Independent Labor League of America
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The Communist Party of the USA (Opposition), led by former General Secretary of the Communist Party USA
(CPUSA) Jay Lovestone
, was a small oppositionist Communist movement of the 1930s. The organization emerged from a factional fight in the CPUSA in 1929 and unsuccessfully sought to reintegrate with that organization for several years. Activists in the Communist Party (Opposition) played a role in a number of trade union
organizations of the 1930s, particularly in the automobile and garment industries. A growing disaffection with the Soviet Union
in the years after the Great Purge
of 1937-38 ultimately led the group to first drop the word "Communist" from its name before its ultimate dissolution in 1941.
of the official communist party to an independent revolutionary socialist
group. This organization of various names is collectively remembered as The Lovestoneites by scholars of American political history in the Depression era
.
in the late 1920s and early 1930s, paralleling factional differences within the Soviet leadership. A so-called Left Opposition
centered around James Cannon
, Max Shachtman
and others, supported Leon Trotsky
and were expelled in 1928 to form the Communist League of America
. Soon thereafter, another cleavage emerged, this time between the supporters of Nikolai Bukharin
and Joseph Stalin
. When Bukharin was purged from the Soviet leadership, his supporters in various countries, known as the Right Opposition
, were also expelled or left the various national parties. In the United States this tendency was led by Jay Lovestone
, former General Secretary of the Communist Party.
The new organization made its presence known with the first number of a new newspaper, The Revolutionary Age, subtitled "An Organ of Marxism-Leninism
in the United States." The first issue was dated November 1, 1929, and featured "An Appeal to All Party Members and Revolutionary Workers" above the fold, in which the new "Communist Party USA (Majority Group)" declared itself the continuer of the "glorious traditions" in fulfilling the "tremendous tasks" set by a previous publication of the same name in establishing the American Communist movement in 1919. The organization declared that:
The initial officers of the organization named in 1929 included an 11 member Central Committee headed by expelled General Secretary Lovestone and including such former CPUSA stalwarts as Ellen Dawson, Benjamin Gitlow
, William Kruse, Bertram D. Wolfe, and Charles S. Zimmerman
. The new group also included its own "Young Communist League," headed by an 8 member National Executive Committee, to parallel the official Young Communist League
of the CPUSA.
The new "Communist Party (Majority Group)" demanded that the official CPUSA turn away from the "opportunist sectarian" perspective of the Third Period
and its use of "ultra-left phrases in the leading campaigns of the party," cease with its max expulsions of dissidents and immediately reinstate those recently expelled, and "examine and take a stand" against the decisions of the 10th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International
which represented a revision of the decisions of the 6th World Congress of the Comintern. The remaining members of the regular CPUSA met these demands of its expelled dissidents with indifference or hostility.
During its first years, the CP(MG) considered itself a "loyal opposition" to the official Communist Party, a fact reflected by the group's decision to endorse the Congressional and State candidates of the CPUSA in the 1930 elections. An editorial in the party's official organ declared:
The Lovestoneites remained loyal to the memory of C.E. Ruthenberg, the former leader of the faction who had died suddenly of acute appendicitis on March 3, 1927, holding public "Ruthenberg Memorial Meetings" in his memory each year and eulogizing him in the party press.
Among those boosted in the pages of The Revolutionary Age and its successor, The Workers Age were the German oppositional communist August Thalheimer
, the Mexican artist Diego Rivera
, and the Indian revolutionary M.N. Roy. On April 3, 1932, Rivera lectured under the auspices of the Communist Party (Opposition) on "Trends in Modern Art," with his friend Bert Wolfe handling the task of translation.
speakers on the street corners of New York City. The Lovestoneites charged that
Particular grievous was a street corner meeting held July 8 in Brownsville, New York at the corner of Hopkinson and Pitkin Avenues, which had been attacked by "official 'Communist' hooligans who brandished knives, iron knuckles, and other weapons."
Despite being subjected to such violence, the Lovestoneites nevertheless once again endorsed the electoral ticket of the official Communist Party in the election of 1932, declaring the Republicans and Democrats "stand for this cursed system," while the Socialists "frequently support the conservative union leaders who are doing their best to paralyze the struggles of the workers and to hand them over to the tender mercies of the bosses."
, Sweden
, and Czechoslovakia
in a preliminary gathering held in Berlin in March 1930 to organize the event. The call for the founding conference was published over the signature of Heinrich Brandler
of the National Council of the "Communist Party of Germany (Opposition)."
The conference was held on December 16 and 17, 1930 in Berlin.
and the Nazis in Germany. The organization urged international unity among labor and radical groups against the Nazis' "express-train speed" efforts to "consolidate their grip on the country and wipe out the labor movement without leaving a trace." The organization clearly continued to hold out hope that it would be invited into the official Communist Party once again, declared that "the turn in tactics must be accompanied by a movement for the unification of the Communist movement, now split up and divided."
For all its aspirations of united action and reintegration into the regular CPUSA, the Lovestone oppositionists began to have ever more serious misgivings about the nature of the regime in the Soviet Union as the "Cult of Personality
" began to take root in the 1930s. A May 1933 article by Bert Wolfe in Workers Age mocked the ritualistic torrents of adulation being bestowed upon Stalin as part of an organized campaign in the USSR:
who wanted the sect to unite with the Conference for Progressive Labor Action
. When he was unable to convince the leadership of the group to do so, he took a small following into the CPLA himself.
Early in February 1933 former National Secretary Ben Gitlow submitted his resignation from the Lovestone organization, having come to see the general line
of mass collectivization and frenetic industrialization in the USSR as "basically wrong" with the matter a "decisive question of fundamental principle." Gitlow presented his views to the 2nd National Conference of the CPUSA(O), which "decisively rejected" them "by a large margin." Soon thereafter, Gitlow submitted his resignation from the organization. He was joined by Lazar Becker in his defection and the pair formed a tiny new grouplet calling itself the Workers Communist League. Gitlow and Becker's new organization soon merged with a group led by B.J. Field to form the League for a Revolutionary Workers Party.
Finally, Herbert Zam split with a small following in 1934. They had argued that it was useless to continue as an "opposition" intending to reform the Communist Party, and advocated the group declare itself an independent party. When this perspective was not endorsed by the leadership Zam and his co-thinkers went into the left wing of the Socialist Party of America.
Benjamin Gitlow, an early Secretary of the organization who later broke with communism, declared in his rather 1940 memoir that "the Lovestonites did not attain a membership in excess of three hundred and fifty throughout my connection with the group." Another estimate of the group's numerical strength is provided by Will Herberg, a top leader of the organization throughout its history, who pegged the membership of the Lovestone organization at between 1,000 and 1,500. In the view of the leading scholar of the ILLA and its predecessors, the historian Robert J. Alexander, "Will Herberg's estimate of Lovestoneite membership would seem nearer the facts than that of Gitlow."
The Lovestoneites had as many as 9 functioning branches in New York City over the course of the organization, as well as other branches in Austin, Texas
, Philadelphia, Wilkes Barre
, Fredericktown-Millsboro, Pennsylvania
, Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne
and Kokomo, Indiana
, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Lansing
, Muskegon, Pontiac
, St. Louis, Boston, New Bedford
, Hartford
, San Antonio
, Los Angeles, Troy, New York
, Baltimore, Passaic, New Jersey
, Fall River, Massachusetts
, and Buffalo
. By no means did all of these local units exist simultaneously, but the sheer number and geographic spread of organized branches seems indicative of an organization with more than a few hundred adherents.
of the Socialist Party. Announced in December 1929, the Communist Party (Majority Group)'s institute was initially called the "Marx-Lenin School," with Bert Wolfe as director and D. Benjamin as assistant director. Instructors included Jay Lovestone, Ben Gitlow, Charles "Sasha" Zimmerman, Will Herberg, Bert Miller, Herbert Zam, and others in addition to Wolfe and Benjamin. The Marx-Lenin School held a public lecture on Sunday afternoons and conducted its courses during the evening hours, Monday through Thursday. The school was intended "to teach and defend the principles of Leninism within the Communist Party and the working class and to train workers for the class struggle," according to the party at the time of its launch.
The Marx-Lenin School taught courses in beginning and advanced Marxism
, American history, the history of the trade union
movement, and the history of the revolutionary youth movement in America as well as classes in intermediate and advanced English. Over 400 people were claimed to have registered for the first classes offered by the school, which began in January 1930. The facility was initially located at 37 East 28th Street, 8th Floor, in New York City. In the fall of 1930 it was moved to 63 Madison Avenue, 1st Floor, near 27th Street. By the "Special Summer Term" of 1932 the school had found new quarters once again, this time at 228 Second Avenue, on the corner of 14th Street.
The name of the party's institute was later changed in the fall of 1930 to "The New Workers School" as part of an effort to contrast itself to the Workers School, the successful training program run by the regular Communist Party. At the time of the name change, the Communist Party (Majority Group) noted that "every one of its teachers was formerly a leading teacher of the old Workers School," an institution which "thanks to the wrong line at present prevailing in the Party, is revising and falsifying Leninism and hence no longer serving the purposes for which it is founded."
The second year of classes were headlined by a series of Sunday night lectures by Jay Lovestone on "The Class War Today." Other course titles included, "Fundamentals of Communism," "Program of the Communist International," "Marxian Philosophy," "Social Forces in American History," and "English for Foreign-Born Workers." Very similar courses were taught at the New Workers School in subsequent years, with Modern Monthly editor V.F. Calverton being added to the roster to teach a course on "The Liberation of American Literature" in the fall of 1932.
Courses cost $2.50 per class, with tickets to the headlining presentations by Jay Lovestone available on a single admission basis for 25 cents.
