Update 12-25: Sunday, June 17, 2012.
"New Offensive Against Soviet Russia: Communication of the Amsterdam Sub-Bureau of the Third International." [c. April 15, 1921] This communication of the short-lived Western European Bureau of the Communist International was published and distributed as a leaflet by the underground Communist Party of America. A new military assault against Soviet Russia is being prepared by world imperialism, led by Great Britain and France via Poland, the Amsterdam Bureau declares. Simultaneously Petrograd is menaced by White Finland, while the Ukraine remains under attack. In the East, the ongoing Japanese intervention in Siberia threatens the fledgling Soviet regime with a battle on two fronts. "The fate of the world is now to be decided: enslavement or freedom," the Amsterdam Bureau proclaims. It makes an explicit appeal "to all workers and to the transport workers in the very first place, to boycott all ships and goods from and for Japan. So long as the policy of intervention in Siberia is maintained, class-conscious workers should not touch any goods destined for Japan, or coming from Japan, nor should manufacture or handle the transport of such goods." With Britain judged the "mainstay" of the anti-Soviet conspiracy, "it is in the British workers, therefore, that a most important part in this struggle will fall," the Amsterdam Bureau asserts.
"Letter to 'Comrade Stepan' in Moscow from Charles Dirba in New York, April 16, 1921." Supplement to the letter of April 12, 1921 sent by Executive Secretary of the Communist Party of America Charles Dirba to his "man in Moscow," the still unidentified "Comrade Stepan," about ongoing changes in the factional battle over unity with the rival United Communist Party. Dirba indicates a hardening of the CPA's position against the unity ultimatum issued by the Comintern's 3 member "American Agency" of Janson, Fraina, and Katayama, declaring "I was wrong when I wrote in my letter of the 12th that it is possible that we may be compelled to accept the whole ultimatum in words, having all the time in mind our present appeal, and expecting that the decision of the CI will repudiate the action of the American Agency before the Convention is held. This is out of the question.... [The members] have plainly stated, and insist very strongly, that the CEC must not give in any further, must reject and stick to the rejection of all the other points of the Agency’s ultimatum." Intent on fighting externally-enforced unity conditions to the last trench, Dirba reckons that the American Agency "overstepped their power by putting up conditions not necessary and not essential to unity, and now, maintaining them, they will be absolutely violating the instructions of the CI, giving them full power to unite both parties." By way of contrast the rival UCP has accepted the American Agency's unity ultimatum in full and without reservations, Dirba reveals.
"In Re: United States versus William D. Haywood et al.," by Louis Loebl [April 23, 1921] Report of Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Louis Loebl on the unexpected decision of William D. "Big Bill" Haywood to jump bail and gain asylum in Soviet Russia. Haywood and other members of the Industrial Workers of the World had been out on bond pending appeal of a 20 year federal prison sentence. Loebl reports that the IWW declared its ignorance of knowing beforehand Haywood's intentions, and that they had learned of their former leader's decision only from published accounts in the mainstream press on the afternoon of April 21, when the story broke. The Federated Press, a left wing news service, was investigated by the BoI in an attempt to determine the source and the timing of the information about Haywood's escape. Loebl indicates that the Federated Press had received a telegram on the evening of April 20 detailing Haywood's departure for Moscow, via Stockholm and Riga, aboard the Oscar II. The Federated Press then transmitted the information to 23 newspapers subscribing to its press service only in its dispatch of April 22, i.e. after the story had already broke. Haywood had subsequently severed all connections with the IWW and joined the Communist Party, E.J. Costello of the Federated Press had later reported.
"The United Communist Party in Pittsburgh," by H.J. Lenon and SDO “Ryan” [April 25-27, 1921] Report of Bureau of Investigation Special Agent H.J. Lenon incorporating reports of his key informer, the United Communist Party's Pittsburgh Sub-District Organizer, pseudonym "Ryan" (as yet unidentified). "Ryan" puts into motion an operation which would shortly pay results in a raid on the UCP's secret headquarters in New York City when he identifies UCP CEC member Edward Lindgren as having arrived in Pittsburgh for an estimated two week training session on April 25. Lindgren and "Ryan" planned to drive to East McKeesport, PA to pick up May Day leaflets and stickers for distribution. Kept abreast of all Lindgren's doings by their spy "Ryan," an unscheduled return of Lindgren to the city on April 27 to attend a meeting of the Central Executive Committee provided the opportunity for the BoI to follow him back to the location of secret party headquarters, located in the apartment of Helen Ware.
