Treasurer and editor of the official journal of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen in order to form the ARU, he was a great force for progress in the old unions. Had Debs stayed with them he would have been a big factor in their future development. But he was lost to them, and that they have suffered much in consequence no unbiased observer will deny.” Foster does not recognize or emphasize that the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, from whence Debs sprung, was a fraternal and benefit society rather than a union per se—providing cultural opportunities and accident insurance rather than engaging in collective bargaining.

“Soviet Russia Called by Communist Worst Tyranny in World.” [Milwaukee Leader on Morris Zucker] [April 8, 1921] This short article from the pages of the Milwaukee Leader sheds a bit of additional light on the strange case of Morris Zucker, an active member of the Left Wing Section of Local New York who upon being released from prison left for Soviet Russia without passport or papers, becoming quickly entangled with the Soviet Secret Police upon arrival. Once release from prison and expelled from the country, Zucker bitterly denounced the Soviet regime in the mainstream press of the day. This article notes that Zucker left the United States in Sept. 1920 and arrived in Soviet Russia only in November—and that he was arrested by the Cheka (as an accused spy) after only 3 days in the country. “Conditions steadily are becoming worse. What little foreign trade Russia is able to get is of no help to the people, who everywhere are the victims of tyranny and go about in a hopeless attitude because of the great and constant red terror,” Zucker is quoted as declaring from Estonia.

“W.D. Haywood Now in Russia, Chicago Rumor.” [Milwaukee Leader] [April 21, 1921] Official history of the life of William D. “Big Bill” Haywood emphasizes the fact that he was driven from the country by arbitrary and draconian judicial fiat. What is not emphasized, however, is the way that in fleeing from imprisonment Haywood broke faith and discipline with his former organization, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the codefendants with whom he was sentenced—who were engaged in trying to win their freedom as a group as political prisoners from the late European war. This news report from the pages of Victor Berger’s Milwaukee Leader breaks the news of Haywood’s flight from justice (using that term loosely) as part of a group of 7 delegates to the Founding Congress of the Red International of Trade Unions, who sailed from New York on March 31, 1921 for Stockholm. Haywood had failed to report back to Leavenworth Prison after the failure of his appeal before the US Supreme Court, prompting Chicago District Attorney Charles W. Clyne to engage the Department of Justice in a nationwide search for Haywood.

“Haywood Joins Communists; Quits IWW.” [Milwaukee Leader] [April 23, 1921] This Federated Press news account quotes unnamed friends of bail jumper Bill Haywood to the effect that Haywood “has joined the Communist Party and has definitely severed all connection with the IWW.” Haywood had “definitely aligned himself with the Communist Party” about the first of 1921, according to this account. Trying to keep hopes alive for a pardon of the mass of IWW political prisoners left in limbo by Haywood’s ill-timed and self-centered flight, attorney for the IWW prisoners Harry Weinberger said, “In my opinion the failure of Bill Haywood or of anyone else to appear for imprisonment can in no way affect the broad principle of political amnesty, which includes the Industrial Workers of the World, and which the administration should immediately put into effect.”

“May Day: Labor’s International Holiday.” (leaflet of the Communist Party of America) [distributed for May 1, 1921] Another in a series of CPA leaflets intended to agitate for insurrection. “The bosses - the capitalist class—have organized to crush you. They openly declare that they intend to smash your unions - destroy your resistance—reduce your wages and bring you to the level of serfs. This May Day you must demonstrate. Let us answer their challenge. Let us resolve this May Day to prepare for the REVOLUTION,” the leaflet declares. Unless dramatic action were soon taken, the prospects facing American workers were grim, in the leaflet’s estimation: “What are the prospects which confront us if the capitalist slave drivers remain in power? Nothing but new wars, slavery, billions upon billions of taxes, poverty, starvation, and perpetual oppression.” No punches are pulled as to the means of the necessary change: “The Government of the US was established by FORCE; it is maintained by FORCE; it will be destroyed by FORCE.” Only in Soviet Russia would the workers be celebrating May Day as “free men,” the leaflet states. “This May Day let us resolve to PREPARE for the destruction of the capitalist government and the establishment of a WORKERS’ GOVERNMENT—The Dictatorship of the Proletariat—in America. Let us ORGANIZE to build a SOVIET REPUBLIC in America. The road to working class freedom lies through REVOLUTION,” the leaflet concludes.

“May Day Labor’s International Holiday.” (leaflet of the CPA) [circa April 25, 1921] ** NEW EDITION - Fills in previously illegible words ** Another in a series of CPA leaflets intended to agitate for insurrection. “The bosses - the capitalist class—have organized to crush you. They openly declare that they intend to smash your unions - destroy your resistance—reduce your wages and bring you to the level of serfs. This May Day you must demonstrate. Let us answer their challenge. Let us resolve this May Day to prepare for the REVOLUTION,” the leaflet declares. Unless dramatic action were soon taken, the prospects facing American workers were grim, in the leaflet’s estimation: “What are the prospects which confront us if the capitalist slave drivers remain in power? Nothing but new wars, slavery, billions upon billions of taxes, poverty, starvation, and perpetual oppression.” No punches are pulled as to the means of the necessary change: “The Government of the US was established by FORCE; it is maintained by FORCE; it will be destroyed by FORCE.” Only in Soviet Russia would the workers be celebrating May Day as “free men,” the leaflet states. “This May Day let us resolve to PREPARE for the destruction of the capitalist government and the establishment of a WORKERS’ GOVERNMENT—The Dictatorship of the Proletariat—in America. Let us ORGANIZE to build a SOVIET REPUBLIC in America. The road to working class freedom lies through REVOLUTION,” the leaflet concludes.

“Roger Baldwin Raps Haywood’s ‘Desertion.’” [Milwaukee Leader] [April 29, 1921] Roger Baldwin, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, issued a sharp critique of Bill Haywood’s decision to jump bail and flee to Soviet Russia rather than return to Leavenworth Penitentiary in the Spring of 1921, following loss of his appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. Baldwin criticizes the “ordinary Communist propaganda, intended to justify Haywood’s desertion of the IWW defense organization and of his bondsmen, by stressing his new allegiance to the Communist Party, whose members are under a discipline which admits no personal judgment or other loyalties.” Baldwin continues that “We do not question Haywood’s motives. We do question the spirit and methods of a movement which has so little concern with loyalty to the elementary obligations of good faith to one’s fellows.”

“Re: A. Jakira (formerly reported as Jakera and Jackera and Iakira): United Communist Party: National Secretary”, by C.J. Scully [April 30, 1921] A summary of Bureau of Investigation file information on Abram Jakira, recently arrested at the headquarters of the UCP, prepared by New York City Special Agent in Charge C.J. Scully. Scully’s synopsis of file material includes the verbatim quotation of an extensive report by Special Agent M.J. Davis that illuminates the technical aspect of the Communist Labor Party’s literature production in 1919 (as well as the operating procedure of the DoJ’s Bureau of Investigation). A flyer entitled “HANDS OFF SOVIET RUSSIA” was printed for Jakira and the CLP by the Chatham Printing Co., proprietor of which was Alexander Trachtenberg. Trachtenberg’s bookkeeper, Abraham Goodman, was an informant for the Department of Justice and brought the leaflet to their attention, keeping the Bureau of Investigation apprised of the shop’s doings on behalf of the radical movement. This work was said to have been paid for cash-in-advance and kept off the books by Trachtenberg so as to avoid a paper trail. Abram Jakira was the recipient and distributor of the finished printed publications; the Department of Justice was intent on proving that he was but a transmission mechanism for funding from the office of Ludwig Martens (the Russian Soviet Government Bureau). Trachtenberg initially denied having produced the “HANDS OFF SOVIET RUSSIA” leaflet at all, a claim which bookkeeper Abraham Goodman pronounced to be a lie in a further interview with the Bureau. The story is picked up in a later file item, in which four agents of the Bureau of Investigation served a search warrant on Trachtenberg’s print shop, and found there 10,000 party cards printed for the Communist Party of America, postcards printed for the CLP, a Yiddish language edition of The Class Struggle (a CLP publication), and leaflets for the Newark branch of the CLP. In the course of his interview with the BoI, Trachtenberg implicated the print shop of CLP member Eugene Krug for having printed the Ukrainian language official organ of the CLP—although a still later document in this series indicates the the DoJ already had an informer in that establishment as well.

MAY

“Appeal to American Workers.” (leaflet of the American Bureau, International Council of Trade and Industrial Unions [RILU]) [May 1921] Before the role was filled by the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), the program of the Red International of Labor Unions was advanced in the United States by the “American Bureau of the International Council of Trade and Industrial Unions.” This is a rare early leaflet of the “American Bureau,” produced in a run of 40,000 copies and distributed by the Communist Party. A grim situation faces the world, the leaflet indicates: “The specter of starvation haunts the entire world. Victors and vanquished of the late war alike tremble before it. This breakdown of the whole fabric of capitalism is accompanied by a savage drive upon the workers by the massed power of the employing class. The Master Class has declared war on Labor. This war rages in all countries.” White terror was being employed around the world—in the United States as well as Hungary; an open shop campaign had been launched to break American unions; 4 million American workers remained unemployed; new wars were plotted. In response, the leaflet advocates an opening of trade relations with Soviet Russia to provide a willing market for American products and to restore industry. Further, workers are urged that their own international organization is necessary to fight the international organization of the capitalists in the League of Nations. The International Council of Trade and Industrial Unions (RILU), based in Moscow, is just the organization needed by workers, the leaflet claims, standing in stark opposition to the “capitalist international” as well as the “yellow Amsterdam international,” whose “ traitorous leaders, whose hands are stained with the blood of 13 million workers.” The social democratic Amsterdam International is cast in a particularly noxious light, as “agents of the bourgeoisie in the camp of the workers.” American workers are urged to take up the issue of international affiliation at local union meetings and to influence their national unions to affiliate with RILU: “You cannot remain neutral. There can be no neutrality between the workers and the capitalists. You are for the dictatorship of the workers or you are for the dictatorship of the capitalists.”

Membership Series by Federation for the (old) Communist Party of America, July 1920 to Jan. 1921. For those of you who like your history crunchy instead of fluffy, here are two pages worth printing out and saving. This is an outstanding membership series for seven core months of the old Communist Party of America, as presented by Executive Secretary Charles Dirba to the May 1921 Unity Convention held at Woodstock, NY. Each of the seven months is divided among the six language federations of the old CPA (these being from big to small: Lithuanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Polish, Jewish) as well as the handful of “Non-Federation” (i.e. English language) members.

“Don’t Be So Sure of Your Job!” (leaflet of the United Communist Party) [circa May 1921] ** REVISES ESTIMATED DATE OF PUBLICATION. **Aside from publishing newspapers and giving speeches to one another at various meetings and conventions, the only “revolutionary” activity conducted by the underground Communist movement of the early 1920s involved the periodic mass distribution of cheaply printed newsprint leaflets. These were printed in runs running into the hundreds of thousands and then stealthily scattered around various industrial cities of the north over the course of one or a few dark nights. This “leaflet no. 2” of the United Communist Party from the spring of 1921 attempts to turn the fear of unemployment into mass strike action: “Force the government to take care of [the unemployed]! Fight for shorter hours with no reduction of pay, so they can get back on the job! Fight for opening up trade with Soviet Russia, so there will be work!” These strikes would be met with opposition, the leaflet noted: “Of course, the courts will issue injunctions against us. The government will send troops against us. Soldiers, police, thugs, legionnaires, and vigilantes will be lined up against us.” There was a solution, however, painted in rosy hues: “The Russian workers showed us what to do. They overthrew their BOSSES’ government and set up a WORKERS’ Government. They took over the industries and ran them ONLY for the workers. They threw out all idlers and bloodsuckers! They put an end to unemployment. They became the OWNERS OF THEIR JOBS!”

“In Re: Communist Activities—Special Report”, by C.J. Scully [May 1, 1921] A summary of the operation which netted the arrest of Edward Lindgren, Abram Jakira, and Israel Amter in a raid on the National Headquarters of the United Communist Party. This account is written by the Special Agent in Charge of the New York Office of the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation—the commander at the desk rather than the agents on the street. As such, Scully is in position to provide the important tidbit that the operation to trail Lindgren from Pennsylvania to New York related to a belief that he was leaving “to attend a convention of Communist deputies.” Rather than tracking Lindgren back to UCP headquarters, the secret police believed that he was leading them to the site of a convention—thus the scale of the operation and the eagerness to launch an immediate raid. Two other things bear mention about this report: first, it once again indicates the extreme difficulty that literally HUNDREDS of BoI agents, undercover operatives, and informants had in connecting the thousands of ever-changing party pseudonyms with the actual individuals. Even after days of tracking him, based on top level intelligence inside the Pittsburgh UCP apparatus, it was an extremely lengthy process for the authorities to positively identify the man they called “Flynn” and later tentatively identified as “Siebert” as Edward Lindgren. One sees such difficulty again and again in the Bureau of Investigation’s files. Secondly, the ease of a warranteless raid on a residence by the New York Police’s Bomb Squad stands in marked contrast to the difficulty the BoI had in seizing and opening the mail deposiited by Lindgren in a postal mail box. Requests needed to be made of postal officials to hold this mail and then a formal search warrant obtained—an altogether different standard of legality and privacy rights than that afforded the domicile.

“May Day: Labor’s International Holiday.” This is the text of a 1921 May Day leaflet of the pre-unification Communist Party of America. One of the most inflammatory revolutionary documents produced by the American Communist Movement, this leaflet explicitly calls for American workers to use “force against force” en route to “destruction of the capitalist government” and the establishment of “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat” in America. Printed on two sides of a single newsprint sheet, records in the Comintern archive indicate a print run of this document in excess of 500,000. Despite this, specimens of this leaflet are extreme rarities today.

“William D. Haywood, Communist Ambassador to Russia,” by David Karsner. [May 1, 1921] In 1921, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the conviction and 20 year sentence of IWW leader William D. Haywood under the so-called Espionage Act. Rather than return to the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, Haywood instead jumped bail and emigrated to Soviet Russia. This article, published in the illustrated Sunday supplement of the Socialist Party-affiliated New York Call assesses “Big Bill” Haywood’s career as a revolutionary labor leader and attempts to analyse the thinking behind Haywood’s decision to escape American justice for foreign shores. The author of this article, David Karsner, the editor of The Call’s Sunday magazine and the first biographer of Eugene Debs, was not unsympathetic to Haywood’s plight.

“Stedman’s Red Raid,” by Robert Minor. [May 1, 1921] Full text of a pamphlet produced by the UCP’s Toiler Publishing Association detailing a particularly disgusting footnote to the 1919 split of the Socialist Party. Minor indicates that in the immediate aftermath of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s anti-red raid of January 2, 1920, Socialist Party attorneys Seymour Stedman and Lazaras Davidow attempted to expropriate the assets of the Socialist Party of Michigan under the flimsy pretext that as “Communists” the expelled Michiganites of the party’s holding company were participants in a criminal organization which “advocated the overthrow of the government by force and violence.” At bottom of this scheme was a Detroit headquarters building owned by the Michigan party, represented by Minor as having approximately $90,000 of equity. Stedman issued a Bill of Complaint paralleling the criminal charges of the state against the unfortunate Michigan party members already jailed for alleged violation of the state’s Criminal Syndicalism law. He then red-baited the members of the legitimate holding company on the stand in an attempt to have the property awarded to a hastily gathered and miniscule Michigan “organization” retaining ties to the national SPA. Minor states that when they were at last confronted about their uncomradely behavior by concerned Socialist Party members, Stedman and Davidow thereafter lied and mislead their inquisitors as to their actions and had a further smoke screen laid by SPA National Executive Secretary Otto Branstetter with a fallacious news release of his own to the socialist press. A sordid tale of greed, deceit, and foul play...

“In Re: Communist Activites—John E. Siebert, aliases Lindgren, Flynn, Landy, Lang, and Smith.”, by Al Weitsman [Events of April 29, 1921] Department of Justice Bureau of Investigation report by one of the Special Agents assigned to trail United Communist Party organizer “John Siebert” (believed by them to be the real name of Edward Lindgren), who had been shadowed to New York by an agent of the Bureau from Pittsburgh. This account provided additional fine detail about events leading up to his arrest. Most interesting for the fact that even though there was a major, multi-state effort to trail Lindgren, set in motion by an informer in the top ranks of the Pittsburgh UCP organization, and despite reams of surveillance reports on the American Communist movement, the Bureau of Investigation still did not know Lindgren’s real name. Evidence that the constantly changing pseudonyms of the underground movement did their work in keeping the hundreds of agents and informers of the Bureau of Investigation off balance.

