From Propaganda Society to Communist Party: Pages from Party History, 1919-1925

From Propaganda Society to Communist Party:
Pages from Party History, 1919-1925

by C.E. Ruthenberg

First published in the October 1925 issue of Workers Monthly and subsequently as a pamphlet under the title
From the Third Through the Fourth Convention of the Workers (Communist) Party of America.

In his report to the Fifth Congress of the Commu-
nist International, Comrade Zinoviev ' declared :

"I think it is quite clear by now that the Communist
International, in its earliest years, in a number of countries,
was only a society for the propaganda of communism without
being aware of this itself. At the beginning, we thought we
were very strong, but as a matter of fact, in a number of
countries at that time we did not have Communist Parties,
but only great propaganda societies."

Later on, in the same report, he declared:

"In spite of all weaknesses, in spite of all shortcomings
of our sections, we are now in a number of countries, no
longer propaganda societies, but we have grown into a
Communist Party and in part even into a mass Communist
Party."

Comrade Zinoviev made clear at the Fifth Congress,
and this was emphasized still more strongly at the Enlarged
Executive Committee of the Communist International, held
last March, that there was still a third stage in the develop-
ment of the Communist Parties, that is, the Bolshevization
of the Communist Parties.

The three stages of development — propaganda sects,
Communist Parties, and Bolshevized Communist Parties
— are also the stages of development of the Communist
Party in this country. If we examine the history of the Com-
munist Party in this country, we will come to the conclu-
sion that our Party has definitely left behind the stage of
development in which it was a propaganda sect and that it
has created a firm foundation of policies and tactics for its
development as a Communist Party — even as a mass Com-
munist Party — and that it now stands before those great
tasks which will make it really a Bolshevik Party.

From the time of its organization in 1919, until the
organization of the Workers Party at the end of 1921, was,
roughly speaking, the period of existence of the Party as a
propaganda sect; the period from the formation of the
Workers Party until the Fourth National Convention which
closed on the sixth anniversary of the formation of the Com-

munist Party, was the period of the development and growth,
with some setbacks, into a Communist Party; the Fourth
National Convention can be said to have definitely crystal-
lized the policies and tactics which make our Party a Com-
munist Party and also to have laid down the beginning of
the program through which the first steps will be taken for
the Bolshevization of the Party 2

The Period of the Propaganda Sect

The purpose of this article is not to present a de-
tailed history of the entire development of the Party, but
rather to deal with that important phase of its development
which took place between the Third and Fourth National
Conventions and in the Fourth National Convention. It is
necessary, however, briefly to sketch the earlier years of the
Party development in order to lay the basis for discussion
of the last twenty months of Party history, and also to clarify
what are the characteristics of the three stages of develop-
ment of a Communist Party pointed out above.

The Communist Party came into existence in the
United States, as elsewhere, in response to the ferment cause
in the socialist parties by the Russian Revolution. It was the
historical example, that is, the establishment of a proletar-
ian state through an armed uprising of the working masses,
the sweeping away of the old parliamentary form of gov-
ernment, the establishment of the new workers' government
upon the foundation of the Soviets, that drove into the so-
cialist parties the wedge which split them into two sharply
defined groups, those who pretended they could achieve a
socialist society through forms wrung from the capitalist
state and those who saw the only road to socialism, the
overthrow of the capitalist state and the establishment of
the proletarian state, the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The Communist Party organized in the United States
in September 1919, clearly stated this fundamental differ-
ence in principle in the program it adopted. Its analysis of
the development of the Socialist Party showed that reform-

1

From Propaganda Society to Communist Party

ist socialism led to the betrayal of the workers and not to
socialism. It considered the propaganda of this fundamen-
tal difference between the Socialists and Communists its
chief task.

In the four months of existence as an open Commu-
nist Party which our "American democracy" permitted it, 3
the work of the Party consisted almost entirely of propa-
ganda to drive home this difference between Socialists and
Communists in the minds of the workers. The government
persecution towards the end of 1919 and the beginning of
1920 helped to accentuate this tendency on the part of the
Party. The Party was attacked because it taught the workers
that they could emancipate themselves from capitalism only
through an armed uprising which would overthrow the capi-
talist state and establish a soviet government. After it was
driven underground, the party considered it all the more
its duty to continue this propaganda. This would have been
all very well if the Party had understood how to connect
the proletarian revolution with the immediate struggles of
the workers, but it did not understand how to do this. It
had no connections with the masses of workers and their
immediate struggles. The Party existed as something sepa-
rate and apart from the life and struggles of the masses.
The way which it showed the workers to their emancipa-
tion was, to be sure, correct, but it had not learned how to
cross the void between itself and the working masses and to
lead them toward the way to which it pointed as leading to
their emancipation. It had no program or policies for their
immediate struggle. Its entire work consisted of pointing
to the ultimate means of achieving the proletarian revolu-
tion. It was purely a propaganda society and as long as it
remained such a propaganda society it could not establish
its leadership and influence among the masses.

Development Toward a Communist Party

The struggle for the formation of the Workers Party
and adoption of the program for work within the existing
unions marked the beginning of the second period in the
growth of the Party. Not that the formation of an open
party in itself would necessarily transform the Party from a
propaganda sect to a Communist Party. An open party can
just as easily fall into a sectarian policy — as later develop-
ments of our Party show. The struggle for the open party,
however, was an effort to create an instrument through
which the Party could actually play a part in the everyday
fights of the workers, establish its prestige and influence
among them, and as such must be considered as one of the
first steps away from the previous sectarian policy.