In 1934, the New Workers School was immortalized in American art history by the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. In 1932, Rivera had been commissioned to paint a fresco
measuring more than 1000 square feet (92.9 m²) in the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center
in New York City. Preliminary sketches for the work were approved in November 1932 and a contract signed calling for the payment of $21,000. In March 1932, Rivera and his helpers moved to New York and began their work. Work progressed rapidly on the complicated work, which featured a central motiff highlighting scientific discovery, with flaming red socialist themes in the left background and scenes of militarism
and police repression in the background right.
Unsurprisingly, enormous controversy began to flare up , with the New York World-Telegram opining with an April 24, 1933 banner: "RIVERA PAINTS SCENES OF COMMUNIST ACTIVITY AND JOHN D. JR. FOOTS BILL.". Nelson A. Rockefeller was quick to quash the controversy by pulling the plug on the almost-completed work, paying off Rivera and immediately covering the massive mural before destroying it early in 1934.
After paying for his supplies, the wages of his assistants, and a commission for obtaining the work, Rivera found himself with $7,000 of "Rockefeller money" remaining. He determined to leave New York with a particularly provocative example of his work. He chose the location of the Lovestoneites' New Workers School on West 14th Street, putting up movable walls in the rented building and creating the mural with his assistants at his own expense. The work, entitled "Portrait of America," included 21 panels in all, occupying 700 square feet (65 m²) of wall space.
apartment at London Terrance, 410 West Twenty fourth Street was broken into. Extensive collections of his correspondence, his passport
and a gold watch were stolen. At the time Lovestone claimed this was a GPU
operation, though the FBI came to the conclusion that it was a hoax perpetuated by Lovestone to obtain a new passport. Hoax or not, the expelled board members lawyer, Maurice Sugar
reproduced some of the very documents Lovestone claimed had been stolen at the trial. A special Bulletin, published by the expelled members sympathizers also published some of the documents to prove that Lovestone was behind Martins attempt to purge them.
Years later the FBI found out further information about the incident while conducting another investigation. The employees at the building apparently belonged to a small Communist dominated union and one of the maids was commissioned to keep tabs on Lovestones mail. Communist Party agents then rented an apartment above Lovestones and burglarized it when he was out, taking the bags of correspondence to the other apartment so no one would see them.
Finally, in a letter in the Comintern archive in Moscow, dated Oct 19, 1938 Comintern representative Pat Toohey reported that Lovestone's "entire archive" had come into possession of the Party.
which emerged as the forerunner of the American Communist Party in 1919. The first editor of the publication was Ben Gitlow, assisted by Bert Wolfe as associate editor. At the time of the 1st National Conference in 1930, Editor Gitlow and Secretary Lovestone traded hats.
The Revolutionary Age changed its name to The Workers Age in January 1932, with the first number under the new title appearing on the 16th of that month.
In addition to its main periodical, the Lovestoneites launched a short-lived Yiddish periodical, Jewish Monthly Bulletin, in December 1929. At that same time was announced the forthcoming launch of a paper called Revolutionary Youth for its "Young Communist League (Majority Group)" youth section.
The organization took another stab at a Yiddish-language periodical with its launch of Arbeiter Kampf (Workers' Struggle) in 1933.
Beginning in January 1934, the group also began to produce a mimeographed discussion bulletin of "programmatic documents" under the title Where We Stand. At least 4 issues were produced.
In May 1934 a quarterly magazine was launched called The Road To Communism, which the Communist Party USA (Opposition) published on behalf of the International Communist Opposition. Only two issues were produced.
The party's Harlem
branch, in which Edward Welsh played a key role, additionally published a mimeographed sheet, Negro Voice from 1935 to 1936.
At least two issues of a mimeographed magazine for the group's youth section called Youth Frontier were also published in 1938 and 1939.
and Michael Bushay accepted the new Moscow line, but only grudgingly. Within a few months the Montreal party leadership complained to the Central Committee that Israel Breslow
, editor of the party's Yiddish organ, had refused to resign from the Amalgamated Clothing Workers to join the new dual union, and that he was receiving an English language newsletter from the German Oppositionists. The Central committee refused to act, Moriarity even expressing sympathy for the KPO. In March 1930, the ECCI purged Moriarity, MacDonald, Bushay and Breslow.
The Lovestoneites' presence in Canada was largely limited to Montreal
and Toronto
. In Montreal the group was led by Brelow and Bushay. Kalmen Kaplansky
took over the leadership when Brelow moved to New York in 1935. The Montreal group set up a Workers Educational League, an adult education center modeled on the New Workers School, participated in ILGWU and railroad strikes and later became active within the Quebec Labor Party, in which Kapansky served on the executive committee.
The Toronto area group was led by Moriarity. This group was active in organizing the unemployed in nearby Hamilton and East York. They were also active within the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
. In fact Moriartiy led the fight to have "violent change" and "confiscation of property" included in that groups Regina Manifesto
. Both sections of the Canadian Opposition had fizzled out by the end of 1939.
|-
! Year
! Dates Held
! Name of Gathering
! Delegates
! Comments
|-
! align="center" | 1929
| align="center" | October
| align="center" | Enlarged Session of National Committee
| align="center" |
| align="center" | Establishes Communist Party (Majority Group) and elects a 49 member National Council.
|-
! align="center" | 1930
| align="center" | Feb. 22-23
| align="center" | 2nd Plenum of the National Council
| align="center" | 60
| align="center" |
|-
! align="center" | 1930
| align="center" | July 4–6
| align="center" | 1st National Conference
| align="center" | "Over 60"
| align="center" | Elects Gitlow Secretary, names Lovestone Editor.
|-
! align="center" | 1932
| align="center" | Sept. 3-5
| align="center" | 2nd National Conference
| align="center" |
| align="center" | Changes name to Communist Party of the USA (Opposition).
|-
! align="center" | 1933/4
| align="center" | Dec. 30-Jan. 1
| align="center" | 4th National Conference
| align="center" | 53
| align="center" | Lovestone & Zam offer dueling Reports, with Lovestone winning over Zam's call for a new party and International, 45-7.
|-
! align="center" | 1934
| align="center" | June 30-July 1
| align="center" | National Plenum of the CPO
| align="center" | "About 50"
| align="center" | Adopts long statement "The Present Situation and the Tasks of the Communists."
|-
! align="center" | 1935
| align="center" | Aug. 31-Sept. 2
| align="center" | 5th Convention
| align="center" | 80
| align="center" |
|-
! align="center" | 1936
| align="center" | Sept. 5-7
| align="center" | National Conference
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
|-
! align="center" | 1937
| align="center" | March 27-28
| align="center" | 2nd Midwest Conference
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
|-
! align="center" | 1937
| align="center" | May 29–31
| align="center" | 6th National Convention
| align="center" | 101
| align="center" | Changes name of group to Independent Communist Labor League
|-
! align="center" | 1938
| align="center" | July 2–4
| align="center" | 7th National Convention
| align="center" | 29
| align="center" | Changes name of group to Independent Labor League of America
|-
! align="center" | 1939
| align="center" | Sept. 2-4
| align="center" | 8th National Convention
| align="center" |
| align="center" | Adopts anti-war resolution
|-
! align="center" | 1940
| align="center" | Dec. 28-29, 1940
| align="center" | 9th National Convention
| align="center" | 25
| align="center" | Votes to dissolve organization
|-
|}
president Homer Martin
end the influence of the official Communists within his union. In the early 1930s there was no national union for automobile workers, but there were several directly affiliated AFL locals in Michigan
. The Lovestoneites did have some members within them, organized into the Detroit Progressive Group for One Union. The AFL merged these locals together in 1935 and the UAW held its first convention and elected its first officers at its April 1936 convention. Homer Martin was elected president, Wyndham Mortimer first vice-president, Ed Hall second vice-president, Walter Wells third vice-president and George Addes
general-secretary treasurer. From the beginning the top leadership was divided between Martin loyalists and Communist Party members like Mortimer, Hall and Addes. Additionally, there was a faction allied with the Socialist party led by the Reuther brothers
that did not have representation at the top but had a following among many locals, which at the moment allied with the official Communists.
In 1937 Mortimer and Bob Travis led a series of successful sit-down strikes, first at General Motors
and then at Chrysler
, Hudson
, Packard
and Studebaker
. Martin became concerned about the rising power of the Communists within his union and turned to David Dubinsky for advise. Dubinsky and Martin developed a plan, in which they would commission Jay Lovestone to help remove the communist influence in the union. Dubinsky gave Lovestone $100,000 to effect the operation. In April 1937 30 Lovestoneites arrived in Detroit to begin their work. They were led by Alex Bail, under his party name George F. Miles, who was in daily contact with Lovestone in New York. William Munger replaced the Communist leaning Henry Kraus
as editor of the UAWs periodical the Auto Worker, he also became Martins speech writer; Eve Stone, Alex Bails wife, took over the UAW's Women's Auxiliary; Irving Brown took over operations in UAW locals in Chicago and Baltimore. Perhaps most significant was Francis Henson, who became Homer Martin new executive secretary.
The Lovestone group was successful at first, purging Communists from the Flint
Local, firing 17 communist organizers, but unable to remove the Reuther led Socialists. In the months leading up to the August 1937 convention the UAW became bitterly divided between the Martin-Lovestone "Progressive caucus" and the Communist-Socialist "Unity Group". At the August Convention the Martin-Lovestone group tried to make its move and oust Mortimer, Hall and Addes from the leadership. However on the fifth day the convention got a surprise visit from CIO president John L. Lewis
who endorsed the incumbent leadership. Mortimer, Hall and Addes were re-elected, but two supposedly pro-Martin vice-presidents were added, Richard Frankensteen
and R. J. Thomas
.