“1920 Financial Report of Charles H. Kerr & Co., Book Publishers.” [May 5, 1921] A mimeographed financial report sent out by America’s largest socialist publisher, Charles H. Kerr & Co. to its cooperative stockholders. Kerr anounces the forthcoming publication of The Shop Book, planned to be an occasional publication, to replace the suppressed International Socialist Review. It is noted that 1920 export trade was “almost entirely cut off” by the depreciation of the pound, which made it impossible for English booksellers to buy Kerr publications economically. In addition, “the price of paper, printing, and binding almost doubled,” resulting in a large increase in unsold inventories. One of three highlighted new publications, William Z. Foster’s The Railroaders’ Next Step, was actually published by the Trade Union Educational League—another sign of the waning influence of Kerr as the leading radical publisher in America. Includes a full financial report of Receipts v. Expenditures and Assets v. Liabilities.

“Department of Justice Surveillance Report of the Activities of Edward Lindgren, April 23-28, 1921.” by Clarence D. McKean. This Department of Justice Bureau of Investigation report reveals two interesting facts about the underground American Communist movement. First: how was an illegal organization able to distribute illegal literature, fliers with print runs running into the hundreds of thousands? “It was decided to distribute the May Day leaflets at the discretion of the distributors, with the limitation that the literature must be put out some time after dark Friday night [April 29] and before daylight the following morning.” Such bulk literature drops in the dead of night must have been terrifically ineffective. Second, the encyclopedic contents of every meeting which Lindgren attended, detailed in this document, make it clear that the UCP apparatus was penetrated by a DoJ agent at the very highest level in Pittsburgh—either the DO or the SDO. Further: it was this top-level penetration in Pittsburgh that set in motion the raid and arrest of Lindgren, Jakira, and Amter in New York City. “Much of the information contained in this report was received from a confidential source; therefore, the Bureau Offices furnished with copies are respectfully requested to handle the information contained herein in such a manner as not to embarrass our informant,” Agent McKean notes. The arrest was made far, far away from where the tail picked up—the secret agent’s identity was preserved.

“CPA Condensed Cash Statement, Feb. to May 1921, Including Federations, But Not Including Payments to and from the National Office and the Federations: Presented to the Joint Unity Convention, Woodstock, NY - May 15, 1921”. This is a very esoteric budget document, but specialists in the history of the early American Communist movement will probably immediately recognize its import. For me, at least, this document has led to a fundamental rethinking about the nature of the old CPA, for it shows that the organization truly was a “federation of federations.” Five of the old CPA’s 6 Language Federations possessed assets at least twice the size of the National Office of the organization. The same 5 possessed printing plant in excess of the National Office. Three of them retained substantial real estate holdings. Three of them spent more money than the National Office on literature production, and a fourth spent approximately the same amount as the National Office. These were clearly fully functioning political organizations in their own right, not tiny social groups of members speaking a common language. It is little wonder that the “Federation Issue” stood so large on the landscape as the primary issue impeding merger efforts between the UCP and the old CPA for so long and fueling the Central Caucus split that erupted in late November of 1921.

“Report of CEC to UCP Convention and to the Joint Convention of the United Communist Party and the Communist Party for Unity," by Alfred Wagenknecht [May 15, 1921]” Extensive extracts of the report of the CEC of the UCP to the Joint Unity Convention in Woodstock, NY, held from May 15-28, 1921. Internal UCP documents of the underground period tend to be terse and vacuous—this report is exceptional for its expansiveness and attention to detail, making it THE seminal document of the UCP. Wagenknecht once and for all slaughters the myth of “several million dollars” of support rendered in 1920 to the American Communist movement by Moscow. He says, “...The UCP was also promised financial support amounting to $100,000 for specific purposes such as defense, publishing the CI magazine, starting a daily paper, organizing work, etc. Fifty thousand dollars of this was sent, but only $25,000 arrived here. A donation of $10,000 was to come to the UCP to be given to the IWW defense.” (According to the CPA’s report to the same gathering, they received absolutely nothing from Moscow.) The other big news revealed in this document is that the raid of Helen Ware’s apartment in New York City, resulting in the arrests of Edward Lindgren, Abram Jakira, and Israel Amter, was on the NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS of the UCP. Wagenknecht stoically underplays the magnitude of the loss, which included subscription lists and a vast number of documents containing contact addresses kept in a code which the DoJ broke. Wagenknecht details the boundaries of the UCP’s districts and delves into the Party’s position on a wide range of strategic and tactical matters, not sparing the CPA from harsh criticism.

“General Report of the [old] Communist Party of America to the Joint Unity Convention," by Charles Dirba [May 15, 1921]” Extensive extracts of the report of the CEC of the old CPA to the Joint Unity Convention in Woodstock, NY, held from May 15-28, 1921. Dirba emphasizes the old CPA’s work establishing shop nuclei and its oft-times difficult relationship with the “Pan-American Council” of the Red International of Trade Unions as well as the “American Agency” sent by the Comintern to help unite the American movement and initiate Communist Parties elsewhere in the Americas. The old CPA’s Federation structure is eloquently and effectively detailed and defended by Dirba, who upbraids the UCP for “lack of a true understanding of democratic centralization” which contributed to the “failure of the UCP in language organization and propaganda, resulting in the chaotic conditions within their party.” Dirba defends the CPA’s commitment to unrelentingly propagandize among the workers the inevitability of armed insurrection as a means for overthrowing the bourgeois order and accuses the UCP of “Serratianism” (you’ll never see that word again) for waffling on the issue. Detailed figures are provided for the old CPA’s publications and membership statistics given (by district and by federaton) for the first quarter of 1921. The old CPA’s largest language group was its Lithuanian federation, followed by its Russian, Ukrainian, and Latvian language groups.

“The Ripening of Revolution in the United States,” by Max Bedacht [circa May 20, 1921] This article was first prepared for publication in Pravda by the United Communist Party’s representative to the Comintern, Max Bedacht; later reprinted in the pages the unified CPA’s legal English weekly, The Toiler. Bedacht observes that “the world war let loose the Social Revolution, and released everywhere the forces of proletarian upheaval. Capitalism everywhere is facing bankruptcy.” One country seemed at first glance exempt from this trend, however—the United States of America. But American prosperity was illusory, Bedacht argues: “this colossus of American capitalism stands on the clay feet of a thoroughly disorganized capitalist world economy, and is built upon the slumbering volcano of a discontented working class.... The bankruptcy of the capitalist countries of Europe presses down on it like a heavy load and poisons its very existence.” Unemployment was rampant and strikes increasing in frequency and volume, Bedacht believes. He concludes that America “will not lag behind in the revolutionary development either. It will destroy capitalism more thoroughly and rapidly, it will, after a sharp but decisive revolutionary struggle in the not far distant future, pave the way to communist development, will leave behind its elder revolutionary brethren thanks to its economic ripeness, and, instead of being the bogey of the world revolution, will become its ministering angel.”

“The White Terror. (Unsigned Reportage from The Toiler, May 21, 1921). News report from the semi-legal press of the United Communist Party detailing assorted acts of police illegality and malfeasance. Lead importance is given to the arrest of Abraham Jakira, Israel Amter, and Edward Lindgren of the UCP on April 29, 1921—arrests made without warrant. Held on $50,000 bail, at their hearings a week later the trio was brought before a judge, who dismissed the charges for insufficient evidence. The three were arrested again on the courthouse steps, again without warrant, and held pending completion of a pending grand jury hearing. In addition, four women were arrested in New York for distributing May Day leaftlets and held on Criminal Anarchy charges, while in Philadelphia houses were entered and 48 arrests made and property seized— again without warrants. One group of police got drunk on seized wine and made gun plays on one another, according to the report. In Chicago, two were arrested for displaying the Red Flag.

“Unity Achieved! To All Members of the CP and the UCP Now United in the Communist Party of America, Section of the Communist International.” [Late May 1921] Communique of the newly unified CPA to its membership regarding the decisions of the Joint Unity Convention held at Woodstock, NY, May 15-28, 1921. An enumeration of the primary differences between the two organizations (size of CEC, relationship of center to the Language Federations, election vs. appointment of party officials, etc.) and details of their final resolution. Published in a free bulletin to the membership along with the new organization’s constitution and the Report of the Liquidation Committee. (These supplemental documents published separately below).

“Constitution of the Communist Party of America: Approved at the Joint Unity Convention of the United Communist Party and the Communist Party of America, May 1921.” Full text of the Constitution of the newly unified Communist Party of America, which amalgamated the two rival American Communist Parties into a single organization. This document was negotiated and ratified by a gathering of 60 delegates (30 from each of the old parties) held in Woodstock, New York, during the second half of May, 1921. Although the party once again split in November-December 1921 and was to some great extent supplanted by the legal Workers Party of America at the end of December, this was the basic document of party law for the underground CPA of 1921-22.

“Report of the Liquidation Committee.” [Late May 1921] Report of a joint committee consisting of members of the old Communist Party of America and the United Communist Party of America detailing specific measures to be taken for the amalgamation of the two party organizations into one organic whole. The directives of this Liquidation Committee were binding, approved by the Joint Unity Convention of May 1921.The new Central Executive Committee was formally given the task of determining the geographic boundaries of the new party’s districts; District Executive Committees consisting of the new DOs and old DOs and SDOs of both parties were established to determine the new subdistricts; language branches were to be combined; cash turned in; assets tallied and reported to the new CEC; and the party press immediately unified.

JUNE

“The Tulsa Massacre!”—leaftlet of the unified Communist Party of America [June 1921] Full text of a shrill revolutionary leaflet issued in the wake of the extreme racist terror levied on June 1, 1921 against the black population of Tulsa, Oklahoma. “There is only one appeal that will stop the fiendish and bloody outrages—that is the appeal to organized force. The only language that the bloodthirsty capitalist of America can understand is the language of ORGANIZED POWER,” the leaflet declares. “For the Government of the US is nothing but the organized expression of the WILL of the CAPITALIST CLASS. The Government of the US is nothing else but a ruthless DICTATORSHIP of the RICH over the POOR. It is in the interest of both the Negro and the White WORKERS to destroy this CAPITALIST GOVERNMENT, root and branch. Shoulder to shoulder, and heart to heart, the workers of ALL races must UNITE to establish in this country a WORKERS’ GOVERNMENT—THE SOVIET REPUBLIC OF AMERICA.” The leaflet does not absolve the white working class from culpability for the standing state of affairs: “If the Negro worker can be used against the White worker, who is to blame? We have refused to allow our colored brothers to join our unions. We have repeated all the idiotic accusations against their race. We have foolishly allowed ourselves to be swayed by race prejudice. We have failed to ORGANIZE the Negro workers. We have refused to treat him as our own, our equal BROTHER in the CLASS STRUGGLE. WE ARE TO BLAME.”

“Moscow and the Socialist Party of the United States,” by Bertha Hale White. [June 11, 1921] White, one of the leading female members of the Socialist Party, writes in a pre-convention discussion bulletin that any discussion about SPA affiliation with the Third International in Moscow is moot, since the question has already been answered in no uncertain terms in the negative. Interesting for its discussion ofthe lengths taken by National Executive Secretary to make application to the Comintern for membership in 1920—as he was instructed to do by party referendum. White states the SPA must rebuild its shattered organization into a powerful force before being able to affiliate with Moscow on its own terms rather than be subject to conditions amounting to “tyranny.”.

“Minutes of the Central Executive Committee, (unified) Communist Party of America: New York City—May 30-June 3, 1921.” The minutes of the first plenum of the CEC of the unified CPA, which brought together 5 members of each the old Communist Party of America and the United Communist Party of America to establish the structure of the new organization. Charles Dirba (ex-old CPA) is elected Executive Secretary of the new CPA, Ludwig Katterfeld (ex-UCP) is elected Assistant Secretary. The new CEC spends much of its time and energy establishing boundaries for the new district system, arriving at a 9 District system which most closely resembles the boundaries of the old-CPA (which had 8 districts in theory, of which 6 were functioning in practice). The paid District Organizer positions also are bitterly contested. The CEC also carefully considers and ultimately approves its own procedural rules, which are appended to the minutes document. All known “real names” and their former organizational affiliations are included in the edited version of the minutes here, which make the document comprehensible to non-specialists in the underground period. The initial 10 members of the CEC of the unified CPA were: George Ashkenuzi, John Ballam, Charles Dirba, Joseph Stilson, and J. Wilenkin (ex-old CPA); also Ludwig Katterfeld, Jay Lovestone, William Weinstone, Joseph Zack (Kornfeder), and the yet-inidentified “Post” (ex-UCP).

“A Cook County Socialist Conference: Bureau of Investigation Report on the Special Meeting of Local Cook County, SPA: Machinists’ Hall, Chicago,” by August H. Loula [June 19, 1921]” This document reproduces the report of Chicago Bureau of Investigation August Loula concerning the bitterly contested June 19, 1921, meeting of Local Cook County, Socialist Party—a conclave which pitted SPA Executive Secretary Otto Branstetter and his supporters against the last enclave of a quasi-Communist Left Wing, headed by Louis Engdahl and Hyman Schneid. The meeting rejected a proposal recommending the Socialist Party’s affiliation with the Third International on the basis of the Comintern’s “21 points” by a vote of 50-74; this result prompted a walk out by 21 Bohemian delegates, who favored affiliation. A second resolution, declaring for reservation without reservations, was thereafter defeated by a vote of 36 to 44. A proposal favoring affiliation with the 2-1/2 International was severely trounced, the resolution garnering only 5 votes from the assembled delegates. Instead, a resolution was passed 59 to 24, stating that the Socialist Party should not affiliate with any international organization, but should instead spend its efforts building “a powerful, revolutionary, Socialist organization in this country.” A further proposal by Executive Secretary Branstetter, calling for the expulsion of those who continued to advocate affiliation with the 3rd International, died when the convention voted to adjourn rather than to take action. Instead a similar proposal was made by Branstetter a week later at the SPA’s annual convention, held in Detroit.”

“Account of the Executive Committee’s Work: Meetings of June 25-26, 1921 in the Kremlin.” This is a State Department translation from the Soviet press detailing the activities of the Executive Committee of the Communist International at the body’s final June session. This report, originally published in Krasnaia Gazeta [Red Newspaper], quotes President of the Comintern Grigorii Zinoviev’s summary about the work of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI) during its first 10 months of actual operation. An average of 3 meetings per month were held by ECCI, Zinoviev states, with an average of about 20 questions examined by the body each month. Zinoviev does not mention America, but rather singles out France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland as the nations in which the “most lamentable conditions” exist regarding the discipline and subordination of Communists to their party and the actual tactics followed by these parties. England and America are lumped together as nations with “weak” Communist Parties needing to establish closer connections with their national proletariats.

JULY

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

“Farewell!” to the Socialist Party: An Appeal to Its Remaining Members. Statement by the Committee for the Third International of the Socialist Party to the Members of the Socialist Party. Published as the second part of the pamphlet Go to the Masses! A Manifesto of the Third Congress of the Third International. Also the Withdrawal Statement of the Committee for the Third International of the Socialist Party to the Members of the Socialist Party. (Workers’ Council Pamphlet no. 1). (NY: Workers’ Council, n.d. [1921]).

“BoI Informant’s Report on the Cleveland District Conference of the unified CPA,” by “Ryan”—“Hill” [July 3-4, 1921] An invaluable participant’s account of the first Cleveland District Conference of the newly unified Communist Party of America by the Bureau of Investigation’s top informant inside the organization, the Pittsburgh Sub-District Organizer hailing from the former UCP who used the pseudonyms “Ryan” and “Hill.” The BoI informer describes traveling to Cleveland with Joseph Stilson and 3 other delegates by train to reach the convention, which was attended by 9 delegates from the former UCP, 8 delegates from the former CPA, and 2 fraternal delegates. Security procedures were in place, including 3 lookouts, “Ryan-Hill” indicates. The election of a new District Executive Committee (DEC) for the newly unified District organization was the prime subject of concern, and “Ryan-Hill” describes the way in which he and 4 other leading members of the former-UCP agreed upon a slate of 4 former-UCP candidates for the 5 member DEC; these names were then passed along to the other delegates hailing from the former-UCP and the caucus carried the day with its slate. Thus, even at a small meeting such as this, a caucus within a caucus and bloc voting along party lines was the mechanism of election, rather than honest discussion and open elections. “Ryan-Hill,” the Bureau of Investigation informer, describes how Stilson suspected delegate Joseph Verba of being a spy, leading to a search for evidence and a shouting match.

