‘The John Reed Club Convention’ by Oakley Johnson from New Masses. Vol. 8 No. 1. July, 1932.

“One year ago was held the Kharkov congress, guided by some of the most politically mature writers in the world’s working class movement. This congress gave out, as its two main directives, the following:

(1) It is our task to create a proletarian literature out of the workshops, out of the factories and mines.

(2) It is the task of every workers’ cultural group to bring in, also, those who are of the middle class, which is in a state of collapse. This class will vacillate. Marx said that vacillating is their historic role. They will bring in dangerous elements. But everything in the Revolution is dangerous.”

It is Michael Gold, of the John Reed Club of New York speaking. The place is Lincoln Center Auditorium, Chicago, and the occasion the National Organizing Conference of May 29-30. Thirty-eight delegates, representing eleven John Reed Clubs, with a total membership of about 800 writers and artists, are assembled. They are discussing the correct revolutionary attitude to take toward ‘fellow travelers’ bourgeois artists and writers who are sympathetic but are not fully won over.

“We can’t by taking thought produce great writers or artists,” Michael Gold continued. “We can only take concerted action. We can have very clear political lines. At Kharkov the platform was simple, and political. Any writer who subscribed to the political platform was admitted. It should be clear that no one is asked to change his mental habits. Nothing will be dictated to him. You who are here believe in proletarian or colloquial or journalistic writing, and some middle class liberal believes in Proustian writing–but I say bring him into the movement if he is a writer of influence and talent. We cannot afford to have aesthetic quarrels.”

Harry Carlisle of the John Reed Club of Hollywood was not satisfied with the conciliatory invitational attitude of Mike Gold toward middle class intellectuals.

“We must not cringe in our approach to these intellectuals,” he declared. We must teach them that the first thing is to approach an organization on an organizational basis. We must not be shortsighted. Upton Sinclair, who is on the editorial board of Literature of the World Revolution, is at the same time a perennial candidate on the ticket of the California Socialist Party. He appears on programs in debates with Aimee Semple McPherson. The German Communists, we know, have taken a very definite attitude against Upton Sinclair. Is our need of Sinclair so great that we can afford to fall down on principles?

The sooner we face this thing the better. Middle class intellectuals should have proven to them that they are going through an historical process, and their world is being disintegrated. They are being thrust down into the ranks of the workers. College professors in California, for example, can be told that 10,000 university students were unable to register last semester because of the economic crisis.

“I suggest,” Carlisle concluded, “that we don’t lose sight of the fact that not all intellectuals are middle class. There is a certain proportion of artists and writers of distinctly working class origin, who can be approached on the basis of working class principles. We must not lose sight of that. There we have a connecting link on the basis of revolutionary development.”

These speeches epitomized, in a way, not conflicting viewpoints but conflicting emphases. Not what is important, but which is more important, was the issue.

“We should meet the intellectual on his own ground by pointing out to him that under capitalist society he lacks opportunity for freedom of expression,” Conrad Komorowski of Philadelphia, taking his own line of approach to the problem of the middle class writer, stated. “It is here that the John Reed Club enters. We have to demonstrate that it has given artists and writers their means of highest expression. There is no great art which is not animated by a purpose. Capitalist art is decadent because it has no dynamic purpose. We must point out to the intellectual that only the proletariat has the possibility of building a great and forward-looking culture.”

Sharply bringing the delegates themselves, through a precise definition, into the envisaged problem, Joseph Freeman declared, “All members of the John Reed Clubs who are not members of the Communist Party are, strictly speaking, fellow travelers. We don’t use the word, ‘fellow-traveler’, as an insult. In fact the movement needs fellow-travelers. We know the weaknesses of fellow-travelers as a class, but it is also true that we must not underestimate the importance of sympathetic individuals who have the same background as our own members and have potentially the same future.”

Such was the tone of the Monday session of the Conference, in discussing the reports of the commissions. Four main commissions had worked most of the preceding night–the Commissions on the Manifesto, the Organizational Plan, the Program of Activities, and on an Anti-Imperialist War Declaration and various other resolutions. A distinctly high and enthusiastic note was struck for the entire Monday session by the greetings from the International Union of Revolutionary Writers and Artists, read before the opening of the discussion.

“International Union Revolutionary writers greets National Conference John Reed Clubs and great development American proletarian literature. International situation demands we sharpen struggle against imperialist war menace, against all pacifist and ‘returning prosperity’ illusions, and against increasing danger of intervention in Soviet Union. We urge you to support heroic struggle of Japanese revolutionary writers against Japanese imperialism. In all your work, prime duty is to show that only way out of present crisis lies with proletarian revolution. We with help of all our sections pledge to build up work of our international union to fulfill growing tasks facing us.”

