Table Of ContentAMERICAN COMMUNISM AND BLACK AMERICANS
AMERICAN COMMUNISM
AND
BLACK AMERICANS
A Documentary History,
1919-1929
Edited by
Philip S. Foner and James S. Allen
Temple University Press
PHILADELPHIA
Temple University Press, Philadelphia 19122
Copyright © 1987 by Temple University. All rights reserved
Published 1987
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publ ication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standard for Information
Sci ences--Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials
ANSI Z39. 48=1984
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
American communism and black Americans.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Afro-American communists — History — Sources.
2. Afro-Americans — History — 1877-196 — Sources .
3. Communism — United States — History — Sources.
I. Foner, Philip Sheldon, 1910- II. Allen,
James S.
HX83.AH9 1986 335. **3'0 8996073 86-23032
ISBN 0-87722-1*50-1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION vii
CHAPTER I Preliminaries, 1919-1924 1
CHAPTER II The Sanhedrin, 1924 51
CHAPTER III Racism and Nationalism, 1924-1925 67
CHAPTER IV American Negro Labor Congress, 1925 107
CHAPTER V Beginning of a Turn, 1926-1928 131
CHAPTER VI Sixth World Congress of the Communist
International, 1928 161
CHAPTER VII Party Work Among Blacks, 1929 201
INDEX 225
INTRODUCTION
The significant impact of communism in combatting racism in
the labor movement and in support of Black liberation cannot be
ignored by any serious student of United States history and
society. This documentary study seeks to substantiate that view.
The editors have tried to select from the mass of primary
material they gathered those documents, articles, speeches, and
news items that indicate most clearly the formation, evolution,
and application of Communist policy with respect to the condition
and freedom struggle of Black Americans. The present volume
covers the period from the establishment of the first Communist
parties in 1919 to the outbreak of the Great Depression in
1929. A second volume will deal with the Depression Decade.
Editorial introductions to the items place each in context and
supply interpretive comment. The prime material has been
gathered almost entirely from the newspapers, journals, and
other publications issued directly by the Communist party or
identified with it. The editors have restricted themselves to
published sources, as the best evidence of the formation of
policy and activity based upon that policy. Secondary sources
as well as non-Communist primary sources have been drawn upon in
the editors' introductions, and occasionally for the text.
I.
The decade of the 1920s may be considered years of
transition during which the Communist party was consolidated,
having more or less brought together divergent tendencies
arising from the different roots of American communism and having
overcome the state of internecine war between its two contending
factions. This process was made more difficult during the early
years of the decade by the illegal or semi-legal status forced
on the party by repression, including the Palmer Raids and
prosecution under state sedition and anti-syndicalist laws.
The evolution of the party position with respect to the
Black Americans was part of the general process of transition,
perhaps the most difficult part. The party did not have at hand
a substantive Marxist theory to cope specifically with the
situation of Black Americans. Marx himself had provided little
to serve as a guide for the period after the Civil War. During
the course of that war he had seen its revolutionary import
clearly, anticipating Charles A. Beard's interpretation of the
conflict as the "second American revolution" by some 60 years.
He had also forseen the impetus to free capitalist development
and the rise of an independent working-class movement imparted
by the defeat of the slavocracy. This famous sentence in
Capital about slavery in the United States was quoted by
Socialists and then by Communists to stress the need for
working-class solidarity: "Labor with a white skin cannot
emancipate itself where labor with a black skin is branded."
But aside from some passing remarks in correspondence with
Engels about the importance of the Black franchise, there is no
evidence that he paid much attention to the post-Emancipation
condition of the ex-slaves during the Reconstruction period or
afterward.
The International Workingmen's Association, The First
International, penned three addresses on the American
struggle — the first to President Lincoln proclaiming full
support for the North, the second to President Andrew Johnson
conveying condolences on the assassination of Lincoln. The
third, written shortly after the war ended, congratulated the
American people for abolishing slavery and urged them to
"Declare your fellow citizens from this day forth free and
vii
equal, without reserve. "1 There is no available record of
further concern by Marx with the fate of Black Americans. To be
sure, he was deeply concerned with the national question.
Another famous thought of Marx, "No nation can be free if it
oppresses other nations,” was first expressed to indicate the
relation between the emancipation of the English working class
from capitalism and Irish freedom. It became the central theme
of his approach to the national questions of Central and Eastern
Europe. But it did not at first occur to American Marxists that
the "Negro question" might fall within the compass, of the
"national question." And it was not until the latter part of
the 1920s that Lenin’s copious writings on the subject became
available in English.
The Communists inherited from the Socialist movement the
prevalent "pure" class approach which was thought consistent
with the Marxist outlook: The solution of the "labor question"
leading in the end to socialism would bring in its train the
solution to the "Negro question." With such a general outlook,
what was distinctive in the situation of the Blacks was
overlooked and their special needs and demands were ignored.
The prevalence of racism in society as a whole, including the
working class and affecting the party itself — and therefore the
pressing need to fight it if the adherence of Negroes was to be
won — was underestimated if not entirely bypassed. Nor in 'the
broader perspective did the Communists at first appreciate the
strategic relation of the Black freedom struggle to the class
struggle against capitalism or to the socialist objective.