“The Proletarian Party of America," by Warren W. Grimes [July 20, 1921].” The American secret police apparatus maintained a substantial network of professional agents and undercover spies observing and reporting upon a range of left wing and labor organizations in the early 1920s, running the gamut from unions to the Civil Liberties Bureau to the Socialist Party to parties of the revolutionary left. This document is a section of a report by a “Special Assistant to the Attorney General” examining the organizational nature and biographies of the two principal leaders of the Proletarian Party of America. The biographies of Dennis Batt and John Keracher are useful synopses of secret police reports, gathered by the “General Intelligence Division” of the Department of Justice’s “Bureau of Investigation.” A large section of Grimes’ report, microanalyzing the program of the Proletarian Party, has been deleted from this version, but his conclusions remain: The PPA is described as a “novel case” which “has made consistent efforts, in its program and activities, to avoid the use of terms as well as clearly expressed tactics which would make it objectionable.... If the failure to use direct terms in the program is intended as camouflage...the attempt is futile, for where they have avoided using the express terms “forcible” or “mass action” and so forth, they have not been able to avoid the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” the “Third International,” the overthrow of the “capitalist state,” the use of armed citizenry against the police and army, which are legal agencies of organized government employed according to law on works opposed to the accomplishment of communist aims, and so forth.”

AUGUST

“The Need for Open Work,” by C.E. Ruthenberg [Aug. 1921] This is a very interesting article from the official organ of the unified Communist Party of America—not just for its fascinating content, but also for the fact that it was written by Ruthenberg from behind New York prison bars. Ruthenberg (writing under his 1920-21 party name, “David Damon”) relates the fact that the United Communist Party during 1920-21 had “created an open organization which was known as an auxiliary of the party. In some cities the authorities and the White Guard organizations of the capitalist class charged that this organization was but the camouflaged UCP, but no attack was made upon it and its work was not interfered with.” This bode well for a similar organization to be created in conjunction with the newly unified party. Ruthenberg indicates that given the openly stated party belief that “the use of armed force in the struggle to overthrow the capitalist state is an inevitable phase of the Proletarian Revolution,” there would always remain a place for the underground organization. This form was inadequate to the task of building class-conscious, mass support for the cause of revolution among the working class. “Prestige, confidence, leadership can only be established by winning it upon the field of action, in such a way that the workers recognize and see the men and the organization which are seeking to become their leaders in the class struggle. To accomplish this would be indeed a difficult task for a secret, remote, unseen organization such as an underground organization must be of necessity,” Ruthenberg writes. He also notes that “the greater part of petty, soul-destroying bickering which has helped so much to keep the Communist Movement in this country sterile, has been due to the fact that the conditions of underground work threw the membership inward upon itself, in place of outward in an attack upon the capitalist class.”

“Circular to All District Organizers, Sub-District Organizers, Section Organizers, and Respective Committees of the Communist Party of America from Ludwig Katterfeld, Executive Secretary, Aug. 6, 1921.” This circular letter from new Executive Secretary of the unified CPA L.E. Katterfeld announces the recently concluded 3rd World Congress of the Comintern had adopted a manifesto which called upon Communist Parties around the world to “act in behalf of Soviet Russia through the present crisis.” To this end, a new “legal” famine relief organization, the Friends of Soviet Russia, was to be formed (called “the B” in this document). Each District Committee was to elect a committee of 3 trustworthy members to be in charge of legal activities, one of whom was to be designated as Secretary. “The name will be turned over to the [American Labor Alliance], and information how to proceed will be sent him by the [American Labor Alliance] direct,” Katterfeld states. “The first public activity for the [American Labor Alliance] will be to launch the [Friends of Soviet Russia], and help energetically in the campaign for relief of the famine stricken districts of Russia. In [the American Labor Alliance] we can affiliate only organizations that comply to certain strict requirements, but in [the Friends of Soviet Russia] we shall ask the cooperation of much wider masses, as is suggested in the call sent out by the Third Congress.” Other Russian famine relief organizations are to be amalgamated in the new FSR organization, Katterfeld indicates. “The work is going full blast already. Speakers are being listed, application blanks, subscription lists, appeals, literature, etc. are being prepared, and will be sent as soon as we have the name and address of your legal secretary,” Katterfeld notes.

“American Labor Alliance is Launched in New York: Independent Labor Organizations Form a United Body to Abolish Capitalism and Establish a Workers’ Soviet Republic: Sentiment Against Reaction is Crystallized.” [The Toiler] [Aug. 6, 1921] Announcement in The Toiler about the formation of the Communist Party’s new legal mass organization, the American Labor Alliance. The convention call was issued to 15 organizations (mostly affiliates of the CP), to which the following 10 sent delegates: Friends of Soviet Russia; the Irish American Labor League; National Defense Committee; Finnish Socialist Federation; Associated Toiler Clubs; American Freedom Foundation; Ukrainian Workers Club; Industrial Socialist League; Marxian Educational Society; and the Hungarian Workers Federation. Caleb Harrison was elected National Secretary of the ALA and filling out the Executive Board were James P. Cannon, Michael Dardella, L.E. Katterfeld, Edgar Owens, Dr. Walenka, and William Woodworth. The Executive Board pledged to work in three fields of endeavor: lyceum, literature, and defense. Local branches of the ALA were slated for creation and “All true progressive organizations will be encouraged to affiliate and the entire mass of progressive and radical workers will be united to present a common front against its enemies,” according to the article.

“Is Hoover Bringing Russia Food or Reaction?” by A.C. Freeman [Aug. 7, 1921] This article in the weekly magazine section of the New York Call questions Herbert Hoover’s recent announcement that the American Relief Administration would begin work feeding starving children in Soviet Russia. Freeman notes that the previous policy of Hoover’s ARA had been “millions for counterrevolutionary emigrés, but not one cent for the starving children of Soviet Russia” and that Hoover is said to have boasted that he “never fed a Red.” While acknowledging that Hoover might actually possess “an altogether unsuspected quality of humanity in his character,” Freeman notes the recent comments of Hoover’s “henchman” T.T.G. Gregory in The World’s Work magazine in which Gregory indicates that “acting under Hoover’s orders and with his full approval, he utilized his position as controller of the food supplies of Central Europe in order to carry on active intrigues for the overthrow of the Hungarian Soviet government.” Freeman charges that “the preservation of millions of human beings from death by disease or starvation was only an incidental and comparatively unimportant item in Mr. Hoover’s fundamental scheme of throwing back the red wave. And, in order to realize this scheme, he was just as willing to starve the children of Russian and Hungary as he was to feed the children of Poland and Austria.” Freeman relates Gregory’s tale of swindling the Hungarian Soviet government out of a payment of $1 million for foodstuffs to feed the starving. Freeman asks: “Is Mr. Hoover trying to bring about in Russia the same counterrevolution and White Terror which he succeeded in bringing about in Hungary? His whole record, considered in connection with the present situation in Russia, would seem to point to this conclusion.”

“The Strength of American Socialism,” by James Oneal [Aug. 7, 1921] New York party leader James Oneal attempts to make the case that “the comparatively small increase of the Socialist vote cast in 1920” is in no way indicative of a decline in the prestige, power, and organization of the Socialist Party. While acknowledging that the SP had been left with a “wreck of an organization” by the “coercion and persecution” of the Wilson administration and Right Wing elements around the country. Nevertheless, wherever the party had been able to maintain its presence, its vote totals had increased in 1920, Oneal states. Oneal is optimistic about the party’s prospects, noting that for the first time since 1893, an insurgent movement had developed in the ranks of American labor seeking independent working class political action, taking the form of the Farmer-Labor Party, while in the Upper Midwest a radical agrarian movement had emerged under the banner of the Non-Partisan League. Illusions had been smashed by the imperialist outcome of the world war and cynicism had become rampant. Oneal likens the Socialist Party’s current moment to the 15 year period prior to the Civil War during which abolitionist forces consolidated themselves from various tributaries into the radical 3rd Party known as the Republican Party, which was soon swept to power. Oneal is upbeat: “I have no fears as to the future of the Socialist movement in this country. In fact, a close study of many financial journals for the past year convinces me that the “best minds” of the present social order are much more puzzled about the future of capitalism. The whole world drifts, the statesmen and financiers known not where. They hope for the best and yet are possessed with fear. The old order seethes with economic contradictions which they are unable to solve.”

“Brutal Officer Attacks Workers’ Meeting,” by P.S. Kerr [event of Aug. 7, 1921] On Sunday, Aug. 7, 1921, the International Workers’ Association held a picnic in a park near Buffalo, New York. Without provocation a speaker was interrupted by a local constable with “a volley of vile oaths, and a threat to pump the speaker full of lead if he continued.” The constable is said to have “manhandled” the speaker and ordered him from the grounds, which provoked several in the crowd to free him from the constable’s clutches. A woman was thrown to the ground and the speaker taken again by the constable; when the woman and another man remonstrated, the man was “ knocked unconscious for a space of 15 minutes by the constable with a pair of brass knuckles or a blackjack.” Two more constables bearing shotguns were summoned. The sheriff was quick to address the crowd and disavow the violent doings, saying his office had nothing to do with the affair. Neither the district attorney nor local justices of the peace would charge the violent and illegal actions of the rogue constable the next day, according to Kerr. “No justice is expected in the case. Had the assault been committed by a working man, how different it would have been The conviction of a police officer for assaulting a wage-worker is indeed rare in the annals of jurisprudence,” Kerr declares.

“Friends of Soviet Russia Launched: Unions and Other Working Class Organizations United to Relieve Famine in Russia.” [The Toiler] [Aug. 9, 1921] This news story in The Toiler announces the formation of the Friends of Soviet Russia, a mass organization started by the Communist Party of America in accord with general instructions of the Communist International to member parties around the world. The organization was launched with a conference held in New York on Aug. 9, 1921, attended by 150 delegates representing 87 organizations, with Dr. Jacob Hartman, editor of the magazine Soviet Russia, in the chair. The new organization was contrasted with the “imperialist terms” and counterrevolutionary nature of the Hoover mission and other capitalist relief efforts. “The organization will collect funds for the relief of famine stricken Russia, the money to be turned over to the Soviet Government or its accredited representatives without imposing any terms. All appeals shall be of a distinctly working class character, class-conscious and free from the humanitarian taint always involved in such enterprises conducted by capitalist organizations,” according to the article. An Executive Committee consisting of Dr. Hartman, Caleb Harrison, Edgar Owens, Allen S. Broms, Dr. Mendelsohn, Dr. Wilenkin, Dr. Reichel was elected by the conference. This group in turn selected as officers Caleb Harrison, Chairman; Allen S. Broms, Secretary; and Dr. J.W. Hartman, Treasurer.

“Legion Mob Kidnaps Mrs. Hazlett in Iowa: Banker’s Son, Who is Local Commander, Leads Gang That Seizes Socialist Speaker, and Drives Her 20 Miles in Country and Back—Mayor Refuses Protection.” (NY Call) [event of Aug. 11, 1921] News account briefly detailing the kidnapping of Socialist Party organizer Ida Crouch Hazlett by a car full of ultra-nationalist American Legion thugs when the party founder was attempting to speak in the little town of Shenandoah, Iowa. Hazlett was pulled down from the automobile from which she was speaking and thrust into a waiting car, which drove away at high speed. The 8 Right Wing goons menaced Hazlett, instructing her not to speak any more in Shenandoah; Hazlett boldly refused to agree. Eventually, the kidnappers thought better of their action and turned around, returning Hazlett to her hotel unharmed. Hazlett immediately complained to the authorities, who refused to either arrest her kidnappers or promise her future protection. The Aug. 11 kidnapping was the 5th in a series of abuses against Hazlett by the American Legion, which had previously systematically harassed at Newton, Des Moines, and Boone. “"The state of Iowa is in the hands of an American Legion mob of kids,” Hazlett declared.

“Volkszeitung Recovers Its Mailing Rights: Hays, in Announcing Restoration of Paper’s Status, Declares Post Office Censorship is Gone...: All Papers Carried in Mails at All are Entitled to Second-Class Rights, is Postmaster’s View,” by Laurence Todd [event of Aug. 14, 1921] With the coming to power of the Warren Harding administration, the draconian anti-libertarian policies of the Wilson regime came under new scrutiny. Subject to particular liberalization was the application of statute by the post office department, with new Postmaster General Will Hays reconsidering the Burleson policy of the mass voiding of 2nd Class mailing privileges of the opposition press. On Aug. 14, 1921, the 2nd Class mailing privilege of the Marxist New Yorker Volkszeitung was restored, with Postmaster General Hays issuing an extensive statement reflecting upon the official change of policy (reproduced in full here). While noting statutory prohibition of certain matter from the mails, Hays states: “I want again to call the attention of the publishers to the fact that I am not, and will not allow myself to be made, a censor of the press. I believe that any publication that is entitled to use of the mails at all is entitled to the 2nd Class privileges, provided that it meets the requirements of the law for 2nd Class matter.... I will at all times act with moderation and consideration for the freedom of the press, but I must and will enforce in good faith, without evoking technicalities...” Solicitor Edwards echoed these views, telling Laurence Todd of the Federated Press that “It is not our purpose or duty to advocate or oppose any school of political though so long as it does not violate any existing law interpreted liberally to permit mailability.”

“Mrs. Hazlett to Sue Ringleader of Legion Mob: $20,000 Damage Action to Be Brought Against Son of Banker Who Kidnapped Her.” (NY Call) [event of Aug. 16, 1921] Having received no satisfaction with the partisan application of criminal law in the small town of Shenandoah, Iowa, Socialist Party organizer Ida Crouch Hazlett took her kidnapping by American Legion thugs to civil court for remedy, announcing that a $20,000 lawsuit was being launched against the ringleader of the crime for having violated her civil rights. In announcing her intention to bring suit, Hazlett revealed additional details of her kidnapping, charging that alleged ringleader Thomas Murphy had raised his hand to strike her and that she had boldly averted injury by challenging the 8 Legionnaires to go the full measure and to kill her. “Riding down the road at terrific speed,” Hazlett recounted, “I suggested that they kill me. I pictured my body hacked to pieces and scattered along the road. I implied that it would certainly add to the sweet memories of their mothers. Then I switched the picture. I suggested the possibility that the car might be wrecked and all of us killed. Their mothers would not like to see that, would then? That twist changed their minds. And when I suggested that the only thing to do was to turn back, they simply had to obey.”

“W.J. Burns Named Director of Federal Secret Service: Will Head All US Detective Agencies Under Reorganization—Flynn Has Not Yet Resigned - Successor Was First Sleuth to Carve Career From Class Struggle.” (NY Call) [event of Aug. 18, 1921] This news account in the Socialist Party daily, the New York Call, announces the appointment of veteran labor spy and detective agency chief William J. Burns as Director of the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation, forerunner of the FBI. Burns, who was replacing William J. Flynn in the post, is said to have been a fellow resident of Columbus, Ohio, and long-time friend of the new Attorney General of the Harding administration, Harry Daugherty. The career of Burns is briefly recounted here, including his growing up the son of the police commissioner of Columbus and work there as a local detective, his joining of the Secret Service in 1889 and promotion to the Washington, DC office 5 years later, his founding of the Burns Detective Agency, and his greatest professional coup, the conviction of the MacNamara brothers in the bloody bombing of the Los Angeles Times building in 1911. Burns and his company had lately been intimately connected to the financial giant J.P. Morgan & Co., providing intelligence and protection, the article states.

“Financing of Ultra-Radical Propaganda in the United States,” by Warren W. Grimes (Special Assistant to the Attorney General) [excerpts] (Aug. 20, 1921) Despite possession of documents indicating that the American Communist movement was impoverished and that budgeted Comintern funds were in the low 6 figures—of which a considerable portion had gone missing—the Department of Justice was not in the least deterred from making asinine overassessments of foreign funding of the American movement. This Aug. 20, 1921 report of Special Assistant to the Attorney General Warren W. Grimes (a top-ranking DoJ official of similar stature to J. Edgar Hoover) is the epitome of fantastic exaggeration. Despite the utter lack of corroborating evidence, Grimes declares that “authentic estimates from abroad” had indicated “Gold Shipments from Soviet Russia” to the American Communist Parties to the tune of $45 million for the 1919-21 period—i.e., 1,406,250 troy ounces of the precious metal (@$32/troy oz.). An astounding $70,913.66 per day (including Sundays and holidays) was said to be at the disposal of the country’s Communists from this source of funding alone, not to mention other sources of revenue and the “enormous expenditures of the American Agency of the Communist International in connection with the unity proceedings of the Communist Parties.” Why not a pinch of this vast quantity of yellow metal had ever been seized by an agent of the Bureau of Investigation or why no paper trail of these vast financial transactions had ever been located is left unexplained. Grimes provides estimates of gross revenue for the full gamut of Left Wing organizations and publications.