The first real development from a propaganda sect
into a Communist Party came during the year 1922. The

Party members began to function of the trade union field
as part of the Trade Union Educational League, and the
influence of the Party began to develop in the struggles in
the trade unions. The Party played its part in the miners'
strikes and the railway shopmen's strike of that year. It
learned to take up the immediate struggles of the workers
and on the basis of these struggles to win support for its
policies and to establish its leadership. It had learned that
the workers' demands and struggles of the day are the start-
ing point from which it must move them forward into more
revolutionary action against the capitalist class and the capi-
talist state.

In June 1922, the Party formulated the statement of
the application of the United Front tactic to the situation
in the United States. It took up the slogan of the Labor
Party which had developed a strong momentum among
the workers and soon became the leader in the movement
for the formation of a Labor Party. The Party made the
attack upon the Bridgman Convention the means of wid-
ening its influence among the workers by initiating a united
front defense. 4 It met the government persecution of the
foreign-born workers by the formation of Councils for the
Protection of the Foreign-Born, thus extending its influ-
ence among the workers.

The fact that by July 1923, when the convention
called by the Farmer-Labor Party for the formation of a
Farmer-Labor Party was held, our Party could elect 200
delegates to this convention, mostly from the trade unions,
and could take the leadership of the 550 delegates, repre-
senting over 600,000 workers, who were present at that
convention — this fact was an indication of the progress
the Party has made in establishing contact with the masses
and becoming a Communist Party.

At the end of 1923, when the Third National Con-
vention was held, 5 the Party had seemingly cast off its sec-
tarian past and was no longer what Comrade Zinoviev de-
scribed as a propaganda society. It had sunk its roots deeply
among the masses, it had won a place as the leader in the
movement for a Labor Party. It had gained a strong influ-
ence in the trade unions through its fight for amalgam-
ation. It had learned to make itself part of the immediate
struggles of the workers, as in the case of Councils for Pro-
tection of the Foreign-Born. It was well on the road to be-
coming a Communist Party in contradistinction to the pro-
paganda society which it had been.

The Third National Convention

With this brief preliminary survey of the past his-
tory of our Party in its struggle to become a Communist

From Propaganda Society to Communist Party

Party, the ground is cleared for consideration of the devel-
opment between the Third and Fourth National Conven-
tions of the Party.

The Third National Convention adopted the policy
submitted by the Party leadership which had guided the
Party in its development along the correct Communist line.
The theses and resolutions of the Third National Conven-
tion laid the basis for further development of our Party as a
Communist Party. In the light of this fact we may well ask
how it came to be that the Party was compelled to go
through a bitter factional struggle, lasting almost a year, to
prevent the Party again becoming involved in the morass
of sectarianism.

The explanation is found in the grouping which de-
veloped within the Party itself. The sectarianism of the pe-
riod of the Party history up to 1922 was a left sectarianism.
The new sectarianism which threatened the Party came from
the right wing of the Party.

The formation of the Workers Party at the end of
1921 had brought into the organization a membership
making up a majority of the Party which had not passed
through the experiences of the previous years. This group
had held aloof from the Communist Party at the time of its
organization in 1921, remaining in the Socialist Party or
maintaining a separate organizational existence.

All of the Language Federations in the Socialist Party
had been to a large degree national social organizations.
Those Language Federations which joined the Commu-
nist Party in 1919 lost through the government persecu-
tions the major part of the element of its membership which
had joined them as social organizations. At least two-thirds
of the membership of the Federations which joined the
Communist Party in 1919 dropped out of the Party after
the government raids, leaving within the Party only the
conscious Communist elements.

This was not true of the Finnish Federation, the Ger-
man Federation, part of the Jewish Federation, the Czecho-
slovakian Federation, and the Scandinavian Federation, all
of which came into the Party only after the formation of
the Workers Party. This group of the membership was still
strongly under the influence of the Socialist traditions. Their
attitude toward the main tasks of the Party was that the
Party should devote itself to propaganda and organizational
work. The drawing of the Party into the mainstream of the
struggles of the masses in this country was criticized as
"adventurism" and "maneuvering."

What has been said above was particularly true of
the Finnish Federation, which composed at least one-third
of the membership of our Party. Only a small part of this
membership actually participates in the work of the Party
in the class struggle. It has not yet broken with the pleasant

unruffled existence as part of a socialist organization, free
from the duties, burdens, and work which are the lot of a
Communist who actually carries on a Communist struggle.

At the Third National Convention, the Foster group,
which had been part of the leadership of the Party and which
had formed a separate group on the issue of our Labor Party
policy after the Federated Farmer-Labor Party convention,
secured a majority in the National Convention of the Party
through the support of the right-wing sectarian elements
described above.

Thus, while the Third National Convention adopted
correct principles and policies, it placed in the leadership
of the Party the group which had its support in the right-
wing of sectarian elements. The result of this combination
soon became apparent on the first occasion that the Cen-
tral Executive Committee was faced with the necessity of
formulating a policy to meet a new situation. It fell into
sectarian errors. The tendency of the Central Executive
Committee to coalesce with it support in the Party was
irresistible, and the Party as a consequence was thrown into
a new struggle, the struggle against the right-wing sectar-
ian tendency of the Foster group by the Central Executive
minority, which fought to keep the Party on the correct
lines of development as a Communist Party.

