RUSSIAN IMMIGRANT LEADERSHIP IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEDERATIONS OF THE AMERICAN

SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST PARTIES, 1917-1922

Nicholas J. Berejan

A Thesis Submitted to the

University of North Carolina Wilmington in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts

Department of History

University of North Carolina Wilmington

2012

Approved by

Advisory Committee

_____ ___Candice Bredbenner _____ ___________ Jarrod Tanny__________

__________Susan McCaffray__________
Chair

Accepted by
Digitally signed by Robert Roer
DN: cn=Robert Roer, o=UNCW, ou=Graduate School
and Research, email=roer@uncw.edu, c=US
_________________________________
Date: 2012.11.28 12:54:50 -05'00'

Dean, Graduate School

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................ iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................... iv

DEDICATION ..................................................................................................................................... v

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1

CHAPTER II: FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEDERATIONS AND THE SOCIALIST PARTY............................. 19

CHAPTER III: INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM, THE ZIMMERWALD LEFT, AND THE SOCIALIST ......... 34

CHAPTER IV: RUSSIN EXILES AND MIGRS IN THE UNITED STATES ............................................ 49

CHAPTER V: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS, BOLSHEVISM, AND THE CONSOLIDATION ................ 67

CHAPTER VI: THE 1919 SPLIT AND THE TWO COMMUNIST PARTIES ........................................... 82

CHAPTER VII: RUSSIAN AMERICANS, THE FEDERATIONS, AND FACTIONAL WARFARE.............. 115

CHAPTER VIII: CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 151

BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................ 159

ii
 ABSTRACT

Historians have studied the American Communist movement in depth over the last sixty

years. The generation of historians that emerged from the New Left of the 1960s delved into

the history of specific subgroups, such as women, African Americans, and specific industrial and

labor unions, within the larger party. However, historians have largely failed to adequately

document the role of Russian immigrants within the early Communist Party of America.

Russian immigrants in the United States contributed greatly to the American

Communist movement. Russian-born Socialists and Communists residing in the United States

commanded considerable authority in the early years of the American Communist Party. Their

pretensions to leadership of the entire movement have been remembered as arrogance due to

their shared heritage with the Russian Bolsheviks who orchestrated the November, 1917

Revolution. Their unwillingness to cooperate fully with American-born leaders within the

movement has similarly been ascribed to their desire to control and dominate the development

of an American Communist movement.

This understanding of the role of Russian Americans in the early days of the Communist

Party of America leaves much to be desired. This thesis will demonstrate that Russian

immigrants in the Socialist and Communist movements did indeed contribute greatly to the

fractious and disunited character of the early Communist Party of America. However, were it

not for their contributions to organizing the Left Wing of the Socialist Party of America from

which the Communist movement developed, there would likely have been no Communist Party

of America such as historically existed.

iii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks go to Drs. Susan McCaffray, William Fain, Robert Spaulding, and Michael

Seidman for the accumulated courses, independent studies, and term paper assignments which

led me to this thesis topic and encouraged me to explore a topic in history that I had little

knowledge of. Were it not for their guidance and input I would have never come to understand

the joy of researching the confusing, chaotic, and profoundly interesting history of the early

American Communist movement.

I would further like to thank Tim Davenport. His tireless work transcribing and digitizing

Communist Party documents, newspapers, and literature, and making these files easily

accessible and available online, greatly facilitated my research process.

Special thanks go to my parents, particularly my father for fostering my curiosity in

history; my mother, for putting up with regular detours to museums, historic sites, and

monuments during ostensibly relaxing vacations; and my sister, for her continual support and

encouragement through this process. I would also like to acknowledge all of the friends I have

made in this program, who were always supportive, provided insight and constructive criticism,

and regularly reminded me that there was a light at the end of the Graduate School tunnel.

I would also like to thank the History Department, the Graduate School, all of the

Professors who taught me and all of the support staff who facilitated my learning.

Finally, I would like to thank my committee specifically for their guidance and assistance

throughout this process.

iv
 DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate this thesis to my grandmothers, Anna Trojan and Olga Berejan,

who left everything theyd ever known in Europe in search of a better life in the United States.

v
 I. INTRODUCTION

The writings on American Communism are many. As a historian of the subject once said,

never have so many studied so much about so few. 1 Indeed, many historians have written

about the American Communist movement. However, owing to its historically contentious

nature in American political discourse, and the relatively recent addition of previously

unavailable sources and documents in the Russian archives, the field of American Communist

history is still a fertile ground for scholarship and enquiry.

Although extensive research has been conducted on the roles of specific populations

within the American Communist movement, one often neglected subgroup remains to be

examined in-depth. Russian immigrants in the United States contributed greatly to the

American Communist movement. Indeed, Russian-born Socialists and Communists residing in

the United States commanded considerable authority in the early years of the American

Communist Party. Their pretensions to leadership of the entire movement have been

remembered as arrogance owing to their shared heritage with the Russian Bolsheviks who

orchestrated the November, 1917 Revolution. Their unwillingness to cooperate fully with

American-born leaders within the movement has similarly been ascribed to their desire to

control and dominate the development of an American Communist movement. This

understanding of the role of Russian Americans in the early days of the Communist Party of

America (CPA) is faulty. It will be demonstrated here that Russian immigrants in the Socialist

and Communist movements did indeed contribute greatly to the fractious and disunited

character of the early Communist Party of America. However, were it not for their contributions

1
Harvey Klehr, The American Communist Movement: Storming Heaven Itself (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992),
1.
to organizing the Left Wing of the Socialist Party of America from which the Communist

movement developed, there would likely have been no Communist Party of America such as

historically existed.

Russian immigrant claims to leadership of the early Communist movement rested upon

more than a simple shared nationality or ethnicity to the Bolsheviks in Moscow. A shared

language granted them access to Leninist theory and principles which were not easily

accessible, or understood, by their American-born comrades. Russian immigrants and migrs

in the United States translated and disseminated these ideas through the Left Wing of the

Socialist Party of America, and provided the impetus for the formation of a Communist Party in

the United States. Their rigid, inflexible adherence to these same ideas, however, led to their

preference to keep the Communist movement divided. This same unyielding dedication to the

Bolshevik program of 1917, in the face of changing international circumstances and shifting

policies of the Third International in Moscow, ultimately resulted in their marginalization within

the movement they helped to forge.

The historiography of American Communism, like the historiography of any topic, has

undergone shifts in popular scholarly opinions and leading paradigms over the past ninety

years. In his book The End of Ideology Daniel Bell characterized these shifts in terms of

generations, which he labeled the once-born, twice-born, and after-born. The once-

born historians of American Communism were contemporaries of and actively involved in the

early years of that movement. The second-born consisted of historians active within the

movement but who reevaluated their beliefs and the history of the Party following their own

disillusionment of the movement after the political events of the late 1930s, particularly the

2
Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939. The after-born was the term used by Bell to describe the new

generation of historians active in the 1960s and 1970s, who were not involved in the old

Communist Party, and sought to reexamine American Communist History through the lens of

the New Left paradigm. The earliest histories of the American Communist movement were

written by the first-born, members of that movement and contemporaries associated with it.

These come from a variety of sources: Party functionaries, disgraced or repentant former Party

members, United States Government reports and enquiries, and witnesses from outside the

Party but on the periphery of the radical Left. The first truly scholarly works emerged in the

1950s and 1960s, most notably the influential series of studies commissioned by the Fund for

the Republic, entitled Communism in American Life. The Communism in American Life

series, which more than any other represented the twice-born perspective, established the

dominant narrative of American Communist history for several decades, and was not

challenged until a new generation of scholars emerged from the New Left and Student

Movement of the 1960s. The new generation argued for a reevaluation of American Communist

history focusing on grass-roots and local political efforts of the Communist Party membership.

Beginning in the 1990s, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a new shift occurred in which

scholars once more returned to the old dynamic established in the 1950s and 1960s, which

focuses the history of the Party as one completely interwoven with the political history of the

Soviet Union.

The earliest attempt to establish a timeline of events of the American Communist

movement came from political opponents of that movement during a period of labor unrest

that was perceived to be influenced by Russian Bolshevism and its proponents in the United

3
States. The Lusk Committee, a New York State Senate investigative committee headed by New

York State Senator Clayton Lusk, was established in 1920 in the midst of the first red scare to

investigate seditious activities in New York State, due to the large number radicals residing in

New York City. A 4,000 page report entitled Revolutionary Radicalism: Its History, Purpose and

Tactics with an Exposition and Discussion of the Steps being Taken and Required to Curb It was

the result of this enquiry. The massive report included brief summations of the Socialist

movements in nearly every European nation, the role of the corresponding Socialist parties

during the War and the Berne conference, the formation of the Third (Communist)

International, and an analysis of the Soviet government and Soviet foreign relations. The report

also included a surprisingly detailed account of the 1919 split in the American Socialist

movement and the formation of the American Communist parties, including entire documents

from the founding of those parties. The investigative committee made little distinction between

the Communists and Socialists in the United States despite the manifestos and constitutions of

those parties being printed verbatim.2

James Oneal chronicled the early history of the American Communist movement in his

1927 book American Communism: A Critical Analysis of its Origin, Development, and Programs.

Although an outsider in that he was not a member of either Communist Party, Oneal did have

firsthand knowledge of the early American Communist period by virtue of his role in the

Socialist Party of America (SPA). Oneal witnessed the growing divide between the revolutionary

Left Wing of the SPA and the conservative Center and Right Wing of the Party. This divide
2
New York (State), Revolutionary Radicalism: Its History, Purpose, and Tactics, with an Exposition and Discussion of
the Steps Being Taken To Curb It, Report of the Joint Legislative Committee Investigating Seditious Activities, Filed
April 24, 1920, in the Senate of the State of New York, Part I: Revolutionary Subversive Movements Abroad and at
Home, Volume I (Albany, NY: J.B. Lyon Company, 1920), 634. Available in its entirety at
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/trials.php?tid=14.

4
widened after American entrance into the First World War and quickly accelerated after the

Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, resulting in a divide that he regarded as irreparable. As a result,

Oneal favored the expulsion of the Left Wing in 1919. Oneal was far from a neutral or unbiased

witness as he was not a member of either Communist Party and a staunch supporter of the

Socialist Party. He ultimately concluded that the factionalism and in-fighting between the two

parties, and between the Communists and the remnants of the SPA, undermined both the

revolutionary and reformist aims of the Communists and Socialists, respectively. He further

argued that the Communist Partys largely foreign-born memberships preoccupation with the

Bolsheviks and the situation in Soviet Russia divorced the early movement from the large

majority of the American working class. Written in 1927, Oneals work regarded the Communist

movement as a failed exercise in revolutionary agitation, and one that was in the process of

decline into total obscurity, a correct analysis of the movement at the time, although the

movement achieved its largest membership in the following decade.

Strangely, the Communist Party of America published no official history of the Party

until the 1930s. Even then, the first histories published were primarily autobiographies of the

leadership. The often changing nature of Communist doctrine and policy issuing forth from

Moscow in the 1920s may have made it difficult to publish an accurate account of the early

years of the Party without highlighting sudden and dramatic reversals of tactics and theory

inconsistent with contemporary dogma.3 Eventually two major works emerged, both written by

high ranking members of the Party. Benjamin Gitlows I Confess: The Truth About American

3
This opinion is shared by noted scholar of American Communism Maurice Isserman, who suggested that constant
shifts in Party line in the 1920s made any study of the Partys early history embarrassing. See Maurice Isserman,
Three Generations: Historians View American Communism, Labor History 26, no. 4 (Fall, 1985), 517.

5
Communism, published in 1940, was a Party history from a once-powerful Party leader. Gitlow,

who along with John Reed was one of the most influential founders of the Communist Labor

Party, fell out of favor with both the American Communist membership and the Soviet

leadership in Moscow. Although Gitlow ran on the ticket of the Workers Party for Governor of

New York in 1926, and was William Z. Fosters running mate as vice presidential candidate in

1928, he was ejected from the Party in 1929 following the Cominterns purge of Right

Oppositionists. By the late 1930s Gitlow had renounced all radicalism and become an

outspoken critic of Communism. His account of the Party history was one that painted him in a

favorable light as a champion of the working class who endeavored to create an American

Communist Party for the native-born American workers, but who was opposed at every

juncture by the foreign-born Party leadership in the CPA and by the Soviet leadership after

Lenins death. Gitlows account was thus far from unbiased; however at the time of its

publication it was by far the most detailed history of the American Communist movement in

existence.

William Z. Fosters 1952 insider account of Party history was a work equally biased,

although written by an influential Party member whose fortunes were decidedly greater.

Entitled History of the Communist Party of the United States, Fosters work was as equally

detailed as Gitlows but perhaps less concerned with historical accuracy. History of the

Communist Party of the United States was in many ways a revisionist work. Foster attempted to

downplay the role of foreign-born leadership and emphasized the contributions of native-born

American workers, such as Foster himself, to the establishment and development of American

Communism. Foster further sought to establish American Communism as a movement largely

6
American in origin, rooted in American radical tradition, as opposed to an alien ideology

imported by foreign radicals and controlled by Moscow. Published in the 1950s, Fosters work

was thus an attempt to create a legacy of the American Communist Party that was in contrast

to allegations by political opponents that the American Communist movement was something

imported to and controlled by a foreign state, and not a legitimate creation of American

citizens.

Daniel Bells Marxian Socialism in the United States was also published in 1952. Bells

work was the first lengthy history of American Communism to emerge from academia. His work

was primarily an attempt to understand why Marxism largely failed to take root amongst the

American working class. In it, the author argued that the conservative elements that remained

in the Socialist Party in 1919 were as caught up in the glory of the Bolshevik successes as the

revolutionary Left Wing which created the American Communist Parties. As evidence, Bell cited

the SPAs application to the Third International, and reapplications that followed until 1921

when the Party all but turned its back on communism.4 Bell maintained that the fundamental

differences between the SPA and the CPs were not all that great; rather, the dividing issue was

the amount of faith placed by the parties in when revolution in the United States would be

realistic, and the whole-cloth adoption of Bolshevism to American realities. He concluded that

the SPA, like the American Communist parties, alienated itself from the American working class

by embarking in revolutionary adventurism. The foreign-born leadership within the

Communist Party of America, by claiming to be the representatives of Bolshevism in the United

States and the only people capable of replicating Bolshevik success in very different political

4
Daniel Bell, Marxian Socialism in the United States (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 115.

7
circumstances, similarly led the Party away from mainstream American politics and thus from

the majority of the American working class.

Bells work was the first in a line of Communist Party histories written by serious

academics. In 1953, Robert Hutchins, the former president of the University of Chicago and

head of the liberal group The Fund for the Republic, financed and organized a new series titled

Communism in American Life. The group published ten volumes written by several academics in

the ensuing years. The first two volumes, written by former Communist Party member

Theodore Draper, entitled The Roots of American Communism (1957) and American

Communism and Soviet Russia: The Formative Period (1960) were the most detailed and well-

researched. Draper drew on a variety of Communist Party archival sources, interviews with

former Communists, and published Communist Party documents and newspapers to detail the

genesis of American Communism. The Roots of American Communism addressed the rise of the

Left Wing of the SPA from the beginning of the First World War through the factional disputes

that culminated in two Communist Parties, ending in the final unification of American

Communists into one cohesive organization in 1923. Drapers narrative was a history from the

top down; he focused almost entirely on the most influential persons in the Party and their

quest to foster revolution in the United States along the Bolshevik model. He further chronicled

the ensuing internal debates over questions such as the underground versus legal Party, the

Partys stance on parliamentary politics, trade union policy, and autonomy of Party units within

the larger organization. Draper argued that the American Communist Party was born of

revolutionary American Socialists and Syndicalists, both native-born and foreign-born, who

became disillusioned with the international Socialist movement and instead looked to the

8
Soviets for inspiration and guidance. By doing so, any chance at creating a truly American

revolutionary movement was lost in favor of a willing subordination to Moscow and the Third

International. In his own words, the American Communist Party was transformed from a new

expression of American radicalism to the American appendage of a Russian revolutionary

power. Nothing else so important ever happened to it again.5 His second volume, American

Communism and Soviet Russia: The Formative Period traced the twists and turns of Communist

Party doctrine and tactics according to corresponding shifts in Soviet policy, through the end of

the 1920s. Draper returned to focusing on key figures in the American Party, and their changing

fortunes as they were forced to adapt quickly to shifts in Soviet ideological theory and strategy

during the post-Lenin and Stalinist years, and to curry favor with the ruling cadre in Moscow,

lest they face political irrelevance or expulsion.

Through the course of these two volumes, the only such to delve into the early Party

history at length, Draper established the leading paradigm of American Communist history,

which portrayed the American movement as wholly submissive to the Communist Party of the

Soviet Union and its instrument, the Communist International. This narrative of the American

Communist experience remained dominant for over a decade, and was echoed by the other

historians of the Communism in American Life series. Later volumes carried the same

framework through different periods. David A. Shannons The Decline of American Communism:

A History of the Communist Party of the United States since 1945 (1959) focused on the early

Cold War period. Others in the series focused on specific aspects of Communist activity in the

United States, such as Daniel Aarons Writers on the Left: Episodes in American Literary

5
Theodore Draper, The Roots of American Communism (New York: Octagon Books, 1957), 395.

9
Communism (1959), Ralph Roys Communism and the Churches (1960), and Frank Meyers The

Molding of Communists: The Training of the Communist Cadre (1961), while others like Nathan

Glazers The Social Basis of American Communism (1961) analyzed changes in Communist Party

membership along class and ethnic lines over the course of the 1920s and 1930s. However, all

ultimately maintained that the American Communist Party was totalitarian in nature,

subordinate to the Soviet Union, and thus effectively outside of mainstream American politics

of the time.

Irving Howe and Lewis Cosers 1962 study The American Communist Party: A Critical

History was the first to attempt a total history of the Party from its inception in 1919 to its

virtual demise in 1957.6 Coser and Howe, anti-Stalinist but not anti-Communist, were as the

title suggests critical of the American Communist movement. They supported but did not

wholly agree with the views of Draper and the other Fund for the Republic historians. Howe

and Coser utilized public sources almost exclusively; they eschewed eyewitness accounts and

internal Party memos (although scarcely available until the opening of the Soviet archives,

Draper had access to a few) and instead drew primarily from published materials such as

leaflets and fliers, Party newspapers and magazines, and the published memoirs and

biographical histories of Party leaders. The authors began with a history of the Communist split

with the Socialist Party in 1919, through the factionalism of the early years and eventual unity

of the Party, to the Stalinization of the Party in the later 1920s, the vacillations of the 1930s

from hard-line Leftism to the united front period and support of New Deal initiatives, the

Partys efforts during the Second World War, and finally its repression and further

6
Irving Howe and Lewis Coser, The American Communist Party: A Critical History (New York: Da Capo Press, 1974),
ix.

10
marginalization in the post-war and early Cold War eras. For Howe and Coser, the defining shift

in American Communism, that which ultimately led to its irrelevancy in American politics, was

the transition into a totalitarian, Stalinist Party in the late 1920s, essentially terminating any

factionalism or deviation from Party line, forcing members to recant previous ideological

positions and adopt radically different ones, and cementing the American Communist Party as

an appendage of Soviet foreign policy.

A reassessment of American Communist history developed in the late 1960s and 1970s,

emerging from the New Left and by members of Students for a Democratic Society, several of

whom founded the journal Radical America in 1967. The historians of Radical America initially

ignored Communist Party history, preferring to fill their pages with historical studies on the

Industrial Workers of the World, and largely dismissed the academic works of Draper, Howe

and Coser, Bell, and the rest as biased and unreliable sources. Gradually, however, the new

generation of academics began to reexamine American Communism. Looking upon their own

experiences in the 1960s, many sought to understand the experiences of the non-elite Party

membership, and how they came to become Communists or radicals. The new generation of

historians also revisited the existing historiography. Draper and others received their due for

situating the American Communist Party within the context of Soviet foreign policy needs, and

the new historians remained critical of the old Party structure. But, increasingly the new

generation of historians sought to determine and identify the positive contributions made by

the Party in the decades past, regardless of the totalitarian Party structure. The focus shifted

11
to grass roots efforts, the experiences of the common or rank and file member, and the role of

the Communists within specific industries or unions.7

The new revisionist historical paradigm dominated the historiography of the 1970s

and 1980s. Many of the studies focused on Communist Party policies towards African

Americans, working class women, unions, and subgroups within the larger Party.8 New works

paid particular attention to the 1930s and 1940s, when the Communist Party had achieved its

zenith of influence and relevance within American politics, and reached its largest membership.

The revisionist historians paid little attention to the upper echelons of the Party and what they

thought about the work taking place at the lower levels. The new generation of historians

turned the historiography of American Communism completely on its head, and so scholars

such as James Weinstein in Ambiguous Legacy: The Left in American Politics (1975) and Maurice

Isserman in Which Side Were You On? The American Communist Party during the Second World

War (1982) sought to understand how the working class membership acted within the confines

of Party policy, and how the Party elite could be so far removed from those they were

ostensibly representing.

The historians of the older generation were not content to let the revisionist history of

the American Communist Party become the dominant model. In the 1980s historians Harvey

7
Isserman, Three Generations, 539.
8
See for example: Paul Buhle, Jews and American Communism: The Cultural Question, Radical History Review,
23 (Dec. 1980): 9-33; Mark Naison, Historical Notes on Blacks and American Communism: The Harlem
Experience, Science and Society, 42 (Fall 1978): 324-343, and Harlem Communists and the Politics of Black
Protest, Marxist Perspectives 1 (Fall 1978): 20-50; Robert Schaffer, Women and the Communist Party, USA, 1930-
1940, Socialist Review 9 (May-June 1979): 73-118; Bruce Nelson, Pentecost on the Pacific: Maritime Workers
and Working-Class Consciousness in the 1930s, in Zeitlin and Kimeldorf, eds., Political Power and Social Theory,
141-182; Ron Schatz, The End of Corporate Liberalism: Class Struggle in the Electrical Manufacturing Industry,
Radical America 9 (July-August 1975): 197-201; Harvey Levenstein, Communism, Anticommunism, and the CIO
(London: Greenwood Press, 1981).

12
Klehr and John Earl Haynes revisited the traditionalist school of American Communist history.

For over two decades the two historians published works separately and have collaborated on

others. Klehr and Haynes accounts of the history of American Communism resemble those

published in the 1950s and 1960s by the authors of the Communism in American Life series.

Klehr and Haynes placed emphasis on the top-down history of the Party, Party hierarchy,

important and influential figures within the Party leadership, and ties between the American

movement and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. To understand Communist actions in

America it is not enough to study the CPUSAit was abroad, in Moscow, that the decisive

formulations were made, contended Klehr in the introduction to his 1984 study The Heyday of

American Communism: The Depression Decade.9 The Heyday of American Communism traced

the Party history through the 1930s, and according to Klehr was intended to be the

continuation of Drapers work for the Communism in American Life series. Indeed, Draper

had begun work on a third volume covering the same period of time, but abandoned the

project after several years. Utilizing Drapers accumulated notes and research materials for his

own study, Klehrs resulting work was far removed from the social history which had dominated

scholarly discourse on American Communism since the late 1970s. However, by ignoring the

social historical contributions of scholars in the 1970s, Klehr imposed Drapers model, which

perhaps was better suited to an understanding of the small and marginal American Communist

movement of the 1920s, onto the 1930s Party, which was a major and influential political

movement. Klehr and Haynes subsequent work The American Communist Movement: Storming

Heaven Itself (1992) covered the entirety of American Communist Party history from its birth

9
Harvey Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism: The Depression Decade (New York: Basic Books, 1984), pg.
11.

13
through the 1950s. The authors reached the conclusion that the Party was inextricably linked

with the Soviet government and should be examined through the lens of Soviet foreign policy

needs.

New material became accessible to historians of American Communism for the first time

after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the opening of the Soviet archives in the 1990s.

The new wealth of evidence resulted in several more works from the traditionalist historians

Klehr and Haynes. In The Secret World of American Communism (1995) and The Soviet World of

American Communism (1998), the authors utilized the files of the Communist Party of the

United States in the Comintern archives, available in the Soviet Archives in Moscow and

containing both English and Russian language documents, to illuminate the clandestine and

espionage activities of the CPUSA (The Secret World) and to support the argument established

in preceding works that the Party was never an independent actor in American politics (The

Soviet World). More recently, the two authors collaborated on In Denial: Historians,

Communism, & Espionage (2005), a largely polemical work that argued that the revisionist

history of the Party popularized in the 1970s and 1980s, which they believe remains the

dominant paradigm of American Communist history, has largely failed to reassess Party history

in light of the new materials available after the opening of the Soviet archives.

Before his passing in 2006, Draper returned to the debate surrounding the history of the

American Communist Party. Draper championed the work of Klehr and Haynes and chastised

the revisionist historians, whom he erroneously identified as almost anyone who had criticized

Klehr and Haynes traditionalist history. In a series of essays for the New York Review of Books,

Draper attacked the left-wing intellectual yuppies who had established the revisionist history

14
of the Party, arguing that the historians who emerged from the New Left undertook (and

subsequently politicized) the study of American Communism to find what he called a usable

past.10 Draper asserted that the new historiography reflected a trend in historical research

that was hostile to political history and instead focused on mushy and sentimental social

history.11 However, revisionist historians such as Maurice Isserman and James Weinstein

acknowledged that the contributions of authors such as Draper, Howe, Coser, and even Klehr

and Haynes have indeed demonstrated the importance of the interconnectedness of the

American Communist Party and that of the Soviet Union. However, they have advanced beyond

the political or structural narrative and continue to study other facets of American Communism,

in an effort to understand how and why many Americans decided to join the Party, and their

contributions to the movement in the United States.

The history of American Communism, as we have seen, remains a contentious topic.

Although the field has been tilled many times, there is still much to be said about the history of

the American Communist Party. Historians of the old persuasion addressed subgroups within

the Party at times, however they largely focused on the more influential members and the

relationship of the Party to the Soviet Union. The revisionist historians such as Paul Buhle, Mark

Naison, Robert Schaffer, and Bruce Nelson that emerged from the New Left of the 1960s have

done much to contribute to the understanding of how American Communism reflected

uniquely American conditions, and the work done within the Party to appeal to various

marginalized groups in American society, particularly in the 1930s and the decade following the

Second World War.

10
Theodore Draper, American Communism Revisited. New York Review of Books, May 9, 1985, 32-37.
11
Isserman, Three Generations, 543.

15
 In spite of all this work, there has been relatively little research in regards to the

American Communist Party during its first decade of existence. The present work is situated

within the traditionalist historiographical approach described above. This work examines the

role of influential individuals within the Language Federations affiliated with the Socialist Party

of America and the Communist Party of America, and their contributions to the shaping of the

American Communist movement. As has been documented above, traditionalist works detailing

the political and personal lives of influential figures within the American Communist Party are

many. However, to date no historian has properly addressed the contributions of the lesser

known but highly influential figures who led the non-English speaking Socialist immigrants

within the Foreign Language Federations of the American Socialist movement.

The total membership of the Socialist Party of America was 80,379 members at the time

of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917. Dramatic increases in the enrollment of foreign-

born Socialists in the Foreign Language Federations after the Bolshevik Revolution grew the

total Party membership to 108,504 in 1919.12 Foreign-born immigrant Socialists residing in

major urban centers in the north east and Midwest, many of whom had relatively recently

relocated to the United States from the lands of the former Russian Empire made up the

majority of the new members. The organized Left Wing of the Party emerged largely from these

Language Federations, and shortly thereafter split from the SPA to found the first American

Communist parties. They would remain dominant within the new parties for several years and

do much to shape the early American Communist movement, for better or worse.

12
Klehr, The American Communist Movement, 18.

16
 Although the history books are full of references to influential native-born Communists

like Charles Ruthenberg, Benjamin Gitlow, John Reed, Jay Lovestone, William Foster, James

Cannon, and Earl Browder, the contributions of Russian-American and Eastern European

immigrants to the development of American Communism remains to be examined. Names like

Nicholas Hourwich, Alexander Stoklitsky, Oscar Tyverovsky, and George Ashkenuzi appear less

often than their influence merits; the contributions of prominent Russian political exiles on the

American Socialist scene are also largely ignored. What few references are made to Russian

Americans in the histories of the Left Wing of the American Socialist movement and the

American Communist movement are typically negative. These figures are remembered as the

wreckers of the early movement responsible for the split in the Left Wing which resulted in two

Communist parties, and their role in the inability of these two Communist entities to unite and

remain cohesive. In this thesis, it will be demonstrated that Russian Americans were

instrumental in the splits of the Communist movement. Although Russian-born Socialists

greatly contributed to the divisive character of the Communist Party of America, owing to their

understanding of Bolshevism that they retained through a period of International Communist

reform and restructuring, without their presence in the American Socialist movement and

contributions to that movements understanding of Bolshevism, there would have been no

coherent, organized Left Wing in the United States such as developed and from which was born

the American Communist movement.

Through an analysis of the intersection of Russian-born leadership and foreign-born

rank-and-file membership situated within the Foreign Language Federations of the Socialist and

Communist parties, this thesis will contribute to a greater understanding of American

17
Communist history often neglected in the historiography detailed above. Little is known about

the contributions of influential Russians, both infamous and largely forgotten, such as

Alexandra Kollontai, Nikolai Bukharin, Leon Trotsky, Nicholas Hourwich, Alexander Stoklitsky,

Oscar Tyverovsky, and George Ashkenuzi, to the development of American Communism. Their

respective roles in the dissemination of Bolshevik theory and ideology in the American Socialist

movement and the applications of these ideas to the American Socialist and Communist

political scene, and the challenges posed by native-born Americans who sought to build an

American Communist organization led by native-born American Socialists will be assessed here.

In doing so, it is the authors hope that this largely unexplored area of early American

Communist history will be properly understood and integrated into the larger historical

narrative of the Communist Party of America.

18
 II. FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEDERATIONS AND THE SOCIALIST PARTY

Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, the Socialist Party of America was

composed primarily of native-born Americans. Founded in 1900, the SPA reflected American

working class attitudes. Although tied to the great Socialist parties of Europe through its

membership in the Second International, the SPA differed in many respects from European

social-democracy. The SPA, like the German or Russian Social Democrats, encompassed both

reformist social democrats and revolutionary Marxist Socialists. Unlike the European parties,

however, the SPA also included a variety of elements more uniquely American. The members of

the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the Agrarian Utopianists, the DeLeonites of the

Socialist Labor Party, and the Syndicalists represented by the Industrial Workers of the World

were all under the umbrella of or otherwise affiliated with the SPA. From its founding until the

First World War, the SPA was a reflection of the multitude of American Leftist currents, foreign-

born and native-born, and what one author referred to as a surprising native interlude of

American Leftism between the foreign-born led parties that preceded and succeeded it.13

This is not to say there was no recent immigrant presence in the pre-war SPA. However,

the leadership of the Party, from its founding until the eve of the U.S. entrance into the war,

was overwhelmingly composed of native-born Americans. Outside of the leadership, within the

general membership and particularly within the working class segment of the Party

13
Nathan Glazer, The Social Basis of American Communism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1961), 14.
Glazer here is referring to the Socialist Labor Party and the American Communist Party. The Socialist Labor Party
was established in 1876 as the Workingmens Party. It was largely composed of German immigrants in the United
States, and conducted work almost entirely in the German language. Daniel DeLeon joined the organization in
1890. Multilingual and fluent in English, as well as a devout Marxist, DeLeon was instrumental in incorporating
more native-born American workers into the Party. A following-out between DeLeon and the German-born
leadership led to a split of the Party in 1899. The dissenting German group merged with Victor Berger and Eugene
Debs Social Democratic Party to form the Socialist Party of America in 1901.