SEPTEMBER

“The Necessity for Legal Work,” by J. Wilenkin (”J. Morris”) [c. Sept. 1, 1921] This article by veteran Russian Federationist Dr. J. Wilenkin from the underground official organ of the unified CPA details the thinking behind the recent move of the governing Central Executive Committee of the party towards a legal political organization. The two Communist Parties had begun as open organizations, a status which “succeeded in attracting the attention of the broad toiling masses and have helped considerably to spread our ideas among them.” Soon thereafter, Wilenkin recalls that “we were compelled to go underground to protect the movement, strengthen our organization, to create a strongly centralized party, and to develop a clearly defined revolutionary program,” since “only through an underground organization could we make clear to the proletariat of this country the ultimate necessity of armed insurrection for the overthrow of the bourgeois state and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Wilenkin asserts that “the CPA has now reached a point where a change of tactics is an absolute necessity. This change is vital not only to the party but to the progress of the entire American labor movement. The mountain did not go to Mohammed, so Mohammed must go to the mountain. The masses do not and will not come to our underground organization, so we must organize above and carry out agitation on a legal basis.” Wilenkin states that “our isolation was affecting the entire party,” causing it to become “more and more sectarian.” Wilenkin declares “the purpose of legal work is, through propaganda and agitation, to awaken in the proletarian masses an interest in the political struggle,” and towards this end the party must be prepared to work with a variety of outside organizations, including those headed by a reactionary leadership. Wilenkin indicates that “The proletarian masses are instinctively revolutionary as the Russian Revolution has demonstrated” and argues that to suppose that the rank and file of such organizations are automatically reactionary is incorrect and narrow, a manifestation of what Lenin called the “infantile disorder of Leftism.” Wilenkin about the question of armed revolution, acknowledging that one argument put forward “against legal Communist propaganda is that at the present time we will be compelled to refrain from propagating openly some of our principles, such as the necessity of armed insurrection.” Wilenkin states that the continued existence of a controlling underground apparatus punctures any such objections: “Whatever cannot be circulated through legal means can and must be given publicity through our underground political party. The illegal party remains the controlling factor. It directs all the agitation and propaganda of the illegal as well as of the legal organization.” Wilenkin provides a quotation from Comintern head Grigorii Zinoviev’s at the recently completed 3rd World Congress of the Comintern validate the CEC’s conception of dual underground and overground political organizations. Zinoviev had said: “We must advise our American friends to learn to work not only within the limits of the illegal party, but to organize notwithstanding the White Terror, a legal and semi-legal movement, functioning parallel to the party, in order to win over larger circles of the working class.”

“The Party at the Crossroads,” by Jay Lovestone (”Roger B. Nelson”) [c. Sept. 1, 1921] This article by Central Executive Committee member Jay Lovestone portrays the unified Communist Party of America as being at a crossroads—facing a decision whether to continue on the underground path towards isolation, sectarianism, and irrelevance or whether to take the new path of legality, leading to contact with the American working class, leading toward a mass organization and opportunity for success in the coming struggle for power. Lovestone’s conception of the pivotal role of the Communist Party is clear: “The Party must fulfill its historic role of serving as the guiding, unifying, and directing center of the class struggle. We must lend unity of plan and purpose to the American labor movement....Propaganda alone is not sufficient for the realization of working class victory. It is high time that we act. The Party must develop such a machinery as will enable the entire membership to actively participate in all the struggles of the working masses. We must further give these struggles a political character and direct them into revolutionary channels.” Lovestone directly quotes from the “Theses on Tactics” proposed by the Russian delegation to the 3rd World Congress of the Comintern earlier that summer, which explicitly told the Americans “it is the Party’s duty to try all ways and means to get out of the illegalized condition into the open, among the wide masses.” “It is therefore the inviolable duty of every member of the Party to give the Central Executive Committee undivided support in its efforts to build a Party of life, of action, of revolutionary power,” Lovestone declares.

A Call for United Action: To All Labor Unions, Farmers’ Organizations, and Other Economic, Political, Cooperative, and Fraternal Organizations of the Producing Class. [Sept. 1921] The origin of the Conference for Progressive Political Action has long been attributed to a joint decision of the 16 main railway unions, which sponsored a founding conference in Chicago in February of 1922. This September 1921 appeal for just such an organization, written and transmitted to the varioius unions by the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, lends support for the theory that this idea actually originated outside the 16 railway brotherhoods. The Socialist Party’s vision was of a loose alliance which brought together various labor groups in joint political action “similar to that of the federated organizations of the British Labour Party.” According to the appeal, America was embroiled in “the worst industrial depression we have ever experienced,” with six million workers unemployed, armed anti-union bands given free reign under the moniker of “detective agencies,” while other bands of thugs like the American Legion and the Ku Klux Klan operated outside the rule of law altogether. Employers shamelessly used the legislative and judicial arms of the state to conduct an open shop drive which threatened the very existence of the organized labor movement. In response, a “united front” joining the forces of “every progressive, liberal, and radical organization of the workers must be mobilized to repel these assaults and to advance the industrial and political power of the working class,” according to the NEC’s appeal.

“What Shall We Do in the Unions?” by Joseph Zack Kornfeder [circa Sept. 1, 1921] Lengthy statement of proposed policy for the unified Communist Party of America by Joseph Zack, active in the industrial organizing arm of the party. [Note: Zack wrote here under the pseudonym “J.P. Collins”—a pseudonym incorrectly attached to J.P. Cannon in 1957 by Theodore Draper and as recently as 2007 in a book on Cannon by Bryan Palmer.] Zack blames that backwards level of the American trade union movement not on its multinational nature, but rather on the conscious failure of the AFL to organize unskilled and black workers, and its concentration on the antiquated craft union system. Zack calls for the Communist Party to work at raising the class consciousness of the American working class and to help batter down barriers to participation in the unions such as racial barriers, high initiation fees, and undemocratic forms of union organization. The Communist Party must get serious about this, Zack declares: “The days when mere attendance at group meetings and occasional leaflet distribution was considered sufficient are over. Every member who is eligible must join a labor union. Those that cannot join a labor union must join the workers’ organization in their territory. Every member must serve as a link between the Party and the masses.” Zack calls for the establishment of foreign language speaking nuclei in each industrial unit: “Russian miners should be place in Russian miners’ nuclei, Polish workers into Polish nuclei, etc. They shall be connected with all the other language or English nuclei in their trade union or industries. Each of the language nuclei should organize the sympathizers in its language.” Zack declares there to be 4 principal sorts of party sympathizers: “(1) the communist sympathizer, those workers who agree with the main points of our program; (2) the revolutionary syndicalists; (3) the Left Socialist element; (4) the anarchists. In this country, due to the backwardness of many sections of the labor movement, even less conscious elements than the above mentioned could be used to great advantage on many occasions.” Of these, he asserts the revolutionary syndicalists of the IWW to be the most important, and the winning of \the IWW activists to the Communist banner thus the most critical. “The only way for the IWW’s functioning effectively is to work as a minority within the organized labor movement, not by worshiping three letters but by doing everything to put across their program,” Zack declares.

“Letters to Oscar Tyverovsky in Moscow from Charles Dirba (Sept. 3, 1921) and John Ballam (Sept. 2, 1921).” An account of the factional situation in America provided to the Central Caucus faction’s man in Moscow, Oscar Tyverovsky, representative of the CPA to the Executive Committee of the Communist International. Here the decision to establish a Legal Political Party by the CEC Majority Group is given distinctly less emphasis than their factional machinations with respect to District Organizers and the conferences of the language federations. It is no so much the content of the policy initiatives sought by the CEC Majority Group that cause distress so much as the brazenness and tone of the group towards the former members of the old CPA and the timing and details of the move to a LPP. Includes copious explanatory footnotes.

“Jewish Group in Party Will Convene Today: Federation, 500 Weak Now, Thought Certain to be Destroyed, No Matter What Action is Taken: Once Numbered 5,000: Organized as Autonomous Body in 1912, Its Officials Have Fought Party Since Albany Trial.” (NY Call) [Sept. 3, 1921] From Sept. 3-5, 1921, a special convention of the Jewish Socialist Federation was held to decide the question of that organization’s future affiliation with the Socialist Party of America. The Executive Committee of the JSF sought to sever ties with the parent organization, in favor of some sort of affiliation with the Third International—although there was very little support remaining within the Federation for the underground tactics of the CPA (the Left Wing of the organization having already departed in 1919-20). This is the first of 4 reports in the Socialist Party’s New York daily detailing the proceedings of the JSF special convention. The loss of the JSF is seen as a foredrawn conclusion by the reporter, who notes that with the 1921 convention “an important chapter in the Socialist movement comes to a close.” The importance of this change is minimized, the unnamed reporter noting that from a peak membership of 5,000 to 6,000, the JSF had fallen to barely 500 dues-paying members. The history of the Jewish Federation is detailed here, from the organization of the “Jewish Agitation Bureau” by Benjamin Feigenbaum, Meyer Gillis, Max Kaufman, and others in 1908; to full Federation status in 1912. The Federation’s turn to a “nationalistic viewpoint” is blamed on Max Goldfarb ["A.J. Bennett"], a former member of the Bund who returned to Soviet Russia in 1917. The decisive turning point is said to have occurred in 1920, with the trial of the 5 Socialist Assemblymen by the New York Legislature, an event which was denounced as obsequious parliamentarism by the Left Wing of the JSF, headed by Jacob Salutsky.

“Jewish Group Seats Enemies of Party Unity: Loyal Delegates Beaten in Every Fight Against Executive Committee—Move for Split: Kahn Flays Bolters: Some Leaders Charged at Opening of Federation Congress with Being Supporters of World War.” (NY Call) [Sept. 4, 1921] This is the 2nd of 4 reports in the Socialist Party’s New York daily detailing the proceedings of the JSF special convention, called to determine the JSF’s future relationship to the Socialist Party of America. In this unsigned article, it is intimated that the secessionists had successfully won control of the convention at the first day’s sessions, as in the evening “the Credentials Committee and the Convention was seating every contested delegate who had expressed a desire to see the Federation withdraw from the party and unseating every contested delegate who was loyal to the party.” Two slates had vied for seats on the Credentials Committee, with the Left Wing supporters of the Executive Committee defeating slate of the the insurgent party loyalists by about 40 to 25, with all delegates—even those under challenge—permitted to vote. “At the time of going to press the loyal party delegates were still fighting every anti-party delegate, but, realizing that, with the contesting delegates voting on their own cases, and with a Central Office eager for the withdrawal plan, it was hopeless to expect to carry the convention,” the reporter indicates, adding that the decision on affiliation was the sole item on the agenda of the special convention. Otto Branstetter had previously addressed the convention on behalf of the National Office of the SPA, stating: “There is no other party in the world in any of the great countries that stood so true to international Socialism as did our party. In other countries, minorities stood straight. In America, the official position of the party was straight. What have the Communists done? They went out of the party; they said they were going to organize the workers and make the revolution, but to date they have done nothing except to weaken the Socialist Party. And much as they want all the honor for this, they must divide that honor with the American Legion, with the Department of Justice, and with the Chambers of Commerce.”

“Loyal Jewish Socialists Quit Seceding Body: Federation Convention Votes, 41 to 34, to Leave Party—New Group is Immediately Organized...: Bigger and More Active Movement Promised by Those Who Refuse to Bolt Organization.” (NY Call) [Sept. 5, 1921] This is the 3rd of 4 reports in the Socialist Party’s New York daily detailing the proceedings of the JSF special convention, called to determine the JSF’s future relationship to the Socialist Party of America. This installment notes the result of the final vote on affiliation after 6 hours of debate on Sept. 4, won by the withdrawal forces over the SP loyalists, 41 to 34. The main speech for the secessionists was delivered by Jacob Salutsky, while Nathan Chain of the United Hebrew Trades made the opening speech for the loyalists. Upon the decision, the 34 loyalists bolted the convention, meeting in another room of Forward Hall. Speeches were made to the loyalists assembled by Jacob Panken; J. Baskin (General Secretary of the Workmen’s Circle), Alexander Kahn of the Forward, and SPA Executive Secretary Otto Branstetter. A committee of 9 was elected to draw up plans for the Jewish Federation loyalists, to report back on the ensuing day.

“New Alliance is Created by Jewish Group: Loyal Socialists Organize in Opposition to Seceding Federation with Endorsement of Labor Unions...: United Hebrew Trades Secretary Assures Delegates of Support in Movement for Strong Party.” (NY Call) [Sept. 6, 1921] This is the 4th of 4 reports in the Socialist Party’s New York daily detailing the proceedings of the JSF special convention, called to determine the JSF’s future relationship to the Socialist Party of America. This installment reports the formation of the Jewish Socialist Alliance (Verbund) of the Socialist Party by the bolting minority delegates. Nathan Chanin was elected General Secretary of the new organization. Meanwhile, the JSF majority voted 43 to 3 to affiliate with the Communist International, despite their misgivings about the institutionalized underground tactics of the Communist Party of America. The organization prepared for a period of independence, setting its dues at 50 cents per month. (The secessionist JSF soon merged with the “Committee for the 3rd International” in the SP to establish itself as the Workers’ Council).

“Working Class Political Unity,” by Morris Hillquit [Sept. 7, 1921] This article in the New York Call by the Socialist Party’s most respected strategist, Morris Hillquit, delves into the shift of the Socialist Party towards cooperation with progressive elements from outside the party, a marked departure from the party’s historical orientation against “fusion” with external elements. Hillquit notes that the decision of the 1921 Detroit Convention to explore the field. Hillquit notes that this decision is less monumental than some believed: that the tactic would need to be reported to the next convention and approved, and ratified by the membership. Hillquit indicates his support for an electoral alliance through a British-style Labor Party, in which the constituent organizations would continue to run their own candidates for state governorships in order to retain their electoral status, but through which “candidates for other offices would be distributed among the different cooperating organizations with regard to their respective strength in different political districts.” Hillquit’s thinking is intensely practical: “To continue as a movement of the select few, as a small priesthood charged with the duty of keeping the sacred flame alive and protected from the profane gaze of the multitude, is not an object which in our agitated days will commend itself to the workers of this country. We must have the workers with us, if we are to succeed and we must go to them if they do not come to us.”

“Can We Work for Socialism Outside the Socialist Party?” by William M. Feigenbaum [Sept. 9, 1921] In this article published in the Socialist Party’s New York daily, journals William Feigenbaum—son of one of the fathers of the Yiddish language Federation of the SPA—takes aim at the Communists for disrupting the cause of Socialism in America, exemplified by their behavior at the recently completed special convention of the Jewish Socialist Federation. Feigenbaum questions the motives of the Left Wing of the JSF in waiting so long to break with the national Socialist Party, seeing in the delay an effort “to do as much damage to the Socialist Party as they could in their withdrawal.” Feigenbaum thus characterizes the Left Wing of the Federation as “wreckers and disrupters” whose work, “together with the work of the Ku Klux and the American Legion, had borne fruit.” Feigenbaum contends that the 2 years of Communist independent action had been an abysmal failure: “Not a single new member was gained, but more than nine-tenths of the old went out. Not a stroke of organization work has been done, except to throw a few manifestos from elevated trains and roofs. Instead of sections of a united party, the few hundred remaining men are two angrily quarreling ‘parties,’ periodically ‘uniting,’ and then splitting again.” Feigenbaum argues that this was a necessary result of the fact that the “Communist movement was born as a negative drive against the Socialist Party, rather than as a positive movement for some ideal or some method of organization.” Instead, Feigenbaum declares that despite its various “faults and shortcomings, the only work for Socialism of any consequence that has been done within the past 2 years since the ‘new’ methods were evolved, is the direct result of the Socialist Party’s work.” Feigenbaum insists: “Those who want to see Socialism grow can work for Socialism. Let all others get out of the way.”

“Some Plain Words,” by Charles W. Ervin [Sept. 10, 1921] Managing Editor of the New York Call Charles Ervin fires a broadside in the direction of the Communist Party’s Friends of Soviet Russia organization, appealing for funds for Russian famine relief, to be collected and distributed outside of the FSR apparatus. The Call’s fund will be administered without the deduction of a single cent for operational expenses, Ervin indicates. Alternatively, Call readers are encouraged by Ervin to donate to Russian famine relief through their trade unions. Ervin notes the hostility of the FSR to parallel relief efforts, and cites the group’s antipathy to the efforts of the ACWU and ILGWU as “proof positive to us of a desire to sabotage other funds being collected, and a total disinclination to really unify the activities taking place among the working class.”Ervin declares that “we are used to the abuse of the Communists in this country. All the energies that in Russia go to the doing of constructive work seem to be employed by the Communists in America in factional strife. Not content with going their own way and attacking capitalism, they spend much of their time in a vain effort to destroy the existing labor unions by intriguing within their ranks and by seeking to interfere in every way possible with the activity of other groups of workers who do not happen to believe in their tactics.”Ervin characterizes the CPA’s efforts under the FSR banner as the “antics”of “long-distance revolutionists”who are “working under false colors, or posing like some cheap detective in ridiculous disguise”and indicates that the paper will not hesitate to “show them up as thoroughly as we know how”when they are caught vilifying others.

