This self-criticism offers an interesting on-the-ground view of racial politics in Communist Party organizing in one north Philadelphia neighborhood.

‘Struggles of Negro Masses in Philadelphia Reviewed’ by S.T. from The Daily Worker. Vol. 11 No. 194. August 14, 1934.

Failure of Party To Act Quickly Resulted in the Growth in Influence of Reformists

The events that took place around 22nd and Master Street on August 1 and the day following is an accumulation of a long campaign of terror, wholesale evictions, discrimination in relief and jim-crowism in the neighborhood.

A few years ago money was collected to build a playground at 26th and Master Sts., the edge of the Negro neighborhood, the beginning of the white. The money was collected in both sections equally but when this playground was built Negro children were not allowed to swim in the swimming pool. Many attempts were made to keep the Negro children out of the playground. The Negro children are forced to go to jim-crow school. All this has helped to arouse the nationalistic feeling among the Negro people in this section of Philadelphia, and only needed a spark to cause a revolt against this oppression.

What Happened

On August 1, Mrs. Lucille Suber, 18, who lives at 2215 Master St., purchased a bar of soap and sugar from a grocer at the corner of 22d and Master. Edmond Morton beat and kicked this woman, who was an expectant mother. The news spread around the neighborhood. In a few minutes, thousands of Negro workers gathered.

More than five hundred police immediately swooped down on the neighborhood, attacking the Negro workers and driving them off the street. Negro youths and adults fought back the attacks of the cops. During the night many windows of white store-keepers in the territory were smashed. More than seventy Negro workers were arrested.

The next morning in the Magistrates Court capitalist justice was displayed when the grocer who attacked the girl was held under $500 bail and was permitted to sign his own bail bond, while a Negro youth who had taken part in the struggle was held under $600 bail and was held for court.

Offers Suggestions

From this struggle our Party must draw an important lesson. First, the importance of our white comrades to work in this territory. About four years ago our Party began to work in this section. Our Party built up a mass influence; the unemployed council was built and led struggles against evictions and hunger. The I.L.D. was able to grow by developing the Scottsboro case into a real campaign. The I.L.D., together with the help of two Y.C.L. comrades, were able to call a school strike of more than 200 children in connection with the Scottsboro case. With all this mass work carried on, our Party made many mistakes. The most active white comrades were taken out of the section to do other work; the white comrades who remained were not active and only came to unit meetings. Some of our Negro comrades began to manifest nationalistic tendencies against every white comrade in the Paty by raising the question of white chauvinism.

All this time the Negro reformists were not asleep. Reformers of every shade began to come to the section preaching nationalism in order to turn the Negro workers, who were beginning more and more to realize and follow the leadership of the Communists, telling the Negro people that the Communist Party was not sincere in their talk. This nationalism began to take root among the Negro workers, with the help of the police in the evictions.

Comrades Under Influence

Even some of our Party comrades began to fall under this influence, and began to say that nothing can be done as long as the Jews in Strawberry Mansion are running things. Our section committee sensed the danger and immediately called section membership meetings, where the Negro question was discussed clearly, the white chauvinist tendencies in our white comrades were clearly brought forward and shown to them, for refusing to work in the Negro territory.

After thorough discussions in the units, white comrades were assigned to work in the neighborhood. At the same time the danger of petty bourgeois nationalism of the Negro comrades was also brought forward. Actions were taken against a Negro comrade, Hamilton, who could not be corrected on the theories that he developed on the Negro question, that there was no Negro bourgeoisie, no Negro misleaders, and other such statements against the line of the Eighth Convention Resolution on the Negro Question.

But our section committee made the mistake of not checking up on the decisions and seeing that our white comrades carried out the tasks of working in the Negro territory. When the events of August First took place we found ourselves not in position to lead this struggle into the correct channels of struggle against the oppression, and for equal rights of the Negro people, but allowed the Negro workers of our section to play into the hands of the Negro reformist, the nationalist, the white ruling class, to lead them into a struggle that would cause more hatred and jim-crowism, to enable the Negro petty bourgeoisie to obtain the ghetto.

But our Party has immediately reacted to this situation. A meeting of the section was called at once, with over 80 per cent attendance, with representatives of the district, which took up the question of the mass action seriously with our party membership. White comrades were mobilized to go out with the Negro comrades. Thousands of leaflets have been given out calling the Negro workers to join hands with the class-conscious white workers who are willing to fight side by side with the Negro people.

In spite of the weak position of our Party, white and Negro workers who passed out leaflets have found a healthy situation. Workers were anxious to get our leaflets. Workers who had no connection with our Party or our mass organization are coming into our section headquarters, taking out leaflets to distribute among the other workers in the neighborhood. Open-air meetings are being arranged, meetings of workers are being called by Party members and sympathizers, from which we expect to lay the basis to build the L.S.N.R. The struggle of the Negro masses in North Philadelphia is a healthy reaction; it shows the willingness of the Negro people to fight against all forms of oppression.

Who Is To Lead?

The question that we are now confronted with is, who will lead these struggles? Our Party or the reformists? The only assurance that we will lead them is how we give leadership to the everyday struggles against evictions and hunger, for the rights of the Negro people, for the freedom of George Johnson, a militant Negro active in the Unemployed Councils, who defended his home against a constable and his thugs, and was framed up and convicted for this offense.

Linking this up with the freedom of the Scottsboro boys and Angelo Herndon, we will be able to entrench ourselves among the Negro masses, isolate the reformists and nationalists, and build a mass Communist Party that will be able to lead the Negro masses in their fight for full social, political and economic equality.

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.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n194-aug-14-1934-DW-LOC.pdf