Otto Huiswoud delivers a highly critical report on the work of the Communist Party among Black workers.

‘Huiswoud Makes Report on Party Negro Work at Communist Convention’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 6 No. 3. March 9, 1929.

Section on Party Program, Trade Union Work, Labor Congress Printed Many Speakers Participate in Discussion; Telegrams of Greeting Received

The sixth business session of the Sixth National Convention of the Workers (Communist) Party opened yesterday afternoon at 4 p.m., with delegate Mike Vritaric, anthracite miner from Pennsylvania, in the chair. After discussion on the previous reports by a number of speakers and the reading of telegrams of greetings, Otto Huiswood, head of the Negro Department of the Party, reported on the Negro work of the Party.

Among those participating in the discussion were Noral of Seattle, Bloor, Hacker of Cleveland, Toohey, secretary of the National Miners’ Union; Weisbord, secretary of the National Textile Workers’ Union; Browder, and Gerlach. At the evening session of the convention, Jack Stachel, assistant organization secretary of the Party, reported for the Organization Department.

The first half of the report of Huiswood on the Negro work of the Party follows. The remainder will be published in Monday’s issue.

This report covers largely the period of five months, October, 1928-February, 1929, since the work of the Negro Department has been under my direction. When I took charge of the work, there was no functioning Negro Department, tho there was one comrade in charge. Very little connection had been established with the districts and no methods or plans devised to initiate activities thruout the Party to increase our Negro membership and mobilize the entire Party behind the Negro work.

Most of the districts paid very little attention to this important phase of Party activity and since there was no coordination from the center and not specific instructions and advice to these various sections, no earnest attempt to work was made.

Besides, most white comrades conceived of Negro work as the work of the Negro comrades. While in some districts, especially in Chicago, very good work had been done in the past and important organizational gains made, practically everything fell thru and only the remnants of our former movement remained.

Neglect of Work.

The insufficient attention paid to this work by the Party as a whole resulted in very little actual organizational achievement. Because of insufficient forces and the lack of a definite and concrete program covering all the fields of activities, our policy was often confusing. As an instance, at a certain period we concentrated largely on the building of the American Negro Labor Congress (ANLC). In doing so, we forgot almost altogether to draw Negro workers into the Party, thereby failing to build the necessary cadres, which is the only active driving force capable of building any movement.

Apart from this, our orientation was too much in the direction of the Negro intellectuals and petty bourgeois elements. In a number of districts, particularly Chicago, we took into the movement some very unstable elements who joined with the idea that there was an opportunity for personal advancement, but when confronted with the real tasks of the Party, they became frightened at the risks and the work involved, and so they left the movement. Whatever progress we have made so far has been largely the result of a change in our policy in orientating ourselves to the proletarian elements. Not only that, but an attitude had developed to the effect that the Party’s work among Negroes was to be confined mainly to the ANLC. This led as a consequence to a very abnormal situation. It almost completely divorced Negro members, particularly those in leadership, from the general Party life, and tended to develop a very unhealthy attitude towards the Party on the part of some of these Negro comrades.

Our failure to build Party fractions in the ANLC had as a result the general demoralization of the locals and the action of some of the comrades in leading positions in the locals were undisciplined and uncontrolled because of this. This also had as a result the fact that the organization became merely a propaganda sect rather than a movement of action. One other weakness which must be pointed out as due to this condition was the fact that very few members of the ANLC were drawn into the Party.

First Program.

Last April (1928) our Party for the first time drew up a program on Negro work that came nearest to fitting the situation. Since then, with the aid and criticism of the Comintern, we have orientated ourselves more and more to work among the Negro masses and have begun to take this task seriously. The political campaign of 1928 presented a very favorable opportunity to carry the program of the Party to the Negro masses on a national scale. A very intensive campaign was carried on, particularly in the larger cities, and for the first time Negro workers, in many sections of the country, appeared as candidates on the Communist platform, the platform of class struggle.