“CPA D3 [Philadelphia] District Bulletin to All Sub-District, Section, Branch and Group Organizers from Anthony Bimba, District Organizer, Sept. 10, 1921.” This internal bulletin sent out to local leaders of the Philadelphia district of the Communist Party of America by new DO Antanas “Anthony” Bimba further belies the farcical assertions emanating from the Justice Department that the CPA was an organization awash in tens of millions of dollars worth of “Moscow gold.” This gross disparity between official claims and actual reality was no secret to the Justice Department—this internal bulletin was provided to the DoJ at the time of its issuance by a Bureau of Investigation informant. To this end, Bimba specifically states that “The CEC at its last meeting reorganized the entire machinery of the Party in order to cut down expenses. Only one paid organizer will be kept in your District hereafter.” The bulletin is filled with news of routine party business, such as the mention that the party’s Industrial Organizers had sent out Registration Cards to the membership “so we can know the percentage of the members who can be utilized for work in the unions.” Laxity in the purchase of party literature is noted. A concerted educational drive was beginning, Bimba notes, in which “Each group [primary party unit] must send one comrade at least to the theoretical class.” Bukharin’s ABC of Communism was to be the textbook for courses conducted in English and Russian, while the lack of a translations meant that Lenin’s State and Revolution would be the book taught in classes working in Yiddish, German, Latvian, Polish, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian. Instructors for these theoretical classes were selected by the Philadelphia District Committee and the instructors would be meeting once a month themselves for training.

“The ‘Legal’ Communists: Letter to the Editor of the New York Call,” by Adolph Germer [Sept. 11, 1921] The former Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party and current assistant to Greater New York Secretary Julius Gerber, Adolph Germer, writes this letter in support of Charles Ervin’s editorial of the previous day attacking the Friends of Soviet Russia. “It is high time that the unsuspecting public, especially the progressing working class, among whom they carry on their panhandling, understand these self-appointed ‘saviors of the proletarian revolution’.... It should require no argument to convince any open-minded person that anyone, or any group, that carries on a persistent campaign to divide the ranks of labor, no matter in whose name it is done or to what pretended purpose, is an enemy of the working class - a far greater and more dangerous enemy than the paid hireling of the employers,”Germer declares.

“Cahan Says the Forward Supports the Party: Editor of Great Jewish Daily, Back from Europe, Declares Seceders Will be Fought—Praises Germans and Scores Communists Abroad,” by William M. Feigenbaum [Sept. 11, 1921] On Sept. 11, 1921, the powerful and widely respected editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, Abraham Cahan, returned to America after a 14 week stay in Europe, centered in Berlin. There Cahan had exchanged views with a wide range of leaders of the European Socialist movement, including representatives of the Soviet government. Upon his return, Cahan was met at the docks by about 75 prominent Jewish-American leaders, who sat together in a luncheon at the Hotel Brevoort in New York. In his address to the gathering, Cahan declared in no uncertain terms that “no man can write against the Socialist Party and remain on the Forward... I am sorry that we must lose some of our best people,but if they are against the party, that settles it. No one who is against the party can be on the Forward. The Forward was established for the party, not the party for the Forward. Some of the intellectuals want the Third International. For an American to speak of the Third International is a sign of absolute idiocy—if not of a police spy. In Europe, people know that the Third International is an absolute failure. It is a joke. Lenin would like to get rid of it if he could. No one takes it seriously any more. The Third International has done 1,000 times more damage to the Socialist movement than good.” Cahan noted the vitality of the Social Democratic Party in Germany and stated that “the Communist there amount to nothing.... The leading Communist members of the Soviet government that I spoke to admit that the whole Communist movement, and the hope of a world revolution, on which the Communist International is based, is done for.”

“Cable to Ludwig Katterfeld in New York from Robert Minor in Moscow, September 14,1921”. Short cable, converted from telegraphese to punctuated English here. Minor passes along hard numbers for Comintern funding, noting a grant of $33,000 for "Party work specified items" for a forthcoming quarter—presumably the 4th quarter of 1921. In addition, a conditional grant of $50,000 is promised for establishment of an English daily if the Party can raise $10,000 on its own. As the Daily Worker was not established until January 1924, it seems unlikely that these latter funds were actually disbursed. Scholars should additionally be cautioned that the budgeting of $33,000 for the American unified CPA does not mean that this figure was actually disbursed or that disbursed funds were ever received. The unified CPA went through a highly critical budget crunch in the 1st quarter of 1922. The party was torn asunder by the split of the Central Caucus faction in Nov.-Dec. 1921, and dues collections plummeted. The Party treasury was completely depleted—indicating a likelihood that the funds detailed in this message were not received in the United States in an expeditious manner.

“W.Z. Foster, Back from Europe, Pins Faith on Economic Action: Labor Man Slips Quietly Into US After Months in Russia, Italy, Germany, France, England—Confident of Soviets’ Success and Leadership of ACW Here.” (NY Call) [Sept. 15, 1921] This article from the pages of the Socialist Party’s New York Call documents the return of William Z. Foster from his extended tour of Russia, Germany, Italy, England, and France on behalf of the Federated Press. The friendly writer of this piece indicates that “There are two things of which Foster remains sincerely convinced: that the Russian revolution is a success and that the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America will continue to be the leader among American labor organizations.”Foster is characterized as “an optimist, confident of the ultimate victory of the working class in the very near future,”despite his belief that the world was enmeshed in a “trough of reaction,”with the revolutionary movement stilted across Europe. The Call writer says that Foster argued that one of the most serious problems facing the European labor movement was “the lack of restraint of the younger men.”Foster recalled that in Germany and Italy “the workers were continually called on strike, how often at intervals of only 2 or 3 days, for Mooney, for Russia, because some leader had been assaulted, and for hundreds of trifling incidents in the course of events. The workers have struck time and again and nothing has happened. They have become tired of striking.”The revolutionary moment had particularly passed in Germany, in Foster’s estimation, where “with 9 million members in the unions alone and the workers thoroughly conscious of their political power, the average workman laughs when asked about the revolution.”

“Gale to Squeal Way to Liberty, Inquiry Shows: Renegade Radical to Give State’s Evidence to Escape Penalty for Evading the Draft.” (NY Call) [Sept. 17, 1921] This article from the New York Call notes the transformation of draft resister and radical publisher Linn Gale from “a rabid Communist to a prisoner willing to incriminate other radicals, betraying their confidences.”In view of Gale’s decision to collaborate with Federal authorities after his deportation from Mexico, the American Civil Liberties Union had declined to come to the aid of Gale’s legal defense. An Aug. 26 letter of ACLU head Roger Baldwin is cited: “The Civil Liberties Union has no interest whatever in the case of Linn A.E. Gale. He is not and never was a ‘conscientious objector.’ His activities as a radical in Mexico are open to grave charges of unscrupulous conduct, to put it mildly. His attitude since his arrest and the character of his efforts to secure support for his defense make it clear that he is unworthy of the confidence of those interested in civil liberty. We advise our friends not to contribute to his defense fund.”In response to a communication from Baldwin, Gale’s lawyer issued a statement declaring “my client has authorized me to make public the information that he has renounced his former political beliefs and convictions, that he has completely severed his connections with the radical movement, and consequently would not be justified in receiving any further aid or support from them. My client, Linn Gale, desires to state that he is absolutely sincere in the repudiation of his former radical opinions, as expressed through Gale’s Magazine, and that at no time in the future will he engage in radical activities.”

“The Detroit Resolution,” by James Oneal [Sept. 19, 1921] Socialist Party NEC member James Oneal offers his perspective on the decision of the June 1921 Detroit Convention to survey the field with a view to eventual work with other radical organizations in an umbrella organization patterned after the British Labour Party. Oneal states that the NEC had followed the instructions of the convention and dispatched a survey to likely political partners. Oneal notes that the NEC did not have authority to act upon the replies it received—it would take approval of the next convention and ratification by referendum vote of the party to call a conference of progressive organizations to formally organize the new multi-party alliance. The model and goal advocated by Oneal is quite clear: “In England, whether the candidate is a member of the Independent Labour Party or any other Socialist organization, whether he is a member of an affiliated trade union or cooperative society, he wages the contest in the name of the Labour Party. The same procedure would be taken here.”Oneal critically observes that “for a generation the Socialist movement of the United States has been cursed with theoreticians and dogmatists”and declares that “one advantage of the British form of political organization of the workers is that it throws the Socialists into intimate contact with other organizations of the working class and brings these workers into contact with us.”Oneal indicates he personally sees 2 million adherents to the new umbrella organization as the essential minimum for the tactic to be pursued. He rules out alliance with the progressive capitalist “Committee of 48”but does see the Non-Partisan League as being ideologically close enough to the SP to merit interest. Oneal is critical of the “no less than a dozen Communist priesthoods “ which emerged from the 1919 split of the Socialist Party and maintains little interest in alliance with those who indulge in “introspective brooding”and who “burn incense in honor of the Communist ritual.”

“Letter to Sen Katayama from Charles Dirba, Sept. 6-9, 1921.” This is a fascinating primary source document, an account of the issues behind the “Central Caucus faction” split which erupted late in November of 1921, written by a leading participant, Charles Dirba. Dirba was the Executive Secretary of the unified CPA from the time of its formation at the end of May 1921. As Dirba makes clear, this shotgun marriage of the old CPA (of which he was a part) to the United Communist Party was tumultuous from the start— a Central Executive Committee initially divided 5 to 5 along factional lines became a 6-4 working majority when Russian Federationist and editor J. Wilenkin began voting with the former UCP group. Dirba details the transgressions of this majority faction in this letter to Sen Katayama of the “American Agency” of the Comintern, a three member committee without a mandate in this factional situation. Dirba makes clear that while the issue of the rush to transform the American Labor Alliance into a full fledged Legal Political Party was paramount, there were other significant issues which sparked the CEC minority, including patronage issues and a rather crude effort to manipulate the composition of the Jewish and Russian language federations through procedural shenanigans. Document has been rendered into readable English with copious footnotes provided.

“CPA D3 [Philadelphia] District Bulletin to All Sub-District, Section, Branch and Group Organizers from Anthony Bimba, District Organizer, Sept. 10, 1921.” This internal bulletin sent out to local leaders of the Philadelphia district of the Communist Party of America by new DO Antanas “Anthony” Bimba further belies the farcical assertions emanating from the Justice Department that the CPA was an organization awash in tens of millions of dollars worth of “Moscow gold.” This gross disparity between official claims and actual reality was no secret to the Justice Department—this internal bulletin was provided to the DoJ at the time of its issuance by a Bureau of Investigation informant. To this end, Bimba specifically states that “The CEC at its last meeting reorganized the entire machinery of the Party in order to cut down expenses. Only one paid organizer will be kept in your District hereafter.” The bulletin is filled with news of routine party business, such as the mention that the party’s Industrial Organizers had sent out Registration Cards to the membership “so we can know the percentage of the members who can be utilized for work in the unions.” Laxity in the purchase of party literature is noted. A concerted educational drive was beginning, Bimba notes, in which “Each group [primary party unit] must send one comrade at least to the theoretical class.” Bukharin’s ABC of Communism was to be the textbook for courses conducted in English and Russian, while the lack of a translations meant that Lenin’s State and Revolution would be the book taught in classes working in Yiddish, German, Latvian, Polish, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian. Instructors for these theoretical classes were selected by the Philadelphia District Committee and the instructors would be meeting once a month themselves for training.

“Cable to Ludwig Katterfeld in New York from Robert Minor in Moscow, September 14,1921”. Short cable, converted from telegraphese to punctuated English here. Minor passes along hard numbers for Comintern funding, noting a grant of $33,000 for "Party work specified items" for a forthcoming quarter—presumably the 4th quarter of 1921. In addition, a conditional grant of $50,000 is promised for establishment of an English daily if the Party can raise $10,000 on its own. As the Daily Worker was not established until January 1924, it seems unlikely that these latter funds were actually disbursed. Scholars should additionally be cautioned that the budgeting of $33,000 for the American unified CPA does not mean that this figure was actually disbursed or that disbursed funds were ever received. The unified CPA went through a highly critical budget crunch in the 1st quarter of 1922. The party was torn asunder by the split of the Central Caucus faction in Nov.-Dec. 1921, and dues collections plummeted. The Party treasury was completely depleted—indicating a likelihood that the funds detailed in this message were not received in the United States in an expeditious manner.

“Memorandum to William J. Burns, Director, Bureau of Investigation, and to the attention of J. Edgar Hoover, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, from Walter C. Foster, Special Agent in Charge, Philadelphia (and response).” [Sept. 20, 1921] This memo from the Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia District of the Bureau of Investigation passes on some ideas of the Philadelphia BoI agent who was given the task of coordinating anti-red activities, J.F. McDevitt. The magnitude and limitations of the government’s spy apparatus are made clear: “In Philadelphia alone, we have more than 28 different organizations affiliated with the COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA - UNIFIED, and with but one paid confidential informant, who only speaks the English language.” This implies that nothing could be done to penetrate the Yiddish, German, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Russian, or Polish language apparatus of the organization in the Philadelphia district in a meaningful way. McDevitt suggests that each district of the BoI should concentrate upon one or two local languages used extensively in that locale, with the various language groups coordinated nationally—for example, Russian in Philadelphia, Hungarian and Yiddish in New York, Italian and Irish in Boston, Lithuanian and Polish in Chicago, Spanish in New Orleans. In this way more careful attention might be paid to each specific group and “it would give the Department at a much smaller expense a good general idea of what is going on.” Bureau of Investigation Director William Burns solicited Assistant to the Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover’s comments on this suggestion, to which Hoover replied that the idea “has been in force and operation for some time, as we made an effort to have an informant in every one of the leading movements of the country, particularly those of a foreign nature.”

“For a Mass Movement,” by Adolph Dreifuss [Sept. 22, 1921] This article by the leader of the Socialist Party’s German Federation, Adolph Dreifuss, speaks to the hot issue in party ranks—the move towards organized cooperation with other Left Wing organizations in an American version of the British Labour Party. Dreifuss notes that this represented “a deviation from the tactics hitherto pursued by the Socialist Party”and attempts to explain that the decision to pursue the tactic was not the province of the SP Right, but rather was the considered opinion of all tendencies at the Detroit Convention, including Left Wingers Louis Engdahl and Bill Kruse. Dreifuss notes that “the object is to bring about an organization similar to that of the British Labour Party, which is composed from autonomous parties and groups, like the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation, the Fabian Society, the various labor unions, etc. Each one of these parties retains its integrity and autonomy... Each of these organizations has its own platform, based on its own principles. But the struggle of the present against their common enemy they fight together.”Dreifuss notes that the United States has “no opposition that amounts to much.”He declares that “none of the ‘revolutionary’ parties, however they may call themselves, reach the masses”and observes that the ongoing economic crisis has made the working class “servile”and “submissive.”“It must be every worker’s aim to get out of this slough to strengthen his class. To cooperate with others is one means to achieve liberty of movement,”Dreifuss declares—thus the move towards joint action has been supported by all tendencies in the SPA, “from Engdahl to Berger.”

“Rand School is Voted to Be SP Auxiliary: Controlling Society, 38 to 20, Fixes Its Stand—Six Directors Resign from Board.” (NY Call) [event of Sept. 23, 1921] On Sept. 23, 1921, at the start of the academic year, the membership of the American Socialist Society met and, after lengthy and heated debate, adopted a resolution declaring the Rand School of Social Science to be a Socialist Party institution and determined that “the teachers of history, economics, political science, and related subjects, therefore, ought to be in the main either members of or avowed sympathizers with the Socialist Party.”Furthermore, the resolution asserted that “The American Socialist Society considers it inconsistent for any person to act as an officer or director of the society or as an officer of the Rand School whose views or activities are hostile to those of the Socialist Party or who cannot heartily accept the foregoing instruction.”Passage of the resolution prompted the resignation of 6 directors of the American Socialist Society—Benjamin Glassberg, Augusta Holland, Jacob Purchin, Eugene Schoehn, Alexander Trachtenberg, and Rose Weiner. Complete text of the resolution is included here.

