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68TH Congress SENATE DOCUMENT
1st Session No. 14
ATTEMPT BY COMMUNISTS TO SEIZE THE AMERICAN
LABOR MOVEMENT
PREPARED BY THE
UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA
AND
PUBLISHED IN NEWSPAPERS OF
THE UNITED STATES
PRESENTED BY MR. LODGE
JANUARY 3, 1924— Ordered to be printed
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1924
Object Description
| Title | Attempt by Communists to seize the American labor movement |
| Alternative Title | Communists and the American labor movement |
| Author | United Mine Workers of America |
| Description | This series of six articles was prepared by the United Mine Workers of America, disclosing the attempt that is being made by the Red forces, under the direct supervision of Moscow, to seize control of the organized labor movement of America and use it as the base from which to carry on the Communist effort for the overthrow of the American Government. |
| Subject |
Labor unions Coal miners Labor unions Communism |
| DLA Category |
Work and Occupations Politics and Government |
| Date | 2013-06-19 |
| Format | 1 booklet (ii, 43 p.) ; 15 x 22.5 cm. |
| Type | Text |
| Holding Library | West Virginia Wesleyan College |
| Identifier | wv00041*.* |
| Relation | 68th Congress; 1st session; Doc. no. 14 |
| Publisher | Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. |
| Note | Prepared by the United Mine Workers of America and Published in the Newspapers of the United States. Presented by Mr. Lodge, January 3, 1924. |
| Transcript | 68TH Congress SENATE DOCUMENT 1st Session No. 14 ATTEMPT BY COMMUNISTS TO SEIZE THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT PREPARED BY THE UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA AND PUBLISHED IN NEWSPAPERS OF THE UNITED STATES PRESENTED BY MR. LODGE JANUARY 3, 1924— Ordered to be printed WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1924 Tbis series of six articles was prepared by the United Mine Workers of America, disclosing the attempt that is being made by the Red forces, under the direct supervision of Moscow, to seize control of the organized labor movement of America and use it as the base from which to carry on the Communist effort for the overthrow of the American Government. These articles are the result of an independent searching investigation on the part of the United Mine Workers of America which led directly to original sources. II ATTEMPTS BY COMMUNISTS TO SEIZE THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT. THE AMAZING SCHEME. Article I. The United Mine Workers of America with this article begins an expose of the Communist revolutionary movement in America, as promoted and fostered by the Communist International at Moscow, and dealing with it as it involves the welfare of the miners union, and other similar labor organizations, and the interests of the American people as a whole. The purpose and object of the United Mine Workers of America in bringing to the attention of the American people the far- reaching and intensive activities of the Communist organization in this country is twofold. The United Mine Workers of America wants the public to know what this thing is. It wants the public to know something about the fight which the miners’ union is waging to stamp it out. First, it desires to reveal and make known the sinister and destructive groups and elements attempting to bore from within its own ranks and membership and to seize possession of the organization, amid, through ~ such seizure, to later gain possession of all legitimate trade- unions: second. td inform the American people of the scope and purport of the hostile and inimical movement being carried on within their midst. Imported revolution is knocking at the door of tile United Mine Workers of America and of the American people. The seizure of this union is being attempted as the first step in the realization of a thoroughly organized program of the agencies and forces behind the Communist International at Moscow for the conquest of the American continent. The overthrow and destruction of this Government, with the establishment of an absolute and arbitrary dictatorship, and the elimination of all forms of popular voice in governmental affairs, is being attempted on a more gigantic scale, with more resolute purpose, and with more crafty design, than at any time in the history of this nation. The Communist regime at Moscow, bent on world conquest, is promoting and directing one of the best organized and most far- reaching campaigns in America that any country has ever been confronted with. The Communist organization on the American continent is composed of more than six thousand active leaders and lieutenants, and approximately one million members adherents and svmpathizers scattered in every state and province of the United 1 2 COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT States and Canada, and who are actively or tacitly promoting the scheme to import Bolshevism and Sovietism to this side of the Atlantic. This campaign affects the people of the Dominion of Canada as much as it does the United States. The revolutionary agents of Moscow are working as actively and energetically among the people of the one country as they are among the people of the other. Proof of this statement is found in the recent red outbreak among the misguided miners of Nova Scotia, where armed revolution was preached; where an illegal strike occurred and the red movement was only broken by the vigorous and forcible action of John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America. The major points in this revolutionary program of the Communists as aimed against the United Mine Workers of America and other legitimate trade- unions and the people of the United States and Canada are: 1. Overthrow and destruction of the Federal, state, and provincial governments, with the elimination of existing constitutional forms and foundations. 2. Establishment of a Soviet dictatorship, absolute in its exercise of power, owing allegiance to and conceding the authority only of the Communist, or Third International, at Moscow as a “ governmental” substitute. 3. Destruction of all social, economic, and political institutions as they exist at this time. 4. Seizure of all labor unions through a process of “ boring from within” them, and utilizing them as a strategic instrument in fulfillment of their revolutionary designs upon organized and constitutional government. 