194

After the war, the United States made an open bid for world “leadership” and adopted a policy directed against the Soviet Union. In that period, the giant corporations which dominated American political and economic life set out to spread their dominance over the entire world. They pressured the government into abandoning Roosevelt’s policy of American-Soviet friendship and Big Three unity—the very thing which was essential for preserving peace. In US foreign policy this turn was reflected in a number of speeches made by leaders of the bourgeois world. On March 5, 1946, Churchill delivered his aggressive anti-Soviet speech at Fulton, Missouri, where he was introduced to the audience by President Truman. Much of what he said coincided with the sentiments and public utterances of Truman, Byrnes, George Marshall, many members of Congress and other officials who took part in shaping US foreign policy.

p ^

p A month after Churchill’s Fulton speech, Truman said in an Armed Forces Day speech that the United States had to do everything possible to maintain its “leading role" in the world. On March 12, 1947, speaking before a joint session of Congress, he outlined what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, in accordance with which he asked Congress to appropriate $400,000,000 for “aid” to Greece and Turkey.  [194•1  Congress gave its approval, and on May 22, the Truman Doctrine came into force.

195

p In April 1947, Bernard Baruch, a representative of big business and prominent statesman, speaking at Columbia, South Carolina, was the first to utter the words “cold war”, which were picked up and widely spread by the American press.

p On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall, speaking at Harvard University in Boston, outlined the basic points of a plan for the economic rehabilitation of Europe, subsequently known as the Marshall Plan. The plan pursued the aim of creating in Europe, under US direction, a military-political bloc opposing the socialist countries. It was outrightly anti-Soviet in character.

p On July 26, 1947, the President signed a National Security Act, under which a National Security Council was established. The Council was called upon to look into the problems arising in connection with the policy of building up the military and economic might of American imperialism. The beginning of the cold war was closely linked with intensified political reaction. A resolution of the 16th convention of the Communist Party noted that this policy manifested itself in persecution, repression and “witch hunts" that poisoned the political atmosphere.

p Thus, there was a turn not only in foreign policy but in domestic policy as well, and its essence, as the Communist Party defined it, was that the Roosevelt period of bourgeois reforms had ended, and a period of a more open dictatorship of capital had begun. Beginning in 1947 the ruling circles made increasing use not only of social demagogy but also of crude pressure against the labor movement. Seizing control of enterprises became in Truman’s hands a tested means of suppressing strikes. Truman and his administration veered further and further away from Roosevelt’s course. In labor circles there was an ever sharper awareness that Truman’s bill calling for the drafting of strikers into the Army and the repressive measures taken against them constituted the first step in a cold war against the working class. As historians Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais rightly noted, “the chief victims of the cold war were the American people”, above all the workers. Repressive measures were used against them more and more often, which was something the monopolies 196 needed not only to break the will of strikers, but for political considerations as well.

p The tremendous sweep of the postwar strike struggle strengthened militant sentiments in the labor movement, causing anxiety in the ruling circles, where there was particular concern over the growing influence of progressive unions affiliated with the CIO. By the end of 1946, the CIO had a membership of over six million.  [196•1  Its active participation in strikes and its program of struggle to improve the living standards of the workers provoked a great deal of irritation on the part of the monopolies. This was reflected in US Chamber of Commerce publications in which even the rightist CIO leaders were called “Marxists” because they considered the profits of the big corporations to be excessive. The monopolies were also uneasy about the fact that interest and good will toward the Soviet people and their trade unions had grown markedly in the unions and particularly the CIO during the war.

p The organizers of the cold war sought to suppress sentiments of this kind in the American people. Even the bourgeois press had to admit that the momentum of pro-Soviet feeling worked up during the war to support the Grand Alliance had continued, too heavily, from their point of view, after the armistice. This made it difficult for the administration to pursue a stiffer foreign policy.

p In October 1945, a CIO delegation which included James Carey and Joseph Curran visited the Soviet Union. Upon its return to the United States, the delegation published a report on the trip, in which it was stated that the delegation was particularly struck by the heroism of a people who, in incredibly difficult conditions, halted the Nazis at the very gates of their major cities and who, in so doing, helped to change the course of the war in favor of the United Nations. The report said: “We were horrified by the wholesale destruction wrought by the Nazis; but we were filled with the greatest admiration for the determination and united effort of the people, which has already brought about substantial reconstruction and promises great things for future elevation 197 of living standards.”   [197•1  CIO president Philip Murray wrote an introduction to this report, in which he said that he considered the report to be a document of paramount importance not only for the American workers but also for all those who wanted to know the truth about the Soviet trade unions and wished to contribute to the establishment of friendship and mutual understanding between the peoples.  [197•2 

p It should be stressed that at that time Murray felt it to be to his advantage to side with the democratic forces since progressive feelings in the CIO were very strong. Moreover, all this was happening at a time when the peoples of the world, including the American people, were under the strong impression of the Soviet Army’s enormous contribution to the defeat of fascism.

p A number of American labor unions sent friendly messages to Soviet trade unions. The Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists and Technicians, a CIO affiliate, noted in its reply to greetings from the AUCCTU to its eighth national convention (December 1945): “We followed with great admiration the struggle and achievements of your people, scientists and specialists in achieving victory over fascism."  [197•3  Many American organizations called upon their leaders to continue and strengthen cooperation with Soviet trade unions.

p The logical outcome of these contacts was the approval by the CIO executive board of the proposal by the AUCCTU on creating an American-Soviet Trade Union Committee, composed of five representatives from each side.  [197•4  Chosen to represent the CIO on this committee were Philip Murray, Sidney Hillman, R.J.Thomas, Albert Fitzgerald and Lee Pressman. The CIO executive board’s decision to continue cooperating with Soviet trade unions was in tune with the sentiments of the broad masses of American workers, who approved and supported the idea of creating the Committee. The AUCCTU received a great many extremely friendly letters from American unions.

