International Unemployment Day
Encyclopedia
International Unemployment Day (March 6, 1930) was a coordinated international campaign of marches and demonstrations
, marked by hundreds of thousands of people in major cities around the world taking to the streets to protest mass unemployment
associated with the Great Depression
. The Unemployment Day marches, organized by the Communist International and coordinated by its various member parties, resulted in two deaths of protestors in Berlin
, injuries at events in Vienna
and the Basque city of Bilbao
, and less violent outcomes in London
and Sydney, Australia.
In the United States, full scale riots erupted in New York City
and Detroit when thousands of baton-wielding police attacked tens of thousands of marchers. A total of 30 American cities in all saw mass demonstrations as part of the March 6 campaign, including Boston
, Milwaukee, Baltimore
, Cleveland, Washington, DC, San Francisco, and Seattle.
and severe contraction of the interlocked capitalist economies of the world. Unemployment became a mass phenomenon, and social services for those affected were minimal.
The Executive Committee of the Communist International
(ECCI) in Moscow
was preoccupied with the worsening economic crisis from its outset, and identified escalating unemployment as capitalism's potentially most inflammatory flaw. A proposal was made in ECCI to establish March 6, 1930, as an "international day" of protest against unemployment — a decision taken at ECCI's session of January 16. This campaign was further developed by a conference of representatives of Communist parties held in Berlin
on January 31, held under the auspices of the West European Bureau of the Comintern.
Comintern head Dmitry Manuilsky
reiterated the need for the member parties of the Communist International to exert themselves in conjunction with the International Unemployment Day campaign. In his main report to the "Enlarged Presidium" of ECCI in February, in which he declared that the forthcoming March 6 demonstrations would enable workers to protest against the ruling class's efforts to "shuffle off all the consequences of the ripening world economic crisis on their shoulders."
Manuilsky's report identified the United States as the center of the world economic crisis and pegged American unemployment at 6 million. Germany, said to be "only beginning" to be swept up in the economic cataclysm, was said to have 3.5 million unemployed workers, joined by 2 million more in Great Britain. In all, the Comintern estimated that there were 17 million unemployed workers in the primary capitalist countries, with 60 million (including family members) severely impacted. This was believed to be tinder with which a blaze could be alighted.
(CPUSA) prepared for the March 6 actions with agitational meetings and leaflets, over 1 million of which were circulated in anticipation of the event. The party made use of two primary mobilizing slogans
to motivate participation and to generate enthusiasm for the event: "Work or Wages!" and "Don't Starve — Fight!" The demonstrations were to be conducted under the auspices of the party's trade union adjunct, the Trade Union Unity League
(TUUL).
, the March 6 demonstrations in the United States surpassed every expectation held for them by the CPUSA. In New York City, the Communists later asserted that 110,000 turned out, although the staid New York Times claimed the much lower figure of 35,000 instead. A huge throng assembled in Union Square
to be addressed by Sam Darcy, a primary organizer of the New York event.
During hasty negotiations with CPUSA leader William Z. Foster
, New York City Police Commissioner Grover Whalen
refused to allow a procession of the Union Square gathering to city hall on the grounds that no parade permit had been obtained. Foster took to the rostrum to inform the crowd that the right to march was being denied and demanded of the gathering, "Will you take that for an answer?" The crowd vehemently responded in the negative and Foster immediately began leading an impromptu march down Broadway Avenue
to City Hall
.
This was taken by police as a provocation, and 1,000 officers launched into the procession, touching off 15 minutes of bitter street fighting. The New York Times said of the scene:
Firemen turned hoses onto the crowd and a police truck equipped with tear gas, submachine guns
, and riot guns was driven to the scene. Foster was arrested together with Communist Party leaders Robert Minor
, Israel Amter
, and H. Raymond on the steps of City Hall. The group ultimately received sentences and served six months in jail for their participation in the suppressed march.