5. Invasion of the United Mine Workers of America, with the ouster of its present officials and leaders and the substitution of a leadership of Communists, that it may be used as an instrumentality for seizing the other labor unions of America, and for eventually taking possession of the country. 6. A well- organized movement is being promoted within the four railroad brotherhoods and sixteen railroad trade- unions to amalgamate all railroad workers into “ one departmentalized industrial union,” controlled by a single leader of Communist principle and affiliation, and owing allegiance to the Communist organization. 7. Seizure of the American Federation of Labor, with the ouster of its officials, and through such seizure gaining control of all its affiliated units and trade- unions. 8. Conversion of all craft trade- unions into single units of workers within an industry known as “ industrial unions,” with coordination under a super- Soviet union owing allegiance to, and accepting the mandates of, the Communist International and its subsidiary, the Red Trade Union International, at Moscow. 9. Through conquest and subjugation of the labor unions, and conversion and mobilization of farmers and other related groups, the overthrow of existing institutions, and the creation of a condition similar to that which now prevails in Russia. The data and the facts set forth in this and the following articles represent months of careful independent research among original COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT 3 documents and records covering the whole of the Communist movement in America and Europe, particularly as it has been injected into the ranks of the United Mine Workers of America, the American Federation of Labor, and labor organizations in general. The movement has been traced back to its original purposes and intents and followed in all of its aliases to its present status in this country. Manifestos, programs of action, communications, and revolutionary documents have been examined and compared. Through these factors it has been possible to weigh and gauge the design and purpose of the Communist movement, examine its scope and range, and to determine the extent to which it has entered into the American social, economic, and political fabric, as well as to chart the major outlines of its immediate future program of action. The menace of Bolshevism in America— the United States and Canada— is not a figment of imagination or an invention of hysteria. It is not a passing fancy or a deceiving mirage. Nicolai Lenin and his group of associates at Moscow are waging a definite, contest for the subjugation and seizure of the United States and Canada. They would destroy the present governments, destroy the sovereignty and independence, of the people, and, in their place, enthrone the idols and fallacies of Bolshevism. Millions of dollars are being spent in this contest. Much of the money is coming from continental Europe and the remainder is being collected through organizations and committees created for that purpose or by donations and contributions of sympathetic or well- intentioned people in the United States. Immediately before the start of the miners’ strike on April 1,1922, the sum of $ l, ll0,000 was sent into the United States, by way of Canada, from Moscow, for the purpose of enabling the Communist agents to participate in the strike. Behind this move was the scheme to overthrow the leadership of the union and then convert the, strike into an “ armed insurrection” against the Government of the United States. The massacre of the strike breakers at Herrin, Ill., was engineered by these Communist agents “ boring from within” the miners union. According to their own statements, they were engaged for seven weeks beforehand in their preparations for a tragic occurrence of this kind at some point in southern Illinois as a means to “ arousing the workers to revolutionary action.” Details of this incident will be disclosed in a subsequent article of this series. In the coal fields of southwestern Pennsylvania, where the strike started by orderly process, mine plants, tunnels, and power- transmission lines were blown up, the homes of miners were wrecked, and men were beaten and injured by these Communist agents in an effort, under the instructions of Gregory Zineoviev, president of the Communist International, to arouse “ the revolutionary spirit of the workers and prepare them for the coming revolution in America.” All of these things show what American employers have to deal and contend with if the Communist plans were to succeed and the present legitimate American labor movement were wrecked or destroyed. Three times in three years the Boleshevik leaders at Moscow have attempted armed insurrection and revolution in the United States. 4 COMMUNIST AND THE AMERICAN LABOR The first instance was in connection with the steel strike in 1919. The second was in the “ outlaw” switchmen’s strike in 1920; and the third was in the railroad and coal strikes in l922. In the strikes of 1922 these Communist agents were arrayed as much against the leaders and officials of the miners’ and railroad unions as they were against other loyal citizens of the nation. In each of these strikes the Communist agents, working under instructions which originated at Moscow, have sought to turn them into revolutionary uprisings that would accomplish the overthrow of government in America and establish in its place a proletarian dictatorship that recognized and accepted only the mandates of the Communist International. It may be stated incidentally that the growth and effectiveness of the Communist movement in America has been handicapped and limited by the immutable policy of the Communist International that its chosen representatives must control everything of which they come into possession. Exercise of this control is the definite aim and always the major consideration, in every amalgamation, reorganization, or new enterprise with which they are associated, whether it be the seizure of a labor union, o in the promotion of the aspirations of a candidate for political preferment. They recognize no voice except their own. The “ thesis of tactics,” adopted by the Third World Congress of the Communist International, at Moscow, says: From the very first day of its establishment, the Communist International has distinctly and unambiguously devoted itself to the purpose of