The importance of this campaign can only be properly evaluated when we take into consideration the fact that never before did a working class party appear openly and boldly as the champion of the Negro masses in its fight for full social equality and against lynching, segregation and all the various forms of abuse and exploitation suffered by the Negro masses. Never before did a working class party so effectively challenge the ruling class and its political parties and its oppression, exploitation and degradation of the Negro masses. Not only in the North, but also in the South–the hotbed of reaction and race prejudice was our propaganda effective. In the land of the lynching bee, we denounced lynching. The many meetings we held, the thousands of leaflets distributed, the special election issue of The Champion, and the very effective publicity gained thru the Crusader News Service, brought our propaganda to thousands of Negro workers who are under the influence of the bourgeoisie, white and black. And the response on the part of the Negro workers and the increase of our membership during this period, indicate the possibility of drawing in large numbers into the Party with systematic work (The establishment of one or two units in the South with white and Negro members in the same unit, is in itself an achievement.)

Our main shortcoming in this respect is organizational. We did not retain all those who joined, nor did we follow up sufficiently all the contacts made. Unless definite organizational steps are taken to keep those newcomers in the Party and to bring back good elements which have drifted out, our work will have been of little value.

Trade Union Work.

The trade union work among the Negro workers is the weakest spot in our work. Not the slightest attempt has been made to launch a campaign for the organization of the hundreds of thousands of unorganized black workers. Not only do I take into consideration here the question of building new unions among the Negro workers, but also the matter of a campaign against the discrimination practiced in most unions against the Negroes and the absolute refusal of many unions to admit colored workers. In this respect, the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL) has entirely neglected its duty. Not even a plan for this most important activity has been worked out. The TUEL has retreated before the anti-Negro policy of the labor bureaucracy of the A.F. of L. In spite of the pledges made by the delegation at the Fourth Congress of the RILU and the program adopted, they have signally failed to launch any campaign to force these unions to let down the color bar and admit Negro workers. Also no attempt was made to include Negro trade unionists in the trade union delegation to the Soviet Union.

A small beginning is being made with the attempt to organize Negro workers and to place them on leading committees in the new unions (miners, needle trades, etc.). Now that a Negro Department has been established in the TUEL with some one in charge of the work who will work in close connection with the Negro Bureau of the Profintern, we may expect some improvement in the work in the near future.

American Negro Labor Congress.

The American Negro Labor Congress only exists nominally today. Organized in 1925, it has had a very precarious existence. From its inception, the policy pursued was too narrow and had the effect of stifling its growth. Very little attempt was made to make a real broad mass movement of it. It became a little sectarian group and to a certain extent a miniature duplicate of the Party.

Instead of concentrating our activities to win the support of the Negro proletariat, which is the only group that could give backbone to the organization and is the only class which can supply the necessary sinews for a real liberation movement, we restricted ourselves too much to the Negro intellectuals and non-working class elements. The result of this was that we were building on quicksand rather than on bedrock.

The Party did not pay sufficient attention to the administration of the Congress, discipline was little enforced, and the work of the comrades in charge was not checked, with the result that many grave blunders were committed without any attempt at rectification. In the last few months an attempt has been made to revive the Congress, and with some degree of success. Prior to this practically all the locals had disappeared. We were in a state of almost complete bankruptcy.

Now we have functioning locals in New York with about 30 active members; Chester, Pa., 45 members; Pittsburgh, 15; Chicago, 70; Kansas City, 20, and we have organized Provisional Committees in a number of other cities such as Cleveland, Omaha, Denver, Seattle, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Oakland, Minneapolis, Detroit, Buffalo, New Haven, Oklahoma City. We held several mass meetings recently, anti-lynching meetings, meetings against police brutality, such as the Whitehurst case in Chicago, the Vestris meeting in New York which was the most successful one. In a few cities we have established educational forums.

We cannot be satisfied with the ANLC in its present form. It is still too much of a propaganda sect. Our main aim must be to build a mass movement based on the industrial workers, particularly the organized workers. We must turn more to the shops and factories and in this connection we must establish close relationship and cooperate with the TUEL. Our program as it is today is hardly suited to reach the masses and the new program which is being prepared will largely correct these shortcomings.

Some of our comrades in New York as well as elsewhere have had a wrong policy toward the church. Their conception of the extent to which we could utilize the Negro church is based on an underestimation of the role of the church as an instrument of imperialism. They thought that they could really make a dent in religion by boring from within. The idea of reaching the masses thru the church made them forget the basic task, the work in the factories, shops, mills, and other places of employment. Our recent experiences with meetings in the churches ought to be adequate proof that we must intensify our agitation against the church, to break down the stranglehold it has on the Negro masses, and not to go to the churches to win these masses.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

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