"On Linn A.E. Gale: Excerpt from General Intelligence Bulletin for Week Ending April 30, 1921," by Gus T. Jones. Short excerpt from the weekly report of the Bureau of Investigation's San Antonio District Superintendent, Gus T. Jones, detailing the fate of draft resister and Communist magazine publisher Linn A.E. Gale. Jones notes that Gale arrived at the guardhouse of Fort Sam Houston on April 28, 1921 and had immediately "given the Military Intelligence a long statement concerning radical activities and persons in Mexico and in fact has betrayed all his former associates in the belief that this will cause lenience on trial." Gale remained in custody to face charges of desertion.
"May Day! Red Labor Day!" [distributed for May 1, 1921] Leaflet of the underground United Communist Party of America in celebration of May Day 1921, issued over the signature of a front group, the "American Freedom Foundation" and seemingly targeted to a trade union audience. The leaflet notes that the "bosses are united in a league to smash the Workers," eradicating the unions in favor of the open shop. Meanwhile in Soviet Russia the workers had gained freedom, while civil war swept Germany and Italy and rebellion percolated in India, Persia, Egypt, Korea, Turkey, and Asia Minor. "Revolt is in the air: REVOLUTION is the watchword!" the leaflet proclaims. Therefore, "this year, we must all get out and demonstrate. This year, all the organized and unorganized and the unemployed must get together in a tremendous demonstration. Your union must help the demonstration, Brothers and Fellow Workers!" the leaflet insists.
1921 May Day Propaganda Stickers of the United Communist Party. [distributed for May 1, 1921] Rough approximations of five propaganda stickers produced by the United Communist Party with an aim to their surreptitiously mass posting in celebration of May Day 1921. Slogans include: "Unemployed: Mobilize May 1st," "Workers, the U.S. is Yours — TAKE IT," "Hail Soviet America, May Day," "Workers, Show Your Power, Demonstrate May 1," and "Overthrow Capitalism, Long Live Communism." The propaganda stickers do not seem to have had the intended effect of bringing millions of workers in the streets intent upon the overthrow of capitalism but would have looked pretty rad on the skateboard decks of the day, had there been skateboards in 1921.
"Membership Bulletin of the United Communist Party." [circa May 5, 1921] Summary of activities of the United Communist Party compiled by the center for the benefit of the organization's underground membership. The distribution of "nearly 2 million" May Day leaflets and stickers by "several thousand comrades" is claimed. Attempting to spin a catastrophic failure of organizational security as a triumph, the UCP leadership declares that "raids upon two of our workplaces here [in New York] gave the enemy very little information that will harm us, as our vital centers are well covered and safe. They resulted in publicity worth tens of thousands of dollars to our movement." The raids did not compromise safehouse names and addresses, the bulletin notes. The success of the UCP's 1921 May Day event in New York City relative to similar parallel activities hosted by the rival Communist Party of America and Socialist Party is puffed up into evidence that the UCP had emerged as "the acknowledged 'vanguard of the class-conscious workers' of the US." The bulletin also notes that "The UCP now has affiliations in 20 languages. A special Negro group is also affiliated and others are in process of formation."
"'Open Civil War,'" by Cameron H. King [May 23, 1921] Socialist Party Regular Cameron King, editor of the Oakland World (a paper which had briefly shifted to the Communist Labor Party before being regained by the Socialist Party of California) takes aim at the new organized Left Wing faction in the Socialist Party -- the Committee for the Third International. Noting that this group claims to support the Communist International's 21 Points for admission in their entirety, King emphasizes the content of points 6 and 12, which call for the "revolutionary overthrow of capitalism" and which characterizes the current period as "an epoch of open civil war." Acceptance of "open civil war" would make its adherents "outlaws under the criminal syndicalist statutes" in California and 34 other states, King warns. If the new Left Wing really does believe in such things, "we can see no good reason why they should not leave the Socialist Party and join one of the 2 or 3 Communist groups," King asserts. King observes that "none of these Communist groups has any economic or political strength," a fact which he attributes to the communist organizations meeting "secretly, 'underground' name and purpose camouflaged, and they are, in consequence, utterly impotent and ineffective." A similar fate would await the Socialist Party if it were to "follow the Communist tactics" and act as a "militarily disciplined brigade in an open civil war here and now," since "it would be suppressed and wrecked just as the Communists have been suppressed and wrecked."
