Workers Communist League (Gitlowites)
Encyclopedia
The Workers Communist League or Gitlowites were a Right Opposition
Communist group that split from the main group of the American Right Opposition, the Communist Party of the USA (Opposition) in 1933. It was the only split from that organization which created a new group.
submitted to the Second National Conference of the Lovestone group September 2–3, 1932. He wished that the group would adopt a new resolution on the general line
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
. While endorsing the first Five Year Plan, and defending the Soviet Union as a whole, it wished to criticize "factional" use of the plan for the benefit of the Stalin leadership in the USSR and the Comintern
, as well as the mistakes with regard to the collectivization of agriculture and the creation of light industry. While the conference re-adopted its previous spring 1931 resolution on the issue, it opened up the pages of its organ, Workers Age, to debate on the issue and asked it members to contribute their opinions beginning with the November 15 issue.
Editorials supporting the old resolution were submitted by Jay Lovestone
, Will Herberg
, Herbert Zam and others, while an article against the current resolution by Lazar Becker was broken up and published over three issues.. Portions of Gitlows own contribution, "The Russian Question critically considered" were published in two issues, but not the conclusion. The majority argued that the general line of the CPSU was correct, and the opposition was offering "constructive criticism" of the Stalin leaderships "mistakes" in its application domestically within the Soviet Union and with regards to the relationship between the CPSU and the other parties in the Comintern. Furthermore, the "Russian question" was not a defining issue for the group. Gitlow and Becker argued that a correct understanding of the "Russian question" was of decisive importance to the group and the position taken on it determined whether the group had a justification for being. Gitlow argued that though the CPSUs official line as determined by the 15th congress was correct, the Stalin leadership had veered so far away from it that the Party's general line was no longer correct and was going in the direction of Trotskyism
.
After the National Bureau of the group upheld its support for the current position on the Russian question at a New York mass meeting on February 2, 1933 Gitlow resigned. At the next plenum of the CPOs National Committee, February 11–13, Becker presented an appeal with the signatures of 13 members which criticized the Lovestone leadership on the "Russian question" and on a number of other issues related to the groups work within the labor movement and relationship to the official Communist Party. The appeal was rejected unanimously by the National Committee.
and Albert Weisbord's
Communist League of Struggle
outlining his plans for a conference to unite the Communist Opposition groups with the ultimate aim of reconstituting the Communist Party USA
on a non-Stalinist basis. He was rebuffed by Weisbords group, who would only unite with him on the basis of the program of the Left Opposition
, but got a more sympathetic hearing from the Trotskyists. In September he attended a conference sponsored by the League for Independent Political Action
that was attempting to build a movement for a Farmer–Labor Party, but nothing came of it.
Gitlow has more luck with the Trotskyist Communist League of America
. Unity negotiations with them began in October 1933. While formal unity stalled over questions related to the Fourth International
, "socialism in one country"
and the labor party, the two organizations worked together within the Amalgamated Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union, a division of the Amalgamated Food Workers where each had a small following. Negotiations eventually stopped in November as both groups concentrated on building the AFW, preparing for a general strike. After a strike was canceled shortly before New Years Eve, a new strike was called in late January after a union member was dismissed from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
. The Amalgamated, under joint CLA-Gitlowite leadership, led a general strike of at least 4,000 workers in some of New York's most famous hotels, including the Astor
, Biltmore and Commodore. On February 15 the case went to the NRA
Regional Labor Board
and the union was able to get an agreement with the owners that the strikebreakers would be dismissed, the workers could return to their jobs under joint union-management auspices and that the RLB would hold hearings on the conditions in the hotels. While these conditions were violated by the hotel management, the secretary of the union, CLA member B.J. Field considered it a victory and put emphasis on negotiating with the hotels rather than continued pickets. For this, and for alleged clique rule and attempts to curry favor with "bourgeoisie public opinion" Field and his associate in the union leadership, Aristodimos Kaldis
, were expelled from the Communist League of America on February 18.
Field and his coterie fused with the Workers Communist League to form a new group in April 1934, Organization Committee for a Revolutionary Workers Party, despite having had differences with each other while working within the AFW.
opened in Detroit. Gitlow and some others from the organizing committee came as observers. Here he came in contact with leaders of the Militants
and the Revolutionary Policy Committee
. While dismissing the RPC as too factional, he was impressed by the Militants. On August 23 the Gitlow group within the Organizing Committee for a Revolutionary Party announced their intention to join the Socialists. This was not approved by B.J. Field and his adherents, which kept control of the groups paper, Labor Front. The Gitlowites apparently carried on for a few months under the name of the Organizing Committee while attempting to enter the Socialists, and issued leaflets under that name.