participating in the trade unions and in the struggles of the laboring masses, and of conducting this struggle on a Communist basis, and of erecting during the struggle great Communist mass parties, waiving the idea of the formation of small Communist sects for the attainment of influence upon the working class solely by agitation and propaganda. Demand by the Communist inner circle of leaders, consisting of a dozen men, for supreme authority for themselves has been the obstacle that has prevented the actual realization of their plans several times to seize organizations in this country. It was this demand that caused the minority Communists to split from the majority Communists in the early stages of their movement in this country, resulting in a dual movement ever since. Because of their essential revolutionary purpose and design, these Communists have not believed that the control of any enterprise or agency which they might need later as a revolutionary medium could be trusted to the keeping of anyone who was not of their chosen inner circle, amenable to their discipline, and servile to the mandates of the Communist International. This phase of policy is in keeping with their principle that the Soviet dictatorship, when once established, is absolute, and does not recognize in the conduct of its affairs either the voice or the representation of the people. Indeed, their conception of the individual is that he is of no consequence to the general scheme of human affairs; that only the masses are to be taken into consideration, and they directed by time super- authority and wisdom of a Soviet dictatorship. Wherever possible in conducting their activities in America the Communists have attempted to “ bore from within” organizations already existing and to utilize them for their ultimate ends and COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT 5 purposes. They have been particularly active in trying to “ bore from within” the United Mine Workers of America for the reasons that it is the largest single labor organization in the country, includes a larger number of races and nationalities among its members, and is the nearest approach, in their opinion, to a “ one big union,” which is their ideal conception of a labor union, and their objective for all labor unions. In this attempt these Communists have met with the determined opposition of President Lewis and other strong leaders of the miners’ union, who are determined that the union shall not be converted into a Bolshevik institution. The same tactics have been used continuously for four years to seize and control the American Federation of Labor, the railroad labor organizations, and various other trade groups. The Communists have declined to establish rival or competing organizations to these federations as long as the possibility existed that they might eventually take possession of them and annex them to their revolutionary movement in America. Trade unions have been regarded by the Communists from the very outset as their first objective, and their eventual stronghold in overthrowing the government and seizing the country. In these unions they have recognized an opportunity to get in close contact within the labor masses, establish relations and connections within them, and imbue them with hatred and hostility toward the existing order of things. For this reason, the Communist Party of America, with its allies, the Workers Party of America, the Trade Union Educational League, and the Friends of Soviet Russia, under the instructions of the Communist International and its subsidiary, the Red Trade Labor Union International, is using all of its industrial contacts to segregate and restrict thee control and management of the trade unions in the hands of its leaders and official groups. That this design may be more easily carried out the members of these Communist parties are constantly becoming members of trade unions, thus acting accordance with the prearranged plan of their central executive committees that they shall enter these unions, and acting in concert, gradually absorb them as a part of the Communist revolutionary movement. The program of action of the United Communist Party, which was accepted and affirmed in slightly diluted form by the Communist Party of America in the convention at Woodstock. N. Y., in 1921, and later accepted with slight variations by the Workers Party of America, known as the “ legal branch,” says The United Communist Party considers as one of the most serious and immediate problems the question of the best method of breaking up the bureaucratic control and transforming the union structure into a machine of revolutionary action. The United Communist Party confirms the present necessity of militant workers remaining with the large mass of organized workers, regardless of the reactionary aims of the unions, and, by determined and coordinated strength, turning these unions to the revolutionary cause. The United Communist Party, section of the Communist International, is the instrument for that coordination of the revolutionary work within the unions. Compulsion and force is to be applied to industrial workers to move them to become Communists, according to the doctrines of the Communist Party of America. Its adherents are told: Obviously, many nonrevolutionary workers must be taken into the most revolutionary of unions, even compelled to join against their wills. 6 COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT Conducting and promoting the revolutionary campaign in the United States is a secret party organization, directed and controlled by representatives of the Communist International. This is the Communist Party of America. It is purely a revolutionary organization, and makes no pretense at legality. It boldly proclaims to its members that it is the “ illegal” party, and designates itself as such. Technically, it is known as the “ underground “ party. This party has at its head the supreme executive revolutionary committee in America, responsible only to Lenin, Zinoviev, and other officials of the Communist International. It does not recognize any superior power or agency iii the United States. Its work is done secretly; the identities of its officials and leaders are concealed behind assumed names. Its letters and records are in code letters and numerals. Its members are accepted only after investigation and examination, and remain on probation for a period of six months before they are received into full membership. Its meetings are held secretly, within the participants gathering at a preliminary rendezvous and proceeding to an assembly room known in advance only to the leader. 