This depiction of events was challenged by others. William Miller of the rival Communist Party (Majority Group)
headed by Jay Lovestone
asserted that in actual fact about 30,000 workers had answered the call to demonstrate on March 6, joined for a brief time by about 45,000 downtown employees off during lunch hour. While the gathering had been "splendid" as a spontaneous protest of unemployed workers, "as an organized demonstration it was a fiasco," Miller asserted, noting that the space where the gathering was scheduled was inadequate and that no platform had been constructed so that party leaders were unable to so much as address the assembled crowd. Moreover, Miller notes, CPUSA District Organizer Jack Stachel
had gone into hiding two days before the event and did not even witness the purported incidents about which he so breathlessly wired the Daily Worker.
some 50,000 turned out to cap 10 days of radical protests and police repression. Over 150 arrests had already been made by Chicago police during the first week of March, the headquarters of the Communist Party was raided and wrecked not once but twice, as were offices of the International Labor Defense
, the Trade Union Unity League, Workers International Relief, the Communist Lithuanian-language newspaper Vilnis, and a Russian cooperative store. Despite the climate of fear, an estimated 50,000 turned out for the International Unemployment Day protest, marching through the streets 12 abreast for about four hours. The demonstration concluded with a large open air meeting at the Chicago stockyards, addressed by CPUSA district organizer Clarence Hathaway
, TUUL organizer Nels Kjar, and representatives of the Young Communist League
and black workers.
, with the CPUSA claiming that as many as 50,000 turning out, and Milwaukee, which was said to have included 40,000. Additionally, 50,000 demonstrators were claimed for the event in Pittsburgh, 30,000 in Philadelphia, 25,000 in Cleveland, and about 20,000 in Youngstown
. According to the CPUSA press an additional 15,000 assembled at LaFayette Square in Buffalo, New York
, a like number in Canton, Ohio
, while 10,000 marched in Washington, DC. Substantial demonstrations were also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles
, Seattle, Denver, Baltimore
, and other large cities. All told more than 30 American cities were the site of protests and marches on March 6.
In all the CPUSA claimed that more than 1.25 million workers "demonstrated on the streets in face of the police terror and poisonous propaganda of the American Federation of Labor
and Socialist Party
." The Communists claimed the event was a success in raising awareness of the problem of mass unemployment in America as well as placing themselves in a position of authority among those so affected:
The press of the rival Communist Party (Majority Group) charged that the CPUSA's attendance estimates were substantially inflated. The CPMG offered that rather than 50,000 participants in Chicago, an estimate of 5,000 was closer to the truth, while in New York City instead of 110,000 demonstrators there were more like 50,000, of which "the greatest number were bystanders, not participants." Even more serious exaggeration was said to have applied in the case of Philadelphia, in which "less than 300 by careful count" actually marched to CP headquarters. Events in Wilkes-Barre (29 participants, of whom 6 were arrested) and New Bedford
(150 in attendance, 50 actually marching) were held up as examples of CPUSA organizational failure.
outside of the Soviet Union. In Berlin
a decree was issued banning all street demonstrations which was widely ignored. Police violently disbursed these gatherings as they developed, making uses of clubs and gunfire. Battles between police and strikers raged into the evening, with law enforcement authorities making use of trucks with searchlights.
Other significant German clashes between demonstrators and police took place in the cities of Halle
, Hamburg
, and Munich
. Press reports on the day of the event indicated that two marchers were killed in the Halle protest.
In Vienna
about 2500 marchers fought in the streets with police and young members of the fascist
movement. A number of people were injured and 7 arrests made as a result of the violence.
In London, four processions of marchers converged on Tower Hill
to hear speeches by Tom Mann
and Jack Gallagher. One group of demonstrators who attempted to march on the Mansion House
against police instructions met with police resistance, with several marchers and one policeman injured in the battle which followed. The London demonstration lasted for well over four hours.
A major demonstration also took place in the industrial city of Manchester
, in which thousands of workers marched on the city's labor exchange.