“Communists Try to Disrupt Socialist Rally: Create Uproar at Brownsville Labor Lyceum During Address by London—Disturbers are Ejected...: Incident Stimulates Enthusiasm of Workers for Socialist Message...” (NY Call) [event of Sept. 23, 1921] On Sept. 23, 1921, Socialist Congressman Meyer London spoke on behalf of his party before a crowd of 1,500 at an electoral rally held in Brownsville, NY. During the course of London’s remarks, a Communist Party member in the audience shouted “Traitor!”-- prompting “a group of workers began battering away at the disturber.”The scuffle expanded when friends of the heckler came to his aid; the outnumbered Communists were expelled from the meeting by the Socialists, with the aid of a policeman. According to this news account in the New York Call, “when quiet was restored, Representative London warned the Communists who remained hidden in the hall that in the future the Socialists will not be responsible for what happens to those who try to break up Socialist meetings.”“These disrupters will be treated in the same way as a scab is treated by a good union man,”London aggressively shouted, “No decent working man will tolerate them in their midst.”A demonstration lasting several minutes followed.

“Socialist Vote Will Have Worldwide Effect: Speech at the Lexington Theater, New York City,” by Morris Hillquit [Sept. 25, 1921] Text of a speech by Socialist Party leader Morris Hillquit kicking off the party’s 1921 electoral campaign. Hillquit characterizes the New York City mayoral campaign as a meaningless choice of evils between a “self-confessed ‘friend of the people’” and “the avowed candidate of the vested interests.” Neither will solve the fundamental problems faced by the city’s working class. Hillquit argues that the 1921 election does have an important aspect, however—"The election separates and groups the voters of the whole city into distinct camps or parties, which voice their political views, aims, and aspirations. The vote cast on election day is a faithful mirror of the mental and moral caliber of the electorate.... The only manifestation of an awakening working class intelligence, the only ray of hope that the election may offer, will be in the votes cast for the Socialist Party.” A crisis is approaching, in Hillquit’s view, wherein “the delicate industrial machine of capitalism is cracking, and the shortsighted capitalist master machinists are making frantic efforts to repair it with sledgehammers.” However, the union-busting efforts of the capitalist class will be thwarted, Hillquit believes: “There will be no return to capitalist normalcy. There is nothing but war and strife ahead of mankind unless the entire discord-breeding machine of capitalism is scrapped, and the workers of the world take hold of the governments and industries and run them rationally and peacefully for the equal benefit and happiness of all people and all peoples.” Hillquit also makes a plea for Russian famine relief, under the slogan “Give till it hurts.”

“Stand By the Miners of Mingo!” [leaflet of the unified CPA - circa Sept. 25 1921] ** MINOR UPDATE: FILLS IN ONE ILLEGIBLE WORD. ** This agitational leaflet of the Communist Party of America demands that the American working class stand by the striking mineworkers of West Virginia in their hour of need in their long-running and violent strike. “Troops, airplanes, bombs, machine guns, and all the hellish devices of capitalist warfare have been rushed into the Mingo area. These have supposedly been sent to save ‘law and order,’ but they have actually been sent to crush the workers,” the leaflet asserts. “Their fight is your fight! They are fighting against the vicious US Steel trust that runs the entire strike area. They are fighting against a most tyrannical wage-slavery. Their defeat will be your disaster,” the leaflet declares. “A defeat at Mingo will go a long way toward driving the whole American working class into lower wages, longer hours, and endless drudgery,” the leaflet warns. “We must everywhere organize meetings and demonstrations to help the Mingo fighters, financially and morally. Let every union local and labor body force the Federal government to compel the profit-hungry coal magnates to go into conference with the miners,” the leaflet insists.

“Letter to William J. Burns, Director of the Bureau of Investigation, US Dept. of Justice in Washington, DC from T.L. Felts, Baldwin-Felts Detectives, in Bluefield, West Virginia, Sept. 29, 1921.” This unpublished letter to Justice Department by T.L. Felts of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency reiterates Felts’ previous public statement that the company was not responsible for the provision of violent armed guards to the coal companies in Mingo and Logan Counties of West Virginia. “There can scarcely be a doubt but that my public statement through the press was read by the Mine Workers’ officials and, notwithstanding my denial, they continue to prate about the Baldwin-Felts mine guards in Logan and Mingo Counties. It is, therefore, evident that they have an utter disregard for the truth of their public utterances,” Felts declared. “I submit that their utterances in this regard, as well as many other statements bearing on the recent trouble, are not only deplorable, but criminally false and they have justly earned the condemnation of all right thinking people, who believe in truth and justice,” Felts concludes.

“Finn Federation Report Pledges Aid for Party: Reorganized Socialist Division now has 3,300 Members with 66 Locals in 14 States...: Convention Decides Central Office Will Be Moved from Chicago to Fitchburg, Mass.” (NY Call) [events of Aug. 13-15, 1921] This unsigned news report in the Socialist Party’s New York Call announces the results of an August 1921 convention reorganizing the Finnish Socialist Federation, which had declared its independence from the SPA at the end of 1920 and slowly moved towards the Communist orbit. The reorganization convention had been attended by 12 delegates, each representing approximately 300 members of the Finnish Federation. The reorganized Finnish Socialist Federation included 66 locals in 14 states, predominantly in New England and elsewhere in the East. New organizational rules for the reorganized Finnish Socialist Federation were adopted and headquarters for the group were moved from Chicago to Fitchburg, MA—location of the federation’s daily newspaper, Raivaaja. The unknown Finnish-American writer optimistically notes: “Our Federation is now smaller than it has been for many years. But the days of dissension and dissolution are past. The agitated and chaotic state of the European Socialist movement, which has reacted upon our movement here, is slowly subsiding. The progress of events demonstrated that the new revolutionary theories, built by the Russian Communists upon the moment’s expediency, are false. The workers, and especially the Socialists, received an object lesson in Marxian theory that there is no shortcut to Socialism. And this lesson will be of immense value for the Socialist movement in the future. It will save it from destructive emotionalism.”

“Circular to All Organizers of the Communist Party of America from the Central Executive Committee, Sept. 30, 1921.” In the fall and winter of 1921-22, the American Communist movement hovered near financial insolvency. Paid functionaries were laid off and wages paid partially and irregularly due to the cash-flow crunch. In a desperate effort to maintain funds for continued operation, the unified Communist Party of America revisited the “One Day’s Wages” idea first employed by the old CPA in August 1920. Each member of the CPA was required to contribute, in addition to regular monthly dues, one day’s worth of wages as an additional tax payable to the organization. The entire party apparatus was put into action in September and early October in an effort to collect this extraordinary assessment. Full 100% fulfillment was sought, according to this circular sent out to all levels of the CPA’s functionaries: “This means that every member must put in ONE DAY’S WAGES. No one is excused. Those that are unemployed shall put in one day’s time collecting for the Party, and turn these funds into the treasury in lieu of the one day’s wages.” The reason for the emergency fundraising campaign was explicitly stated: “You all know of course WHY this special collection is made. You know that the language conferences cost the Party many thousands of dollars more than was received from the conference assessment. You know also that our activities for famine stricken Russia has diverted to that channel many thousands of dollars which would otherwise have come to the Party. You know furthermore that we have no ‘Rich Uncle,’ and that our organization MUST STAND ON ITS OWN FEET.” This document, reflective of the reality of CPA finance in the period, fell into BoI hands through one of its informants just over a month after Assistant to the Attorney General William Grimes blithely stated in an official report that the American Communist movement was the recipient of $45 million in “Moscow gold” during its first three years of existence—a sensational and delusional guess said to be based on “”authentic estimates from abroad” that archival documents indicate actually overshot the mark by approximately $44.95 million.

OCTOBER

“The ‘Reds’ in Congress: Preliminary Report of the 1st World Congress of the Red International of Trade and Industrial Unions,” by J.T. Murphy [events of July 3-19, 1921] Full text of a pamphlet published in England by delegate to founding convention of the Profintern J.T. Murphy. Murphy gives an extensive first- hand account of the proceedings, a gathering of 342 delegates opened by A. Lozovsky in the Hall of Columns in Moscow. The gathering discussed at length the question of trade union tactics (parallel organization v. “boring from within"), heard a lengthy report by Edvard Varga on the world economic crisis, and dealt with the relationship of the Profintern to the Comintern. This latter matter turned out to be one of the most hotly contested of the Congress, with a syndicalist minority headed by Williams (IWW), Bartels (German Free Unions), T. Barker (Argentina), Mater (German Seamen), Arlandis (Spain), and Sirole (France) attempting to make a case for a fully independent trade union international. The syndicalists were handily defeated by the Communists and their supporters, however, with the vote on the main question of a close relationship being approved by a margin of 285 to 35. A statement pledging the support of RILU in spite of loss on the question (reproduced here) was thereafter signed by 8 members of the defeated syndicalist tendency and presented to the congress, its signatories including Andrés Nin of Spain, George Andreychine of the American IWW, and Tom Mann of England. The Profintern Congress also approved a 17 point program of action, included in the text of this pamphlet.

“An Opinion on Tactics,” by Max Eastman [October 1921] Two years after the September 1919 split of the Socialist Party of America, the American workers seemed to be even less friendly to communism than they were at the time of the break, according to co-founder of The Liberator Max Eastman. Eastman reckoned that the reason from this step backwards was “simple and obvious”: While the Communist movement was based around the idea that the world was in a period of the “breakdown of capitalism,” such was not the case in the USA. “We are not in the period of the breakdown of capitalism, and yet we are employing tactics that could never be appropriate in any other period—tactics which have no practical relation to the period we are in—that of preliminary propaganda.” Eastman sharply criticized the CPA for having established “elaborately conspiratorial organization excellently adapted to promote treasonable and seditious enterprises, although they have no such enterprises on foot.” Unless the artificial and inappropriate underground tactics were abandoned there would be no way to build close relations between the party and the mass of American workers, Eastman declared.

“To the CEC of the CPA in New York from Max Bedacht in New York,” [late October 1921]. The decision of the Communist Party of America to establish a parallel “Legal Political Party” came at the beheast of the 3rd World Congress of the Communist International [June 22-Aug. 12, 1921] and a supplementary meeting of the American delegation with Lenin held in the Kremlin on July 7, 1921. Bedacht reported to the CEC of the American Party in New York at its meeting of Sept. 1, at which—based largely upon Bedacht’s depiction of Lenin as emphatically in favor of a legal party—the CEC resolved to create such an organization “parallel with the underground organization and controlled by it.” Bedacht was directly contradicted by an ex-old CPA member pseudonym “Stepan” at the October 5 meeting of the CEC, however, and this written statement about the meeting with Lenin was a byproduct of the CEC’s investigative process attempting to rectify the contradiction in testimony between the two. Bedacht notes that Nicholas Hourwich and he constituted a committee of 2 to prepare a proposal on legal activity in America for the ECCI. It was Bedacht who drafted the document on July 6(without input from Hourwich) and delivered it at the meeting of the full delegation with Lenin on the next day. At the meeting, attended by Bedacht, Hourwich, Bill Haywood, Robert Minor, Oscar Tyverovsky, “Stepan,” and “Gorney,” Lenin “immediately went to the point. First he told us of the necessity of the establishment of a daily press. He made it clear at all times that this was expected of us. Then he opened the question of a legal party. He told us of the absolute necessity of the formation of such a body and he even suggested a name for it. Maybe if the other delegate tries hard enough to remember he will recollect that Comrade Lenin suggested ’Anti-Capitalist Party’ in contradistinction to all other parties which are pro-capitalist.” Lenin and Bedacht were both surprised at the apparent unanimity of the American delegation with regard to establishing a Legal Political Party, but Bedacht bitterly notes that “the opponents of the decisions of the congress did not have the courage to speak up in this conference [with Lenin] although they do not seem to lack the courage to now lie about the proceedings in this conference.”

“The Workers League.” [unsigned article in The Toiler, Oct. 1, 1921] This article in a primary English-language legal organ of the Communist Party of America announces the formation of “a new political party of labor”—the Workers League. This New York City-based forerunner of the Workers Party of America was not intended to engage in parliamentarism as a means of winning state power through the ballot box. Rather: “While the Socialist Party is committed to bourgeois parliamentarism and political reform, the Workers League refuses to stimulate illusions in the minds of the workers as to the possibility of improving their long under the present economic order and with parliamentary activity as an instrument. The Workers League enters politics to unmask it. It seeks to enter Congress and other legislative bodies not to urge reform but to voice the wrath of the workers at their terrible situation. With the parliamentary tribune as a sounding board it plans to spread forth over the country the message of international solidarity, the challenge of the irreconcilable class conflict.”

“The Negro Convention,” by Cyril Briggs [events of Aug. 1-28?, 1921] Writing under the pseudonym “C.B. Valentine,” founder of the African Blood Brotherhood Cyril Briggs gives his account of the “2nd International Convention of Negroes” called by the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, headed by Marcus Garvey. Briggs draws contrast between the Garveyites’ obsession with matters of rank and privilege, such as various “knighthoods” and a “ladyship” awarded, and the designation of President-General Garvey as the “Provisional President of Africa,” etc., with the practical and single-minded desire of the ABB for “real constructive action.” Briggs states that “The ABB delegation...demanded among other things a constructive program for ‘the guidance of the negro race in the struggle for liberation,’ and suggested and agitated before the congress the creation of a federation of existing negro organizations ‘in order to present a united and formidable front to the enemy,’ and the adoption of a program calling for means ‘to raise and protect the standard of living of the negro people,’ to “stop the mob-murder of our people and to protect them against sinister secret societies of cracker whites, and to fight the ever expanding peonage system.’ They further demanded that Soviet Russia be endorsed by the congress and the real foes of the negro race denounced.” The ABB’s publication of a weekly journal and other literature hostile to the brazen pocket-stuffing of the Garveyite leadership brought about a crisis late in the month, culminating with Garvey’s denunciation of the ABB as “traitors and Bolshevist agents” and the expulsion of the ABB delegates from the convention, Briggs notes.

“A Letter to the Communist Party of America, Oct. 9, 1921,” by Grigorii Zinoviev. The head of the Communist International sent this note to the American Communist Party urging the immediate formation of a legal political party. “It is necessary to fight for every inch,” Zinoviev states, urging that the example of the Russian Bolsheviks be followed in establishing a seemingly innocuous legal organization to propagandize the basic ideas of Communism or even simply the ideas of the class struggle. Russian comrades in America would be taking great responsibilities upon themselves if they stood in the way of this unquestioned directive of the Comintern, Zinoviev warned.

“Weekly Radical Report for Pittsburgh, PA for the Week Ending Oct. 1, 1921. [Extract],” by H.J. Lenon An extended section of the weekly report by Department of Justic Bureau of Investigation Special Agent H.J. Lenon on radical activities in Pittsburgh—in this case those of the unified Communist Party of America. There can be no doubt to any careful reader of this report that the DoJ’s penetration of the highest level of the UCP in Pittsburgh through an undercover operative or particularly thorough informer was carried over into the Pittsburgh organization of the unified CPA. This extensive report containing copius detail from “read and destroy” bulletins of the National Office to the District organizations. “The Communist Party is in bad FINANCIAL condition,” Lenon declares, adding that the party had initiated a number of changes for reasons of economy, including the discontinuation and consolidation of newspapers, the reduction of wages of party workers, and the elimination of party offices. Further, disorganization was rampant within the party’s ranks: “We find a badly SPLIT up organization developing more wings than the SP had. Here we have the LEGAL, ILLEGAL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, and a mixture of everything. The party organizes and disorganizes at will, leaving in its wake a mass of confusion...” This dysfunctional organization was comically ineffectual: “Most of their activity centralizes around districts where the leaders reside, like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York, Chicago, Detroit. In cities where the SP has any strength the Communists usually spend most of their time fighting with the SP. It is always easy to detect the Communists in action, for they always condemn the SP, agitate for the Soviet Republic, etc., also use plenty of the Bolsheviki terms of expression. Supposed to be underground but they LOVE TO RECOMMEND THE COMMUNIST TACTICS. Mostly all intellectuals in the red movement like to display their extreme Bolsheviki radicalism. Being a red Communist is something that will not be underground.”

“A Letter to the Communist Party of America, Oct. 9, 1921,” by Grigorii Zinoviev. The head of the Communist International sent this note to the American Communist Party urging the immediate formation of a legal political party. “It is necessary to fight for every inch,” Zinoviev states, urging that the example of the Russian Bolsheviks be followed in establishing a seemingly innocuous legal organization to propagandize the basic ideas of Communism or even simply the ideas of the class struggle. Russian comrades in America would be taking great responsibilities upon themselves if they stood in the way of this unquestioned directive of the Comintern, Zinoviev warned.

