William Weinstone
Encyclopedia
William Wolf "Will" Weinstone (1897–1985) was an American
Communist politician
and labor leader. Weinstone served as Executive Secretary of the unified Communist Party of America, the forerunner of today's Communist Party USA
, from October 15, 1921 to February 22, 1922 and was an important figure in the party's activities among the auto workers of Detroit
during the 1930s.
. Will was the son of ethnic Jewish parents who emigrated from Russia to escape that nation's pervasive anti-semitism
during the late Tsarist period. His original surname was "Winestein," a name which Will Americanized when he was older.
in June 1919, at which he was seated to replace a regular delegate on the last day of the gathering.
Weinstone was elected as a delegate to the founding convention of the Communist Party of America, called to order in Chicago on September 1, 1919.
During the first years of the 1920s the Communist Party of America was forced underground by the mass operation of the U.S. Department of Justice remembered as the Palmer Raids
. During this interval, Weinstone served as Executive Secretary of the secret party organization from October 15, 1921 to February 22, 1922, under the pseudonym
"G. Lewis."
Following the removal of Jay Lovestone
and Benjamin Gitlow
from the leadership of the Communist Party in the summer of 1929, Weinstone was added to the ranks of a new collective leadership called the Secretariat. Although he had aspirations of permanent leadership, he was ultimately unable to retain the top leadership, which soon fell to Earl Browder
, a longtime factional rival.
Weinstone ran for Mayor of New York City
in 1929. Following the campaign, Weinstone was selected by the Communist Party as its representative to the Executive Committee of the Communist International
in Moscow
, a post which he occupied until 1931.
He ran for U.S. Senator from New York in 1932.
As an executive officer of the Communist Party in Michigan
during a wave of Great Depression
union activity during the mid-1930s, Weinstone played a significant role in the founding of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) in May 1935, pressing the unionized workers to make use of the sit-down strike, a tactic first employed by the Industrial Workers of the World
union. The union's wave of successful sit-down strikes culminated in the Flint Sit-Down Strike
of 1936-1937, in which the striking UAW workers occupied several General Motors
plants for over forty daysrepelling the efforts of the police and National Guard to drive them from the auto plant's premises.
A member of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party during the same period, Weinstone concurrently worked on the party's cause on behalf of oppressed African Americans in the segregated southern states. Writing for such Communist publications as The International Communist, he was a strong champion of the defense of the falsely-accused Scottsboro Boys
, whose successful legal defense was organized by the Communist-funded International Labor Defense
, as was the famous case of young African American organizer Angelo Herndon
.
Weinstone remained a loyalist to the Communist Party throughout his entire life, remaining in the organization even after its bitter factional struggle of 1956 to 1958, brought about by the so-called "Secret Speech" of Nikita Khrushchev in February 1956 and the Soviet invasion of Hungary in November of that year.
In 1959, Weinstone was among the first American Communists to again visit the Soviet Union following a protracted break in direct contacts with the outside world. Weinstone traveled at that time without portfolio and was reported by high-ranking party member and FBI informant
Morris Childs to have been considering seeking employment and staying in the USSR on a long-term basis. Childs persuaded Weinstone to return to the United States, however, and he returned to America on November 1, 1959.
in Washington, DC.
Weinstone was immortalized in film as one of the "witnesses" in Warren Beatty's
film, Reds, sharing his personal recollections of radical journalist John Reed
and his wife, Louise Bryant
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Communist politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and labor leader. Weinstone served as Executive Secretary of the unified Communist Party of America, the forerunner of today's Communist Party USA
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....
, from October 15, 1921 to February 22, 1922 and was an important figure in the party's activities among the auto workers of Detroit
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
during the 1930s.
Early years
William Weinstone was born December 15, 1897 in Vilnius, Lithuania, then part of the Tsarist Russian empireRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. Will was the son of ethnic Jewish parents who emigrated from Russia to escape that nation's pervasive anti-semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
during the late Tsarist period. His original surname was "Winestein," a name which Will Americanized when he was older.
Political career
Weinstone was elected as an alternate delegate to the Left Wing National Conference held in New York CityNew 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...
in June 1919, at which he was seated to replace a regular delegate on the last day of the gathering.
Weinstone was elected as a delegate to the founding convention of the Communist Party of America, called to order in Chicago on September 1, 1919.
During the first years of the 1920s the Communist Party of America was forced underground by the mass operation of the U.S. Department of Justice remembered as the Palmer Raids
Palmer Raids
The Palmer Raids were attempts by the United States Department of Justice to arrest and deport radical leftists, especially anarchists, from the United States. The raids and arrests occurred in November 1919 and January 1920 under the leadership of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer...
. During this interval, Weinstone served as Executive Secretary of the secret party organization from October 15, 1921 to February 22, 1922, under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"G. Lewis."