198

p All these facts indicated that in the early postwar years the two trends in the US labor movement—the democratic and the reactionary—were developing with a certain predominance of the progressive-democratic trend. This was seen, in particular, in the attitude of a number of CIO unions to the Soviet Union and Soviet trade unions.

p The ruling circles of the USA regarded these manifestations by American workingmen of feelings of international solidarity as being the result of the influence exerted by progressive figures, many of whom they deemed it necessary to subject to persecution for their membership in the Communist Party.

p As the reactionary forces pursued cold war on the foreign policy front, they also intensified their offensive at home.

p The results of the congressional elections of 1946 were distressing for the Democratic Party. Winning 188 of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives, the Democrats lost 54 of the seats they had held in the 79th Congress. They also lost 11 seats in the Senate. The Republican Party held a clear advantage.

p The new balance of forces in Congress could not avoid affecting the sentiments of the labor unions, within which there was also much friction on political issues, especially due to their failures in Congress in the field of labor legislation.

p In the committees and houses of Congress, Taft, Vandenberg, Hartley, Clare E. Hoffman, Wood, Thomas, Rankin, Bilbo, Bolle, Smith and many other conservatives formed a reactionary bloc. They met with strong resistance from Senators Pepper, Wagner, James M. Mead, Murray, Downey, Guffey, Morse and others who opposed abrogation of Roosevelt’s legislation and continued the fight to keep the Wagner Act in effect. In an atmosphere of fierce debates, the advocates of repressive legislation succeeded in 1947 in pushing through Congress the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act. This was the logical outcome of the campaign of anti-labor repression that had been launched during the fight against the strike movement.

p Since early 1946, a number of anti-labor bills had been introduced in Congress. General Counsel of the AFL Joseph A. Padway said at an AFL convention in 1946 that “never 199 before in the history of the Nation has any Congress considered so many anti-labor bills".  [199•1  Among those he listed were the Ahrens, Hatch-Ball-Burton, Hobbs, Case, and Lea bills and the above-mentioned bill to give the President emergency powers.

p The authors of these bills sought to give legal sanction to various means of suppressing strikes and progressive trends in the unions, compulsory arbitration, the establishment of a “cooling off" period during which a strike could not be called, prohibition of secondary boycotts and prosecution of democratically-inclined union officials.

p The debates in Congress on the labor question were accompanied by a propaganda campaign in the bourgeois press. Workers were accused of being unpatriotic, and ridiculous assertions were made that strikes were conducted “on orders from Moscow”.

p The House Committee on Un-American Activities, under the chairmanship of George P. Thomas who was later found guilty of embezzling public funds, called eminent figures in the world of science and culture to testify before it. An extremely reactionary move was Truman’s executive order No. 9835 of March 21, 1947, requiring loyalty checks on government employees. Loyalty review boards were established, and a campaign was launched, during which thousands of Americans were subjected to questioning on charges of disloyalty.

p In the meantime, while FBI agents were carefully studying the dossiers of government employees in the departments and agencies in Washington in an effort to find facts that might compromise them, Senator Robert A. Taft (Rep., Ohio) and Representative Fred A. Hartley (Rep., New Jersey) introduced a bill designed to regulate labor-management relations.

p The authors of the bill took into account the nature of the debates in Congress and the prevailing feeling in business circles, and especially heeded the voice of the NAM and the Chamber of Commerce, who were widely publicizing the basic points they felt should be kept in mind when drafting new labor legislation. At the 35th annual conference of the Chamber of Commerce, representatives of big business 200 demanded that the closed shop be outlawed, sympathetic strikes banned, and all strike votes taken by secret ballot. It was no accident that a number of provisions in the Taft-Hartley bill were close in aim and spirit to the points in the Chamber of Commerce resolution. The bill curtailed the rights of unions provided for in the Wagner Act. To a significant degree the unions would be deprived of their independence and placed under the control of the government.

p The progressive forces condemned the bill. The first among those who voiced protest were the Communists. On June 8, 1947, the National Committee of the Communist Party called on the labor unions to declare a one-day protest strike throughout the country, and suggested that an extraordinary conference be convened in which all groups in the labor movement would take part. Energetic opposition to the bill came from the CIO and a number of AFL organizations. In the spring of 1947, joint committees arose in some states, pledging to fight against the attempts of reaction to curtail the rights of the unions. One major event was a large demonstration against the Taft-Hartley bill that took place in Iowa. But even so, no really mass protest developed.

p True to its principle of “staying out of proletarian politics”, the AFL leadership rejected the Communist Party’s suggested one-day protest strike. It came out against the bill, but was reluctant to resort to the strike. With the leading centers refusing to take direct action against the anti-labor legislation, the protest movement could not become an organized and nationwide effort. It remained local and fragmented.

p Only a small group of unions tried to force Congress to heed the voice of the masses. The executive committee of the United Auto Workers declared that it would insist on a presidential veto if the bill were passed. In a statement it said: “The enactment of this bill into law would set off a whole new era of industrial strife and friction—the very opposite of its stated purpose—because its terms give encouragement and new weapons to anti-labor employers.”   [200•1 

p The United Mine Workers also denounced the bill. On June 14, 1947, it declared that “it looks like we are in for a decade of 201 industrial, political and economic hell unless the Supreme Court throws the bill into the discard".  [201•1  The National Maritime Union (CIO) called for joint action of unions connected with the merchant fleet to fight the Taft-Hartley bill. On June 4, 1947, at a big meeting in New York’s Madison Square Garden, AFL members urged Truman to veto the bill. The AFL said that it would voice its disapproval of any congressman who voted to override a presidential veto. On June 10, also in Madison Square Garden, thousands of CIO members gathered and also urged the President to veto the bill.

p However, the anti-communist sentiments fanned by bourgeois propaganda impeded labor unity on the issue and caused confusion in the ranks of the bill’s opponents. Actually, only the United Mine Workers, the typographers’ union, a number of unions with left leaderships, the Communist Party and the American Labor Party of New York were consistent foes of the Taft-Hartley bill.  [201•2 

p In May and June 1947, the White House received over 450,000 letters, most of which called for a presidential veto. On the whole, however, the movement proved to be limited and not influential enough to block the organized onslaught of the monopolies. It was unable to get a majority in Congress to vote against the bill. This fact showed the weakness of the labor movement and its inability to stop the forces of reaction at the crucial moment.

p Nonetheless, political leaders in Congress and the White House, including Truman, could not ignore the public opinion that developed during the protest movement. The veto which the President actually did put on the bill on June 20 was the result of the pressure of public opinion and Truman’s personal fear of losing out in the election coming up in 1948. The approach of that moment forced him to maneuver and ultimately to take a stand against the Taft-Hartley bill. In a radio address he went so far as to say that the bill would usurp the rights of labor.  [201•3  In speaking out so decisively he 202 undoubtedly took into account the likelihood that Congress would override his veto. Indeed, on that very day, the House of Representatives rejected Truman’s veto, and the Senate followed suit on June 23.

p Thus, on June 23, 1947, the bill became law. It went into effect on August 22, 1947 as the Labor-Management Relations Act. 1947.  [202•1 

p The Taft-Hartley Act was designed to nullify many of the gains made by the American working class during the fierce class battles of the 1930s. This law was a veritable charter of strikebreaking. Through it, the ruling circles of the USA intended to put an end to the mass strike struggle and render the unions powerless. The Act’s Declaration of Policy optimistically posited the possibility of avoiding industrial strife. In the view of its drafters, this could be accomplished “if employers, employees, and labor organizations each recognize under law one another’s legitimate rights in their relations with each other, and above all recognize under law that neither party has any right in its relations with any other to engage in acts or practices which jeopardize the public health, safety, or interest".  [202•2  In a somewhat veiled form this statement demanded of workers that they abandon militant forms of struggle. The same goes for the stated purpose of the Act, namely, “in order to promote the full flow of commerce, to prescribe the legitimate rights of both employees and employers in their relations affecting commerce, to provide orderly and peaceful procedures for preventing the interference by either with the legitimate rights of the other, to protect the rights of individual employees in their relations with labor organizations"  [202•3  (emphasis added—Auth.).