On June 18, 1938 Martin suspended five members of the executive board. They were to be "tried" by the union on charges of conspiracy to destroy the union. The five suspended members were Mortimer, Hall, Welles, Addes and Frankensteen, who had been weened away from the pro-Martin faction. Six non-suspended board members, led by Victor Reuther walked out in protest at the squabbling.
The trial began on July 25 and lasted until August 6, ending in Frankensteen, Mortimer and Halls expulsion and Wells suspension. Victor Reuther appealed to John L. Lewis to intervene in the fiasco. In the first week of September Lewis sent a CIO commission consisting of Philip Murray
and Sidney Hillman to offer Martin an ultimatum: either re-instate the ousted board or be expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Martin protested this interference in the unions affairs, but eventually caved. The new board had an anti-Martin majority and proceeded to fire the Lovestoneites whom he had put in office.
In 1939 the UAW would split into two groups, Martin leading his group into the AFL. Irving Brown was still with this group trying to organize support among the Baltimore locals, but to little effect. The Martin UAW folded in 1940.
In January 1936, Julius Herskowitz, a Lovestoneite unionist trying to organize a plant that made Mickey Mouse
dolls was beaten by an unknown assailent and his skull was fractured. He had received threats from the owner of his factory.
. During most of their history in that union they were the major opposition element, first against the Old Guard socialist leadership under Samuel Schorr, and then the Communists under Ben Gold. During all their early campaigning within the American labor movements, the Lovestoneites had pushed for the abolition of the TUUL dual unions, such as the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union, and for those members to join the already established AFL groups. In 1935 the NTWIU was disbanded and the Lovestoneite group within the IFWU - the Furriers Progressive League—pushed for a resolution urging the for NTWIU members to be allowed into the union and new elections to take place. The Communists won control of the union in that election and Ben Gold
, formerly head of the NTWIU, became president of the union.
The Communists acted in a very dictatorial way in running the administration. The Lovestoneites formed a coalition with the socialists, the Furriers Progressive Unity League, to oppose the communists, however Communist control only tightened. Benjamin Baraz, leader of the Lovestoneite caucus lost election as Union business manager.In 1938, yet another united front was set up, the United Progressive Furriers, which included "left and right wing socialists, anarchists, Lovestoneites, left and right Zionists" as well as independent progressives. The coalition appealed to John L. Lewis
, head of the CIO
, to help them in their struggle against the Ben Gold clique, but to no avail.
In late 1938 Gold began to take measures against the opposition. In December it informed Baraz that he had been found guilty of "malicious slander" against the leadership and had been suspended. In Union elections held in 1939 the opposition were denied poll watchers and several of their candidates were forbidden from running. The Opposition decided to boycott the elections. Finally, in March 1940 the six remaining opposition leaders were ousted from the union. Again, a coalition of socialists, Zionists, Lovestoneites and others tried to rally public opinion for the ousted leaders, but to no effect.
Local 22, with Communist Party (Opposition) member "Sasha" Zimmerman playing a leading role. The organization staunchly supported the ILGWU in its various organizing and strike efforts. In April 1932 Zimmerman ran for manager of Dressmakers Local 22 as part of an organized "Progressive League" ticket.
The Lovestoneites briefly won control of ILGWU Local 155, the Knitgoods Workers Local, in April 1934 under Louis Nelson. While in power they established an educational department, sick and relief fund, and union hiring hall. But it was their policy during the mid-1930s to try to bring the official communists into the mainstream union movement, giving them a place on their ticket.
members in the anthracite region of eastern Pennsylvania. Frank Vrataric was the leader of this "progressive" faction that led the fight against John L. Lewis' purge of Communists at the January 1932 convention. In May of that year Vrataric and other opposition leaders were expelled from the UMW. In September the dissident elements, not all Lovestoneites, met in convention and constituted themselves the Progressive Group within the UMW and resolved to try to get reinstated in the official organization. The opposition coalition did not last however, as the other leaders called for the creation of a new union in August 1933 and other disaffected members gravitated towards the Progressive Mine Workers
. The Lovestoneites strongly opposed these moves, on the grounds that they constituted dual unionism.
, Union Health Center, Labor Committee for Palestine, the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League
, and the Workmens Sick and Death Benefit Fund.
backed Louis Weinstock in his successful bid to win the leadership of District 9, Manhattan, against a candidate backed by the Old Guard
, The Forward
and the Philip Zausner leadership.
. The union was still dominated by its two founders, Henry Linville and Abraham Lefkowitz and by its leadership was aligned with the Old Guard Socialists
. The Lovestoneites organized their own faction within the Teachers Union, called the "Progressive Group," and working in coalition with the Communist-led "Rank and File" faction succeeded in ousting the union leadership in 1935. The ousted union leaders subsequently bolted to establish a new union called the Teachers Guild. The Communists soon solidified their control over the TU and the Lovestoneites found themselves in another opposition coalition called the "Independents." Shortly before the dissolution of the ILLA this group left the Teachers Union and obtained a separate charter from the American Federation of Teachers
. The TU itself would have its charter revoked the following year.
Later, when the CIO Textile Workers Organizing Committee was formed, two Lovestoneites, Meyer Laks and Meyer Chanatzky were on the executive board of the new Patterson local. Again, the Lovestoneites ran into trouble with the official Communists who suspend Laks and Chanatzky in late 1938. Rank and file pressure was able to re-instate them.
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
(CPUSA) Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
, was a small oppositionist Communist movement of the 1930s. The organization emerged from a factional fight in the CPUSA in 1929 and unsuccessfully sought to reintegrate with that organization for several years. Activists in the Communist Party (Opposition) played a role in a number of trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
organizations of the 1930s, particularly in the automobile and garment industries. A growing disaffection with the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in the years after the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
of 1937-38 ultimately led the group to first drop the word "Communist" from its name before its ultimate dissolution in 1941.
Names
The group began as the Communist Party, USA (Majority Group) in the fall of 1929, following the expulsion of Lovestone and his factional cohorts from the CPUSA, before taking on the name Communist Party of the USA (Opposition) in 1932. In 1936 the group changed its name to the Independent Communist Labor League and in 1937 to Independent Labor League of America, reflecting changes in the groups perception of itself from a factionFaction
Faction or factionalism may refer to:* Political faction, a group of people connected by a shared belief or opinion within a larger group* Clan or Guild, an association of players of multiplayer games...
of the official communist party to an independent revolutionary socialist
Revolutionary socialism
The term revolutionary socialism refers to Socialist tendencies that advocate the need for fundamental social change through revolution by mass movements of the working class, as a strategy to achieve a socialist society...
group. This organization of various names is collectively remembered as The Lovestoneites by scholars of American political history in the Depression era
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
.
Origins
The Communist Party of the USA (Opposition), known collectively as "The Lovestoneites," was one of two primary opposition organizations which split away from the Communist Party USACommunist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
in the late 1920s and early 1930s, paralleling factional differences within the Soviet leadership. A so-called Left Opposition
Left Opposition
The Left Opposition was a faction within the Bolshevik Party from 1923 to 1927, headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's illness and intensified with his death in January...
centered around James Cannon
James Cannon
James Cannon may refer to:*James P. Cannon , American Communist and Trotskyist leader*James Cannon , Scottish-born mathematician who was one of the principal authors of Pennsylvania's 1776 Constitution...
, Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He evolved from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL-CIO President George Meany.-Beginnings:...
and others, supported Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
and were expelled in 1928 to form the Communist League of America
Communist League of America
The Communist League of America was founded by James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern late in 1928 after their expulsion from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism. The CLA was the United States section of Leon Trotsky's International Left Opposition and initially positioned itself as...
. Soon thereafter, another cleavage emerged, this time between the supporters of Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. When Bukharin was purged from the Soviet leadership, his supporters in various countries, known as the Right Opposition
Right Opposition
The Right Opposition was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s...
, were also expelled or left the various national parties. In the United States this tendency was led by Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
, former General Secretary of the Communist Party.
The new organization made its presence known with the first number of a new newspaper, The Revolutionary Age, subtitled "An Organ of Marxism-Leninism
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
in the United States." The first issue was dated November 1, 1929, and featured "An Appeal to All Party Members and Revolutionary Workers" above the fold, in which the new "Communist Party USA (Majority Group)" declared itself the continuer of the "glorious traditions" in fulfilling the "tremendous tasks" set by a previous publication of the same name in establishing the American Communist movement in 1919. The organization declared that:
"Under the pretext of 'fighting the Rights,' the present leadership of the Communist International has been revising the fundamental principles of Leninism and distorting and destroying the Leninist line of the Comintern. As a result the sections of the Comintern have been thrown into isolation, chaos, and confusion, and the best and most experienced revolutionists driven out and expelled to be replaced by incapable politically bankrupt 'new leaderships.' * * *
"Against the revision of Leninism, against the destruction of our parties and of their mass influence it becomes the duty of all Communists, of all revolutionary workers to fight."
The initial officers of the organization named in 1929 included an 11 member Central Committee headed by expelled General Secretary Lovestone and including such former CPUSA stalwarts as Ellen Dawson, Benjamin Gitlow
Benjamin Gitlow
Benjamin "Ben" Gitlow was a prominent American socialist politician of the early twentieth century and a founding member of the Communist Party USA. From the end of the 1930s, Gitlow turned to conservatism and wrote two sensational exposés of American Communism, books which were very influential...
, William Kruse, Bertram D. Wolfe, and Charles S. Zimmerman
Charles S. Zimmerman
Charles Sasha Zimmerman was an American socialist activist and trade union leader, who was an associate of Jay Lovestone. Zimmerman had a career spanning five decades as an official of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union...