0n the surface, working partly in the open, is another revolutionary organization, known as the Workers Party of America, and created, under instructions from the Communist International, by the Communist Party of America. It is known as the “ legal” party. Its primary purpose is to shield the “ underground” or “ illegal” party, and conceal the revolutionary activity of the real Soviet agents in America. The mission of this party is fundamentally the same as that of the Communist Party of America, i. e., to overthrow the Government of the United States, and establish a Bolshevik regime. Joined with these two revolutionary parties, and assisting them as one of their direct subsidiaries, is an alleged labor- union movement, “ boring from within” the American Federation of Labor, and seeking to seize and destroy it, and enmesh the trade- unions of the United States in the Bolshevik movement, and conquest, of the United States. This organization is the Trade Union Educational League, headed by William Z. Foster, with headquarters at Chicago. This League is cultivated and promoted by the organizers and agents of the Communist and Workers Parties, and is the direct instrumentality of Lenin and Zinoviev, of the Communist International, and Losovskv, of the subsidiary Red Trade Labor Union International, for amalgamating the labor unions into the world revolutionary movement of the Communists. Through this organization of the revolutionary leaders in America are making a nation- wide attempt to obtain control of the American Federation of Labor, reorganize the craft unions on the basis of “ one big union” in an industry, and weld them into the central revolutionary agency in America. Working in conjunction with the two Communist Parties is another politico-industrial instrumentality, the Friends of Soviet Russia, an organization whose aim is to give free lectures to disseminate and propagate Communistic and disloyal doctrines, designed to undermine the American Government, destroy the confidence of the people in its principles and foundation, and prepare the way for a Soviet, or “ proletarian,” dictatorship. COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT 7 The Friends of Soviet Russia is purely a Communistic enterprise, reorganized from the American Labor Alliance, through the latter agency controlled and directed by the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America. It has been, and is, one of the effective agencies of the Communist groups distributing disloyal and revolutionary doctrines and propaganda among the immigrant masses in America, promoting labor unrest and discord, and seeking to induct the foreign residents of the country into the Trade Union Educational League, the Workers Party of America, or other revolutionary agencies and instrumentalities under the control of the Communist Party of America. Active among the “ intellectual” classes of the country, and posing as a champion of the “ liberties of speech, press, and assembly,” is the American Civil Liberties Union at New York. This organization is working in harmony and unity with the Communist superstructure in America, engaged in the dissemination of radical utterances and propaganda, and conducting a nationwide campaign for the liberation of Bolshevik agents and disloyal agitators who have been convicted under the war- time laws, or the syndicalist laws of different states, for unpatriotic or revolutionary activities. It is the successor of the American Union Against Militarism, which consistently opposed the military draft act during the war and gave comfort and assistance to the conscientious objectors who resisted military service. While offering aid to scores of individuals who have been arrested or convicted for violation of national or state laws, it has not in a single instance come to the assistance of a man or woman who did not profess radical sentiments, or who was not allied with the Communist, the anarchist, the revolutionary, or the radical movements in America. Fifty- two persons, holding a total of 325 directorates in 45 organizations are in control of the radical and revolutionary campaigns now being waged in this country. A systematic examination of the directorates of these organizations re-veals the fact that they interlock into almost a single whole. While the ultra-radical and discreet “ liberal” groups meet occasionally, there is no real gap or breaking point, and in their general aspects they are fused into a united effort, giving mutual support to each other in their numerous activities. It is in this interlocking arrangement and mutual cooperation that the most insidious and dangerous aspect of the Communist movement in America is found. The key to the ultra- radical movement in America, as promoted and fostered by the Communist leaders at Moscow, is found in this interlocking arrangement. Through this mechanism these Communist groups interlock with also with the Communist International and the Red Trade Labor Union International at Moscow, so that the revolutionary movement in America is the direct offspring and agency of the Communist regime in Russia, for the purpose od seizing and possessing themselves of the American continent through the mediumship of revolution inspired and conducted from the stronghold of Bolshevism on the other side of the Atlantic. The details of this interlocking arrangement, together with the details of the Communist activities in this country as they relate to 8 COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT the United Mine Workers of America, and to other labor organizations, will be set forth in the succeeding articles. ARTICLE II The United Mime Workers of America, in presenting the second article exposing the activities of the Communist revolutionary organization in America, calls attention to the fact that this movement is centered chiefly around and within the productive efforts of the country, and that its advancement is being sought through the encouragement of industrial strife and the breeding of distrust and misunderstanding between employers and labor unions. In carrying out this design the Communists are as much the foe of the trade unions as they are of the employers. Their underlying purpose is to take