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p The American ruling class spread the idea of class collaboration, the idea that reconciliation and harmony between labor and capital was imperative. At the same time it used the powers of the legislative and executive branches of government to wage an offensive against the economic and political rights of the working class. This manifested itself most forcefully in labor legislation and the persecution of the Communist Party of the USA.

p Many American legislators felt that the existing anti-labor and anti-Communist laws (the Taft-Hartley, McCarran-Wood, and McCarran-Walter acts) had not achieved the goals set. They insisted on a stiffer policy with respect to organized workers and stronger repressive measures against the unions and the Communist Party.

p The Taft-Hartley Act had already done great damage to the labor movement as employers made wide use of it to thwart the strike struggle. Besides this, it significantly limited the unions’ opportunities to recruifnew members. Labor called insistently for its repeal. In every election campaign, the Democrats and Republicans promised to have the law amended to moderate some of its provisions. Eisenhower, too, had made such promises when he was running for president. However, after he was elected and his Secretary of Labor, former president of the AFL plumbers’ and pipefitters’ union Martin Durkin, drew up nineteen amendments to the Taft-Hartley Act, Eisenhower declined to submit them for congressional consideration. Thus, the President reneged on his promise to support the 351 movement to amend the Taft-Hartley Act. As mentioned earlier, in accordance with a decision of the executive council of the AFL, Martin Durkin resigned in protest.

p A number of Democratic pro-labor congressmen—George Rhodes (Pennsylvania), Thomas Lane (Massachusetts), Carl Perkins (Kentucky), Roy Wier (Minnesota)—introduced bills to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act. But these bills, too, never reached the floor for congressional debate. Rhodes said in this regard that the interests of the corporations; which were waging a war against every labor organization, had dominated the country’s economy and were the decisive force in the government.

p Lobbyists representing the monopolies were pressuring the Republican administration and Congress to adopt even harsher measures against labor. In this sense, they were no longer satisfied with the Taft-Hartley law because it had not enabled the monopolies to smash the unions or stop the strike movement. Appearing before a congressional committee, NAM representative Armstrong urged that the provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act be strengthened, that “compulsory unionism" be prohibited (he had in mind the closed or union shop), and that industry-wide strikes be outlawed.

p Many congressmen voiced similar views. They also demanded that no restrictions be placed on the right of states to pass their own labor laws. In this regard, The Wall Street Journal wrote: “In almost every case these state laws have been tougher on unions than the Federal statute.” Business groups, the paper said “want the states free to enforce tighter curbs on union activity".  [351•1 

p Another series of congressional bills was aimed at breaking what was called labor union monopoly. Bourgeois sociologists had filled many pages in an effort to demonstrate the “growing danger" of this development in the United States. Donald Richberg, for example, in his book Labor Union Monopoly went as far as to maintain that predominant power was no longer in the hands of the capitalist magnates. “The greatest concentrations of political and economic power,” he wrote, “are found in the under-regulated, under-criticized, 352 under-investigated, tax-exempt, and specially privileged labor organizations."   [352•1 

p So-called Communist “penetration” into the unions was another problem that worried Congress. Congressmen racked their brains over how to keep Communists out of the unions. A special subcommittee was even set up to study the problem. Headed by Senator Hubert Humphrey, it included, among others, Senators Taft, Ives and Douglas. However, as its members later admitted, the subcommittee could find no answer to the problem. It recommended merely that the Senate seek a more vigorous application of the antiCommunist clauses of the Taft-Hartley Act.

p But the anti-Communist sections of the Taft-Hartley Act no longer satisfied reactionaries in the top union leadership. One of them, AFL president Meany, speaking before a congressional committee, said that the struggle against communism would take years and required a close alliance and cooperation between business and labor.

p The powers-that-be did not venture a new and stronger blow against the labor movement before they softened up public opinion for it. The reactionaries began looking for facts that could discredit the unions and play on the imagination and feelings of ordinary Americans. It was not hard to find them. There were many people with questionable reputations who had wormed their way into the unions—leaders with criminal records who misappropriated union funds for private gain. That there was scandalous corruption in the trade union bureaucracy was no secret. And it was this that the reactionaries decided to exploit in order to deal a smashing blow to the unions. In late 1956, the Senate embarked on an extensive investigation of corruption in the labor unions and, ostensibly, in management. As noted earlier, the Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field was set up for this purpose, headed by Senator McClellan (Dem., Arkansas), and including such ultra-reactionaries as Republican Senators Joseph McCarthy (Wisconsin), Karl Mundt (South Dakota), and Barry Goldwater (Arizona). From the Democrats, there 353 was Senator John Kennedy (Massachusetts), who took a moderate position.

p The McClellan Committee launched into vigorous activity. Its investigation was given much publicity as day after day the newspapers, radio and television fed the “scandalous” findings to the American public.

p The committee was investigating only five unions of the 200 large nalional and international labor organizations. Among them were the teamsters’ union, the bakery and confectionary workers’ union, and the textile workers’ union. At the same time, of the 125,000 companies having collective bargaining contracts with unions, only 50 were investigated, and quite superficially at that. But even so, the senators found much evidence of criminal actions by owners of companies and their agents in fighting the unions. All this was covered rather scantily in the McClellan Committee’s report.

p The committee acknowledged the need for legislative measures to prevent the spread of corruption in the trade unions. Reaction took advantage of the conclusions drawn by the committee. Driving a wedge between the mass of workingmen and the unions, and the unions and society, and hypocritically demanding the protection of the rights of rank-and-file union members, it was preparing a blow against the labor movement as a whole, and above all against the right of the working class to organize. The target was the union shop.

p As a result of the Taft-Hartley ban on the closed shop and intensified court persecution and suppression of progressive elements, the growth of the unions declined sharply since 1947. However, the unions were not forbidden to establish the union shop rule, which required employees to become members of the union thirty days after being hired.

p While the Taft-Hartley law recognized the union shop, Section 14 (b) of the law permitted the states, at their discretion, to pass laws depriving the unions of this vital right. Prior to 1947, there were only three states which had such laws—Florida, Arizona and Nebraska. In 1955, there were already seventeen. The state anti-labor laws were demagogically called “right-to-work laws”, but they gave workers neither rights nor work. They contained not even a hint of any 354 guarantee of employment. Undermining the unions, they left the workers at the mercy of the employers. In states where such laws were in effect, the unions were weak and wage rates considerably lower and working conditions worse than in the industrial northern states.

