JANUARY 1930
"Clique or Class? What's Happening in the ILD?" by Benjamin Gitlow [Jan. 1, 1930] This article by Ben Gitlow, a leading member of the "Communist Party-Majority Group" organization headed by Jay Lovestone, charges that a campaign was well underway in the International Labor Defense organization to change its nature from a non-partisan workers' defense organization to the partisan legal defense arm of the so-called "'loyalist' clique" -- i.e. the CPUSA. Gitlow quotes the 6th Congress of the Comintern's characterization of the ILD as "an independent organization standing outside of all parties which on the one hand defends all victims of the revolutionary struggle and on the other admits to membership without any distinctions of party." He contrasts this with the political practice employed at 1929 gatherings, in which "every trick and manipulation" was used "in order to exclude the 'renegades' from the district and national conferences." The conferences had their floors closed to speeches by "non-Party workers," Gitlow alleges, and "not a single non-Party worker" was elected to the group's 1930 national convention. Gitlow warns that this sectarianization of the ILD would soon be formalized. "At the New York conference Nessin and [Louis] Engdahl announced officially that the national convention would amend the constitution of the ILD by eliminating the declaration that the ILD is a non-partisan organization. Thus will the finishing touches be put..." he declares.
FEBRUARY 1930
"The Facts Speak for Themselves," by Harry Winitsky [Feb. 15, 1930] The charges made by the CPUSA that recently expelled leader Jay Lovestone had acted improperly as a state's witness in the Harry Winitsky trial of 1920 are refuted in this article by Winitsky himself, published in the pages of The Revolutionary Age, official organ of the "CPUSA-Majority Group." Winitsky states that while at the time of the trial he had believed that Lovestone should have refused to testify under compulsion and instead should have chosen to go to jail for contempt of court, instead "Lovestone as a disciplined member of the Party accepted the instructions of Ruthenberg, then the Secretary of the Party, and testified." Winitsky takes aim at Earl Browder's editorial of Dec. 23, 1929, against Lovestone and declares "Browder in his article lies when he states that Lovestone agreed to testify against me when he was offered immunity from prosecution." Browder's further statement that Lovestone's testimony "was referred to by the judge in charging the jury as the basis for a verdict of guilty against Winitsky" is called by Winitsky "a deliberate lie, a contemptible trick used by Browder to cover the truth." In reality, Winitsky states that "I had no illusions as to my fate when I went to trial" and that Lovestone had merely regurgitated facts already in evidence in the proceeding. "I frankly told the Communist International in my statement of the case that I was convicted by the court even before my trial had started and that Lovestone's testimony had nothing to do with my conviction," Winitsky states. Winitsky proceeds to tell the sordid tale of the ongoing effort of the Foster-Cannon-Bittelman-Lore faction to dust off the 1920 trial for factional gain, as part of an effort to discredit the man believed to be the "brains" of the opposing Ruthenberg faction. Winitsky was induced against his better judgment to prefer charges against Lovestone to the Communist International -- an action for which he was ashamed and subsequently apologized to Lovestone. Winitsky's account of this effort to make hay of the trial offers a fascinating glimpse of the bitter and utterly unprincipled factional warfare of the middle-1920s.
MARCH 1930
"The March 6 Demonstrations." (Unsigned article from Revolutionary Age) [events of March 6, 1930] The Communist International proclaimed March 6, 1930 to be "International Unemployment Day," an occasion for worldwide demonstrations against the unemployment associated with the worsening Great Depression. The Communist Party was cheered by the results of these protests, claiming that 1.25 million workers protested in events held in industrial centers around the USA. This article from the official organ of Jay Lovestone's opposition organization, the Communist Party-Majority Group, charges the CPUSA with systematic inflation of turnout estimates and mismanagement of the demonstrations themselves. To the CPUSA's claim of 110,000 in New York City, the CPMG asserts that 50,000 were on the streets, of whom "the greatest number were bystanders, not participants." In Chicago 50,000 were claimed by the Daily Worker -- but "five thousand is an optimistic estimate," the CPMG avers. Detroit's massive turnout of 100,000 was rendered impotent by the incompetent booking of a hall holding just 1,000 for the demonstration rather than making use of nearby public parks. Fifty thousand were claimed in Philadelphia -- less than 300 actually marched. The failure of the CPUSA to forge an authentic united front around the potent issue is emphasized.
"March 6 in Detroit," by William Miller [events of March 6, 1930] The International Unemployment Day demonstration in Detroit was touted by the Communist Party USA as of of the two largest, attended by a mass of 100,000 workers. This article from the press of the rival Communist Party-Majority group charges exaggeration and falsification on the part of "the 'revolutionary' gold brick salesman," the "coward and faker" Jack Stachel (CPUSA DO for Detroit). The demonstration is described as having been an organizational debacle, scheduled for an inadequate space easily controllable by the police. Instead of 100,000, Miller charges that about 30,000 workers answered the call, briefly joined by about 45,000 downtown employees on lunch break. Stachel is said to have went into hiding two days prior to the event, no platform was constructed, and no party leader addressed the crowd. Claims of hundreds of banners were false, Miller asserts, with placards quickly disposed of by the police. Miller states that Stachel's claim that workers had assembled in Campus Martius Park was completely false, that police had effectively sealed off the area from demonstrators. "As a protest from the unemployed workers, it was splendid," Miller declares, "but as an organized demonstration it was a fiasco."