The Issue of Trotskyism

The first question on which the influence of the right
wing of our Party made itself felt was the attitude of the
Foster group in the Central Executive Committee on the
question of Trotskyism. 6 Lore, who had been elected to the
Central Executive Committee, telegraphed to the Volks-
zeitung that "the Trotskyites have won the Party." 7 Lore was
the leader of the extreme right of the Party. When the issue
of endorsement of the Old Guard of the Communist Party
of Russia came before the Central Executive Committee,
the committee majority hesitated and vacillated. 7 It first
refused to publish an article endorsing the Old Guard be-
cause not sufficient information was at hand on the issues.
It later voted down a motion submitted by the minority to
endorse the Old Guard and adopted the proposal to print
all material, and that the question of Trotskyism should
not be made a factional issue in the Party. It was not until
after the convention of the Russian Communist Party
definitely condemned Trotskyism and after Comrade Fos-
ter returned from Moscow that the Central Executive Com-
mittee actually went on record endorsing the Old Guard
against Trotsky. Even then Ludwig Lore voted against this
endorsement.

We have in this question the first indication of the

4

From Propaganda Society to Communist Party

tendency of the Foster majority of the Central Executive
Committee to make compromises in the direction of its
right wing support in the Party. The vacillation and hesita-
tion to place itself on record on the issues of Trotskyism
was due to the fact that it was exactly those groups in the
Party which supported it and which were its basis in the
Party which were infected by Trotskyism.

The Fight Against Loreism

Lore has been in consistent opposition to the poli-
cies of the Party from time of its organization. Even at the
time of the formation of the Left Wing, Lore, together with
Scott Nearing, 8 led an opposition in the Left Wing and
finally broke with it. Lore opposed the underground Party
at a time when it was not possible to preserve the Commu-
nist movement organizationally in any other form than
through an underground organization. Lore opposed the
German Communist Party and the Communist Interna-
tional on the question of Levi 9 and supported Serrati 10 of
Italy against the Communist International.

After the formation of the Workers Party, Lore op-
posed those policies which had as their purpose to take the
Party into the movement of the workers and to establish its
prestige and leadership through fighting with them in their
everyday struggles. Thus Lore opposed the adoption of the
first statement of the United Front policy of the Party, which
included the Labor Party policy. Lore was opposed to the
Party sending delegates to the convention of the "Confer-
ence for Progressive Political Action" in Cleveland in De-
cember 1922, 11 which was one of the maneuvers through
which the Party gained prestige in relation to the Labor
Party movement. Within the Central Executive Commit-
tee, Lore fought consistently to have the Labor Party built
upon individual membership, thus making it a competing
organization with the Workers Party and destroying it as
an expression of the United Front. The views and policies
advocated by Lore were Left Wing Socialist but not Com-
munist views and policies.

The errors of Lore as an individual had been fought
by the Central Executive Committee prior to the Third
National Convention. At the Third National Convention,
through his opposition to the Labor Party-LaFollette alli-
ance, which was proposed by the convention these submit-
ted by the Central Executive Committee, Lore had crystal-
lized around himself the opposition to this policy. There
developed within the Party a definite Lore group, not only
opposed to the Labor Party-LaFollette alliance, but which
was in opposition to the United Front tactic and maneu-
vering which the Central Executive Committee had applied

prior to the convention in order to draw the Party into the
mass struggles of the workers.

The first test of the attitude of the new Central Ex-
ecutive Committee majority on the question of Loreism 12
came when Lore wrote an editorial on the Fifth Anniver-
sary of the Communist International, distorting the entire
history and policies of the Communist International. The
Central Executive Committee minority demanded a state-
ment from the Central Executive Committee repudiating
this editorial. This the Central Executive Committee re-
fused to do. This policy was in effect to protect Lore against
the exposure and condemnation of his fallacious views.

In the struggle which followed on the question of
Loreism, the Central Executive Committee majority mani-
fested the same tendency, even after the first decision of the
Communist International. It repeatedly refused to adopt
proposals of the minority of the Central Executive Com-
mittee to expose Lore before the Party and to correct his
erroneous policies. It was not until after the second deci-
sion of the Communist International categorically con-
demning Lore and directing his removal from the Central
Executive Committee that the Central Executive Commit-
tee majority, composed of the Foster group, took a stand
against Loreism.

This refusal to fight Loreism was another expression
of the right-wing orientation of the Foster group, which
could not take a stand against Lore because it was allied
with Lore, particularly in New York City, where it depended
upon the support of Lore for its support in the Party.

Liquidation of the Labor Party Policy

The decision of the Communist International against
the proposed Labor Party-LaFollette alliance, while not
based on the reasons for opposition to this policy on the
part of the right wing Loreist group in our Party, strength-
ened this group. The decision of the Communist Interna-
tional was not based on opposition to such a maneuver in
principle. In fact, the decision made clear that such ma-
neuvers were permissible for Communist Parties. The de-
cision of the Communist International was made on the
basis of the situation of our Party, its degree of strength and
ideological development, but not because the maneuver was
incorrect in principle. However, the Lore group had op-
posed this alliance, and the fact of the Communist Inter-
national deciding against it strengthened the Lore group.
Both the majority and the minority of the Central Execu-
tive Committee had been declared in error on the Labor
Party-LaFollette alliance and thus had burnt their fingers.
This decision had the effect of driving the Foster Central

From Propaganda Society to Communist Party

Executive Committee majority closer to the Lore group.
The reaction of the Foster majority was to adopt a position
in opposition to further maneuver, that is, to take a right-
wing sectarian policy, as the safest course. The difference
between the majority of the Central Executive Committee
and the minority group was then indicated in the fact that
the decision on the question of the Labor Party-LaFollette
alliance had no such effect upon the minority.