p A new campaign in the state legislatures and the US Congress to ban the union shop began in 1957. The US Chamber of Commerce and the NAM demanded that the legislators take decisive measures against the unions. One of the NAM leaders, Cola G.Parker, argued: “The cornerstone on which union monopoly power rests is compulsion—-compulsion on the employer to sign a union-shop agreement; and compulsion on the working man to join the union if he wants to make a living.... With one hand they [the unions—Ed.] keep a tight grip on the working man’s throat, so that he can neither move nor cry out in protest; with the other they reach into his pay envelope and into his welfare fund in order to enrich themselves.”   [354•1 

p The unions faced a fierce battle to defend their right to organize the working class. The AFL-CIO leadership realized the significance of this danger. A resolution of the AFL-CIO convention in 1957 noted that the right-to-work laws pursued only one aim—to weaken and destroy the unions. Organized workers and all who believed in their right to organize unions, it said, would vigorously oppose these laws. In practice, however, the labor leaders behaved very timidly.

p Conditions for the fight against anti-labor legislation were more favorable for the workers in the northern industrial states than in the South. In nine states out of sixteen, bills banning the union shop were defeated because of strong union pressure. In five states, including California, the legislatures neither adopted nor rejected such laws; the question was put to a popular vote, or referendum, during the congressional elections of 1958.

p In the states where referendums were held, the issue was a hot one. Organized workers, indignant over the anti-union drive, campaigned energetically, and local unions distributed 355 pamphlets, posters, and leaflets in the millions urging voters to reject the proposed anti-labor legislation.

p The enemies of the unions staked their hopes on the referendum in California, a state with highly developed industry and a large working class. The Wall Street Journal wrote: “This campaign is really a national campaign. If California goes right-to-work, there’ll be very few states which won’t have it in the next two to four years.”  [355•1 

p But California did not “go right-to-work”. The voting public defeated the proposition. The same thing happened in Ohio, Washington and other states, the only exception being Kansas, which became the nineteenth state with such a law.

p Reaction continued its offensive. Congress was preparing a new blow to the labor movement under the guise of combatting corruption in the unions. The Eisenhower administration became actively involved. In his message to Congress on January 23, 1958, the President recommended that it pass legislation “to provide greater protections for the rights of individual workers, the public, management and unions in labormanagement relations".  [355•2  In his view, this had become necessary because of the corruption, coercion and other unlawful acts of the unions revealed by the McClellan Committee.

p In his message to Congress of January 28, 1959, Eisenhower outlined a 20-point program. “Complete and effective labormanagement legislation ... is essential to assure the American public that true, responsible collective bargaining can be carried on with full protection to the rights and freedoms of workers and with adequate guarantees of the public interest."  [355•3  This time, his recommendations to Congress were more categorical. The first 9 points had to do with rules of accountability, election procedures in the unions, and measures for holding violators of established procedure criminally responsible. Further, they called for a ban on the secondary boycott  [355•4  and picketing with the intent of forcing an employer 356 to recognize a union as the representative of his employees in negotiating a collective bargaining agreement, or forcing employees to recognize the union as their representative in cases when the employer had recognized another labor organization.  [356•1  Employers in turn could ignore a labor organization at their enterprises and conclude contracts with company unions on the terms they wanted. The administration also recommended as broad as possible use of state legislation and the courts against labor organizations.

p Most of the Democrats in the 86th Congress assessed Eisenhower’s program as a Republican maneuver to pass a stiff anti-labor law with Democratic votes, and thereby undermine the Democratic Party’s positions in the presidential election of 1960. As for the Southern Democrats (the Dixiecrats) and the Republicans, they welcomed the program.

p On June 27, 1959, Philip Landrum (Dem., Georgia) and Robert Griffin (Rep., Michigan) introduced into the House of Representatives a bill that not only reproduced Eisenhower’s program, but strengthened some of its provisions. The Landrum-Griffin bill became the basic subject of debate in Congress. Griffin attempted to define the direction and substance of US labor policy. The Congressman declared: “The first, and the most important, principle which underlies that policy is that the workers in any establishment should be free to select, or not to select, by majority rule, the union or bargaining agent of their choice.... The second fundamental principle is that the public and innocent third parties are entitled to some consideration and protection....  [356•2 

p The legislators were seeking to isolate the unions, portraying them as a dangerous development in a “free society”. In this sense, the extremists even felt that the Landrum-Griffin bill was only a “timid step”. Representative Bruce Alger (Rep., Texas) proposed that the anti-trust laws be invoked against the unions.  [356•3  Senator Hubert Humphrey (Dem., Minnesota), saying that he would vote for the bill despite its shortcomings,  [356•4  drew 357 the attention of Congress to the exceptional role that labor leaders Meany, Carey, Dubinsky and others played in the struggle against the Communists in the USA and other countries.  [357•1  The Senator felt that it was not in the interests of Congress to undermine the prestige and status of such labor leaders, and it was in this that he saw the weakness of the bill.

p As was the case with many other laws, this bill was written and pushed through Congress under strong pressure from the monopolies. Some legislators admitted this fact. Democratic congressman Cleveland Bailey, for example, said that some of the basic changes in existing legislation that this bill proposed “offer a direct threat to the very existence of the organized labor movement.... This Landrum substitute ... covers everything from the ’cut of a man’s coat to the trimming of a woman’s bonnet’. If they overlooked anything, it was because the National Association of Manufacturers, [and] the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ... failed to think of it."  [357•2 

p Many members of Congress, including Democratic Congressmen Holland (Pennsylvania), Roman Pucinski (Illinois) and George Rhodes (Pennsylvania), came out with similar statements.  [357•3 

p The Eisenhower administration followed the debate in Congress closely. On August 7, 1959, the President said in a radio address that for two years he had been urging Congress to pass a law that would protect the American people from union abuses. He voiced his support of the Landrum-Griffin bill. On September 3, the bill was passed by the Senate (by a vote of 95 to 2) and on September 4, by the House of Representatives (352 to 52). On September 14, 1959, the President signed it into law.