p Pursuing the aim of preventing class conflicts by “peaceful” means, the drafters of the law proceeded only from the interests of the employers. In the words of the opponents of the Wagner Act, the Taft-Hartley Act re-established fairness, allegedly violated by Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Act implied 203 that unions had exceeded their powers when they dared violate the rights of individual workers by demanding that they become union members upon being hired. So now Congress was establishing the principle of “free” hiring of workers without the interference of the unions in the activity of personnel departments, which meant, in the words of the Act, protecting “the rights of individual employees in their relations with labor organizations”. But in fact this was an infringement by the law upon the closed shop principle which labor had fought so hard for and which the monopolies had recognized in the preceding years.

p Section 7 of Title I of the Act said that employees have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, and to bargain collectively. At the same time, it added a point prescribing the right of employees “to refrain from any or all of such activities".  [203•1  This point became an important means of struggle against the growth and strengthening of the unions.

p Among the points prescribing what “shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer" was the following [Section 8 (a) (3)]: “by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization."  [203•2  This, too, struck at the closed shop principle. This in fact meant that a labor union had no right to interfere in the hiring or firing of workers by requiring that a given enterprise hire only union members.

p One of the important aims of the law was to impose a virtual ban on strikes by means other than formal prohibition. Only those unions and those workers who did not resort to strikes could enjoy the rights and privileges provided for by the law. The Act specified: “The elimination of such practices is a necessary condition to the assurance of the rights herein guaranteed."  [203•3 

p What obstacles did this Act put in the way of labor strikes? Very many. It created a whole system of measures for government intervention as a third, supposedly “impartial”, 204 force standing over both employees and employers. First of all, Section 3 of Title I stated that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was to administer the Act as a whole.  [204•1  The name was the same as in the years of the New Deal, but the purposes and tasks of the Board were now different. And this is understandable. The Wagner Act was a piece of liberal legislation, whereas the Taft-Hartley Act became an instrument of repressive policy. Roosevelt’s legislation placed restrictions upon employers to prevent unbridled infringements upon the elementary rights which labor had won in the 1930s, while the new legislation all too clearly favored employers who violated the rights of workers to organize, strike and bargain collectively. The Taft-Hartley Act set up an extremely complicated legal procedure for considering union grievances.

p One important aspect of the law was that it required each union officer to file an affidavit stating that he was not a member of the Communist Party nor affiliated with any “subversive” organization. The Act specified that the NLRB would not recognize any union unless its officers had filed such an affidavit.  [204•2 

p The Taft-Hartley Act created the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, whose functions are defined by its very name. The law said that if the FMCS was unable to bring the sides in a dispute to agreement by conciliation, it should try to induce the parties voluntarily to seek other means of settlement without resorting to a strike, lockout or other coercion.  [204•3  These provisions duplicated certain points in the Watson-Parker Railroad Labor Act of 1926.  [204•4 

p The law also prescribed that neither a union nor an employer could lawfully terminate or modify an existing contract unless the party desiring such termination or modification serves a written notice to the other party sixty days prior to its expiration date.  [204•5  Any employee who engaged in a strike within that sixty-day period was losing his status as an 205 employee.  [205•1  The law empowered the government, through its mediation agencies, to obtain a court injunction against an impending strike or against continuation of a strike already in progress. This injunction could last 80 days, its purpose being to allow time for the sides to cool off and the dispute to be settled.

p If the President felt that a threatened or actual strike or lockout could imperil the national health or safety, he could appoint a board of inquiry to look into the issues and make a written report to him. On the basis of the report the President might then direct the Attorney General to secure a court injunction against the given strike or lockout. As an extreme measure, the President could declare a state of emergency in the entire section of the economy in which a threatening situation had arisen, and at his own discretion establish control over the struck enterprise or over the entire industry.

p The law banned boycotts and sympathetic strikes. It also made it unlawful for government employees to participate in strikes. “Any individual employed by the United States or by any such agency who strikes shall be discharged immediately from his employment...."  [205•2  It also prohibited union contributions and expenditures associated with any political elections. The latter provision was borrowed from the Smith-Connally Act of 1943, which expired six months after the war.

p In passing the Taft-Hartley Act, Congress pursued the aim of establishing control not only over labor’s strike struggle but also over the entire internal life and activities of the unions. To this end, the unions were required to file an annual report on their activities with the Secretary of Labor. The report had to show the name and address of the union, the names and salaries of its three principal officers, the initiation fee and monthly dues, and complete financial accounts of the organization.  [205•3  “Any person who willfully violates any of the provisions of this section shall, upon conviction thereof, be 206 guilty of a misdemeanor and be subject to a fine of not more than $10,000 or to imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.”   [206•1 

p Such is the main substance of the Taft-Hartley Act, under which the freedom of action of labor organizations and the right of workers to organize and to strike were sharply restricted.

p In the first three years after the Taft-Hartley Act was passed, the NLRB brought 83 court actions against participants in strikes. Supported by these decisions, employers frequently gained an advantage in the struggle against strikers, and made wide use of strikebreakers and secret informers. But however burdensome the consequences of the Act may have been for the working class, the law did not come anywhere close to fully justifying the hopes that the legislators and industrial business circles had pinned on it. Although it did frighten many union leaders with the prospect of being fined or imprisoned, it could not suspend the natural law of capitalism—class struggle.

p The slump in the economy caused by reconversion was followed by a slow rise in industrial production between 1947 and 1949. However, in 1949, the economy went through a short recession associated with a reduction in defense spending from $44 billion in 1946 to $12 billion in 1948.  [206•2  This partial crisis affected only some industries. Unlike the production slump during reconversion, operating in 1949 were such crisis factors as uneven development of the economy, an increase in stocks of unsold goods, and a decline in purchasing power due to high unemployment and a sharp drop in savings. As a result, the index of industrial production in 1949 was 64.7 (according to Federal Reserve Board data, with the index set at 100 for 1957-1959). The volume of industrial production had dropped by four per cent compared with the peak in 1948.

p The partial decline in production contributed to the growth of unemployment. The number of fully unemployed was approaching the five million mark, causing greater alarm in 207 the unions and labor’s discontent with the policies of the Democratic Party. The existence of a great mass of job seekers began to exert pressure on wages in industry.