. The new group also included its own "Young Communist League," headed by an 8 member National Executive Committee, to parallel the official Young Communist League
Young Communist League
The Young Communist League was or is the name used by the youth wing of various Communist parties around the world. The name YCL of XXX was generally taken by all sections of the Communist Youth International.Examples of YCLs:...
of the CPUSA.
The new "Communist Party (Majority Group)" demanded that the official CPUSA turn away from the "opportunist sectarian" perspective of the Third Period
Third Period
The Third Period is a ideological concept adopted by the Communist International at its 6th World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928....
and its use of "ultra-left phrases in the leading campaigns of the party," cease with its max expulsions of dissidents and immediately reinstate those recently expelled, and "examine and take a stand" against the decisions of the 10th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International
Executive Committee of the Communist International
The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI, was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body...
which represented a revision of the decisions of the 6th World Congress of the Comintern. The remaining members of the regular CPUSA met these demands of its expelled dissidents with indifference or hostility.
During its first years, the CP(MG) considered itself a "loyal opposition" to the official Communist Party, a fact reflected by the group's decision to endorse the Congressional and State candidates of the CPUSA in the 1930 elections. An editorial in the party's official organ declared:
"...When we call upon the workers to support the Communist Party ticket in the elections we do not do so on the basis of agreement with the Party tactics or the Party's present election platform; we do so because of our agreement with the fundamentals and aims of the Communist Party and the Communist International. We call upon the workers to support the Communist Party ticket as an expression of their agreement with the fundamental aims of Communism but to remember the that the dangerous tactics of the official leaders of the Communist Party, which are doing such harm to the cause of Communism, are not the traditional tactics of the world Communist movement."
The Lovestoneites remained loyal to the memory of C.E. Ruthenberg, the former leader of the faction who had died suddenly of acute appendicitis on March 3, 1927, holding public "Ruthenberg Memorial Meetings" in his memory each year and eulogizing him in the party press.
Among those boosted in the pages of The Revolutionary Age and its successor, The Workers Age were the German oppositional communist August Thalheimer
August Thalheimer
August Thalheimer was a German Marxist activist and theoretician.-Early years:August Thalheimer was born 18 March 1884 in Affaltrach, now called Obersulm, Württemberg, Germany.-Political career:...
, the Mexican artist Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
, and the Indian revolutionary M.N. Roy. On April 3, 1932, Rivera lectured under the auspices of the Communist Party (Opposition) on "Trends in Modern Art," with his friend Bert Wolfe handling the task of translation.
Confrontation with the official Communist Party
In the summer of 1932 the Communist Party (Majority Group) made a strong protest about the use of violence by the official Communist Party against its soapboxSoapbox
A soapbox is a raised platform on which one stands to make an impromptu speech, often about a political subject. The term originates from the days when speakers would elevate themselves by standing on a wooden crate originally used for shipment of soap or other dry goods from a manufacturer to a...
speakers on the street corners of New York City. The Lovestoneites charged that
"Street meetings of the Communist Party (Majority Group), of the Trotsky group [the Communist League of AmericaCommunist League of AmericaThe Communist League of America was founded by James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern late in 1928 after their expulsion from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism. The CLA was the United States section of Leon Trotsky's International Left Opposition and initially positioned itself as...
], of the IWWIndustrial Workers of the WorldThe Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
, and of the Socialist PartySocialist Party of AmericaThe Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
have been smashed by the wild rowdyism and gangsterism of the Communist Party bureaucrats. It seems that the Party leadeship intends that every meeting in the coming election campaign which is not an official Communist meeting must not be permitted to take place: either it must be 'turned' into an official Communist meeting or else it must be smashed!"
Particular grievous was a street corner meeting held July 8 in Brownsville, New York at the corner of Hopkinson and Pitkin Avenues, which had been attacked by "official 'Communist' hooligans who brandished knives, iron knuckles, and other weapons."
Despite being subjected to such violence, the Lovestoneites nevertheless once again endorsed the electoral ticket of the official Communist Party in the election of 1932, declaring the Republicans and Democrats "stand for this cursed system," while the Socialists "frequently support the conservative union leaders who are doing their best to paralyze the struggles of the workers and to hand them over to the tender mercies of the bosses."
International affiliation
After initially lending critical support to the Communist International, in the fall of 1930 preparations began to be made for a new "International Conference of the Communist Opposition." Representatives of the CP(MG) collaborated with their comparable others in GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
in a preliminary gathering held in Berlin in March 1930 to organize the event. The call for the founding conference was published over the signature of Heinrich Brandler
Heinrich Brandler
Heinrich Brandler was a German communist trade unionist, politician, revolutionary activist, and writer. Brandler is best remember as the head of the Communist Party of Germany during the party's ill-fated "March Action" of 1921 and aborted uprising of 1923, for which he was held responsible by...
of the National Council of the "Communist Party of Germany (Opposition)."
The conference was held on December 16 and 17, 1930 in Berlin.
Party policy in the middle 1930s
The Lovestone group reacted with shock and a sense of urgency to the rise of Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and the Nazis in Germany. The organization urged international unity among labor and radical groups against the Nazis' "express-train speed" efforts to "consolidate their grip on the country and wipe out the labor movement without leaving a trace." The organization clearly continued to hold out hope that it would be invited into the official Communist Party once again, declared that "the turn in tactics must be accompanied by a movement for the unification of the Communist movement, now split up and divided."
For all its aspirations of united action and reintegration into the regular CPUSA, the Lovestone oppositionists began to have ever more serious misgivings about the nature of the regime in the Soviet Union as the "Cult of Personality
Cult of personality
A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...
" began to take root in the 1930s. A May 1933 article by Bert Wolfe in Workers Age mocked the ritualistic torrents of adulation being bestowed upon Stalin as part of an organized campaign in the USSR:
"Throughout the Soviet Union today and throughout the Communist International there is an organized campaign for the development of a new 'ism' — 'Stalinism.' Stalin's fiftieth birthday [1929] was celebrated with incense and flattery. His picture is the favorite cover illustration of every periodical from Kino, the movie review, to Krokodil, the humorous magazine. His photograph appears as often and as universally on the Russian magazine covers as the 'Gibson GirlGibson GirlThe Gibson Girl was the personification of a feminine ideal as portrayed in the satirical pen-and-ink-illustrated stories created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson during a 20-year period spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the United States.Some people argue that the...
' or Greta GarboGreta GarboGreta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
on the covers of American magazines. Towns and factories and clubs and streets are named after him. His speech on the Five-Year Plan was set to music! * * * [A]pparently Stalin insists upon being embalmed and worshipped while still alive!"
Factional splits
The movement suffered three splits during its existence, only one of which produced a new organization. The first was led by Bert MillerBenjamin Mandel
Benjamin Mandel AKA "Bert Miller" was a New York city school teacher and activist who later became a director of research for the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.-Background:...
who wanted the sect to unite with the Conference for Progressive Labor Action
Conference for Progressive Labor Action
The Conference for Progressive Labor Action was a left wing American political organization established in May 1929 by A. J. Muste, director of Brookwood Labor College. The organization was established to promote industrial unionism and to work for reform of the American Federation of Labor...
. When he was unable to convince the leadership of the group to do so, he took a small following into the CPLA himself.
Early in February 1933 former National Secretary Ben Gitlow submitted his resignation from the Lovestone organization, having come to see the general line
General line of the party
In the terminology of communism, the general line of the party or simply the general line refers to the directives of the governing bodies of a party which define party's politics. The term was in common use by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and also adopted by many other communist...
of mass collectivization and frenetic industrialization in the USSR as "basically wrong" with the matter a "decisive question of fundamental principle." Gitlow presented his views to the 2nd National Conference of the CPUSA(O), which "decisively rejected" them "by a large margin." Soon thereafter, Gitlow submitted his resignation from the organization. He was joined by Lazar Becker in his defection and the pair formed a tiny new grouplet calling itself the Workers Communist League. Gitlow and Becker's new organization soon merged with a group led by B.J. Field to form the League for a Revolutionary Workers Party.
Finally, Herbert Zam split with a small following in 1934. They had argued that it was useless to continue as an "opposition" intending to reform the Communist Party, and advocated the group declare itself an independent party. When this perspective was not endorsed by the leadership Zam and his co-thinkers went into the left wing of the Socialist Party of America.
Membership size
At no point in its history did the Independent Labor League of America or its predecessors publish membership figures. The size of the group no doubt fluctuated over time and the organization lacked the rigid discipline and regimentation of the official Communist Party USA, to the point that one historian of the Lovestone movement has speculated that "perhaps the Communist Opposition leadership itself did not know the exact number of members at any given time."Benjamin Gitlow, an early Secretary of the organization who later broke with communism, declared in his rather 1940 memoir that "the Lovestonites did not attain a membership in excess of three hundred and fifty throughout my connection with the group." Another estimate of the group's numerical strength is provided by Will Herberg, a top leader of the organization throughout its history, who pegged the membership of the Lovestone organization at between 1,000 and 1,500. In the view of the leading scholar of the ILLA and its predecessors, the historian Robert J. Alexander, "Will Herberg's estimate of Lovestoneite membership would seem nearer the facts than that of Gitlow."
The Lovestoneites had as many as 9 functioning branches in New York City over the course of the organization, as well as other branches in Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
, Philadelphia, Wilkes Barre
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, the county seat of Luzerne County. It is at the center of the Wyoming Valley area and is one of the principal cities in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area, which had a population of 563,631 as of the 2010 Census...