p Title I—under the high-sounding heading of “Bill of Rights of Members of Labor Organizations"—guaranteed each individual equal voting rights and freedom of speech with respect to the operation of the union’s affairs; preserved the right of individual members to sue the union and its officers; and guaranteed against unlawful union penalties. Thus, under 358 the guise of protecting the rights of union members, the law prohibited organizations from applying sanctions against violators of the union constitution and internal order.

p Section 201 of Title II required that every labor organization must file with the Secretary of Labor a copy of the union’s constitution and by-laws, and a report giving the name and address of the organization, the names of its officers, the amounts of dues and assessments to be charged, and procedures for fining or otherwise disciplining members, holding meetings and the selection of officers. Unions were required to file annual financial reports showing their assets and liabilities, all receipts of money and their sources, and direct and indirect loans.

p Sections 301-303 of Title III required national unions to file a report on all trusteeships established over local unions. They also specified what actions taken by a national union with respect to a trusteed organization were to be considered unlawful.

p Title IV established the procedures for elections of union officers and their frequency.

p Section 504 of Title V prohibited anyone who had been a Communist Party member within the previous five years from serving as an officer in any union. After every provision of the law in the above titles and sections, fines of not more than $10,000 or prison sentences of not more than one year, or both, were specified for violations.

p The law provided that union members had the right to file complaints in court if dissatisfied with election procedures, collection of membership dues, or the character of the leadership. The court was empowered to examine the matter to determine whether there was a violation of the law and to order the removal of union leaders from their posts if found guilty of such violation. The Act thereby legitimized greater court interference in the life and activities of labor organizations. These rights of union members offered employers broad opportunities to engineer the removal from union posts of persons they considered undesirable, and to introduce chaos into union elections.

p Other titles and sections of the law banned secondary boycotts, and made it unlawful to force a wage earner to join a 359 labor organization, this latter provision actually striking a blow to the union shop principle.

p Such were the most essential provisions of the new law. Its aims and substance underscored with new force the ever growing government interference in labor relations. Even under the Watson-Parker and Taft-Hartley acts the government could not act with such cynical frankness on the side of the dominant class as was permitted by the Landrum-Griffin Act. The AFL-CIO leadership issued a protest against the new anti-labor law. But that is as far as it went as it settled into a position of adapting to the new conditions.

p American reaction once again made the Communist Party the target of its main attacks. In the mid-1950s, the party underwent another serious political crisis, and the Communists found themselves facing new ordeals. This time, the right opportunist elements were led by John Gates, the editor of the Daily Worker. His group, like the Browderists in their time, sought to liquidate the party. They cast aspersions on the American Communists’ past, portraying their history as an endless chain of left-sectarian errors. The revisionists were advocating “Western socialism”, as opposed to “Eastern socialism".  [359•1 

p Speculating on the condemnation of the cult of the personality and distorting the domestic and foreign policies of the Soviet Union, the revisionists spoke as apologists for American imperialism as they extolled its alleged exceptionalism, classless nature and even peacefulness.

p As a demagogic cover for their anti-Communist fabrications, the Gates group called for the creation of a broad antimonopoly coalition to fight “for socialism”. But for this the Communists had to commit political suicide—to cease their existence as a political party and dissolve themselves in an amorphous educational association. The revisionists gained a majority on the National Committee. Using the party press organ, they initiated a debate at a time when repression against the party continued to mount. It was precisely the antiCommunist hysteria that Gates and his supporters thought would be their best ally in liquidating the party.

360

p The right opportunists proposed that the question of creating an association not be debated in convention, but that the debate be continued outside the convention. They wanted in this way to doom the party to a prolonged factional struggle that would cause a cleavage in its ranks. But this maneuver did not work either. At the 16th convention, held in February 1957, the revisionists suffered a serious setback.  [360•1  The bourgeois press had predicted an inevitable end to the existence of the Marxist-Leninist party in the United States. The convention sessions were open to the public, and newsmen swarmed to witness the “tragic denouement”.

p William Z. Foster, who played an important role in the convention, in his address gave an analysis of the difficulties the party was experiencing, describing them as an organizational and ideological crisis brought on by the demoralizing influence of imperialism on the working class and the party. Revealing the roots of revisionism, he said: “This right tendency is a direct political descendant of the Lovestone opportunism of the boom 1920s and the Browder revisionism of the boom 1940s. The right trend manifests itself by a softening of the party’s theory and fighting policies, and it points in the direction of class collaboration."   [360•2  Foster called on the delegates to put up a vigorous and irreconcilable fight to save the party and preserve its faithfulness to Marxist-Leninist principles.

p Many prominent party figures—Gus Hall, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Henry Winston, Robert Thompson, Carl Winter—were in prison at the time and could not take a direct part in the struggle against the revisionists. But they expressed their full support of William Foster. This support from prestigious party leaders lent strength to the Communists who united around Foster, and gave them added confidence in the cause for which they were fighting.

p The 16th convention upheld the party. Its resolution said: “This convention goes on record to affirm the continuation of the Communist Partv of the USA. Our chief task is to 361 strengthen, rebuild and consolidate the Communist Party and overcome its isolation. This convention opposes the transformation of the party into a political or educational association.”   [361•1 

p The convention kept the party intact, and this was its chief historical significance. The main resolution, however, was a compromise between three groups in the party—the right, center and true Marxists. The right revisionist influence was strong.  [361•2  Earlier, at a plenary meeting of the National Committee in April 1956, the Gates group, which was in the majority, got the party to state that the left-sectarian danger was the “main danger" within the party. It held to the same position at the convention, exaggerating the left-sectarian errors of the party and masking the danger of revisionism. Those who favored preserving the party stressed the necessity of fighting both the left and right danger.  [361•3 

p The rightists attacked democratic centralism, the basic principle upon which all Communist parties are built. Undermining this principle fully accorded with their liquidationist aims. The resolution spoke of the need to amend the party constitution and give party members the right to engage in factional struggle after decisions were adopted. The revisionists succeeded in modifying the procedure for elections to the National Committee. Only one-third of its sixty members would henceforth be elected by the convention, while the other forty would be elected by local party organizations. The National Committee would thus be robbed of its significance as the central governing body and placed in direct dependence upon separate local organizations. This would inevitably lead to federalism in the party and undermine its discipline, integrity and monolithic character.