Turnout in Paris
was modest, with demonstrations banned and only about 2500 protestors willing to challenge the large force of police and soldiers positioned to keep order. French authorities made use of clubs on a group of marchers who attempted to push through a police line.
Several thousand marchers, primarily building trades workers, turned out in the Spanish city of Seville
.
efforts to build political bridges between workers and the unemployed as well as between the various political organizations had been inadequate.
The CPUSA was singled out for special criticism at the 11th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI in March 1931, with Osip Piatnitsky
mocking the slogans used by the American Party, declaring of the slogan "Work or Wages" that "if I were unemployed and in America, I should not have understood this slogan," and similarly expressing disdain for the slogan "Don't Starve — Fight" as ineffective.
The CPUSA was much more upbeat in their assessment of the events, claiming that the March 6 demonstrations was an impetus to thousands of new members joining the organization, with an article in the group's monthly theoretical magazine claiming that a total of 6,167 new recruits had entered party ranks between March 6 and May Day, 1930. It also helped boost the Communist Party into the public consciousness as "a recognized power, a major American political factor," the party proudly proclaimed.
The International Unemployment Day march in New York City led to the cashiering of one of the CPUSA's enemies, Police Commissioner Whalen, who came under fire for the brutal police handling of the otherwise peaceful demonstration and was forced to resign.
Still, the gains of International Unemployment Day for the American Communists proved ephemeral, as follow up demonstrations on May Day and August 1, 1930 proved much smaller. Historian Harvey Klehr
has noted that already by the end of April "there were rueful admissions that the March 6 success was due less to Communist capture of the masses than to the spontaneous outpouring of hundreds of thousands of workers with no other outlet for expressing their feelings.
Moreover for this action, there was also a reaction. At 10:00 am on June 9, 1930, a new "Special Committee to Investigate Communist Activities in the United States" was called to order by the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time. This committee, remembered to history as the Fish Committee in recognition of its chairman, Rep. Hamilton Fish
of New York, was established by Congress on the 22nd day of the previous month — just six weeks after the mass demonstrations of March 6.
The Fish Committee would eventually call scores of witnesses and publish hundreds of pages of testimony in its ongoing mission "to investigate Communist propaganda in the United States" and the activities and membership of the Communist Party and the place of the Communist International in America. The 1930 Fish Committee would prove to be the institutional forerunner of the House Un-American Activities Committee
, established in 1938.
Demonstration (people)
A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...
, marked by hundreds of thousands of people in major cities around the world taking to the streets to protest mass unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
associated with the Great Depression
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...
. The Unemployment Day marches, organized by the Communist International and coordinated by its various member parties, resulted in two deaths of protestors in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, injuries at events in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and the Basque city of Bilbao
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...
, and less violent outcomes in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Sydney, Australia.
In the United States, full scale riots erupted in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Detroit when thousands of baton-wielding police attacked tens of thousands of marchers. A total of 30 American cities in all saw mass demonstrations as part of the March 6 campaign, including Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Milwaukee, Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, Cleveland, Washington, DC, San Francisco, and Seattle.
Conception of the event
By 1930, the economic boom of the 1920s was a mere memory, replaced by a stock market crashWall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
and severe contraction of the interlocked capitalist economies of the world. Unemployment became a mass phenomenon, and social services for those affected were minimal.
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...
(ECCI) in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
was preoccupied with the worsening economic crisis from its outset, and identified escalating unemployment as capitalism's potentially most inflammatory flaw. A proposal was made in ECCI to establish March 6, 1930, as an "international day" of protest against unemployment — a decision taken at ECCI's session of January 16. This campaign was further developed by a conference of representatives of Communist parties held in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
on January 31, held under the auspices of the West European Bureau of the Comintern.