On October 29 Gitlow held a conference with "several founders and former leaders of the Communist party" including delegates from Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. The group adopted a platform noting that lack of unity between socialists and communists had helped Hitler come to power and endorsing the 1934 Statement of Principles that the Socialist Party had adopted at its convention in June as a step toward "revolutionary development". The group made an application to join the Socialist Party but they were rebuffed by the Socialist Party of New York
. The leadership of the SPNY was a strong hold of the moderate Old Guard faction
and disapproved of the revolutionaries. State chairman Louis Waldman
saw it as an attempt by the Militants to weaken the Old Guard in the state, especially after Norman Thomas endorsed letting them into the party. After the state executive committee passed a resolution strictly prohibiting any local from allowing a communist or quasi-communist from joining, Gitlow joined the New Jersey state organization
.
One inside the Socialist Party, however, Gitlow started to have doubts about the Militants. The general pro-communist tone of the Militants upset him, especially after they started co-operating with the Communists organizationally during the popular front period.
He was dismayed by the merger of the Student League for Industrial Democracy
in to the American Student Union
, and the entry of the CP-affiliated Unemployed Councils into the Workers Alliance of America for fear the new organizations would be controlled by the Communist Party. Instead of leading another split he decided to drop out altogether. Lazar Becker would stay with the party until at least its 1940 convention, when he led the opposition to Norman Thomas' pacifist stance on World War II.
Right Opposition
The Right Opposition was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s...
Communist group that split from the main group of the American Right Opposition, the Communist Party of the USA (Opposition) in 1933. It was the only split from that organization which created a new group.
Origins
The origin of the group goes back to a resolution Benjamin GitlowBenjamin Gitlow
Benjamin "Ben" Gitlow was a prominent American socialist politician of the early twentieth century and a founding member of the Communist Party USA. From the end of the 1930s, Gitlow turned to conservatism and wrote two sensational exposés of American Communism, books which were very influential...
submitted to the Second National Conference of the Lovestone group September 2–3, 1932. He wished that the group would adopt a new resolution on the general line
General line of the party
In the terminology of communism, the general line of the party or simply the general line refers to the directives of the governing bodies of a party which define party's politics. The term was in common use by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and also adopted by many other communist...
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
. While endorsing the first Five Year Plan, and defending the Soviet Union as a whole, it wished to criticize "factional" use of the plan for the benefit of the Stalin leadership in the USSR and the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
, as well as the mistakes with regard to the collectivization of agriculture and the creation of light industry. While the conference re-adopted its previous spring 1931 resolution on the issue, it opened up the pages of its organ, Workers Age, to debate on the issue and asked it members to contribute their opinions beginning with the November 15 issue.
Editorials supporting the old resolution were submitted by Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
, Will Herberg
Will Herberg
Will Herberg was an American Jewish writer, intellectual and scholar. He was known as a social philosopher and sociologist of religion, as well as a Jewish theologian.-Early life:...
, Herbert Zam and others, while an article against the current resolution by Lazar Becker was broken up and published over three issues.. Portions of Gitlows own contribution, "The Russian Question critically considered" were published in two issues, but not the conclusion. The majority argued that the general line of the CPSU was correct, and the opposition was offering "constructive criticism" of the Stalin leaderships "mistakes" in its application domestically within the Soviet Union and with regards to the relationship between the CPSU and the other parties in the Comintern. Furthermore, the "Russian question" was not a defining issue for the group. Gitlow and Becker argued that a correct understanding of the "Russian question" was of decisive importance to the group and the position taken on it determined whether the group had a justification for being. Gitlow argued that though the CPSUs official line as determined by the 15th congress was correct, the Stalin leadership had veered so far away from it that the Party's general line was no longer correct and was going in the direction of Trotskyism
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
.
After the National Bureau of the group upheld its support for the current position on the Russian question at a New York mass meeting on February 2, 1933 Gitlow resigned. At the next plenum of the CPOs National Committee, February 11–13, Becker presented an appeal with the signatures of 13 members which criticized the Lovestone leadership on the "Russian question" and on a number of other issues related to the groups work within the labor movement and relationship to the official Communist Party. The appeal was rejected unanimously by the National Committee.
