Language Federations were formed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by immigrants to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, primarily from
EasternEastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and
Southern EuropeThe term Southern Europe, at its most general definition, is used to mean "all countries in the south of Europe". However, the concept, at different times, has had different meanings, providing additional political, linguistic and cultural context to the definition in addition to the typical...
, who shared a commitment to some form of socialist politics. Some of these groups joined the
Socialist Labor Party of AmericaThe Socialist Labor Party of America , established in 1876, is the oldest socialist political party in the United States and the second oldest socialist party in the world. Originally known as the Workingmen's Party of America, the party changed its name in 1877 and has operated continuously since...
; later, many joined the
Socialist PartyThe Socialist Party of America was a 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 in 1899.In the...
and then later joined one of the precursors of the
Communist PartyThe Communist Party of the United States of America is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States.During the first half of the 20th century it was the largest and most widely influential communist party in the country, and played a prominent role in the U.S...
; a number of federations also remained in the Socialist Party. The
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
and
FinnishFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken...
federations were particularly important in the early years of the Communist Party.
Overlook
The Language Federations also served as an important cultural resource for immigrants, allowing them to maintain contact with political developments in their homelands and providing a gathering place for strangers in a strange land. Many groups had their own halls for dances and social gatherings which still exist, in name if not in function, in America's largest cities of the
EastThe East Coast of the United States, also known as the "Eastern Seaboard" or "Atlantic Seaboard", refers to the easternmost coastal states in the central and northern United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada...
and
West CoastThe "West Coast", "Western Seaboard", or "Pacific Coastline" are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. It most often comprises California, Oregon and Washington...
s and Midwest.
Each Language Federation arose at different times, as members of those national, ethnic or religious groups arrived in the United States. In addition, they typically sprung up at the grassroots level, affiliating with other local groups to form national federations before attaching themselves to political parties. They often resisted attempts by the parties to which they were affiliated to bring them into line with the aims or platform of the group as a whole; indeed, at some points the various Language Federations made up such a large portion of socialist groups as to make top-down dictation of a uniform policy very difficult.
The SPA had a vexed relation with Language Federations: while it began recognizing them in the first decade of the twentieth century and incorporating them within the party in the decade that followed, the party had often veered in the direction of
nativismNativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism...
, particularly in the case of exclusion of
Asian{Infobox Ethnic group|group = Asian American|image =Graduation Rate! align="CENTER" | Bachelor's Degree
or More|-| align="LEFT" | Asian Indians| align="RIGHT" | 90.2%| align="RIGHT" | 67.9%|-| align="LEFT" | Filipinos| align="RIGHT" | 90.8%...
workers, but also directed against Eastern and Southern European immigrants. The SPA often appeared as if it did not know what to make of these foreign-language organizations and let them develop more or less independently. Even so, they grew exponentially during
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
and made up roughly half the SPA by 1918.
The Executive Committee of the SPA formally expelled seven of these Language Federations in May, 1919 when it became clear that they favored the left wing in the impending split within the party. The expelled federations formed the bulk of the membership of the new Communist Party of America led by
Charles RuthenbergCharles Emil "C.E." Ruthenberg was an American Marxist politician and was a founder and long-time head of the Communist Party USA .-Biography:Charles Emil Ruthenberg was born July 9, 1882 in Cleveland, Ohio...
and Louis Fraina; the
Communist Labor PartyThe Communist Labor Party , together with the Communist Party of America, was one of the organizational predecessors of the Communist Party USA.- Party History :...
, created later, appealed more to American-born workers. Not all federations aligned with Ruthenburg, however, in the factional infighting within the CPUSA in the years that followed: the
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
and
Yiddish languageYiddish is a non-territorial High German language of Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world...
federations, for example, were identified with the more conservative faction led by Ludwig Lore until he was expelled from the party.
The CPUSA, then named the Workers Party, tried in 1924 to disband the federations and reorganize the party on the cell structure that the
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
s had employed, on directives from the
CominternThe Comintern was an international Communist organization founded in Moscow in March 1919...
. The party met with resistance, however, particularly from the Finnish Federation, whose members feared losing what influence they had if they were submerged within a larger English-speaking organization. While the party succeeded in "Bolshevizing" the federations, it may have lost fifty percent or more of these members in the process.
Although the SPA went into decline in the 1920s, it still drew a large part of its base from the foreign-born in these years. The old Language Federations within the SPA nearly all disappeared, however, by the early 1930s.
The following groups formed the most significant Language Federations:
Finnish Federations
-
- See also: Finnish Socialist Federation
The Finnish Socialist Federation was a language federation of the Socialist Party of America which united Finnish language-speaking immigrants in the United States in a national organization designed to conduct propaganda and education for socialism among their community.-Early Finnish socialist...
Arising first in Boston, Massachusetts and
MinnesotaMinnesota is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.2 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the...
as benevolent organizations, the federation affiliated with the SPA around 1907. During its affiliation with the SPA it established its own Workers' College in Minnesota, published three newspapers, and divided the federation into three regional districts, with differing political outlooks. A power struggle soon ensued, with the national SPA intervening on the side of the conservative Eastern District. The Western and Central District branches were barred from establishing a rival federation, but Central District militants succeeded in taking control of the Workers College.