The strike struggle developed on a smaller scale in 1947 and 1948 than in 1946, a record year in number of strikes, but even so it was intensive, as can be seen from the following figures   [207•1 :

Work stoppages Workers involved (thousands) Man-days idle (millions) 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 4,750 4,985 3,693 3,419 3,606 3,470 4,600 2,170 1,960 3,030 38.0 116.0 34.6 34.1 50.5

p Only in 1949 did the strike struggle again show an increase.

p Among the strikes in 1947 mention should be made of the action taken by 200,000 coal miners. The United Mine Workers emphatically condemned the Taft-Hartley Act. John L. Lewis, despite his hostile attitude to communism, declined to file an affidavit that he was not a member of the Communist Party, and reiterated that this was the first ugly, savage thrust of fascism in America. Criticizing the position taken by a number of labor leaders who were reluctant to fight, he said at a UMW convention: “Is it true that the leaders of our movement are to be the first of our mighty hosts of eight million members to put their tails between their legs and run like cravens before the threat of the Taft-Hartley bill?"  [207•2  Indeed, there were many such leaders who rushed to the NLRB to assure the government that they did not belong to the Communist Party. But there were also many who hesitated doing so, waiting to see how things developed, while some continued to speak out against the law.

p The CIO convention in 1947 condemned the Taft-Hartley Act and called on every union “to fight day and night for the repeal of this vicious piece of legislation”.  [207•3  A resolution 208 condemning the anti-labor legislation was also adopted at an AFL convention in 1947.  [208•1 

p The first half of 1947 saw the continuation of several strikes that had begun in 1946. Among these was the automobile workers’ strike described here earlier, especially at General Motors. It ended in March 1947 with a compromise agreement.

p There were strikes in the metal-working, construction and other industries. In June, strikes took place in the coal industry. In August, ship builders and steelworkers went out on strike, and at the end of the year, a printers’ strike began in Chicago, during which the workers defended their right to a union shop. In many of these strikes, particularly the miners’ strike, demands for the repeal of the Taft-Hartley law were made.

p In 1948, the West Coast longshoremen had to fight off attacks by the Waterfront Employers Association, which was trying to abolish the hiring hall that operated under the union’s control. The ILWU not only frustrated these plans, but also introduced new points in the collective bargaining contract, demanding a wage increase, a shorter workday, and improved safety conditions.

p In accordance with the Taft-Hartley Act, the government asked for a court injunction to postpone the strike for 80 days. When the injunction was about to expire, the employers agreed to raise wages only five cents an hour and to add another five cents an hour to holiday compensation. However, they continued to seek employer control over the hiring hall. In response to the stubborn resistance of the companies, the union was compelled to call a strike on September 2, 1948.

p Business activity in almost all the West Coast ports came to a standstill. Pickets against strikebreakers were posted everywhere. The three-month-long strike forced the shipowners to capitulate and agree to sign a contract on the union’s terms. The hiring hall remained under union control, and wages were raised by 15 cents an hour.

p The year 1949 was marked by a fresh upsurge of the strike movement. Strikes broke out on the city transit system in 209 Philadelphia, and at Ford plants in Detroit. The biggest strike, involving about 150,000 Ford workers, took place in May. The workers were fighting for the right of their union to have a say in establishing work loads, which were then being set arbitrarily by the plant administrations. Management refused to make concessions, and the dispute was submitted for arbitration.

p These were only some of the actions taken by American workers during the period 1947-1949. All of them indicated that, although the Taft-Hartley Act tended to reduce the rate and number of strikes, it was unable to suppress the strike struggle. At the same time, the strike struggle during this period showed that, politically, the movement as a whole was weak, inasmuch as the working class was unable to rise to a high enough level of organized protest against the anti-labor legislation. As a result, reaction succeeded in imposing the Taft-Hartley Act on the working class. This was a serious defeat for the broad masses of working people.

p The unions faced a choice: either to retreat before the onslaught of reaction, or put up a fight against the Taft-Hartley Act.

p In the course of the pre-election struggle of 1948, a Progressive Party came into being. The leading role in its creation was played by progressive intellectuals seeking to prevent a sharp shift to the right in the political situation, progressive labor unions, the Communist Party and the American Labor Party. The Communist Party organization in the state of New York played an active part in the creation of this party. As for the broad working-class masses, they were left out of the movement as a result of the rightist union leaders’ opposition to the new party.

p In view of the political reaction that had set in, the progressive forces found themselves in an extremely difficult situation. They were subjected to political baiting and discrimination. The position that the American Labor Party of New York and its leader, Vito Marcantonio, were in was in itself enough to make clear the class essence of American democracy. The entire bourgeois press, television and radio, the Church, powerful government forces and the hirelings of the 210 monopolies were up in arms against this party and its leader.

p As for the unions, the vast majority of them went along with the Democratic Party. However, there was no unity in their ranks on specific issues: the positions of the AFL and the CIO in the elections differed considerably. The CIO Political Action Committee—which after the death in 1946 of chairman Sidney Hillman was headed by Jack Kroll, a leader of the clothing workers’ union—became very active in support of the Democratic Party. Although the AFL was oriented toward the Democrats, a significant percentage of its members voted Republican.

p In December 1946, a liberal organization, called Progressive Citizens of America, was created at a conference in New York sponsored by the National Civil Political Action Committee. The new organization was formed through the merger of the NCPAC and the Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, with the participation of local progressive groups. Along with such figures as Henry Wallace and Fiorello LaGuardia, a number of CIO representatives became members of the new organization.

p On January 4, 1947, another organization—Americans for Democratic Action—was formed during a conference of public and labor figures held in Washington. Among those promoting the ADA were the journalists, the Alsop brothers. The founders of the ADA considered it to be their high duty to support the foreign policy of the United States and to fight communism. Some CIO and AFL figures joined the ADA, most of them becoming members of the national council of the organization. Thus, there were CIO leaders in organizations having entirely different political orientations.

p The Progressive Citizens of America later took part in creating the Progressive Party, whose political course differed substantially from the positions of the bourgeois parties. It opposed persecution of the Communist Party and left-wing labor unions, and condemned the policy of repression pursued by the Truman Administration .Therefore, anyone who joined the ranks of the Progressive Citizens of America, but stood to the right of this organization in his views and sentiments would find himself in a difficult position. It is not surprising that on 211 March 13, 1947, the executive board of the CIO barred CIO union officers from joining either organization. Most of the executive board members felt that participation in these organizations by CIO officers could be interpreted as an abandonment of the CIO’s “non-partisan” policy and as the beginning of “ideological differences" that could split the labor coalition backing the Democratic Party.

p In January 1948, the Progressive Citizens of America held its second convention in Chicago, with eminent scientists, writers and union activists taking part. The convention declared its support of Henry Wallace in the forthcoming presidential election. Wallace called upon all supporters of peace to unite into a new party.

p A constituent convention to establish the new party was held July 23-25, 1948, in Philadelphia. With over 3,000 delegates in attendance, it adopted the constitution and program of the Progressive Party.