With the defeat of the Party in the St. Paul Conven-
tion, compelling the Party to nominate its own candidates
in the Presidential elections, 13 came the test of the Central
Executive majority.

The decision made in October in relation to the drop-
ping of the slogan for a Labor Party in the AF of L conven-
tion, the statement on the results of the Presidential elec-
tions, and finally the thesis of the majority declaring against
the continuance of the Labor Party policy, were expressions
of the new right-wing sectarianism in our Party in full
bloom.

The Foster group had declared that their policy was
not opposition in principle to the Labor Party policy, but
opposition under the then-existing conditions. It is true
that the thesis of the Foster group contained the declara-
tion: "We are not opposed to the Labor Party in principle."
While this platonic declaration was made, the tone of the
whole discussion in the Party was otherwise and the thesis
itself declared in a section endeavoring to prove that advo-
cacy of the Labor Party slogan was a right-wing deviation:

"The position taken by the comrades of this tendency
is that the only way to crystallize independent political action
of workers and poor farmers is through a Farmer-Labor
Party, forgetting the existence of the Workers Party as the
political class Party of the workers and poor farmers. These
comrades also take the position that the only want to build
a mass Communist Party in America is through a Farmer-
Labor Party, thus enunciating a new principle that the
Workers Party can never become a mass Communist Party
except through organizing and working within a Farmer-
Labor Party."

And further along in the same section we find a dec-
laration that:

"This non-Communist conception of the role of our Party
manifest itself particularly in the tendency to resort to all
kinds of new political organizations, substitutes for the
Workers Party, whenever an opportunity presents itself to
appeal to masses of workers on concrete issues of everyday
life."

These two quotations indicate clearly where the Fos-
ter group was drifting. The latter quotation is in essence a
declaration against the United Front tactic. For, what do
we seek to do in the United Front maneuver but to unite

existing workers' organizations for a common struggle on
some particular issue? The declaration that the formation
of such United Front organizations is creating substitutes
for the Workers Party is of course pure sectarianism, for if
the Workers Party carries on a correct Communist policy
in relation to such United Front organizations, they will
not be substituted for the Workers Party, but will be the
means of building it, just as the Labor Party policy resulted
in building up the Workers Party.

That the sectarian error of the Labor Party was not
an isolated mistake was indicated by the fact that the Fos-
ter group made the same error in relation to work among
women when it endeavored to liquidate the United Coun-
cil of Workingclass Women as a competing organization to
the Workers Party, and it made a similar sectarian error in
proposing that the Party should make a nonpartisan relief
organization a department of the Party itself.

The struggle which developed in the Central Execu-
tive Committee during the same period over the question
of the Party's trade union work was part of the same gen-
eral tendency of the Central Executive Committee major-
ity. The struggles were over the questions of carrying on a
campaign to win the trade unions ideologically for Com-
munism at the same time that we carried on an election
campaign, and against the overemphasis upon the election
campaign. This issue arose in another form in relation to
proposals to inject major political issues into certain trade
union situations. The tendency of trade union work for
the sake of trade union work and not for the purpose of
building up the influence and prestige of the Communist
Party goes with the right-wing sectarianism.

Later in relation to the conferences of the "Confer-
ence for Progressive Political Action" which were being held
in various states and the national conference held in Febru-
ary 1925, the Central Executive Committee majority raised
the slogan, "Boycott the CPPA."

Thus the circle was completed. We had been a pro-
paganda society, we were again to be a propaganda society.
We had fought our way from the status of propaganda so-
ciety to that of a developing Communist Party playing its
part in the struggles of the masses, entering into these
struggles, and bringing leadership to them and direction
along a Communist line. We had returned to the policy of
"Boycott the CPPA," that is, boycott a mass movement of
workers.

The Central Executive Committee majority elected
at the Third National Convention through the support of
a right wing sectarian group in our Party had coalesced with
the right-wing sectarian group and had adopted the policy
of this group as the policy of the Party. The Party was in
danger of losing all that it had gained in developing itself as

From Propaganda Society to Communist Party

a Communist Party. It was sliding down the road the So-
cialist Labor Party had gone, to become a self-admiration
society living its life apart from the actual struggles of the
workers.

The Struggle in the Party

It was this issue, whether we should retrace our steps
toward sectarianism, or go forward in developing our Party
as a Communist Party, that was at the bottom of the fac-
tional struggle in our Party during the past year. Happily,
with the aid of the Communist International, the Party
was returned to the right path. The decision of the Com-
munist International swept away every shred of the sectari-
anism which had developed in our Party. It made clear why
the Labor Party policy must be a major policy of our Party.
It declared against a sectarian attitude in regard to work
among women. It directed the Party to the right tactic in
relation to trade union work, took decisive measures against
Loreism within the Party. The Central Executive Commit-
tee minority, which had led the fight to develop the Party
from a propaganda society to a Communist Party, suc-
ceeded, with the aid of the Communist International, in
preventing the Party from again degenerating into the pro-
paganda society which it had been.

The Fourth National Convention

The Fourth National Convention marked the close
of the period of struggle to prevent our Party again degen-
erating into a propaganda society. It also marked the be-
ginning of a new period in the history of the Party — the
period of the Bolshevization of the Party.

