Just the second issue of John Reed, Ben Gitlow, and Eadmonn MacAlpine’s ‘Voice of Labor’; and the last to be issued by the ‘Labor Committee of the Socialist Party Left Wing.’ The next would be issued by the ‘Joint Council of the Shop Committees of the Communist Labor Party.’ Don’t miss MacAlpine’s report on the actors’ strike, and a New York City Interborough conductors’ description of that job in 1919.

The Voice of Labor (New York). Vol. 1 No. 2. August 30, 1919.

Contents: Mexico Next!, Actors on Strike by Eadmonn MacAlpine, The Seamen’s Strike by Sniper, Unionism in the Printing Trades by Al Seamon, What’s Going On, Leave it to the Government, Shop Committees in the Amalgamated by B. Gitlow, The British Shop Steward Movement by George Ellery, Carpenters Union: Some Contract, Newspaper Reporters Too by Pye, My Own Shop: Slaving for the New York Interborough by Patrick.

The Voice of Labor was started by John Reed and Ben Gitlow after the left Louis Fraina’s Revolutionary Age in the Summer of 1919 over disagreements over when to found, and the clandestine nature of, the new Communist Party. Reed and Gitlow formed the Labor Committee of the National Left Wing to intervene in the Socialist Party’s convention, eventually forming the Communist Labor Party, while Fraina became the first Chair of the Communist Party of America. The Voice of Labor’s intent was to intervene in the debate within the Socialist Party begun in the war and accelerated by the Bolshevik Revolution. The Voice of Labor became, for a time, the paper of the CLP. The VOL ran for about a year until July, 1920.

PDF of full issue: https://archive.org/download/v1n2-aug-30-1919-voice-of-labor-ocr/v1n2-aug-30-1919-voice-of-labor-ocr_text.pdf