p The Progressive Party platform pointed out that the American people wanted peace, but the old parties, obedient to the dictates of the monopolies and the military, were preparing for war. By spending more and more billions of dollars of public funds for war preparations, it was impossible to win the peace, but it was possible to make profits. Yet this was the policy of the two old parties, a policy that profaned peace. The American people, the platform went on, love freedom. But the old parties, acting in the interests of forces enjoying special privileges, were colluding to destroy traditional American freedoms.

p The platform also called for the prohibition of segregation and discrimination, abolition of the poll tax, anti-lynching legislation, protection of the rights of Communists and other political groups, price controls, the nationalization of banks, railroads, the merchant fleet and the gas and electric industry, repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, and a long-range agricultural development program.

p Organizationally, the Progressive Party was a federation of various groups and associations on a collective membership basis. Progressive CIO unions and a number of organizations of intellectuals joined the party. The most influential among these was the American Labor Party of New York. The 212 Progressive Party convention nominated Henry Wallace as its candidate for President, and Senator Glen Taylor (Dem., Idaho) for Vice-President. The party then launched its campaign for their election.

p The Communist Party took an active part in the campaign. Its election platform said: “The new Progressive Party is an inescapable historic necessity for millions who want a real choice now between peace and war, democracy and fascism, security and poverty.”   [212•1  Further, it defined the attitude of Communists to the Progressive Party: “In 1944 we Communists supported Roosevelt to help win the anti-Axis war. Similarly, in 1948 we Communists join with millions of other Americans to support the Progressive Party ticket to help win the peace."  [212•2 

Unlike the La Follette movement, the Progressive Party of 1948 did not reject the Communists’ cooperation, regarding their participation as necessary for consolidating the democratic forces. The Communists in turn declared that they would support the anti-monopoly program of the new party and help it to create a mass popular base in a drive for a united front.

p ’

p With the exception of a few liberal newspapers, a number of labor weeklies and the Communist press, the American press came out against Wallace. Persecution now spread to rank-andfile supporters of the Progressive Party. Local authorities did everything to prevent Wallace from holding pre-election meetings.

p The election campaign was stormy. The Republican Party convention held in Philadelphia in June nominated New York Governor Thomas Dewey for President, and California Governor Earl Warren for Vice-President. Both had come out against Roosevelt’s New Deal and, despite their social demagogy, were enemies of the working class and the unions.

p The Democratic Party held its national convention in July in the same city. It nominated Harry Truman for President, and Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky for Vice-President. The party enjoyed the support of AFL and CIO unions, which in 213 many ways strengthened its positions in the election. However, the Democrats were not confident of winning in 1948. They realized that they had antagonized labor by their departure from Roosevelt’s New Deal policies and taking part in the passage of the Taft-Hartley bill. Moreover, the Railroad Brotherhoods and the United Mine Workers had promised to do everything possible to defeat Truman because of his anti-labor policy.

p As before, labor leaders made a show of pursuing an impartial non-partisan policy in the election. In fact, however, they sought to prevent the Progressive Party candidates from winning. They tried to persuade their memberships that Truman’s statements could be trusted and he was the candidate to vote for. The leaders of the AFL, CIO and independent unions began bearing down on the progressive forces, levelling absurd accusations at them. The Communist press noted at the time that the CIO leaders regarded any movement to create a third party as a “Red plot" or “Communist conspiracy".  [213•1  In January 1948, the CIO executive board came out against the Progressive Party and its presidential candidate. Rejecting Wallace, the CIO supported Truman, recommending him as a friend of the working class.

p However, the CIO leadership encountered open opposition to its traditionally hostile line on the third-party issue. Manifesting themselves here were democratic traditions and the influence of progressive unions, whose presidents, as members of the CIO executive board, spoke out in favor of the Progressive Party. At the same time, the new party’s supporters in the electrical workers’ union organized a Labor Committee for Wallace and Taylor, headed by Albert Fitzgerald, the union’s leader. Progressive-minded people from a number of AFL, CIO and professional organizations affiliated themselves with the committee, which rendered great assistance to the party in the Wallace-Taylor campaign. Many delegates from the union took part in the Progressive Party’s conventions.

p In 1948, the party succeeded in entering its candidates on the ballot in the states and in the general election. As spokesmen for the liberal intellectuals of the nation, Wallace 214 and Taylor condemned the policy of repression pursued by the Democratic Party after the war. Wallace criticized the Democratic platform from the positions of Roosevelt’s New Deal, remaining, on the whole, within the framework of bourgeois liberalism.

p At the same time, the Progressive Party as a whole turned out to be somewhat to the left of its leader in that it called for the nationalization of certain industries. Some of the party’s declarations were more radical than Wallace would have wished. However, the principles proclaimed by the Progressive Party failed to reach the broad masses of voters. Nor did the idea of creating a third party find support among organized workers, whose leaders did everything to keep them under the influence of the Democratic Party.

p The 1948 elections once again showed that the majority of the voters were for the Democrats. Truman won 24.1 million popular votes. The Republican candidate, although defeated, still managed to draw 21.9 million votes. The Progressive Party polled 1.1 million votes. Truman regained the presidency for a second term.

p The Progressive Party went into rapid decline soon after its failure at the polls. Disagreements grew stronger between Wallace and others in the leadership over what course the party should take and how it should operate, thus complicating the problem of party unity. The party’s enemies made wide use of this fact, saying that Communists had “infiltrated” the leadership and now controlled the party. Wallace proved to be incapable of heading a broad third-party movement. Wide popular support of the Progressive Party could be won only through active struggle, and Wallace was unable to take this course. A bourgeois liberal, he was always vacillating, unable to make a break with the bourgeois two-party system.

p Although the Progressive Party was to remain in existence until the mid-1950s, the high point in its activity was now past. Its subsequent activity had some significance in the peace movement, but its influence continued to fall.

p The 15th convention of the Communist Party made an assessment of the situation within the Progressive Party and concluded that the main reason for the failure of the Wallace movement was its lack of a solid, working-class base. This 215 shortcoming was due to the fact that the working class was not adequately prepared to accept the message of the party, and was also the result of the perfidious policy of the right-wing labor officials “and the inability of the Left to expose and unmask these propagators of the ‘lesser evil’ theory”,  [215•1  that is, the idea that labor should back Truman in the 1948 election. The Communist Party also took a critical view of its own position in 1948, in particular the assessment of political sentiments made by its 14th convention. It was the opinion of that convention that the voter masses were dissatisfied with the two-party system and showed a readiness to break with it and support the idea of founding a third party. The Communist Party now recognized this assessment as being wrong. A resolution of the 15th convention, held in December 1950, said: “In fact, the 14th National Convention’s estimate of the tempo with which such a political realignment was taking place has not been borne out by events.... In fact, at this date, there are no visible signs of a mass breakaway from the two old parties, although there are ample signs of a growing disgust with both major parties."  [215•2 

p As for the conservative labor leaders, they hailed Truman’s victory. The President, in turn, had every reason to be grateful to the leadership of the American labor unions for their support.