Comintern head Dmitry Manuilsky
Dmitry Manuilsky
Dmitriy Manuilsky, or Dmytro Zakharovych Manuilsky was an important Bolshevik. He was the son of an Orthodox priest from a Ukrainian village. After secondary school he enrolled in the University of St...
reiterated the need for the member parties of the Communist International to exert themselves in conjunction with the International Unemployment Day campaign. In his main report to the "Enlarged Presidium" of ECCI in February, in which he declared that the forthcoming March 6 demonstrations would enable workers to protest against the ruling class's efforts to "shuffle off all the consequences of the ripening world economic crisis on their shoulders."
Manuilsky's report identified the United States as the center of the world economic crisis and pegged American unemployment at 6 million. Germany, said to be "only beginning" to be swept up in the economic cataclysm, was said to have 3.5 million unemployed workers, joined by 2 million more in Great Britain. In all, the Comintern estimated that there were 17 million unemployed workers in the primary capitalist countries, with 60 million (including family members) severely impacted. This was believed to be tinder with which a blaze could be alighted.
Events in North America
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....
(CPUSA) prepared for the March 6 actions with agitational meetings and leaflets, over 1 million of which were circulated in anticipation of the event. The party made use of two primary mobilizing slogans
Slogan
A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a political, commercial, religious and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. The word slogan is derived from slogorn which was an Anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic sluagh-ghairm . Slogans vary from the written and the...
to motivate participation and to generate enthusiasm for the event: "Work or Wages!" and "Don't Starve — Fight!" The demonstrations were to be conducted under the auspices of the party's trade union adjunct, the Trade Union Unity League
Trade Union Unity League
The Trade Union Unity League was an industrial union umbrella organization of the Communist Party of the United States between 1929 and 1935...
(TUUL).
New York City
In the estimation of historian Harvey KlehrHarvey Klehr
Harvey E. Klehr is a professor of politics and history at Emory University; he is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist movement, and on Soviet espionage in America ....
, the March 6 demonstrations in the United States surpassed every expectation held for them by the CPUSA. In New York City, the Communists later asserted that 110,000 turned out, although the staid New York Times claimed the much lower figure of 35,000 instead. A huge throng assembled in Union Square
Union Square
Union Square may refer to:Asia* Union Square * Union Square station on Dubai MetroCanada* Union Square, Nova ScotiaUnited States* Union Square, Baltimore, Maryland* Union Square * Union Square, San Francisco, California...
to be addressed by Sam Darcy, a primary organizer of the New York event.
During hasty negotiations with CPUSA leader William Z. Foster
William Z. Foster
William Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA...
, New York City Police Commissioner Grover Whalen
Grover Whalen
Grover Aloysius Whalen was a prominent politician, businessman, and public relations guru in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s.-Early years:Grover A. Whalen was born on June 2, 1886 in New York City...
refused to allow a procession of the Union Square gathering to city hall on the grounds that no parade permit had been obtained. Foster took to the rostrum to inform the crowd that the right to march was being denied and demanded of the gathering, "Will you take that for an answer?" The crowd vehemently responded in the negative and Foster immediately began leading an impromptu march down Broadway Avenue
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
to City Hall
New York City Hall
New York City Hall is located at the center of City Hall Park in the Civic Center area of Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA, between Broadway, Park Row, and Chambers Street. The building is the oldest City Hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions, such as...
.
This was taken by police as a provocation, and 1,000 officers launched into the procession, touching off 15 minutes of bitter street fighting. The New York Times said of the scene:
"Hundreds of policemen and detectives, swinging nightsticks, blackjacks, and bare fists, rushed into the crowd, hitting out at all with whom they came into contract, chasing many across the street and into adjacent thoroughfares and pushing hundreds off their feet. From all parts of the scene of battle came the screams of women and cries of men with bloody heads and faces."
Firemen turned hoses onto the crowd and a police truck equipped with tear gas, submachine guns
Submachine gun
A submachine gun is an automatic carbine, designed to fire pistol cartridges. It combines the automatic fire of a machine gun with the cartridge of a pistol. The submachine gun was invented during World War I , but the apex of its use was during World War II when millions of the weapon type were...