19
membership, foreign-born and recent immigrants made up a large part of the Party by 1914

and definitely were in the majority by wars end.14 However, their integration into the SPA was

not easy. A census by the U.S. Immigration Commission in 1909 found that 60 percent of men

and 47 percent of women in the nations mining and manufacturing industries were immigrants

from throughout Europe.15 In this same year, SPA membership numbered approximately

40,000, of whom 71 percent were native-born Americans and an additional 17 percent were

old (and thus relatively acculturated) immigrants from Northern and Western Europe.16 At a

time when the majority of the industrial proletariat of the United States was composed of

recent immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, the SPA represented relatively few.

The absence of Southern and Eastern European immigrants in the pre-war SPA can be

attributed to several factors. One such factor was increasing nativism within American politics

at the turn of the century. The American Federation of Labor favored restrictions on

immigration from Eastern and Southern European states, arguing that immigrants from these

regions were willing to work for less pay than native-born American workers, were accustomed

to a lower standard of living, were resistant to unionization and more likely to scab for capital

during strikes, and thus driving native-born Americans out of jobs and undercutting the labor

movement.17 AFL leaders also objected to increasing immigration for racist reasons. Samuel

Gompers argued that the maintenance of the nation depended upon the maintenance of

racial purity and viewed the new immigrants as stereotypically anarchists prone to militancy

14
Glazer, The Social Basis, 14.
15
William M. Leiserson, Adjusting Immigrant and Industry (New York, 1924), 12-13, as cited in Charles
Leinenweber, The American Socialist Party and New Immigrants, Science & Society 32, no. 1 (Winter, 1968): 1.
16
Leinenweber, The American Socialist Party, 1.
17
Ibid., 3.

20
and radicalism.18 The SPA, although not fearing the radicalism of newly arrived immigrants, was

less than accepting none the less. Elements within the SPA echoed the AFL objections to

Southern and Eastern European immigration along nativist and racist lines. These were

countered by others within the Party who argued for international working class solidarity.

Barney Berlyn, an internationalist, took the position that to append disclaimers upon the slogan

Workingmen of all countries, unite would necessitate appending a similar disclaimer to the

end of the Party name- Socialist Party of America, A Damn Lie.19 Ernest Untermann, a nativist

and racist, responded I believe in the international solidarity of the working classbut I do not

believe in international solidarity to the point of cutting my own throat, an expression of his

concern that an influx of immigrant workers would undermine the labor movement in the

United States.20

At a 1910 meeting of the SPAs Committee on Immigration, Morris Hillquit, founding

member, International Delegate and leader of the SPA, submitted a resolution stating the SPA

would support all legislation preventing the importation of large numbers of immigrants by

capital for the purposes of weakening organized labor in the United States, but that the Party

was also opposed to exclusion of immigrants based on race or nationality, and that the United

States should be at all times maintained as a free asylum for all persecutedfor their politics,

religion, or race.21 This resolution confused the committee members, but drew support from

18
Samuel Gompers, as quoted in Marc Karson, American Labor Unions and Politics 1900-1918 (Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1958), 136, cited in Leinenweber, The American Socialist Party, 3.
19
Barney Berlyn, Proceedings of the National Congress of the Socialist Party 1908 (Chicago: Socialist Party, 1908),
114, as quoted in Leinenweber, The American Socialist Party, 7.
20
Ernest Untermann, Proceedings of the National Congress of the Socialist Party 1908 (Chicago: Socialist Party,
1908), 110, as quoted in Leinenweber, The American Socialist Party, 7.
21
Morris Hillquit, as quoted in David A. Shannon, The Socialist Party of America: A History (Chicago: Quadrangle
Books, 1955), 50.

21
the nativists and racists in regards to the first portion as well as support from the

internationalists for the second. However, the Party was no closer to resolving the debate. For

the leaders of the AFL, almost all immigration was fostered for the purposes of weakening

organized labor. Hillquits resolution, when seen through the lens of the AFL, was thus in favor

of supporting legislation aimed at restricting immigration. Eugene V. Debs was outraged with

the results, labeling the resolution and its acceptance reactionary and not at all in line with

orthodox Marxism. The Party thus faced a divisive issue: adhere to the orthodox Marxist tenet

that held class lines were stronger than national lines, or protect the organized and established

American proletariat from the troubles that new sources of cheap labor would provide.

Ultimately, neither side triumphed, and the Party adopted Hillquits compromising resolution.

Although contradictory and pleasing no one fully, the resolution remained the official position

of the Party on immigration for decades to come.22

Historian Charles Leinenweber argues the divide between nativist and racist Party

members and internationalist Party members was a reflection of the growing split between the

Left, or revolutionary Marxist, wing of the SPA and the Right, reformist social democratic wing

of the SPA. The reformist element, allied with the craft union AFL and municipal in scope, was

interested in limiting immigration and retaining the support of the skilled workers of the

American labor aristocracy. The Left, international in scope, and more sympathetic to the

Industrial Workers of the World, which itself was more accepting of new immigrants and having

greater success organizing them, sought to break down barriers and unite the whole of the

22
Shannon, The Socialist Party of America, 50.

22
American working class.23 This championing of the disorganized new immigrant masses, as we

shall see, greatly increased the strength of the Left Wing of the SPA in the years to come.

The systemic objection to Eastern and Southern European immigrants within the SPA

was but one obstacle to their integration into the Party. The language barrier was a more

tangible impediment to immigrant integration. Many immigrants arrived on American shores

with little to no knowledge of the English language. Residing within ethnic enclaves in major

urban centers, immigrants could continue to live by speaking their mother tongues. What

English was learned was often insufficient to participate in SPA meetings or comprehend Party

sponsored lectures and speeches. The Party leadership, too, was hindered by the language

barrier in its inability to reach out to and make contact with the large numbers of sympathetic

progressive immigrants that arrived daily in the United States due to the language barrier.

Moreover, many immigrants arrived in the United States with little or no understanding

of Marxist theory. This was particularly true of the immigrants, mostly from Western or

Northern Europe, who arrived in the mid-nineteenth century, and who were more typically

from agrarian and rural backgrounds and largely influenced by tradition and religion. However,

as European states became increasingly industrialized in the latter part of the nineteenth

century, larger numbers of immigrants from European urban centers came to the United States.

These people were more likely to have come from industrial backgrounds and came seeking

work in U.S. industry, and were also more likely to have been knowledgeable of, or members

of, radical working-class movements in Europe.24 Unable to engage fully in American Socialist

politics, non-English speaking immigrants often turned their attention to Socialist activities in

23
Leinenweber, The American Socialist Party, 13-14.
24
Glazer, The Social Basis, 20-21.

23
the countries of their origin. The result was the creation of unaffiliated Socialist language

groups, often accompanied by corresponding foreign language Socialist newspapers, in many

major cities throughout the Midwest and Northeast.

Newly arrived immigrants found an outlet for political expression in their own language,

encouraging Socialist meetings where debates and lectures were held, and Marxist theory

could be studied within these Socialist language groups. The newspapers published by such

groups kept immigrant communities abreast of political and social developments in their

homelands, as well as in the United States as it pertained to them. They also served a more

basic social function, where immigrants with a shared history and culture could congregate for

recreation. Some federations established club rooms and community social centers, accepting

of Socialists and non-Socialists, which generated revenue for the federation and served as a

fertile ground for federation recruitment. In the first decade of the 1900s, the language groups

scattered throughout the industrial centers of the Northeast and Midwest grew and came to

affiliate with one another into national Language Federations. However, they remained outside

the SPA, and so largely outside of American politics.

One of the largest Language Federations in the pre-war United States was the

Organization of Finnish Socialists. The federation of previously independent Finnish language

groups, which represented Finnish immigrants largely concentrated in Boston and the upper

Midwest, was established at an organizational convention in August, 1906. The delegates at the

convention agreed that the Organization of Finnish Socialists would affiliate with the SPA. The

National Executive Committee of the SPA accepted the organization into the ranks of the Party

under conditions that the federation would collect membership dues owed to the SPA, a

24
portion of which was sent to the SPA central offices, and would in turn receive no voting rights

at Party affairs. The Finnish Federation shrewdly instructed the leadership of the locals to

affiliate with their respective state Socialist parties to gain the voting rights indirectly, a plan

which would be emulated by affiliating language groups in the years to follow.25

The Lettish Federation affiliated with the SPA in 1910. The next year, the South Slavic,

Scandinavian, and Italian Federations followed the path to affiliation established by the Finns.

The Hungarian and Bohemian Federations affiliated in 1912, the German, Polish, Jewish, and

Slovak in 1913, and finally the Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Russian Federations affiliated in

1915.26 The process was not painless, however. Immigrant members of the SPA, who had joined

the Party independently of their Language Federation, found it difficult to integrate into the

Party. Many immigrants were unable to participate in local Party votes, due to the issuing of

referenda ballots being printed exclusively in English. Some, such as a Polish immigrant and

Party member at the 1910 SPA convention, argued that the only means of integrating Socialist

immigrants into the SPA was to encourage the affiliation of language groups and federations:

*the federations+ dont want to be separatethey want to join the Party. When you go to one

of the Italians or Poles and talk to him in English about the Party, he does not understand. The

privilege we ask is to conduct our work in our own tongue.27 To this the Party leadership

responded that the immigrants were in America now, and should join the American movement,

presumably becoming fluent in English as a prerequisite to participation. There are foreigners

who come to this country and are here thirty to fifty years and never learn to speak the English

25
Leinenweber, The American Socialist Party, 17.
26
Glazer, The Social Basis, 24-25. The Jewish Federation conducted work in Yiddish but was referred to as the
Jewish Federation within Party records and literature.
27
Unidentified Polish representative, as quoted in Leinenweber, The American Socialist Party, 18.

25
language, countered delegate Novak, a Bohemian immigrant. That man will never be a

member of an English speaking branchthe only thing to do is to organize *the immigrants+ in

affiliation with the Socialist Party in their own language, he concluded.28

The Language Federations represented large numbers of working class immigrants, and

were recognized by the National Executive Committee of the SPA as a potential source of

growth for the Party as a whole. The foreign-speaking Socialists want to see the Socialist Party

of America grow and get into powerwe ought to reach these foreigners as soon as they come

to this country and keep them in our organizations, argued delegate Skala. 29 Another delegate

argued that something must be done to support the Language Federations, in order to aid the

Socialist movement in the United States: if you want to reach the foreign-speaking

workingmen of this country, to reach the eleven million workers toiling in industry, you must

give them some official standinga right to organize on National lines.30 As a result of the

debate at the 1910 SPA convention, the Party resolved that all state organizations of the SPA

grant charters to all locals and branches of foreign speaking organizations that wished to

affiliate, under several conditions. In order to affiliate, a language group had to possess at least

500 members, all accepting of the SPA Party platform and constitution; collect dues from the

membership and send five cents per capita to the National Office (equal to those paid by the

English speaking branches); and have all political activity subject to the supervision and

approval of the state SPA organization. Finally, no federation would receive a vote in Party

28
Delegate Novak, Proceedings of the National Congress of the Socialist Party, May 15 to May 21, 1910 (Chicago:
Socialist Party, 1910), 262. Available online at
http://www.archive.org/stream/NationalCongressOfTheSocialistPartyHeldInMasonicTempleChicagoIll._777/1910s
ocialist2a#page/n45/mode/2up/search/language (accessed February 23, 2012).
29
Delegate Skala, Proceedings 1910, 265.
30
Delegate Valimakli, Proceedings 1910, 261.

26
national referendums or in the elections of national officers. They would be allowed to send

one fraternal delegate to national conventions or congresses of the Party, who would have a

voice but no vote, and would be permitted to vote in local and state organization affairs. 31

In order to overcome the language barrier, a Translator-Secretary was to be elected by

the federation and based at the national office of the SPA, whose duty it was to translate Party

documents, acts, minutes of meetings, memos, and literature for the non-English speaking

membership, and to serve as a medium between the federation and the national organization.

However, this attempt to counteract the language barrier had unforeseen consequences.

Although the national office was able to utilize the federation secretaries to reach non-English

speaking immigrant populations, they were often left in the dark as to the activities of these

federations. As a result, the affiliated Language Federations, granted charters to bring

immigrant communities closer to the Party as a whole, were effectively as independent from

the national organization as federation leadership, or individual Translator-Secretaries, wished

them to be. As the only intermediary between federation and Party, the Translator-Secretaries

wielded considerably more power than was anticipated. Indeed, they often took on roles in

addition to translation of Party documents, becoming responsible for issuing dues stamps to

federation locals, going on organizing tours, and handling federation correspondence and

postage.32

The Foreign Language Federations rapidly grew in membership following the decision to

allow affiliation to the SPA. Two new foreign-language daily newspapers and 16 new foreign-

language weeklies were established between the 1910 Party congress and the 1912 Party

31
Proceedings 1910, 259-260.
32
Shannon, The Socialist Party of America, 45.

27
convention.33 In that same period, the Finnish Federation grew from 7,767 dues paying

members to 11,483; the Italian Federation nearly doubled from 660 to 1,200. The Polish

Federation grew from 1,450 to 2,130 during 1911 alone; the Scandinavian Federation grew

from 216 to over 1,000 between the beginning of 1911 and May, 1912; and the South Slavic

Federation grew from 1,320 to 1,800, an addition of nearly 500 members, from January 1, 1912

to December 31 of the same year.34 By the end of 1912, the Foreign Language Federations

collectively accounted for 16,000 of the approximately 118,000 total members of the SPA, or

about fourteen percent.

The 1912 Party convention report noted the substantial progress in carrying on

Socialist propaganda among immigrant communities done by the seven Foreign Language

Federations affiliated with the Party.35 The 16,000 new Socialist Party members, largely

concentrated in bigger cities, were nothing to scoff at, and the increase in membership was

surely welcomed by the SPA leadership. However, there were signs that members of the native-

born majority of the Party were unenthusiastic about the progress of the federations, arguing

that although the ranks of the federations were swelling, there was little indication that the

immigrants now being organized were integrating into the Party. Rather, the federations overly

33
Leinenweber, The American Socialist Party, 19.
34
Figures can be found in John Spargo, ed., Proceedings of the National Convention of the Socialist Party, 1912
(Chicago: The Socialist Party, 1912), Appendix O, 237-245. Available online at:
http://www.archive.org/stream/ProceedingsOfTheNationalConventionOfTheSocialistPartyPart3/1912SPcon3#pag
e/n5/mode/2up (accessed February 24, 2012).
35
Spargo, Proceedings 1912, 221.
http://www.archive.org/stream/ProceedingsOfTheNationalConventionOfTheSocialistLaborParty/1912conv2a#pag
e/n53/mode/1up/search/foreign (accessed February 24, 2012).

28
focused attention on events in their respective homelands, to the detriment of American

movement.36

Several Language Federations demonstrated this preoccupation with events in the old

country in their reports to the 1912 Party convention. The Bohemian Federation voted to

establish closer ties with the Social Democratic Party in Bohemia. The Federation further

appropriated funds for the establishment of an information bureau in Prague, whose purpose

was to dissuade potential Czech immigrants from coming to the United States by American

steamship companies, which, it was alleged, lied about the conditions and quality of life in the

United States to increase their own profits.37 The Lettish Federation collected $1,093 from its

membership in subscriptions to a publication entitled Lettish Social Democracy in Russia, held

large annual meetings in memoriam of the 1905 Revolution in Russia, and sponsored lecture

tours that specifically addressed Russian politics in addition to American political

developments.38 The South Slavic Federation report was largely concerned with the effects of

the First Balkan War, which was expected to disrupt the Federation, composed of Serbs, Croats,

Slovenes, and Bulgarians. It is understandable that much of the attention of the Federation

membership would be focused on their homelands; the First Balkan War was being fought to

abolish the rotten rule of feudalism and open the road for capitalism, necessary steps in the

transition to Socialism for orthodox Marxists.39 Finally, the Finnish Federation addressed the

36
Leinenweber, The American Socialist Party, 20.
37
Joseph Novak, Report of the Bohemian Section to the Socialist Party National Convention, published in Spargo,
Proceedings 1912, 242.
38
C. Karklin, Report by the Executive Committee, National Lettish Organization, S.P. to the Socialist Party
National Convention, published in Spargo, Proceedings 1912, 244-246.
39
Alex Susnar, Report of South Slavic Socialist Federation to the National Committee of the Socialist Party of
America, in Tim Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism: A Repository of Source Material, 1864-1946,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/lfed/southslavic/1913/0500-susnar-reporttonc.pdf (accessed

29
issue head on. Tactfully articulating its defense of energy directed toward Finnish politics, the

Federation representative stated that the emphasis on events in Finland had nothing to do

with love of the fatherland or for otherwise nationalistic reasons, but because so many

Finnish-American Socialists retained an intense interest in Social-Democratic developments in

their homeland, and further aimed to help Socialists in an area under one of the most

autocratic governments in the world: only in the victory of the Socialists of Russia lies the

victory of the Socialists in Finland. 40 The interests of internationalism, it argued, trumped any

sense of nationalism within the membership.

It is apparent, then, that the Language Federations directed at least some energy away

from domestic American political activity and toward Socialist activity in European states. This

situation suggests that the federations acted rather autonomously within the larger Party, and

often undertook initiatives completely unknown to the National Office of the SPA. Although the

1910 Party congress established that Language Federations were to act in concert with state

SPA branches, the language barrier and role of Translator-Secretaries prevented this close

cooperation. Furthermore, the establishment of Language Federations drew some foreign-

speaking members out of integrated English-speaking branches and into the federations,

furthering the gulf between immigrant Socialists and native-born Socialists. Although the

federations contributed to the growth of total Party membership prior to the war, the newly

acquired members stood largely outside of mainstream SPA activity.

February 24, 2012). First published as a typeset leaflet by the Socialist Party, undated. Specimen in Tim Davenport
collection.
40
J.W. Sarlund, Report of the Finnish Translator-Secretary to the Socialist Party National Convention, 1912,
published in Spargo, Proceedings 1912, 238-239.

30
 Another factor contributing to this isolation was the rights granted to the federation

membership at the 1910 Party congress. Allowed to vote in local and state Party affairs, but

barred from voting in national referenda as members of federations, it is little wonder that

federation members were less concerned with American Socialist Party politics. This suited the

largely Right Wing, reformist leadership of the Party. The Language Federations membership,

many of whom arrived with experience in European Socialist movements, stood to the left of

the Party leadership. The Right, which had argued for restrictions on immigration and found its

base of support among native-born workingmen and the aristocracy of labor, were weary of

the rapidly growing numbers of immigrants in the Language Federations, which Morris Hillquit,

writing years later, would remember as Bolshevik to the core.41 The influence of the Left

Wing of the Party was held in check, for a time, through restricting the rights of federations.

Several more federations applied for affiliation following the 1912 Party convention. By

1915 the Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Russian, Slovak, German, and Hungarian Federations joined the

Finnish, Lettish, Italian, Scandinavian, South Slavic, Jewish, and Polish Federations represented

at the 1912 convention. Meanwhile, total Party membership had dropped from 118,045 at the

time of the 1912 Party convention to approximately 80,000 total in 1915, perhaps due to the

exodus of IWW members following Bill Haywoods removal from the National Executive

Committee (NEC) of the SPA in February, 1913, as well as Eugene Debs decision not to run for

the presidency in 1916. Of these, between 25,000 and 30,000 were members of Foreign

Language Federations, up from a mere 16,000 in 1912. The SPA thus lost nearly 40,000

members, almost entirely from the native-born, English-speaking membership. The Foreign

41
Morris Hillquit, quoted in Leinenweber, The American Socialist Party, 22.

31
Language Federations, in contrast, were increasing in size, although still constitutionally

prevented from wielding the power their numbers would suggest.

The Language Federations within the SPA were both a blessing and a problem for the

Party. The federations were supposed to act as organizing bodies for the recruitment of

foreign-born immigrants in the U.S. to the SPA. Their task was to organize and propagandize

among immigrant communities to this end. In that regard, they were quite successful, bringing

in almost 30,000 sympathetic non-English speaking Socialists into the Party by 1916, at a time

when English-speaking membership rates were dropping. Although they faced hostility from

some nativists within the SPA, the federations were able to join the larger Party and commence

Party work among foreign-born workers in the U.S. However, their organizational structure and

the language barrier that separated the membership from the English-speaking portion of the

Party meant that the federations became autonomous units within the Party. This autonomy

and separation allowed the federations to focus their energies and attention to Socialist

movements in their respective homelands, to the detriment of work in the U.S. For these

reasons, it is difficult to say categorically whether the development of the Foreign Language

Federations was a positive or a negative for the American Socialist movement. Their existence

was a positive in that they brought many immigrants into the Party who otherwise would not

have joined due to the language barrier. However, although ostensibly advocates of the SPA

and for Socialism in the United States, the federation members remained largely outside of the

larger Party, isolated and independent from the English-speaking contingent of the SPA.

Although a large number of immigrants now identified with the SPA through the federation

32
system, their inability to directly contribute to the mainstream discourse of the Party resulted

in a weaker, more fractured organization.

33
 III. INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM, THE ZIMMERWALD LEFT, AND THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF

AMERICA

The United States policy of neutrality during the first years of the war, and the

geographic distance of the nation from the belligerent nations of Europe, provided American

Socialists with the luxury of time, a luxury the European Social Democratic parties lacked. As

European states mobilized for war in the last days of summer, 1914, European Social Democrats

were all faced with a question that precipitated splits within their parties: to support the war

effort or to oppose it in total. The Second Internationals 1912 conference in Basel concluded

that in the event of war among the European nations it was the duty of the European working

class, and its representatives in the various Socialist parties, to mobilize economically and

politically, to prevent the war by general strike or any other means necessary.42 Instead, in the

Western nations where Socialists had achieved some margin of power within representational

governments, Socialists abandoned the doctrine of the Second International. The French

Socialists backed the war effort after conceiving of it as a struggle against imperialism, making

distinction between the imperialism of the Central Powers and that of the French Republic.43

The Socialists of Britain split on the issue like all others, however ultimately rallying behind

Henry Hyndman and the defencists, who believed it was necessary for British workers to

support the war effort in defense of the nation. The Social Democratic Party of Germany, by far

the most influential of European Socialist parties, fearing repression by the German state and

the destruction of the Socialist movement, resolved not to leave the Fatherland in the lurch in
42
Manifesto of the Second International Socialist Congress at Basel, in Marxists Internet Archive,
http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1912/basel-manifesto.htm (accessed February
27, 2012). Originally published in Extraordinary International Socialist Congress at Basel, November 24-25, 1912.
(Berlin: Vorwrts Publishers), 23-27.
43
Robert Wohl, French Communism in the Making, 1914-1924 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966), 54.

34
the moment of crisis.44 When the moment finally came in the weeks following the Austrian

ultimatum to Serbia, the Social Democratic representatives in the parliaments of Europe voted

for war credits to the states, allowing for funding of the war effort and tacitly choosing

nationalism over internationalism as the policy of the Social Democratic Party.

The SPA published a proclamation following the outbreak of hostilities in Europe,

reiterating its opposition to all war in accordance with the declarations of international

Socialism, and reminding their working class brethren in Europe that they have no quarrel with

each other, since their suffering is not the cause of workers of other nationalities but of their

own ruling classes. The SPA encouraged foreign-born workers in the United States to rally for

peace and hold mass meetings for the purpose of emphasizing the fraternity and solidarity of

all working people. Finally, the SPA pledged support to the European Socialist parties in any

measures necessary to maintain peace among nations and advance goodwill among men.45

Workingmen of the world, the land of your birth has done nothing for youyou have no

country! There is only one flag worth fighting forthe red flag proclaimed American Socialist

Mary Marcy. The war was brought about for the profit of the ruling classes of Europe; American

Socialists had faith that the internationalism of the proletariat would bring it to a swift end.

The SPA was officially against the war in Europe, issuing statements that denounced the

European governments and blaming capitalism and imperialism for its outbreak. However,

some American Socialists took sides in the European conflict. Alan Benson, 1916 SPA

44
Carl Schorske, German Social Democracy, 1905-1917: The Development of the Great Schism (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1955), 285.
45
Walter Lanferseik, Proclamation of the Socialist Party of America on the Outbreak of War in Europe, August 8,
1914, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1914/0808-spa-proclamation.pdf (accessed February 28,
2012). Published in The American Socialist [Chicago], v. 1, no. 4, whole no. 92 (Aug. 8, 1914), 1.

35
presidential candidate was publicly anti-German, and wished for a German defeat to give the

German people an opportunity to throw off the medieval institutions under which they live. 46

John Spargo hoped for a Russian victory, as did George Herron. Max Eastman supported the

French against German occupation. Jack London, William English Walling, and Edward Russell

all expressed pro-Allied sentiments. Charles Steinmetz, Robert Loqie, Victor Berger, and at

times Hillquit all sympathized with Germany and the Central Powers.47 Support for belligerents

does not appear to be linked to Left-Right political alignment; Eastman, London, and Walling

were, at the time, all members of the pre-war American Left Wing of the SPA, while the others

cited above represented the reformist or Right Wing SPA lines. What is interesting to note,

however, is the nation of origin of these Socialists sampled and where their sympathies lay.

Benson, Eastman, Herron, London, Walling, and Russell all were native-born and backed the

Allied nations of Britain, France, and Russia. Spargo, born in Britain, also was sympathetic to the

Allied cause. Steinmetz, Lowie, and Berger, all of whom demonstrated at least some measure of

support for the Central Powers, were all foreign-born immigrants to the United States.48

Despite the faith placed in internationalism by the SPA, it is clear that some of the leading

membership were unable or unwilling to suppress sympathies to certain belligerent states

along nationalistic or ethnic lines.

Regardless of the personal opinions of these few prominent American Socialists, the

vast majority of the membership and top echelon of Party leaders remained staunchly anti-war.

Eugene V. Debs exhorted American Socialists to let us show the people the true cause of war.
46
Allen L. Benson, as quoted in Nathan Fine, Labor and Farmer Parties in the United States, 1828-1928 (New York:
Russell & Russell, 1961), 303.
47
Draper, The Roots, 56.
48
Charles Steinmetz was born and raised in Germany, Robert Lowie in Austria, Victor Berger to German-Jewish
parentage in the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, and Morris Hillquit to German-Jewish parentage in Latvia.

36
Let us arouse a sentiment against war. Let us teach the children to abhor war.49 Hillquit,

responded to Allied sympathizers within the Party: The ghastly carnage in Europe has no

redeeming features. It is not a war for democracy, culture, or progressit is cold-blooded

butchery for advantages and power for the ruling classes of the warring nations.50 In an article

published in The American Socialist, Hillquit articulated his rationale for Socialist neutrality. The

Allied nations, he maintained, were not fighting to free the German people from Prussian

militarism; such a development could only come from the German people themselves. Likewise,

support for the Western democracies against reactionary Germany would lend tacit support to

the most reactionary and oppressive government in Europe, the autocratic Russian Empire.

Support for the German war effort was equally improper, as any notion that Germany fought to

protect and spread her culture to the nations of Europe was, to him, but more hollow

patriotic German pretenses. No, argued Hillquit, the correct stance of the American Socialists

was absolute and complete neutrality, in the hopes that the war would end in a draw due to

the exhaustion of the warring states. Only then, he concluded, will this war remain forever

accursed in the memory of men, only then will it lead the people of all nationsto revolt

against the capitalist system which leads to such paroxysms of human madness. 51

But what could American Socialists actually do to contribute to a cessation of hostilities

in Europe? Walter Lanferseik, national executive secretary of the SPA, went over the head of

SPA leader Morris Hillquit in September, 1914 and cabled the leaders of ten Socialist parties in

49
Eugene V. Debs, Peace on Earth, in Marxists Internet Archive,
http://marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1915/0109-debs-peaceonearth.pdf (accessed February 29, 2012).
Published in The American Socialist [Chicago], v. 1, no. 26, whole no. 114 (Jan. 9, 1915), 1.
50
Morris Hillquit, as quoted in Shannon, The Socialist Party of America, 85.
51
Morris Hillquit, Socialist Neutrality, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1915/0109-hillquit-socneutrality.pdf (accessed February 29,
2012). Published in The American Socialist [Chicago], v. 1, no. 26, whole no. 114 (Jan. 9, 1915),. 1.

37
Europe to encourage their support for a proposed mediation by the United States. Although

Hillquit and Victor Berger were dismayed by Lanferseiks unilateral action, they joined the

National Executive Committee of the SPA in drafting an official proposal to the Socialists of

Europe for an international conference held in the U.S., the purpose of which was the discuss

possibilities for ending the war. Alexander Trachtenberg and the N.E.C of the SPA drafted a

program for consideration by the International Bureau which proposed lofty measures to end

the conflict and prevent future wars. Cessation of hostilities was to be predicated upon a peace

plan without indemnities or annexations of territory. The program also proposed a post-war

restructuring of governance: an international congress, an international court of mediation, and

an international police force. Peace would be maintained through mass disarmament of states,

the internationalization of strategic waterways such as the Dardanelles, the Suez and Panama

canals, and the Straight of Gibraltar, and the neutralization of the seas.52 Finally, the program

encouraged an extension of democracy, political and economic, towards the dismantling of

the Capitalist state. The authors encouraged Socialists around the world to make efforts to

secure the official adoption the program by the governing bodies at the earliest date, an

unrealistic goal given the political circumstances in the warring states of the time.53 The

Socialist parties of the belligerent nations rejected the proposal for the international

conference, and so never seriously considered the peace program. The conference was well-

received by Socialists in neutral European states, however, under the condition that the

conference be held in Europe. Unfortunately American Socialists lost enthusiasm for the
52
Fine, Labor and Farmer Parties, 303-304.
53
NEC of the SPA, Disarmament and World Peace: Proposed Manifesto and Program of the Socialist Party of
America, December 26, 1914, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1914/1226-spa-draftmanifesto.pdf (accessed March 5, 2012).
Published in The American Socialist [Chicago], v. 1, no. 24, whole no. 112 (Dec. 26, 1914), 1.

38
proposed conference when it became clear that the Socialists of the warring states would not

participate. Irritated by the disinterest of SPA members, and the contention of International

Bureau secretary Camille Huysmans that mediation was a hopeless cause, Hillquit, the only

delegate from the SPA, did not depart for the January 15 th, 1915 conference in Copenhagen and

the Party abandoned the proposal altogether. 54

European Socialists were not unified in their support of their respective countries war

efforts. The differing opinions reflected the split between the Right and Left Wings in the

parties, with the Right or reformist Social Democrats favoring defense of the homeland and the

revolutionaries of the Left favoring international working class cooperation in opposition to the

war. Anti-war Center and Left Wing members of the European Social Democratic parties

continued to appeal to internationalism to bring the war to an end. These elements met from

September 5 through September 8, 1915, at the International Socialist Conference at

Zimmerwald, Switzerland. The conference majority condemned the Socialist representatives

who backed the War, who asked the proletariat to put aside the class struggle, voted for war

credits, and in some instances entered government ministerial positions. These men, argued

the Zimmerwald manifesto, were responsible for the War and the deaths of working people on

the battlefields of Europe. The Zimmerwaldians called for international solidarity of the working

class, which should rally behind the Left and Center Socialists to oppose the war by economic

54
Shannon, The Socialist Party of America, 85-86.

39
and political action, and support the Zimmerwald Manifestos call for a peace without

annexations.55

However, the more radical attendees of the conference, chiefly the Russian Bolsheviks

Vladimir Lenin and Grigorii Zinoviev, found the proposed manifesto to be unsatisfactory, due to

the lack of any real program to oppose the war and any mention of the opportunism of

reformist Social Democrats, which Lenin believed was the deciding factor in the collapse of the

Second International at the outbreak of war.56 The Left Wing delegates submitted a resolution,

heavily influenced by Lenin, that was voted down nineteen to twelve. Within it, the Left Wing

bloc at Zimmerwald offered a definite program of resistance: refusal of war credits, resignation

of appointments in government cabinets by Socialists, public denunciation of the war by

elected representatives, street demonstrations, propaganda of international working class

solidarity amongst soldiers in the trenches, and the use of economic weapons such as the

general strike. Civil war, not civil peace, was to be the aim of revolutionary Socialists. An end

to the war was not enough; rather, the war should be transformed into a civil war across

Europe between proletariat and bourgeoisie. The Left Wing resolution further indicted the

social patriots, or Right Wings of the European Social Democratic parties, as a greater threat

to the proletariat than the imperialist bourgeoisie, and stated that the fight against social-

patriotism was the first step in the revolutionary mobilization of the proletariat and the

55
International Socialist Conference at Zimmerwald: Manifesto, in Marxists Internet Archive,
http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/zimmerwald/manifesto-1915.htm (accessed
February 27, 2012).
56
International Socialist Conference at Zimmerwald: Two Declarations, in Marxists Internet Archive,
http://marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/zimmerwald/two-declarations.htm (accessed February
28, 2012).