p The results of the 1948 elections once again confirmed the correctness of Lenin’s statement that the two-party system in the United States “has been one of the most powerful means of preventing the rise of an independent working-class, i.e., genuinely socialist, party".  [215•3 

p The period beginning in 1947-1948 was characterized by increasing anti-communist propaganda and persecution of progressive Americans for their political beliefs. The ruling circles felt that the legislative measures taken so far were not enough to shield the broad masses of working people from the influence of progressive forces.

p The administration and Congress were now contemplating 216 the destruction of the Communist Party and, under this pretext, a number of other progressive working-class organizations as well. Behind a whole series of repressive actions there was a plot not only against radically-minded workers and intellectuals, but against certain principles of bourgeois democracy which the power elite felt were a hindrance to the further strengthening of the positions of big capital. Not only reactionary organizations like the American Legion, but government bodies and agencies whipped up the antiCommunist hysteria. Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation J. Edgar Hoover said at an American Legion convention in October 1946 that the Communists had penetrated everywhere and that the nation faced the danger of some diabolic Communist plot. Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities George P. Thomas said: “We must face the fact that Communism has been operating under favorable conditions in the United States for the past decade.... Our job for the next two years shall be to rout them out.”  [216•1 

p The US Chamber of Commerce published a number of pamphlets carrying sensational titles calling for a cold war within the country. All this propaganda was designed to justify anti-labor legislation.

p The right-wing labor leaders looked upon this reactionary activity as helpful to them in their struggle with the left wing. The anti-Communist trend was always strong in the AFL leadership. In the CIO, the struggle between the two trends sharpened in the cold war situation, and anti-Communist actions began to increase in frequency. This happened even in the steelworkers’ union, which Murray himself headed, and in a number of other unions. In the electrical workers’ union, for example, an opposition group was formed, calling itself a front for democracy. During this period, James Carey’s position changed markedly; he increasingly repudiated his past activity and joined a group that sought to establish a dictatorial regime in the union. Fierce attacks against the Communists increased in many other CIO organizations as well.

The Communists now faced years of ordeal and persecution. Police surveillance of many of the party leaders was 217 intensified. Office and home phones were tapped, and informers operated everywhere in the primary organizations, their reports on the state of affairs in the party flowing into the Department of Justice and the FBI on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

p In April 1947, Eugene Dennis was summoned to testify before the UnAmerican Activities Committee, but he refused to do so on the ground that the committee was illegal, because Senator Rankin of Mississippi who was on the committee had been elected in an election in which Negroes were not allowed to vote. He was convicted of “contempt of Congress”, sentenced to one year in jail and released on bail pending appeal.

p On July 20, 1948, when the party was preparing to hold its 14th national convention, twelve members of the National Board, headed by William Foster, were arrested and indicted for violation of the Smith Act. They were charged with belonging to the Communist Party, which, the indictment said, taught and advocated the overthrow and destruction of the Government of the United States by force and violence. The trial was set for January 1949, and the arrested leaders were released temporarily on bail, whereupon they began to prepare for their trial defense and simultaneously continued to prepare for the coming party convention.

p A new wave of hostile actions against the party followed. Above all, new anti-Communist bills were being drafted in Congress. The first step in this direction were long and stormy congressional debates on a bill introduced by Karl Mundt (Rep., South Dakota) and Richard Nixon (Rep., California). 218 The aim of the debates was to feel out public opinion and intimidate the progressive forces.

p It was in this complicated political situation that the 14th national convention of the Communist Party opened on August 2, 1948. Prior to the opening of the convention, a mass meeting was held in Madison Square Garden, at which William Foster, Eugene Dennis, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Henry Winston and other party leaders spoke. The convention discussed Dennis’ report on the fascist danger. An analysis of the political situation in the country was made, and the tasks of the party were outlined in this report and in other speeches at the convention. The convention elected a thirteen-member National Board. William Foster was again elected national chairman, and Eugene Dennis general secretary. At the final meeting, the convention adopted the party platform for the forthcoming elections and rejected Browder’s request for reinstatement in the party.

p On January 17, 1949, the trial of eleven Communist Party leaders began in New York’s Foley Square. The judge was Harold Medina, well known for his reactionary views. This man’s past spoke for itself. Art Shields, an American Communist journalist, wrote on the basis of his study of court records that Medina had obtained over one hundred court orders evicting impoverished tenants from houses he owned in the slums of Manhattan’s East Side in New York.

p The trial was a farce from the outset. To sway the jury, for example, Medina quoted passages from the writings of the founders of Marxism-Leninism, in crude attempts to somehow support with them the charges in the indictment..

p Using the false testimony of spies and informers, Medina went out of his way to give the trial the semblance of legality. But with every passing day he became increasingly shorttempered, resorting to threats and repression, throwing his political foes into jail one after another for contempt of court.

p Handling their own defense, the leaders of the American Communist Party convincingly refuted all the charges against them. They were not only defending themselves, but, facts in hand, exposed the criminal actions of the power elite. Despite the efforts of the trial’s organizers to show the defendants as conspirators or some sort of ominous agents of “international 219 communism”, the Communist leaders stood out as genuine fighters for democracy and social progress.

p During the trial protest meetings were held in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Progressive CIO unions, the American Labor Party of New York and a number of democratic organizations of intellectuals joined in the public outcry. More than a hundred eminent labor and public figures, scientists and legal experts published a statement addressed to the Attorney General demanding an end to the persecution of the Communist Party leaders. About 20,000 people gathered for a mass meeting in New York on March 4, 1949. An appeal to President Truman was adopted there, urging that the charges against the Communist leaders be dropped. The American Labor Party requested the House Judiciary Committee to bring Medina to trial for violating the Constitution during the trial.

p However, the movement in defense of the CP was not strong enough to influence the course of the trial. The jury found them guilty, and on October 21, 1949, Judge Medina sentenced each of ten leaders of the party to five years in jail and a fine of $10,000, and the eleventh, Robert G. Thompson, to three years in jail and the same fine. William Z. Foster’s case was postponed due to the state of his health.

p The trial at Foley Square pursued the aim of rendering the Communist Party leaderless, scaring the Communists and forcing them to quit the party. The organizers of the trial sought to totally discredit the party, isolate it from the masses, and set the stage for destroying it. The results of the trial and developments within the party after the trial showed that the reactionary forces were partially successful in achieving their goal. The trial and the verdict sharply worsened the position of the party and weakened the leadership of its local organizations. Membership dropped and the party’s isolation from the broad masses increased.

p A large part of the working class remained passive and refrained from joining the movement in defense of the CP leaders. The strong influence of bourgeois ideology, the policy of intimidation and repression, the anti-Communist propaganda, and the hostile position of union officialdom all had their effect.