Following the removal of 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...
and 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...
from the leadership of the Communist Party in the summer of 1929, Weinstone was added to the ranks of a new collective leadership called the Secretariat. Although he had aspirations of permanent leadership, he was ultimately unable to retain the top leadership, which soon fell to Earl Browder
Earl Browder
Earl Russell Browder was an American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. He was expelled from the party in 1946.- Early years :...
, a longtime factional rival.
Weinstone ran for Mayor of New York City
Mayor of New York City
The Mayor of the City of New York is head of the executive branch of New York City's government. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.The budget overseen by the...
in 1929. Following the campaign, Weinstone was selected by the Communist Party as its representative to 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...
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...
, a post which he occupied until 1931.
He ran for U.S. Senator from New York in 1932.
As an executive officer of the Communist Party 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"....
during a wave of 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...
union activity during the mid-1930s, Weinstone played a significant role in the founding of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) in May 1935, pressing the unionized workers to make use of the sit-down strike, a tactic first employed by the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The 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...
union. The union's wave of successful sit-down strikes culminated in the Flint Sit-Down Strike
Flint Sit-Down Strike
The 1936–1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike changed the United Automobile Workers from a collection of isolated locals on the fringes of the industry into a major labor union and led to the unionization of the domestic United States automobile industry....
of 1936-1937, in which the striking UAW workers occupied several 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...
plants for over forty daysrepelling the efforts of the police and National Guard to drive them from the auto plant's premises.
A member of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party during the same period, Weinstone concurrently worked on the party's cause on behalf of oppressed African Americans in the segregated southern states. Writing for such Communist publications as The International Communist, he was a strong champion of the defense of the falsely-accused Scottsboro Boys
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial...
, whose successful legal defense was organized by the Communist-funded 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...
, as was the famous case of young African American organizer Angelo Herndon
Angelo Herndon
Angelo Braxton Herndon was an African American labor organizer arrested and convicted for insurrection after attempting to organize black industrial workers in 1932 in Atlanta, Georgia...
.
Later years
Still publishing material for the communist cause into the twilight of his life, Winestone, together with Theodore Bassett and Philip A. Bart, was also co-editor of Highlights of a Fighting History: 60 Years of the Communist Party, USA, a broad selection of speeches, essays, and documents from the party's history; his recollection of organizing work during the autoworkers' sit-down strike was published in The Great Sit-Down Strike, a work produced by the party-organized Workers Library Publishers in 1937.Weinstone remained a loyalist to the Communist Party throughout his entire life, remaining in the organization even after its bitter factional struggle of 1956 to 1958, brought about by the so-called "Secret Speech" of Nikita Khrushchev in February 1956 and the Soviet invasion of Hungary in November of that year.
In 1959, Weinstone was among the first American Communists to again visit the Soviet Union following a protracted break in direct contacts with the outside world. Weinstone traveled at that time without portfolio and was reported by high-ranking party member and FBI informant
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
Morris Childs to have been considering seeking employment and staying in the USSR on a long-term basis. Childs persuaded Weinstone to return to the United States, however, and he returned to America on November 1, 1959.
Death and legacy
Will Weinstone died on October 26, 1985. His papers reside with the Manuscript Division of the Library of CongressLibrary of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
in Washington, DC.
Weinstone was immortalized in film as one of the "witnesses" in Warren Beatty's
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
film, Reds, sharing his personal recollections of radical journalist John Reed
John Reed
-Arts, letters, and entertainment:* John Reed , New York novelist and author* John Reed , actor and singer with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company* John Reed , Australian critic and art patron...
and his wife, Louise Bryant
Louise Bryant
Louise Bryant was an American journalist and writer. She was best known for her Marxist and anarchist beliefs and her essays on radical political and feminist themes. Bryant published articles in several radical left journals during her life, including Alexander Berkman's The Blast...
.
Works
- How the Auto Workers Won'.' (with William Z Foster) New York: The Daily Worker, 1937.
- The Freat Sit-down Strike. New York: Workers Library Pub., 1937.
- Factionalism — The Enemy of the Auto Workers. (with Boleslaw GebertBoleslaw GebertBolesław Konstantin "Bill" Gebert was a top Communist Party official, remembered as one of the organization's top Polish-language speaking leaders...
) Detroit, Communist Party of Michigan 1938. - The Case against David Dubinsky'.' New York: New Century Publishers, 1946
- The Atom Bomb and You. New York: New Century Publishers, 1950.
- Our Generation Will Not Be Silent: Statement of the Labor Youth League in Answer to the Attorney General's Charges under the McCarran Act. New York: The League, 1953.
- Against Opportunism: For a Marxist-Leninist, Vanguard Party of the American Working Class. New York: Waterfront Section, Communist Party, U.S.A., 1956.
- Study Outline on the History of the Communist Party, USA. New York: National Education Dept., Communist Party, U.S.A., 1969.
External links
- Finding Aid for the William Weinstone Papers, Library of Congress. Retrieved March 3, 2010.