40
reconstruction of the international.57 The Left claimed that to rouse the working class and

transform the world war into a Europe-wide revolution, the Socialist parties would have to split.

The Centrist majority argued this was unacceptable. The conference adopted the more Centrist

Manifesto instead. It called for international solidarity of Socialists to oppose the war and

support peace without annexations or indemnities, and the right to self-determination for all

states. Any mention of the parliamentary tactics such as refusing approval of war credits and

resigning governmental posts was excised from the final draft. Beaten, the Left bloc signed the

Manifesto, considering even a tempered call for struggle, and a proposal for peace without

annexations or reparations, preferable to isolation from the international Socialist movement.

The Zimmerwald Manifesto was published by the Socialist press in Italy, Britain, and the

neutral countries, and clandestinely distributed amongst Socialists in Germany, France and

Russia. The majorities of the Socialist parties and the Bureau of the International rejected the

manifesto. Party leaders across Europe regarded the conference as illegitimate, a gathering of

Party sharpshooters without troops, in the words of secretary of the Second International

Camille Huysmans.58 The Zimmerwald committee reconvened from April 24 to the 30, 1916, in

Kienthal, Switzerland. Again Lenin attempted to gain the support of the Left Wing delegates and

called for a program of revolutionary propaganda with the aim of transforming the War, and for

the Center and Left Socialists of Europe to break with the Second International and form the

nucleus of a Third. Again, his proposals were defeated. The Centrists again carried the day. The

new Manifesto again called for peace without annexations, and took one step further in calling
57
International Socialist Conference at Zimmerwald: Draft Resolution of the Leftwing Delegates, in Marxists
Internet Archive, http://marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/zimmerwald/draft-resolution.htm
(accessed February 28, 2012).
58
Camille Huysmans, as quoted by Julius Braunthal, History of the International Volume II: 1914-1943, trans. John
Clark (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1967), 49.

41
upon Socialists in the European parliaments to refuse support for war policies and war credits.

The new Manifesto further condemned the social-chauvinists whom Lenin and the

Zimmerwald Left had indicted at the 1915 conference.59 A shift to the left was evident, and

tensions between the Left and Center-Right Wings of the European Socialist parties were

growing over the Socialist response to the War, yet the Second International remained intact,

and inert. However, first at Zimmerwald, and then at Kienthal, Lenin had made public his visions

for a new International, a radical end to the war, and the ruptures of Socialist parties the world

over.

The Zimmerwald Manifesto, which articulated a position unmistakably to the Left of the

European Socialist and Social-Democratic parties, did not prove divisive to the American

Socialist movement. American Socialists had time to consider the SPA position in the context of

the larger world conflict. Not facing the threat of invasion by foreign armies, and thus not

pressed to decide for national interests over international solidarity, American Socialists were

able to remain antiwar without opposing the government, and to stand resolutely by the

decisions of the Second International laid out in the Basel manifesto. However, American

Socialists were dismayed by the actions of their comrades in Europe at the outbreak of war.

How could the resolutions of the Second International have been so quickly discarded by

Socialists in the belligerent countries? Why did European Socialists vote in large numbers for

war credits? U.S. Socialist Mary Marcy could see no justification: We do not imagine for a

moment that a single German Socialist wanted warany more than the English, French, and

Belgian comrades didin spite of the anti-military sentiment of the French Socialists, the anti-

59
Merle Fainsod, International Socialism and the World War (New York: Octagon Books, 1973), 95.

42
war propaganda of the English movementthe 4,500,000 voting Social Democrats in Germany,

we find the working classes of Europe flying at each others throats.60 Irrespective of Left-Right

orientation, some American Socialists did find means to justify supporting the war efforts of

belligerent nations, often justifying the war effort of their own nationalist or ethnic homeland;

even amongst outspoken internationalists, nationalist sympathies were difficult to renounce

completely. However, the vast majority of the membership and top echelon of Party leaders

remained staunchly anti-war. Eugene V. Debs exhorted American Socialists let us show the

people the true cause of war. Let us arouse a sentiment against war. Let us teach the children

to abhor war.61 Hillquit responded to Allied sympathizers within the Party: The ghastly

carnage in Europe has no redeeming features. It is not a war for democracy, culture, or

progressit is cold-blooded butchery for advantages and power for the ruling classes of the

warring nations.62 Only complete neutrality, he concluded, was the correct stance of American

Socialists.

In the first months of 1915, the Second International asked the SPA to pay its back dues

for 1914 and current dues for 1915. The NEC of the SPA, having witnessed the ineffectuality of

the International as a peacekeeping institution after the outbreak of war in Europe, was less

than enthusiastic about paying the money owed. The NEC voted unanimously to pay no dues to

the International Bureau for 1915, effectively severing ties with the Second International and

reneging on efforts to mediate peace between the warring states. American Socialists instead

60
Mary Marcy, as quoted by Shannon, The Socialist Party of America, 83.
61
Eugene V. Debs, Peace on Earth, in Marxist Internet Archive,
http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1915/0109-debs-peaceonearth.pdf (accessed May 23, 2012).
Published in The American Socialist [Chicago], v. 1, no. 26, whole no. 114 (January 9, 1915), 1.
62
Morris Hillquit, Socialist Neutrality, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://www.marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1915/0109-hillquit-socneutrality.pdf (accessed May 23,
2012). Published in The American Socialist [Chicago], v. 1, no. 26, whole no. 114 (January. 9, 1915), 1.

43
turned their attention towards ensuring the neutrality of the United States in the larger war. In

November, 1915, the NEC of the SPA endorsed the Manifesto of the Zimmerwald conference,

which one executive council member argued reasonably articulated a definite plan of action to

guide Socialists in the current crisis, and thus deserved the support of any who sincerely

ascribed to the theory of class struggle and international solidarity of labor.63 Clearly, then,

when the Party withdrew from the Second International internationalist sentiment did not

evaporate.

The moderate program of the Zimmerwald conference appealed to the moderate

leadership of the SPA. The more extreme position of the Zimmerwald Left was equally as

influential, but found proponents not in the top echelon of the Party leadership but among Left

Wing Socialists and the Party membership base, particularly within the Language Federations.

Lenin, himself, attempted to contact elements within the American Left Wing directly. In

November, 1915, he obtained a copy of the manifesto of the Boston-based Socialist

Propaganda League (SPL), home to several prominent Left Wingers within the Party and heavily

populated by Lettish migrs residing in New England.64 The SPL was comprised primarily of

Latvian-American immigrants residing in Massachusetts. According to Theodore Draper, many

were former members of the Lettish Social Democratic Labor Party, a national branch of the

Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. The SPL was founded in November, 1916 by C.W.

Fitzgerald, who was not of Latvian origin. The organization was composed of Left Wing SPA

63
Arthur LeSueur, The Zimmerwald Conference and its Endorsement by the Party NEC, in Davenport, ed., Early
American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1915/1127-lesueur-zimmerwald.pdf
(accessed March 5, 2012). Published in The American Socialist [Chicago], v. 2, no. 20, whole no. 160 (November 27,
1915), 3.
64
See Draper, The Roots, 73-74. It is speculated by Draper that it is through this connection that Lenin was able to
obtain the manifesto.

44
members. The SPL thus was an independent group existing within the SPA but not officially

recognized by the larger Party. The SPL was small and isolated; most of its members resided in

Massachusetts with a few residing in New York City. The SPL published its own organ, the Left

Wing journal The Internationalist. Although small in number, the SPL represented the first semi-

organized Left Wing faction dedicated to Revolutionary Marxist Socialism in the SPA.

In the manifesto, the SPL argued for industrial unionism, recognition of parliamentary

action as an adjunct to the mass action of the working class, the advancement of revolutionary

principles through education and organization, opposition to militarism, and the use of mass

action by the working class on both the economic and political fields.65 The SPL also endorsed

the position of the Left Wing Socialists of Europe and so called for the SPA to endeavor in the

creation of a new international based entirely on revolutionary Marxist theory and tactics.66

Lenin approved of the SPL position, stating it corresponds fully with the position of our Party

(Social-Democratic Labor Party of Russia, Central Committee).67 Lenin proceeded to clarify

some points on the position of the SDLP of Russia, Central Committee, stating that the Party

was not wholly opposed to immediate demands of the working class, so long as it was made

clear that such reforms amounted to little if not seconded by revolutionary methods of

struggle.68 Additionally, Lenin noted that his Party was for democratic centralism, as the

German Social Democratic Party was organized, stating that in moments of crisis a small group

65
Manifesto of the Socialist Propaganda League of America, Adopted at a Meeting Held in the City of Boston, Nov.
26, 1916, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spla/1916/1126-spla-manifesto.pdf (accessed May 23, 2012).
Published in The Internationalist: Weekly of the Left Wing Socialists [Boston],
v. 1, no. 1, Second Edition (January 6, 1917), 2.
66
Ibid.
67
V.I. Lenin, Letter to the Secretary of the Socialist Propaganda League, August 1914-December 1915, Vol. 21 of
V.I. Lenin: Collected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), 423.
68
Ibid., 424.

45
can direct the masses in a revolutionary direction.69 Most importantly, Lenin articulated his

Partys position on the European Social Democratic parties, arguing for secession of the Left

Wing from these parties dominated by opportunistic agents of the middle class and capitalists.

Lenin additionally sent a German language copy of the Left Wing manifesto drafted at the

Zimmerwald conference, and implored SPL secretary C.W. Fitzgerald to seek out a German-

speaking comrade to translate and distribute the document throughout the American Left Wing

press.

Had fate not intervened, perhaps the American Left Wing would have connected with

Lenin more directly during the war. There is no evidence that the SPL ever took note of Lenins

letter. One possible explanation is that Lenin was so little known in American circles that his

letter was disregarded and simply thrown away, although Theodore Draper speculates that the

Latvian immigrants, no strangers to Russian Social Democracy, would have had to be aware of

Lenins position within the Russian movement. It is more likely that French authorities

confiscated the letter and it never reached American shores, a common occurrence throughout

Lenins attempts to correspond with friends and comrades abroad during the war.70 Although

Lenins attempt at contact with more radical elements of the American Left came to nothing,

the SPL manifesto nonetheless demonstrated that there were elements within the American

Socialist movement sympathetic to the Zimmerwald Left position. The Left Wing of the

American Party would come into contact with Lenin and his Bolshevik Party soon after,

69
Ibid.
70
Draper, The Roots, 74. Benjamin Gitlow contends that the Latvians threw *Lenins+ letter into the waste basket
in his autobiographical history of the CPA, I Confess: The Truth About American Communism (New York: E.P. Dutton
& Co., 1940), 23.

46
however. Shortly after the letter was sent, several prominent Russian political exiles familiar

with Lenin journeyed to the United States.

47
 IV. RUSSIAN EXILES AND MIGRS IN THE UNITED STATES

In early August, 1915, Alexandra Kollontai received an invitation from Ludwig Lore,

Translator-Secretary of the German Federation of the SPA, to travel across the United States on

a three month speaking tour, sponsored by the German Federation. Kollontai was working for

Lenin, helping to agitate on behalf of the Zimmerwald Left in the Scandinavian countries, when

she received the invitation. Kollontai was born in St. Petersburg to a family of some means. Her

father was a military officer, and a liberal who wished to see Russia transformed into a

constitutional monarchy. She inherited a curiosity of the world around her, and a passion for

studying history and politics, from her father. Her mother, the daughter of a Finnish peasant

who struck it rich in lumber sales, bestowed upon her a respect for people of lesser wealth and

privilege. She spoke fluent Russian, learned Finnish from the peasants of her grandfathers

estate in Finland, spoke French with her mother, learned English from her English nanny, and

studied German in school. Kollontai took to Socialism, and studied in Zurich under Professor

Heinrich Herkner, who, she later recalled, increasingly took to the revisionist positions of

Eduard Bernstein.

In 1899, after returning to Russia, she joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party,

where she met Vladimir Lenin for the first time. When the RSDLP split between the Mensheviks

and Bolsheviks in 1903, she opted to stay neutral, although contemporaries remembered her as

a Menshevik prior to the First World War. Kollontai was an eye witness to the January 22, 1905

massacre in St. Petersburg remembered as Bloody Sunday. She was sent into exile in 1908

after publishing revolutionary propaganda. She traveled to Germany, where she came to know

and be influenced by German Marxists Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. After the outbreak

49
of war and the voting of war credits by German Social Democrats, Kollontai departed for

Scandinavia. Dismayed by both the German Social Democrats and the Mensheviks for

supporting their respective nations war efforts, she finally threw her lot in with Lenin, and

officially joined the Bolshevik Party.71

Prior to the war she disagreed with Lenin on several issues; she doubted the validity of

his vanguard theory, disagreed with his dismissal of the spontaneous revolution, his belief in

the necessity of a highly centralized Party structure, and his theory of imperialism. When the

War began, she publicly supported Lenin and his call to transform the conflict into a civil war

between classes; in private, she held to her pacifist beliefs, which Lenin regarded as silly and

misguided.72 In their personal communications, Lenin made it known that her positions were

incorrect; he chastised Kollontai for her use of the watchword of peace which was pacifist,

petty-bourgeois, helping the governments and obstructing the revolutionary struggle.73 In

another Lenin derided her for espousing disarmament, asking how can an oppressed class in

general be against the armament of the people? To reject this means to fall into a semi-

anarchist attitude to imperialism.74 In still another, Lenin again attacked Kollontais pacifist

agitation amongst the Scandinavians, stating I think it mistaken in theory and harmful in

practice not to distinguish between types of warsrepudiating war in general, that is not

Marxist.75 Clearly, Kollontai was not completely in line with the Bolsheviks; what she desired

most was peace. Despite her earlier doubts about Lenins theories, when war broke out, she

71
Isabel De Palencia, Alexandra Kollontai: Ambassadress from Russia (New York: Van Rees Press, 1947), 69.
72
Barbara Evans Clements, Bolshevik Feminist: The Life of Aleksandra Kollontai (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 1979), 91-92.
73
V.I. Lenin, Letter to Alexandra Kollontai, Letters: February 1912-December 1922, Vol. 35 of V.I. Lenin: Collected
Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), 193.
74
Ibid., 198.
75
Ibid., 200-201.

50
placed her reservations aside, and decided his program held merit.76 Kollontai embraced the

Bolshevik program entirely, and publicly agitated for the Zimmerwald Left and Bolshevik

program in first Sweden, and then Norway. Kollontais fluency in English, Russian, German,

French, and Finnish and her reputation as a first class public speaker and lecturer made her an

invaluable asset to Lenin. She served Lenin well in the Scandinavian countries. When she was

invited to tour the United States, Lenin realized she could serve him there, as well.

Alexandra Kollontai received the invitation from Ludwig Lore, Translator-Secretary of

the German Federation of the SPA and Left Wing Socialist, on August 10, 1915. Lore had heard

of her reputation as a public speaker and anti-war activist, and arranged for the German

Federation to sponsor a speaking tour of the United States. After reading the letter, Kollontai

recorded in her diary this is so incredibly good that I am gasping with joy and am afraid to

believe it.77 She accepted the invitation by return mail, and sent a letter to Lenin informing him

of this development. Lenin responded enthusiastically, saying he pinned many hopes on this

visit.78 Lenin requested that Kollontai attempt to find an American publisher who would print

the booklet Socialism and War in English, and suggested Charles Kerr, Chicago publisher and

editor of the International Socialist Review, one of the primary organs of the SPAs Left Wing.

Finally, he asked that she mobilize the internationalists, although he did not indicate who

exactly they were.79 The two corresponded by mail for the duration of Kollontais stay in the

U.S., although several letters did not reach her, perhaps again due to the diligence of the

76
Clements, Bolshevik Feminist, 91.
77
Quoted in Clements, Bolshevik Feminist, 94.
78
V.I. Lenin, Letter to Alexandra Kollontai, Letters: February 1912-December 1922, Vol. 35 of V.I. Lenin: Collected
Works, 201.
79
V.I. Lenin, Letter to Alexandra Kollontai, 1900-1923, Vol. 36 of V.I. Lenin: Collected Works, 346.

51
French post office. Lenin provided Kollontai with a copy of Socialism and War to translate,

which she began as she set out across the Atlantic on September 26, 1915.

Her friends worried about her crossing the Atlantic during the period of unrestricted

submarine warfare. Her passage was safe, although by her own accounts rather uncomfortable.

She shared a third class cabin with several other Russians, and the accommodations of the

cramped cabin made her translation work difficult. She was able to complete the task,

however, by the time the ship docked in New York City on October 8.

Upon disembarking Kollontai was greeted by Lore and several other German Federation

members, as well as several Russian editors and contributors to the Russian Federation journal

Novy Mir. She was taken to her hotel on Union Square where her itinerary for the next three

months was made known to her: she would be speaking at events in New York City for several

weeks, then travel by train to Racine, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, San

Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Philadelphia before returning to New York. At each stop she

was to address crowds at several meetings, speaking in English, German, French, and Russian as

the situation demanded. Her American sponsors asked her to speak on European

developments, the War, and Zimmerwald; she suggested talks on national defense and

international solidarity of the working class, and war and womens tasks in addition, all with an

eye to, as she wrote to Lenin, spread as widely as possible the ideas youve so clearly

formulated, the basis of revolutionary internationalism.80 She spoke that very night to a small

group of German Federation members. The topic was the Zimmerwald convention, and by the

end of her talk and ensuing debate, all came out in favor of the Zimmerwald Left program. A

80
Alexandra Kollontai, as quoted in Cathy Porter, Alexandra Kollontai: The Lonely Struggle of the Woman Who
Defied Lenin (New York: The Dial Press, 1980), 227.

52
lecture to Russian Americans several days later ended with similar results; Nokolai Nakoryakov,

an editor of Novy Mir and Bolshevik himself, recalled the meeting was unfailingly

successfuleven the Menshevik leaders, who initially greeted her agitation coolly, had to

confess that that she destroyed a great deal of their influence, like magic. 81 She spent several

more busy days in New York, then departed on her tour of the U.S. She spoke to Russians and

Germans in Milwaukee, then traveled to Chicago where she addressed ten crowds in half as

many days. There she connected with Charles Kerr, whom Lenin had suggested as a publisher

for Socialism and War. He showed little interest in publishing the work.82

She went then to St. Louis, and from there west through the great plains and Rocky

Mountains, to California, Washington, and back. The pace of her journey took a great toll;

Kollontai was often exhausted, tired of the repetitiveness of her lectures, and had few

moments to herself. She wrote letters in what little spare time she had. She wrote to Lenin the

German comrades have enlisted my services for a very good reasonsomeone from Europe has

immense authority here.83 Lenin replied if there are people in America who are afraid even of

the Zimmerwald Manifesto, you can brush them asidebring in only those who are more Left

than the Zimmerwald Manifesto and in a post-script Try everywhere to see (if only for five

minutes) the local Bolsheviks, to refresh them and get them in touch with us.84 Although she

grew weary, Kollontai fought not to lose sight of her mission in America. This was difficult,

however. Although she fell in love with the natural beauty of the United States, the west of

which reminded her of the Russian steppes, she found the people she encountered out west
81
Nikolai Nakoryakov, as quoted in Porter, Alexandra Kollontai: The Lonely Struggle, 228.
82
Porter, Alexandra Kollontai: The Lonely Struggle, 229.
83
Alexandra Kollontai, as quoted in Porter, Alexandra Kollontai: The Lonely Struggle, 229.
84
V.I. Lenin, Letter to Alexandra Kollontai, Letters: February 1912-December 1922, Vol. 35 of V.I. Lenin: Collected
Works, 221.

53
complacent, insular, and ignorant of the war in Europe. She returned east through Minneapolis,

Chicago again, then Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Finally, on December 22, she arrived back

in New York City. She rested for twelve days, before embarking on a more leisurely speaking

tour that took her to Boston, Pittsburgh, and New Jersey. In Boston she made contact with the

Socialist Propaganda League, at Lenins behest: I hope you will make every effort to find out

everything you can about them, and will try to build up out of them one of the rallying-points

for the Zimmerwald Left in America.85 In Philadelphia she connected with two young

Bolsheviks, V. Volodarsky, a Russian political exile who had fled to the U.S. in 1913 and worked

in a Philadelphia garment factory, and another named Gurvich, perhaps Nicholas Gurvich, who

later adopted the Anglicized last name Hourwich, and was soon to come into prominence

within the Russian Federation of the SPA.86 In a little over four months, Kollontai had traveled

the length of the U.S. and back, and addressed 123 meetings in four different languages. She

agitated on behalf of the Zimmerwald Left, spoke to foreign and native-born American

Socialists, endeavored, but failed, to get Lenins Socialism and War published, and made

contact with Bolsheviks residing in the United States. She departed New York City at the end of

December, to return to Norway. Personal matters would bring her back to the United States

only half a year later.

In the late summer of 1916, Alexandra Kollontai again Left Norway for the United States.

This time, her trip was not centered around political agitation for the Zimmerwald Left or

Bolshevik Party. Although she did intend to reconnect with American Left Wing Socialists and

Russian migrs in New York City, she ventured to the United States at the request of her son,

85
V.I. Lenin, Letter to Alexandra Kollontai, 1900-1923, Vol. 36 of V.I. Lenin: Collected Works, 360.
86
Porter, Alexandra Kollontai: The Lonely Struggle, 233.

54
who had himself recently emigrated to Paterson, New Jersey, perhaps to avoid being drafted

into the Russian army. In New Jersey he continued his engineering studies, but found that he

needed the support of his mother in this strange new land. Alexandra wrote to Lenin that she

was suspending her work in Sweden and Norway, asked that he send a replacement, and

crossed the Atlantic a second time. She stayed in New Jersey for several months. Kollontai

found herself very unhappy in Paterson. Were living in the latitude of Naples, but it doesnt

feel at all like the South, she complained to a friend. She found the town a dreary place, where

monotonously dull rows of little wooden houses were occupied by equally monotonously dull

American housewives who would spend the evenings sitting on porches and gossiping about

trivialities.87 To alleviate her boredom, Kollontai read American literature and works and what

she termed psychological studies. Her time was not spent completely free of Socialist activity;

she contributed the occasional article to American Socialist newspapers, however these were

few and far between. Towards the end of her stay, in October, 1916, she reconnected with the

New York Left Wing. She began to venture into the city for meetings of the Society for the

Protection of Child and Mother, and contacted the Bolsheviks Chudnovsky and Nakoryakov at

Novy Mir.88 It was here, in November, that Kollontai discovered that the Russian migr

community in New York was now host to another notorious Bolshevik: Nikolai Bukharin.

Like Kollontai, Bukharin came to the United States from Scandinavia, where he had

wound up after a series of exiles and deportations for radical activity. In September, 1916, he

decided to leave Copenhagen for the United States. His reasons for doing so remain a mystery;

Bukharin may have relished the opportunity to agitate for revolutionary Socialism in the

87
Alexandra Kollontai, quoted in Clements, Bolshevik Feminist, 99.
88
Porter, Alexandra Kollontai: The Lonely Struggle, 237.

55
stronghold of Capitalism that was the United States in the early twentieth century. 89 Perhaps he

left for the United States because his ego was wounded; in another similarity to Kollontai,

Bukharin had found himself on the wrong side of Lenins pen. He had endured months of

criticism in Russian Left Wing publications and speeches. Lenin derided Bukharin for his very

large error, that of semi-anarchism, of wishing to explode the old state machinery and

forego a post-revolutionary state, the dictatorship of the proletariat.90 The two made some

effort at rapprochement shortly before Bukharin boarded his vessel to America. Lenin, upon

hearing that Bukharin was leaving for the United States, wrote to Aleksandr Shliapnikov, the

head Bolshevik organizer in the Scandinavian countries: write frankly, in what mood is

Bukharin leaving? Will he write to us or not? Will he fulfill requests?91 Shortly thereafter Lenin

received a letter from Bukharin himself. Bukharins letter was intended as a goodbye to his old

Bolshevik comrade, although it was not entirely conciliatory. Bukharin rejected Lenins

accusations, and defended his own views on the nature of the post-revolutionary state as

correct and Marxist.92 He ended, however, with a touching reaffirmation of his commitment

to Lenin and the Party: I ask one thing of you: if you must polemicize, preserve such a tone

that it will not lead to a split. It would be very painful for me, painful beyond endurance, if joint

work, even in the future, should become impossible. Bukharins last sentence left little doubt

that although he was wounded by the differences between the two men, he felt no lingering

hostility: I have the greatest respect for you; I look upon you as my revolutionary teacher and I

89
Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography 1888-1938 (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1974), 40.
90
V.I. Lenin, quoted in Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, 40.
91
V.I. Lenin, quoted in Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, 40.
92
Nikolai Bukharin, quoted in Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, 40.

56
love you.93 Lenin responded with a softer tone. Although he remained firm in his insistence

that his charges against Bukharin were valid and the disagreement fully the fault of Bukharin,

he nonetheless sought a mending of relations when he stated we all value you highly.94

Thus Bukharin was prepared to depart for America having mended the bridge with

Lenin, ready and willing to propagandize the Bolshevik position amongst the American Left.

Before Bukharin sailed, Lenin sent a list of requests he wished him to fulfill in the United States.

Lenin instructed Bukharin to have the manifesto of the Zimmerwald Left as well as the

Bolshevik pamphlet on the war published in English in the American Left Wing press, and that

copies of American Left Wing newspapers and journals be sent to the Central Committee of the

Bolshevik Party. Lenin also asked that Bukharin orchestrate a small group of Russian and

Lettish Bolsheviks capable of following interesting literature, sending it, writing about it,

translating and printing what we send from here and otherwise foster interest in a Third

International and the program of the Left international Socialist movement among the

American Socialists. If a couple of Bolsheviks were actively linked with a couple of Letts

possessing a good knowledge of English, then the thing might work, he suggested, and to this

end Lenin suggested that Bukharin track down a Lett named Berzin, residing in the U.S. Finally,

Lenin recounted the program of the Socialist Propaganda League he had received and the

response letter he had sent, and asked Bukharin to establish contact with the group.95 With this

list of tasks, Bukharin departed for the United States, ready to bring revolutionary international

Socialism to American Socialists.

93
Nikolai Bukharin, quoted in Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, 40.
94
V.I. Lenin, quoted in Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, 41.
95
V.I. Lenin, Letter to N.I. Bukharin, December 1893-October 1917, Vol. 43 of V.I. Lenin: Collected Works, 578.

57
 Bukharin arrived in the United States in early November, 1916. He quickly made his way

into the ranks of Novy Mir, perhaps through a connection to Nakoryakov. For two months he

split his time between writing for the paper and undertaking his own research in the New York

Public Library, and mingled with and ingratiated himself into the Russian immigrant community

of New York City. In early January, 1917, he became Novy Mirs de facto chief editor, a position

he achieved after some struggle with the then-Menshevik editorial board.96 Under his tutelage,

Novy Mir turned quickly to the Left, as Bukharin wrote and promoted articles espousing the

Bolshevik-Zimmerwald Left attitude toward the war, and endeavored to transform the paper

into one of the leading anti-war publications in the U.S.97 Novy Mir, as official organ of the

Russian Federation of the Socialist Party, undoubtedly brought Lenins position to many Russian

immigrants within the American Socialist movement. Novy MIr, however, was published only in

Russian and so its audience was limited. However, Bukharins position at the paper gained him

some measure of fame amongst the American Left, and he occasionally left New York City to

undertake speaking tours similar to those of Kollontai.98 His place in the sun as perhaps the

leading figure of the American Left was usurped, however, by the arrival of a Socialist of greater

notoriety: Leon Trotsky. Although he was only present in the American scene for a brief two

months, his contributions to American Socialist developments cannot be overstated.

96
In a letter to Kollontai dated February 17, 1917 Lenin writes that he is pleased of the victory of N. Iv.,
Bukharins initials, in Novy Mir. In a letter two days later sent to Inessa Armand, he again writes that N. Iv. and
Pavlov (the Lett who was in Brussels: Pavel Vasilyevich) have won Novy Mir. These statements suggest that prior
to Bukharins editorship, the paper was run by Menshevik Russian migrs. Lenin notes that he received copies of
the paper but devilishly irregularly. See V.I. Lenin, Letter to Alexandra Kollontai, Letters: February 1912-
December 1922, Vol. 35 of V.I. Lenin: Collected Works, 285; V.I. Lenin, Letter to Inessa Armand, Letters: February
1912-December 1922, Vol. 35 of V.I. Lenin: Collected Works, 288.
97
Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, 43.
98
Ibid.

58
 Historians and biographers have made much about Trotskys brief stay in the United

States. By his own account, Trotskys time in America had little impact on his own life. Trotsky

came to the United States out of necessity; deported from France in September, 1916 for anti-

war activities, he was refused reentrance to Switzerland, and so he sought refuge in Spain, only

to be told on November 9, 1916 that he could not remain in that nation. Spanish authorities

attempted to ship him to Havana. Trotsky protested as he felt that location to be too remote

from events in Europe owing to the slow rate of communication via post.99 He appealed to the

United States, which granted him asylum. On Christmas day, 1916, Trotsky and his family

departed Barcelona for New York City aboard the steamer Montserrat. At 3:00 in the morning

of January 13, 1917, Trotsky disembarked in New York City. American journalists, not just of the

Socialist publications, who wished the interview this famous revolutionary greeted him at the

docks. Never under the strictest interrogation by gendarmes did I sweat as now under the

cross-fire of these professional specialists, Trotsky later recalled of these interviewers.100 In

addition to the journalists was a large crowd of immigrant Socialists, mostly hailing from the

lands of the Russian Empire.

Grigory Chudnovsky and Nikolai Bukharin were among them. They whisked Trotsky

away, and Chudnovsky set him up with an apartment in the Bronx, for which Trotsky paid

eighteen dollars a month and which included novel conveniences unfamiliar to the Trotsky

family: electric lights, a gas stove, telephone, bathtub, service elevator and garbage chute.

American journalists variously reported that the renowned radical Leon Trotsky worked as a

dishwasher, a tailor, even a film extra for Brooklyn studios, all out of necessity, as he struggled

99
Robert Service, Trotsky: A Biography (Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 2009), 152.
100
Leon Trotsky, as quoted in Service, Trotsky, 154.