Activism
After leaving the Lovestoneites, Gitlow tried to form a "bloc" of the opposition Communist movements against Stalinism. To that end he addressed a letter on April 4 to the Lovestonites, the Trotskyist Communist League of AmericaCommunist League of America
The Communist League of America was founded by James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern late in 1928 after their expulsion from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism. The CLA was the United States section of Leon Trotsky's International Left Opposition and initially positioned itself as...
and Albert Weisbord's
Albert Weisbord
Albert Weisbord was an American political activist and union organizer. He is best remembered as one of the primary union organizers of the seminal 1926 Passaic Textile Strike and as the founder of a small Trotskyist political organization of the 1930s called the Communist League of...
Communist League of Struggle
Communist League of Struggle
The Communist League of Struggle was a small communist organization active in the United States during the 1930s. Founded by Albert Weisbord and his wife, Vera Buch, who were veterans of the Left Socialist movement and the Communist Party USA, the CLS briefly affiliated with Leon Trotsky...
outlining his plans for a conference to unite the Communist Opposition groups with the ultimate aim of reconstituting the Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
on a non-Stalinist basis. He was rebuffed by Weisbords group, who would only unite with him on the basis of the program of the Left Opposition
Left Opposition
The Left Opposition was a faction within the Bolshevik Party from 1923 to 1927, headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's illness and intensified with his death in January...
, but got a more sympathetic hearing from the Trotskyists. In September he attended a conference sponsored by the League for Independent Political Action
League for Independent Political Action
The League for Independent Political Action was an American political organization established in late November or early December 1928 in New York City. The organization, which brought together liberals and socialists, was seen as a coordinating agency for a new political party in the United States...
that was attempting to build a movement for a Farmer–Labor Party, but nothing came of it.
Gitlow has more luck with the Trotskyist Communist League of America
Communist League of America
The Communist League of America was founded by James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern late in 1928 after their expulsion from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism. The CLA was the United States section of Leon Trotsky's International Left Opposition and initially positioned itself as...
. Unity negotiations with them began in October 1933. While formal unity stalled over questions related to the Fourth International
Fourth International
The Fourth International is the communist international organisation consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky , with the declared dedicated goal of helping the working class bring about socialism...
, "socialism in one country"
Socialism in One Country
Socialism in One Country was a theory put forth by Joseph Stalin in 1924, elaborated by Nikolai Bukharin in 1925 and finally adopted as state policy by Stalin...
and the labor party, the two organizations worked together within the Amalgamated Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union, a division of the Amalgamated Food Workers where each had a small following. Negotiations eventually stopped in November as both groups concentrated on building the AFW, preparing for a general strike. After a strike was canceled shortly before New Years Eve, a new strike was called in late January after a union member was dismissed from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...
. The Amalgamated, under joint CLA-Gitlowite leadership, led a general strike of at least 4,000 workers in some of New York's most famous hotels, including the Astor
Astor Place (Manhattan)
__notoc__Astor Place is a short two-block street in lower Manhattan, New York City, which runs from Broadway just below East 8th Street, through Lafayette Street, past Cooper Square and Fourth Avenue, and ends at Third Avenue and St. Marks Place. The name is also used for the neighborhood around...
, Biltmore and Commodore. On February 15 the case went to the NRA
National Recovery Administration
The National Recovery Administration was the primary New Deal agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The goal was to eliminate "cut-throat competition" by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices...
Regional Labor Board
Regional Labor Courts
Regional Labor Courts are Brazilian appellate courts of the Federal specialized court system for matters of labor law. There currently are 24 Regional Labor Courts, geographically defined by numbered Regions....
and the union was able to get an agreement with the owners that the strikebreakers would be dismissed, the workers could return to their jobs under joint union-management auspices and that the RLB would hold hearings on the conditions in the hotels. While these conditions were violated by the hotel management, the secretary of the union, CLA member B.J. Field considered it a victory and put emphasis on negotiating with the hotels rather than continued pickets. For this, and for alleged clique rule and attempts to curry favor with "bourgeoisie public opinion" Field and his associate in the union leadership, Aristodimos Kaldis
Aristodimos Kaldis
Aristodimos Kaldis was an artist and left-wing activist in New York.It is impossible to think of East Tenth Street and of the gallery and museum scene during the 1950s without including Kaldis in the picture. His friendship with leading members of the New York School dated from the 1930s...