The situation in the convention presented an inter-
esting contradiction. All the resolutions outlining the policy
of the Party for the coming period were unanimously
adopted in the Parity Commission which worked out these
resolutions. Still, there was a sharp factional division in the
convention and the ten days of debate marked one of the
bitterest struggles in the history of our Party.

The explanation of this situation is to be found in
the year of factional struggle to keep our Party on the cor-
rect Communist line. The policy of the Foster group had
been corrected through the struggle of the minority in the
Central Executive Committee and the decision of the Com-
munist International. The resolutions presented to the
Convention stressed this corrected policy. It again put the
Party on the road to development as a Communist Party.
The debate on these resolutions dealt with the policies con-

tained in the resolutions as contrasted with the policies
which the Foster group had presented previously. It was
necessary to point out the errors of a sectarian character
which had been made and to stamp these definitely before
the Party in order that there might not exist a further pos-
sibility that such errors would again find support in our
Party.

The relation of forces within the convention also
contributed to sharpen the discussion and the factional
alignment.

An analysis of the decision of the Communist Inter-
national makes clear the aims of the Communist Interna-
tional in relation to our Party. This aim was to break the
alliance which had existed between the Foster group in the
Central Executive Committee and the right wing of the
Party. This policy is clearly indicated in the sharp position
taken by the Communist International against Lore and
Loreism and its insistence on cooperation in the Party lead-
ership between the two leading groups in the Party.

A realization of this aim of the Communist Interna-
tional has been seriously hampered by the tactics of the
Foster group in the period between the return of the del-
egation from Moscow and the National Convention and
was made impossible by its alliance with the right wing of
the Party in the struggle for control of the National Con-
vention.

The Foster group had suffered a defeat in the deci-
sion of the Communist International. Its main line of policy
was declared to be incorrect by the decision. While the de-
cision criticized the minority in relation to the Labor Party
policy, the main line of the minority in this respect was
upheld. Facing this situation, the Foster group endeavored
to divert the attention of the Party from the political issues
before the Party. In place of creating the opportunity for a
thoroughgoing understanding of the decision of the Com-
munist International, which would have raised the theo-
retical level of our Party, it sought to divert the whole
struggle into a fight over petty organizational questions and
sought to divert the attention of the Party from the mean-
ing of the decision of the Communist International on
Loreism through an effort to connect the minority, which
had made a consistent fight against Loreism, with the Loreist
group in the Party.

These efforts of the Foster group took the form of
sending to all the Party branches the "nine points" circular
containing charges and defense in relation to factional ac-
tions within the Party during the absence of the delegates
in Moscow. It sent to the Party a statement in regard to the
Needle Trades situation in which the minority group was
attacked as supporters of the Loreist elements, and a simi-
lar statement in reference to Comrade Poyntz. To all of

From Propaganda Society to Communist Party

these statements the minority group had been denied the
opportunity to make a reply.

These activities of the Foster group were, to say the
least, acts of bad faith in relation to the decision of the
Communist International. They were efforts to divert at-
tention from that decision and prevented the realization of
the aim of the Communist International as plainly indi-
cated in the decision, the unification of the Party leader-
ship in a struggle against the right wing in the Party.

The election of delegates in the Party was another
factor which laid the basis for a continuation of the struggle
in the convention. The Foster group, as has been pointed
out previously, gained this majority in the Third National
Convention through the support of the right wing of the
Party. The same situation developed in relation to the elec-
tions for the Fourth Convention. It was exactly those ele-
ments which are the right wing of our Party, the Finnish
Federation, the Czechoslovak Federation, the Scandinavian
Federation, part of the Jewish Federation, which formed
the basis of the Foster group in the National Convention.
In place of a unification of the leadership of the Party to
fight for a correct Communist line 15 and the Bolsheviza-
tion of the Party, the Foster group followed the policy of a
fight against the minority which had supported the correct
policies and used the elements in the right of our Party as
the basis of this struggle against the minority.

Formally, the Foster group won a majority of the
delegates to the National Convention. In five districts, how-
ever, which form the greater section of the Party — Bos-
ton, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland
— the minority had won a clear victory, for it claimed the
districts on the basis of contests before the convention. The
decision of the contested districts against the minority by
the Foster group, the rejection of its proposal that in New
York, Philadelphia, and Cleveland the parity principle
should be applied, was, for the minority group, a rejection
of the policy of the Communist International and an indi-
cation that the Foster group would not bring about amal-
gamation of the leading groups in the Party but would con-
tinue an alliance with the right wing in the Party and as
leader of this right wing would continue a struggle against
the minority. It was this situation, the continuation of the
alignment which had cause the sectarian errors and the fac-
tional struggle of the past year, the beginning of a clear
delineation of a struggle between right and left wing in the
Party, which was the basis of the severe factional debate
and struggle in the Convention.

The intervention of the Communist International
changed this situation and eliminated the danger of a con-
solidated right wing leadership in our Party. This interven-
tion took the form of a cablegram addressed to the chair-

man of the Parity Commission, Comrade Green, 16 reading
as follows:

"Communist International decided under no
circumstances should be allowed that Majority suppresses
Ruthenberg Group because:

FIRSTLY — It has finally become clear that the
Ruthenberg Group is more loyal to decisions of the
Communist International and stands closer to its views.

SECONDLY — Because it has received in most
important districts, the majority or an important minority.

THIRDLY — Because Foster Group employs
excessively mechanical and ultra-factional methods.