, Fredericktown-Millsboro, Pennsylvania
Fredericktown-Millsboro, Pennsylvania
Fredericktown-Millsboro is a census-designated place in East Bethlehem Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,094 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Fredericktown-Millsboro is located at ....
, Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne is a city in the US state of Indiana and the county seat of Allen County. The population was 253,691 at the 2010 Census making it the 74th largest city in the United States and the second largest in Indiana...
and Kokomo, Indiana
Kokomo, Indiana
Kokomo is a city in and the county seat of Howard County, Indiana, United States, Indiana's 13th largest city. It is the principal city of the Kokomo, Indiana Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Howard and Tipton counties....
, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Lansing
Lansing, Michigan
Lansing is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located mostly in Ingham County, although small portions of the city extend into Eaton County. The 2010 Census places the city's population at 114,297, making it the fifth largest city in Michigan...
, Muskegon, Pontiac
Pontiac, Michigan
Pontiac is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan named after the Ottawa Chief Pontiac, located within the Detroit metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 59,515. It is the county seat of Oakland County...
, St. Louis, Boston, New Bedford
New Bedford
-Places:*New Bedford, Illinois*New Bedford, Massachusetts, the most populous New Bedford**New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park*New Bedford, New Jersey *New Bedford, Ohio*New Bedford, Pennsylvania...
, Hartford
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
, San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
, Los Angeles, Troy, New York
Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital...
, Baltimore, Passaic, New Jersey
Passaic, New Jersey
Passaic is a city in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 69,781, maintaining its status as the 15th largest municipality in New Jersey with an increase of 1,920 residents from the 2000 Census population of 67,861...
, Fall River, Massachusetts
Fall River, Massachusetts
Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is located about south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and west of New Bedford and south of Taunton. The city's population was 88,857 during the 2010 census, making it the tenth largest city in...
, and Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
. By no means did all of these local units exist simultaneously, but the sheer number and geographic spread of organized branches seems indicative of an organization with more than a few hundred adherents.
The New Workers School
The Lovestoneites placed extremely high emphasis upon educational activities. The Lovestone organization was quick to establish its own party school akin to the training institutes of the rival official Communist Party's Workers School and the Rand School of Social ScienceRand School of Social Science
The Rand School of Social Science was formed in New York City by adherents of the Socialist Party of America in 1906. The school aimed to provide a broad education to workers, imparting a politicizing class-consciousness, and additionally served as a research bureau, a publisher, and the operator...
of the Socialist Party. Announced in December 1929, the Communist Party (Majority Group)'s institute was initially called the "Marx-Lenin School," with Bert Wolfe as director and D. Benjamin as assistant director. Instructors included Jay Lovestone, Ben Gitlow, Charles "Sasha" Zimmerman, Will Herberg, Bert Miller, Herbert Zam, and others in addition to Wolfe and Benjamin. The Marx-Lenin School held a public lecture on Sunday afternoons and conducted its courses during the evening hours, Monday through Thursday. The school was intended "to teach and defend the principles of Leninism within the Communist Party and the working class and to train workers for the class struggle," according to the party at the time of its launch.
The Marx-Lenin School taught courses in beginning and advanced Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, American history, the history of the trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
movement, and the history of the revolutionary youth movement in America as well as classes in intermediate and advanced English. Over 400 people were claimed to have registered for the first classes offered by the school, which began in January 1930. The facility was initially located at 37 East 28th Street, 8th Floor, in New York City. In the fall of 1930 it was moved to 63 Madison Avenue, 1st Floor, near 27th Street. By the "Special Summer Term" of 1932 the school had found new quarters once again, this time at 228 Second Avenue, on the corner of 14th Street.
The name of the party's institute was later changed in the fall of 1930 to "The New Workers School" as part of an effort to contrast itself to the Workers School, the successful training program run by the regular Communist Party. At the time of the name change, the Communist Party (Majority Group) noted that "every one of its teachers was formerly a leading teacher of the old Workers School," an institution which "thanks to the wrong line at present prevailing in the Party, is revising and falsifying Leninism and hence no longer serving the purposes for which it is founded."
The second year of classes were headlined by a series of Sunday night lectures by Jay Lovestone on "The Class War Today." Other course titles included, "Fundamentals of Communism," "Program of the Communist International," "Marxian Philosophy," "Social Forces in American History," and "English for Foreign-Born Workers." Very similar courses were taught at the New Workers School in subsequent years, with Modern Monthly editor V.F. Calverton being added to the roster to teach a course on "The Liberation of American Literature" in the fall of 1932.
Courses cost $2.50 per class, with tickets to the headlining presentations by Jay Lovestone available on a single admission basis for 25 cents.
In 1934, the New Workers School was immortalized in American art history by the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. In 1932, Rivera had been commissioned to paint a fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
measuring more than 1000 square feet (92.9 m²) in the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National...
in New York City. Preliminary sketches for the work were approved in November 1932 and a contract signed calling for the payment of $21,000. In March 1932, Rivera and his helpers moved to New York and began their work. Work progressed rapidly on the complicated work, which featured a central motiff highlighting scientific discovery, with flaming red socialist themes in the left background and scenes of militarism
Militarism
Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....
and police repression in the background right.
Unsurprisingly, enormous controversy began to flare up , with the New York World-Telegram opining with an April 24, 1933 banner: "RIVERA PAINTS SCENES OF COMMUNIST ACTIVITY AND JOHN D. JR. FOOTS BILL.". Nelson A. Rockefeller was quick to quash the controversy by pulling the plug on the almost-completed work, paying off Rivera and immediately covering the massive mural before destroying it early in 1934.
After paying for his supplies, the wages of his assistants, and a commission for obtaining the work, Rivera found himself with $7,000 of "Rockefeller money" remaining. He determined to leave New York with a particularly provocative example of his work. He chose the location of the Lovestoneites' New Workers School on West 14th Street, putting up movable walls in the rented building and creating the mural with his assistants at his own expense. The work, entitled "Portrait of America," included 21 panels in all, occupying 700 square feet (65 m²) of wall space.
Apartment break-in
On July 17, 1938, Lovestone's ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
apartment at London Terrance, 410 West Twenty fourth Street was broken into. Extensive collections of his correspondence, his passport
Passport
A passport is a document, issued by a national government, which certifies, for the purpose of international travel, the identity and nationality of its holder. The elements of identity are name, date of birth, sex, and place of birth....
and a gold watch were stolen. At the time Lovestone claimed this was a GPU
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
operation, though the FBI came to the conclusion that it was a hoax perpetuated by Lovestone to obtain a new passport. Hoax or not, the expelled board members lawyer, Maurice Sugar
Maurice Sugar
Maurice Sugar was an American political activist and labor attorney. He is best remembered as the General Counsel of the United Auto Workers Union from 1937 to 1946.-Early years:...
reproduced some of the very documents Lovestone claimed had been stolen at the trial. A special Bulletin, published by the expelled members sympathizers also published some of the documents to prove that Lovestone was behind Martins attempt to purge them.
Years later the FBI found out further information about the incident while conducting another investigation. The employees at the building apparently belonged to a small Communist dominated union and one of the maids was commissioned to keep tabs on Lovestones mail. Communist Party agents then rented an apartment above Lovestones and burglarized it when he was out, taking the bags of correspondence to the other apartment so no one would see them.
Finally, in a letter in the Comintern archive in Moscow, dated Oct 19, 1938 Comintern representative Pat Toohey reported that Lovestone's "entire archive" had come into possession of the Party.
Official Publications
The group issued a periodical during its existence, known as The Revolutionary Age in its first incarnation, a tip of the hat to a periodical of the same name which served as the first official organ of the Left Wing Section of the Socialist PartyLeft Wing Section of the Socialist Party
The Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party was an organized faction within the Socialist Party of America in 1919 which served as the core of the dual communist parties which emerged in the fall of that year — the Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party of America.-Precusors:A...
which emerged as the forerunner of the American Communist Party in 1919. The first editor of the publication was Ben Gitlow, assisted by Bert Wolfe as associate editor. At the time of the 1st National Conference in 1930, Editor Gitlow and Secretary Lovestone traded hats.
The Revolutionary Age changed its name to The Workers Age in January 1932, with the first number under the new title appearing on the 16th of that month.
In addition to its main periodical, the Lovestoneites launched a short-lived Yiddish periodical, Jewish Monthly Bulletin, in December 1929. At that same time was announced the forthcoming launch of a paper called Revolutionary Youth for its "Young Communist League (Majority Group)" youth section.
The organization took another stab at a Yiddish-language periodical with its launch of Arbeiter Kampf (Workers' Struggle) in 1933.
Beginning in January 1934, the group also began to produce a mimeographed discussion bulletin of "programmatic documents" under the title Where We Stand. At least 4 issues were produced.
In May 1934 a quarterly magazine was launched called The Road To Communism, which the Communist Party USA (Opposition) published on behalf of the International Communist Opposition. Only two issues were produced.
The party's Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
branch, in which Edward Welsh played a key role, additionally published a mimeographed sheet, Negro Voice from 1935 to 1936.
At least two issues of a mimeographed magazine for the group's youth section called Youth Frontier were also published in 1938 and 1939.
Canada
The Lovestoneites also represented the Right Opposition in Canada. As in the US, an opposition-inclined group had been elected at the Communist Party's latest convention, in June 1929, but the factional differences were still salient. The tendency led by Chairmen Jack MacDonald, William MoriartyWilliam Moriarty
William Moriarty was a Canadian Communist and Right Oppositionist.Moriarty was born in England and became a trade unionist working as a tin miner in Cornwall, a railway worker and then a miner in Wales. He moved to Canada in 1912 and worked first as a harvest worker...
and Michael Bushay accepted the new Moscow line, but only grudgingly. Within a few months the Montreal party leadership complained to the Central Committee that Israel Breslow
Israel Breslow
Israel Breslow was a garment worker, local union manager, union staffer, and Vice-President of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union .-Biography:...