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p But even so, in the eyes of world public opinion, the New York trial of the Communist Party leaders appeared as a glaring violation of the principles of bourgeois democracy and the American Constitution.

p Confident that it could act with impunity, the Truman Administration went even further. As the CP worked for a reversal of the verdict, appealing the case right up to the Supreme Court, arrests of leaders of its local organizations continued. The party found itself in a more and more difficult position. It spent the greater part of its energies and funds on defending its right to exist as a political party.

p Trials began in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, San Francisco and other cities. The court examination in Pittsburgh, the center of the steel industry, lasted nine months. On trial there were the prominent party workers Steve Nelson and James Dolson.

p Using provocateurs, the reactionary forces attacked the party organization of the state of Maryland, where its leader, G. Meyers, was brought to trial and an effort was made to make him testify against his party comrades.

p The attacks against the Communist Party pursued farreaching aims. Despite their small numbers, the Communists were the vanguard of the working class, its most progressive part, so when the reactionary forces launched their struggle against all democratic organizations, they decided to deal the first blow to the Communist Party. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn said that “the suppression of the Communist Party is the first step in the suppression of all people’s organizations and democratic rights".  [220•1 

p Indeed, it was not long before a tidal wave of repression came thundering down upon progressive unionists and democratically-minded representatives of the arts and sciences. Persecution of union leaders took place simultaneously with rigged trials of scientists, Hollywood actors, writers and journalists.

p The cold war and political reaction caused increasing tension within the CIO. The persecution of progressive forces and 221 anti-communism were the main reasons for a serious aggravation of the struggle between the two main currents within this association. The democratic current was represented by eleven unions which held progressive views on a number of important labor issues.

p Bourgeois propaganda spread all sorts of fabrications about this group of unions, saying, for example, that it included “Red conspirators”, “subversive elements" and “Communists” who were plotting to overthrow the government. As George Morris wrote later, “the aim was clear: to force a split inside the CIO and to break up the coalition of left and so-called ‘center’~".  [221•1 

p The progressive unions kept a close watch on the debates in Congress and exposed the anti-labor character of the legislation being prepared there. They played a big role in the protest movement against the Smith, Bolle, Case, Truman and other bills, and waged an especially vigorous battle against the Taft-Hartley Act, exposing its undemocratic essence.

p The progressive unions cooperated with the trade union organizations in the World Federation of Trade Unions. In the difficult conditions of the cold war, the Fur and Leather Workers, the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers, the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers, the Transport Workers, the longshoremen’s and the maritime workers’ unions maintained contacts with Soviet trade unions.

p An important event in the struggle of the progressive forces in the United States was the National Union Peace Conference, held in Chicago in early October 1949, with 1,200 delegates from 28 states attending. Among the delegates were representatives of some of the major unions, including the United Steelworkers, the United Electrical and Radio Workers, the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers, and the West Coast maritime and longshoremen’s unions. They demanded an end to the cold war policy. The conference also condemned the North Atlantic Pact and the arms race. The proceedings ended with the election of a national committee and an executive committee.

p However, due to the resistance put up by the right-wing 222 labor leaders and the trade union machinery which they controlled, the peace movement among labor did not become widespread.

p The CIO leadership sought to suppress opposition at any cost. There was no such opposition in the AFL, and the leaders there had no difficulty in adopting whatever decisions they wanted. Thus, in its report to the 66th AFL convention in 1947 in San Francisco, the AFL executive council expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s position directed toward cooperation with the USSR during the war.  [222•1  That convention was vivid confirmation of the fact that the right-wing AFL leadership, meeting no resistance within the Federation, could support any steps taken by the ruling circles in both domestic and foreign policy. It gave its full approval to the Marshall Plan, particularly on questions relating to international ties. The Marshall Plan, a convention report said, was something for which “American business as well as American Labor must sacrifice".  [222•2 

p The CIO held its 10th constitutional convention in the autumn of 1948. During the debate on Murray’s report, an opposition composed of 50 delegates, representing progressive unions with an aggregate membership of over one million, came out against blanket approval of the Truman Administration’s foreign policy, the Marshall Plan included. The opposition submitted a minority report. This report rejected the Marshall Plan, which, it said, pursued the aim of continuing the cold war against the Soviet Union and did not help to strengthen postwar peace.

p The same minority submitted a draft resolution on another issue discussed at the convention, namely, the attitude to be taken by the CIO to the World Federation of Trade Unions. Murray and his supporters succeeded in getting the 10th CIO convention to pass a resolution approving the splitting actions of CIO representatives in the WFTU. The convention authorized the CIO executive board and executive officers “to take whatever action in relation to the WFTU and the international labor movement as will best accomplish CIO 223 policies and objectives".  [223•1  The objectives that the CIO leaders had in mind soon became clear: to bring the WFTU into line or, if this did not succeed, to withdraw from it and, together with the AFL, create a new international trade union association with different policies.

p The progressive unions declined to support plans of this nature. They felt that the main task was to achieve labor unity, and this could be accomplished only by combining rather than disuniting labor’s forces. However great the differences might have been, they could be overcome through patient discussion and a mutual search for ways of coming closer together. A resolution submitted by the minority said that “it is possible for working people through their unions to find grounds for common action and mutual cooperation".  [223•2  Further, it proposed that it be resolved “that this Convention reaffirms our support and participation in WFTU and for further strengthening it, urging that CIO representatives in WFTU seek out all issues on which there can be cooperation, and maintaining the autonomous rights of each national labor center".  [223•3 

p This resolution failed to pass. Instead, the resolution submitted by the executive board was adopted by a 600-vote majority. Differences over the question of attitude to the WFTU and the international labor movement grew as the CIO leaders continued to fan the conflict within the WFTU and to intensify their splitting policy in the European trade union movement. The ideological crisis in the CIO was aggravated by the support the leadership gave the Truman Administration’s entire foreign policy.

p Shortly after the convention there was a meeting of the CIO executive board, during which a sharp debate flared up again over the Marshall Plan issue. A resolution adopted said that the CIO was determined to continue its cooperation with the US government in the matter of securing international peace and implementing the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan was described as an instrument of peace. But the group of 224 progressive unions disagreed with the resolution. Thirty-three members of the executive board voted for and eleven against the resolution. The latter were in the opposition on one of the most important foreign policy issues of that period.

p When the North Atlantic Pact was signed in May 1949, it too was approved by the CIO executive board, which thereupon urged its unions to follow suit. Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, James Carey said that the CIO supported the pact because it was “purely defensive in character" and because it was “the answer to fears of aggression in Europe".  [224•1 

p The contradictions within the CIO increased from convention to convention.