Demands as minimum:

FIRSTLY — Ruthenberg Group must get not less than
40 percent of Central Executive Committee.

SECONDLY — Demand as ultimatum from majority that
Ruthenberg retains post of Secretary.

THIRDLY — Categorically insist upon Lovestone's
Central Executive Committee membership.

FOURTHLY — Demand as ultimatum from majority
refraining removals, replacements, dispersions against
factional opponents.

FIFTHLY — Demand retention by Ruthenberg Group
of co-editorship of central organ.

SIXTHLY — Demand maximum application of parity
on all executive organs of Party.

If majority does not accept these demands then declare
that, in view of circumstances of elections, unclear who has
real majority and that methods of majority raise danger of
split and therefore Communist International proposes that
now only a temporary Parity Central Executive Committee
be elected with neutral chairman to call new Convention
after passions have died down. Those who refuse to submit
will be expelled.

This cablegram resulted in a bitter struggle and divi-
sion in the ranks of the Foster majority over the policy to
be pursued in the face of this second decision of the Com-
munist International. The Foster group finally decided al-
though the cablegram permitted them to take a majority of
the Central Executive Committee, that in the face of a dec-
laration by the Communist International that the Ruthen-
berg group was more loyal to the Communist International
and nearer to its views, it could not take over the leadership
of the Party. It proposed that a Central Executive Commit-
tee of an equal number of representatives from both groups
in the convention be elected and this proposal was adopted.

At the first meeting of the Central Executive Com-
mittee, Comrade Green, the chairman of the Parity Com-
mission, made the following declaration:

"Of course we have now a parity CEC, but it is not
exactly a parity CEC. With the decision of the Communist
International on the question of the groups in the American
party there go parallel instructions to the CI Representative
to support that group which was the former minority. If the
CI continues to support this policy, that will always be the

8

From Propaganda Society to Communist Party

case, that is, the CI Representative will be supporting that
group and therefore although we have a nearly parity CEC,
we have a majority and a minority in the CEC."

With the support of the Representative of the Com-
munist International, the majority of the leading commit-
tee of the Party was given to the Ruthenberg group. Thus
again responsibility for the leadership of the Party was placed
upon that group which had carried on the struggle against
sectarianism and to develop our Party from a propaganda
society into a Communist Party, and which during the past
twenty months has carried on the struggle against the Party's
again degenerating into a sectarian organization. This out-
come of the National Convention is a guarantee to the Party
that the struggle against sectarian errors has been finally
won and that our Party will, with the support of the Com-
munist International, go forward to new achievement in
developing itself as a mass Communist Party.

Convention Resolutions

The resolutions adopted by the Fourth National
Convention lay the foundation for such a development of
the Party. In these resolutions, formulated in the Parity
Commission under the chairmanship of the Representa-
tive of the Communist International, there is not a scintilla
of sectarianism.

These convention resolutions must be studied by our
whole Party, and the Party must be mobilized to transform
the resolutions into actual living things in the work of the
Party.

The major resolutions are those dealing with the gen-
eral tasks of the Party, the Labor Party, and the trade union
work of the Party. The Labor Party campaign must again
become a major activity of the Party. It is not only to be a
propaganda campaign, but the Party must again stir into
life and movement the working masses in the direction of
actual organization of the Labor Party. The mobilization of
the workers for a political struggle for their class interests is
the first requirement of the situation of the working-class
movement in the United States. If our Party can aid in stir-
ring into life and can crystallize as an organization a move-
ment of hundreds of thousands of workers to enter the lists
to fight against the capitalist parties, then we have made
the first great step forward in the development of the Ameri-
can working-class and at the same time toward our Party
becoming a mass Communist Party.

Closely connected with the Labor Party campaign is
the work in the trade unions. Our Party was able to make
substantial progress in this field in the past, but it never
mobilized its whole strength for the trade union work. The

records show that only one-third of the Party membership
are members of the trade unions. This situation must be
remedied. It will be one of the first tasks of the Party to
bring into the trade unions its whole membership and to
mobilize it for action there. The trade unions are the great-
est organized mass of workers in this country and offers the
greatest possibility for Communist propaganda. Our work
in the trade unions, under the slogans of the Labor Party,
amalgamation, trade union unity, will create a solid foun-
dation of Party influence among the masses.

In relation to the trade union work, the convention
resolutions emphasize the part that organization of the
unorganized will play in establishing Communist influence
among the organized workers. Our Party must take up the
task and make at least a beginning in the organization of
unorganized workers. These workers will be largely the
unskilled workers, most susceptible to Communist influ-
ence, and will form in the American Federation of Labor
the counterweight to the aristocracy of labor which today
dominates that organization.

The program for the struggle against imperialism,
for work among the farmers, work among the Negro work-
ers, and work among women, all outline concretely the tasks
of the Party in special fields which have not previously re-
ceived sufficient attention and which must from now on
be taken up aggressively by the Party as part of its work
going to the masses.

Bolshevization: The New Period of Development

The Fourth Convention has not only given our Party
a program for its development as a mass Communist Party,
but it has taken the initiative and laid the foundation for
the Bolshevization of our Party.

The resolutions outlining programs for work among
the masses are, of course, an important part of the program
of Bolshevization. A Bolshevik Party is a mass party — a
party which has its roots deep among the masses and influ-
ence their struggles, leading them into ever more aggressive
fights against the capitalist class and the capitalist state
power. A sectarian party cannot be a Bolshevik Party. The
fight against sectarianism is therefore a fight for
Bolshevization. In definitely cleaning its house of all sec-
tarianism, the Party has cleared the way for Bolshevization.