59
to make ends meet and provide for his family while in exile.101 In reality, as Trotsky recalled,

while in the United States his only profession was that of revolutionary Socialist. 102 Ludwig Lore

paid Trotsky for speaking engagements and lectures to Socialists and labor meetings; his English

was very poor, and he stuck to lecturing amongst Russian and German migrs.103 Although he

ventured out of New York City, he stuck to lecturing in the cities of the Northeast. Trotsky

supplemented his income through writing and editing, first for the Jewish Socialist daily

Forverts, which he found too moderate, and then for Novy Mir, where he joined the Bolsheviks

Chudnovsky and Bukharin on the editorial board.104

At Novy Mir, Trotsky found a platform to reach German, Russian, and Jewish

immigrants. Here, he proselytized Left Wing immigrants, joining Bukharin in arguing for an

organized Left Wing adhering to the Zimmerwald Left position on the war. He railed against the

reformist SPA leadership, with their material wealth, haughty sense of superiority over

European Socialists, and smug indifference to Marxist ideas; immigrants who had played some

role in Europe in their youth, they very quickly lost the theoretical premise they had brought

with them in the confusion of their struggle for success, he later wrote.105 He attacked the

pacifists in the United States, who, in the period of the American preparedness campaign gave

vulgar speeches about the advantages of peace as opposed to war which invariably ended in

a promise to support war if it became necessary.106 When the U.S. government broke

diplomatic relations with Germany on February 3, 1917, he warned the readers of Novy Mir

101
Ronald Segal, Leon Trotsky: A Biography (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979), 118.
102
Leon Trotsky, My Life (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1970), 270.
103
Trotsky, My Life, 271.
104
Service, Trotsky, 154-155.
105
Trotsky, My Life, 274.
106
Ibid., 272.

60
that the rapidly growing chauvinistic musicthe tenor of the pacifists and the falsetto of the

Socialists was a tune he had heard before in Europe, in the summer of 1914. The mobilization

of the American patriotism was simply a repetition of what I had seen before. I noted the stages

of the process in my Russian paper, and meditated on the stupidity of men who were so slow to

learn their lessons, he recalled.107 In the pages of that newspaper, Trotsky reproduced his

work in Europe, and gave the American immigrant communities the Left Zimmerwaldian

program: revolutionary transformation of the war as the only genuine solution to the current

and future conflict. According to Trotsky, it was through this organ, and the Russian-speakers

within all of the national federations of the Socialist Party, including those for whom Russian

was not their primary language, that the ideas espoused in Novy Mir found their way into the

larger American Socialist movement.108

Everything was not entirely agreeable at the offices of Novy Mir, however. The

conflicting personalities and ideologies of the leading Russian migrs, Trotsky on the one hand

and Bukharin and Kollontai on the other, disturbed the harmony within the budding organized

Left Wing centered in New York City. Trotsky recalled Bukharin welcoming him to New York

with the childish exuberance characteristic of him which was the beginning of a close

association that warmed- on Bukharins part- into an attachment for me that grew steadily

more intense.109 This was, for Trotsky, not a desirable quality, for as Trotsky later wrote

Bukharins nature is such that he must always attach himself to someone. He

becomesnothing more than a medium for someone elses actions and speechesI never took

107
Trotsky, My Life, 272.
108
Ibid., 275. National Federations refers to the Foreign Language Federations of the SPA.
109
Ibid., 273.

61
Bukharin too seriously, and I left him to himself, which really means, to others.110 Alexandra

Kollontai, at this time reintegrating into the New York Russian community after her stay in

Paterson, left little impression on Trotsky: her knowledge of foreign languages and her

temperament made her a valuable agitator. Her theoretical views have always been somewhat

confused, howeverShe was in correspondence with Lenin and kept him informed of what was

happening in America, my own activities included.111 Kollontai did keep tabs on Trotsky; in one

letter to Lenin she reported his arrival, and expressed her amazement that Trotsky, ostensibly a

Menshevik, had not obstructed Bukharin in cleansing Novy Mir of remaining Menshevik

contributors: Trotsky clearly disassociated himself from them and probably will carry on his

own line, which is by no means clear, she wrote.112 The message may have been confused,

however, for Lenin records in a letter to Inessa Armand that Trotsky arrived, and this scoundrel

at once ganged up with the Right Wing of Novy Mir against the Left Zimmerwaldists! Thats it!

Thats Trotsky for you! Always true to himself.113

Trotsky helped to oust the Mensheviks from Novy Mir, and his contributions to the

paper were certainly in line with the Zimmerwald Left position. However, he and the Bolshevik

Bukharin took opposing sides on one very important question facing the American Left Wing: to

split immediately from the SPA, as Bukharin advocated, or to remain within the larger Party and

capture it for revolutionary Socialism, as Trotsky advised. This key difference was illuminated

to American Socialists just a day after Trotskys arrival in New York. Ludwig Lore invited

Bukharin and Kollontai, who had been agitating for an organized Left Wing of the SPA capable
110
Trotsky, My Life, 273.
111
Ibid., 273.
112
Alexandra Kollontai, as quoted in Clements, Bolshevik Feminist, 100.
113
V.I. Lenin, Letter to Inessa Armand, Letters: February 1912-December 1922, Vol. 35 of V.I. Lenin: Collected
Works, 288.

62
of mounting a campaign of opposition to preparedness and American entry into the war, to a

unity meeting of Left Wing elements at his Brooklyn home. Lore also invited Trotsky, despite

his very recent arrival. According to Lore, the meeting was called to discuss a program of

action for Socialists of the Left, for the purpose of organizing the radical forces in the American

Socialist movement.114 On the evening of January 14, the Russians Bukharin, Kollontai, Trotsky,

Chudnovsky, and Volodarsky joined American Left Wingers Louis Boudin, Louis Fraina, S.J.

Rutgers, Sen Katayama, and Lore at a meeting ostensibly called to organize the Left Wing of the

SPA; the Russians were invited as advisors.115 John D. Williams, editor of The Internationalist,

official publication of the Socialist Propaganda League, was perhaps the only native-born

American Socialist at the meeting.116 Trotsky and Bukharin, the two greatest theoreticians

present, dominated the meeting. Despite Trotskys unfamiliarity with American Socialism, he

nevertheless weighed in passionately, arguing against the position taken by Kollontai, Bukharin,

and the other Bolsheviks. Bukharin advocated an immediate split of the American Left from the

larger Socialist Party, citing Lenins tactic of refusing to work with reformist compromisers.117

Trotsky, meanwhile, took the position that he himself had taken with regards to the Russian

Social Democratic Party: avoid a clean break with the Right Wing of the Party for now, and

establish an independent Left Wing organ for propaganda purposes to win over the masses of

the Party to the Left. The Americans began the meeting amid an air of pessimism and the belief

that the Left was too weak and disorganized to effect any real change. At first it seemed that

114
Ludwig Lore, quoted in Draper, The Roots, 81.
115
It should be noted that all of the attendees of this unity meeting were, in fact, immigrants; Boudin from
Russia, Fraina from Italy, Lore from Germany, Rutgers from the Netherlands, and Katayama from Japan. However,
these figures had spent some time within the U.S. radical political milieu, better understood American political
conditions and the SPA, and were regarded as the leading figures of the Left Wing, such as it was, at the time.
116
Draper, The Roots, 80.
117
Clements, Bolshevik Feminist, 100.

63
this conference which was rapidly followed by a number of others would achieve no tangible

result. The Russians were in their element and long drawn-out but intensely interesting

theoretical discussions were always in order. We others felt that for the time being it was

hopeless to think of organizing the Left within the Party for anything like effective action,

recalled Ludwig Lore a year later.118 Believing their chances of uniting the Left under a coherent

program a remote possibility, and perhaps under the spell of Trotskys notoriety (Had Trotsky

remained a year in the United States, our movement would have found in him a great and

splendid leader, lamented Lore), the Americans backed Trotskys position. Doing as the

Bolsheviks suggested, and splitting from the SPA and establishing an independent organization,

they felt, would doom the Left Wing to complete irrelevancy within the American Socialist

movement. An elected subcommittee, which included Trotsky, proposed a bimonthly periodical

issued by the Left Wing. John D. Williams The Internationalist was chosen as the official organ

of the Left Wing. However, the Socialists present ousted him as the editor and chose Fraina as

his successor. The title was changed to The New International, and the offices of the paper

moved from Boston to New York; so, too, did the gravitational center of Left Wing activism.

Trotsky carried the day, but the Bolsheviks present, Kollontai, Chudnovsky, and

Volodarsky, led by Bukharin, did not relent, and called a different conference a month later.

The International Conference of Socialist Organizations and Groups, as the February 17, 1917

conference was titled, was an attempt to organize Left Wing Socialist groups and elicit a

commitment to the Zimmerwald movement as the embryo of the Third International. Present

118
Ludwig Lore, Leon Trotsky, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://www.marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1918/1107-lore-trotsky.pdf (accessed April 24, 2012).
Originally published in One Year of Revolution: Celebrating the First Anniversary of the Founding of the Russian
Soviet Republic: November 7, 1918 (Brooklyn, NY: The Class Struggle, 1918), 7-10.

64
were representatives of Novy Mir, the Russian Branch of the Socialist Party, Lettish branch no. 1

of the SPA, the Ukrainian Branch of the Socialist Party, the Manhattan Lithuanian branch, the

Brooklyn Lithuanian branch, the Bolshevik section of the Russian Social Democratic Workers

Party (represented by Bukharin), the Socialist Propaganda League, and a group of Social

Revolutionaries.119 migrs from regions within the Russian Empire comprised eight of the nine

groups in attendance. Only one, the Socialist Propaganda League, contained any native-born

Americans at all. The attending groups pledged support to the Zimmerwald Left and a proposed

Third International. Here, in the Foreign Language Federations, was a nucleus through which

Bukharin could position himself for a leading role in the American Left, while Trotsky did

likewise through the non-Federationist Left Wing which had backed his plan to propagandize

within the SPA. However, the Russian Revolution intervened, and the Bolsheviks in America

made hasty plans to return to Russia.

The Left suddenly lost two potential leaders. However, their relatively short stays had

made a significant impact. During their time in the United States, Trotsky and Bukharin

gathered the scattered elements of the Left Wing and impressed upon them the importance of

organizing and unifying. Through their work at Novy Mir, and Alexandra Kollontais lengthy and

rigorous speaking tours, the Russian exiles brought to the American Left Wing the

Zimmerwaldian and Bolshevik views of the war, and proposed these programs as the means by

which American Socialists might oppose American entrance into the greater conflict, a

development Trotsky considered an inevitability, or utilize such a conflict to bring about

dramatic changes in the American political and economic systems. The Russians imbued their

119
Draper, The Roots, 83.

65
countrymen and fellow Language Federationists with a revolutionary spirit. They proposed, and

helped organize, an independent publication of the Left Wing, which could be used to sway

American radicals to revolutionary Socialism. Perhaps most importantly, the two factions,

represented by Trotsky on the one hand and Bukharin, Kollontai, and the Bolsheviks on the

other, had proposed two conflicting plans of action for the American Left Wing. The established

Left Wing leaders adopted Trotskys plan to remain in the SPA and take control of the Party for

revolutionary Socialism. Meanwhile, the Language Federation membership, particularly those

representing the nationalities of Eastern Europe, disseminated Bukharins proposal to split as

soon as possible and establish an independent organization. These two strains of thought

would reemerge in 1919, following the first Comintern Congress. In the meantime, the Left

remained united, not only among its own factions but with the Center and Right of the SPA, in

opposition to the crisis of American entrance into the War.

66
 V. THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS, BOLSHEVISM, AND THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE AMERICAN

LEFT WING

The March, 1917 Russian Revolution shocked the world. American Socialists rejoiced at

the fall of the repressive, autocratic regime. On the evening of March 20, 15,000 Socialists,

many of them Russian migrs, flooded Madison Square Garden to demonstrate support for

the Russian Revolution and the new Provisional Government.120 Socialist Joseph Cohen

applauded the actions of the revolutionaries, contrasting their relatively bloodless

achievements with the reign of terror that was the American Revolution, and suggested that

the Russian model was one to be emulated by Socialists the world over.121 Hillquit rejoiced in an

editorial, writing Russia is free!...The Russian Revolution is the first bright ray of light that has

come to us from Europe since the dark days of August, 1914The fall of Russian absolutism is

the doom of political oppression all over the world.122 The sudden revolution in Russia, Hillquit

concluded, signaled the beginning of the end of the Great War, with peace forced upon the

governments of Europe by the war weary working class masses. Despite such hopes, American

Socialists did not believe that Russia was yet ripe for a Socialist restructuring of society. Rather,

the Revolution, despite originating from the proletariat and not the liberal middle classes in

the Duma, in Hillquits words, was but the orthodox Marxist prerequisite in the development

of the nation from feudalism to capitalism, from autocracy to bourgeois-democracy. Russia, in

spite of the recent revolution, will be a capitalist nation; in fact, the Revolution made possible

the free development of the capitalist system of production, as the French Revolution did in

120
15,000 at Russian Revolution Meeting, The New York Call, March 21, 1917. Microfilm.
121
Joseph E. Cohen, Revolution, The New York Call, March 24, 1917. Microfilm.
122
Morris Hillquit, Russia is Free!, The New York Call, March 25, 1917. Microfilm.

67
France, wrote George Halonen, editor of the Finnish Federation monthly Sakenia.123 Socialist

leaders asked Alexander Trachtenberg, a Russian migr who relocated to the U.S. following his

involvement in the 1905 Russian Revolution, to educate American Socialists on the

developments in Russia. Although himself a Left Winger in the American movement,

Trachtenberg came out in support of Russian Social-Revolutionary Alexander Kerensky, and

argued that the goal of the Revolution should be the establishment of a democratic republic.124

Hillquit, contrary to his initial enthusiasm, agreed: With the exception of a small group of

extremists, the Socialists are free from the illusion that...Russia offers an opportunity for the

establishment of a Socialist regime. Neither industrially nor politically is Russia ripe for the

cooperative commonwealth.125

The Left Wing of the SPA was equally enthusiastic. The Left quickly pointed to the mass

action of the Russian people in forcing the abdication of the Tsar as proof of the efficacy of

that revolutionary weapon. Fraina, editor of the Left Wing publication The New International,

saw the Russian Revolution as a display of the meaning and power of Mass Action.126 Rutgers,

the Dutch Leftist then residing in the United States, recognized that the Russian Revolution as

mass action demonstrated the needed alternative to the American Party focus on the rigid,

123
George Halonen, The Russian Revolution and Finland, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/lfed/finnish/1917/0427-halonen-rusrevfinland.pdf (accessed March
14, 2012). Published in the New York Call, v. 10, no. 117 (April 27, 1917), 6.
124
Draper, The Roots, 99.
125
Morris Hillquit, The Provisional Government of Russia and Separate Peace: As Viewed by Socialists, The New
York Call Magazine, May 13, 1917. Microfilm.
126
Louis Fraina, as quoted in Draper, The Roots, 90.

68
centralized, boss-ruled unions of the American Federation of Labor; the new methods have to

develop from the bottom up and against the stubborn resistance of the old leaders. 127

Although the March Revolution energized and invigorated the American Left Wing of

the SPA, it also precipitated the departure of some of its greatest minds. The Revolution

opened the way for the repatriation of prominent Russian exiles in the United States, most

notably Alexandra Kollontai, Nikolai Bukharin, and Leon Trotsky, the last having written only a

short time prior that he did not expect to remain in New York long for a revolution is bound to

break out in Russia in a short time.128 Although only in the U.S. for a short period, the three

made immediate preparations to return to Russia upon hearing the news of the Revolution. The

Left Wing thus lost three of its greatest ideological theorists, whom Socialist Sen Katayama had

envisioned as the natural leaders of the American Left Wing, until the Revolution called them

back.129

American Socialism was profoundly affected by the November, 1917 Bolshevik

Revolution which overthrew the Russian Provisional Government. Whereas Socialists of all

types reacted positively to the fall of autocratic rule in favor of parliamentary democracy,

opinions were split over the developments in Russia toward the end of 1917. News was slow to

travel, and there were initially many misconceptions about the aims of the Bolsheviks; Socialist

newspaper The New York Call admitted the Russian Revolution has got clean away from

127
S.J. Rutgers, Fighting Big Capital: Letter to the Editor of the New York Call, April 8, 1917, in Davenport, ed.,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1917/0408-rutgers-fightingbigcap.pdf (accessed March 14,
2012). Published in the New York Call Magazine, April 8, 1917, 10.
128
Leon Trotsky, A Revolutionists Career, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1917/0300-trotsky-revcareer.pdf (accessed March 14, 2012).
Although not published until February, 1918, in St. Louis Labor, Trotsky wrote this biographical piece in March,
1917, only a week before leaving New York to return to Russia, according to the editor. Published in St. Louis
Labor, whole no. 889 (Feb. 16, 1918), 2.
129
Sen Katayama, quoted in Bell, Marxian Socialism, 108.

69
us...we can make nothing of it at present, nor predict anything for its future.130 Very few

American Socialists reacted with anything but enthusiasm to the Bolshevik seizure of power.

One exception was Louis Boudin. Perhaps the premiere American Marxist theoretician, Boudin

argued in an article published in The Class Struggle that the Russian Revolution was a tragedy in

the old Greek sense, a fatal situation from which there is no escape.131 Boudin believed that

the moderate Mensheviks within the Kerensky government had failed in their quest to utilize

their connections to the Allied governments to broker a peace with Germany; this endeavor

was doomed to failure, as the governments of the Western powers could not accept a peace

without indemnities. Rejected as a result by the Russian working class, the Mensheviks fell to

the Bolsheviks had taken the initiative, gained the support of the masses, and sought peace

through means equally unrealistic to Boudin: directly appealing to the German working class

and encouraging a similar revolution in that state. The end result, then, was a splitting of the

Social Democratic movement in Russia that could only strengthen reactionary forces and bring

about a counter-revolution which will rob the Russian people of the best fruits of the

revolution.132 His fellow editors Lore and Fraina forced him out of his editorial role for taking

this stance. There was no room for criticism of the Bolshevik Revolution in a Left Wing

publication.

130 th
The New York Call editorial, December 24 , as quoted in Draper, The Roots, 112.
131
Louis Boudin, The Tragedy of the Russian Revolution, in The Class Struggle, Vol. 1, no. 4 (November-
December, 1917), 85-90. Available online at Marxists Internet Archive,
http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/class-struggle/v1n4nov-dec1917.pdf (accessed March 19, 2012).
131
Proclamation to the People of the United States from the NEC of the Socialist Party of America, February
1918, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
132
Louis Boudin, The Tragedy of the Russian Revolution, in The Class Struggle, Vol. 1, no. 4 (November-
December, 1917), 85-90. Available online at Marxists Internet Archive,
http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/class-struggle/v1n4nov-dec1917.pdf (accessed March 19, 2012).

70
 For the most part, conservative elements of the SPA reacted favorably to the November

Revolution. The reformist Right Wing dominated NEC of the SPA publicly supported the

achievements of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, stating their revolution threatens the thrones of

Europe and makes the whole capitalist structure tremble, and that it reveled in the proletarian

Russian Revolution and its inevitable triumph.133 The SPA also pledged its support to

revolutionary movements of the class conscious workers the world over.134 Hillquit saw in the

Bolshevik Revolution a new Russia to be a model for all: Russiawhich as heretofore been the

strongest resort of the darkest reaction, is today the vanguard of democracy and social

progress. It is from top to bottom in the hands of the people, the working class, the

peasantsautocracy, capitalism, and oppression are dead in Russia.135 The extremely Right

Wing Socialist Louis Waldman similarly regarded the Revolution as an awakening to freedom

and self-government.136 Debs regarded himself as a Bolshevik and proud of it from his head

to his feet, while gradualist, reformist James Oneal publicly defended revolutionary violence in

Russia.137

Nowhere was the joyous celebration as raucous in the American movement as amongst

Left Wing Socialists. To the Left, the Bolsheviks seemed to have found a definite solution to a

problem that had plagued revolutionary Socialists throughout Europe and America: how to win

133
Proclamation to the People of the United States from the NEC of the Socialist Party of America, February
1918, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1918/0216-spanec-proclamation. (accessed March 19, 2012).
Published in The Eye Opener (Chicago), v. 9, no. 30, whole no. 276 (Feb. 16, 1918), 4.
134
Ibid.
135
Morris Hillquit, Labor and the War, in Marxists Internet Archive,
http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1918/0706-hillquit-laborandwar.pdf (accessed March
29,2012). Published in The New Age [Buffalo], v. 6, no. 318 (July 6, 1918), 3.
136
Louis Waldman as quoted in Shannon, The Socialist Party of America, 119.
137
Draper, The Roots, 110.

71
over the working class. The success of Lenins Party demonstrated that this was not necessary.

The Bolsheviks seized power in the largest nation on the globe with only a relatively tiny, yet

fanatically dedicated, membership, and only after did it win over the masses. The Left argued

that if it could be done in Russia, the model of reaction and backwardness, it could be

replicated in any industrialized nation. The American Left Wing took the lesson to heart: what

was important was not numbers, but revolutionary ardor and dogmatic purity. The Bolshevik

tactics also proved to the Left Wing the intellectual and moral insolvency of reformist Socialist

tactics. A February, 1918 article in The New International proclaimed that the Bolsheviks had

illuminated the failures of moderate Socialism, and as a Party were not unique to the present

situation in Russia but instead simply one among many revolutionary Left Wing Socialist groups

the world over espousing similar doctrine.138 The Bolsheviks orchestrated the Revolution, but it

belonged to the international revolutionary Socialists. This was certainly the feeling of Fraina,

the most vocal supporter of the Zimmerwald Left in the U.S. and rising star of the revolutionary

wing of the American Party, who published multiple articles as editor of the Left Wing

publications The New International and The Class Struggle, in which he sought to defend the

actions of the Bolsheviks against American critics. In The Proletarian Revolution in Russia he

argued against those orthodox Marxists who believed Russia to be unripe for anything but a

bourgeois revolution.139 In Bolsheviki Power Comes from the Masses, he defended the

Bolshevik dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly in January, 1918, arguing that the

institution would necessarily become an instrument of bourgeois reaction and was inherited as

138
The Bolshevik Policy, The New International, February, 1918, as cited in Draper, The Roots, 106.
139
Louis Fraina, The Proletarian Revolution in Russia, in The Class Struggle, Vol. 2, no. 1 (January-February, 1918),
29-67. Available online at Marxists Internet Archive, http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/class-
struggle/v2n1jan-feb1918.pdf (accessed March 20, 2012).

72
a legacy bequeathed to the Bolsheviki by a revolution not their own.140 In The Bolsheviki-

Socialism in Action!, he drew parallels between the Russian Bolshevik and Menshevik parties,

and reformist and revolutionary Socialists elsewhere. Fraina concluded that the Bolshevik

Revolution was the signal for the Social Revolution of the European proletariat, as Marx and

Engels suggested it might be. Thus Fraina articulated to the American Left Wing Lenins belief

that the November Revolution would inspire similar revolutions in the more developed

nations of Europe; indeed, at the time Lenin believed this was the only way his revolution

could succeed.141 The Zimmerwaldian Left desire to transform the imperialistic world war into a

civil war between classes had manifested in Russia, and, so believed the Left, was bound to

spread throughout the other belligerent states.

The Socialist Propaganda League, whose leaders had been so supportive of and affected

by the visiting Russians, were so inspired by the Bolshevik successes that they drafted a new,

updated manifesto. The previous manifesto, written in 1916 was decidedly Zimmerwaldian in

tone. It called for industrial unionism, parliamentary activity as a means of propagandizing and

agitating, revolutionary mass action tactics, and working with European Left Wing Socialists in

the establishment of a new Socialist international.142 The new 1918 manifesto drew heavily

from the Bolshevik model, demonstrating an evolution of Left Wing thought in the American

140
Louis Fraina, Bolsheviki Power Comes from the Masses, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1918/0209-fraina-powerfrommasses.pdf (accessed March 20,
2012). Published in The Evening Call [New York], v. 11, no. 35 (Feb. 9, 1918), 7.
141
Louis Fraina, The Bolsheviki- Socialism in Action!, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1917/1230-fraina-socinaction.pdf (accessed March 20, 2012).
Letter to the editor of The Evening Call [New York], v. 11, no. 4 (Jan. 5, 1918), 7.
142
Manifesto of the Socialist Propaganda League of America: Adopted at a Meeting Held in the City of Boston,
November 26, 1916, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spla/1916/1126-spla-manifesto.pdf (accessed March 20, 2012).
Published in The Internationalist: Weekly of the Left Wing Socialists [Boston],
v. 1, no. 1, Second Edition (Jan. 6, 1917), 2.

73
movement similar to that of European revolutionary Socialists, and perhaps in no small part to

the efforts at educating American Socialists undertaken by the Russian exiles Kollontai,

Bukharin, and Trotsky. The SPL now invoked the Leninist theory of imperialism as the highest

stage of capitalism, opposed parliamentary activity and called for the destruction of bourgeois

democracy, refused any compromise with Right Wing Socialist social-patriots and

opportunists, urged the formation of workers and soldiers councils as developed in Russia,

and reaffirmed the SPLs support for a proposed Third International.143 Through its Left Wing

organ The New International, edited by Fraina, the SPL agitated for the adoption of the

Bolshevik program by Left Wing American Socialists. What remained necessary, however, was

the formal organization of the Left Wing as a Party within a Party, a semi-autonomous unit

within the SPA, to usurp the Party machinery, a step taken by the Russian exiles Trotsky and

Bukharin before the Revolution put such aspirations on hiatus.

The Letts in the SPL, with other Left Wing foreign-born Socialists like Fraina, Rutgers,

and Lore, took the reins after the departure of Bukharin and Trotsky, and disseminated

Bolshevism as they understood it to the American Left Wing. In January, 1918, these elements

combined with Russian American groups and established a pro-Soviet organization, the

American Bolshevik Bureau of Information. Representatives from the SPL, the Russian Socialist

Federation, the Russian Branch of the Socialist Party, the New York Section of the Russian

Bolsheviki, the New York group of Social Revolutionists, and Novy Mir, the Russian Federation

newspaper, were present. The Bureau elected Fraina the director. Its purpose was to aid the

143
Manifesto of the Socialist Propaganda League of America, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spla/1918/0100-spla-manifesto.pdf (accessed March 20, 2012).
Published as A Program of Revolutionary Socialism in The Revolutionary Age [Boston], v. 1, no. 21
(March 8, 1919), 8.

74
Russian revolutionaries and spread the spirit of revolt in the United States. According to the

Lusk Committee report on the Socialist movement in the U.S., in March, 1918 the Russian

Federation sent a cable to the Council of Peoples Commissars in Petrograd that stated you

have our unqualified faith and support. The whole colony is with you. [We] Are ready to

organize Red Guard for Russia. Americans will help.144 A similar cable from Fraina on behalf of

the American Bolshevik Bureau echoed this sentiment, and Fraina also stated that Red Guards

were being organized in the United States. Red Guard units, composed of volunteers willing to

go to Russia to fight on behalf of the Soviets, were in fact organized; some 500 Guards for the

Revolution stood ready to sail for Russia. The Bureau sent a delegate to the get the approval of

the War Department in Washington, which of course refused to permit the volunteers to go

abroad and fight for a government it did not officially recognize.145

The leadership of the Russian language groups within the American Socialist movement

was not the only proponent of Bolshevism; the rank and file of the Russian language groups

were every bit as supportive. The membership of the Russian Federation had been only about

500 members at the start of 1917. By the end of 1918, that number had increased nearly six

times, to just short of 3,000 members, or nearly fifteen percent of all foreign-born members

within the SPA.146 The rapid rise in the Russian Federation ranks have been attributed to several

factors, including the fall of the Tsar and the November, 1917 Revolution, and the prestige of

Bolshevik triumphs within Russian national groups. Communist Labor Party founder Benjamin

144
New York (State), Revolutionary Radicalism, 634.
145
Draper, The Roots, 108-109.
146
Membership Series by Language Federation for the Socialist Party of America: Dues Stamps Sold by Month,
January 1917 to March 1919, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0400-spa-membersbyfed.pdf (accessed March 20,
2012). Adapted from original in Socialist Party Papers, Duke University, unspecied lm reel. Copy in Theodore
Draper Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford U.

75
Gitlow surmised that the growth was due to Russian immigrants wishing to return to Russia

after the abdication of the Tsar. He recalled that as many as could left for Russia

immediately.147 It was believed by some Russian immigrants that membership to the Russian

Federation provided a means of doing so; Socialist Russian Americans, enthusiastic about

returning to their once-repressive but now Socialist homeland would need to demonstrate

some support for the Revolution to garner favor with the new regime there.148

Were this the case, one might suspect that membership rates would have grown very

rapidly in the period following the heady days of the November, 1917 Revolution; however,

Russian Federation membership rates held steady through 1917, and did not begin a rapid

increase until February, 1918, months after the November, 1917 Revolution, when it became

clear that the Bolsheviks had defied the odds and were not to be immediately crushed by

reactionary White forces. This suggests that the rise in membership rates that occurred in 1918

was, as historian Daniel Bell contends, a reflection of nationalistic enthusiasm for the success of

the Bolshevik revolution: The Russian Federation of the Socialist Party became the idol of the

Left Wingits members looked upon as the only ones who understood Bolshevism, apparently

through some mysterious osmosis of the language.149 This process is less than mysterious,

however, if one takes into account the Bolshevization of Novy Mir, undertaken by Bukharin at

the beginning of 1917; Russian Americans had access to Bolshevik literature, written in their

own language, in the pages of Novy Mir. For this reason, Russian Americans within the SPA had

147
Gitlow, I Confess, 22.
148
Draper, The Roots, 137.
149
Bell, Marxian Socialism, 109.

76
in Novy Mir a resource which more accurately presented Bolshevik ideas than English language

publications.

Gitlow recalled a similar sentiment among English-speaking Socialists, who regarded the

Russian Americans within the Federation as the Bolshevik kernel in the PartyMany Socialists

believed that only the Russians understood Bolshevism and were fitted to speak on its

behalf.150 Writing many years after the fact, and having been ousted from the Party, it is with

much bitterness that Gitlow recalled that the Russian leadership did little to dispel these

notions, instead wallowing in the esteem accorded themand insisting that they alone should

be recognized as leaders of the Left Wing.151 Russian immigrants in the American Left Wing

had reason to be proud. After all, it was their countrymen and former comrades in the Russian

Social Democratic Party which had brought about the first workers democracy in history, and in

a country deemed not yet ripe for such developments according to traditional Marxist theory.

However, the Russian Federation was not the only federation to see such rapid growth

in membership numbers. There was a similar influx of new members across several of the

Eastern European Language Federations for the same period of October, 1917 to the end of

1918. The Latvian Federation increased from 800 members to over 1,300; the Estonian

Federation doubled in size, from 400 to 800; the Polish Federation added nearly 1,000

members for a total of approximately 1,400; and the Ukrainian Federation grew from 1,800

members to 2,400. The remaining federations within the SPA remained at steady membership

levels or decreased in membership numbers only slightly. Out of a total of approximately

82,300 dues paying members of the SPA, around 37,700, or forty-five percent, were non-

150
Gitlow, I Confess, 25.
151
Ibid.

77
English speaking federation members.152 The rapid growth in membership of the non-Russian

federations suggests that the Russian Federation did not grow solely because of enthusiastic

nationalist sentiments. That same enthusiasm was found within the federations corresponding

to nationalities from elsewhere in the Russian Empire, as well.