"Resolution on Language Work: Adopted by the March 31-April 4, 1930, Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPUSA." At the end of March, the Central Committee of the CPUSA gathered in New York to prepare a "Thesis on the Economic and Political Situation and the Tasks of the Party" and to draft resolutions for the forthcoming 7th Convention of the Party, which opened June 20. This document is one of the seven resolutions adopted, outlining (in rather stilted language) the failings of various language fractions and the non-English party press and detailing the organizational-command structure within non-party language groups. An interesting detailing of the party's foreign language work during a period when "federationism" was regarded as retrograde.
"'As Pure and Transparent as Crystal,'" by Leon Trotsky [April 26, 1930] Trotsky's speculative commentary, first published in the April 26, 1930 issue of The Militant, the organ of the Communist League (Opposition), on Stalin's decision to publish his "Speeches on the American Communist Party" in the VKP(b) theoretical journal Bolshevik and as a pamphlet in America with a print run of 100,000. Trotsky sees Stalin as attempting to undercut William Z. Foster's claim to the leadership of the American party with these publications.
JUNE 1930
"Shortcomings of Party Fractions in Language Work." [June 1930] Official published statement on the activities of the non-English members of the Communist Party, USA. Even at this late date somewhat more than half of the party's membership seems to have been participants in one of the CPUSA's 16 "Language Bureaus." The largest of these remained the Finnish, accounting for a reported 1800 members -- more than double the membership of the next largest Language Bureau, the Yiddish-language Jewish Bureau. This article in The Party Builder is critical of the members of the various Language Bureaus for joining small auxiliary organizations already controlled by the Party rather than by attempting to expand the party's power through participation in larger organizations controlled by "the class enemy." The leadership of the language groups are singled out for criticism for their "looseness," unable in some cases to provide exact numbers of party members participating in outside language groups. A frequent failure of the language group members to participate in general party campaigns is also noted. The "main decisive work" of these members is in the regular party units, readers are reminded.
"Right Danger and Radicalization," by Alfred Wagenknecht [June 21, 1930] Formerly the Executive Secretary of the Communist Labor Party and United Communist Party and the head of the Friends of Soviet Russia, by 1930 Alfred Wagenknecht had been largely shunted aside from a position of top leadership in the Communist Party. This article from the Daily Worker is written from the perspective of a rank-and-filer and discusses the party's all-out propaganda campaign among its members against the so-called "Right Danger" in Wagenknecht's own party group. Wagenknecht seems positively inclined to the CPUSA's left turn: "The Party suffers from indigestion because Party members are not at factory gates," he declares. Wagenknecht advocates for greater direct contact with the working class: "We must drill comrades in how to do factory-gate work. We must teach them to make slogan speeches. We must insist that they talk to the workers and get contacts. We must develop revolutionary imagination, spirit; form experienced shock troops for the larger factories; concentrate adequate comrades until results are obtained; study the factory and the workers so as to circumvent obstacles and difficulties with the police and bosses; know exactly when the workers go to work, come from work, have their lunch period; find out all about working conditions in the factory, number of departments, how to get leaflets and Daily Workers inside the shop."
DECEMBER 1930
"The Socialist Party City Convention: Groups in the SP -- Perspectives of the Left Movement -- The Line of the Communists," by Will Herberg [events of Dec. 27-28, 1930] This is an assessment of the December 1930 New York City Convention of the Socialist Party of America written by one of the leaders of Jay Lovestone and Benjamin Gitlow's Communist Party USA (Majority Group). Herberg sees three primary factions in the New York SP organization: an "extreme right" group headed by Norman Thomas comprised "largely of bourgeois liberals"; a dominant group of "old timers," headed by Morris Hillquit, placing primary emphasis on the "labor bureaucracy" and attempting to win "respectability" for the Socialist Party among the AF of L unions; and a growing "leftward tendency," including some radical unionists and a large segment of the SP's youth section. Herberg sees the differentiation in the SP as reflective of similar trends in the social democratic and trade union movement around the world, with a revitalized left wing emerging. Herberg asserts that "The leftward movement in the Socialist Party is still extremely immature, heterogeneous in its composition, and utterly amorphous in its political outlook. It is not yet the end — it is only the beginning. Realignments of forces within the left wing and between the left wing and the SP as a whole are inevitable as the movement gains in maturity." Herberg sees a move towards Communism and a split of the Socialist Party as a likely outcome.