, were expelled from the Communist League of America on February 18.
Field and his coterie fused with the Workers Communist League to form a new group in April 1934, Organization Committee for a Revolutionary Workers Party, despite having had differences with each other while working within the AFW.
Within the Socialist Party
On June 1 the tumultuous 18th national convention of the Socialist PartySocialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
opened in Detroit. Gitlow and some others from the organizing committee came as observers. Here he came in contact with leaders of the Militants
Militant faction
The Militant faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America who sought to steer that organization from its orientation towards electoral politics and towards direct action and revolutionary socialism. The faction emerged during 1930 and 1931 and achieved practical...
and the Revolutionary Policy Committee
Revolutionary Policy Committee (U.S.)
The Revolutionary Policy Committee was an offshoot of the so-called "Militant" faction in the Socialist Party of America during the middle-1930s...
. While dismissing the RPC as too factional, he was impressed by the Militants. On August 23 the Gitlow group within the Organizing Committee for a Revolutionary Party announced their intention to join the Socialists. This was not approved by B.J. Field and his adherents, which kept control of the groups paper, Labor Front. The Gitlowites apparently carried on for a few months under the name of the Organizing Committee while attempting to enter the Socialists, and issued leaflets under that name.
On October 29 Gitlow held a conference with "several founders and former leaders of the Communist party" including delegates from Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. The group adopted a platform noting that lack of unity between socialists and communists had helped Hitler come to power and endorsing the 1934 Statement of Principles that the Socialist Party had adopted at its convention in June as a step toward "revolutionary development". The group made an application to join the Socialist Party but they were rebuffed by the Socialist Party of New York
Socialist Party of New York
The Socialist Party of New York is the state chapter of the Socialist Party of the United States of America in New York.The current SPUSA was organized by members of the Debs caucus of Socialist Party of America . At the SPA's 1972 National Convention, which was held in Manhattan, the SPA changed...
. The leadership of the SPNY was a strong hold of the moderate Old Guard faction
Old Guard faction
The Old Guard faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America who sought to retain the organization's traditional orientation towards electoral politics by fighting generally younger party members who factionally organized to promote greater efforts at direct action...
and disapproved of the revolutionaries. State chairman Louis Waldman
Louis Waldman
Louis Waldman was a leading figure in the Socialist Party of America from the late 1910s and through the middle 1930s, a founding member of the Social Democratic Federation, and a prominent New York labor lawyer.-Early years:...
saw it as an attempt by the Militants to weaken the Old Guard in the state, especially after Norman Thomas endorsed letting them into the party. After the state executive committee passed a resolution strictly prohibiting any local from allowing a communist or quasi-communist from joining, Gitlow joined the New Jersey state organization
Socialist Party of New Jersey
The Socialist Party of New Jersey is the state chapter of the Socialist Party USA in the U.S. state of New Jersey.The Socialist Party of America voted 73:34 to change its name to Social Democrats, USA in December of 1972. SPUSA was founded in 1973, after which the SPNJ was founded.The Socialist...
.
One inside the Socialist Party, however, Gitlow started to have doubts about the Militants. The general pro-communist tone of the Militants upset him, especially after they started co-operating with the Communists organizationally during the popular front period.
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
He was dismayed by the merger of the Student League for Industrial Democracy
Student League for Industrial Democracy (1930s)
The Intercollegiate League for Industrial Democracy was the official youth section of the League for Industrial Democracy and a de facto junior section of the Socialist Party of America during the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s...
in to the American Student Union
American Student Union
The American Student Union was a national left-wing organization of college students of the 1930s, best remembered for its protest activities against militarism. Founded by a 1935 merger of Communist and Socialist student organizations, the ASU was affiliated with the American Youth Congress...
, and the entry of the CP-affiliated Unemployed Councils into the Workers Alliance of America for fear the new organizations would be controlled by the Communist Party. Instead of leading another split he decided to drop out altogether. Lazar Becker would stay with the party until at least its 1940 convention, when he led the opposition to Norman Thomas' pacifist stance on World War II.
Publications
The organization published a newspaper Voice of Labor from Vol. I #1 June 1933 to Vol. II #4 April 1934.- Is the Stalin general line correct? The appeal to the Plenum of the Communist Party of the USA (Opposition) New York, N.Y : Workers Communist League, 1933