The 16th convention dealt a serious blow to revisionism, but the struggle with revisionism in the ranks of the party was not over. The revisionists, still holding high posts in the central bodies, continued their subversive activity. The Gates group had a majority on the Executive Committee, and retained control of the Daily Worker. As the struggle went on, the rightists slid further and further into the camp of open 362 enemies of the working class and its party. In October 1957, Gates’ supporter Alexander Bittelman came out with a series of articles as a most zealous exponent of bourgeois ideology.

p In December 1957, under pressure from Gates, a majority on the Executive Committee voted to reject the Declaration of the Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. This hostile action with respect to the international communist movement drew sharp criticism within the party. Under the influence of this criticism, at the next meeting of the Executive Committee Gates was removed from the post of Secretary of the National Committee, and in January 1958,the decision was taken to cease publication of trie Daily Worker, of which he was then editor. Having lost his support, Gates resigned from the party. With his departure the positions of the rightists were weakened. A plenary meeting of the National Committee in February 1958 dissolved the Executive Committee and elected a new one. The plenary meeting approved the Declaration of the Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties.

p By the time of the 17th convention in December 1959 the Communist Party was considerably stronger and more united. Of no little importance was the fact that Gus Hall, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and others, who had been released from prison in the interim, took part in the convention.

p The 17th convention discussed the tasks of the party with respect to its internal political situation. It also devoted much 363 attention to United States domestic and foreign policy, since the ruling circles of the USA were continuing the cold war and the arms race. The convention pointed to intensified reaction within the country. Monopoly capital, a convention resolution said, “is developing a most far-reaching, concentrated drive against labor, whose aim is to deprive the unions of all economic and political power, and to place them under complete government domination and control".  [363•1 

p The convention described the intensification of the class struggle manifested in the strike battles in industry and transport as a most important development. At the same time, it was stressed that “organized labor cannot content itself with mere defense against the growing torrent of blows rained upon it. On the contrary, if it is to defeat these and move forward it must launch a counter-offensive."  [363•2  It was further noted that some of the top labor leaders, above all Meany, “laid the labor movement open to the Landrum-Griffin-Kennedy Law by collaborating with the McClellan Committee”, and that the “moderate labor reform" bill which they, in fact, initiated through Senator Kennedy “opened the floodgates of reaction in Congress".  [363•3 

p The problem of peace was described as the main issue in the political life of America. In this connection, the support of the cold war and arms race on the part of the trade union bureaucracy was seen as doing great damage to the trade union movement and going against the interests of the popular masses as a whole.

p Still the chief task before the party was to overcome its isolation from decisive sections of the labor movement, to strengthen the party’s mass base among the industrial workers, Negro and white, and among youth.  [363•4  The Negro -and youth questions occupied a special place at the convention.

p As Gus Hall noted in his speech, dogmatism and a doctrinaire approach had prevented the party from entering the mainstream. These were the shortcomings of the party that 364 the right opportunists had exploited. They held that the party could enter into the mainstream only by liquidating its left progressive base. In other words, in the view of the rightists this goal could be achieved at the price of disarming the party ideologically and forfeiting its political independence. The party rejected this fatal course.

p The convention resolution noted that the party must apply every effort to revive the activity of the left forces and help establish their unity with all progressive elements.

p The convention elected the leadership of the party. Gus Hall was elected general secretary; Eugene Dennis, chairman; and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, vice-chairman. The 17th convention strengthened the party as it faced new tasks in the labor movement. Its decisions helped intensify the struggle against the revisionists.

p By the beginning of the 1960s, substantial changes had taken place in the ethnic composition of the population of the United States in general, and in the working class in particular. The 1960 census figures give an idea of the character of these changes. First of all, the percentage of foreign-born Americans had fallen. According to the 1960 census, there were 9,738,143 foreign-born in the country, comprising 5.4 per cent of the population,  [364•1  as compared with 8.8 per cent in 1940, and 13.2 per cent in 1920. Besides this, there were 24,312,000 US residents, or 13.6 per cent of the population, who had at least one foreign-born parent.  [364•2  Thus, the number of persons of foreign origin in the USA still remained very impressive, although their share in the population and, correspondingly, in the composition of the working class, was diminishing. The figures cited testify to a further increase in the national homogeneity of the population. The basic factors promoting this were the rather substantial natural population growth in the 1950s, the relatively small immigration, and processes of assimilation.

p Nonetheless, the ethnic consolidation of the American 365 nation as a whole, as well as the blending of ethnic elements in the working class, were still far from being completed. The 1960 census gives a good picture of the ethnic diversity in the population and what proportions of the population the most numerous of the national groups comprised. The figures include all US residents who were foreign-born or had at least one foreign-born parent (second generation). This category numbered 34,050,000 persons. The countries of origin and sizes of the largest of the groups in this category, according to the 1960 census, were as follows: Italy—4,543,000; Germany—4,320,000; Canada—3,181,000; Poland—2,780,000; Russia—2,290,000; Mexico—1,735,000; Ireland—1,773,000; Austria—1,098,000; Sweden—1,046,000; Czechoslovakia—917,000.  [365•1 

p While these figures on the whole correctly reflect the numerical size of the national groups, substantial corrections must be made in some of them. By the mid-1950s, there were in the country about six million Italians, five million Jews, fifteen million Slavs (Poles, the largest group among them, numbered four to five million), and three million Mexicans. These, then, were the largest national groups represented in the population of the United States. And they were also, with certain exceptions, the largest national groups in the working class.