possession of the unions as a step toward the ultimate realization of a Soviet dictatorship in America. There are persons who charge that the United Mime Workers is a red organization and that it works, sympathizes, and cooperates with and is dominated by Communists and Communist influences. But this is not true. The United Mine Workers of America has no sympathy with the Communist movement in any of its phases. In fact, Communists recognize the miners’ union as their strongest and bitterest enemy in America. That is the reason why the Moscow masters put forth such a tremendous effort to cripple and seize the organization. The possibility that the United Mine Workers of America would not be successful in the spring of 1922 in renewing the existing wage agreement with the coal operators, and that a suspension of work at the coal mines would take place on April 1, was realized by the Communist International, and the Communist superorganization in America, more than eight months beforehand. Keenly alive to the peculiar relations that existed between the operators and the miners, they foresaw the eventuality of a cessation of work. The coal operators had carefully watched the trend of the open- shop campaign, and it had been apparent for some time, even to the uninitiated, that as soon as this movement was sufficiently entrenched in industry an effort would be made to cripple the miners’ union in the hope that there might be a lower labor cost within the coal industry. Generally speaking, a strike does not injure a coal operator. Coal in the ground does not deteriorate, and losses caused by a strike can be added to the price of coal when it is finally mined. Consequently, the coal operator has nothing to lose, and possibly much to gain, when a strike is precipitated. Officials of the miners’ union had known for a long while that the time was approaching when the strength and cohesion of their organization would be sorely tried. It was recognized by them that if a condition arose before April 1, which made it seem reasonably likely that a strike would wreck the miners’ union, it would not be unwelcome to some of the nonunion and other interests in the coal industry. In fact, if responsibility for the upheaval could be shifted to the shoulders of the union, they might quietly agitate matters so that a strike would result. COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT 9 Some of the coal- producing interests were chafing under the existing agreement with the union, and it was manifest that they would welcome any move that promised to put them on an open- shop basis. These facts were well known to the officials of the Communist International at Moscow, and to their American advisers and emissaries who were visiting them frequently for purposes of consultation about industrial and political matters in America. It is not surprising, therefore, to find Gregory Zinoviev, president of the Communist International, secretly instructing his American agents in 1922 to foster and encourage the threatened breach between the operators and the mine workers. With the strategy of a field marshal Zinoviev sent the following instructions from Moscow to Communist agents in the United States a few weeks before the start of the miners’ strike on April 1, 1922: The Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America must direct its particular attention to the progress of the strike of the miners of America. Agitators and propagandists must be sent to the strike regions. It is necessary to arouse striking coal miners to the point of armed insurrection. Let them blow up and flood the shafts. Shower the strike regions with proclamations and appeals. This arouses the revolutionary spirit of the workers and prepares them for the coming revolution in America. These brief instructions contain the whole Communist attitude toward the strike. They show that the prime purpose was to bring about disorder, violence, and riot which could be charged up against the United Mine Workers of America. Into this troubled situation the Communist group of America, under Zinoviev’s instructions, were to thrust in their entire organization, and to create a condition within the strike which would eventually eliminate the officials of the miners’ union, and enable them to extend the strike into a great industrial upheaval, involving, as they hoped, all labor unions and all industry. Thus, the United Mine Workers of America was attacked by an underground enemy and had that enemy to fight at the same time it was engaged in a tremendous contest with the coal operators. It was a significant coincidence that the two elements should attack the miners’ union at the same time. As the breach between the operators and the miners’ union widened and it became apparent that a strike would not be averted, Zinoviev sent more specific instructions to America, directing that agitators and propagandists be sent into the coal region; that the towns and villages be showered with proclamations and appeals; that mine shafts be blown up and flooded; and that, as he said, “ the revolutionary spirit of the workers be aroused for the coming revolution in America. Participation of the Communists in the strike started with their going quietly into the coal regions and pretending to cooperate with the officials of the union until it was manifest that the cessation of work was complete. Then they started broadcasting these regions with incendiary and inflammatory circulars, many of which were designed to breed distrust and suspicion of union officials among their followers. The more revolutionary of these documents originated at Cleveland, where the Communist organization had concentrated the sum of $ 1,110,000, sent into the country by Zinoviev and his 10 COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMNENT Associates, for the purpose pf financing the participation of their agents in the strike. Other circulars were issued in Chicago and New York. Others were reprinted at Pittsburgh, Uniontown, Pa., Wheeling, W. Va., and Bellaire, Ohio. In every instance they were distributed to the miners by the district, section, and local organizers and agents of the Communist Party of America and the Workers Party of America, and who acted under the direct instructions of the central executive committees of these parties. As far as was feasible the Communists fitted their plans to the program of the United Mine Workers. Uninvited and unwelcome though