Not content with supporting the Russian revolutionary effort through organizations such

as the American Bolshevik Bureau of Information, the Left Wing, now heavily composed of

Russian-American and Eastern-European immigrant membership, sought to reorient the culture

of the SPA away from parliamentary politics, opportunism and reformism in favor of

revolutionary mass action. Left Wing Socialists in Chicago, where the Slavic Federations were

particularly strong, assembled on December 6, 1918 and formed the Communist Propaganda

League. The plans for this meeting were formalized during the Fourth Convention of the

Russian Socialist Federation, which met in New York City over the period September 28 to

October 2, 1918. The convention decided to call a conference of all the Russian Federations

within the SPA which promoted the realization of our Bolshevik program within the Party,

with the end goal of organizing the geographically separate Russian Federations under one

united center.153 Members of the Chicago branch of the Russian Federation, representatives

of the Bolshevist Federation of the American Socialist Party, and several important and active

members of the local Socialist movement who thoroughly agree to the program and principles

152
Membership Series by Language Federation for the Socialist Party of America: Dues Stamps Sold by Month,
January 1917 to March 1919, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0400-spa-membersbyfed.pdf (accessed March 20,
2012). Adapted from original in Socialist Party Papers, Duke University, unspecied lm reel. Copy in Theodore
Draper Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford U.
153
Minutes of the Fourth Convention of the Russian Socialist Federation: New York City, September 28 to October
2, 1918,
http://ia600609.us.archive.org/0/items/MinutesOfThe4thConventionOfTheRussianSocialistFederation/1002-rsf-
convminutes.pdf (accessed April 2, 2012).

78
of the Russian Bolsheviks were present at the conference.154 They named the resulting

organization the Communist Propaganda League. Like the Socialist Propaganda League in

Boston, the Communist Propaganda League held little influence outside of Chicago. Like the SPL

it also limited its work largely to propagandizing within the Left Wing press, seeing itself as a

unit of propaganda with the purpose of serving the Socialist Party by affecting its policies,

platforms, form of organization, and personnel of management and representation along the

lines of clear revolutionary proletarian action.155 The new league did not envision itself a

faction seeking to take control of the SPA, but rather to educate and influence its membership

and bring them into the Left Wing fold, imploring every thinking Socialist to criticize the

principles and tactics of the SPA and to encourage a new program for the Party founded on

the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat and an organizational structure democratic

in nature, ensuring membership control over Party officials and press.156 The Communist

Propaganda League, like the SPL before it, emanated from American-born Left Wing leadership,

but expanded upon foreign-born immigrant membership, in this instance primarily Russian

154
Alexander Stoklitsky, Declaration to the Members of the Socialist Party of America of the Communist
Propaganda League, in Marxist Internet Archives,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0206-stoklitsky-compropleag.pdf (accessed March 21,
2012). Document in DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA M-1085, reel 931, le 202600-779.
155
Organizational Preamble of the Communist Propaganda League of Chicago, Adopted December 6, 1918, in
Marxist Internet Archive, http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1918/1206-
compropleaguechicago.pdf (accessed March 21, 2012). As published in The Class Struggle (Brooklyn, NY), February
1919, 114-115.
156
Organizational Preamble of the Communist Propaganda League of Chicago, Adopted December 6, 1918, in
Marxist Internet Archive, http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1918/1206-
compropleaguechicago.pdf (accessed March 21, 2012); Declaration to the Members of the Socialist Party of
America of the Communist Propaganda League : With Comments by Alexander Stoklitsky, February 6, 1919, in
Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0206-
stoklitsky-compropleag.pdf (accessed March 28, 2012). Document in DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA M-1085,
reel 931, le 202600-779.

79
instead of Lettish. It was also one step forward in a Left Wing split from the SPA predicated

upon relentless criticism of the Party leadership.

European events influenced the American Left Wing. Historically a loose smattering of

anarchists, Syndicalists, and revolutionary Marxist Socialists, the Left Wing was brought closer

together first by the Zimmerwald Left program, advocated for and disseminated in large part by

the efforts of Russian exiles in the United States and their Left Wing supporters, and then

further cemented by the influence of the Bolshevik Revolution. A program and plan to rally

around now existed, the revolutionary model of the Bolsheviks, and the Europeans in the U.S.

encouraged the shift of the SPA to the left. Throughout late 1918 and early 1919, Lenins

prediction of a European-wide proletarian revolt appeared to be coming briefly to fruition;

Finland established a Socialist Workers Republic which was crushed by reactionary White

forces in 1918, the German Revolution, which in some aspects mirrored that of the Russian

Revolution, stopped short of proclaiming all power to the Soviets, but did result in a short

lived Bavarian Soviet Republic and the abortive Spartacist uprising. Hungary, too, experienced a

revolution by the masses which resulted in a Soviet Republic for several months. Ignoring

American conditions that greatly contrasted with the turbulent effects of the war on European

states, American Left Wingers believed they saw the signs of impending proletarian revolution

in their own country. A strike wave in early 1919, which resulted in violent clashes between

workers and management in Seattle, Portland, Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Butte, Montana,

heralded the arrival of the revolutionary moment in the United States. Believing a revolution

imminent, and believing in the duplicability of the Bolshevik model of proletarian revolution,

Left Wing leaders such as John Reed and Louis Fraina maintained that the application of

80
Leninist tactics to American situations would result in a dictatorship of the proletariat in the

United States. The time to organize the Left on a national scale had come. But how to do it? The

question of whether to capture the SPA for revolutionary Socialism, or to immediately forge a

Communist Party, as had occurred in several European states, would preoccupy the Left Wing

for much of 1919.

81
 VI. THE 1919 SPLIT AND THE TWO COMMUNIST PARTIES

The American Socialist movement was torn asunder in 1919. Towards the end of 1918,

the Left Wing increased the attack upon the reformist Old Guard of the SPA, primarily through

the organ of the SPL, The Revolutionary Age, and through the publications of the Communist

Propaganda League.157 The Left charged the leadership of the Party with showing only half-

hearted support for the Bolsheviks in Russia and the Russian Soviets, and with failing to adopt a

more revolutionary stance as the leading political organization of the American working class.

The coming year or two will bring the mightiest strikes and industrial struggles in the history of

this countrybut the Party, as expressed through its national administration, is not, it must

bitterly be confessed, measuring to the opportunity, wrote Fraina, editor of The Revolutionary

Age.158 The Left argued that what was needed was a unity of the Party, staunchly anti-capitalist

with revolution and the radicalization of the American workers as the goal.

To that end, the Left Wing began to organize in earnest to capture control of the SPA for

revolutionary socialism in early 1919. Left Wing organizations existed in Boston and Chicago,

represented by the Socialist Propaganda League and newly formed Communist Propaganda

League, the latter of which was composed primarily of Russian immigrant groups such as the

Chicago Branch of the Russian Federation under the direction of its leader Alexander Stoklitsky.

However, no organized Left Wing group existed in New York City. This is not because there was

no Left Wing sentiment among Socialists in New York; the boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, and

the Bronx were home to several prominent Left Wing Socialists such as Lore, Boudin, Rutgers,

157
Shannon, The Socialist Party of America, 130.
158
Louis Fraina, The Crisis and the Socialist Party, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1918/1130-fraina-crisisandspa.pdf (accessed March 26, 2012).
Published in The Revolutionary Age [Boston], v. 1, no. 5 (Nov. 30, 1918), 1.

82
and Gitlow. Manhattan, however, was a stronghold of the conservative Old Guard of the Party,

owing largely to the personal influence of Party founder Hillquit and New York State Executive

Secretary Julius Gerber.159 A January, 1919 joint meeting of the central committees of the locals

of Greater New York ended in disarray when Left Wing members walked out after Gerber

refused to give them an opportunity to speak. The Left Wing members who exited demanded

their own meeting room in the hall and therein elected a City Committee of Fourteen, drafted a

manifesto, and styled itself as a Party within the Party aiming to win over the rank and file to

revolutionary socialism.160 Edward Lindgren, a New York City Left Winger, explained the

necessary creation of this new faction, stating the Left Wing group is the logical outcome of a

dissatisfied membershipthat has been taught by the revolutionary activities of the European

movements to compromise is to lose.The Left Wing group therefore believes that the time

has come for the Socialist Party of America to throw off its parliamentary shackles and stand

squarely behind the Soviet Republic of Russia and the revolutionary movements of Europe and

to guide the American workingman in the coming revolutionary struggle between the

proletariat and the capitalist classes.161 The American Left Wing saw the old Socialist parties of

Europe split, between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks or Social Democrats and Spartacists. It did

not seek to follow suit, but spoke instead of taking over the American Party leadership and

transforming the Party into a revolutionary organization. This would have to be done on a

national scale, and the New York Left Wing was prepared to do so.

159
Draper, The Roots, 129-140.
160
Ibid., 145.
161
Edward Lindgren, What is the Left Wing Movement and Its Purpose?, in Davenport, ed., Early American
Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0200-lindgren-whatisleft.pdf (accessed March
26, 2012). Published in The Class Struggle [Brooklyn, NY], v. 3, no. 1 (Feb. 1919), 111-114.

83
 The Left Wing Section of the Greater New York Locals of the Socialist Party, as it was

officially titled, drafted a lengthy manifesto in January, 1919. The Left Wing Section of the

Greater New York Locals was an inclusive organization, containing both Left Wing sympathizers

within the federations as well as Left Wing native-born and English-speaking immigrant

Socialists. Although the federations contributed most of the rank and file members from within

their own ranks, the leadership of the Left Wing Section of the Greater New York Locals was

composed of both Federation members such as Lore, Nicholas Hourwich, and J. Wilenkin, as

well as English-speaking Left Wingers such as Fraina, Reed, and Jay Lovestone. The manifesto of

the Left Wing Section of New York summarized, and dismissed, the moderate sausage

Socialism that had dominated the Socialist movements of Europe and the Americas since

Eduard Bernsteins critique of Marxist theory. The program outlined within the manifesto was

essentially the Bolshevik model of 1917: the organization of workmens councils, workmens

control of all industry, repudiation of all national debts, expropriation of the banks, railroads,

and large trust organizations of capital, and the socialization of foreign trade. It further

advocated that the SPA repudiate all reformist tactics. It agitated for the overthrow of

capitalism and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The program included

support for industrial unionism, argued that the Party should control all Party press and

educational institutions, and repudiated the Berne Congress and elect delegates to attend the

proposed inaugural meeting of the Third International in Moscow, to be held in March, 1919.162

The New York Left Wing became the organizing nucleus for the Left Wing membership around

162
Manifesto and Program of the Left Wing Section Socialist Party, Local Greater New York, in Marxists Internet
Archive, http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0500-lw-manifesto.pdf (accessed March 26,
2012). Published as a pamphlet, circa May 1919. Copy in Comintern Archive f. 515, op. 1, d. 4, l. 55-63.

84
the country, and gained control of several New York locals, which provided membership dues

sufficient to found a new organ. This publication, The New York Communist, with John Reed as

the editor, provided a platform with which to attack the Old Guard of the Party leadership, and

provided a means of reaching Left Wing Socialists in the goal of organizing to win the upcoming

spring elections to the National Executive Committee of the SPA for the Left Wing.163 The Left

Wing now had a unity of purpose: transforming the SPAs Party platform from reformist

gradualist tactics to a revolutionary organization along Bolshevik lines. The Left set upon the

task of winning control of the Party through the established democratic channels.

A month after the first meeting of the New York Left Wing Section, the founding

Congress of the Third (Communist) International opened in Moscow, on March 2, 1919. The

Socialist Labor Party, the Workers International Industrial Union, the Industrial Workers of the

World, and the Left Elements in the SPA, as represented by Debs and the Socialist

Propaganda League, were invited to attend the first congress. No delegates went, however, as

the distance between Moscow and the United States, coupled with the Allied blockade of the

Soviet state, made communications difficult. This is also a probable reason for the failure to

invite the two most radical Left Wing organizations in the United States which would have been

eager to attend: the Communist Propaganda League and the Left Wing Section of New York.

Having been organized relatively recently, the organizers of the founding congress in Moscow

were most likely unaware of their existence, and so no invitations were given. The SPA held a

referendum on attendance to the congress in Moscow, and the membership overwhelming

voted to send delegates; however, the leadership of the Party intentionally delayed the results,

163
Shannon, The Socialist Party of America, 132-133.

85
announcing the returns two months after the end of the founding congress. 164 Only two

representatives of the American organizations invited were able to attend, and that was only

due to their fortuitous presence in Russia prior to the calling of the founding congress. Boris

Reinstein, a Russian-American immigrant who had repatriated to Russia two years earlier,

represented his former Party, the Socialist Labor Party, albeit without the authorization from

the Party itself. S.J. Rutgers, who had been in Russia since the end of 1918, sat as a non-voting

member representing the Socialist Propaganda League.165 Lenins theses presented at the

founding congress of the Third International reiterated his belief that a pan-European

proletarian revolution was imminent, would dismantle capitalism, and would thus ensure a

lasting European peace. To encourage the proletariat to revolutionary action, a unity of

purpose was necessary, and so the Third International would act as a unifying force among

revolutionary Socialists. To further propel the workers of Europe and America, the yellow, or

Right and Center Socialists needed to be exposed as agents of the bourgeoisie. To this end,

Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Third International Grigory Zinoviev declared it

absolutely essential for the Left Wing Socialists to split from the Center and Right, and to win

over the revolutionary elements of the Party through ruthless criticism and exposure of the

Party leadership.166 This absolute historical necessity, the break from the Party, heavily

influenced the actions of the American Left Wing in the coming months.

The American Left Wing Socialist press published the manifesto and writings from the

founding convention of the Communist International. The Comintern urged a merciless fight
164
Howe and Coser, The American Communist Party, 35.
165
Draper, The Roots, 154-155.
166
Extracts from the Resolution of the First Comintern Congress on the Berne Conference of the Parties of the
Second International, in Jane Degras, ed., The Communist International, 1919-1943: Documents, vol. 1 (London:
Oxford University Press, 1956), 26.

86
against the social-patriots, or Right Wing Socialists who had supported the war. Such a fight

was already underway within the American Party, as the Left began to label the Right social-

patriots, and criticized the petty bourgeois pacifism that had dominated the SPAs attitude

toward the American war effort, stating there is no place for pacifists in the Social

Revolution.167 However, the Comintern also instructed Left Wingers to engage in unrelenting

criticism of the Socialist centrists. The Center was less identifiable; few American Socialists

attempted to bridge the gap between the Left and Right Wings. However, there were some

Socialists who brought upon the ire of the Left by assuming something of a centrist stance:

adhering to the Left Wing program, but opposed to the Left Wing tactics that might tear the

SPA apart.168 The Left Wing had no intention of splitting the Party, provided the membership

could be won over overwhelmingly for the Left, the Old Guard leadership replaced, and the

Party transformed into a Revolutionary Socialist Party adhering to the Left Wing manifesto and

program. The Left, boasting of the almost unanimous acclaim with which the rank and

filehave accepted the manifesto of the Left Wing, and bolstered by the ever-growing number

of sympathetic foreign-born Socialists in the federation ranks, was attempting to do exactly

these things, and the upcoming Spring elections of 1919 would be the start of the coup. 169 The

Right Wing did not sit idly by and allow the Party to be taken for the Left, however.

167
Scott Nearing, as quoted in Draper, The Roots, 144.
168
Morris Zucker, Party Tactics: A Letter to the Editor of the New York Call, March 31, 1919, in Davenport, ed.,
Early American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0331-zucker-Partytactics.pdf
(accessed March 27, 2012). Published in The New York Call, March 31, 1919, 6.
169
Morris Zucker, Party Tactics. See James Oneal, American Communism: A Critical Analysis of its Origin,
Development, and Programs (New York: The Rand Book Store, 1927), 53-54. Oneal cites figures stating that
federation membership for the Russian, Ukrainian, South Slavic, Lithuanian, and Lettish Federations had grown
from a combined total of 12,591 in December, 1918 to 22,430 by April, 1919. He further states that 57,248
members belonged to Language Federations, out of a total of 108,504, meaning 53% of the total membership of
the SPA were federation members by April, 1919.

87
 Although the Left Wing in New York City had captured many of the locals, the New York

State organization of the SPA remained within the firm grasp of the reformist Right. On April 13,

1919, the New York State Committee of the Socialist Party met at Albany, New York and drafted

a resolution on the Left Wing Section. Citing Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution of the

Socialist Party of the State of New York, which stated that members and locals of the Party

must adhere and conform to the National and State platforms and constitutions, and

charging that the Left Wing Section had gone outside the established channels provided by the

Party for the fullest and freest discussion of ideas, opinions, and sentiments, the Committee

resolved that the Executive Committee of the New York State Party revoke the charters of the

locals that had affiliated with the Left Wing Section.170 Shortly thereafter, the State Party

commenced reorganizing the Party locals which supported the Left Wing Section. John Reed

documented the effort in a series of articles entitled The Pink Terror published in the New

York Communist, organ of the New York Left Wing Section. The Seventeenth Assembly District

Branch, the largest in New York City with over 400 members, was subjected to a questioning

panel stylized as the committee to register. The newly reorganized branch denied Left Wing

members the right to register, and so were excluded from voting during meetings. The branch

asked those who were readmitted to attend a meeting on Sunday, April 20, for the purpose of

reorganizing the branch, and to put a working Party branch in the district free from factionalism

170
New York State Committee, Socialist Party Resolution on the Left Wing Section, Adopted April 13, 1919, in
Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0413-spny-
resolution.pdf (accessed March 27, 2012). A document in the Socialist Party of America papers, Duke University,
microlm reel 101.

88
and cliques.171 When they arrived, they found police guarding the entrance to the meeting

hall, for the purpose of forcibly removing Left Wing members who attempted entry. Two days

later, the state organization liquidated the entire branch and removed the records and

furniture. Other branches were soon reorganized. The Eighteenth-Twentieth Assembly District

Branch was padlocked from the outside, while Right Wing sympathizers flooded the Second and

Sixth Assembly District Branch meetings and the actual membership suspended.172 Twenty-four

Right Wing Socialists of the State Committee, under the guidance of State Secretary Julius

Gerber, unwilling to let the Left organize their Party within a Party for the purpose of taking

control of the SPA, had undemocratically ousted the Left from the New York Party. The event

set a dangerous precedent that was replicated on a national scale one month later.

The Left Wing won an overwhelming victory in the spring Party elections. The Boston,

Cleveland, Toledo, Akron, Buffalo, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Philadelphia, Detroit,

Seattle, Queens, Bronx, and Brooklyn branches of the Party publicly endorsed the Left Wing

program prior to the election.173 They were joined by several of the Eastern-European Language

Federations: the Russian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Polish, Hungarian, South Slavic, and Lettish,

representing 22,430 members of the total 104,656.174 Left Wing Socialist Kate Richards OHare

defeated Hillquit for the position of International Secretary of the Party by 13,262 to 4,775.

Reed beat Victor Berger by a similarly large margin for the post of delegate to the Socialist

171 th
John Reed, The Pink Terror, Part 1: The Rape of the 17 Assembly District Branch, in Davenport, ed., Early
American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0426-reed-pinkterror1.pdf
(accessed March 27, 2012). Published in the New York Communist, v. 1, no. 2 (April 26, 1919), 8.
172 nd th
John Reed, The Pink Terror, Part 3: Frightfulness in the 2 and 6 AD Branches, in Davenport, ed., Early
American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0508-reed-pinkterror3.pdf
(accessed March 27, 2012). Published in the New York Communist, v. 1, no. 4 (May 8, 1919), 8.
173
Draper, The Roots, 156.
174
Oneal, American Communism, 53.

89
International.175 The elections to the National Executive Committee of the Party were also a

decisive victory for the Left, with Left Wing candidates capturing twelve of fifteen seats.176 The

Left Wing, which saw its program as the one most representative of the majority of Party

members Socialist convictions, was poised to fulfill its goal of transforming the SPA into what

the Left envisioned a Leninist revolutionary Party to be. The Old Guard which had dominated

the NEC of the SPA for so long could not abide this. Having heard rumors of vote fraud, Hillquit

and Germer declared the results void pending an investigation. They alleged that the results

were invalid, as only approximately one-fifth of the entire Party membership had voted in the

referendum.177 Additionally, they charged that the Language Federations voted as a bloc,

awarding all member votes to the majority-backed candidate, as well as encouraging Party

members to vote multiple times for Left Wing candidates.178 Executive Secretary Germer asked

the Federation leaders to provide the election ballots, however only a few actually complied

with his request.179 The members of the NEC consequently voted to hold an emergency

convention set for August 30, 1919, at which a new election to the NEC would take place.

With this action, the conservative leadership of the SPA bought some time to determine

how best to counter the Left Wing in its effort to take the Party. In an article published on May

21, 1919 in The New York Call, Hillquit announced his intentions to clear the decks. Hillquit

attacked the Left Wing as a purely emotional reflex of the situation in Russia, totally out of

sync with American conditions and American workers desires, and harmful to the continued

175
Howe and Coser, The American Communist Party, 35.
176
Bell, Marxian Socialism, 111.
177
Draper, The Roots, 157.
178
Oneal, American Communism, 53.
179
Shannon, The Socialist Party of America, 138.

90
existence of a single Socialist Party dedicated to the concrete class struggle.180 Hillquit

concluded by arguing the two wings of the Party go their separate ways, stating better a

hundred times to have two numerically small Socialist organizations, each homogenous and

harmonious within itself, than to have one big Party torn by dissensions and squabbles, an

impotent colossus on feet of clay.181 Hillquit soon acted to make this vision a reality. Hillquit

and Germer decided to expel the seven Left Wing affiliated Language Federations, plus the

Michigan State organization, which although not officially affiliated had voted to remove any

mention of reformist tactics from its platform. On May 24, the NEC met and by a vote of eight

to two (the two being the only Left Wing members on the old NEC, Alfred Wagenknecht and

Ludwig Katterfeld,) expelled the Left Wing affiliated Language Federations and the entire

Socialist Party of Michigan. Other expulsions followed. At the start of 1919, the SPA could lay

claim to over 109,000 members. Following the expulsions of the Left Wing elements within the

Party, the SPA membership stood at a total of 39,750 dues paying members.182 Now the

elections to the NEC could proceed without interference by the Left and the Old Guard of the

SPA could retain its hold on the Party. The Left Wing was not content to let this happen,

however; one faction believed it the better that they should split the Party. Another held out

for one last effort to take the SPA, an organization to which they no longer officially belonged.

On May 1, 1919, John Reed stated that the intention of the Left Wing was not to split

the Party, although by his own words it was better to split and keep on splitting than to

compromise with reaction. Instead, Reed argued for capturing the SPA Party machinery to
180
Morris Hillquit, The Socialist Task and Outlook, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0521-hillquit-socialisttask.pdf (accessed March 28,
2012). Originally published in the New York Call, May 21, 1919, 8.
181
Ibid.
182
Draper, The Roots, 158.

91
mold the American movement into an effective weapon with which to fight the battles of the

working class, and to transform the SPA into a revolutionary Socialist vanguard Party. Although

the Left was able to mobilize the support of the majority of the membership in electing Left

Wing Socialists to the NEC of the SPA, or at least fraudulently produce enough votes to claim

that this was the case, the unilateral and undemocratic expulsions of Left Wing oriented

subunits within the Party resulted in a status quo of Party leadership and a much smaller, more

conservative membership. The Left Wing now had to decide the next course of action. They had

almost 70,000 former SPA members sympathetic to their program and manifesto. Nearly half

were members of the expelled Foreign Language Federations, with the majority of those hailing

from the federations representing the nationalities of the former Russian Empire and

congregated in Boston, New York City, and Chicago. The remainder were native-born, English

speaking Left Wingers, belonging to the expelled State branches and locals of Massachusetts,

Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota, and Michigan, all states containing relatively large enclaves of Eastern

European immigrants but also home to American-born Left Wingers such as C.E. Ruthenberg of

Ohio.183 The two sides made odd bedfellows, and the issue of leadership ultimately threatened

unity of action among the Left Wing.

Reed, Fraina, and the other leaders of the Left Wing called for a national conference, to

be held in New York City on June 21, 1919. The purpose of the conference was to determine the

next step in the capturing of the SPA for revolutionary Socialism. It began on the twenty-first

with unity between the factions. The attendees endorsed a statement submitted by Reed that

declared the purpose of the Left Wing to be the establishment of a revolutionary working-class

183
Draper, The Roots, 159.

92
movement in the United States, to establish workers control of industry and the state through

the actions of the working masses themselves, by use of extra-parliamentary action.184 All

agreed this was the ultimate goal. The two factions disputed the means of achieving this,

however. The old dispute that separated Bukharin and Trotsky at the first meetings of the then

disorganized Left Wing in 1917 resurfaced: to capture the SPA for revolutionary Socialism, the

position Trotsky endorsed, or to split the Left Wing from the SPA and form an independent

organization, as Bukharin advocated. The Language Federations, and the Michigan state branch,

having both been expelled from the larger SPA, agitated for the immediate creation of a

Communist Party, separate from the SPA. Reed and Fraina, representing the English-speaking

membership, maintained that the correct course of action was to wait until the SPA emergency

convention on August 30, and attempt to win control of the Party at that time. Reed and Fraina

argued that capturing the SPA would provide the movement with the financial assets at the

disposal of the SPA, the Party press machinery, and would also win over sympathetic Socialists

who, although in disagreement with the SPA leadership, wished to see the SPA remain unified.

Should this attempt fail, Fraina and Reed said, then the only option remaining would be the

establishment of a separate Communist Party. The Language Federations and Michigan group

remained obstinate, however, and moved to create a Communist Party now. The conference

defeated the motion, fifty-five to thirty-eight.185 Thirty-one delegates representing the

Language Federations and Michigan group thus withdrew from the conference and decided to

reconvene on September 1, 1919 in Chicago to found a Communist Party in the United States.

The remaining delegates decided to hold another conference to meet on the 30 th of August, in

184
John Reed, as quoted in Shannon, The American Socialist Party, 140.
185
Shannon, The American Socialist Party, 141.

93
Chicago, where the Emergency Convention of the SPA was to be held. The plan was to hold the

Left Wing conference in the same city on the same night, in the hopes that the official SPA

convention might dissolve and the Left Wing fall heir to delegates that came to Chicago.186

Should the SPA emergency convention be held as planned, the Left Wing would attempt to

forcibly seat delegates at the meeting hall.

The impetus for the immediate creation of a Communist Party by the Michigan-

Federation bloc came from two directions. The Michigan leaders, Dennis Batt and John

Keracher, had proposed the creation of a new Socialist Party in the United States affiliated with

the Third International. An emergency state convention in Michigan in early June, 1919,

resulted in the call for the establishment of such a Party in Chicago on September 1. The whole

of the Left Wing found this unsatisfactory, as the goal was to attend the official SPA emergency

convention on August 30 and capture the Party. The Left Wing would not be taken seriously

had it already decided to forge a new Party the next day.187 However, the Michigan group found

allies in the Russian Federation leadership. Thus the Federation-Michigan bloc, having

determined in early June that a Communist Party must be formed as soon as possible, attended

the June 21, 1919 Left Wing conference with the intention of winning the rest of the Left to

their position, and failing that to announce its withdrawal from the greater Left Wing and

intention to form a Communist organization in the United States.

Relatively little information survives about the leaders of the Russian Federation of the

Socialist Party. Although their influence was great, it was only so for a short period of time.

Their names are recorded in the documents and voting results of the Federation, and their

186
Oneal, American Communism, 57.
187
Draper, The Roots, 165.

94
political screeds are preserved within the microfilmed volumes of Novy Mir, although many of

these remain to be translated. However, little personal information is available; what

knowledge survives largely comes from the memoirs and accounts of English-speaking

comrades and rivals, which often portrayed these individuals in a negative light. However, they

do deserve some examination, as a handful of Russian migrs within the American Socialist

movement wielded large amounts of power, through the membership of their Federation, in

the early Communist movement in the United States, and undoubtedly played a key role in the

disharmony and discord of that same movement in its earliest years.

It should be noted that none of the following Russian Federation leaders were born in

the United States. All immigrated to the U.S., although when exactly remains a mystery. It is

likely that Nicholas Hourwich resided within the United States in the 1890s. We can only

speculate that others such as Alexander Stoklitsky and Oscar Tyverovsky arrived on American

shores at a later date than Hourwich, perhaps as political exiles following the 1905 Russian

Revolution. These Russian immigrants kept abreast of events in Russia after their departure

through Novy Mir. Through this medium, Russian Americans were able to remain informed on

developments within Russian politics, and within both the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions of

the Russian Social Democratic Party. Russian immigrants who did not depart from Europe until

after the 1905 revolution would undoubtedly have been familiar with Lenins 1902 work What

is to Be Done?, in which Lenin argued that common workers would never develop class political

consciousness solely through economic struggles for immediate workplace reforms. Such

consciousness, he argued, could only be brought from without the economic sphere, by a

vanguard Party composed of professional revolutionary Socialists, who would endeavor to

95
educate and convert the working class to Marxism. Through Novy Mir it is likely that Russians

who immigrated to the U.S. prior to 1902, such as Nicholas Hourwich, would have had the

opportunity to read Russian Socialist literature such as What is to Be Done?

The Russians in the United States were thus exposed to the Bolshevik position despite

being an ocean removed from events in Russia. What is to Be Done? Influenced Russian

immigrant leaders such as Hourwich and Stoklitsky to such a degree that they sought to build a

Communist Party that was the vanguard Party described by Lenin; certainly, they saw in the

U.S. a labor movement characterized by the trade unionism of the AFL, the ignorance of Marxist

principles by the average workingman, and a reluctance to accept revolution as a necessity in

political reform. The success of the Bolsheviks in the November Revolution of 1917 only further

reinforced the belief among Russian immigrants that Lenins model of a revolutionary Party was

the correct blueprint to overthrow the existing social order. This unyielding belief in the

Bolshevik model of 1902 remained the at the core of the Russian Federation leaderships

aspirations for what the Left Wing of the SPA, and later the Communist Party of America,

should be, for almost two decades. When Lenin authored Left Wing Communism: An Infantile

Disorder in 1920, the Russian immigrants of the CPA remained steadfast in their devotion to the

1902 conception of Bolshevism. In his 1920 work Lenin chastised Left Wing Communists who

remained anti-trade unionist, anti-parliamentarism, and refused to compromise and rigidly

clung to theory as dogma, all familiar characteristics of the Russian immigrant leaders in the

CPA. The leaders of the Russian Federation, then, remained Bolsheviks, as they understood

the program outlined in What is to be Done?, well past the expiration date. Removed from the

events in Russia after the November, 1917 Revolution, they failed to appreciate the changes

96
and fluctuations in Bolshevik doctrine that occurred out of necessity in the succeeding years.

Their refusal to adapt to the changing times would have far reaching consequences for their

organization and roles within the American movement, as we shall see.

At the head of the local New York Russian Federation was Nicholas Hourwich. Hourwich,

(originally Gurvich) was the son of Russian Social Democrat Isaac Hourwich, an economist and

lawyer, who immigrated to the United States sometime in the 1890s.188 His father was involved

in Russian politics in the Tsarist Empire, knew Lenin personally, and was appointed to the

Russian Soviet Government Bureau, an informal embassy of Soviet Russia established in 1919 in

New York City and headed by Ludwig Martens, whose mission was to establish commercial links

with American businesses. Nicholas, perhaps because of his fathers acquaintance with Lenin,

regarded himself as an outstanding exponent of Bolshevism in America.189 He certainly

attempted to portray himself as such; as Benjamin Gitlow recalls, his egotism knew no bounds.