p In the 1940s and 1950s, immigration was uneven. It was insignificant during the war, but then followed a noticeable increase in the immigration flow from war-torn Europe. On the whole, immigration between 1941 and 1961 amounted to 3,821,862 persons.  [365•2 

p Characteristic of US immigration policy since the early 1920s was its “national origins quota" system by which the government sought to stabilize the ethnic and racial composition of the national stock. The postwar years saw the same racist and chauvinistic principles operating, which almost completely excluded, for example, the admittance of immigrants from Afro-Asian countries. In general, however, the dynamics of immigration were most closely associated with the specific features of the postwar cycle, with such important 366 indicators as capital investment and unemployment rate. Most impressive in the 1950s was the growth in the number of Latin Americans, above all Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. The absence of quota restrictions, geographical proximity and, most important, the low standard of living of the working people in Latin America—caused to a considerable extent by US policy in the Western Hemisphere—brought about a massive influx of immigrants from these countries. Thus, during the war and postwar years the number of Mexicans in the USA grew by 600,000. But not all of them were reflected in official statistics, for a considerable proportion immigrated illegally. As a result of intensive immigration, 700,000 Puerto Ricans concentrated in the northeastern regions of the country, and especially in New York.  [366•1 

p In the postwar years new immigrants generally showed the same tendency as was observed previously to settle in the northeastern regions of the country or to gravitate toward the western states because of their intensive industrialization. As before, they tried to avoid the South. In this connection, the distribution pattern for Latin Americans is of interest. It is true that Mexican agricultural workers among whom there were many illegal immigrants or so-called “wetbacks”  [366•2  settled mainly in the southern states. However, contrary to a widely held opinion, the South was by no means the only place with large concentrations of Mexicans. Many went to work in the ore-mining and railway transport industries of the southwestern and western states, and as many settled in the industrial centers of the East.

p Substantial changes took place in the social and occupational composition of the postwar immigrants and second-generation Americans. Whereas earlier, especially in the first decades of the twentieth century, immigrants were predominantly peasants, farm workers and manual laborers, only a very small proportion of the immigrants of the 1940s and 1950s were in these categories. On the whole, the trend in the postwar years 367 was more toward skilled workers, engineers and technicians.

p In characterizing the present occupational and social composition of Americans of foreign origin one must naturally bear in mind that most of them have been in the country for several decades, many having been born and raised in the United States, and have been able in this time to acquire skills. The simplification of production operations in industry made it easier for old and new immigrants and their children to enter industries and types of work which were formerly inaccessible to them.

p These changes in the occupational skills of old and new immigrants have served for some American writers who propound fashionable theories of “social mobility" as the basis for asserting that immigrants are in full measure socially mobile, that virtually every step of the social ladder and level of well-being are now accessible to them. One of the facts used for this argument is the existence of foreign-born in the whitecollar category discussed earlier. As noted in the book, The Worker Views His Union, many children of immigrants have now “entered white-collar occupations”. And further: “To many of the younger generation, white-collar employment, even though one remained permanently an employee, represented an escape from the conditions of factory life."  [367•1 

p To be sure, a certain levelling has, on the whole, taken place with respect to the status of “native” and “alien” workers as a result of the immigrants’ long residence in the country, their becoming naturalized citizens, their upgrading their skills and, finally, and no less important, because of their persistent struggle for their rights. However, even now sometimes noticeable differences remain in the living standards of workers belonging to various ethnic groups, and in the forms of their exploitation. Discrimination in the field of labor because of race or nationality exists both formally and in fact. First, there is still no all-embracing federal law that would ban discrimination in employment and conditions of work; second, discrimination is actually provided for in the statutes of a number of states; and third, even the few anti-discrimination 368 laws that do exist are frequently violated in employment practice. Moreover, discrimination extends not only to “coloreds" but also to Italians, Slavs and Hungarians. A study made by the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower showed that of the 282,248 occupations it surveyed more than half were inaccessible to “coloreds”.

p Racist and chauvinistic principles current in labor relations affect the status of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and people from the West Indies and Asia, who often experience a no less heavy burden of discrimination than Negroes. The differences in living standards, conditions of work and wages among the various categories of workers are perfectly obvious. The report of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower contained an authoritative confirmation of this. Among workers belonging to the ethnic minorities, the report noted, the unemployment rate is always higher than the average for the country.

p In 1960, when the unemployment rate stood at 5 per cent in the country as a whole, it was 9 to 10 per cent among Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Among Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Negroes, only 3 to 4 per cent were highly skilled workers, while the figure for “native” white Americans was 12 per cent.

p Official Department of Labor data confirm the fact that the annual incomes of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans are also considerably lower than the average. The absence of vocational training, education and work experience, the accumulated results of generations of poverty, the lack of access to the privileged strata of society, the impact of prejudice and fanaticism—this combination of unfavorable factors puts up economic and social barriers which prove to be insurmountable for workers belonging to the ethnic minorities.

p Industrial workers of Latin American origin are subjected to discrimination at every turn of the way, to say nothing of the extreme poverty of the migrant farm workers, among whom Mexicans are predominant. Writer Michael Harrington, who made a thorough study of the life of these workers, has this to say of their lot: “They are no longer participants in an ethnic culture from the old country; they are less and less religious; they do not belong to unions or clubs. They are not seen, and because of that they themselves cannot see. Their horizon has 369 become more and more restricted; they see one another, and that means they see little reason to hope.”   [369•1 

p The conditions typical of the dwellings of the old immigrants—congestion and lack of sanitation—-in many respects still obtain in the ethnic districts and ghettoes of many cities. This is particularly typical of New York. In recent decades certain changes have taken place in the immigrant settlement pattern in the cities, so that in some cases urban districts and ghettoes have lost their narrow ethnic color. “This new type of slum groups together failures, rootless people, those born in the wrong time, those at the wrong industry, and the minorities. It is ‘integrated’ in many cases, but in a way that mocks the idea of equality: the poorest and most miserable are isolated together without consideration of race, creed, or color."  [369•2  The mixed, multinational character of the population of the new slums does not, however, alter the fact that Americans of foreign origin are still their basic core. But, as Harrington correctly notes, poverty “is no longer associated with immigrant groups".  [369•3 

p As before, the interests of the monopoly elite predetermine the existence of substantial differences in working conditions and living standards between “native” and “non-native” workers. This introduces competition, discord and mutual animosity in their ranks. However, some important changes are discernible in this picture, the economic underpinning of which is the fact that the monopolies are waging an offensive against the living standards of working people as a whole, and not just those of the minorities.

