A fantastic ‘Defender’ with articles on the Commune by George Spiro and a veteran Achille Leroy, a fascinating account of workers defense in China by Earl Browder, then on a Comintern mission there, William D. Haywood writes on Centralia, Anna Rochester on coal miners, the massive east coast dressworkers strike is covered by Rose Wortis and Robert Zelms, Albert Weisbord reports from Cuba on continued slavery there, comrade Gibardi reports on an anti-fascist rally in Berlin, International Women’s Day is covered, and Jacinto G. Manahan gives details of a meeting of insurgent Filipino peasants, among much else including the usual bounty of priceless photos.

Labor Defender. Vol. 4 No. 3. March, 1929.

Contents: What Ruthenberg Means to Workers Today by Jay Lovestone, Paris on the Barricades by George Spiro, The Paris Commune and the I.L.D. by Achille Leroy (veteran of The Commune), Defense Work in China by Earl Browder, The Centralia Tragedy by William D. Haywood, The Coal Miners and Injunctions by Anna Rochester, Hilario Montenegro Murdered by Luis Vampa, Slavery in Cuba by Albert Weisbord, Permanent Job Lines by Harvey O’Connor, Anti-Fascist Rally in Berlin by J. Gibardi, The Dressmakers Strike by Rose Wortis, Textile Workers Face the Courts by Robert Zelms, Filipino Peasants Meet by Jacinto G. Manahan, International Women’s Day in the U.S. and U.S.S.R. by Juliet Stuart Poyntz and S. Croll, Gorky Visits a Soviet Prison Commune, Voices from Prison, Building the I.L.D.

Labor Defender was published monthly from 1926 until 1937 by the International Labor Defense (ILD), a Workers Party of America, and later Communist Party-led, non-partisan defense organization founded by James Cannon and William Haywood while in Moscow, 1925 to support prisoners of the class war, victims of racism and imperialism, and the struggle against fascism. It included, poetry, letters from prisoners, and was heavily illustrated with photos, images, and cartoons. Labor Defender was the central organ of the Scottsboro and Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaigns. Not only were these among the most successful campaigns by Communists, they were among the most important of the period and the urgency and activity is duly reflected in its pages. Editors included T. J. O’ Flaherty, Max Shactman, Karl Reeve, J. Louis Engdahl, William L. Patterson, Sasha Small, and Sender Garlin.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1929/v04n03-mar-1929-LD.pdf