The radiogram was signed by the Secretariat.

A wire to the Conference from the Progressive Arts Club and Masses of Toronto, Canada, sent proletarian greetings to the Conference, and pledged the solidarity of Canadian writers and artists in the struggle of the working class against imperialist war and exploitation. To the organizations from which these greetings came the Conference sent enthusiastic replies, and also messages of comradeship to Maxim Gorky, Romain Rolland, and to the organized Latin-American, German, Japanese and Chinese writers and artists, and to the 2000 beet-workers then in militant and heroic strike-struggle in Colorado.

A resolution of endorsement of New Masses, the leading cultural organ of the revolutionary American intellectuals, was passed by the Conference, urging contributions from members of all John Reed Clubs in the United States. At the same time, the resolution expressed satisfaction at the establishment of other periodicals for writers and artists by various local John Reed Clubs, such as the New Force published by the JRC of Detroit, the John Reed Bulletin published by the JRC of Washington, D.C., and Left, recently taken over by the JRC of Chicago. The strengthening and expanding of these publications, and the establishment of others where they are needed and can be satisfactorily handled, was urged as a part of the activity of the various Clubs.

The Conference was officially opened Sunday, May 29, by Jan Wittenber of Chicago. The following were elected as members of the Presidium: Joseph Freeman, New York; Jan Wittenber, Chicago; Maurice Sugar, Detroit; Conrad Komorowski, Philadelphia; Kenneth Rexroth, San Francisco; Charles Natterstad, Seattle; Harry Carlisle, Hollywood; George Gay, Portland; Carl Carlson, Boston; and Jack Walters, Newark (Jack London Club). Honorary members of the Presidium were also elected, consisting of Maxim Gorky, Romain Rolland, John Dos Passas, Fujimori, Lo Hsun, Johannes Becher, Vaillant-Couturier, and Langston Hughes. Maurice Sugar of Detroit was chosen permanent chairman of Conference, and Oakley Johnson of New York its secretary.

The reports from the various delegates ranged from the enthusiastic and encouraging, to the critical. The John Reed Club of New York was criticised for its failure to provide effective and responsible leadership to the other clubs throughout the country. Absorbed in its own local activities, the New York group had not seen the importance of carrying forward the work of national cooperative effort, and had neglected to cement its relationship with the other clubs by regular correspondence and organizational assistance. It was not until the John Reed Club of Philadelphia had urgently proposed that the New York Club begin at once the formation of a national federation of the Clubs that action was finally taken, and the Conference called.

On the other hand, during the two and a half years since October, 1929, when the John Reed Club of New York was formed, over a dozen similar clubs have sprung up in other cities. It is no small accomplishment that now, as this report is written, notice has been received of the formation of a half dozen other John Reed Clubs that wish affiliation with the national organization, making almost a score of Clubs of revolutionary artists and writers in the United States.

It is impossible to give in detail the speeches of the delegates. When the Sunday evening session was over, at the end of several tense and absorbing hours, the four Commissions began their work. All the thirty-eight delegates served on one or another of these Commissions. The chairmen were as follows: Commission on Manifesto, Joseph Freeman; on Constitution and Organization Jan Wittenber; on Program of Activities, Conrad Komorowski; on the Declaration against Imperialist War and on other resolutions, Harry Carlisle. After intensive work during much of the night and during most of Monday morning, the second general session, Monday afternoon, May 30, was held. All the delegates were prepared with suggestive plans for organization and for work, but the most complete were those offered by the New York Club as a basis for discussion. These included a draft for a Manifesto, published in the June New Masses, drafts of a proposed Constitution and of a proposed schedule of activities, mimeographed copies of which were distributed to all delegates, and a draft of an Anti-War Declaration. The discussion. altering, and expanding of the New York drafts constituted most of the work of the four Commissions.

Briefly, the JRC activities are of two general kinds, described, in the document finally adopted, as follows:

“(a) To make the Club a functioning center of proletarian culture; to clarify and elaborate the point of view of proletarian as opposed to bourgeois culture; to extend the influence of the Club and the revolutionary working class movement.

