J. Louis Engdahl describes the C.P.’s campaign against the 1927 U.S. invasion of Nicaragua.

‘American Communist Party Develops Defeatist Campaign Against U.S. Imperialism’ by J. Louis Engdahl from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 8 No. 8. February 16, 1928.

The American Communist Party is successfully developing a broad defeatist campaign against the war being waged by the imperialist United States government against the revolutionary forces in Nicaragua.

Defeat of the armed forces of Wall Street is demanded in numerous demonstrations, featured by clashes with the police, marking a new development in the American Communist Party’s anti-war activities.

In similar struggles in the past the Party has contented itself with declarations for the withdrawal of troops, demanding “Hands Off China!” or “Hands Off Nicaragua!” or Hands Off Mexico!”

Today, however, the Party openly and militantly declares for the defeat of Wall Street imperialism, for the desertion of the American marines to the ranks of the Nicaraguan revolutionists, for the stoppage of arms and munitions production and shipment by workers in the United States, calling upon American workers to emulate the Nicaraguan stevedores at Corinto, who went on strike, refusing to handle American munitions.

Two of the chief demonstrations held by the Party, in conjunction with the Young Communist League, were staged before the two largest navy yards of American imperialism, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, at Brooklyn, New York and the Philadelphia Navy Yard, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Another was held before the state department building in Washington.

The severest clash with the police took place at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Here the demonstration was held under the direction of the New York District of the Party, that was simultaneously holding mass meetings addressed by Socrates Sandino, brother of the Nicaraguan revolutionist, who is a Brooklyn carpenter.

Some of the banners carried successfully in the Brooklyn demonstration in spite of the efforts of the police to destroy them, presented these slogans: “Ex-Servicemen Greet the Marines who joined Sandino in His Fight Against Wall Street’s Forces”, “American Workers, Sailors, Marines! Defeat the War to Make Nicaragua Safe for Wall Street!” “No Supplies to Enslave Nicaragua to Wall Street!” “Support Nicaragua’s Struggle Against Wall Street!” “Defeat American Intervention in Nicaragua!” Leaflets distributed at the demonstrations linked up the war against Nicaragua with the war being waged against the Chinese revolution.

The statement issued by the American Communist Party incidental to these demonstrations declared:

“We urge all American workers, soldiers and sailors to organise for struggle against American Imperialism, the common enemy of all the exploited and oppressed within and without the borders of America.”

“Civil war against imperialist war!” was a slogan raised in literature distributed by the Party!

No arrests were made at Philadelphia although the demonstrators were forced to remain a definite distance from the entrance to the navy yard.

In a special proclamation on the occasion of President Coolidge’s departure for the Sixth Pan-American Conference at Havana, Cuba, the American Communist Party declared:

“We must follow the example of our American brothers, those marines who refused to shoot down the fighters for liberty and who dedicated their lives to give battle to American imperialism. We must do what the Nicaraguan workers did at Corinto. We must not scab against our brothers. We American workers cannot and will not be strikebreakers.

“No worker should raise a finger to make or move munitions for shooting down the heroic Nicaraguans led by Sandino.

“All together for a powerful united front of the workers and farmers to paralyze the strangling hand of the American imperialist clique, the capitalist rulers in Nicaragua, in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, in Colorado, in Cuba and wherever Wall Street undermines the welfare of the working masses.”

Wall Street presses forward in an effort to rapidly conclude the bloody Nicaraguan chapter in the growing history of its violent rule over the Latin American peoples. While the massacre, especially from airplanes, of Sandino’s revolutionists, continued; while Lindbergh was continuing his imperialist “good will’ flight over Latin American countries; while the Pan-American Conference at Havana was veneering with dollar hypocrisy the brutal oppression of tens of millions of people; we find Dr. William P. Cumberland, formerly dollar dictator of terrorised Hayti, imported to establish Wall Street’s financial tyranny over Nicaragua. Wall Street is to provide a loan of $22,000,000 to its puppet government, most of which, in keeping with past practices, will be used to cover funds already advanced by the international bankers to finance, the counter-revolution the “loyal government” of Diaz.

Throughout the two Americas the forces opposed to imperialism rally under the leadership of the Pan-American Communist movement. The Nicaraguan campaign of the Communist Party in the United States marks an advance step in this struggle. It is a rehearsal for wider and more successful struggles in the future. It is a rehearsal for the successful war that must be waged against the new war planned against the Soviet Union, in which American imperialism will take a leading role.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecor” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecor’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecor, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1928/v08n08-feb-16-1928-Inprecor-op.pdf