p At the same time, the ruling circles pursue a national policy that conflicts with the interests of the broad section of Americans that make up the minority groups. In this connection, the immigration laws and the McCarran-Walter Act discussed above evoked particular discontent. The leadership of the AFL-CIO could not avoid reckoning with the growing mass discontent over the immigration laws, so it came 370 out with a demand that the McCarran-Walter Act be reexamined. Representatives of the AFL-CIO told the Judicial Subcommittee of the House of Representatives of their negative attitude to the principles of ethnic and racial discrimination reflected in this law. It was characteristic that in speaking on this question Carey was most of all concerned about the fact that the law gave the Communists ammunition for criticising the United States. He admitted, in a very indirect way, that for many years labor (meaning the labor leaders) had supported chauvinistic immigration statutes.

p The explanation for this shift in the position of the trade union leadership lay not only in the extreme unpopularity of the racist practices in immigration policy, which it could not ignore, but also in the fact that immigration in the 1950s and 1960s was not extensive, so that the labor leaders could make this gesture of speaking out for a change in immigration policy without running any particular risk.

p The immigration flow declined noticeably due to the present pattern of development of the capitalist economic system. Despite the passage in 1965 of a new law which abolished the system of quotas based on race, national origin or nationality, it is already too late for this law to have any significant influence on the proportions in the national composition of the working class or to alter the tangible trend toward its increasing national homogeneity.

p Discrimination in the field of labor against immigrants, especially those not having the rights of citizenship, is an undeniable fact. Struggle against it is becoming a major problem for the working class and the unions. Unless they conduct an all-round and constant campaign of protest against discrimination they cannot wage an effective struggle for improving the life of this large section of the working class, for further growth in the number of trade unions, against unemployment, and for working-class unity.

p The importance of the Black question in the United States can hardly be overestimated. It is naturally impossible in a general work on the history of the labor movement in the USA to cover such a vast and complex problem as the history of the struggle of the American Blacks for their vital rights and civil 371 liberties. The present work examines only some of the more essential aspects of the present stage of the struggle of the Blacks in the context of the labor movement.

p In the 1950s, the Black struggle against discrimination became very active and acute, assuming the most diverse forms. This struggle was indissolubly connected with the general upsurge of the national liberation movement of the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, and the liquidation of colonialism. Also of uppermost importance were the changes which had occurred in the class structure of the Black population of the USA. The overwhelming majority of the Blacks had broken away from the land, migrated to the big urban and industrial centers, and poured into the ranks of the American working class.

p The movement of Blacks from the rural regions to the cities, especially of the North and West of the country, significantly reduced the concentration of the Blacks in the South where during the 1940s its proportion in the total population dwindled from 22.9 to 20.8 per cent. This process continued in the subsequent years. The Blacks comprised 10.6 per cent of the country’s total population in 1960, or some 20 million. In 1950, the proportion of Blacks living in the South was 70 per cent; but by 1960 it was only 58 per cent. Furthermore, two-thirds of the entire Black population were now living in urban communities. New York, for example, had more than one million Blacks, and Chicago, almost a million.  [371•1  Almost 90 per cent of the Black workers were employed in industry, trade and the services. The rest worked on farms, mainly as farm laborers.

p Between 1940 and 1959, the movement of large numbers of Blacks to the industrial centers resulted in a fall from 20 to 9.3 per cent in the proportion of agricultural workers, and from 21.1 to 5.4 per cent in the proportion of farmers, in the overall number of employed Black men. At the same time, the proportion of unskilled workers in the nation’s labor force grew considerably due to the influx of Black workers.

p The industries where Blacks were employed were the ones 372 with the hardest working conditions. At the end of the 1950s, Negroes comprised 11 per cent of all industrial workers, and made up 25 per cent of the miners, 30 per cent of the packinghouse workers, 15 per cent of the steel and auto workers, and 45 per cent of the lumber workers.  [372•1  Black workers had the hardest work, the lowest pay, and a high unemployment rate. During the severe industrial slump in the spring of 1958 Blacks constituted 20 per cent of all jobless in the country. In the postwar period, opportunities for Blacks to get well-paid jobs were sharply reduced. Even in the manufacturing industries the percentage of Black workers employed fell considerably, while in low-pay, hard jobs generally, the percentage of Blacks increased. Of all employed Blacks, 65 to 70 per cent were performing simple unskilled labor.  [372•2  According to official statistics, the average earnings of Black men in 1960 amounted to only 52.5 per cent of the average earnings of white workers, while women made even less. In the southern states, the Black received one-third as much as the white worker.  [372•3 

p Such were only some of the facts of discrimination against Blacks.

p As we can see, much had changed over the years in this large section of the American people: it now had a different class structure, the proportion of workers in it had increased, and the economic and political role of Negroes in the history of the United States had grown. Changes had taken place in the sentiments of the Black population as its awareness and striving for equal rights mounted.

p The mass proletarianization of Blacks, the difficult conditions under which they lived, and the fact that their political rights were constantly being trampled upon—all this activated the Black people.

p The attitude to the Black movement on the part of various social groups and parties also was changing. Taking into account the changes that had taken place, the Communist Party of the USA, which had always devoted much attention to 373 the Black movement, re-examined some of its views on the question. The party program adopted back in 1930 had called for struggle for self-determination of the Black people as a separate nation. In 1959, the 17th convention of the party withdrew the slogan of Black self-determination and autonomy as erroneous. The history of the USA and the specific features of the formation of its people showed conclusively that the American Blacks did not constitute a separate nation. While the Blacks were, in the conditions of capitalist America, the most oppressed section of the population, they were nonetheless an organic part of the American people. Seeking to escape from jimcrowism in the South, many Negroes went to other states. However, there, too, they encountered discrimination, unemployment and deplorable housing conditions. No matter where they went—to New York or Chicago, San Francisco or Los Angeles, or the capital of the USA, Washington, D.C.—poverty and privations accompanied them everywhere.

p When trying to rent a home in a white residential area the Black ran into discrimination: landlords turned him down. When looking for work in a factory or office, he was further convinced of his lack of equal rights as employers took the white worker first. When counting the money in his pay envelope, he saw that he got much less than the white worker did for the same work.

p From time to time, the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government and the bourgeois political parties undertake certain measures to broaden civil rights. By themselves, however, these moves prove to be clearly inadequate for solving the Black question, not only because they are always half-measures but also because they are not strictly enforced.