Only very gradually and uncertainly, often painfully, did
the party find its way to a more substantial and productive
approach. This course over rough ground, and with many twists
and turns, can be traced in the material gathered in this
volume. In view of the mass migration of Blacks from the rural
South to the cities, mostly in the North, and the overnight
creation of a Black industrial proletariat during the first
World War and in the years immediately following, the need for
unity of white and Black workers was soon recognized. The
Communists, like the Industrial Workers of the World and Left
labor militants before them, sought to organize Black workers and
to eliminate the color bar in the trade unions. Some valiant
efforts were made but they met with little success. As early
policy statements reveal, the Communists as a whole still failed
to realize that the confidence of the Black workingman, who had
to fight his way into industry against the resistance of
organized white labor, could not be won without carrying on a
fight simultaneously for the specific demands of Black labor and
against racism.
The growing awareness of this crucial problem in the party
was due almost entirely to the constant pressure of its Black
members. At the founding conventions of the two Communist
parties in 1919, there was not a single Black delegate, and one
of the conventions had not a word to say about the Negro.
Within two or three years, however, the principal source of Black
party members became the African Blood Brotherhood, formed in
1919 shortly after the split in the Socialist Party. Many of
its leaders were Socialists who were enthused by the Russian
Bolshevik Revolution. They welcomed the call of the Communist
International for the unity of workers of all races throughout
the world and its stand for the liberation of subject and
colonial peoples. The Brotherhood rejected the "Back to Africa"
The three addresses are in Hermann Schlueter, Lincoln,
Labor and Slavery, NY, 1913, pp. 188-201. --------
viii
program of the Garvey movement and favored a militant program
for Black freedom here. Although the African Blood Brotherhood
supplied relatively few Communists, these were among the first
Black Americans to join the party and were to constitute the
core of Black Communist leadership for some years to come. The
Brotherhood should therefore be considered a principal source of
Communist adherents, alongside the Socialist Party, the
Industrial Workers of the Workers of the World, and other trade
union militants.
II.
The Black Communists waged a vigorous campaign within the
party to raise its consciousness on the "Negro question," to
achieve positions of leadership, and to reach out toward the
Negro masses. In those years, Cyril Briggs, Otto Huiswood, Otto
Hall, Lovett For t-Whi temen, Edward Doty, and other Brotherhood
leaders were the most insistent prodders of the party. Among
leading white Communists there were a few who began to understand
the great importance of work among Blacks, especially Robert
Minor and William F. Dunne, each from an opposing faction. They
studied the problem and wrote about it in party journals, in some
respects going much beyond the old "pure" class position and
began to appreciate the role of race consciousness as well as
the broader social aspects of the Black freedom struggle. The
ambivalent position with respect to the Garvey movement, the
greatest Black mass movement in the postwar years, is symptomatic
of the difficulties confronted by the party. Particularly in
the first years there was a tendency to overlook, if not condemn,
the national aspects of that movement, while welcoming its mass
character and at the same time rejecting the "back to Africa"
program as diverting the Negroes from the struggle at home. On
the other hand, there were those in the party who rejected the
Garvey movement as a whole precisely because of its strong
nationalist flavor. There seemed no way to transcend the
contradiction between the class and national aspects, the
difficulty at the heart of the party problem regarding the
American Blacks.
Nevertheless, in the years 1924 and 1925 vigorous efforts
were made to reach out to the Black masses. In the former year,
a party delegation together with one from the African Blood
Brotherhood participated in the All-Race Assembly, the Sanhedrin.
This was the first postwar attempt to form a concerted front of
the civil rights organizations. All took part, with the
exception of Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association.
The conference was completely dominated by the Black middle
class, the professionals and intellectuals. The few party
delegates and a handful of their supporters made hardly a dent
when they tried to get the conference to take a straightforward
position in favor of Black labor and its admission into the
established trade unions. They fared no better in the effort to
establish a militant stand on housing segregation, against the
Black real estate interests present at the conference or on other
anti-discrimination demands. The All-Race Assembly seemed to
demonstrate the irreconcilable class conflict within the Black
community, thus feeding the "pure" class, anti-national trend
among the Communists. In any case, the conference proved
abortive.
No doubt a contributing element to the failure of the united
front effort was the anti-intellectual, anti-middle class bias
of the Communists, both white and Black. This can be seen in
the writings of the time. It is also rather sharply illustrated
in the fate of Claude McKay, the talented poet and the most
prominent Black intellectual to adhere to the Communists in the
ix
early 1920s. At that time he was an editor of The Liberator,
successor to the old Masses, and a staunch supporter of the
Russian Revolution. He was invited to address the IVth Congress
of the Communist International as a fraternal delegate in 1922,
and wrote passionately in favor of Soviet Russia. And yet, soon
after, he was alienated from the Communists, largely as a
consequence of the racism he encountered among the American
Communists, a tension aggravated by their anti-intellectual
stance. A united freedom front of substance could hardly be
attained with such a negative attitude toward the Black middle
class and the intellectuals.