, and riot guns was driven to the scene. Foster was arrested together with Communist Party leaders Robert Minor
Robert Minor
Robert Berkeley "Bob" Minor was political cartoonist, a radical journalist, and a leading member of the American Communist Party.-Early life:...
, Israel Amter
Israel Amter
Israel Amter was a Marxist politician and founding member of the Communist Party USA . Amter is best remembered as one of the Communist Party leaders jailed in conjunction with the International Unemployment Day riot of 1930.-Early years:...
, and H. Raymond on the steps of City Hall. The group ultimately received sentences and served six months in jail for their participation in the suppressed march.
Detroit
New York was not the only American city which saw International Unemployment Day violence. In Detroit more than 100,000 turned out, according to the Communist Party. A peaceful demonstration gave way to a pitched two hour battle between 25,000 demonstrators and 3,000 police wielding clubs, some of whom trampled the crowd with horses, according to the official Communist account. Twenty-six people were hospitalized as a result of the violence, including one policeman, and more than two dozen protestors were arrested.This depiction of events was challenged by others. William Miller of the rival Communist Party (Majority Group)
Communist Party Opposition
The Communist Party of Germany was a communist opposition organisation established at the end of 1928 and maintaining its existence until 1939 or 1940...
headed 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...
asserted that in actual fact about 30,000 workers had answered the call to demonstrate on March 6, joined for a brief time by about 45,000 downtown employees off during lunch hour. While the gathering had been "splendid" as a spontaneous protest of unemployed workers, "as an organized demonstration it was a fiasco," Miller asserted, noting that the space where the gathering was scheduled was inadequate and that no platform had been constructed so that party leaders were unable to so much as address the assembled crowd. Moreover, Miller notes, CPUSA District Organizer Jack Stachel
Jack Stachel
Jacob Abraham "Jack" Stachel was an American Communist functionary who was a top official in the Communist Party from the middle 1920s until his death in the middle 1960s...
had gone into hiding two days before the event and did not even witness the purported incidents about which he so breathlessly wired the Daily Worker.
Chicago
In ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
some 50,000 turned out to cap 10 days of radical protests and police repression. Over 150 arrests had already been made by Chicago police during the first week of March, the headquarters of the Communist Party was raided and wrecked not once but twice, as were offices of the International Labor Defense
International Labor Defense
The International Labor Defense was a legal defense organization in the United States, headed by William L. Patterson. It was a US section of International Red Aid organisation, and associated with the Communist Party USA. It defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was active in the civil rights and...
, the Trade Union Unity League, Workers International Relief, the Communist Lithuanian-language newspaper Vilnis, and a Russian cooperative store. Despite the climate of fear, an estimated 50,000 turned out for the International Unemployment Day protest, marching through the streets 12 abreast for about four hours. The demonstration concluded with a large open air meeting at the Chicago stockyards, addressed by CPUSA district organizer Clarence Hathaway
Clarence Hathaway
Clarence A. "Charlie" Hathaway was an activist in the Minnesota trade union movement and a prominent leader of the Communist Party of the United States from the 1920s through the early 1940s...
, TUUL organizer Nels Kjar, and representatives of the 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:...
and black workers.
Other cities
Less tumultuous demonstrations were held BostonBoston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, with the CPUSA claiming that as many as 50,000 turning out, and Milwaukee, which was said to have included 40,000. Additionally, 50,000 demonstrators were claimed for the event in Pittsburgh, 30,000 in Philadelphia, 25,000 in Cleveland, and about 20,000 in Youngstown
Youngstown, Ohio
Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Mahoning County; it also extends into Trumbull County. The municipality is situated on the Mahoning River, approximately southeast of Cleveland and northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
. According to the CPUSA press an additional 15,000 assembled at LaFayette Square in Buffalo, New York
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...
, a like number in Canton, Ohio
Canton, Ohio
Canton is the county seat of Stark County in northeastern Ohio, approximately south of Akron and south of Cleveland.The City of Caton is the largest incorporated area within the Canton-Massillon Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, while 10,000 marched in Washington, DC. Substantial demonstrations were also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, Seattle, Denver, Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, and other large cities. All told more than 30 American cities were the site of protests and marches on March 6.