p An example of the ineffectiveness and limited nature of steps taken by the authorities in the Black question was the Supreme Court decision of May 1954, outlawing segregation in public schools. Formally, it did not have the force of law, even though it was based on the Constitution. In 1957, Congress passed a civil rights law which was of little practical benefit to the Blacks. In response, however, the southern racists, the Dixiecrats, and their allies in the Republican Party staged a revolt against the Supreme Court decision. Nineteen senators 374 and 77 members of the House of Representatives—most of them Democrats from the southern states—joined in declaring that they regarded the Supreme Court decision on abolishing school segregation as “a clear abuse of judicial power" that encroached upon “the reserved rights of the States and the people".  [374•1 

p This racist declaration was essentially a call to the forces of reaction in the States to suppress the Black movement. The state legislatures of 9 southern states adopted resolutions declaring the Supreme Court decision invalid in their states. The racist movement of the so-called White Citizens Councils grew substantially with the open backing of the state governments. The stench from burning Ku Klux Klan crosses, the symbol of the racists’ readiness to commit terrorist acts, hung ominously over cities and towns of the South. In Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia and other states, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was subjected to persecution.

p The liberation movement did not retreat before the new offensive of reaction. In December 1955, a mass boycott against the big National Citizen Lines, which operated buses in ten southern states, began in Montgomery, Alabama. About 50,000 persons, representing almost the entire Negro population of the city, took part in the boycott, which lasted for seven months and ended only after segregation was abolished on the local buslines of the state. The boycott was led by the Rev. Martin Luther King, who later became a prominent leader of the Black movement.

p The events in Montgomery had repercussions throughout the country. Speaking at a convention of the NAACP in June 1956, King said: “You can never understand the bus protest in Montgomery without understanding that there is a new Negro in the South, with a new sense of dignity and destiny."  [374•2 

p The fight against segregation in the schools was nationwide, but was particularly sharp in the South. The Eisenhower administration remained passive to the continued sabotage of the Supreme Court decision by state officials. Black discontent 375 with the inactivity of the federal authorities grew. This found expression in a mass march of Blacks on Washington in May 1957, in which 30,000 people from more than 30 states of the South, North and West took part, including representatives of unions and youth and church organizations. In Washington, the marchers held meetings to voice the demand for Black civil rights. Noting the big role that Black workers had played in organizing the march, Political Affairs magazine said: “Not since the Civil War has there ever been such a powerful, massive demonstration of the Negro people for first class citizenship.”   [375•1  The march was of a profoundly peaceful nature. The participants gathered for mass prayer meetings at the steps of Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial.

p After the march the struggle against segregation intensified. Certain of its episodes received publicity both within the 376 United States and abroad. This was the case with the events in Little Rock, Arkansas. When on September 1, 1957 nine Black children boldly came to enrol in a white school the racists turned the town into an armed camp reminiscent of scenes from the Civil War of the last century. On September 2, Governor Faubus ordered the national guard to Little Rock to support the racists. The Eisenhower administration, in turn, was forced to send in federal troops to demonstrate the authority of the federal government. But even in these circumstances, the southern states continued to ignore the Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in the schools. According to official data of the Civil Rights Commission, in 1960 there was not a single integrated school in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina—states where over a million Black school children lived. Of the 278,000 Black school children in Louisiana, only four were in schools with white children. And in Arkansas, only 100 of the state’s 104,000 Black school children were in integrated schools.  [376•1 

p The mass Negro movement was a peaceful movement of “non-violent resistance" under the strong influence of Black clergymen. This form of protest, some Black leaders said, would awaken the consciousness of the white population and win its support and sympathy. As King felt at the time, self-sacrifice lay at the core of non-violent resistance. If necessary, he said, “we must honorably fill up the jail houses of the South. It might even lead to physical death. But if such physical death is the price we must pay to free our children from a life of permanent psychological death, then nothing could be more honorable."  [376•2 

p At a convention of the NAACP in September 1956, the theory of gradualism (advocating a gradual solution of the Black problem through measures from above) was subjected to sharp criticism. Thurgood Marshall, Secretary of the NAACP, declared that gradualism was nothing more than a slowing down process born of fear and fed by terror. A. Philip Randolph, member of the executive council of the AFL-CIO, said: “And let us have no illusions about the doctrine of the 377 middle of the road gradualism or moderation, for they offer no hope or assurance of liberation from segregation. Negroes want their rights and want them now.”   [377•1 

p About 1.5 million Blacks belonged to trade unions, with 1.2 million of this number in AFL-CIO unions. These figures could have been considerably higher were it not for discrimination in the unions.

p The AFL-CIO leadership continued to hold to the racist positions of Gompersism. Its 29-member executive council included only two Blacks—A.Philip Randolph and Willard S. Townsend. But the leaders of the Black movement were unwilling to put up with the racist policy of the trade union bureaucracy any more. At the AFL-CIO convention in September 1959, Philip Randolph came forward with three resolutions proposing decisive measures against discrimination and segregation. The first demanded the expulsion from the AFL-CIO of two railroad unions, if within six months they failed to abolish discrimination in admitting new members. The second proposed that unions based on segregation be dissolved. And the third called for a drastic overhauling of the AFL-CIO anti-discrimination department to make it more effective. Randolph’s speech ruffled the top labor leaders. Meany rudely interrupted and snubbed the Black leader. “Who the hell appointed you guardian of the Black members of America?" he said.

p In many of the old AFL unions and Railroad Brotherhoods an arrogant attitude to Black workers was traditional. In running their unions, many racist-minded leaders followed the tested method of “divide and rule”. Animosity along ethnic and racial lines weakened the unity and solidarity of labor.

p In one of his addresses, the famous American Socialist, Daniel De Leon, aptly characterized the aims of bourgeois propaganda, saying that it was to make workers “believe that ‘Capital and Labor are brothers’. This is the important work for which the labor fakir is commissioned by the capitalists. He must make it plausible to the workers that they and their skinners are brothers."  [377•2 

378

p Many decades have passed since then, but De Leon’s characterization of bourgeois propaganda remains applicable.