they were, they worked within the union, and not as a dual organization. Only by secrecy and stealth did they launch their hostile and vicious campaign. Suspicion and distrust of the union officials was spread gradually among the rank and file of the miners, largely through whisperings of attempted of prospective betrayal or acts of bad faith on their part. It was therefore manifest that victory in America could not be achieved solely through the mediumship of the existing Communist political units. A readjustment was necessary, and it was made. A separate organization, fashioned as a national labor movement, intended to work within the unions as a part of them— employing the process of “ boring from within”— was put into the field. Samuel Gompers, they hoped, would be overwhelmed by it, for it was apparent that with his unyielding opposition the American Federation of Labor could never be seized or controlled by them as long as he remained in it. With these objects in view, Zinoviev, Losowsky, and Lenin proceeded during the next twelve months to organize the Trade Union Educational League. This project was put under the control of, and made amenable to as far as its work was concerned, to the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America, and it remains so to- day. William Z. Foster was selected to lead this movement. In the spring of 1921 he went to Russia, and the understanding was that he went there to get his instructions for the organization of the Trade Union Educational League, gather facts about the Communist work in Soviet Russia, the functioning of Communist ideas and theories, and learn how the officials of the Communist International wanted those ideas and theories applied in America through the Trade Union Educational League. COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT 11 In Moscow Foster was officially designated, according to Lenin’s confidential messages to the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America, to lead the new “ boring from within” movement in America. Their object was twofold. The Communist “ drive” against the labor unions of America would be fortified and strengthened, and they would be put on a more practical and effective basis for taking advantage of a coal strike, if it took place in the spring, to bring about “ the armed insurrection” than they had been in the steel and switchmen’s strike. Foster began to exploit the Trade Union Educational League immediately on his return in November, 1921, saying that its purpose was to “ assist in hastening the natural evolution of the labor movement from a craft to an industrial basis.” He said that the purpose of his new venture was to lay the foundation for the reorganization of all labor unions into an industrial “ one big union.” Foster called his first meeting of the Trade Union Educational League in Chicago on October 31, 1921, and there presented the mandate of the Red Trade Labor Union International, empowering him to form “ a strong political revolutionary union in the United States, promoted through the agency of the shop steward committees.” His activity, he said, would not be confined to general Communist propaganda, but to “ special work in the formation of the activities of the American section of the Red Trade Labor Union International. He announced that he would launch a new revolutionary publication in the English language to aid him in his work. Foster’s first official announcement, a revolutionary document attacking the craft union idea, can calling for the formation of a new movement to supplant existing craft unions with “ industrial” unions, or a “ one big union,” was issued on February 10, 1922. One week later Foster issued a second letter, with a “ Call to Action.” He said that existing unionism is obsolete and backward, and that “ militants must definitely and finally rid themselves of the dual union secessional movement that has negated their efforts for so long,” and further, that “ they must thoroughly organize themselves within the trade- unions for the effective application of their boundless energies and dynamic programs.” He said that the Trade Union Educational League proposed to develop craft unions from “ their present antiquated and stagnant condition into modern, powerful labor organizations capable of waging successful warfare against capital.” When the miners’ strike started on April 1, 1922, Foster and his coterie were ready to inject themselves into the situation and start their “ militant” campaign as it had been outlined in Moscow, and developed in detail by himself and the Communist organization in this country. Foster was now the great industrial organizer of the Communist movement in America, with direct connection and contacts with the Communist International and its field general in command of the campaign to capture the American unions. Loyal assistance was forthcoming from the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America. Instructions sent out on the eve of the coal strike were: 12 COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT In view of the threatened strike of the miners, the Central Executive Committee has worked out the following plan of activity for the organization. The National Industrial Organizer has been placed in complete charge of all phases of the coal situation. He is to utilize to the fullest extent all his open connections with the union with the view of uniting all the left elements for coordinated support of the miners in the event of a strike. In this emergency the National Industrial Organizer has authority to appoint assistants without waiting for the confirmation of the CEC ( Central Executive Committee). All party channels are at the disposal of the Industrial Organizer for this purpose. All District Organizers must carry out instructions without delay. Through our legal organ we will wage a campaign to win the railroad workers to the idea of refusing to carry scab coal. Throughout the struggle all our papers in No. 1 ( Communist Party) and No 2 ( Workers Party) will be kept fully informed of the activities and developments of the situation. The National Industrial Organizer is preparing a leaflet and a detailed plan of operation for all our nuclei. As a means of facilitating their campaign in the coal regions the Communists divided the country into two sections. The eastern section, with headquarters at New York, included the anthracite region in eastern