p Over the years, disagreement arose on the question of trade union democracy and the rights of unions. For a long time the CIO differed from the AFL in that its unions enjoyed autonomy not only in the economic but also the political field. This accounted for the progressive development of the CIO and the activeness and initiative of its rank and file. The energy of the workers in the 1930s and during the war was displayed due to the political autonomy of the local organizations. But then came the postwar period, a period of intensified reaction, anti-labor repression, and witch hunts—the persecution of the Communist Party and left-wing democratic elements.

p In this period, new tendencies appeared in the CIO. The top leaders of the organization and its leading unions veered sharply to the right and embarked on a course toward alliance with the reactionary upper clique of the AFL. They came out in support of anti-communism and the aggressive foreign policy of the ruling circles of the country.

p Seeking greater control, the CIO top leaders headed by Murray increasingly demanded curtailment of the unions’ autonomy in political affairs. The CIO executive board barred the unions from involvement in policy-making, declaring this field to be its prerogative. It censured any attempt by the unions to express their judgement on any aspect of the CIO’s political line or on the domestic or foreign policy of the USA, 225 recognizing their right to make decisions only in the field of economic and practical activities.

p After laying the necessary groundwork and consolidating their forces, the right-wing leaders of the CIO delivered something like an ultimatum to the progressive unions: either submit to central rule and stop engaging in politics, or quit the CIO.

p What followed was a period of unprecedented baiting of leftists and Communists. Conferences, meetings and board sessions were held in New York and California, Connecticut and Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. The struggle intensified. The right-centrists aimed their fire against Communist and progressive figures in the eleven unions, disparaging them, labelling them “Reds” and “agents of Moscow”, and threatening them with expulsion from the CIO. In May 1949, the executive board banned Communists from holding official posts in the unions and from membership on the CIO executive board.  [225•1  It demanded the resignation of officers who did not agree with its decisions. Harry Bridges was removed from his post as head of the CIO organization in California.

p Bridges was the first victim. The right-wing leadership had to reckon with the standing of this prominent labor leader. It had made repeated efforts to bring him over to its side, but to no avail.

p The baiting of the progressive forces in the CIO reached a high point at the llth convention in late 1949. The electrical workers’ union was subjected to particularly crude attacks because there were strong progressive sentiments within it and quite a few Communists in its membership. The union was famous for its irreconcilable stand with respect to US foreign policy. A convention resolution said: “We can no longer tolerate within the family of CIO the Communist Party masquerading as a labor union."  [225•2  The resolution slandered progressive unionists, accusing them of all sorts of sins. These attacks were backed by nothing but false assertions to the effect that the Communists by criticizing the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Pact, were betraying the interests of American workers. A glaring absurdity was the assertion that the 226 electrical workers had joined with Wall Street and other reactionary forces to crush liberalism and democracy in the United States.  [226•1 

p In an atmosphere of anti-Communist hysteria, the rightwing leaders of the CIO pushed through an amendment to the CIO constitution, authorizing the executive board to expel from the CIO any labor leader or union on the ground that their policy and activity was systematically aimed at carrying out the program or tasks of the Communist Party or other organization rather than achieving the aims set forth in the constitution of the CIO.

p When this resolution was adopted—thus testifying to the CIO’s conclusive shift to reactionary positions—Philip Murray declared that “there is no room within the CIO for communism".  [226•2  Three years earlier, at a convention of the steelworkers’ union, Murray had said: “We will not permit any limitation on the freedom and democratic right of full discussion of trade union problems in our own ranks.

p “We must not and do not seek interference with the free and democratic right of each member to practise such religion as he chooses in his private life as a citizen. Our union has not been and will not be an instrument of repression. It is a vehicle for economic and social progress.”  [226•3  But now Murray himself took the road of repression against unionists who reflected the real interests of the working class.

p But it was not just Murray who was involved. Whatever tactical turns he may have made in making temporary agreements with the left, he was only one of many conservative leaders of the Gornpers school reared in the social conditions of capitalism and imbued with the spirit of political opportunism. It was this clique that precipitated the political crisis in the CIO and organized the baiting of a large group of progressive unions with a total membership of over a million workers. The legal basis, as it were, for expelling the progressive unions from the CIO was laid at the llth convention.

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p Criticizing the amendment to the CIO constitution that was proposed at the convention, Bridges said that it put an end to real democracy in the CIO.  [227•1  He also condemned the antiCommunist attacks.

p History was repeating itself, showing a remarkable resemblance to events in the mid-1930s when the AFL leaders were in the process of expelling the future CIO unions from their ranks. Now, however, the Greens and the Wolls in the AFL played the role of inciters, while their counterparts in the CIO, the Murrays and the Haywoods, were actually doing the same things that thirteen years earlier their former enemies had done. It was on this platform that rapprochement of the leaders of the two labor centers was taking place. One of the conditions for the forthcoming merger of the AFL and CIO was in the making.

p The CIO leaders were now waiting for the right moment to deal the final blow to the progressive unions. It came in December 1949.

p Late 1949 was marked by a vigorous onslaught of reactionaries. It was then that the trial of the Communist Party leaders ended, new provocations against Communists began, and a mass signing of non-Communist affidavits by union officials was organized. Disoriented by the anti-Communist hysteria, the Taft-Hartley Act, police repression, and dismissals, the working class on the whole remained on the sidelines during the reactionary persecution of the Communist Party. In the same way it passively accepted the CIO’s withdrawal from the WFTU and the worsening of relations with Soviet trade unions.

p It was at this time that the CIO leadership decided to carry out its threat to expel the progressive unions. In November 1949, the llth convention of the CIO in Cleveland passed a resolution to expel the Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers, and at the same time to charter another union with a similar name. The United Farm Equipment Workers union was also expelled. This was the answer of the right-wing leadership of the CIO to the legitimate intentions of that union to remain an independent labor organization and not submit to a forced 228 merger with the United Auto Workers. The convention did not stop at this resolution. It instructed the executive board to examine the cases against the other progressive unions. The executive board set up a special committee to prepare materials which would help it to take the decision to expel them. In December 1949, the committee investigated the case of the CIO State Labor Council (Cal.).

p Such was the conclusion of the campaign against progressive forces within US labor, which had lasted for several years.

p After the end of World War II, the American working class encountered new difficulties, most of which were connected with post war reconversion and the monopolies’ encroachment on the political rights and living standards of the workers. As a consequence, there was an intensification of the class struggle, which manifested itself above all in an upsurge of the strike movement. With the aim of suppressing strikes and blocking the progressive forces, the ruling circles made a sharp turn away from Roosevelt’s policy of bourgeois liberalism. Anticommunism, anti-labor legislation, the cold war against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries—all this indicated that a prolonged period of political reaction had set in.

The general intensification of reaction in turn helped strengthen the positions of the right-wing elements in the labor movement, and weakened the influence of the left forces, as was clearly manifested in the changes that took place in the CIO at the close of the 1940s.