The other major effort to reach outward occurred in 1925,
with the organization of the American Negro Labor Congress. Its
central objective was to generate a movement directed toward the
organization of Black labor and to overcome its exclusion from
the established unions. The formation of separate Black unions
was to be supported where necessary but this was not to be seen
as a diversion from the main task of uniting white and Black
workers in the same unions. The program approved at the
Congress went beyond the labor question to cover the broad field
of Black rights in all aspects — including demands that were to
be recognized in law years later. The Congress aroused
considerable interest in the country, both from those who were
fearful of Black militancy and from Blacks who looked hopefully
to radical initiatives to advance the cause of freedom and
equality. It is indicative of the times that in back of both
attitudes was the expectation that, given the Black condition,
communism would have a great appeal to Black Americans.
Unfortunately, the Congress itself was a disappointment
since it attracted few delegates outside of Communists and their
adherents, despite the proclaimed aim of reaching out to the
broad masses. The sharp attack on the Congress by the AFL
leadership deterred Black unionists from participating. The
Congress, however, did bring to public attention the full
Communist program for Black rights, and encouraged an active
core of young Black Communist organizers. In reaction to the
Black middle class rejection of labor’s demands at the Sanhedrin
the previous year, the Communists seemed to go to the opposite
extreme in requiring adherence to their full program even if it
meant a narrow gathering. As the Communists themselves were
soon to recognize, the Congress was practically a replica of
their party, isolated from the masses, and therefore ineffective
as a mass organization.
A major lesson to be learned from both the Sanhedrin and
the Congress was that the "Negro question" could not be relegated
to a separate compartment, even if placed in the hands of Black
Communists. The entire party was to be engaged if any advance
of consequence was to be made.
Ill .
The entire party had to be engaged because of the stubborn
persistence of racism — white chauvinism — in its ranks. This was
expressed in neglect of "Negro work," inability or refusal to
acknowledge the specific and special demands of Black Americans
arising from age-old oppression, if not in outright insult and
acts of discrimination. Readers of the material contained in
this volume will be struck by the constant note of warning in
the party press against racism, especially though not only from
Black Communists. Racism was so ingrained in American
institutions, daily practice and the white consciousness that a
sharp sensitivity and supreme effort would be needed to overcome
it within the party, to begin with, before any success among
white workers in general could be expected. And without this
x
primary attempt, little could be accomplished in overcoming
among Blacks the distrust of all whites.
Undoubtedly throughout the 1920s the Communists did make
significant advances beyond the old Socialist stand, developing
on their own the elements of a program that would eventually
recognize the national quality of the "Negro question." But in
reality, in terms of the Communist Party's role in the Black
freedom movement and of the number of Blacks in its own ranks,
progress was slow through most of that decade. The Trade Union
Educational League, devoted to the organization of the
unorganized and to industrial unionism, the realization of which
would encompass the mass of Black labor in industry, was under
severe criticism, for its "complete neglect" of Negro workers.
The party itself, according to the shocking revelation by James
W. Ford at a World Communist Congress in 1928, had no more than
50 Black dues-paying members at the time. This seemed to bear
out the complaint of some Blacks that racism was enough of a
burden without taking on the additional onus of being "Red" and
"subversive." Yet, as acknowledged even by outsiders, it was a
remarkable feature of the Communist Party that it was practically
the only predominantly white political organization in the
country where the need to fight racism and to win Black equality
could openly be raised and advocated by both Blacks and whites.
Why, then, did racism in the party seem so intractable and
why such meager progress in recruiting Black Americans? The two
were obviously connected, and the Communists knew it. The
solution of the problem could be found only in evolving a new
general approach which would supercede the concept either of
"pure" class or merely of race. Here the Communist International
made a crucial contribution, encompassing both the class and
race aspects of the problem, by setting the Black liberation
struggle in the United States in the milieu of the national (or
nationality) question. The historical literature has usually
blamed the International for supposedly misleading the American
party with respect to its Negro policy. (An outstanding example
is Wilson Record’s The Negro and the Communist Party, New York,
1971, which has been accepted as a standard work on the subject.)
Yet, the positive contribution of the Communist International
must be acknowledged: it helped the American Communists make
the crucial turn in the struggle against racism and for Black
rights which so profoundly affected the decade of the 1930s and
beyond. To be sure, there were some serious flaws in the theory
as applied to the situation of the American Negro people, which
we will discuss; but these should not be permitted to obscure
the basic contribution.
IV.
A compelling reason for the Blacks to remain in the party
and keep fighting was their conviction that Marxism and the
socialist perspective would in time evolve a solution if the
party stuck to the revolutionary path. This confidence was
sustained by the powerful influence of the Russian Revolution
and the Communist International which from the start condemned
imperialism and, rejecting decisively the compromising stand of
social-democracy, and came out unequivocally in support of the
liberation struggles of subject and colonial peoples for their
independence.
Confidence in the Communist International was grounded also
in the first-hand experience of Black American Communists at its
world congresses and in their association with its work. To
begin with, the International brought constant pressure upon the
American party to end the factional warfare which Black
Communists considered a great, if not the main, obstacle to
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