, editor of the party's Yiddish organ, had refused to resign from the Amalgamated Clothing Workers to join the new dual union, and that he was receiving an English language newsletter from the German Oppositionists. The Central committee refused to act, Moriarity even expressing sympathy for the KPO. In March 1930, the ECCI purged Moriarity, MacDonald, Bushay and Breslow.
The Lovestoneites' presence in Canada was largely limited to Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
and Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
. In Montreal the group was led by Brelow and Bushay. Kalmen Kaplansky
Kalmen Kaplansky
Kalmen Kaplansky, CM was a civil, human rights and trade union activist in Canada. Alan Borovoy described Kaplansky as "the zaideh" of the Canadian human rights movement....
took over the leadership when Brelow moved to New York in 1935. The Montreal group set up a Workers Educational League, an adult education center modeled on the New Workers School, participated in ILGWU and railroad strikes and later became active within the Quebec Labor Party, in which Kapansky served on the executive committee.
The Toronto area group was led by Moriarity. This group was active in organizing the unemployed in nearby Hamilton and East York. They were also active within the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...
. In fact Moriartiy led the fight to have "violent change" and "confiscation of property" included in that groups Regina Manifesto
Regina Manifesto
The Regina Manifesto was the programme of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and was adopted at the first national convention of the CCF held in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1933. The primary goal of the "Regina Manifesto" was to eradicate the system of capitalism and replace it with a planned...
. Both sections of the Canadian Opposition had fizzled out by the end of 1939.
National conferences
Decision-making conclaves of the ILLA and its predecessors were known by a variety of names. All gatherings were held in New York City except for "Midwest Conferences," which were held in Chicago.-
- {| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Dates Held
! Name of Gathering
! Delegates
! Comments
|-
! align="center" | 1929
| align="center" | October
| align="center" | Enlarged Session of National Committee
| align="center" |
| align="center" | Establishes Communist Party (Majority Group) and elects a 49 member National Council.
|-
! align="center" | 1930
| align="center" | Feb. 22-23
| align="center" | 2nd Plenum of the National Council
| align="center" | 60
| align="center" |
|-
! align="center" | 1930
| align="center" | July 4–6
| align="center" | 1st National Conference
| align="center" | "Over 60"
| align="center" | Elects Gitlow Secretary, names Lovestone Editor.
|-
! align="center" | 1932
| align="center" | Sept. 3-5
| align="center" | 2nd National Conference
| align="center" |
| align="center" | Changes name to Communist Party of the USA (Opposition).
|-
! align="center" | 1933/4
| align="center" | Dec. 30-Jan. 1
| align="center" | 4th National Conference
| align="center" | 53
| align="center" | Lovestone & Zam offer dueling Reports, with Lovestone winning over Zam's call for a new party and International, 45-7.
|-
! align="center" | 1934
| align="center" | June 30-July 1
| align="center" | National Plenum of the CPO
| align="center" | "About 50"
| align="center" | Adopts long statement "The Present Situation and the Tasks of the Communists."
|-
! align="center" | 1935
| align="center" | Aug. 31-Sept. 2
| align="center" | 5th Convention
| align="center" | 80
| align="center" |
|-
! align="center" | 1936
| align="center" | Sept. 5-7
| align="center" | National Conference
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
|-
! align="center" | 1937
| align="center" | March 27-28
| align="center" | 2nd Midwest Conference
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
|-
! align="center" | 1937
| align="center" | May 29–31
| align="center" | 6th National Convention
| align="center" | 101
| align="center" | Changes name of group to Independent Communist Labor League
|-
! align="center" | 1938
| align="center" | July 2–4
| align="center" | 7th National Convention
| align="center" | 29
| align="center" | Changes name of group to Independent Labor League of America
|-
! align="center" | 1939
| align="center" | Sept. 2-4
| align="center" | 8th National Convention
| align="center" |
| align="center" | Adopts anti-war resolution
|-
! align="center" | 1940
| align="center" | Dec. 28-29, 1940
| align="center" | 9th National Convention
| align="center" | 25
| align="center" | Votes to dissolve organization
|-
|}
Auto Workers
The Lovestoneites' most controversial foray into the union movement was their attempt to help United Auto WorkersUnited Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers , is a labor union which represents workers in the United States and Puerto Rico, and formerly in Canada. Founded as part of the Congress of Industrial...
president Homer Martin
Homer Martin
Homer Martin was American trade unionist and socialist.After high school he attended Hewing College and received his AB from William Jewel College...
end the influence of the official Communists within his union. In the early 1930s there was no national union for automobile workers, but there were several directly affiliated AFL locals in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. The Lovestoneites did have some members within them, organized into the Detroit Progressive Group for One Union. The AFL merged these locals together in 1935 and the UAW held its first convention and elected its first officers at its April 1936 convention. Homer Martin was elected president, Wyndham Mortimer first vice-president, Ed Hall second vice-president, Walter Wells third vice-president and George Addes
George Addes
George F. Addes was a founder of the United Automobile Workers union and its secretary-treasurer from 1936 until 1947....
general-secretary treasurer. From the beginning the top leadership was divided between Martin loyalists and Communist Party members like Mortimer, Hall and Addes. Additionally, there was a faction allied with the Socialist party led by the Reuther brothers
Walter Reuther
Walter Philip Reuther was an American labor union leader, who made the United Automobile Workers a major force not only in the auto industry but also in the Democratic Party in the mid 20th century...
that did not have representation at the top but had a following among many locals, which at the moment allied with the official Communists.
In 1937 Mortimer and Bob Travis led a series of successful sit-down strikes, first at General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
and then at Chrysler
Chrysler
Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....
, Hudson
Hudson Motor Car Company
The Hudson Motor Car Company made Hudson and other brand automobiles in Detroit, Michigan, from 1909 to 1954. In 1954, Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator Corporation to form American Motors. The Hudson name was continued through the 1957 model year, after which it was dropped.- Company strategy...
, Packard
Packard
Packard was an American luxury-type automobile marque built by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana...
and Studebaker
Studebaker
Studebaker Corporation was a United States wagon and automobile manufacturer based in South Bend, Indiana. Founded in 1852 and incorporated in 1868 under the name of the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company, the company was originally a producer of wagons for farmers, miners, and the...
. Martin became concerned about the rising power of the Communists within his union and turned to David Dubinsky for advise. Dubinsky and Martin developed a plan, in which they would commission Jay Lovestone to help remove the communist influence in the union. Dubinsky gave Lovestone $100,000 to effect the operation. In April 1937 30 Lovestoneites arrived in Detroit to begin their work. They were led by Alex Bail, under his party name George F. Miles, who was in daily contact with Lovestone in New York. William Munger replaced the Communist leaning Henry Kraus
Henry Kraus
Henry Kraus was a labor historian, and European art historian.He graduated from the University of Chicago and Western Reserve University with a master's degree in 1928....
as editor of the UAWs periodical the Auto Worker, he also became Martins speech writer; Eve Stone, Alex Bails wife, took over the UAW's Women's Auxiliary; Irving Brown took over operations in UAW locals in Chicago and Baltimore. Perhaps most significant was Francis Henson, who became Homer Martin new executive secretary.
The Lovestone group was successful at first, purging Communists from the Flint
Flint, Michigan
Flint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...
Local, firing 17 communist organizers, but unable to remove the Reuther led Socialists. In the months leading up to the August 1937 convention the UAW became bitterly divided between the Martin-Lovestone "Progressive caucus" and the Communist-Socialist "Unity Group". At the August Convention the Martin-Lovestone group tried to make its move and oust Mortimer, Hall and Addes from the leadership. However on the fifth day the convention got a surprise visit from CIO president John L. Lewis
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...
who endorsed the incumbent leadership. Mortimer, Hall and Addes were re-elected, but two supposedly pro-Martin vice-presidents were added, Richard Frankensteen
Richard Frankensteen
Richard "Dick" Frankensteen was the first president of the Automotive Industrial Workers Association....
and R. J. Thomas
R. J. Thomas
Roland Jay Thomas , aka R.J. Thomas, was born in East Palestine, Ohio. He grew up in eastern Ohio and attended Wooster College for two years. The need to help support his family caused him to leave college and go to work...
.
On June 18, 1938 Martin suspended five members of the executive board. They were to be "tried" by the union on charges of conspiracy to destroy the union. The five suspended members were Mortimer, Hall, Welles, Addes and Frankensteen, who had been weened away from the pro-Martin faction. Six non-suspended board members, led by Victor Reuther walked out in protest at the squabbling.
The trial began on July 25 and lasted until August 6, ending in Frankensteen, Mortimer and Halls expulsion and Wells suspension. Victor Reuther appealed to John L. Lewis to intervene in the fiasco. In the first week of September Lewis sent a CIO commission consisting of Philip Murray
Philip Murray
Philip Murray was a Scottish born steelworker and an American labor leader. He was the first president of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee , the first president of the United Steelworkers of America , and the longest-serving president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations .-Early...
and Sidney Hillman to offer Martin an ultimatum: either re-instate the ousted board or be expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Martin protested this interference in the unions affairs, but eventually caved. The new board had an anti-Martin majority and proceeded to fire the Lovestoneites whom he had put in office.
In 1939 the UAW would split into two groups, Martin leading his group into the AFL. Irving Brown was still with this group trying to organize support among the Baltimore locals, but to little effect. The Martin UAW folded in 1940.