In 1919 the Federation split: a large number of
FinnishFinnish Americans are Americans of Finnish descent, who currently number about 700,000.-History:Finns first started coming to the United States in large numbers in the late 19th century, and continued until the mid 20th century...
members joined the CPUSA, representing nearly half of the members of the party at one point in the 1920s and maintaining a separate organizational presence within it, in the form of Finnish Workers' Clubs, until 1941. The Finnish Federation remained the largest foreign language federation within the SPA throughout the 1920s.
German Federations
German-speakingGerman Americans are Americans of German descent. They form the largest self-reported ancestry group in the United States, outnumbering the Irish and English. They account for 50 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population...
socialistsSocialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on...
made up so much of the early socialist groups that no steps were taken to organize a separate German language grouping either outside or within the SPA until 1912. That group drew heavily on organizations in
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, and to the east by the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, the Arthur Kill, Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Westchester County, New York City, Long Island, and...
. Those chapters split to join the CPUSA in 1919.
Hungarian Federations
Hungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries...
political groups first appeared in the 1890s and affiliated with both the SLP and the SPA in the following decade. Some federations affiliated with the SLP later migrated to the
Industrial Workers of the WorldThe Industrial Workers of the World is an international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. 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...
. Most ended up with the SPA; relatively few left to join the CPUSA.
Italian Federations
A socialist
Italian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City...
federation was formed as part of the SLP in 1902, but split from it the following year. The majority of the federation's members were
syndicalistSyndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and state socialism which uses federations of collectivized trade unions. For adherents, labor unions are the potential means of both overcoming economic aristocracy and running society fairly in the interest of the...
and remained unaligned with either party, while a minority affiliated with the SPA in 1910. Most of those members remained with the SPA in 1919, although the
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
branch joined the CPUSA. There were apparently never enough Italian-speaking members within the CPUSA to constitute a separate Federation. Italian-speaking garment workers in New York City also maintained their own locals within the
International Ladies' Garment Workers' UnionThe 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...
, both when they were aligned with the SPA and under Communist leadership in the 1920s.
Jewish Federations
While
JewishAmerican Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens or resident aliens of the Jewish faith and/or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
workers of various nationalities also took part in those federations, Jewish workers also formed groups known as
Arbeiterrings ("Workmen's Circles") in major cities in the late 1800s. More formal parties, however, tended to fragment, both on ideological grounds and on the distinction between newly arrived "greenhorns" with
BundistThe General Jewish Labour Bund of Lithuania, Poland and Russia , generally called The Bund or the Jewish Labour Bund, was a secular Jewish socialist party in Central and Eastern Europe operating predominantly between the 1890s and the 1930s...
politics and the more assimilated immigrants from earlier decades. The Bundist tendency eventually prevailed after thousands of Jewish socialists fled Poland and Russian in the aftermath of the failed
1905 RevolutionThe 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political unrest through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included terrorism, worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...
. The Jewish Federation within the SPA–not formally established until 1912–grew rapidly, publishing its own weekly newspaper. It split in 1919, with significant numbers of members remaining with the SPA.
Latvian Federation
The
LatvianLatvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
Federation within the CPUSA, with a high proportion of forestry workers, was the third largest within the party in 1921.
Lithuanian Federation
The
LithuanianLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
Socialist Federation, founded in 1905, grew rapidly with an influx of members who had come to the United States to escape repression after the 1905 Revolution. The organization suffered splits, however, when anarchist and more strictly nationalist elements left and lost nearly half its members when it affiliated with the SPA in 1914. It published a number of weekly newspapers and a monthly journal while affiliated with the SPA. The SPA suspended the Federation in 1919, when a large number of members left for the CPUSA, where the Lithuanian Federation was one of the largest constituents.
Polish Federations
The Alliance of
PolishPolish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
Socialists in America was formed as an emigre group, dedicated to making revolution in
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, rather than the United States. It merged with the Polish Section of the Socialist Party in 1913. It published a daily newspaper in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
and two weekly newspapers. It formally disaffiliated from the SPA in 1916, although a minority remained with the party. A few hundred members joined the CPUSA.
Russian Federations
A formal
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
Federation within the SPA was not created until 1917. It claimed more than 5,000 members in 1919, and largely went over to the CPUSA that year. It lost a number of members to deportation in the
Palmer RaidsThe Palmer Raids were a series of controversial raids by the United States Department of Justice and Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1919 to 1921 on suspected radical leftist citizens and immigrants in the United States, the legality of which is now in question...
that followed.
Scandinavian Federations
The SLP had an early Danish affiliate, although this organization appears to have disappeared in factional infighting in 1899. The SLP continued to publish in
SwedishSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish...
as late as the 1920s. Much of the SPA's
ScandinaviaScandinavia is a geographical region in northern Europe that includes, and is named after, the Scanian Province. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark...
n Federation went over to the CPUSA in 1919.
Slovak Federation
The
SlovakThe Slovak language , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages ....
Socialist Federation, founded in Chicago in 1904, remained an autonomous organization until 1913, when it affiliated with the SPA. It continued to grow after affiliation, publishing several newspapers and maintaining more than twenty chapters.
South Slavic Federation
This federation, which consisted mostly of
CroatCroats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 5 million Croats living in the southern Central Europe region, along the east bank of the Adriatic Sea and an estimated 9 million throughout the world...
and
SlovenianSlovene Americans or Slovenian Americans are citizens of the United States of Slovene descent.- History :...
members, affiliated with the SPA in 1910. The Slovenian members generally remained with the SPA after the split, while many Croat members went over to the CPUSA.
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