When he spoke, his small reddish beard bristled with excitementshort of stature and

impressed with his own importance, he was a ludicrous-looking individual dressed in black,

pockets crammed full of papers and documents, a bundle of newspapers and magazines always

under his arm.190 The young man was one of the three chief editors at Novy Mir as early as

1918, making him the inheritor of the legacy established by the true Bolsheviks who had run

the paper in 1916-1917. Influenced by the declarations of the first Comintern Congress,

Hourwich led the charge of the federation secession from the greater Left Wing in 1919,

agitating for the immediate establishment of a Communist Party rather than following the Left
188
The exact date of Hourwichs emigration is unknown, although it is known that he served as a lawyer in Russia
as late as 1887 but passed the Illinois bar exam in 1893. See section Isaac Hourwich at
http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/other/rsgb/rsgbofficials.html (accessed April 25, 2012).
189
Gitlow, I Confess, 27.
190
Ibid.

97
Wing Council plan to capture the SPA.191 Hourwich disappeared from the American political

scene shortly after the formation of the Communist Party of America. Perhaps to avoid arrest

during the first Red Scare of 1920, he was bundled off to Russia, posing as a coal stoker on a

ship headed East. He felt his exodus to be a temporary one, but the Communist International

willed otherwise. He never returned.192

Less is known about Hourwichs counterpart in those early days of the American

Communist Party: Alexander Stoklitsky. A stocky man with jet black hair and a Stalin-esque

mustache, Stoklitsky was a fiery orator and passionate polemicist whose works appeared often

in Novy Mir. Stoklitsky headed the Russian Federation Chicago locals. He, too, was a proponent

of splitting from the Left Wing. Stoklitsky served as Translator-Secretary of the Russian

Federation within the Communist Party of America, and thus weld a large amount of power, as

the Russian Federation made up almost one-third of total Communist Party of America

membership.193 Stoklitsky, too, was arrested in the Red Scare dragnets. Deported to Russia, he

attended the Second Comintern Congress as an international delegate of the Communist Party

of America in 1920. His name does not appear again within Party election results or documents,

save for one editorial appearing in The Socialist World in 1923, three years after his

disappearance from the American Communist movement, by Bertha Hale White. In the

editorial, White accused Stoklitsky of being an agent provocateur of the U.S. government, sent

191
Draper, The Roots, 166-167.
192
Gitlow, I Confess, 27.
193
Glazer, The Social Basis of American Communism, 41. Glazer cites statistics that the Russian Federation claimed
8,000 members in May, 1919, out of more than 20,000, perhaps as many as 30,000 total federation members.
This is out of the estimated total membership of 27,341 dues-paying members cited in Draper, The Roots, 189.

98
to infiltrate the Socialist Left Wing, and who spent his time in the Party sowing discord and

weakening the movement.194

Oscar Tyverovskys origins remain a mystery. He was actively involved in the Russian

Federation within the SPA, and was elected Federation Secretary in January, 1919, a post he

retained after the expulsion from the SPA and within the Russian Federation of the Communist

Party of America. Tyverovsky further served on the Central Executive Committee of the

Communist Party. A proponent of a split from the Left Wing, Tyverovsky also opposed unity

negotiations between the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party throughout

1919.195 Tyverovsky was also arrested in the Red Scare raids of 1920.196 However, he avoided

deportment and sat on the Unity Committee of the Communist Party of America in February,

1921.197

George Ashkenuzi was elected to the Central Executive Committee of the Russian

Federation of the SPA in January, 1919. After the expulsion of the Federation and the founding

of the Communist Party of America, Ashkenuzi became Communist Party of America District

Organizer of New York City, a post he retained until rejoining the Central Executive Committee,

194
Bertha Hale White, The Enemy Within, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://www.marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1923/0300-white-enemywithin.pdf (accessed April 25,
2012). Originally published in The Socialist World [Chicago], vol. 4, no. 3 (March 1923), 5-8.
195
See Oscar Tyverovsky, Circular to All Branches of the Russian Federation of the Communist Party of America
from Oscar Tyverovsky, Secretary, circa September 15, 1919, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/lfed/russian/1919/0915-tyverov-torussianfed.pdf (accessed April 25,
2012). Russian document and translation in the DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA collection M-1085, reel 938, file
202600-1172.
196
To All Sections of the Russian Communist Federation: A leaflet from the Executive Committee of the Russian
Communist Federation of the CPA *mailed February 24, 1920+ in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/lfed/russian/1920/0224-cecrfcpa-toallsections.pdf (accessed April
25, 2012). Photostatic original of leaflet Ko vsem otdelam Russkoi Kommunisticheskoi Federatsii and unsigned
translation in DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA M-1085, reel 931, file 313846.
197
See The Communist Party of America (1919-1946) in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html (accessed April 25, 2012).

99
this time of the unified Communist Party of America following the Joint Unity Convention held

in Woodstock, New York in May, 1921. Ashkenuzi is notable for being one of the three CEC

members of the so-called Central Caucus faction of the Party, which split from the larger

unified Communist Party over objections to forming an above-ground, Legal Political Party, in

1922.

Hourwich, Stoklitsky, Tyverovsky and Ashkenuzi were all prominent figures within the

Russian Federation of the SPA, and later the Russian Federation of the Communist Party. Their

personal histories are largely lost or remain to be examined, however it is known that, owing to

their membership within the Russian Federation, all spoke primarily Russian instead of English,

and hailed from the Russian Empire, emigrating to the United States prior to 1917. Their

personal political histories, too, are lost to time; it is possible that these men came to the

United States well versed in Russian Social Democracy but not ardent Bolsheviks. However, by

1918, all were avowedly self-professed Bolsheviks. Through their leadership positions within

the Russian Federation and Communist Party, these men were highly influential in the

development of American Communism and took center stage, at various times, in the factional

battles that resulted in disunity and splits within the early American Communist movement.

Nicholas Hourwich, of New York City, and Alexander Stoklitsky, of Chicago, were two of

the more prominent Russian Federation members. Initially they backed the proposed takeover

of the SPA as outlined in the Left Wing manifesto and program; this is evident in the minutes of

the Fourth Convention of the Russian Socialist Federation, held in New York City from

September 28 to October 2, 1918. A section within the minutes, wherein the convention

addressed the Federations relationship to the SPA, acknowledged a coming split as had

100
happened between revolutionary and non-revolutionary factions in the European Socialist

movements. There is no indication that the Russian Federation sought to split the Party, only to

follow the Left Wing program of transforming the reformist SPA into a revolutionary, Bolshevik

Party, through agitation and education among the membership.198 However, Stoklitsky,

Tyverovsky, and Hourwich, as they became familiar with the documents and theses issued forth

at the founding congress of the Third International, decided capturing the Party was contrary to

Bolshevik tradition; the first congress of the Third International called for such splits in the

Socialist parties of Europe and the Americas. An undated letter from Bukharin to American Left

Wing Comrades, written on behalf of the Comintern, argued that the time had come for the

Left to split from the SPA following the expulsion of the Language Federations, and form a

Communist organization affiliated with the Third International and working to encourage the

organization of Soviets amongst American workers, soldiers, and sailors.199 Had Lenin, they

asked, attempted to unify the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks of the Russian Social Democratic

Party, or take the name of that fractured Party for his own? No, they realized, he had made a

clean break. So, too, must the American Left Wing. They, and the Russian Federation, thus

backed the Michigan group in their effort to form a Communist Party and leave the SPA to its

own destiny. Thus on June 5, 1919, a meeting of the Russian Branches of the SPA in Chicago

resolved that the Russian Federation press begin propagandizing for the establishment of a

198
Minutes of the Fourth Convention of the Russian Socialist Federation, in Davenport, ed., Early American
Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/lfed/russian/1918/1002-rsf-convminutes.pdf (accessed
May 8, 2012). Document in DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA collection M-1085, reel 938, document 341853.
199
Untitled Letter from N. Bukharin to American Left Wing, in Communist Party of the United States of America,
and John Earl Haynes. Files of the Communist Party of the USA in the Comintern Archives. [Moscow, Russia]:
Rossiiskii tsentr khraneniia i izucheniia dokumentov noveishei istorii, 1999., Reel 1, Folio 1, 4-6. Microfilm.

101
Communist Party in the United States.200 Two weeks prior to the National Conference of the

Left Wing, the Russian Federation leaders had already determined to walk out of the meeting

and begin preparations for a founding convention of a Communist Party, with or without the

rest of the Left Wing of the SPA.

The Russian Federation leadership dove wholly into organizing work in preparation for

the proposed September 1st founding convention of the Communist Party of America. On July

15th, Federation Translator-Secretary Alexander Stoklitsky sent a circular letter to all members

of the Russian Federation, which called on the membership to create Communist locals or

conferences for the purpose of electing delegates to the General Communist Convention to

meet on September first.201 The Left Wing press published the call for the founding convention

of the Communist Party, and included a program nearly identical to that of the Left Wing

Section of the SPA, although with the role of parliamentary activity reduced to of secondary

importance.202 Stoklitsky contributed a long article to first issue of The Communist, a short-

lived publication of the Federation-Michigan Alliance. Entitled On The Party Horizon,

Stoklitsky articulated the federation position, arguing why the time had come to sever ties with

200
Jacob Spolansky, The Conference of Russian Branches of the American Socialist Party in Chicago: Organization,
Representation, and Activities, [events of March 24 to August 9, 1919+, 3. In Davenport, ed., Early American
Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/1919/0809-spol-confrussbranches.pdf (accessed
April 2, 2012). Document in DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA M-1085, reel 931, le 313846. Spolansky was a
Russian Immigrant in New York City. He was employed by the Bureau of Investigation as an undercover agent. He
attended many Left Wing Socialist, Communist, and Russian Federation meetings, providing meticulous notes and
copies of minutes to the Bureau. Spolanskys involvement in the American Communist movement is detailed in his
book The Communist Trail in America (New York: Macmillan, 1951).
201
Alexander Stoklitsky, Circular Letter to All Members of the Russian Socialist Federation from Alexander
Stoklitsky, Translator-Secretary, in Chicago, circa July 15, 1919, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/lfed/russian/1919/0715-stoklitsky-circularletter.pdf, (accessed April
2, 2012). Russian document and a translation in DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA M-1085, reel 925.
202
Call for a National Convention for the Purpose of Organizing a Communist Party in America, in Davenport, ed.,
Early American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0719-fedsmichigan-
convcall.pdf, (accessed April 2, 2012). Published in The Communist [Chicago, Left Wing Section], v. 1, no. 1 (July 19,
1919), 1-2.

102
the SPA and create a new Party of revolutionary Marxist character. He referred to the split in

the SPA as the echo of the death rattle of the Second International, a direct result of what

he asserted was the increasingly revolutionary attitude of the American working man. He

lambasted the Left Wing Socialists who remained resolute on capturing the SPA at the

upcoming August Party convention, calling their plan to capture the Party for revolutionary

Socialism a declaration of war upon windmills by the Don Quixotes of the Center, and

justified this position by appealing to the authority of the Bolsheviks and the Third

International, which never adopted the slogan capture the Second International for

revolutionary Socialism.203 Stoklitsky likened the American Left Wing to the European

Zimmerwaldian Centrists maligned by Lenin, whom he quoted: The fatal weakness of the

Zimmerwald Internationalwas its hesitancy, its lack of decision when it came to thequestion

of breaking with the social-patriots and social-patriot international. These very defects we

found in the Majority Delegates. As the Zimmerwaldites, their American prototypes hesitate

and are irresolute in the questionto break away from the traitorous Socialist Party, the Party

which sent delegates to the Bern Conference.204 To the argument of the Left Wing that

capture of the SPA would attract the Socialist masses away from the social traitors of the

Right Wing, Stoklitsky again argued from a position as authority on Bolshevik practice: Must

we stoop so low as tocapture the masses? Bolsheviki never run after the masses; Communists

are not satisfied to be the tail. They are ever in the leadwe do not care for a Communist Party

203
Alexander Stoklitsky, On the Party Horizon, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0719-stoklitsky-onhorizon.pdf (accessed May 24, 2012).
Published in The Communist [Chicago: Federation-Michigan Alliance], v. 1, no. 1 (July 19, 1919), 3, 8.
204
Alexander Stoklitsky, Zimmerwaldites and their American Prototypes, The Communist, August 2, 1919.
Available online at http://marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/thecommunist/thecommunist2/v1n03-aug-02-1919.pdf
(accessed April 9, 2012).

103
minus the Communist principles. Only consistent and principled supporters of the Third

International can build a new and militant Party.205 For Stoklitsky, the split was already fact,

and had begun with the expulsion of the seven Language Federations and Michigan State

branch two months earlier. Capturing the Party was a fools errand, a course decided upon by a

wavering and irresolute Center of the SPA. The time had come to found a Communist Party

dedicated to revolutionary socialism, built on the Bolshevik model. And who best to lead such a

Party than the representatives of Russian revolutionary Socialism in the United States, the

Russian Communistic Federations.206 Indeed, the call for the convention to organize a

Communist Party made it obvious that the federation leaders had every intention of controlling

the formation: one delegate for every organization attending, and an additional delegate for

every 500 members within an organization. The federations, home to the majority of Left Wing

American Socialists, would thus easily claim a majority of the delegates.

Stoklitsky, Hourwich, and the leadership of the expelled federations attacked the

majority Left Wing during the period leading up to the SPA emergency convention of August

31st. Although they had walked out of the National Conference of the Left Wing, they had not

broken all ties with that organization, and the federations were still officially affiliated with the

Left Wing Section of the SPA. However, the Federation-Michigan group refused to support the

resolution of the National Council of the Left Wing, denied them the financial support from

membership dues, and, as Benjamin Gitlow recalls, even ordered large quantities of the Left

205
Alexander Stoklitsky, On the Party Horizon, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0719-stoklitsky-onhorizon.pdf (accessed April 2, 2012).
Published in The Communist [Chicago: Federation-Michigan Alliance], v. 1, no. 1 (July 19, 1919), 3, 8.
206
Gitlow, I Confess, 37. Benjamin Gitlow contends that the Russian Federation leaders emphasized to their
members that their American comrades could not be trusted because they dont understand Bolshevism and
that only those born in the territory that formerly comprised the Russian Empire had the attributes that went to
make Bolsheviks.

104
Wing publication The Revolutionary Age which they destroyed and refused to pay for.207 The

Left Wing majority remained resolute in their stance, however, and continued to plan for

forcing entrance to the SPA emergency convention. Should the Left Wing delegates be denied

entrance at the convention, which they felt they were entitled to owing to the victory of the

Left Wing in the spring Party elections, only then would the Left found an American Party of

Communism.208 Alfred Wagenknecht, Edward Katterfeld, and Edward Lindgren, three of the

representatives elected to the National Executive Committee of the SPA in the spring elections,

the results of which were declared null and void by the official NEC of the Party, convened

regardless, and stylized themselves the new NEC of the SPA. They regarded themselves as the

legitimate executive body of the SPA, citing a mandate of the Party membership, and

convened from July 26 to July 27, 1919. The new NEC issued a declaration to the Party, stating

its intent to oust Germer from the post of National Executive Secretary, reinstate the expelled

Language Federations and State branches, reorganize the SPA as a Communist Party, and to

assume full control of the Emergency National Convention scheduled for August 30, 1919, in

Chicago.209 The majority Left Wing appealed to the democratic wishes of the Party membership

for legitimacy, justifying their plan to take the SPA convention upon these grounds. Ironically,

the majority of the membership that elected the Left Wing NEC members resided within the

ousted Language Federations, and so was opposed to the plan to usurp the Emergency

207
Gitlow, I Confess, 35.
208
I.E. Ferguson, The National Left Wing, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0725-ferguson-nationallw.pdf (accessed April 2, 2012).
Originally published in The Truth [Duluth, MN], vol. 3, no. 29, (July 25, 1919), 3.
209
NEC Declaration to the Party: Issued by the *new+ National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, in
Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0727-newnec-
declaration.pdf, (accessed April 2, 2012). Originally published in The Revolutionary Age [New York], vol. 2, no. 5,
(August 2, 1919), 3-4.

105
Convention and instead favored the immediate creation of a Communist Party. Regardless, the

majority Left Wing continued on course, resolute in its belief that they represented the majority

of American Socialists, and secure in its belief that this majority wanted a Socialist Party based

upon a revolutionary, not reformist, program.

When the day came, however, the Left was again foiled by the Right Wing old NEC.

When the Emergency Convention of the SPA opened on August 30 th, 1919 at Machinists Hall in

Chicago, the old leadership of the SPA was prepared to deal with any disruptions caused by the

Left Wing. The SPA credential committee was informed not to seat delegates who arrived to

the convention without the specially issued white cards, to ensure Left Wing delegates could

not slip into the meeting. Only those examined by the credentials committee and found in line

with the SPA program were issued such cards. Two missteps by the Left Wing further

complicated its plans: Left Wing delegates met on the evening before the convention opened in

the billiard and bar room of Machinists Hall, and carelessly left at least one copy of the minutes

of the meeting on a table. The janitor at Machinists Hall, who was a good friend of SPA

Executive Secretary Germer, discovered the document and informed Germer of the Left Wing

plans. Additionally, Left Wing Socialist Alfred Wagenknecht had bragged to a reporter from the

Chicago Tribune that the Left Wing would take seats at the convention by force if necessary.

The reporter informed the Chicago Police Department, which made sure to post uniformed

policemen at the hall on the day of the convention to keep the peace between the factions. 210

The conference opened as planned, and the Left Wing attempted to take seats at the hall.

Germer arrived late, and ordered the Left Wingers to leave the hall. They refused, and a scuffle

210
Draper, The Roots, 176-177.

106
ensued between Germer and Reed, although it is unclear who threw the first punch.211 The

police were called in, and they forcibly removed the Left Wing Socialists. The Left Wing plan had

failed. A contingency plan had been agreed upon beforehand, however: the Left Wing would

forge ahead and create a Communist Party, separate from that planned by the Michigan-

Federation bloc.

The Left Wing did not have far to go. The delegates adjourned to the billiard and bar

room on the first floor to protest the actions of the SPA leadership. One day later, at 6:00 p.m.,

they reconvened and opened the founding convention of a Communist Party. One of the first

actions of the convention was a vote on a proposal by Charles Ruthenberg, who suggested the

convention delay the organization of a Party and seek unity with the Federation-Michigan led

Communist Party convention scheduled to begin the next day. The delegates voted down the

motion thirty-seven to thirty-one, after which Ruthenberg withdrew from the convention. Unity

was not possible. Reed dismissed the motion, saying that the federation leaders could come to

the CLP if they wanted unity.212 Left Winger Max Eastman later wrote that to have supported

Ruthenbergs measure would have been to submission to the control of the Slavic

Federation.213 Two days later, after the proceedings had been moved to the I.W.W. hall in

Chicago, they agreed on the title Communist Labor Party (CLP). Reed and the delegates drafted

a constitution, and established an organizational framework similar to that of the SPA,

complete with provisions for CLP members elected to Congress as well as guidelines for the

211
Howe and Coser, The American Communist Party, 37.
212
Draper, The Roots, 179.
213
Max Eastman, as cited in Howe and Coser, The American Communist Party, 39.

107
establishment of Foreign Language Federations within the Party.214 They also created a

platform and program. The CLP platform stated the Party was in full harmony with the

revolutionary working class parties of all countries, was in complete harmony with the

principles of the Third International, and appealed to the workers of the United States to stand

with the CLP in conquering political power and the abolition of the present system of

production.215 The organization of the Party differed little from the SPA, and the program,

based upon the principles of the Third International, was not much different from that drafted

by the Communist Party of America. What is clear, however, is that the CLP did not wish to

incorporate the federation leadership into the American Party. Immediate unity would only be

achieved on the CLPs terms.

Meanwhile, the Federation-Michigan bloc, with some English-speaking members of the

Left Wing such as Ruthenberg and Fraina who had initially supported the Left Wing plan to

capture the SPA and later decided to give their support to the Federation-Michigan group, met

on September 1 at the headquarters of the Russian Federation in Chicago for the purpose of

establishing a Communist Party. Fraina, in the opening address of the convention, proclaimed

an end once and for all to factional disputes. We are at an end with bickering. We are at an

end with controversy. We are here to build a Party of action.216 He was premature in his

optimism. The founding convention of the Communist Party of America was characterized by

conflict. The makeup of the convention was one of three power blocs. The federations were the

strongest numerically, claiming the largest membership of the three. The English speaking Left

214
Constitution-Program-Platform, Communist Labor Party, in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party,
Reel 1, Folio 5, 15. Microfilm.
215
Ibid.
216
Louis Fraina, as quoted in Draper, The Roots, 182.

108
Wing Council remnants that bolted from the SPA emergency convention, and the CLP founding

convention, and headed by Fraina and Ruthenberg claimed slightly fewer members. The final

group was the Michigan State organization, which could claim only half as many members as

either of the other two, and thus was proportionally weaker with fewer representative

delegates.

The Fraina-Ruthenberg Council Group suggested the CPA convention consider

approaching the CLP convention with a proposal of unity. The Federation-Michigan alliance

staunchly opposed any such measure, voting down a motion to appoint five delegates to a

committee toward this end 75 to 31.217 The delegates agreed, however, that any CLP delegates

acceptable to the CPA credentials committee were welcome to join as special guests. 218 The

Michigan group fell out with the Federation bloc on the sixth day of the convention. The

Michigan group objected to the Party program and manifesto, with Michigan leader Batt

deriding the federation leadership for putting forth a program not sufficiently Marxist in

character, stating You so-called 100% Bolsheviks will not deny the facts as they are50% of

you have not read Marxs Value, Price, and Profit. Your program does not deal at all with the

delicate question of the High Cost of Living *sic+I have no hope of competing with the Russian

Dictatorship of this conventionyou have endeavored to capture the masses as you have

captured this convention, but you will find it vastly different.219 The Michigan group also

objected to the use of the term mass action in the manifesto, and stated opposition to armed

217
Draper, The Roots, 183.
218
Ibid.
219
Batt, quoted in James Peyronnin, First Convention of the Communist Party of America, Day 6, September 6,
1919, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/1919/0906-peyronnin-cpaconvday6.pdf (accessed May 24,
2012). Document in DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA M-1085, reel 931, file 313846.

109
revolt as a tactic of the Party and arguing for a commitment to political action.220 Batt then

read the Manifesto as proposed by the Minority, making it clear that each statement was

backed by the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. With that, Batt left the convention, and the

Michigan group resolved not to vote for the Manifesto and Program and to refuse nomination

for any future post in the Party.221 The remainder of the convention did not heed their threats,

and the Michigan bloc remained isolated and did not contribute seriously for the remainder of

the convention.222

Batt was not alone in his belief that the Federation bloc, under the leadership of the

Russian-Americans Hourwich and Stoklitsky, dominated the proceedings of the convention.

James Peyronnin, an agent of the Bureau of Investigation, infiltrated the CPA convention. His

report of the fourth day of the convention indicates that Edward I. Lindgren and Morris Zucker

of the Kings County, New York local, Henry Tichenor of the St. Louis, Missouri local, and Irene

Smith of California left the convention on account of their opposition to the Russian

Federations control.223 They defected to the CLP convention instead. Jacob Spolansky,

another Bureau of Investigation agent, similarly recorded the departure of a delegate on the

third day. Upon leaving, the man stated that the Russians dominated the convention due to

their well organized machine and that he did not see any difference between this

220
Bell, Marxian Socialism, 123.
221
James Peyronnin, First Convention of the Communist Party of America, Day 6, September 6, 1919, in
Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/1919/0906-
peyronnin-cpaconvday6.pdf (accessed April 4, 2012). Document in DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA M-1085, reel
931, file 313846.
222
Draper, The Roots, 184.
223
James Peyronnin, First Convention of the Communist Party of America, Day 4, September 4, 1919, in
Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/1919/0904-
peyronnin-cpaconvday4.pdf (accessed April 4, 2012). Document in DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA M-1085, reel
931, file 313846.

110
convention and the Emergency Socialist Conventionand that a few leaders were trying to

dominate the Communist Party of America for their own selfish purposes.224

The Russian Federation knew it commanded a large contingent of the new CPA

membership, and perhaps felt that they were entitled to greater authority as a result. Perhaps

they regarded themselves as the only authentic representatives of Bolshevism in the United

States, and the only ones capable of establishing a true Communist Party. Despite their

dominance of the convention, which drove some delegates away in disgust, the remaining

English-speaking Left Wing bloc did not abandon the convention. Indeed, when the convention

elected individuals to the important posts in the nascent Party, almost all went to non-Slavic

federation, English speaking members. The delegates elected Ruthenberg National Secretary,

and Fraina International Secretary and editor of Party publications. Ruthenberg, Fraina, Charles

Dirba, I.E. Ferguson, Harry Wicks, John Ballam, Max Cohen, and Jay Lovestone, all English-

speaking, non-federation members, won seats on the Central Executive Committee of the

Party. The remaining seven posts went to federation members, with only Nicholas Hourwich

and Oscar Tyverovsky hailing from the Russian Federation. The leadership, then, was anything

but reflective of Russian dominance within the early CPA. However, the federation leaders

wielded significant influence within their respective federations, and thus could influence Party

elections. To retain their positions of influence, the English-speaking CPA leaders would have to

keep the federation leadership placated.

224
Jacob Spolansky, Communist Party of America Convention, Day 3, September 3, 1919, in Davenport, ed., Early
American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/1919/0903-spolansky-cpaconvday3.pdf
(accessed April 4,2012). Document in DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA M-1085, reel 931, file 313846.

111
 The CPA was the product of the Michigan-Federation group. Elements of the English

speaking Left Wing which withdrew from the SPA emergency convention and the CLP founding

convention joined them. These English speaking Left Wingers stayed with the CPA to keep the

nascent movement unified, a sentiment which would in 1920 lead many, such as Ruthenberg,

to abandon the CPA for amalgamation with the English speaking dominated CLP. For their part,

the Russian and other Federationist leaders tolerated the English speaking comrades in the

Party hierarchy out of necessity. Although they believed themselves the only ones truly capable

of understanding Leninism and Bolshevism, and believed their English speaking comrades

largely ignorant of Leninist principles and theory, they realized the necessity of having some

native English speakers able to fully reach the English speaking American working class.

The Michigan group found the CPA program and manifesto unsatisfying, and their

attempts to influence the convention were ineffective. They quickly realized the limitations of

their involvement within the new Party, and remained non-players. The Council Group headed

by Ruthenberg and Fraina, wielding numbers less than that of the Federation bloc, remained

within a power-sharing arrangement with the federation leadership, and, indeed, held the most

influential positions within the Party hierarchy. The CPA, then, was a Party characterized by a

large non-English speaking federation membership with native-born, or at least English-

speaking and assimilated, American leadership. The CLP, which had the support of few

federation members and a smaller total membership base, was more native-born American or

English-speaking in character. The CLP was formed as a response to the inability of the Left

Wing to participate in, and capture, the SPA Emergency Convention. The Left Wing Section

112
and the Federation-Michigan group initially split over the issue of whether or not to attempt

this taking of the SPA political machinery. This maneuver failed.

Why did the CLP exist at all then? After all, the CLP and CPA both espoused the same

goals with little difference in tactics and theory. Their constitutions were likewise similar. The

two parties existed separately not because of ideological reasons, but due to the political

aspirations of their respective leaders. The Russian Federation leadership desired to be the

architects of an American Communist Party based on the Bolshevik model. The CLP leaders did

not want the American movement coopted by what they perceived as Russian born elitists with

aspirations of dominance over the Party. John Reed referred to the CPA as an artificial

grouping of foreign-born workerstrying to create a foreign working-class movement in the

U.S. expressed in terms of the European movement (without any attempt to adapt it to the

psychology of the American working-class.)225 This is a puzzling sentiment given Reeds

idolization of Lenin and his Bolshevik Party. Clearly, Reed did not equate Russian immigrants in

the United States with their countryman Lenin in Russia. Reed preferred a Bolshevik-style

revolution in the United States led by native-born U.S. Leftists. The question that divided the

two Communist parties was, then, who will control the American movement: foreigners or

native-born Americans?

This question was not an easy one to resolve and was the basis for the inability of the

two parties to unify during the early 1920s. The question presented itself in various forms.

Through 1919 and 1920, the divide between the Party was a question of ideological purity,

tactics, and theory. Thereafter, the divide manifested through a question of organization:

225
John Reed, Untitled Editorial, in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 1, Folio 6, 7. Microfilm.

113
whether to establish a legal above ground Communist Party, and then whether to liquidate or

retain the underground Communist organization. These debates kept the two parties disunited,

and following the eventual unity of the two organizations, precipitated further splits. Russian-

American Foreign Language Federation leaders, who had contributed to the rise of the

American Left Wing of the Socialist Party and agitated so passionately for a break with that

Party, were a constant through these divides.

114
 VII. RUSSIAN AMERICANS, THE FEDERATIONS, AND FACTIONAL WARFARE IN THE EARLY

COMMUNIST MOVEMENT

The early period of Communist Party activity in the United States is characterized by

factional strife and disunity. The movement began with two separate entities, the Communist

Party of America and the Communist Labor Party, under rival leaderships. The CLP at times

attempted to bridge the gap and unite the two bodies, while the CPA often refused and stymied

overtures of peace and unification. This situation endured throughout 1919. In 1920, a minority

group departed the obstinate CPA and joined the CLP in an act of unity. The remaining

contingent of the old CPA stayed the course of isolation from the other Communist

organization, until intervention by executives of the Third International demanded working

unity between the two bodies in 1921. This unity was short-lived, however, as the remaining

leadership of the old CPA again split from the larger Party, this time over the issue of the

establishment of a parallel above-ground Legal Political Party, as the public wing of the

Communist movement. The dissenters reentered the fold, again at the insistence of Comintern

representatives, in September, 1922. At the center of these disputes in the first three years of

Communist Party existence in the United States was the nucleus of CPA leadership: the Russian

Americans of the Russian Federation. 1919 marked the height of Russian-American influence

within the Communist Party. The unifying events and subsequent splits resulted, over the

course of the next three years, in the gradual decline of this influence in the Party, from an apex

at the birth of the movement to almost complete marginalization by the end of 1922.

There has been a tendency in the literature of the early American Communist

movement to dismiss the discord between the two Communist parties as unimportant, simply

115
the result of two distinct groups of ambitious leaders, both vying for the control of the Left

Wing American Socialist membership, and both seeking to be at the head of American

Communism. Contemporaries of these ambitious individuals echoed this sentiment; Henry

Kuhn of the Socialist Labor Party in a letter to Boris Reinstein, stated that the two parties

emerged from the ruins of the SPA emergency convention largely because of rival leadership;

there is little else to divide them.226 Although the issue of who would lead the American

Communist movement was at the root of the divide between the two parties, it is not entirely

accurate to state that is all that divided the two parties. The CLP, which initially backed all unity

proposals in order to gain the moral high ground in the factional dispute, objected to the

organizational structure of the CPA, and could not accept a unity which would accept the CPA

organizational scheme. The CPA, meanwhile, argued that the CLP did not truly represent the

Left Wing Americans, and was furthermore tainted by centrism in the upper echelons of the

CLP leadership. These were the justifications given by both factions to oppose unity in the

closing months of 1919.

The CLP expressed an interest in unity between the two parties during its founding

convention, while the CPA convention was simultaneously underway in another part of

Chicago. The CPA invited CLP delegates to attend the CPA convention as special guests, who

would sit in on the proceedings but have no vote or voice. The CLP wrote to the CPA leaders,

saying that although they considered the CPA convention host to some inconsistent

elements, they nonetheless wished to forge one solid phalanx of all American Communist

forces. However, they rejected the offer to spectate at the CPA convention, and instead

226
Henry Kuhn, Letter to Boris Reinstein in Russia, December 9, 1919, in CPUSA and Haynes. Files of the Communist
Party, Reel 1, Folio 4, 31. Microfilm.