The resolution of the National Convention for the
liquidation of Loreism, which means a fight against all right-
wing opportunist tendencies in our Party, represents an-
other phase of the task of Bolshevization. In expelling Lore
from the Party, in its disciplinary action against Comrade
Askeli, 17 in its declaration in reference to Comrade Poyntz,

From Propaganda Society to Communist Party

the convention gave an expression of its earnestness and
determination that the fight against Loreism is not a mere
temporary struggle, but is to be carried on until every ves-
tige of such tendencies is liquidated in the Party. In the
attitude adopted by the new leading majority in the Jewish
section convention in relation to the Loreist elements there
is further indication that there will be no compromise on
this issue. The Bolshevik Party must carry on a ceaseless
struggle against opportunism, and this the Party will do.

The best guarantee that sectarianism will not again
gain a foothold in the Party, and also a guarantee against
opportunism of the Lore type, is the raising of the theoreti-
cal level of the Party. The work of educating the member-
ship of the Party in Marxism and Leninism 18 therefore be-
comes a vital part of the work of Bolshevization. The Na-
tional convention has adopted a program for this work and
the Central Executive Committee has already established
an Agitprop Department so that this work will be given
systematic attention in the future.

The reorganization of our Party on the basis of shop
nuclei and street nuclei (international branches) is for the
Party the greatest immediate transformation in the work of
Bolshevization. We cannot become a Bolshevik Party as long
as our Party is decentralized into eighteen language groups
and exists in the form of language and territorial branches.
The reorganization on the basis of shop nuclei is the basis
of our becoming a mass party.

The existing Party organization belongs to the past.
It was a Party organization existing outside of the working
class in place of inside as part of it. The new Party organiza-

tion will create the organ for carrying out our program for
work among the masses. The reorganization is the sine qua
non without which we cannot make even the first step to-
ward the Bolshevization of the Party. With the reorganiza-
tion, a new Party will come into existence — a Party in
close contact with the workers in the factories through its
shop nuclei, a Party with fractions in every trade union and
benefit society and cooperative — in a work, a Party that is
so deeply embedded among the workers and the organiza-
tions of the workers that there is no power which can sepa-
rate it from the working masses and prevent its influence
and leadership from growing powerful among these masses.

Thus, through these actions of the Fourth Conven-
tion, there has opened the new phase of Party development,
the period of Bolshevization. Our Party stands before tre-
mendous tasks and great opportunities. In order that these
tasks may be accomplished and to take advantage of the
opportunities before it, the Party must be united for the
work it has on hand.

The party has a correct program of activity. It has a
leadership which has the stamp of approval of the commu-
nist International as being the group closest to the views of
the Communist International in our Party. We must now
through actual work, through actual struggle, make our
program a reality. The immediate future requires of every
member of the Party greater sacrifice, greater service to the
Party than ever before in its history. We have achieved the
correct program, our Party leadership has shown in the past
that it can put our program into action. Now the Party
must work. •

Footnotes:

1. Grigori Zinoviev (1883-1936), member of the RSDRP from
1907 and of the Central Committee from 1912 until his re-
moval in the faction fight of 1927, was at this time the Chair-
man of the Executive Committee of the Communist
Internatonal (ECCI). He also, along with Iosif Stalin and Lev
Kamenev, was one of the leading three decision-makers in So-
viet Russia following Lenin's death in January 1924. The 5th
Congress of the Comintern, at which Zinoviev delivered the
keynote address, was held from June 17 to July 8, 1924.

2. The 4th National Convention of the Workers (Communist)
Party of America was held in Chicago from August 21-30,
1925. Lhis convention returned the reins of the American
Commuist Party to the Ruthenberg/Pepper/Lovestone faction
from the Foster/Canon/Bittelman faction.

3. Reference is to the coordinated mass raids which took place
the night of January 1/2, 1920, resulting in several thousand
arrests and the seizure of party offices and the records they
contained. Denied the use of headquarters or the mails, war-
rants pending for the arrest of their leading cadres, the Com-

munist Party of America and Communist Labor Party of
America were forced underground in the aftermath.

4. The 2nd Convention of the unified Communist Party of
America, held in Bridgman, Michigan in mid-August 1922,
was penetrated by a police spy and then raided by the authori-
ties for alleged violation of state "Criminal Syndicalism" stat-
utes. Court cases tied to the affair dragged on for years.

5. Reference to the "Third Convention" in this article relates to
the 3rd National Convention of the Workers Party of America,
which was held in Chicago, Dec. 30, 1923 to Jan. 2, 1924. A
3rd (and final) Convention of the underground Commuist
Party of America had previously been held in April of 1923.

6. "Trotskyism" as an ideological construction was a product of
the faction fight in the Russian Communist Party from the
time of Lenin's death. It was a tool used by the Zinoviev/Sta-
lin/Kamenev troika to isolate and defeat their leading com-
petitor for the helm of the Soviet state. The ideological con-
cept of "Leninism" dates from this same period.