Pennsylvania and the bituminous fields in the remainder of the state, as well as the coal fields of Maryland, West Virginia, southeastern Ohio, and eastern Kentucky. The western district covered the coal fields of Illinois, Indiana, and northem and central Ohio. Headquarters were at Chicago. Major headquarters for general supervision of the strike work in these districts were maintained both at Chicago, the home of Foster, and at Cleveland, the home town of C. E. Ruthenburg, executive secretary of the Workers Party of America. Agenta from New York and Chicago, as well as Cleveland, poured into the coal fields. The New York headquarters was located in the national offices of the Workers Party of America, and specifically in the office of Carlo Tresca, an anarcho- communist and political refugee from Italy, who was sentenced to the Federal penitentiary at Atlanta for violation of war- time laws. Tresca was the “ field supervisor” who executed the “ boring from within” plans in the eastern district as they came to him from the Communist “ inner circle.” Cooperating with him and giving him all possible assistance were James P. Cannon, chieftain of the Workers Party of America and member of the “ inner circle” of both the Workers and Communist parties; William F. Kruse, assistant secretary of the Workers Party of America and dominating factor in the Friends of Soviet Russia; J. Lewis Engdahl, editor of the Worker, one of the official Communist organs; Ludwig Lore, member of the executive committees of both communist parties and one of the interlocking links between them, as well as editor of the revolutionary Volks Zeitung at New York. Cannon, whose party alias is “ Cook,” was in constant communication with the agents sent into both the eastern and the western districts. Lore, or “ Young,” provided much of the propaganda that was circulated in these districts. Southwestern Pennsylvania from the very start was the center of the strike whirlpool. The affected area here extended from Pittsburgh and Johnstown in the north to Fairmont and Wellsburg, W. Va., and Bellaire, Ohio, on the south and west. The Chicago headquarters were largely under the direction of John Carney, editor of the Communist organ, Voice of Labor, and his business manager, Nick Dozenburg, as well as Arne Swabeck, a COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT 13 member of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party. Assisting them and acting as their chief field agents were T. R. Sullivan, Communist organizer at St. Louis; Norman Tallentire, a Communist organizer at Chicago; and Gus Fraenckel, an agent working among switchmen and railway employees in the Chicago district. Swabeck, Sullivan, and Tallentire were later arrested in the raid on the Communist convention at Bridgman, Michigan. At about the time the strike started, Peter Poscal Cosgrove, of Boston, a well-known Communist agent, returned from Russia, saying that he had arranged with Lenin for the organization of the miners of America on Communist “ one big union” lines, and that he would cooperate with Foster to this end. Immediately after Cosgrove’s return, James P. Cannon joined Alfred Wagenknecht, alias “ Martin,” alias “ Duffy,” member of the Executive Committee of the Workers Party and alleged correspondent for Communist newspapers, who was recently expelled from the anthracite miners’ convention at Scranton, Pa., and both of them departed for Russia for further conference with Lenin and his associates. Jay Lovestone, alias “ L. C. Wheat,” executive secretary of the Communist Party of America, went to Berlin to get funds for strike promotion purposes that had been left there by Russian agents. As the Communist emissaries from New York swarmed into the coal fields of Pennsylvania, they attempted to gain the confidence of the officials of the union and to ascertain their plans for the conduct and management of the strike. In a number of instances they succeeded in this purpose, and did make their way into the councils of local groups of the union, a situation which afforded enemies of the union an excuse for unjustly charging against it all of the crime and disorder which followed. Everywhere that they went violence, disorder and trouble, clashes with the police, dynamiting, incendiary fires, and injured and maimed men were left in their wake. The New York Volks Zeitung, in its issue of April 10, said: Right after the outbreak of the strike in the textile and coal industries the Workers’ Party sent its most able organizers into the strike zone to carry on their work in the sense of the party principles. Three district organizers, 5, 6, and 10, dedicate their entire energy to this task. William F. Dunne, labor editor of the Worker, went into the Pittsburgh and Ohio regions as the chief emissary of the New York headquarters. Dunne carefully and closely examined the field and looked for the weak points in the ranks of the miners that were most susceptible to attack by the Communists. Dunne made a tour through Pennsylvania and Ohio, uttering inflammatory speeches as he went, and rendering confidential reports to the higher Communist officials of his work and of the conditions that he found. In the raid conducted recently by Prosecuting Attorney Gardiner and Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Myers, of Pittsburgh, on the headquarters of Fred Merrick, duplicate copies of the reports sent by Dunne to New York were uncovered. These documents are now in the possession of Mr. Gardiner. Merrick is under indictment for violation of the Pennsylvania anti- sedition act, and at liberty under bail of $ 10,000. While in Pittsburgh, Dunne occupied the same 14 COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT living quarters with Merrick and made use of the facilities of the Workers’ Party district office. Soon after arriving at Pittsburgh, Dunne said that he, Merrick, and other leaders of the Communist and Workers’ parties felt that the effort to organize the southeastern Pennsylvania coal fields “ was being made not because of the efforts of the officials of the United Mine Workers of America, but in spite of them.” He said that while matters continued to progress as they were then doing, he and the other organizers of the Communist and Workers’ parties would not interfere in any way, or concentrate very much on the mine workers, but that as soon as the organizers of the United Mine Workers of America had completed their work there, an intensive campaign would be started in the ranks of the miners’ union to spread the strike to other industries. “ Naturally, as soon as this campaign is under way, more speakers will be brought in,” said Dunne. “ The officials of the United Mine Workers of America are being watched very closely for any treacherous action on their part toward the rank and file, and should any such action be attempted they will immediately be exposed.’’ Tresca made his appearance in the region on May 6, when the strike was one month old. Soon after the coming of Tresca and his associate, Emilia Coda, violence started on a major scale. Miners’ houses were dynamited; power transmission lines were blown up; highways were mined with bombs, and automobiles were blown to fragments. One small car was reduced to splinters by a bomb hidden under a bridge, but the occupants escaped with slight injuries. Reports of threatened dynamitings were a daily occurrence. Families of mine officials and workers alike lived in constant terror. A state of hysteria and terrorism spread over the strike region. The Communists concentrated their activities in the vicinity of Uniontown, New Salem, Brownsville, Charleroi, and Avella. In the center of this district is the so- called coke region, where practically all of the mine workers were foreign- born or aliens. From their stronghold at Avella, and cooperating with the Communist group at Bellaire, Ohio, these Communists engineered the raid in July on the nonunion mine at Cliftonville, near Wellsburg, West Virginia, in which lives of the sheriff and a number of their own men were lost. Previous to this raid plans for its execution were made by the Communist agents at Avella, Canonsburg, and Pittsburgh. This occurrence was one of the outbreaks through which the Communists expected to take possession of the strike, spread it to other industries, and bring about, a general “ armed uprising.” The American Civil Liberties Union, acting on the pretext that “ free speech, free press, and civil liberty” was menaced by the efforts to suppress the violence, disorder, and trouble stirred up by the Communist agitators, sent a delegation of its own to southwestern Pennsylvania to also “ work from within” the strike. This organization proclaimed that it was exerting its efforts in behalf of the United Mine Workers of America, and that it was trying to help “ win the strike.” Records seized by District Attorney Gardiner in Merrick’s office at Pittsburgh include an extended correspondence between Merrick and Roger Baldwin, directing secretary of the American Civil Liberties Union. This correspondence reveals that the principal ef- COMMUNISTS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT 15 fort of the American Civil Liberties Union in this section was to provide legal means for obtaining police permits for street meetings at which Communist speakers would appear, and under the guise of assisting the miners’ strike spread their Communist propaganda and revolutionary doctrines. The relations between Baldwin and Merrick are shown to have been intimate and friendly. Not only were the Communist problems of the district discussed in their letters to each other but there is also frequent reference to the activities of Baldwin and of the American Civil Liberties Union in the correspondence that passed at that time between Merrick, on the one hand, and William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon, William F. Kruse, H. E. Keas, C. E. Ruthenburg, Charles Baker, and a dozen others of the most active of the Communist and revolutionary agents who were connected with the scheme of “ boring from within” the strike. The American Civil Liberties Union is shown, by the correspondence at the time, to have been concerned primarily in keeping the Communist agents out of the jails and prisons of southwestern Pennsylvania after they were sent in there by the revolutionary organization in this country. Careful scrutiny of the letters that passed between the Communist agents and their superior officers in New York does not in any single instance show where they sought to establish an open or frank contact with an official of the United Mine Workers. On the other hand, these letters furnish adequate evidence that when they did establish contacts with union officials, it was for the purpose either of inveigling them into the Communist movement, or placing them in a compromising status where suspicion and distrust of them and the union could be aroused in the minds of the rank and file of the miners, and they be forced to relinquish their positions. The Communist group in this region constituted an “ inner circle” working in accordance with instructions from Lenin and Zenoviev to seize control of the strike, and to make certain that there was no settlement until the officials of the union were thrown out, the trouble spread into other industries, and a general uprising of workers precipitated throughout the country. In the next article of the expose of the Communist revolutionary movement in America the United Mine Workers will reveal the conspiracy that brought about the uprising at Herrion, Ill., resulting in the death of more than a score of men. ARTICLE III The United Mine Workers of America in continuing the revelations of the Communist revolutionary movement in America as it relates to the miners’ union and other labor organizations, presents here the facts in the conspiracy which caused the loss of the lives of twenty- two men at Herrin, Ill., on June 21, 1922. The United Mine Workers of America. as an organization has been mercilessly attacked and condemned for the Herrin massacre when, in fact, the miners’ union was in no manner responsible for what took place. This revolting, inexcusable, terrible crime was fomented, promoted, and caused solely by Communists. It was a care S. Doc. 14, 68— 1— 2 |
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| Title | Attempt by Communists to seize the American labor movement - Page 1 |
| Transcript | 68TH Congress SENATE DOCUMENT 1st Session No. 14 ATTEMPT BY COMMUNISTS TO SEIZE THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT PREPARED BY THE UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA AND PUBLISHED IN NEWSPAPERS OF THE UNITED STATES PRESENTED BY MR. LODGE JANUARY 3, 1924— Ordered to be printed WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1924 |
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