In all the CPUSA claimed that more than 1.25 million workers "demonstrated on the streets in face of the police terror and poisonous propaganda of the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
and Socialist Party
Socialist Party of America
The 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...
." The Communists claimed the event was a success in raising awareness of the problem of mass unemployment in America as well as placing themselves in a position of authority among those so affected:
"Only two days prior to March 6, American capitalism refused to recognize that there is unemployment in the United States; but the determination of the masses to struggle under the political leadership of the Communist Party and the revolutionary trade unions force the Hoover administrationHerbert HooverHerbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
and Secretary of Labor DavisJames J. DavisJames John Davis was an American steel worker and Republican Party politician in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He served as U.S. Secretary of Labor and represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate...
to recognize that there are at least three million unemployed workers in the United States.... While the unemployed workers were mobilized on economic demands to fight for work or wages, yet the Communist Party and the revolutionary trade unions did not fail to point out that unemployment cannot be abolished under capitalism and only the destruction of capitalist state and the abolition of capitalism can solve the unemployment problem. It is precisely this political turn of the unemployment movement that American capitalism fears."
The press of the rival Communist Party (Majority Group) charged that the CPUSA's attendance estimates were substantially inflated. The CPMG offered that rather than 50,000 participants in Chicago, an estimate of 5,000 was closer to the truth, while in New York City instead of 110,000 demonstrators there were more like 50,000, of which "the greatest number were bystanders, not participants." Even more serious exaggeration was said to have applied in the case of Philadelphia, in which "less than 300 by careful count" actually marched to CP headquarters. Events in Wilkes-Barre (29 participants, of whom 6 were arrested) and 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...
(150 in attendance, 50 actually marching) were held up as examples of CPUSA organizational failure.
Events in Europe
In Europe the largest and most violent International Unemployment Day demonstrations took place in Germany, home to the largest Communist PartyCommunist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
outside of the Soviet Union. In Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
a decree was issued banning all street demonstrations which was widely ignored. Police violently disbursed these gatherings as they developed, making uses of clubs and gunfire. Battles between police and strikers raged into the evening, with law enforcement authorities making use of trucks with searchlights.
Other significant German clashes between demonstrators and police took place in the cities of Halle
Halle
Halle is a noun that means hall in the German language. It may also refer to:-In Germany:* Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, official name Halle , also called Halle or Halle an der Saale...
, Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, and Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. Press reports on the day of the event indicated that two marchers were killed in the Halle protest.
In Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
about 2500 marchers fought in the streets with police and young members of the fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
movement. A number of people were injured and 7 arrests made as a result of the violence.
In London, four processions of marchers converged on Tower Hill
Tower Hill
Tower Hill is an elevated spot northwest of the Tower of London, just outside the limits of the City of London, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Formerly it was part of the Tower Liberty under the direct administrative control of Tower...
to hear speeches by Tom Mann
Tom Mann
Tom Mann was a noted British trade unionist. Largely self-educated, Mann became a successful organiser and a popular public speaker in the labour movement.-Early years:...
and Jack Gallagher. One group of demonstrators who attempted to march on the Mansion House
Mansion House, London
Mansion House is the official residence of the Lord Mayor of the City of London in London, England. It is used for some of the City of London's official functions, including an annual dinner, hosted by the Lord Mayor, at which the Chancellor of the Exchequer customarily gives a speech – his...
against police instructions met with police resistance, with several marchers and one policeman injured in the battle which followed. The London demonstration lasted for well over four hours.
A major demonstration also took place in the industrial city of Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, in which thousands of workers marched on the city's labor exchange.
Turnout in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
was modest, with demonstrations banned and only about 2500 protestors willing to challenge the large force of police and soldiers positioned to keep order. French authorities made use of clubs on a group of marchers who attempted to push through a police line.
Several thousand marchers, primarily building trades workers, turned out in the Spanish city of Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
.