Doll and Toy Workers
The Lovestoneites were also a presence in the Doll and Toy Workers Union. "Progressives" Alexander Ravitch and Emanuel Diana were elected secretary-treasurer and president respectively in August 1934, though there were still CP sympathizers on the board. The progressives swept the elections a year later, electing Anthony H. Esposito manager. DTWU would later amalgamate with several other toy and novelty workers unions under CIO auspices. Ravitch became national secretary treasurer of the new organization and Esposito president. In 1952 Esposito would leave the union, now called the Playthings, Jewelry and Novelty Workers Union, over a "raiding" dispute. His successor was another Lovestoneite, Alex Bail.In January 1936, Julius Herskowitz, a Lovestoneite unionist trying to organize a plant that made Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...
dolls was beaten by an unknown assailent and his skull was fractured. He had received threats from the owner of his factory.
Furriers
The Lovestoneites were also active in the International Fur & Leather Workers UnionInternational Fur & Leather Workers Union
The International Fur and Leather Workers Union , was a labor union that represented workers in the fur and leather trades. The IFLWU was founded in 1913 and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor ....
. During most of their history in that union they were the major opposition element, first against the Old Guard socialist leadership under Samuel Schorr, and then the Communists under Ben Gold. During all their early campaigning within the American labor movements, the Lovestoneites had pushed for the abolition of the TUUL dual unions, such as the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union, and for those members to join the already established AFL groups. In 1935 the NTWIU was disbanded and the Lovestoneite group within the IFWU - the Furriers Progressive League—pushed for a resolution urging the for NTWIU members to be allowed into the union and new elections to take place. The Communists won control of the union in that election and Ben Gold
Ben Gold
Benjamin Gold was an American labor leader who was prosecuted for his communist political views under McCarthyism. He was president of the International Fur and Leather Workers Union from 1937 to 1955.-Early life:...
, formerly head of the NTWIU, became president of the union.
The Communists acted in a very dictatorial way in running the administration. The Lovestoneites formed a coalition with the socialists, the Furriers Progressive Unity League, to oppose the communists, however Communist control only tightened. Benjamin Baraz, leader of the Lovestoneite caucus lost election as Union business manager.In 1938, yet another united front was set up, the United Progressive Furriers, which included "left and right wing socialists, anarchists, Lovestoneites, left and right Zionists" as well as independent progressives. The coalition appealed to John L. Lewis
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...
, head of the CIO
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
, to help them in their struggle against the Ben Gold clique, but to no avail.
In late 1938 Gold began to take measures against the opposition. In December it informed Baraz that he had been found guilty of "malicious slander" against the leadership and had been suspended. In Union elections held in 1939 the opposition were denied poll watchers and several of their candidates were forbidden from running. The Opposition decided to boycott the elections. Finally, in March 1940 the six remaining opposition leaders were ousted from the union. Again, a coalition of socialists, Zionists, Lovestoneites and others tried to rally public opinion for the ousted leaders, but to no effect.
Garment Workers
The Lovestonites had a large following among the largely Yiddish speaking membership of International Ladies' Garment Workers' UnionInternational Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s...
Local 22, with Communist Party (Opposition) member "Sasha" Zimmerman playing a leading role. The organization staunchly supported the ILGWU in its various organizing and strike efforts. In April 1932 Zimmerman ran for manager of Dressmakers Local 22 as part of an organized "Progressive League" ticket.
The Lovestoneites briefly won control of ILGWU Local 155, the Knitgoods Workers Local, in April 1934 under Louis Nelson. While in power they established an educational department, sick and relief fund, and union hiring hall. But it was their policy during the mid-1930s to try to bring the official communists into the mainstream union movement, giving them a place on their ticket.
Hotel and Restaurant Workers
The Lovestoneites were active in two New York area locals of the AFL Hotel and Restaurant Workers International. Within Waiters Local 16, they organized the Progressive Culinary League, to oppose Communist and mafia domination of the union. In 1940 the Progressives won control of the local, but the ILLA dissolved later that year. They also organized the United Progressive Group as an opposition to the Communist administration of Cafeteria Workers Local 302 but were never able to win its leadership.Mine Workers
During the early part of its history the Lovestoneites had a following among United Mine WorkersUnited Mine Workers
The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners and coal technicians. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada...
members in the anthracite region of eastern Pennsylvania. Frank Vrataric was the leader of this "progressive" faction that led the fight against John L. Lewis' purge of Communists at the January 1932 convention. In May of that year Vrataric and other opposition leaders were expelled from the UMW. In September the dissident elements, not all Lovestoneites, met in convention and constituted themselves the Progressive Group within the UMW and resolved to try to get reinstated in the official organization. The opposition coalition did not last however, as the other leaders called for the creation of a new union in August 1933 and other disaffected members gravitated towards the Progressive Mine Workers
Progressive Mine Workers
The Progressive Miners of America was a coal miners' union organized in 1932 in downstate Illinois. It was formed after United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis, sided with coal operators and subverted a contract referendum which would have reduced a miner's daily wage from $6.10 to $5.00.In...
. The Lovestoneites strongly opposed these moves, on the grounds that they constituted dual unionism.
Office Workers
The Lovestoneites organized among New York area white collar workers. In Local 12644, a directly affiliated AFL local in New York, the Lovestoneites led the Progressive faction, which competed for control with the official Communists and the "conservatives". The Progressive ticket won control of the groups executive board in a landslide in 1935. However, when the local affiliated with the CIO United Office and Professional Workers of America, the UOPWA leadership became dominated by official Communists. In October 1938 Anne Gould, editor of the Progressive Office Worker was suspended by the leadership. She took 500 members of UOPWA Local 16 out and joined the AFLs Bookkeepers, Stenographers and Accountants Union. The office workers involved were principally employees of ILGWU, the Workmens Circle, the League for Industrial DemocracyLeague for Industrial Democracy
The League for Industrial Democracy , from 1960-1965 known as the Students for a Democratic Society , was founded in 1905 by a group of notable socialists including Harry W. Laidler, Jack London, Norman Thomas, Upton Sinclair, and J.G. Phelps Stokes...
, Union Health Center, Labor Committee for Palestine, the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League
Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League
The Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights, was founded in 1933 to enact an economic boycott against Nazi Germany....
, and the Workmens Sick and Death Benefit Fund.
Painters
The Lovestoneite "progressive" slate won control of District Council 18, Brooklyn, of the Brotherhood of Painters and Decorators in February 1936. In this instance the Communist led Rank & File group withdrew their candidate so that Sam Freedman would stand against the, supposedly mafia-backer Bob Kellman. That March the Lovestoneites, the official Communists and the Socialist MilitantsMilitant faction
The Militant faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America who sought to steer that organization from its orientation towards electoral politics and towards direct action and revolutionary socialism. The faction emerged during 1930 and 1931 and achieved practical...
backed Louis Weinstock in his successful bid to win the leadership of District 9, Manhattan, against a candidate backed by the Old Guard
Old Guard faction
The Old Guard faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America who sought to retain the organization's traditional orientation towards electoral politics by fighting generally younger party members who factionally organized to promote greater efforts at direct action...
, The Forward
The Forward
The Forward , commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon...
and the Philip Zausner leadership.
Shoe Workers
In 1934 several unions in the shoe workers field merged to form the United Shoe and Leather Workers Union. In March 1935 Lovestoneite Israel Zimmerman, the brother of Charles Zimmerman,) was elected as head of the union and another "progressive" was elected treasurer. While in control of the union they faced considerable opposition from the Communist ex-TUUL faction, who tried to have the entire executive board recalled at the group's October 1934 convention. By March 1937, however, Zimmerman lost control of the organization and it voted to merge with Shoe Workers Protective Union and the Brotherhood of Shoe and Allied Craftsmen to from the United Shoe Workers of America under CIO auspices.Teachers
The Lovestoneites had a small following within the Teachers Union of the City of New York (TU), Local 5 of the American Federation of TeachersAmerican Federation of Teachers
The American Federation of Teachers is an American labor union founded in 1916 that represents teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; local, state and federal employees; higher education faculty and staff, and nurses and other healthcare professionals...
. The union was still dominated by its two founders, Henry Linville and Abraham Lefkowitz and by its leadership was aligned with the Old Guard Socialists
Old Guard faction
The Old Guard faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America who sought to retain the organization's traditional orientation towards electoral politics by fighting generally younger party members who factionally organized to promote greater efforts at direct action...
. The Lovestoneites organized their own faction within the Teachers Union, called the "Progressive Group," and working in coalition with the Communist-led "Rank and File" faction succeeded in ousting the union leadership in 1935. The ousted union leaders subsequently bolted to establish a new union called the Teachers Guild. The Communists soon solidified their control over the TU and the Lovestoneites found themselves in another opposition coalition called the "Independents." Shortly before the dissolution of the ILLA this group left the Teachers Union and obtained a separate charter from the American Federation of Teachers
American Federation of Teachers
The American Federation of Teachers is an American labor union founded in 1916 that represents teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; local, state and federal employees; higher education faculty and staff, and nurses and other healthcare professionals...
. The TU itself would have its charter revoked the following year.
Textile Workers
The Lovestoneites had limited influence within the American Federation of Silk Workers, an autonomous affiliated of the United Textile Workers of America. Lovestoneite Eli Keller was manager of the AFSW local in Patterson, New Jersey until 1935 when he resigned because of "irresponsible" behavior on the part of the executive committee. The Communists allied with conservative elements to prevent Keller from running to retake control of the union in the next election. Despite a "conservative" victory in the union election of 1935, the Communists ex-TUUL members effectively gained control of the union and led a disastrous strike in late 1935. Shortly thereafter the UTW leadership revoked the Patterson locals charter and reorganized the local. The Lovestoneites decided not to enter the new group.Later, when the CIO Textile Workers Organizing Committee was formed, two Lovestoneites, Meyer Laks and Meyer Chanatzky were on the executive board of the new Patterson local. Again, the Lovestoneites ran into trouble with the official Communists who suspend Laks and Chanatzky in late 1938. Rank and file pressure was able to re-instate them.