“Socialist Party Declared Dead: Ex-Members Dine, Chant Requiem for Organization in Various Keys.” (NY Call) [event of Oct. 8, 1921] This short news report in the New York Call notes the formation of the Workers Council organization by anti-Socialist Party members of the Jewish Socialist Federation and the newly departed SP Left Wingers of the Committee for the Third International. This article chronicles a dinner held in New York City and addressed by J.L. Engdahl, Benjamin Glassberg, J.B. Salutsky, Rose Weiss, Alexander Trachtenberg, L. DeGregoria, Isadore Cohen, and Ludwig P. Lore. The purge of Communists at the Rand School of Social Science seems to have been a contributing factor to the formation of the Workers Council organization, with both Glassberg and Trachtenberg alluding to the event, the latter of whom said: “I have tried to continue on in the Socialist Party. A few weeks ago I found that it was impossible to stay in. Now is the time to build up a class-conscious, revolutionary party that will stay our in the open.” Keynote speaker was Lore, who told the attendees “We need the Communist Party. We need frank discussion and education for the masses. This is the movement which will give us what we want and need.”

“’In Re: Workers Council.’: Report of a Meeting Held in New York, Oct. 8, 1921,” by Department of Justice Undercover Agent “P-134” This is an unusual document, the report of an undercover agent of the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation of an open meeting of the Workers’ Council group in New York City. Agent “P-134” quotes Secretary of the Workers’ Council J. Louis Engdahl as saying that “he is a Communist, and that the Workers Council is organizing for the purpose of establishing Socialist Soviet Republic in the US.” He quotes Engdahl as saying that the primary mission of the group is to “help all the revolutionary classes unite into a true revolutionary Socialist organization.” The meeting was also addressed by Benjamin Glassberg, Rose Weiss, Comrade Ligoria of the Italian movement, Alexander Trachtenberg, I. Cohen of the Independent YPSL, and Ludwig Lore of the Newyorker Volkszeitung. Agent “P-134” quotes Lore as admitting his membership in the Communist Party of America and declaring that “the American working class will not take any orders from a clique, namely, the [CEC] of the Communist Party of America, which is termed illegal and underground.” Lore seems to have taken a similar independent position towards the Executive Committee of the Comintern, saying that regardless of “whether the 3rd International says that Workers Council is proper or not, they will go before the masses openly and preach Communism and the establishment of a Soviet Republic in the United States.” Agent “P-134” states that Lore “also said the Workers Council will organize the class conscious revolutionary forces of this country regardless of what the orders from Moscow may be, and carry on their educational campaign organizing mass open organizations, whether it be legal or not...”

“The Red Trade Union International: The First World Congress of Revolutionary Unions,” by Earl R. Browder [events of July 3-??, 1921] Pioneer American Communist Earl R. Browder, a delegate to the 1st World Congress of the Profintern held in Moscow in the summer of 1921, provides an account of the gathering for the members of the Workers Party of America. Browder characterizes the gathering as the “culmination of a long historical development in the principles and tactics of the international labor movement” in which the wartime use of European trade unions as recruiting grounds for the army and post-war period of the trade unions being instruments of the immediate political situation, in which the bureaucratic leadership of the unions had blocked the revolutionary impulses of the rank and file, had given way to a new phase. “By the spring of 1920 a great movement of revolt against the reactionary control of the trade unions by the international organization at Amsterdam was in full swing throughout Europe,” Browder asserts, adding that “this revolt was spontaneous, chaotic and unorganized, and without center or directing head. “The first steps taken to unite all these forces into one disciplined body were taken in Moscow in July 1920, when the leaders of the Russian trade unions took advantage of the presence of many union representatives from England, Italy, France, and other countries, some of whom were attending the Congress of the Communist International, and invited them to confer,” Browder states. Anti-political revolutionary syndicalists chose to participate in the 1st World Congress of the Profintern in an attempt to capture it, but this tendency was decidedly in the minority, Browder notes. Browder promises further commentary on the specific issues of division in a future article, which does not appear to have made print in the pages of The Worker.

“Where We Stand,” by Charles W. Ervin [Oct. 13, 1921] This statement by managing editor of the Socialist Party’s New York Call, Charles Ervin, contrasts the ideology of the SPA with that of the Communist movement. Ervin neatly summarizes the Social Democratic ideology: “From the very first this paper not only adhered to the Socialist movement of the world at large, but it was one of the organs of the Socialist Party of America. It believed then, as it believes now, in the immense value of political education. It does not go into a political campaign merely for the sake of bringing its ideas to the people. It believes in striving for political power to use it in securing industrial control. It believes, and always has believed, in the great importance of immediate demands. If it did not, it certainly would not support the battle of the labor unions as it does. It believes that every advantage, no matter how slight, that is wrested from the capitalist class puts the workers in a position where they will be able to secure still further advantages until they become sufficiently organized to stretch out and grasp all the good things of life. This paper does not believe that things have to get worse before they get better. It does not believe that when men and women rise to a higher standard of life they become so contented that they cease to strive to reach toward higher things. On the contrary, it strives for and welcomes every improvement in the human mind and body, every improvement in physical environment, every step toward a higher spiritual development that mankind succeeds in making.”

“Answers to Questions”, by Steven Ross [“Charles Wallace”/“Stepan”] [Oct. 13, 1921]. A conference between Lenin and the members of the American delegates to the 3rd Congress of the Comintern and the Profintern late in the summer of 1921 was a matter of heated debate, pitting Max Bedacht (ex-UCP), who contended that Lenin issued an instruction for the CPA to immediately establish a Legal Political Party in America against Seven Ross [“Charles Wallace”] (ex-old CPA), who contended that Lenin said no such thing. This is Ross’ reply to a questionnaire issued by the CEC entitled “Questions to International Delegates,” attempting to rectify the discrepancy in the testimony between Bedacht and Ross.

“Appeal of the Minority Members of the CEC of the Communist Party of America Against the Policies of the CEC on the Question of the Formation of a Legal Political Party in the United States.” [circa Oct. 25, 1921]. ** Revised Edition: Refines estimated issue date, adds a footnote, and expands archival citation.** The formal appeal of the CEC minority (i.e. the Central Caucus faction) to the Communist International seeking a halt to the actions of the CEC majority’s actions with regard to establishment of a legal political party. While stating their agreement with the notion of legal political action and their willingness to adhere to the final decision of the ECCI in the matter, this appeal outlines the case of the minority: that the CEC majority had misrepresented the position of the ECCI and Lenin himself on the Legal Political Party; that its action in forcing the entire underground party into the open legal organization would put it at grave danger of arrest and destruction; that the duplication of legal and underground personnel would inevitably result in liquidation of the underground organization; that the proposed transformation of the American Labor Alliance for Trade with Soviet Russia into a full fledged Legal Political Party was counter to the Unity Agreement joining the old CPA with the UCP in May 1921 and artificial—as the ALA had no mass membership outside of the underground CPA; that the CEC majority had failed to call an emergency convention of the party to work out details of this drastic change of the party line, thus resulting in confusion and a lack of confidence among the rank and file in the party leadership; that major preparatory work among the working class needed to be done before any Legal Political Party could be considered. For good measure, a litany of the offenses of the CEC Majority on other matters are tagged on the end, ranging from botched opportunities for mass propaganda to apathy to engagement in a policy of factional “crushing” of the former members of the old CPA.

“Circular Letter to All Districts and Federations from John Ballam, Secretary of Central Caucus, Summarizing the Results of Meeting of Oct. 24-25, 1921.” This document may be aptly characterized as an internal bulletin from the “Central Caucus” to its adherents—dissidents in the unified Communist Party of America hailing from the old Communist Party of America who organized factionally in September 1921 and quickly departed the party en masse, declaring themselves to be the legitimate bearer of the Communist Party of America’s mantle. This report details what amounts to an expanded plenum of the Central Caucus, including not only the regularly attending representatives of the Russian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Jewish, Latvian, and Polish Federations, but also its de facto District Organizers (”Caucus leaders”) from the Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh districts. The October statement to the Comintern by the minority of the unified CPA’s CEC—John Ballam, Charles Dirba, and George Ashkenuzi—was the basis for discussion of the meeting. A summary of the views of each of the Federation representatives and district Caucus leaders is providing, showing that the Lithuanian Federation was the least irreconcilable to the majority of the CEC of the unified Party and its line, stating that they “Cannot oppose Comintern on question of [a Legal Political Party] but absolutely against form proposed by CEC” and urging that “no action to be taken which would give reason for being thrown out of Comintern.” The statement of the 3 CEC Members was taken up by the meeting seriatim and amended, and was to be then signed and prepared for distribution to the “entire membership.”

NOVEMBER

“Our Agrarian Problem”, by Harold Ware [Nov. 1921] Harold Ware (party name “H.R. Harrow”) was a son of Ella Reeve Bloor and the first agrarian expert of the American Communist movement. Ware lends the eye of a Marxist sociologist to the American agricultural situation, identifying four primary agricultural regions: East, Midwest, South, and West. He analyzes two of them in this article published in the underground official organ of the unified CPA. The West Ware finds to be typified by large agricultual units making use of modern production technology and employing large numbers of migratory workers during the harvest season — true proletarians, Ware says. “Because the proletarian elements are most important in the west we must cooperate with the IWW in their activities among the farm workers. In spite of our general differences of policy we must recognize that the IWW alone is active in the agrarian field.” In the East there is an altogether different production norm, Ware states, typified by small and highly productive farms worked by “semi-proletarians.” Ware advocates the establishment of a Party “Agrarian Bureau” to coordinate work among the proletarian and semi-proletarian agricultural workers, with “Section-Agrarian Organizers” hitting the road on behalf of this institution. He also calls for establishment of a Communist agricultural newspaper and a party agrarian school to train volunteer city workers in agricultural methods so that they might be employed in agrarian organizing. “American imperialism may cause the longest, bitterest struggle in history before admitting defeat. Military campaigns will have fertile farm sections for their objectives. The critical battles will be for Food. We must win the producers of food to our side or the proletarian victory will be seriously delayed if not defeated,” Ware declares.

“Make It a Party of Action! A Declaration of the Central Executive Committee to the Membership.” [circa November 1921] Full text of a 4 page leaflet of a statement by the majority group of the Central Executive Committee of the CPA to the rank and file on the heated factional situation developing in the party. Citing the directive of the Comintern expressed at the Third World Congress that it is the duty of the American Party “to try all ways and means to get out of their illegalized condition into the open, among the wide masses” the CEC here notes that “It is necessary to build a machinery that can make the fullest use of all legal possibilities”—a “legal political organization which would centralize the legal activities of the Party.” An opposition had appeared, however, a faction which in “both in the content of their criticism and in their methods...show themselves incapable of understanding or applying the tactics of the Communist International.” Already “19 members who refused to recognized its authority, flagrantly violated its instructions, and threatened its representatives with violence” had been suspended. A circular letter of the Russian Federation is quoted to illustrate the factional activies of the opposition in the party and the exhortation is made that “every member knows that without a solid, united, and well disciplined party, victory over capitalism is impossible.” Similar factional troubles relating to the editor of the Lithuanian Federation's underground official organ is detailed at some length and the withholding of funds by opponents of the current policy is noted. “The CEC declares that it will stop these destructive activities by decisive action. It will brook no disruption of the Party. The day for disruption is over! We must build a united and invincible front! We must build a party of revolutionary action!”

“Keysquare for ‘1921 Money Order Code’ used by the unified Communist Party of America, Nov. 1921-Feb. 1922”, Cryptanalysis by John K. Taber and Tim Davenport. The United Communist Party in 1920-21 and its successor, the unified Communist Party of America in 1921-22, used a simple single letter replacement code appearing on the page as fractions. By way of example, a “D” might have been written as “3/21”—corresponding to the letter located at keysquare coordinates line 3 and column 21. A series of no fewer than four “keysquares” for coding and decoding were used during the period. This is a substantially solved keysquare that was used by the “majority” CPA at the tail end of 1921 and early in 1922 to make its messages to and from Moscow harder to comprehend if intercepted by the Bureau of Investigation’s General Intelligence Division or the Army’s Military Intelligence Department. The original source of the keysquare appears to have been the fine print of a money order form, beginning “WHEN PAYABLE IN BOLIVIA, CHILE, COSTA RICA, DENMARK, FRANCE, GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, HONDURAS...”

“Letter to Leo Laukki in Moscow from Alfred S. Edwards in Boston.” [circa Nov. 1921]. A very interesting politically-charged letter from a Latvian-American radical who helped found the Socialist Publishing Society in Dec. 1916 to a compatriot in Moscow, detailing the transgressions of the majority group of the Central Executive Committee. The CEC majority—“mensheviks,” in Edwards’ view—had done nothing to organize units of the party in the army and navy, had done nothing to agitate among the unemployed, had been woefully inadequate in participating in the daily struggles of the working class, and had failed to organize party nuclei in shops and unions, and had done nothing to fight centrism in the Party. Instead, the Party was dominated by an enormous and costly paid bureaucracy that was intent upon liquidation of the underground Communist Party in favor of a parliamentary orientation and communism of “the respectable, rose-water kind.” The greatest achievement of the CEC was the establishment of the Friends of Soviet Russia, Edwards indicates, although the American Labor Alliance had been allowed to atrophy into nothingness —an “excellent form of organization” in the charge of a leadership group that didn’t know how to do the work, Edwards states. Edwards applauds a recent article by Lenin indicating that 99% of the mensheviks who joined the Russian Communist Party after the revolution needed to be stricken from the ranks and states that “50% of our CEC” (that is, the former members of the United Communist Party) are similarly mensheviks who until recently supported the 2 1/2 or even the Second International. Edwards urges Laukki to inform Tyverovsky as to the state of affairs and to use the information for “enlightening the comrades on the present situation in America.”.

“Save the Party! An Appeal to All Members of the Communist Party!” [circa Nov. 1921] This is “Statement No. 1” of the Central Caucus Faction of John Ballam, Charles Dirba, and George Ashkenudzie—a detailed catalog of the transgressions of the CPA’s Central Executive Committee majority group. These faults included the arbitrary and reckless formation of a Legal Political Party with mandatory participation of all members of the underground—an “insane” and “suicidal” policy that would result in a liquidation of the Communist Party; a disregard of the constitutionally-established rights of language federations; a factional “crushing policy” on the part of the 7 member CEC majority, exemplified by the splitting of districts and factional removal of (ex-old CPA) District Organizers and Sub-District Organizers without cause; and a profligate spending of party funds that resulted in a $20,000 debt for the organization. An emergency convention of the unified CPA was called for to resolve these issues and all party members were called upon to discuss these issues and to issue resolutions to force the CEC majority into action.

Convention Call to Organize the Workers’ Party of America [circa Nov. 1921]. This is a document issued in the fall of 1921 (circa November) formally calling for the formation of a Legal Political Party at convention in New York City on December 23. The call was signed by the CPA-associated American Labor Alliance, the radical SP-offshoot The Workers’ Council of the USA, the Jewish Socialist Federation, and the Workers’ Educational Association.

“Circular Letter to Districts and Federations of the Central Caucus from John Ballam, Secretary, Nov. 13, 1921.” An internal bulletin of the Central Caucus faction, compiled by its Secretary, John Ballam. Ballam notes that the Statement of the 3 CEC Members had been sent to all districts and translated and transmitted by the officials of the faction’s 6 federation caucuses—Russian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Jewish, Latvian, and Polish. Ballam notes that arch-Legal Party advocate Max Bedacht had been named the editor of the underground organ and internal bulletin of the unified CPA and that in the coming week “ALL FEDERATIONS WILL BE NOTIFIED TO ‘RAISE THEIR BRANCHES INTO LPP IN SYSTEMATIC MANNER, LANGUAGE BY LANGUAGE.’” The actual split was near at hand; groups of the Polish Federation had ceased paying dues to the unified CPA, some Yiddish-language party groups were refusing to obey directives to “raise” their branches from the underground despite threats of expulsion from the unified CPA. The Central Caucus (that is to say, the directing council of federation representatives of the faction)had decided to immediately send a representative to Soviet Russia to argue its case, Ballam notes—although another archival document indicates that no representative was actually sent at this time in connection with this decision. The document includes district-by-district and federation-by-federation summaries of the activity of the Central Caucus faction.