Aftermath
The Executive Committee of the Communist International was not impressed by the International Unemployment Day demonstrations, claiming that a "comparatively small number of the unemployed" had actually taken part and that united frontUnited front
The united front is a form of struggle that may be pursued by revolutionaries. The basic theory of the united front tactic was first developed by the Comintern, an international communist organisation created by revolutionaries in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.According to the theses of...
efforts to build political bridges between workers and the unemployed as well as between the various political organizations had been inadequate.
The CPUSA was singled out for special criticism at the 11th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI in March 1931, with Osip Piatnitsky
Osip Piatnitsky
Osip Piatnitsky was a revolutionary.He was an associate of Vladimir Lenin since 1902, when he smuggled Lenin's propaganda into Russia from abroad....
mocking the slogans used by the American Party, declaring of the slogan "Work or Wages" that "if I were unemployed and in America, I should not have understood this slogan," and similarly expressing disdain for the slogan "Don't Starve — Fight" as ineffective.
The CPUSA was much more upbeat in their assessment of the events, claiming that the March 6 demonstrations was an impetus to thousands of new members joining the organization, with an article in the group's monthly theoretical magazine claiming that a total of 6,167 new recruits had entered party ranks between March 6 and May Day, 1930. It also helped boost the Communist Party into the public consciousness as "a recognized power, a major American political factor," the party proudly proclaimed.
The International Unemployment Day march in New York City led to the cashiering of one of the CPUSA's enemies, Police Commissioner Whalen, who came under fire for the brutal police handling of the otherwise peaceful demonstration and was forced to resign.
Still, the gains of International Unemployment Day for the American Communists proved ephemeral, as follow up demonstrations on May Day and August 1, 1930 proved much smaller. Historian Harvey Klehr
Harvey Klehr
Harvey E. Klehr is a professor of politics and history at Emory University; he is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist movement, and on Soviet espionage in America ....
has noted that already by the end of April "there were rueful admissions that the March 6 success was due less to Communist capture of the masses than to the spontaneous outpouring of hundreds of thousands of workers with no other outlet for expressing their feelings.
Moreover for this action, there was also a reaction. At 10:00 am on June 9, 1930, a new "Special Committee to Investigate Communist Activities in the United States" was called to order by the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time. This committee, remembered to history as the Fish Committee in recognition of its chairman, Rep. Hamilton Fish
Hamilton Fish
Hamilton Fish was an American statesman and politician who served as the 16th Governor of New York, United States Senator and United States Secretary of State. Fish has been considered one of the best Secretary of States in the United States history; known for his judiciousness and reform efforts...
of New York, was established by Congress on the 22nd day of the previous month — just six weeks after the mass demonstrations of March 6.
The Fish Committee would eventually call scores of witnesses and publish hundreds of pages of testimony in its ongoing mission "to investigate Communist propaganda in the United States" and the activities and membership of the Communist Party and the place of the Communist International in America. The 1930 Fish Committee would prove to be the institutional forerunner of the House Un-American Activities Committee
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
, established in 1938.
Further reading
- Javier Lavoe, "Organizing the Unemployed: 'Fight — Don't starve!' Communists during the Depression Provide Valuable Lessons for Today's Economic Crisis." Liberation, Feb. 10, 2009.
- Moissaye J. Olgin, "From March Sixth to May First." The Communist [New York], vol. 9, no. 5 (May 1930), pp. 417-422.
- "March 6 and After," The Militant [New York], vol. 3, no. 11 (March 15, 1930), pp. 1-2.
External links
- Gjohnsit, "International Unemployment Day," Daily Kos, March 31, 2010.
See also
- National Campaign Committee for Unemployment InsuranceNational Campaign Committee for Unemployment InsuranceThe National Campaign Committee for Unemployment Insurance was a mass organization of the Communist Party USA established in October 1930 in an effort to build a radical movement around the issue of unemployment insurance, thereby advancing the American Communist Party's cause...