116
reiterated that they felt their organization to be the legitimate Communist Party and legal

successors to the Left Wing of the SPA. They claimed this legitimacy through their assertion that

the CLP obeyed all agreements of the Left Wing conferencesand mandates of the

revolutionary faction of the Party membership as demonstrated through the 1919 SPA

referendum, and was as decisive in the crystallization of the revolutionary elements of the

SPA membership as the volatile and bolting groups which composed the CPA convention.227

Claiming an advantageous position as a result, the CLP was willing to discuss unity with the

CPA leadership on an equal basis, and suggested that the two organizations form a joint

credentials committee toward vetting the delegates at both conventions for admittance to a

future unified convention.

Stoklitsky, Hourwich, and Ruthenberg penned the CPA response toward the end of

December, 1919. They did not explicitly reject the CLP proposal. They did, however, restate the

CPA offer to accept CLP delegates to the convention on a special basis. The CPA furthermore

took umbrage with the claim to legitimacy of the CLP, stating that it could take no account of

the actions and decisions of the Left Wing bodies that predated the CPA convention. The CPA

reply also argued that legitimacy belonged to itself, claiming that an examination of the

referendum ballots of the SPA membership would demonstrate that it was the CPA

membership "which cast the overwhelming bulk of these votes, and that some delegates

present at the CLP convention really belonged at the CPA convention "by mandate of their

227
Question of Unity, published in The Voice of Labor, in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party.
Microfilm.

117
membership.228 The CLP, then, regarded its legitimacy as deriving from inheritance of the old

SPA Left Wing legal procedure. The CPA responded by claiming legitimacy through the will of

the membership. The CLP, believing that a self-seeking leadership within the CPA was

obstructing any unity process, tasked several of its rank and file members to appeal to the CPA

for unity. They delivered to the CPA convention a cordial invitation to meet at an informal

session to discuss unity between the two conventions. The CPA rejected this as well, and only

replied with its original invitation to sit CLP delegates as special guests some of whom may

qualify as delegates or fraternal delegates.229 The CLP, exasperated by what they considered

obstructionist methods of the CPA leadership, proclaimed a standing invitation to meet on the

basis of equality at a future Unity Conference: the organization of two Communist Parties is a

crimebut our repeated attempts to unite all the revolutionary Communist hosts seem to have

been thwarted by certain elements in your conventionwe are ready at any time to meet your

representatives to consider the question of unity.230 The two conventions concluded

separately with the issue of unity undecided. The question remained, however, and attempts to

bring about a Unity Conference continued thereafter.

Although the CLP appealed to the CPA for unity measures, it certainly did not wish unity

on just any grounds. The CLP reiterated that unity talks would have to proceed on the basis of

equality. The reason for this is simple: the CPA had in its ranks the great majority of the Left

Wing membership contained within the Language Federations. The CLP estimated its

membership figures to be about 30,000 members at its founding, with the CPA representing
228
Question of Unity, published in The Voice of Labor, in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party.
Microfilm.
229
Ibid.
230
Ibid.

118
some 27,000. The CPA figured 58,000 members for itself, and only 10,000 for the CPL, and

regarded the CLP as a Party of leaders without a following.231 Records of the CPA dues paying

membership counted 27,341 for the month following the CPA founding convention, of which

26,680 belonged to the Language Federations, 7,000 hailing from the Russian Federation

alone.232 If a unity conference were to occur with proportional representation, the CPA would

claim the right to far more delegates than the CLP, and thus the CLP leadership would be

outvoted at every step. The CLP also objected to the organizational form of the CPA. Despite

making provisions for Foreign Language Federations within its own constitution, the CLP

objected to the greater autonomy given to Language Federations within the CPA constitution;

an article published in Communist Labor Party News entitled The Three Parties- Which One Is

Yours? stated that the CPA agreed with the CLP on fundamental principles, but differed in

form of organization and policy.233 Specifically mentioned was the practically autonomous

federations, each a complete Party within itself, and the lack of a centralized organizations

capable of meeting the revolutionary situation containing two heads, an Executive Council

and a Central Executive Committeealready at loggerheads with each other.234 For these

reasons the CLP would not accept the wholesale adoption of the CPA constitution demanded by

the CPA leaders. The CLP continued to offer unity on a basis of equal representation, and every

offer was countered by a CPA offer to accept any CLP branches wishing to affiliate with the CPA

231
Oscar Tyverovsky, Circular to All Branches of the Russian Federation of the Communist Party of America from
Oscar Tyverovsky, Secretary, circa September 15, 1919, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/lfed/russian/1919/0915-tyverov-torussianfed.pdf (accessed April 10,
2012). Russian document and translation in the DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA collection M-1085, reel 938, file
202600-1172.
232
Figures cited in Draper, The Roots, 189.
233
The Three Parties- Which One Is Yours?, published in Communist Labor Party News, November, 1919, in
CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 1, Folio 6, 10. Microfilm.
234
Ibid.

119
into its ranks, with one reply even offering to send a CPA special committee to meet with a

similar CLP committee to arrange for the liquidation of the national organization of the

Communist Labor Partyto take over its work, liabilities, and assets to absolve the

Communist Labor Party membership from any responsibility incurred by having joined a third

Party.235

The CPA, then, adamantly opposed unity measures except total incorporation of the CPL

into its own organization, and perhaps was obstructionist in its methods. The CPA leadership

had since before the founding convention of the Party regarded the Left Wing leadership which

now led the CLP as Kautskyist Centrists: That there are Communist elements in the

Communist Labor Party is a fact, and particularly the comrades of the Pacific Coast. But it is

equally a fact that these comrades have the opportunity of affiliating with the Communist

Party. They are now being misled by the Lore-Katterfeld-Wagenknecht Centrists and by the

Reed-Carney emotionalists read one editorial in the CPA press.236 Having painted the CLP

leadership as wavering centrists and themselves as true Communists, they could not agree with

CLP assertions that the two parties programs did not differ greatly. But what was truly different

about the two parties programs and platforms? The CPA Russian leadership railed against

parliamentarism in the CLP program, which allowed CLP elected officials the right of

introducing reforms.237 Thus, argued the CPA, the CLP must accept thereby the responsibility

for all laws promulgated against the workingmenand leading the American proletariat into

235
Statement to the National Executive Committee of the Communist Labor Party in Cleveland from the Central
Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America in Chicago, October 23, 1919, in Davenport, ed., Early
American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/1919/1023-ceccpa-tonecclp.pdf (accessed
April 10, 2012). A document in the DoJ/BoI Investigative Files, NARA M-1085, reel 940, doc. 185.
236
Quoted in Gitlow, I Confess, 50.
237
Oscar Tyverovsky, Circular to All Branches of the Russian Federation.

120
delusion.238 In contrast, the CPA made only limited provisions in its Party program for

parliamentary tactics, barring any elected Communist from introducing or supporting reform

measures, and limiting his action to propagandizing through the legislature. 239 The CPA

reiterated its policy of boycotting elections and public offices, an easy measure to adopt when

there was no realistic chance of any Communist being elected to any public office. The two

parties had similar takes on dual unionism. The CLP program officially supported the IWW

model of revolutionary industrial unionism. The CPA differed only slightly in its call for a

general industrial union organization which would bring together the IWW, the Workers

International Industrial Union, independent unions, militant AFL unions, and unorganized

workers on the basis of revolutionary class struggle.240

Both parties utilized the revolutionary phrases that had entered Socialist vocabulary

since the Bolshevik revolution; both pointed to the Leninist conception of Imperialism as the

genesis of the First World War and the resulting revolutionary tumult throughout the Western

world, as well as liberal use of the phrase Dictatorship of the Proletariat. However, both also

contained phrases soon to be out of vogue. The CPA program made specific mention of the use

of Mass Action in the revolutionary moment, while the CLP opted for Action of the Masses,

a phrase used by the CPA to accuse the CLP leadership of taming that Partys revolutionary

rhetoric.241 Both parties also adhered to the program and policies of the Third International.

However, as the CLP had stated its desire to create a Communist Party largely free of the

influence of Language Federations, its internationalism was called into question by the CPA:
238
Oscar Tyverovsky, Circular to All Branches of the Russian Federation.
239
Draper, The Roots, 185-186.
240
Ibid., 186.
241
Louis Fraina, To the Bureau of the Communist International, November 24, 1919 in CPUSA and Haynes, Files
of the Communist Party, Reel 1, Folio 9, 11. Microfilm.

121
The SPA and the CLP agree on one thing: an American movement, not a foreign

movement.242 The CPA program, on the other hand, stated that the problems of the

American workers are identical with the problems of the workers of the world.243 The CPA

could thus claim a truly internationalist program against the CPLs exclusionary one, an ironic

claim given the CPA leaders willingness to exclude native-born Americans under the assumption

that they were unable to fully grasp Bolshevik theory. Minor doctrinal differences within the

Party programs separated the two organizations for the first four months of their respective

existences; however, these doctrinal differences were not so great as to prevent the two

organizations from working in harmony, or coalescing into one. There was also the much more

important issue of the role of Language Federations within the larger Party organizational

structure. It was the Language Federations that provided the base of support for the CPA

leadership, and the Russians on the CEC in particular. Thus the CLP leadership could not accept

the CPA offers to incorporate the CLP into their Party. To do so meant relinquishing all control

in the movement to foreign-born leadership. However, the CPA remained obstinate in its

refusal to work seriously toward unity. Nothing could be done to rectify the situation, until the

beginning of 1920, when the English-speaking minority of the CPA acted independently toward

Communist unity.

In the last months of 1919, the minority English-speaking bloc within the CPA, the

Ruthenberg-Fraina faction, increasingly grew weary of the federation dominance over the

Party. In January 1920, Ruthenberg and other English-speaking CPA leaders began to agitate for
242
Quoted in Draper, The Roots, 187.
243
Constitution of the Communist Party of America, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://www.marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/1919/0907-cpa-constitution.pdf (accessed May 24,
2012). Published in Manifesto and Program. Constitution. Report to the Communist International.
(Chicago, IL: Communist Party of America, n.d. [1919]), 18-25.

122
unity with the predominately English-speaking CLP. External pressures made it possible for the

Ruthenberg-Fraina group seriously to consider mending ties with their former comrades in the

CLP. This pressure came from the Palmer Raids of late 1919 and 1920, which suppressed Left

Wing radical activity, including both Communist parties, and sent the organizations

underground. On the night of January 2, 1920, Attorney General Palmer and the U.S.

Department of Justice agents descended upon the meeting halls and headquarters of both

Communist parties. The Department of Justice agents apprehended more than 4000 radicals in

thirty-three cities. The raids affected almost every Communist local and many of the leaders

were arrested.244 The Department of Justice agents seized documents and literature. Touting

the 1918 Alien Act as justification, the U.S. government deported over 240 foreign-born

American Communists. The Secretary of Labor ruled that under the Immigration Act of October,

1918, also known as the Dillingham-Hardwick Act, mere membership in a Communist

organization was grounds for deportation. The raids had their intended effect: both Communist

parties suffered a dramatic loss in membership, both foreign-born and native-born American.

The CPA, which in December, 1919 claimed 23,624 dues paying members could claim only

1,714 in January, 1920.245 The CLP suffered similar losses. Although these figures represent only

dues-paying members, it is possible that many more continued to identify with the Party.

Regardless, the figures demonstrate the catastrophic disruption of the Communist

organizations as a result of the raid. Communication between leaders and rank and file

244
Robert K. Murray, Red Scare: A Study of National Hysteria, 1919-1920 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1955), 213.
245
See The Communist Party of America Membership Figures: 1919 Communist Party of America, in Davenport,
ed., Early American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html (accessed April 10, 2012). The
author notes that dues collections were disrupted in January 1920 due to the Palmer Raids and do not reflect
the actual size of the Party membership.

123
members also became difficult. To combat Department of Justice surveillance, the leaders of

both parties adopted pseudonyms that changed constantly. In inter-Party communications, the

Communists employed the language of business. For example, Communists referred to the

central office of the CPA in New York City as the home office, a Party convention might be a

shareholders conference, International Delegates were salesmen returning home with full

instructions from the Board of Directors, the last a code name for the E.C. of the Comintern.246

The raids shook up the organizational structures of the two parties as well. The CLP changed

from the strictly state-based Party organizational model inherited from the SPA to one based on

larger regions encompassing multiple states. The Raids sent both parties underground.

Members were lost, documents destroyed, and organizational structures destroyed. The parties

remained, however weakened, and adapted to the circumstances. An underground existence

made the work of the Communist parties more difficult, certainly. However, American

Communists took a certain pride in emulating the conspiratorial, underground existence of the

Russian Bolsheviks in the months and years prior to November, 1917.

On January 12, 1920, the central committees of the CPA and CLP received

correspondence from Zinoviev and the Comintern. Zinoviev stated that the issue of two

American Communist parties was carefully considered by the CEC of the Third International,

with the input of one delegate from both the CLP and the CPA. The Comintern leaders

concluded that the split between the Communists had rendered a heavy blow to the

American Communist movement as a result of the dispersion of revolutionary force, harmful

parallelism, the absurd division of practical work of organizing and educating the American

246
Draper, The Roots, 357-358.

124
proletariat, and the loss of energy to factional squabbles in lieu of practical Party work. To the

Comintern, the split had no justification, as the two parties had no differences in program and

only slight differences in regards to the question of tactics, as well as organization questions, in

particular the differing rights of Language Federations within the two organizations. Towards

this question, Zinoviev stated that the federations should exist within the Party with limited

autonomy and subordinate to the CEC, and should focus on propaganda work within their

respective language communities. As regards the Party makeup, Zinoviev noted that the two

Communist entities represented two different, but ultimately complementary, sides of the

American movement: the CPA more developed theoretically and more closely connected with

revolutionary tradition of the Russian working class, was nonetheless out of touch with the

American working class, while the CLP needed certain intellectual guidance in regards to

Marxist theory, but by virtue of its English-speaking leadership was better placed to reach

American workers. Because unity would provide the movement with a mixed leadership

properly schooled in Marxist theory and able to propagandize among American workers,

Zinoviev and the Executive Committee of the Third International concluded that unity was not

only possible but absolutely necessarythe E.C. categorically insists on this being immediately

brought about.247 Thus Zinoviev and the Comintern stated their desire for a mass

organization, and not a narrow, closed circle.248 The Comintern suggested a joint conference to

discuss unity, composed of an equal number of representatives of both organizations. The

247
Grigory Zinoviev, To the Central Committees of the American Communist Party and the American Communist
Labor Party, in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 1, Folio 17, 1. Microfilm.
248
Grigory Zinoviev, quoted in Draper, The Roots, 244.

125
Comintern had ruled that unity must be achieved, and done so as quickly as possible, on the

basis of equal representation.

With the leadership of the Comintern demanding Communist cohesion, and the

federations weakened by the Palmer raid arrests and deportations, as well as the exodus of

Centrists in the CLP scared off by the prospect of legal prosecution in the Palmer Raids, the

Ruthenberg-Fraina group within the CPA realized the time was ripe to pursue unity between

the two organizations seriously. In late January, 1920, Ruthenberg and the English-speaking

minority leaders of the CPA began a campaign for unity with the CLP within their Party. Their

efforts resulted in a half-hearted gesture to the CLP to hold a joint convention to discuss unity,

but only on the condition that a united Party adopt wholesale the CPA program and

constitution. This was, of course, not acceptable to the CLP leadership, who countered with an

offer of immediate working unity coordinated by a merged executive committee composed

of leaders from both parties. In response, the CPA proposed a joint convention to be held six

months in the future, but would retain the CPAs privileged status of Language Federations

within the Party structure.249 The CLP reiterated that it preferred immediate unity talks, but

when this proposition was considered within the CEC of the CPA, Ruthenbergs pro-unity

faction lost the vote, nine to four. The CPA again refused unity talks with the CLP. The issue of

unity with the CLP was not the only one separating the Ruthenberg group from the

Federationist majority within the CEC of the CPA. The two factions also came to loggerheads

over the organizational form of the Party, with Ruthenberg spearheading a drive to centralize

the Party and lessen the autonomy of the federations, as well as over the principle of the use of

249
Draper, The Roots, 212.

126
force, wherein the Ruthenberg faction argued against espousing violence at a time that such

rhetoric could be used by the government to further suppress the Communist movement. For

their efforts, the English-speaking minority of the Party were labeled Mensheviks by the

majority.250 Ruthenberg and his allies could take no more, and on April 20, 1920, split from the

CPA.

Ruthenberg took with him two other members of the CEC of the CPA: I.E. Ferguson and

Jay Lovestone. Additionally, the few English-speaking CPA members followed Ruthenberg out of

the Party. To claim legitimacy as the official Communist Party, the Ruthenberg faction retained

the named Communist Party of America and continued to exist, briefly, as an independent

Party. This organization even published its own organ, The Communist, which was titled the

same as that produced by the majority CPA, to the confusion of many. Finally, he left with the

financial records of the Party and a large portion of the Party treasury. Ruthenberg fired a

parting shot that helps elucidate the disconnect between the Federationist CEC members and

the English-speaking CEC members: Since the beginning of the Party there have been two

viewpoints represented in the CEC. The majority membersconsidered themselves great

theorists. They constantly talked about the word principle but never about how to relateto

the working class movement of this countryThe minority group, on the other hand, stood for

a policy which would make the CPAthe Party of actionnot the Party of closet philosophers

but a Party which participates in the everyday struggles of the workers.251 The majority

responded by claiming Ruthenberg and the minority sought contact with the masses, and

would sacrifice principles and tactics in order to get it. Contact with the masses was

250
Draper, The Roots, 212-214.
251
C.E. Ruthenberg, quoted in Draper, The Roots, 215-216.

127
undesirable to the majority, which believed the masses would clog and hamper the

revolutionary effectiveness of the Party, refuse to accept the use of force as necessary in the

revolutionary moment, and through sheer weight of numbers gradually water down the

Communist program, and transform the Party into nothing more than another social-patriotic

Socialist Party.252 Here is the great disconnect between the English-speaking minority of the

CPA and the federation majority: one desired a Party of broad-based support, the other desired

uniform principles and sectarian isolation to ensure dogmatic purity. The Ruthenberg group

saw in wide appeal to the masses a Party that could reach the American working class, and

guide the masses at the revolutionary moment. The majority, on the other hand, strove to

create a conspiratorial revolutionary vanguard, along the Bolshevik model, and had little use for

the ideologically ignorant American masses. The two could no longer coexist.

The next day, on January 21, Ruthenberg made unity overtures to the CLP, which

responded by stating our subcommittee stands ready to meet a like committee from your

faction to begin negotiation. 253 John Reed sent terms to the Ruthenberg group. Both parties

were to designate three delegates each to sit on the Bureau of Unity, whose job it was to

organize a unity convention. The basis of representation was similar for both parties, and the

total number of delegates decided upon by basis of each parties membership figures as of

January 1, 1920. The name of the Party created at the convention was to be the United

Communist Party (UCP). A significant portion of the terms of unity dealt with a restructuring of

the federation system within the larger organizational framework, along a model similar to that

252
Author Unknown, quoted in Draper, The Roots, 216.
253
Letter to C.E. Ruthenberg, January 26, 1920, in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 1, Folio
23, 18. Microfilm.

128
of the CLP. Restructuring barred the federations from any independent legislative or

administrative functions, expelling or suspending federation branches, or issuing literature or

propaganda without the approval of the Central Executive Committee. Additionally,

membership dues were paid into the Party treasury through local and state Party organizations,

as opposed to being paid to federation branches directly. Finally, any federation member

deemed capable of taking part in the English-speaking movement could be drafted into

English-speaking branches by the CEC.254 The new UCP made it known from the beginning: the

combined organization sought a centralized Party structure under the control of the English-

speaking leadership in the CEC, and wished to limit the autonomy of the Language Federations

that proved to be a considerable obstacle in the unity of the Communist Party of America, and

in large part the reason for the Ruthenberg group defection from that Party. The Party retained

the federations, however they would be limited to only propaganda work among non-English-

speaking Party members and their communities.255 Ruthenberg and his allies, having never had

the widespread support of the Language Federations in the CPA, found these terms agreeable.

The majority of the foreign-born Communists, meanwhile, remained in the old CPA. These new

terms thus had no impact on their federations, which remained affiliated in the remnants of the

CPA. However, the terms made it known that any future CPA amalgamation with the new UCP

would mean a drastic curtailing of federation autonomy.

On May 25, 1920, thirty-two delegates representing the Ruthenberg Minority faction

and twenty-five delegates representing the CLP met in Bridgman, Michigan. Following seven

254
Agreement for the Unification of the American Communist Party and the American Communist Labor Party, in
CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 1, Folio 22, 1-2. Microfilm.
255
Protocol: Unity Communist Labor Party with Communist Party, in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist
Party, Reel 1, Folio 22, 8. Microfilm.

129
days of debate and discussion, the two groups left the convention as one, consolidated into the

United Communist Party. Unity was not achieved easily, however. There were disputes

regarding the new Partys program, specifically on the points regarding the use of force, dual

unionism, political action, and the organization of the Central Executive Committee. Both

factions reached compromises satisfactory to all; they agreed upon the use of force as a

necessary tactic, upheld dual unionism, and encouraged Communists within the reactionary

AFL to pronounce hostility to the organization at every opportunity. They agreed that the IWW

was the obvious medium for giving the advocacy of industrial unionism affirmative

character.256 The factions found political action acceptable within only legislative, not

executive, political offices, and only then as a means of propagandizing within the system. The

greatest point of contention centered around the makeup of the CEC; the Ruthenberg faction,

with 32 delegates to the CLPs 25, would carry the elections to the Executive Committee

handily. The factions decided upon a compromise of five CEC members from each faction on a

committee of ten. Unity was achieved, but only barely.

The CPA, which after the departure of Ruthenberg, Ferguson, and Lovestone had a CEC

composed primarily of Language Federationists, including Hourwich and Tyverovsky, remained

an independent organization until May, 1921. For almost a year exactly, the CPA leadership

maligned and disparaged the leadership of the UCP. The CPA leadership characterized the UCP

as pink, bourgeois, and centrist, and claimed that the Party was led by adventurers and

charlatans.257 Its platform and program were completely unacceptable. It contained the

phrase soviet rule under a working-class dictatorship, which demonstrated to the CPA leaders

256
Draper, The Roots, 219-220.
257
Unknown, quoted in Oneal, American Communism, 91-92.

130
the lack of understanding of Bolshevism within the upper ranks of the UCP, since, as any true

Communist would have known, and the CPA leaders certainly believed, however erroneously,

the Soviet system of government is itself a form of proletarian dictatorship. They found the

UCPs commitment to force inadequate. One CPA critic wrote the UCP considers the use of

force a purely defensive measure- not as an offensive measure for which the Communists must

consciously prepare.258 The CPA leaders found the UCP suspect in not addressing the question

of an underground organization, an omission which to the same critic confirms the suspicion

that the UCP may eventually give up any pretension of being an illegal underground Party. How

can any real Communist organization unite with an organization guilty of such evasions?259 The

CPA used these doctrinal issues as justification to reject any notion of uniting with the UCP; as a

resolution at the Second Convention of the CPA in July, 1920, stated Communist Unity is based

upon the organic unity of principles and tactics. Communist unity means unity with the rank

and filenot with leaders.260 In defiance of the Comintern instructions, the leadership of the

CPA did not seek unity with the UCP, which it regarded as centrist. The CPA encouraged its

membership, however, to join the CPA on the basis of its program, tactics, and principles. The

CPA aimed to separate the rank and file membership from the UCP leadership through its

slanderous campaign.

The Comintern intervened again, at the Second Congress of the Third International, in

July, 1920. Louis Fraina and Alexander Stoklitsky represented the CPA as international

258
Unknown, quoted in Oneal, American Communism, 91-92.
259
Ibid.
260 nd
Motions and Resolutions Adopted at the 2 Convention of the Communist Party of America: New York, July
13-18, 1920, in Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism,
http://marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/1920/0718-cpa-convresolutions.pdf (accessed May 1, 2012).
Typescripts in Comintern Archives, RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 30, ll. 12-15.

131
delegates. John Reed and Alexander Bilan, who had been en route to Russia during the run up

to the Unity Convention which resulted in the UCP, believed themselves to be representing the

CLP; in actuality, that Party no longer existed. In order to appease the Comintern in its demand

for Communist unity in America, the delegates decided to work in conjunction as one

delegation. However, when the Congress opened on July 17, a fifth delegate, Edward Lindgren,

arrived claiming to represent the UCP. He demanded that Fraina and Stoklitsky be barred from

participating in the congress, claiming that the majority of the CPA had gone into the UCP at the

unity convention. Lindgren stated that 30,000 CPA members had gone with the Rutheberg

minority into UCP, an inaccurate figure that was far too large; however, no one at the Congress

was in a position to challenge the number, owing to ignorance of events in the United States

and the slow rate of correspondence.261 The Comintern refused his demands. However, the

event demonstrated to the Comintern officials that Communist unity in America was far from

achieved. Zinoviev and the EC of the Communist International set a deadline of October 10,

1920, by which time the two parties would have to be united as one. Failure would result in the

expulsion of both parties from the Comintern. Fortuitously, Nicholas Hourwich arrived in

Moscow, and he requested a delay. The Comintern thus took additional time to set out a

definite program for unity between the UCP and the CPA.

The proposed plan presented a problem. Both parties found a new program agreeable,

as the new program was based upon the twenty-one conditions of admission to the Communist

International put forth during the Second Congress. The issue arose over the basis of

representation at the future unity congress. The Comintern dictated that representation was to

261
Draper, The Roots, 267.

132
be decided upon based on dues payments for the months of July through October, 1920. This

was problematical to the UCP, as the CPA claimed 9000 dues paying members for that period of

time to the UCPs 4000. The UCP accused the CPA of embellishing its membership numbers;

one internal memo of the UCP to its membership notes that the CPA membership figures for

the Lithuanian Federation showed 1400 dues paying members during the July to October time

period, a figure which suddenly jumped to 2700 for the same period after the unity program

presented to the parties by the Comintern at the Second Congress. The UCP noted a similar rise

in the Russian Federation, from a membership of 1400 t0 2500.262 The CPA suggested that the

dues stamps collected for each month did not accurately reflect the total number of members,

and in fact there were more members within the Party for the July to October time period than

the dues stamps collected would indicate, as in a membership composed almost exclusively of

workers, dues are not always promptly paid for the current months. Some comrades are behind

one, two, or three months as the state of their finances and conditions of their particular

industry permit.263 The UCP accused the CPA of manipulating membership numbers, while

suggesting their own figures were entirely accurate, and put forth a program of equal

representation at the unity convention. The CPA responded with similar accusations and

assurances, and demanded a majority of delegates by Right. The issue was of the utmost

importance as representatives at the coming unity conference, which by Comintern deadline

had to occur before January 1, 1921, were to be allotted based on total membership. At stake

was the control of the unity convention, and which side would wield the majority of delegates

262
Unity Bulletin No. 2 to the Members of the UCP, in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 2,
Folio 28, 23. Microfilm.
263
Third Statement on the Unity Proceedings in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 2, Folio
33, 72. Microfilm.

133
and thus control the proceedings. The same two groups, English-speaking leaders of the UCP

and Language Federation leaders of CPA, were still at odds, and the old question of which

faction would lead the Communist movement left the two parties divided still.

The January 1, 1921 deadline came and went. The two parties did not reach an

agreement. Unity negotiations had only intensified adversarial feelings between the two Party

leaderships. Again, the Comintern intervened. The Comintern established a special committee

of three, the American Agency, composed of Charles E. Scott representing the UCP, Fraina

representing the CPA, and Sen Katayama, chairman and Comintern representative.264 The

Comintern tasked the American Agency with imposing unity on the two warring American

Communist organizations. On April 2, 1921 the agency sent instructions to the UCP and CPA:

unite by June 1, 1921, or the whole movement will be reorganized without regard to the

existing parties.265

With little choice, the two Communist parties in the United States begrudgingly worked

toward a new unity convention. The new Party would be named The Communist Party of

America, Section of the Communist International.266 The terms permitted both the UCP and the

CPA thirty delegates each. Both sides continued to antagonize one another up to the final days

before the Joint Unity Convention, which began on May 15, 1921, near Woodstock, New

York.267 The two parties easily agreed upon the new program. Consent was unanimous on this

issue; after all, the program necessarily needed to reflect the provisions of affiliation to the

Comintern laid down at the Second Congress of the Third International. For two weeks, the two
264
Draper, The Roots, 269.
265
Quoted in Howe and Coser, The American Communist Party, 72.
266
This Party is sometimes referred to by historians as the unified CPA and will hereafter be referred to likewise for
the sake of clarity.
267
Howe and Coser, The American Communist Party, 72.

134
parties representatives debated over the constitution and the organizational structure of the

new combined Party. Again, the struggle for control manifested itself, split evenly along Party

lines, and was reflected in the debates over how many members should constitute the CEC and

what role the Language Federations should play.268 These issues deadlocked the proceedings,

and without resolution no constitution could be adopted. Finally, fearing that negotiations

would break down completely and end the convention with no unity achieved, cooler heads

prevailed, led by an unidentified Comintern representative sent to overseer the unity

convention.269 The Comintern delegate suggested the delegates from both parties form two

separate caucuses which could more effectively negotiate through smaller committees. These

small committees representing both factions reached two compromises. The Language

Federations would continue to exist and operate for the purpose of organizing foreign-born

workers. However, their autonomy was severely limited; they were now knittedtogether

inseparably with the regular English-speaking organization. The federations would no longer

discipline and tax their membership, and membership dues went directly to the central

organization rather than channeled through the federation branch offices. The result was one

centralized structure for the entire Party, with full power resting in the hands of the Central

Executive Committee.270

The issue of federation autonomy was the primary stumbling block to Communist unity

from the inception of both Communist organizations in 1919. The federations were the bulwark

of the Foreign-born leadership, and the source of their power and influence. Why, then, did the

268
Draper, The Roots, 271.
269
Ibid.
270
J. Carr, Report of the Communist Party of America to the Executive Committee of the Comintern, in CPUSA
and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 2, Folio 39, 239. Microfilm.

135
federation leaders at the Woodstock Unity Convention of 1921 surrender this autonomy, and

with it their source of authority within the American movement? One possibility is that the

leaders recognized the absolute necessity of achieving unity at any cost; after all, the Comintern

Executive Committee had demanded unity or else. Had unity not been achieved, the Comintern

may have made good on its threat to reorganize the whole movement without regard to

existing parties. Faced with a forced exile from the American Communist movement that they

had helped create, they perhaps decided to retreat from the issue of autonomy and retain at

least some measure of authority within the new Party. They indeed retained some authority.

The other issue that prevented adoption of a constitution was the makeup of the new

CEC of the unified Party. Nine members were supposed to be elected to this body. The CEC

member elections split along Party lines as well. Four were elected by the thirty delegates of

the CPA, another four by the thirty delegates of the UCP. The decisive ninth member, who

would break the deadlock in any tie vote and give control of the united Party to one of the

former factions, could not be decided on. Both parties nominated impartial comrades to the

post, and again both delegations voted on Party lines, thirty to thirty.271 The convention

reached a compromise here, as well. Since the election of a ninth CEC member proved difficult,

both ostensibly impartial nominees would be elected, and the CEC enlarged to ten total

members. Charles Dirba, John Ballam (both English-speaking native-born Americans), Joseph

Stilson, J. Wilenkin, and George Ashkenuzi were the five CEC members from the CPA. Stilson

was a prominent member of the Lithuanian Federation, while Wilenkin and Ashkenuzi were

both rising stars in the Russian Federation. Oscar Tyverovsky, meanwhile, represented the CPA

271
Draper, The Roots, 271-272.

136
faction as one of two international delegates.272 Though abdicating federation autonomy, the

federation leaders had managed to secure important positions in the top echelon of the unified

Party. Their influence was perhaps reduced, but they were not entirely marginalized from the

American movement. And, after more than two years, that movement was finally unified in one

Communist organization.