6. Ludwig Lore (1875-1942) was a German-born textile worker

10

From Propaganda Society to Communist Party

who came to the United States in 1903. A life-long Socialist,
Lore served as the Secretary of the German Federation of the
Socialist Party up to the 1919 split and as well as editor of the
venerable New Yorker Volkszeitung. In 1920, Lore was a mem-
ber of the 3 member Editorial Board of the CLP publications
Voice of Labor and Communist Labor. Later in 1920, Lore was
sentenced to 5 years in prison as part of mass trial of the CLP
leadership held in Chicago; he was freed by a pardon of the
Governor after serving 1 days in prison. Lore later served as
the National Executive Secretary of the German Federation of
the Workers Party from 1922, and was elected to the Central
Executive Committee of the WPA by the 3rd Convention.
Lore was expelled from the Party for alleged right wing devia-
tion in 1925, purportedly the leading exponent of an alien
ideology called "Loreism." He wrote periodically for the lib-
eral and left wing press after his expulsion from the Commu-
nist Party. Lore translated Hitler's Mein Kampffor an unex-
purgated American edition in 1939.

7. By "Old Guard" of the Russian Communist Party is meant
Zinoviev, Stalin, and Kamenev in their faction struggle against
Trotsky.

8. Scott Nearing (1883-1983) was a well-known left wing econo-
mist and writer who lectured at the Socialist Party's Rand
School of Social Science from 1916-1923. He was a member
of the Communist Party only briefly, first admitted in 1927.
In his later years Nearing wrote a regular column for the non-
party Marxist theoretical journal Monthly Review.

9. Paul Levi (1883-1930) was a left wing German lawyer who
came over to the Communist Party of Germany in 1919. He
was for a time the German representative in the ECCI before
being expelled from the German Party for opposition to its
political line. After his expulsion, Levi returned to the Social
Democratic Party of Germany. He ultimately ended his life
by his own hand.

10. Giacomo M. Serrati (1874-1926) was a prominent leader of
the Italian Socialist Party and editor of its organ Avanti from
1914-1922. In 1924 he joined the Italian Communist Party
owing to a split of the Italian Socialist Party.

1 1 . The Conference for Progressive Political Action grew out of a
call issued by a committee representing the heads of the 16
railway unions. The organization sought to unite all progres-
sive labor, farmer, and cooperative political forces of the country
to elect progressives to Congress and the various state legisla-
tures. The group held two Conferences in 1922, including
the December gathering mentioned here. A major role was
played in the organization by Morris Hillquit and other lead-
ers of the Socialist Party. The group terminated itself in 1925.

12. Note the similarity to the tactics used in Soviet Russia against
Trotsky at this same time — the arbitrary creation of a loosely
defined but thoroughly alien "-ism" to be used as an extreme
epithet against factional opponents.

13. Sen. Robert LaFollette (1855-1925) was a progressive Re-

publican from Wisconsin who ran an independent progres-
sive campaign for President of the United States in 1924. His
entry into the race removed any chance for a new Labor Party
to gain political "traction" in that year. The Socialist Party did
not run a candidate for President in 1924, instead endorsing
and working for the election of LaFollette. LaFollette and the
Communists were bitterly at odds, however, making use of a
similar tactic unthinkable. A somewhat inept attempt was made
at establishing a (Communist-dominated) Farmer-Labor Party
at a convention held in St. Paul, Minnesota in June of 1924.
Utterly isolated, that group's nominee abruptly dropped out
of the race after only a month and the Workers Party felt itself
obligated to run its own nominee instead for President in-
stead. William Z. Foster was the nominee of the WPA in 1924.

14. Juliet S. Poyntz (1886-1937?), was the Nebraska-born daugh-
ter of a lawyer. Poyntz gained a Masters Degree from Colum-
bia University and later served as Educational Director of the
International Ladies Garment Workers Union, 1915-19 as well
as a researcher for the Rand School of Social Science. She joined
the Communist movement in 1921; at the end of 1923 she
was a delegate to the 3rd Convention of the WPA from the
New York district. She was censured by name by the 4th Con-
vention for having "persistently followed the policy of Lore-
ism, which is a right wing deviation away from the line of the
Communist International." The Convention Resolution de-
manded that Poyntz immediate cease supporting Lore. Poyntz
later went on to work for Soviet espionage in the 1930s. She
reputedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances dur-
ing the Ezhovshchina in the USSR, 1937.

15. Note Ruthenberg's use of the concept of a single correct "line"
here, several years before the ubiquitous use of the term "Gen-
eral Line" in the Soviet Union in association with the indus-
trialization campaign of the first Five Year Plan.

16. "P. Green" was Sergei Gusev (1874-1933), the Representa-
tive of the Communist International to the American Party.
Gusev (born Ia.D. Drabkhin) was a member of the RSDRP
from 1896 and in 1923-25 was the Secretary of the Central
Committee of the Russian Communist Party. Sent to the
United States as CI Rep in 1925, Gusev worked for the rest of
his life as a functionary in the Comintern, winding up as the
head of the Anglo-American Secretariat of the ECCI.

17. Askeli was a member of the editorial staff of the Finnish Com-
munist paper Tyomies, based in Superior, Wisconsin. The 4th
National Convention of the WPA in August 1925 unani-
mously passed a resolution blaming the "opportunist" ten-
dencies of Tyomies on the "influence of Comrade Askeli," who
was characterized as being "the consistent exponent of Loreist
tendencies." Askeli was removed from his post on the edito-
rial staff upon the direct orders of the Convention.

18. Note early use of the term "Leninism," an ideological con-
struct emerging as a byproduct of the faction fight within the
Russian Communist Party after the death of Lenin.

Footnotes compiled by Tim Davenport, who also edited the text.
© 1000 Flowers Publishing, Corvallis, OR, 2004. • Free reproduction permitted.

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