“(b) To create and publish art and literature of a proletarian character; to make familiar in this country the art and literature of the world proletariat, and particularly that of the Soviet Union; to develop the critique of bourgeois and working class culture; to develop organizational techniques for establishing and consolidating contacts of the Clubs with potentially sympathetic elements; to assist in developing (through cooperation with the Workers Cultural Federation and other revolutionary organizations) worker-writers and worker-artists; to engage in and give widest publicity to working class struggles; to render technical assistance to the organized revolutionary movement.”

The means worked out in detail for the accomplishment of these purposes included publication of pamphlets, sponsoring of national contests for proletarian stories, plays, songs, drawings, etc., distribution of literature, exhibiting revolutionary drawings and paintings, holding public lectures and debates, establishing JRC art schools and schools for worker-correspondents, active participation in strikes and demonstrations, making of posters and contributing of literature to working class organizations, giving of chalk talks, dramatic skits and other entertainment at workers’ meetings, and active assistance to campaigns (Scottsboro, Mooney, Berkman) involving special issues.

The organizational work began, naturally, with the recognition that in the United States the John Reed Clubs are an integral part of the Workers Cultural Federation, and owe an important duty to the work of this larger group. Internationally, on the other hand, the John Reed Clubs are a part of the International Union of Revolutionary Writers and Artists, which has sections in all countries of the world. With relation to each other, the John Reed Clubs of the United States are a federation, each Club having autonomy within the general limits of the purposes of the federation, the general supervision and direction to be given by a National Executive Board of eleven members, elected annually. One of these eleven is National Executive Secretary, and one, International Secretary. The national office, located in New York at 63 West 15 Street, is to be supported by dues of five cents per member per month from all the Clubs.

The Preamble states, most appropriately, that the Clubs are named “in honor of the revolutionist and writer”, John Reed, author of Ten Days that Shook the World, who, after a brilliant and heroic career here and abroad, died in the Soviet Union in the fall of 1919. The John Reed Clubs “recognize the irreconcilable struggle between workers and capitalists as two contending classes, and believe that the interests of all writers and artists should be identified with the interests of the working class.” Membership in a JRC is open to any writer or artist who subscribes to the Preamble.

The officers elected were Oakley Johnson, of New York, National Executive Secretary, and Louis Lozowick, of New York, International Secretary. The nine other members of the Board are Joseph Freeman, William Gropper, and Whittaker Chambers, of New York; Eugene Gordon, Boston; Conrad Komorowski, Philadelphia; Duva Mendelsohn, Detroit; Jan Wittenber, Chicago; Charles Natterstad, Seattle; and Harry Carlisle, Hollywood. An annual Conference is provided for; the United States is divided into four regional sections for convenience in organizational work; the executive secretaries of all John Reed Clubs constitute a National Advisory Board, functioning in part as a link between the National Executive Board and the membership, and in part, through the regional groupings, as a means of carrying out local activity.

In a call for a Conference sent out by the John Reed Club of New York it was stated that the Clubs should be “organized into a strong weapon for the struggle on the cultural field against capitalism and against the social-fascism which is rapidly coming to be capitalism’s cultural front.” This recognizes, of course, that the conception of art and literature as an ivory tower affair is now outgrown, and that writers and artists must align themselves with the revolutionary proletariat, looking toward a classless society and toward an infinitely higher culture than capitalism offers or they must align themselves with the capitalist enemy. The John Reed Clubs advance for American intellectuals a program of active support for the revolutionary working class, and call upon them to join the only movement that offers a vital hope for the further development of civilization.

The New Masses was the continuation of Workers Monthly which began publishing in 1924 as a merger of the ‘Liberator’, the Trade Union Educational League magazine ‘Labor Herald’, and Friends of Soviet Russia’s monthly ‘Soviet Russia Pictorial’ as an explicitly Communist Party publication, but drawing in a wide range of contributors and sympathizers. In 1927 Workers Monthly ceased and The New Masses began. A major left cultural magazine of the late 1920s and early 1940s, the early editors of The New Masses included Hugo Gellert, John F. Sloan, Max Eastman, Mike Gold, and Joseph Freeman. Writers included William Carlos Williams, Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Day, John Breecher, Langston Hughes, Eugene O’Neill, Rex Stout and Ernest Hemingway. Artists included Hugo Gellert, Stuart Davis, Boardman Robinson, Wanda Gag, William Gropper and Otto Soglow. Over time, the New Masses became narrower politically and the articles more commentary than comment. However, particularly in it first years, New Masses was the epitome of the era’s finest revolutionary cultural and artistic traditions.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1932/v08n01-jul-1932-New-Masses.pdf