The unified CPA constitution resulted in the centralized Party that the CLP and UCP had

desired. The program was reflective of the guidelines issued from Moscow at the Second

Congress of the Comintern. Dual-unionism was cast aside: the program stated that the

Communist Party condemns the policy of the most advanced revolutionary elements leaving

the existing unions. On the contrary, they must remain within the large mass of organized

workers. The Communist must take an active and leading part in the everyday struggles of the

unions and against the social-patriotic and reactionary leaders.273 The program also provided

for parliamentary action by the Party. It stated that the unified CPA recognizes that the

revolutionary proletariat must use all means of propaganda and agitation to win over the

exploited massesone of these means is the bourgeois parliament.274 The Party no longer

shied away from participation within the U.S. government, although limited activity to using

the parliament as a platform, through the proposal of demonstrative measures, not for the

purpose of having them passed by the bourgeois majority but for the purpose of propaganda,

272
See Davenport, ed., Early American Marxism, http://marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/cpaofficials.html for
listing of Communist officials and their posts in the various iterations of the Communist Parties.
273
Program of the Communist Party of America, in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 3, Folio
49, 10. Microfilm.
274
Ibid.

137
agitation, and organization.275 However, as the political climate of the United States had

forced the Communists underground, the unified CPA existed as an illegal organization. The

unified CPA was thus prevented from participating in elections under its own name. The

program notes that the Party must organize the necessary legal machinery to participate in

local, state, and national elections. The creation of a legal Party parallel to the underground

unified CPA was precisely what the Comintern was preparing to demand of the American

Communists.

The edict came at the Third Congress of the Third International, which opened two

months after the conclusion of the unity convention. Four international delegates of the unified

CPA, Max Bedacht and Robert Minor, both former UCP members, and Nicholas Hourwich and

Oscar Tyverovsky, both Russian Federation leaders and former members of the old CPA,

attended the Third Congress, held from June 22 to July 12, 1921. This congress, in contrast to

the first and second, was framed against the assumption that general European revolution was

indefinitely delayed, due to what Trotsky regarded as the undeniable consolidation of the

European bourgeoisie and its state apparatus.276 No incident further demonstrated this in the

minds of the Soviet leaders than abortive Ruhr uprising in March 1921 by German Communists.

Revolution could not be expected in the immediate future. Comintern guidelines to the

Communist Parties of the world were therefore situated in terms of more practical work: put

aside aspirations of immediate revolution and go to work winning over the working class.277 The

275
Program of the Communist Party of America, in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 3, Folio
49, 8-9. Microfilm.
276
Leon Trotsky, quoted in Howe and Coser, The American Communist Party, 88.
277
At the present moment the most important task of the Communist International is to win a dominant
influence over the majority of the working class and involve the more active workers in direct struggle. See

138
Russian leaders Lenin, Radek, Bukharin, Trotsky, and Zinoviev directed similar instructions to

the Americans directly: they stated that the American Communists are still before the first and

simplest task of creating a Communist nucleus and connecting it with the working masses.278

To do so, they were told to try by all ways and means to get out of their illegalized condition

into the open among the wide masses.279 Robert Minor, in a speech to the Congress, accepted

the chastisement, although he vocalized his reservations and stated that any legal organization

would need to remain subordinate to the underground unified CPA. Hourwich and Tyverovsky,

too, had reservations.280 Lenin decided to intervene directly, and toward the end of the third

congress he met with the American delegates in his office in the Kremlin.

In the meeting, Lenin reiterated the need for the American movement to build a mass

Communist Party. Tyverovsky and Hourwich brought to bear their old argument against a mass

Party, which they had leveled at the CLP just two years earlier: the workers of the United

States, they argued, were too backward politically. Bringing the masses into the Party would

corrupt the ideological purity of the organization, and dilute the program and platform of the

Party, more easily than the Communists could convert the masses.281 Lenin swiftly dismissed

this argument. He remarked that it was very foolish. He produced an American printing of

Bukharins The Communist Program, and asked if it had been printed illegally. The delegates

responded that it had been printed legally, by a regular printer, to which Lenin replied that if

Marxist Internet Archive, http://marxists.org/history/international/comintern/3rd-congress/tactics.htm (accessed

May 2, 2012).
278
Make it a Party of Action: A Declaration of the Central Executive Committee to the Membership, in CPUSA
and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 3, Folio 55, 18. Microfilm.
279
Quoted in Draper, The Roots, 277.
280
To the Central Executive Committee of the CPA, in CPUSA and Haynes, Files of the Communist Party, Reel 3,
Folio 56, 8. Microfilm.
281
Draper, The Roots, 279. Draper cites an interview of Max Bedacht by the author, dated June 1, 1954, wherein
Bedacht recalled the specifics of the meeting.

139
such literature could be printed and sold legally in the United States, an underground Party was

not necessary. The Americans departed with the understanding that they would have to create

a legal political Party to reach the masses of American workers. Hourwich, who was unwilling to

budge, and who according to Bedacht had irritated Lenin by constantly interrupting throughout

the meeting, was not permitted to return to the United States. The Third Congress of the

Comintern marks the end of his involvement in the American Communist movement.

Nicholas Hourwich made a stand against a legal Party in Moscow, at the Third Congress

of the Comintern. For his actions, he was severely reprimanded and removed from the

American Communist movement by decree. The position he articulated, however, had

adherents within the unified CPA, and particularly amongst the old Federationists who had

integrated into the Party following the Woodstock unity convention. These die-hards did not

relent on their position, and argued against the creation of a legal Party for the reasons given

by Hourwich. Three men, Charles Dirba, John Ballam, and George Ashkenuzi, all members of the

CEC of the unified CPA and the last an important figure in the Russian Federation, rejected any

legal Party, preferring to remain an underground organization.

The majority of the CEC, which supported the establishment of a legal Party, did not

want to do away with the underground organization; they envisioned a legal Party manipulated

behind the scenes by the underground organization, enabling the Communists to make contact

with the masses as requested without entering fully into the public eye. This was little

consolation to the minority. They believed the masses would only serve to weaken the purity of

the Party. The minority was backed, confusingly enough, by the majority of the membership,

140
some 4,000 members, most of which were foreign-born and within the Language

Federations.282

As preparations for the establishment of the legal Party went forward in the fall of 1921,

the minority acted. Knowing they had the majority of the rank and file behind them, they

demanded a convention of the underground unified CPA to allow the membership to weigh in

on the decision. The majority countered that this was unnecessary; the Comintern had provided

explicit instruction to go ahead with the effort at the Third Congress. Both factions appealed

directly to the EC of the Comintern. On November 2, 1921, the majority of the CEC of the

unified CPA suspended the three dissenters, before an answer was received from the

Comintern. That answer came on November 14, which reiterated that Zinoviev was for the

establishment of a legal Party. Another communique on December 8 addressed the suspension

of Ballam, Dirba, and Ashkenuzi. The EC of the Comintern found the suspended members guilty

of a serious and intolerable breach of discipline and conceded that the majority had acted

correctly in ejecting the minority of three from the CEC. The Comintern further provided for

their reinstatement, should they renounce their position and agree to abide by the decision to

form a legal Party.283 The minority, remembered by history as the Central Caucus, declared

the decision unsatisfactory, and threatened to split the Party, yet again.

The unified CPA continued ahead. The unified CPA leaders created a legal Party over the

course of December 23 to the 26, 1921. Although the new organization, dubbed The Workers

Party of America (WPA), incorporated several affiliated non-Communist organizations, such as

the Jewish Socialist Federation, the Workers Educational Association, and the Workers

282
Draper, The Roots, 335.
283
Ibid., 340.

141
Council, which had recently split from the SPA, the proceedings were largely controlled by

Communists within an ostensibly independent group, the American Labor Alliance. The

American Labor Alliance accounted for 47 of the delegates at the founding, the Workers

Council only 13, and the remaining 34 from the other two organizations. Thus, the Communists

from the outset had a majority of the delegates and so directed the founding of the WPA. The

founders tempered the language of the program and constitution of the WPA, as the Party was

to be a legitimate organization with aspirations of electoral political activity, to better reach a

wider audience. Gone was any mention of armed revolution, civil war, or the terminology of the

Bolsheviks such as soviet or dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead, the WPA program

stated the Partys purpose was to educate and organize the working class for the abolition of

capitalism through the establishment of the Workers Republic.284 Furthermore, the WPA

was not itself affiliated with the Third International, although its parent organization

underground remained so.285 In November the Comintern had issued a document entitled

Concerning the Next Tasks of the Communist Party of America. The language used made it

clear that the WPA was to be a puppet organization of the underground Party: it stated that the

Communists should make certain to control all the leading organs of the legal Party, retain at

least the majority on all important committees, and that the entire membership of the Party

should join the WPA and therein be its most active element.286 In the WPA, the American

Communists created the legal Party requested as a bridge to the American working class. It was,

284
Program and Constitution of the Workers Party of America,
http://ia600202.us.archive.org/16/items/ProgramAndConstitutionWorkersPartyOfAmericaAdoptedAtNational/202
300.pdf (accessed May 2, 2012). 12.
285
Bell, Marxian Socialism, 126.
286
Concerning the Next Tasks of the Communist Party of America, quoted in Oneal, American Communism, 140.

142
as Alexander Bittelman recalled, a transmission apparatus between the revolutionary

vanguard of the proletariat and its less conscious and as yet non-revolutionary masses.287

Party unity was once again threatened when the formation of the WPA went ahead

without the requested underground convention proposed by the Central Caucus. In December,

1921, the total number of members in the unified CPA was estimated at approximately 10,000.

The Central Caucus organized an emergency convention independently in early January, 1922.

Thirty-eight delegates were present, claiming to represent 4,400 unified CPA members. Of

these, ninety percent were also members of the Language Federations, mostly Russians,

Ukrainians, and Lithuanians.288 The emergency convention opted to split from the unified CPA,

but refused to relinquish the title Communist Party of America. Once more, there were two

underground Communist parties, both with the same name, and both publishing official organs

titled The Communist. The Central Caucus CPA leveled charges against the WPA reminiscent of

the 1919 factional battles; compromisers, opportunists, centrists, Mensheviki.289 They

attacked the WPA program, with its omissions of Bolshevik terminology and lack of violent

rhetoric. The Central Caucus CPA could attack the WPA as a fallacious attempt by the

Americans in the unified CPA to fulfill the Cominterns wishes; they did not dare to criticize the

demand for a legal Party, only this specific iteration of a legal Party, a perhaps hypocritical

position since it was the establishment of a legal Party that provoked the Central Caucus to bolt

in the first place. Because the Central Caucus faction claimed the majority of the membership,

and thus legitimacy, Ballam was dispatched to Moscow to argue their case before the EC of the

287
Alexander Bittelman, quoted in Draper, The Roots, 343.
288
Benjamin Gitlow, I Confess, 133.
289
Quoted in Draper, The Roots, 354.

143
Comintern. To placate the Russian officials, the Central Caucus then established its own legal

political Party, the United Toilers of America.

The issue of the legal Party was the impetus for the Central Caucus defection from the

unified CPA. In February, 1922, the Central Caucus faction formed just such a legal Party. It is

curious that the Central Caucus faction would orchestrate a split from the unified CPA, taking

with them nearly half the total membership, because they opposed the creation of a legal

political Party and then almost immediately create that which they had found a grievous

offense to the Communist movement. The Central Caucus, led by Ashkenuzi, Ballam, and Dirba,

split from the unified CPA must be seen as one last attempt by the leaders of the old CPA, that

which originated within the Language Federations and for so long was at odds with the native-

born American leadership in the CLP and later UCP, to retain some measure of authority within

the American Communist movement. By splitting the Party, the Central Caucus again rebelled

against the authority of the native-born Americans in the movement, after only eight months of

unity, and attempted to portray themselves as the only authentic Communists remaining in a

Party of centrists, adventurers, and American Mensheviks.

Their attempt was doomed to failure. The Comintern did not abide this latest factional

strife within the American movement, and soon after extinguished not only the rebellion of the

Central Caucus, but the entire underground Party itself. The Comintern addressed the latest

split in March, 1922. L.E. Katterfeld and Max Bedacht were present in Moscow to represent the

unified CPA position. John Ballam, one of the original three CEC members suspended, pleaded

the case of the Central Caucus. A Comintern commission of Heinrich Brandler, Matyas Rakosi,

Ottomar Kuusinen, Boris Souvarine, and Boris Reinstein arbitrated the dispute. None of the

144
commission members were sympathetic to Ballams argument, despite his claim that the

Central Caucus represented the majority of American Communists. Ballam later recorded they

care nothing for majorities. They will support a minority who will carry out their policies against

a majority that is opposed to themThey say, You report 5,000 comrades in America, whose

comrades are they? Dirbas, Ballams, and Ashkenuzis? Or are they Lenins, Trotskys and

Bukharins? You must obey the discipline first.290 Here, in no uncertain terms, the commission

ruled that conformity to the wishes of the International took precedence over the democratic

whims of the Party membership. The ruling was an early demonstration, but by no means the

last, that the Comintern would dictate to the American Party. The Central Caucus, inheritors of

the old CPA legacy of true Bolshevism within the American Party, were operating under an

outdated model. The Comintern demanded unity, contact with the masses, and a legal political

Party, not the small, isolated, ideologically pure revolutionary vanguard Party that the

federations had always believed themselves to be. The American Bolsheviks of the

federations were now too Bolshevik, too sectarian and conspiratorial, for the original

Bolsheviks. The commission ruled in favor of the unified CPA and WPA. The Comintern

instructed the Central Caucus to reintegrate into the unified CPA within two months, and for

doing so would recover full membership rights. Any who did not comply within the two months

allotted would stand outside of the CPA and therefore also out of the Comintern. 291 Ballam

relented, and signed a document promising to carry out the decisions of the Comintern

committee. Upon his return to the United States he toured extensively, agitating amongst the

290
John Ballam, quoted in Draper, The Roots, 356. Dirba, Ballam, and Ashkenuzi are referred to by the pseudonyms
Dobin, Moore, and Henry in the original.
291
Quoted in Draper, The Roots, 357.

145
membership of the Central Caucus CPA to rejoin the unified CPA. Some did, including Ballam

and Dirba, and the remaining leaders formally liquidated the Central Caucus CPA on September

30, 1922. It is unknown if Ashkenuzi returned to the unified CPA. What is certain, however, is

that he did not regain his position among the CEC of the Party. The last Federationist of the old

CPA bent was politically irrelevant.

So, too, became the federations themselves. Although the CPA membership continued

to remain primarily foreign-born throughout the 1920s, the federations as subunits of the Party

had finally and irrevocably been wrangled into line, no longer autonomous in action but

subjugated to the centralized structure of the Party. The CPA leaders liquidated the

underground Party, itself, and its components merged with the WPA, following yet another

intense and protracted factional battle. This last dispute was only solved by Comintern

intervention at the Fourth Congress of the Third International in November, 1922, when Trotsky

ruled in favor of the liquidation of the underground apparatus. American Communists turned a

page at that congress: the Comintern instructed them to throw all of their support into the legal

WPA, to work in conjunction with other organizations in the establishment of a Labor Party, an

early attempt at implementation of united front tactics. The Party adopted these measures so

that the American Communists would finally make progress toward reaching the American

masses. Comintern instructions to the American delegates acknowledged the foreign-born in

the American Communist movement and their contributions, stating the immigrants, including

Communists, who have migrated to America from Europe, play an important part in the

American Labor movementthe Communist immigrants have brought many virtues with them

to America, self-sacrifice, revolutionary courage, etchowever, their greatest weakness lies in

146
the fact that they desire to apply the experience they have acquired in the various countries of

Europe, mechanically to American conditions.292 The congress laid out a new strategy for the

WPA, for which the most important task is to arouse the American-born workers out of their

lethargy.293 The American movement, which had now eradicated the influence of the

Language Federations within the Party power hierarchy, and whose top leadership now

consisted almost entirely of native-born Americans and English-speaking, integrated European

immigrants, now sought to finally create an American Party led by Americans that represented

the American working class.

At the Fourth congress of the Communist International, the Comintern leaders

reinforced the need for united front tactics among the Communist parties of the world. The

revolutionary wave that followed the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia by 1922 had faded. Where

Communist revolts were successful, it was only temporary. German Communists attempted

several revolutions, but were unsuccessful in their endeavors. On December 5, 1922, the

Comintern issued new theses on Comintern tactics. The Comintern noted that the proletariat

had failed to deal capitalism a decisive blow in the period of economic turmoil caused by the

First World War. The bourgeoisie, in conjunction with Social Democrats, successfully repressed

the revolutionary elements of the working class in that period, shored their economic and

political power, and launched a new offensive against the proletariat. In their offensive,

capital in all nations was mercilessly lowering the wages of the worker, lengthening the work

day, and curtailing the modest rights of the working class. In light of these developments,

the Comintern instructed Communists of the world to implement united front tactics, and to

292
Quoted in Draper, The Roots, 386.
293
Ibid.

147
join in a common struggle with all workers, regardless of political affiliation, to defend the

immediate, basic interests of the working class against capital. American Communists would

have to build bridges to the average American worker to fully implement this strategy. To do so,

the American Communist movement needed native-born, English-speaking leadership, and a

legal political Party from which to work. Having rid the Party of the last of the old foreign-born

Federationist leaders, and realized a legal Party in the WPA, American Communists were poised

to fulfill the Comintern directives issued at the Fourth congress.

The federations remained within the Party structure until 1925, when the Comintern

instructed the CPA to engage in a Bolshevization campaign. This undertaking transformed the

structure of the Party from a federated organization based on geographical or national-ethnic

subunits into one based around shop nuclei at the lowest level. This meant that the Party was

no longer composed of affiliated language federations or locals, as was the organizational

model inherited from the pre-war SPA. After 1925, members belonged to the shop nucleus of

their respective workplaces, which responded to their section of their respective cities.

Sections reported to subdistricts which represented multiple cities, and which answered to

district organizations covering one or more states. District organizations were firmly under the

control of the central offices of the Party, and thus the Party leadership. After the

Bolshevization campaign of 1925, the CPAs organizational structure was radically different,

resulting in both a more rigidly centralized Party hierarchy and marking the end of semi-

autonomous Language Federations.

Free of foreign-born influence on the Party membership, the American Communist

movement reached a zenith of influence in the 1930s. The Bolshevization campaign of 1925

148
resulted in a loss of membership for the CPA from approximately 16,325 in early 1925 (before

the campaign began) to a mere 7,213 in October, 1925, after the restructuring process was well

underway.294 Historian Harvey KIehr surmises that the vast majority of membership losses

came from the federations. Klehr suggests that federation members had little incentive to

rejoin the CPA as individual members after the dissolution of the federations, which put an end

to the social and fraternal functions of those organizations. Instead of rejoining the CPA, they

remained hall socialists, congregating on the weekends but essentially no longer actively

involved in the Communist Movement.295

In 1930, the Party again reached 10,000 members. In 1938 the CPA recorded almost

55,000 members. The onset of the depression in 1929 provided the CPA the opportunity to

reach large numbers of unemployed native-born Americans. The Communists found a receptive

audience. Changes in Comintern policy in the 1930s, such as the implementation of popular

front tactics, also allowed the CPA to present a more amenable image to native-born American

workers. Finally, restrictions on immigration enacted in the 1920s meant fewer foreign-born

immigrants were available to enter into the CPA. Thus over the course of the 1930s, the

proportion of foreign-born to native-born Communists in the CPA changed. Whereas in 1930

foreign-born membership accounted for over seventy percent of CPA, by 1935 foreign-born

Communists made up only fifty percent of total Party membership. In 1936, the CPA for the first

time in its seventeen year history claimed more native-born Americans within its ranks than

foreign-born. The Comintern decree laid down a decade previously at the Fourth Congress of

294
Klehr and John Earl Haynes, The American Communist Movement, 54.
295
Klehr, Communist Cadre, 22.

149
the Third International was realized: the CPA in 1936 could claim to be a legitimate

representative of the American working class and a credible force in American politics.

150
 VIII. CONCLUSION

At the Fourth Congress of the Communist International in November, 1922, the Soviet

leaders assessed the role of immigrants in the American Communist movement. They stated

that the foreign-born members of the Party had demonstrated self-sacrifice and

revolutionary courage in their contributions to the movement. However, the assessment

concluded that their failings lay in endeavoring to apply their revolutionary experience

garnered in the countries of their origin to their new home, where conditions were entirely

different, and thus required entirely different tactics and strategies.

This assessment is accurate; however, it is also unfair to some extent. Russian

immigrants in the United States, as we have seen, attempted to transpose their conception of

Bolshevik methods, which had achieved such astounding success in an autocratic state ravaged

by war, with a tradition of revolutionary Marxist activity, to a democratic republic, economically

bolstered by war, with little tradition of revolutionary Marxist activity and a largely reform-

minded American working class. When examined from this angle, the belief that Bolshevism

was applicable to the post-war United States seems ludicrous. However, the Russians in the Left

Wing of the United States Socialist movement of 1918 and 1919 did not appraise the political

situation of the United States through that lens. Rather, they believed, as did their native-born

comrades and Lenin, himself, at the time, that worldwide revolution was imminent; the spark

had come from their homeland, but would soon spread through Germany, Western Europe,

and eventually across the Atlantic to the United States. For these men who so fervently

believed in this inevitability, they only had to organize themselves as the Bolshevik Party had

done. Their relative weakness and small membership, and isolation from mainstream American

151
politics were not disadvantages, they were virtues. By organizing as a rigid, small, ideologically

pure sect, they only need await the swelling of the revolutionary tide. When it came, they

would be poised to lead it as the vanguard Party they envisioned themselves to be. Native-born

Americans in the Left Wing believed the Russian immigrants pompous for this stance, and

accused men such as Hourwich, Stoklitsky, and Tyverovsky of stylizing themselves

revolutionaries merely because they happened to hail from the same country that Lenin and his

cadre transformed. This, too, is unfair. Their experience in the Russian Labor movement prior to

emigrating, their familiarity with revolutionary Marxism and European Socialist developments,

their direct access, for a brief period of time, to Bolsheviks and Russian Socialists like Alexandra

Kollontai, Nikolai Bukharin, and Leon Trotsky, and the propagation of these Russian migrs

writings and theories in Novy Mir, an organ only they could understand, all of these things

provided Russian immigrants in the American Left Wing with an understanding of Bolshevism

that was partially inaccessible to native-born American Socialists. Complete devotion to the

abstract principles that these resources and experiences imbued them with was, to the Russian

American Left, the blueprint to proletarian revolution.

The Russian Americans in the Left Wing learned the lesson that dogmatic purity in a

small revolutionary organization would ensure success when the revolution came. The Russian

American Left did not abandon this lesson, and did not change with the times. This reluctance

to change, even when those Bolshevik leaders who provided the model demanded it, ultimately

resulted in the marginalization and elimination of Russian Americans from positions of

influence within the American movement. Content to await the revolutionary moment, the

Russians and other foreign-born in the American Left differentiated themselves from the

152
native-born Americans in the movement, by labeling them centrists, or Mensheviks, and in so

doing reinforced their own notions of superiority as true Bolsheviks. The Left Wing Council

plan to take the SPA for revolutionary Socialism was deemed incorrect, as Lenin had not

sought to take over the Russian Social Democratic Party but instead struck out on his own. So,

too, did the federation leaders, who split from the SPA and immediately formed their own

Communist entity. Amalgamation with the CLP in 1919 was unthinkable; doing so would mean

an alliance with such pretenders, and would corrupt the purity of their faction within the

movement. This would also threaten their own positions of power. The UCP further threatened

their positions of power, as integration into that organization would mean a tightened control

over the Language Federations. The two parties achieved unity only because refusal to unite

meant expulsion from the Comintern and exile from the international Communist community.

Even after unifying with the native-born Americans of the UCP, the Russians split again, this

time over the issue of a mass Party, again demonstrating a preference for a small and

ideologically pure revolutionary nucleus.

In their reluctance to alter their position, the Russian Americans in the American

Communist movement were left behind by the changing times. Nowhere is this more evident

than in the changing demands of the Communist International. The Comintern intervened in

the American movement at crucial junctures, always to further its aims. The Comintern desired

a united Party, then a mass Party, with which the American movement could endeavor to

achieve success in propagandizing to and organizing the American working class. The

Cominterns instructions always reflected the changes in policy that accompanied new analyses

of the worldwide political situation. The Comintern desired unity of purpose among affiliated

153
parties at the Second Congress. The Comintern announced the twenty-one conditions of

affiliation, and American Communists adopted these as the guidelines of their program. The

Comintern demanded unity between the two parties, who, with their backs against the wall,

begrudgingly abided, although even then only barely. When hopes of immediate revolution

throughout Europe dwindled, the Comintern at the Third Congress announced a step back, and

asked that Communists work to win over the masses. Comintern leaders instructed the

American Party to create a legal Party that would provide an organization capable of

participating in parliamentary politics. At the Fourth Congress, Comintern officials reinforced

this notion, and again asked the American Party to increase its work amongst the average

American worker. The Comintern leaders deemed the underground Party no longer necessary,

and tasked the American Communists with liquidating the organization in favor of devoting

themselves to the legal WPA. At every step, the Russian immigrant leaders in the American

Communist movement opposed or argued against the changes in Comintern policies. They only

accepted unity with the UCP by threat of expulsion. At the Third Congress, they opposed going

to the masses, arguing that doing so would only result in the tempering of the movement they

had worked to create. Shortly before the Fourth Congress, the Comintern instructed the

Russian leaders in the American movement to renounce their sectarian position and rejoin the

unified Party. By the time the Fourth Congress commenced, the few Russian Federation leaders

who remained were politically irrelevant, and the American movement was something quite

different from that which they had helped build, and looked to a future without their

leadership. At every turn, the Russian American leaders remained obstinately stuck in the past,

154
refusing to adapt, while the international, and domestic, Communist movement evolved

around them.

It is fair to say that the Russian Federation leaders were instrumental in the early

factional strife which encompassed so much of early Communist activity in the United States;

indeed, at every factional dispute between 1919 and 1921, the Russian American leadership of

the CPA precipitated or propagated a split. However, it is also fair to say that without the

involvement of Russian Americans such as Nicholas Hourwich, Alexander Stoklitsky, Oscar

Tyverovsky, and George Ashkenuzi, men who were so often vilified by contemporaries and

historians of American Communism for their roles in Communist disharmony in that early

period, there would perhaps have been no American Communist movement, or at least one

very different from that which developed historically.

Russian American Socialists were instrumental in the creation of the organized American

Left Wing which birthed the earliest Communist Parties in the United States. Prior to the rapid

growth of Foreign Language Federations within the SPA from the period 1912 to 1917, the Left

Wing of the American Socialist movement was fractured, scattered, numerically small, and

composed of adherents to a variety of Left Wing ideologies: the Syndicalists of the IWW,

DeLeonists of the Socialist Labor Party, anarchists, and a smattering of Revolutionary Marxists

within the SPA. These disparate ideas and approaches comingled and coexisted within the

greater Left Wing milieu, and at times worked either directly within or simply with the SPA.

Although all agreed in principle on the dismantling of capitalism and restructuring of the United

States political system, the individuals within these distinct groups ascribed to different

methods, outlooks, and programs. There was thus no cohesive, organized Left Wing Socialist

155
group within the SPA, and so the moderate majority of the Party defeated the Left at every

turn. An increase in Language Federation membership prior to and during the First World War

strengthened the Left Wing numerically. Exposure to first the Zimmerwald Left program, and

later Bolshevism, helped solidify the Left Wing ideologically. This exposure came from a variety

of sources. Two very important such sources were Russian in origin: the speaking tours and

lectures of prominent Russian Socialists such as Alexandra Kollontai, Nikolai Bukharin, and Leon

Trotsky, architects and signatories of the Zimmerwald Left manifesto, who physically crossed

vast distances across the nation to speak to common workers and active Socialists, urban and

rural, European-born and native-born. These Russian migrs informed the American

movement of the Zimmerwald and Bolshevik programs and principles, and the Russian

Federation organ Novy Mir, which was profoundly influenced and reoriented to the extreme

Left by their editorship and written contributions. Their brief interludes in the U.S. ended in

March, 1917; the Russians within the Russian Federation carried on their work, however. The

articles and editorials of Novy Mir exposed American Socialists to the European Left Wing

tradition and educated them about developments within International Socialism, most

importantly the Bolshevik quest to create a new International Socialist organization. With a

more definite, universal program provided in part by Russians in the United States to rally

around, and a larger membership base to draw upon, the American Left Wing coalesced for the

first time into an organized force within the SPA.

The Russian-Americans within the Language Federations assumed a position of

leadership first amongst the federations, and then within the Communist Party. The growth of

membership within the federations affiliated to the SPA in the second decade of the twentieth

156
century turned the tables somewhat. By 1917, immigrants in the Language Federations made

up the majority of the Party, and the vast majority retained a dedication to the Left Wing

Socialist ideas of their respective homelands. Although the moderates within the Party

attempted to curb their influence, by 1917 the federations had successfully achieved voting

rights for federation members, and thus became highly influential within the Party hierarchy.

The Party rank and file attempted to shift the Party program to the left in the intraParty

elections of 1919, resulting in the unconstitutional expulsion of the more radical Language

Federations from the Party in that same year. Expelled, the federations, led by the Russian

Federation leaders who were so thoroughly converted to Bolshevism after the November, 1917

Russian Revolution, then made up the bulk of rank and file membership in the early period of

the Communist movement. Using this influence over the majority of the membership, the

Russian Federation leaders agitated for the creation of a Communist Party in the late summer

of 1919.

Simultaneously, the native-born American Left Wing, in conjunction with more

acculturated immigrant members, founded another Communist Party. Historians and

contemporaries have often pointed to the Russian Federation as the instigator of that first split

of the Left Wing which occurred in the summer of 1919; certainly, the prominent figures of that

federation factored heavily into the succeeding divisions of the American Communist

movement. There is no doubt that Russian dominance among the federations resulted in

animosity between the two Communist entities and their succeeding iterations, which

weakened the greater movement through misallocation of time and resources away from

agitation, propagandizing, and organization. The animosity arose from the differing programs

157
and platforms of the two parties, and only increased as the Russian-dominated CPA remained

obstinate in its beliefs even as the E.C. of the Third International demanded program and

constitution reform, which the native-born and English-speaking comrades obeyed.

History remembers the disunity and disharmony that resulted from Russian-American

dominance in the Language Federations of the SPA and CPA. However, there would have been

no organized Left Wing, or at least none so large, to split had it not been for the efforts of

Russian Americans to educate and organize American Socialists according to the Left Wing

programs of the Zimmerwaldists and Bolsheviks. Contemporaries and the historians who have

since cited them write of the arrogance of Hourwich, Stoklitsky, and others, and assign blame to

them for the strife that characterized the first years of the American Communist movement.

This reputation is perhaps undeserved; historians have given little recognition to these men in

their efforts to organize and shape the American Socialist movement into an active component

of an international Communist movement that, to them, would also better American society.

Although Russians in the American Left Wing did much to divide the American Communist

movement in the first years of its existence, their positive contributions to the growth and

development of an organized Left Wing during the First World War must be better documented

and understood in the history of American Communism.

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