“Letter to the Bureau of the Jewish Federation, CPA from Abram Jakira, Secretary of the CPA, November 13, 1922.” ** NEW EDITION: PROVIDES IDENTIFICATION OF “ARKADIEFF” AS SHACHNO EPSTEIN, CHANGES FOOTNOTES. ** This letter from the head of the underground CPA, Abram Jakira, emphasizes that not every individual coming from Moscow to work in the Communist Party of America bore the Comintern’s cachet. “Comrade Arkadieff” [Shachno Epstein] had written to Jakira complaining that he had been excluded from sessions the Central Executive Committee of the party and shunted aside. Instead, he apparently represented himself as a Comintern plenipotentiary in charge of the Jewish Federation. Jakira makes Epstein’s status clear to the Jewish Bureau under which he worked in no uncertain terms: “Com. Arkadieff [Epstein] declares that the Executive of the CI sent him for work in America. That is quite true. But thereupon he draws incorrect and unsupported conclusions. He believes that he is not under the discipline of the American party. That is sheerest nonsense. No one can work in the CP of A without being 100 percent under the discipline of the CEC. That a member of the CP of Russia was sent by way of the CI to work in the CP of A does not in the least denote that he is a representative of the CI, or has anything to do with the CI.” Jakira seeks to put an end to the “foolish legend” that Epstein had an sort of mission to perform for the Comintern and to place him under CPA discipline. “Please inform Com. Arkadieff [Epstein] that he either must work under the discipline of the Party or there will be no room for him in the American Party,” Jakira warns.

“Resolution on the Russian Blockade and Intervention.” [Nov. 21, 1920] Although springing from semi-independent origins, the American Labor Alliance for Trade Relations With Russia came to be one of the first mass organizations sponsored by the Communist Party of America, bringing together representatives of organized labor groups to agitate for political recognition and economic intercourse between the United States and Soviet Russia. The group held a converence in New York City on Sunday, Nov. 21, 1920, at which this resolution on the Russian Blockade was passed. The group protested against the “inhuman blockade” which the US government had given its support and demanded that further American participation in the “various plots against Soviet Russia” be terminated. The group called on the State Department to remove all obstacles with trade, to open up postage and communications with Russia, restore the right of travel, and allow authorized representatives of the Soviet Government to act in its behalf in commercial transactions.

“The Communists Answer,” by Jay Lovestone [Nov. 26, 1921] Member of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America Jay Lovestone (writing as “R.B. Nelson”) vigorously replies to charges levied by the Workers’ Council group that the CPA went underground of its own volition, due to the “revolutionary romanticism” of many of its leading members—a decision which lead to a separation from the masses of American labor and to the fostering of a false sense of security. Lovestone replies that the decision to go underground was in no way a choice: “While the ‘above-boarders’ of the Workers’ Council were striving to win over the traitorous Socialist Party to a ‘real, revolutionary international’ (whatever that could have meant after 40,000 to 60,000 suspected of being Communists were expelled), the American Communists were openly fighting as Communists and were being jailed for scores of years of penal servitude.” It was through the arrest and jailing of thousands in Dec. 1919 and Jan. 1920 that finally the communists “were driven to cover for protection and worked underground in order to save their organization,” Lovestone declares, adding that “Since then the communists have tried their best to work in the open.” The underground form of organization was not an end in and of itself, Lovestone states, noting that the Comintern itself declared for the need of parallel legal and illegal organizations in each country. The Comintern had never supported sectarian and “splendid-isolationist” policies, Lovestone declares and he states his belief that the inconsistent positions of the Workers’ Council group “shows clearly that our Left Wing Socialist comrades were not in the past and are not even today ready to accept fully the principles and tactics of the Third International.”

DECEMBER

“Report of the Communist Party of America to the Executive Committee of the Communist International”, by L.E. Katterfeld [December 1921]. A lengthy and detailed report on the situation facing the communist movement in the United States. Katterfeld notes that “it is necessary to build a machinery that can make the fullest use of all legal possibilities” and unveils the forthcoming Workers Party of America — which sprung from the American Labor Alliance. This turn brought about a “new alignment in the Central Executive Committee,” Katterfeld states, including the resignation of Executive Secretary Charles Dirba and an organized campaign to withhold dues from the central party organization. “The overwhelming majority of the membership, comprising all of the former United Communist Party and over half of the former Communist Party, are cooperating fully” with the plans of the CEC, Katterfeld declares. Katterfeld reports on the political campaign of the party in New York municipal elections, the work of the Friends of Soviet Russia in raising funds for famine relief, Party finances and membership, and the work of the Party press and in the trade union movement. An interesting esoteric point is Katterfeld’s remark that the “very critical” financial situation of the CPA “was made acute through the expense for holding 10 different national Language Federation conventions, to which the Party HAD to agree as one of the conditions for achieving unity... Those language conferences cost about $15,000.” Katterfeld makes an inflated claim of CPA membership of “between 12,000 and 13,000” — as opposed to actual statistics showing an average paid membership of 8,588 for the five months BEFORE the Central Caucus split.

“Report of Campaign Committee, Workers’ League Campaign, Dec. 1, 1921,” by Edward Lindgren. While the Communist Party boycotted the 1920 elections, it made a first tentative step as a political party proper in the New York City elections of November 1921. The vehicle for its electoral campaign was a legal political party called “The Workers’ League.” This is a post-election report of the activities of the Workers’ League by the organization’s secretary, Edward Lindgren. Lindgren notes bitterly that “hostility and indifference” sprung up immediately within the party from the time of the August 26, 1921 nominating convention of the Workers’ League, which put forward a ticket headed by Benjamin Gitlow for Mayor and including Edward Lindgren for Controller, Harry Winitsky for President of the Board of Aldermen, and Rose Pastor Stokes, Charles Brower, and Jacob Hartman as Borough Presidents. A “lack of discipline” which was “beyond description” crippled the organization’s momentum and morale, while the erstwhile allies of the Workers’ League—including the Workers’ Council, and Finnish, Jewish, and Hungarian Socialist Federations, did nothing to aid in fundraising. The attempt to garner signatures to gain ballot access was an outright debacle, forcing the organization to spend $1200 to employ professional signature-gatherers, who did in 10 days what the organization was unable to accomplish in 5 weeks. While a speakers bureau was built from scratch, a lasting achievement for the organization, many of these individuals failed to appear at the meetings which they were assigned, causing Lindgren great consternation. Still other qualified speakers refused their services to the party due to disagreement with the immediate demands of the Workers’ League’s program, Lindgren indicated. As a result, barely over 3,000 votes had been cast for the various candidates of the League, which ended the campaign about $3,000 in debt. While this first foray into electoral politics was a debacle, Lindgren provided a set of recommendations for future action. This document includes a full financial statement and preliminary vote counts for the varous candidates of the Workers’ League.

“Draft of a Note to V.I. Ul’ianov (N. Lenin) from Robert Minor in Moscow, December 2, 1921” Robert Minor, the CPA majority group's representative on the Executive Committee of the Communist International, was recalled by his party in November 1921 to bring documents from Moscow and the power of his personality to fight the Central Caucus opposition. He was replaced by Ludwig Katterfeld effective Nov. 23, 1921. Before he left for America, Minor wrote this note to Lenin, seeking a brief meeting and to introduce his successor at ECCI. Minor outlines the controversy in the CPA and notes that he will be returning "with all possible speed" with a resolution from ECCI supporting the position of the CPA majority as well as a thesis on legal work in America written by Otto Kuusinen, Karl Radek, and Nikolai Bukharin.

“Perpetuate the American Labor Alliance,” by J.O. Bentall [Dec. 3, 1921]. An esoteric letter from a Duluth CPA member to the Central Executive Committee urging the retention of the American Labor Alliance [for Trade Relations with Russia] despite ongoing plans to initiate a Legal Political Party later that same month. The ALA—one of the earliest and most important “front” groups of the early period—was envisioned by Bentall as a sort of “Chamber of Commerce for the Workers,” gaining access where a political party could not to “take hold and help” the workers en route to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. Establishment of a Legal Political Party would be insufficient for the tasks faced, Bentall argued, placing his primary emphasis on the needs of the strike movement. This document is interesting also for briefly mentioning that the “Friends of Soviet Russia” [called “the B” in clandestine party documents of the era] was organized by the American Labor Alliance [similarly: “the A”] itself.

“A Summary of Its Work by the Friends of Soviet Russia.” [Dec. 1921] A very early public summary of its operations by the FSR, published without authorship signature in the Jan. 1922 issue of Soviet Russia. This short news release details the raising of $250,000 for Russian famine relief, forthcoming pamphlets on the famine by the organization, plans for stereopticon and motion picture events to raise awareness and funds for famine relief, and details the work of William Z. Foster touring on behalf of the organization and raising money through sales of his book, The Russian Revolution.

“The Negro Liberation Movement,” by “C. Lorenzo” [Dec. 10, 1921] This survey of the black liberation movement from December 1921 appears to have been written by a white American Communist under a pseudonym and was published in the pages of the official organ of the Workers Party of America. “Lorenzo” sees two main tendencies in the negro liberation movement of the day—the Universal Negro Improvement Association, headed by Marcus Garvey, and the African Blood Brotherhood, headed by Cyril Briggs. In addition, the existence of a number of “minor phases” of the movement are noted, including the Equal Rights League from Boston, and the Pan-African Congress; plus two African-based tendencies, the Mohammedan movement and the Ethiopian movement. “Lorenzo” states that the African Blood Brotherhood is “the only Negro organization that the capitalists view with any degree of alarm,” owing to its reputation as having lead the armed self-defense of the black community in the Tulsa race riot and to its willingness to seek “the cooperation of all other forces genuinely opposed to the capitalist-imperialist system” (i.e. the communists and other radical white movements). “While placing a free Africa as the chief of its ultimate aims, the ABB has no intention of surrendering any rights that the Negro has won in any parts of the world, or of letting up on the fight for liberty—’political, economic, social’—in the United States. It is at present carrying on a most uncompromising fight for the rights of the Negro workers in this country to organize for the betterment of their condition, the raising of their standard of living, and for shorter hours and higher wages. At the same time it seeks to imbue the Negro workers with a sense of the necessity of working class solidarity to the success of the struggle against the capitalist-imperialist system, which it asks Negroes to wage both as Negroes and as workers,” “Lorenzo” declares.

Dec. 1921 Resolution of Three Boston Latvian CPA Branches. Late in November of 1921, a split developed in the Central Executive Committee of the unified CPA over the question of formation of an underground party. Three members of the CEC (John Ballam, Charles Dirba, and George Ashkenudzie) appealed the CEC majority’s decision to the Executive Committee of the Comintern and organized their supporters factionally. A split, which gathered its strongest support among the ex-old CPA Language Federation groups of the Northeast, ensued. This document is an early expression of the views of some of those who supported the breakaway “Central Caucus.”.

“Appeal of the Minority Members of the CEC of the Communist Party of America Against the Policies of the CEC on the Question of the Formation of a Legal Political Party in the United States.” [Circa December 1921]. The formal appeal of the CEC minority (i.e. the Central Caucus faction) to the Communist International seeking a halt to the actions of the CEC majority’s actions with regard to establishment of a legal political party. While stating their agreement with the notion of legal political action and their willingness to adhere to the final decision of the ECCI in the matter, this appeal outlines the case of the minority: that the CEC majority had misrepresented the position of the ECCI and Lenin himself on the Legal Political Party; that its action in forcing the entire underground party into the open legal organization would put it at grave danger of arrest and destruction; that the duplication of legal and underground personnel would inevitably result in liquidation of the underground organization; that the proposed transformation of the American Labor Alliance for Trade with Soviet Russia into a full fledged Legal Political Party was counter to the Unity Agreement joining the old CPA with the UCP in May 1921 and artificial—as the ALA had no mass membership outside of the underground CPA; that the CEC majority had failed to call an emergency convention of the party to work out details of this drastic change of the party line, thus resulting in confusion and a lack of confidence among the rank and file in the party leadership; that major preparatory work among the working class needed to be done before any Legal Political Party could be considered. For good measure, a litany of the offenses of the CEC Majority on other matters are tagged on the end, ranging from botched opportunities for mass propaganda to apathy to engagement in a policy of factional “crushing” of the former members of the old CPA.

“Speech to the Founding Convention of the Workers Party of America,” by William F. Dunne [Dec. 26, 1921]. Speech of this Montana trade union activist and publisher of the Butte Bulletin to the founding convention of the WPA in New York. Dunne charges that the Socialist Party’s obsession with chasing ballots was misplaced and had led to a “divorce” of that organization from the American working class. The IWW on the other hand, contained “the very cream of the revolutionary elements in this country” —about 2/3 of the organization’s membership would be in sympathy with the aims and purposes of the Workers Party of America, Dunne estimated. The WPA would attract these elements, Dunne believed, although he cautioned against overconfidence and an unwillingness to admit the possibility of present mistakes or the fact that mistakes had been made in the past.

“Constitution of the Workers Party of America: Adopted at National Convention, New York City, Dec. 24- 26, 1921.” Full text of the initial set of organizational rules governing the so-called “Legal Political Party” attached to the the underground CPA. The unit of local organization is the branch, consisting of at least 5 members; multiple branches in any one city being joined by a City Central Committee with delegates based on branch size. National governance by annual conventions, which elect a 17 member Central Executive Committee. The CEC in turn selects the Executive Secretary and chooses District Organizers. Primary governance of the organization via District Conventions, which each elect 6 to a District Executive Committee, which includes the DO to make 7. Branches consisting of members speaking a common non-English language were to form “Language Branches,” the sum total for each to be a “Language Section” (formerly Federations). Language Sections were to be governed by an annual Language Section Conference, which was to elect an executive Language Bureau—candidates subject to the approval of the CEC. The Language Sections and their governing Bureaus were to have no power of suspension or expulsion, those prerogatives limited to the CEC.

“The National Defense Committee.” [Dec. 1921]. This report from a pamphlet published by the group was probably written by the NDC’s Secretary-Treasurer, Communist Labor Party founding member Edgar Owens. This is a brief history of the establishment and first year’s activities of the National Defense Committee, the first of the communist-sponsored mass organizations dedicated to legal defense of political prisoners in the United States. Owens notes that in the aftermath of the January 1920 “Palmer raids,” with their thousands of arrests, local Defense Committees were organized to meet the local needs, although much of this work was duplicated from place to place. “Coordination of defense work was imperative. The answer was the National Defense Committee.” Includes a summary of the organization’s major activity as well as financial receipts and expenditures.

“The Friends of Soviet Russia,” by Alfred Wagenknecht [Dec. 17, 1921] Weekly report of Secretary of the Friends of Soviet Russia, Alfred Wagenknecht, writing for the official organ of the Workers Party of America under the pseudonym “A.B. Martin.” Wagenknecht notes that to date $265,000 had been collected for the relief of the Russian famine, including the collection of 7,000 pairs of used shoes in Chicago and 26 bales of clothing in Cleveland. New York cobblers had volunteered to do shoe repair on donated footwear, two clothing manufacturers had made available their machinery, a benefit symphony concert had been arranged in Detroit, and Chicago was organizing druggists. Wagenknecht urges the collection of surplus grain from from Midwestern farmers. He notes that Floyd Ramp, Norman H. Tallentire, and Dennis E. Batt had been added to the FSR’s staff of touring speakers. Includes a c. 1918 portrait of Alfred Wagenknecht.

“Minutes of the First Session of the Founding Convention of the Workers Party of America: New York—Dec. 23, 1921.” This terse record of the first day of the founding convention of the WPA is useful for its reckoning of the delegate strength of the various constituent organizations. Leading the list is the Workers Council and Arbeiter Bildings Verein groups, with 13 delegates each; the Finnish Socialist Federation and Jewish Socialist Federation, with 12 each; and the Jewish Section of the American Labor Alliance (i.e. the CPA), with 10. Three fraternal delegates were on hand from the Proletarian Party, while the African Blood Brotherhood was represented by 2 fraternal delegates. A total of 94 voting delegates were passed by the Credentials Committee. Caleb Harrison was elected permanent chair of the convention and Margaret Prevey of Ohio permanent vice chair. A proposed order of business was adopted, committees were elected, and the convention adjourned itself in favor of committee work.

UNDETERMINED MONTH

“Letter to the Comintern by the Representative of the Proletarian Party of America,” by Dennis E. Batt. [First half of 1921] Dennis Batt, former member of the National Left Wing Council, was the Executive Secretary of the PPA at the time this letter to the CI was written. In it he asks for a ruling on the PPA’s application for affiliation. Batt offers an analysis of the American situation startlingly close to the actual course of events: an explicit statement that “America has not been, is not, and will not be for a considerable time on the verge of revolution” and a strong recommendation that revolutionary rhetoric be terminated. He also advocated the immediate formation of “an organization that functions openly and propagates Communism as far as that is possible... This open organization should be controlled by the underground movement and would function as a recruiting ground for same.” The letter was fully translated into Russian and may well have played some role in decision to move forward with the parallel legal-WPA/underground-CPA structure that emerged in the winter of 1921.

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