p The men who have taken over the governing bodies of the AFL-CIO have little in common with the rank-and-file union members. Ideologically, the union bureaucracy is no less a reliable bulwark of bourgeois society than the capitalists themselves. It has frequently demonstrated its devotion to the policies of the monopoly bourgeoisie through its tireless praise of the capitalist system combined with meekness in the face of draconic anti-labor laws. At the second convention of the AFL-CIO in 1957, Meany claimed that labor had no objections to the system itself. He urged workers not to fight but to persuade employers that labor has the right to a fair share of the wealth produced by this system. The efforts made by the high-ranking officials of the federation to reconcile the interests of labor and management did not go unnoticed. The Fortune magazine, the organ of the business circles, for example, wrote: “If the AFL-CIO has anything to be thankful for at this juncture, it is that it has George Meany as president.”   [378•1  Meany earned this testimonial through his many years of activity in the AFL.

p But try as they might, the top labor leaders are unable to keep the unions in positions of passive defense. The representatives of the monopoly bourgeoisie themselves, through their anti-labor policies, willy-nilly undermine the conciliatory tactics of the trade union leaders and their appeals for class collaboration. It is the monopolies that teach the American workers lessons in class struggle, while the trade union bureaucracy keeps talking about “class harmony”. But present-day American realities provide certain facts that knock the ground out from under their rhetoric. In a report to the second convention of the federation, the AFL-CIO executive council, for example, noted that since the AFL-CIO merger the offensive against the unions on the part of the NAM and the Chamber of Commerce had intensified. And in a New Year’s message on December 31, 1960, AFL-CIO president George Meany said: “Then, of course, we have this drive by big business in which they are attempting to weaken and render 379 impotent this movement and finally, perhaps, to destroy it."  [379•1  There was no hint now of any kind of “class harmony" in this statement.

p At an NAM convention in December 1960, Arthur Goldberg, a successful trade union lawyer who was to become Secretary of Labor in Kennedy’s administration, later a Supreme Court Justice, and finally US representative in the UN, vainly urged the big business magnates to seek reconciliation with labor. “The challenge of the 60s,” said Goldberg, “is to end the cold war which exists between labor and management in America today. The challenge of the new age is to get these two powerful groups to ’bury the hatchet’."  [379•2 

p Bourgeois historians do not deny that the conciliatory policy of the top labor leaders stems from their bourgeois way of life. They go even further, seeing factors in the evolution of the trade union leadership that bring it close to enterprise management. Economist Richard A. Lester, for example, notes that the difference between the wages of rank-and-file members and the salaries of the presidents of the big unions became even greater in the 1950s. Further, he writes: “As a union stabilizes and ages, the top leadership becomes more administrative in character and the differences between union executives and management executives diminish."  [379•3  Therefore, Lester feels, union leaders are interested in peaceful relations with employers.

p It would be wrong, however, to disregard the positive role played in the struggle of the masses by the huge army of functionaries at the lower levels in the state labor councils of the AFL and CIO and the trade union locals. Most of them render invaluable service to the workers in conducting strikes, referendums, boycotts and so on. There were and are people among trade union officers who are guided by conscience as they honestly and selflessly carry out their responsibilities.

p From time to time, discontent at the lower levels with the inaction of the central apparatus of the AFL-CIO brought the 380 situation within the federation to the boiling point. The leaders of the industrial unions, most of all subject to pressure from below, on more than one occasion criticized Meany’s diehard policies. At a session of the AFL-CIO executive council in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in March 1959, Reuther got through a decision to organize a march of unemployed to Washington. Upon his arrival, Meany was furious over this decision and demanded that it be revoked, regarding a march of unemployed as nothing other than a Communist plot. When Reuther threatened to resign from a number of posts he held in the federation’s structure, Meany agreed to a conference of unemployed to be held in Washington.

p Endeavoring in every way to curb the unemployed movement, the executive council set a very low rate of state representation at the conference. Mass demonstrations of unemployed in the US capital could have served as an impressive warning from the organized labor movement. But the trade union bosses reduced the whole affair to tearful speeches and demagogic statements about the needs and sufferings of the unemployed.

p By the third convention of the AFL-CIO, held in September 1959, the leadership of the federation found itself in the most difficult position. The unions were losing members under the impact of automation and unemployment, and the organizing drive promised in 1955 was still not under way. Meany’s keynote address at the convention abounded in anti-Soviet attacks. Attempting to obfuscate the failure of his policy, he urged the delegates to think more not of the needs of the unions but of the fate of the nation.

p A number of delegates raised the question of strengthening the independent political activity of the unions and creating an American labor party.

p Michael Quill, president of the Transport Workers, spoke of the senselessness of counting on the so-called liberal Democrats. In his words, the Kennedy-Landrum bill  [380•1  indicated that labor had no effective political weapon.

p Even the president of the National Maritime Union, Joseph Curran, criticized the AFL-CIO policy of electing labor’s 381 “friends" to Congress and then sitting back idly to see what they do for the unions. In his view, the Political Action Committee had proved itself to be ineffective as an instrument of the labor movement.

p Such critical sentiments testified to certain shifts in the thinking of some trade union leaders. But this did not mean that a breach was made in the policy of opportunism. In his concluding speech Meany put everything back where it was before.

p The arguments about labor’s independent political action remained empty sounds for the AFL-CIO leadership. In the convention resolutions, concrete proposals were artificially pulverized and converted into general, often vague, declarations. Resolutions followed a typical standardized pattern. First an acknowledgement that the monopolies were out to destroy the labor movement, and then assurances of devotion to the capitalist system in which the monopolies dominate. The resolution on political education, for example, asserted that the goal of the Landrum-Griffin law was to destroy, blow up, and crush the labor movement. How should the unions respond to this attack by the monopolies? The resolution stressed that labor and management must resolve their differences within the framework of the free enterprise system.

The reality of the class struggle and the anti-labor policies of monopoly reaction bring the union leaders into conflict with their own philosophy of class collaboration. The desire of the monopolies to enfeeble and undermine the unions poses a threat to the labor leaders themselves and, ultimately, undermines their own positions. Therefore, although they declare themselves to be defenders of capitalism, they are forced to enter into struggle against the employers. But the extent of their militancy is often determined not by the demands of the workers, but by the monopolies’ hostility and the vigor of their attacks. Faced with these attacks, the union leaders first of all seek ways of reconciling the conflict in order to retain respectability in the eyes of the ruling class. And it turns out that only “unreasonable capitalists" fail to understand the “usefulness” of unions and show foul ingratitude to their leaders, headed by George Meany.