Prominent members
- Alex BailAlex BailAlex Bail was an American radical and union leader.-Communist years:Bail entered the US labor movement in 1922. He was also an early member of the Communist Party of America, arrested in August that year attending the parties underground second convention in Bridgman, Michigan.Bail attended the...
("George F. Miles") - J.O. Bentall
- Irving BrownIrving BrownIrving Brown was an American trade-unionist, member of the American Federation of Labor and then of the AFL-CIO, who played an important role in Western Europe and in Africa, during the Cold War, in supporting splits among trade-unions in order to counter Communist influence...
- Louis CoreyLouis C. FrainaLouis C. Fraina was a founding member of the American Communist Party in 1919. After running afoul of the Communist International in 1921 over the alleged misappropriation of funds, Fraina left the organized radical movement, emerging in 1930 as a left wing public intellectual by the name of Lewis...
- Harry Goldberg ("Jim Cork")
- Ben Davidson ("D. Benjamin")
- Will HerbergWill HerbergWill Herberg was an American Jewish writer, intellectual and scholar. He was known as a social philosopher and sociologist of religion, as well as a Jewish theologian.-Early life:...
- Benjamin GitlowBenjamin GitlowBenjamin "Ben" Gitlow was a prominent American socialist politician of the early twentieth century and a founding member of the Communist Party USA. From the end of the 1930s, Gitlow turned to conservatism and wrote two sensational exposés of American Communism, books which were very influential...
- Kalmen KaplanskyKalmen KaplanskyKalmen Kaplansky, CM was a civil, human rights and trade union activist in Canada. Alan Borovoy described Kaplansky as "the zaideh" of the Canadian human rights movement....
- William KruseWilliam Kruse (American)William F. "Bill" Kruse was an important head of the Young People's Socialist League in the 1910s. He was a member of the Socialist Party of America until 1921, acting as a leader of the party's Left Wing faction, loyal to the Third International...
- Benjamin Lifshitz
- Jay LovestoneJay LovestoneJay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
- Jack MacDonald
- Tom Myerscough
- Benjamin MandelBenjamin MandelBenjamin Mandel AKA "Bert Miller" was a New York city school teacher and activist who later became a director of research for the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.-Background:...
("Bert Miller") - William MoriartyWilliam MoriartyWilliam Moriarty was a Canadian Communist and Right Oppositionist.Moriarty was born in England and became a trade unionist working as a tin miner in Cornwall, a railway worker and then a miner in Wales. He moved to Canada in 1912 and worked first as a harvest worker...
- Louis Nelson
- Jack Rubenstein
- Maida Springer
- Edward Welsh
- Harry WinitskyHarry WinitskyHarry Mordecai Winitsky was an American left wing political activist who was a founding member of the Communist Party of America. Winitsky is best remembered as one of the chief defendants of the New York "Criminal Anarchism" prosecutions that were part of the First Red Scare of 1919-1920...
- Bertram D. Wolfe
- Ella Wolfe ("Janet Cork")
- Herbert Zam
- Charles S. ZimmermanCharles S. ZimmermanCharles Sasha Zimmerman was an American socialist activist and trade union leader, who was an associate of Jay Lovestone. Zimmerman had a career spanning five decades as an official of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union...
- Israel Zimmerman
Pamphlets
- Appeal to the Comintern. [New York]: [CPUSA Delegates to the American Commission], July 1929. —Four page broadsheet newspaper, later sold for 5 cents as a party document.
- The Crisis in the Communist Party, USA: Statement of Principles of the Communist Party (Majority Group). New York: The Revolutionary Age, Feb. 1930.
- Will Herberg: The Heritage of the Civil War. New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, n.d. [1932].
- Benjamin Gitlow: Some Plain Words on Communist Unity. New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, n.d. [June 1932].
- Jay Lovestone: The American Labor Movement: Its Past, Its Present, Its Future. New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, n.d. [June 1932].
- M.N. Roy: "I Accuse!" : From the Suppressed Statement of Manabendra Nath Roy on Trial for Treason before Sessions Court, Cawnpore, India New York: Roy Defense Committee of India, 1932.
- A United Labor Front against Fascism!: Manifesto of the Communist Opposition. New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, March 1933.
- Bertram D. Wolfe: What is the Communist Opposition? New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, [January] 1933.
- Leo: German Fascism and the Workers. New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, [May] 1933.
- Will Herberg: The NRA and American Labor. New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, September 1933.
- Where We Stand: Volume 1: Platform and Programmatic Documents of the International Communist Opposition New York: Communist Party (Opposition), 1934.
- For Unity of the World Communist Movement: A Letter to the Independent Labour Party of Great Britain from the Communist Party USA (Opposition). New York: Communist Party (Opposition), n.d. [c. 1934].
- Jay Lovestone: What Next for American Labor? New York: Communist Party of the USA (Opposition), May 1934.
- Bertram D. Wolfe: Things We Want to Know. New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, June 1934.
- Why a Labor Party? New York: Communist Party (Opposition), December 1934.
- Where We Stand: Volume 4: Programmatic Documents of the Communist Party (Opposition). New York: Communist Party (Opposition), n.d. [c. January 1935].
- Jay Lovestone:Soviet Foreign Policy and the World Revolution. New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, August 1935.
- The 1936 Election Campaign and the position of the Communist Party USA (Opposition): A Statement. New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, 1936.
- Will Herberg: The CIO: Labor's New Challenge. New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, February 1937.
- Jay Lovestone: People's Front Illusion — From "Social Fascism" to "People's Front." New York: Workers Age Publishers, n.d. [1937].
- Lambda: The Truth About the Barcelona Events. New York: Workers Age Publishers, n.d. [1937].
- Which Road Shall the ASU Take? New York: Student Section of the Independent Communist Labor League, November 1937.
- Bertram D. Wolfe: Civil War in Spain. Introduction by Will Herberg. New York: Workers Age Publishers, December 1937.
- Safeguard Your Unions Against Disruption!: An Appeal to All Trade Unionists. New York City: Independent Communist Labor League, n.d. [c. 1938].
- American CP Writes Its Own Epitaph: Earl Browder's New Constitution. New York City: Independent Communist Labor League, [1938]
- Where We Stand, Labor's Road Forward: The Program and Policies of the ILLA. Second Printing. New York: Workers Age Publishers, July 1938.
- Keep America Out of War: Unite for Peace, Freedom, and Socialism. New York: Workers Age Publishers, September 1939.
- Rosa LuxemburgRosa LuxemburgRosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
: The Russian Revolution. Introduction and translation by Bertram D. Wolfe. New York: Workers Age Publishers, April 1940. - Jay Lovestone:New Frontiers for Labor. New York: Workers Age Publishers, n.d. [c. 1940].
New Workers School
- Bertram D. Wolfe, Economics of Present Day Capitalism. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1930s].
- Bertram D. Wolfe, The Nature of Capitalist Crisis. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1930s].
- Will Herberg, Marxism and Political Thought. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1930s].
- Will Herberg, Which Program for Revolutionists? New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1930s].
- Will Herberg, American Revolutionary Traditions. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1932].
- Herbert Zam, History of Russian Revolution. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1932].
- Will Herberg, Dialectical Materialism. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1933].
- Will Herberg, Historical Materialism. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1933].
- August ThalheimerAugust ThalheimerAugust Thalheimer was a German Marxist activist and theoretician.-Early years:August Thalheimer was born 18 March 1884 in Affaltrach, now called Obersulm, Württemberg, Germany.-Political career:...
, On Dialectics. New York: New Workers School, [January 1934]. —mimeographed - Will Herberg, Theoretical System of Leninism. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1934].
- A Short Explanation of the Murals of Diego Rivera: "Portrait of America" (A series of 21 murals). New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1934].
- Jay Lovestone, Marxian Classics in the Light of Current History. New York City, New Workers School, 1934.
- Bertram D. Wolfe, Marxian Economics: An Outline of Twelve Lectures. New York: New Workers School, 1934
- Will Herberg, Outline for the Study of Dialectical Materialism and the Life of Man. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1935].
- Will Herberg, Foundations of Marxism: Study Outline. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1936].
- Will Herberg, Marxism and Modern Political Thought. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1936].
- Outline on Marxism and American Historical Traditions. [New York?] : Summer Labor Institute of the New Workers School, n.d. [1936].
- A. R., Outline on Trade Unionism: Theory and Practice. New York: New Workers School, n.d. [1937].
Party documents
- Constitution of the Independent Labor League of America, Adopted by the 7th National Convention, July 1938.
External links
- Profile of the organization at Early American Marxism from which was the source for much of the information in the article
- "Footnote for Historians" by Max Shachtman, provides some information on the split
- Photograph of the CPUSA(O) at a May Day demonstration
- Records of Keep America Out of War Congress, 1938-1942 Collection of the KAOW Congress, a Lovestonite united front group.
- Workers Age partial series archive
See also
- Jay LovestoneJay LovestoneJay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
- Benjamin GitlowBenjamin GitlowBenjamin "Ben" Gitlow was a prominent American socialist politician of the early twentieth century and a founding member of the Communist Party USA. From the end of the 1930s, Gitlow turned to conservatism and wrote two sensational exposés of American Communism, books which were very influential...