Charles Phillips took the name Manuel Gomez while living in Mexico as a draft evader during World War One and remained an important link between the U.S. Communist Party and the Spanish-speaking Americas. In response the A.F. of L.’s State Department project, the Pan-American Federation of Labor, Communists initiated the Pan-America Anti-Imperialist League in January, 1925 (changing the name shortly to All-America Anti-Imperialist League to further differentiate). The All-American League was a regional precursor to the the global League Against Imperialism founded in 1927.

‘The Pan-American Anti-Imperialist League’ by Manuel Gomez from Workers Monthly. Vol. 4 No. 7. May, 1925.

LATIN America is imperial domain. Whether the United States or Great Britain shall exercise dominion over it is a matter that is still being fought out in the ceaseless struggle for oil, minerals, investment areas and markets. With astonishing ease, American capitalists are displacing their rivals from one stronghold after another. Wall Street, with half the gold of the world at its command, is conquering ever wider markets–nor are these markets being subdued by gold alone. Wall Street also sends troops, who conquer territory by the simple process of assault and occupation.

The correlation of forces is admirably expressed in the Monroe Doctrine, which, it should be remembered, is now something more than American foreign policy, having achieved for itself practically the status of international law. The unmistakable import of the Monroe Doctrine today is American protectorate over Latin America.

And what of the Latin Americans? What of the peoples whose countries are the objects of American imperialism, whose citizens are ordered about by U.S. marines and whose workers produce the wealth which goes to swell the treasure house of Wall Street?–their hatred for the “protecting” government needs no elaboration here. It is traditional. They look upon the sanctimonious invader as an enemy that must be driven out at all costs.

But they are weak and disunited. Hitherto American imperialism has been able to work its will on one Latin American country after another–Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico–in isolated fashion, without experiencing any hostile action on the part of the nations not immediately involved. All of Latin America has long had a strong sense of natural Latin American solidarity but up to the present no unifying medium has existed to coin this solidarity into effective results for the struggle against imperialism.

To accomplish this purpose, to give international leadership to the struggle against imperialism in the west, the Pan American Anti-Imperialist League was created. The Pan American Anti-Imperialist League will carry on the fight for the complete emancipation of the peoples of the western hemisphere. It has issued a manifesto expressing its fraternal kinship with every organized force fighting imperialism anywhere in the world.

The League represents the linking up of the struggles for national liberation with the movement of the revolutionary proletariat. It was organized through the joint efforts of the Workers (Communist) Party of America and the Communist Party of Mexico. The basis for it was laid during the visit to Mexico of J. W. Johnstone in December, 1924.

Affiliations have been received from political parties, trade unions, peasant leagues, groups of students, patriotic societies. Every element ready to join in the fight against Wall Street has a place in the P.A.A.I.L. The League aims at crystallizing the forces of resistance to imperialism from Alaska to Cape Horn.

Certainly the most significant thing about this alignment is that it includes the Workers (Communist) Party of America, giving it a determined fighting force, however small at this time, in the very home country of American imperialism. And the Communists express the interests of the American working class as a whole. Unreasoning and unclear though it sometimes may be, there exists among the workers of this country an undoubted sentiment against imperialistic ventures abroad, and whenever they have had an opportunity to register their opinions on the question of imperialism they have answered loudly in the negative. The American workers are natural allies of all exploited peoples fighting to throw off the domination of Wall Street.

Of what interest is it to American workers to combat American imperialism? It is of interest because the imperialists are the same financial oligarchy that exploits American labor at home.

American imperialism makes use of foreign cheap labor to force down the standard of living of the working class at home. Through imperialist control of the system of contract labor, or “engancho,” a steady stream of scabs is brought into this country to break strikes, the Mexicans or Cubans who are imported, being kept in complete ignorance of the purpose of their importation.

By means of imperialism Wall Street is enabled to draw renewed strength from its investments abroad to continue its parasitic rule; in fact, if it were not for this outlet for its surplus capital American capitalism would soon collapse of its own contradictions. Capitalism continues to exist only through the intense exploitation of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples.

The American workers have nothing to gain by capturing Santo Domingo for the National City Bank, yet they are called upon to risk their lives for this and similar reasons.

Imperialism means inevitable war. A large and efficient army and navy become therefore necessary. This military force to which must be added the militia of the various states, state police, etc–is the private army of Wall Street. Once in existence, it is used against ALL of Wall Street’s enemies without exception. Now it goes into battle to protect the foreign loans of J.P. Morgan & Co., now it is called out to perform “strike duty.” American workers are asked to fight and die for American imperialism but in so doing they merely build up a machine which is used against themselves.

It is a mistake to think of imperialism as just “foreign policy,” without relation to the class struggle at home. American imperialism is impossible without the domination of a group of Wall Street monopolists in this country, and finance capital monopoly here is impossible without American imperialism. They form part of a single system, growing out of a common economic soil.

To agitate for the removal of all American troops from foreign soil, to aid the national liberation movements in the countries under the heel of Wall Street, to unite with every progressive force carrying on a fight against American imperialism–this is to participate in the common struggle against imperialist domination abroad and capitalist exploitation in the United States.

In Central America and the islands of the Caribbean alone, Wall Street controls over 150,000 square miles with almost 10,000,000 inhabitants. And everywhere in Latin America the signs of imperialist domination are found; seizure of strategic positions, support of personal dictatorships in return for economic advantages, military occupation of customs houses, actual invasion and threat of invasion–these are some of the methods by which the state machinery of the United States is being steadily expanded to include a huge Latin American empire, while in Europe and the Far East the same imperialist forces are at work. Move these buttresses and the whole structure of American capital shakes.

The Pan American Anti-Imperialist League proposes to carry on the struggle on all fronts. In the few short months of its existence it has established connections with elements in almost every country of North, South and Central America. It gave its support to the Cuban labor congress held in Cienfuegos, Cuba, last February. It made its influence felt in the international convention of marine transport workers which met in New Orleans early in March. It exposed the true role of President Coolidge in the Tacna-Arica dispute between Peru and Chile. It has addressed a manifesto to Latin American peasants and another to Latin American students. From the Central American secretariat in Mexico City, it issues a 16-page monthly organ in the Spanish language called “El Libertador” (The Liberator), the first num ber of which has already appeared. Some of the leading intellectual figures of Latin America, such as Jose Ingenierox and Ricardo Marin, have been invited to contribute.

The next step of the League will be to call a convention somewhere in Latin America, of all elements ready to go along with it in its fight. This convention should be called as soon as possible. Its tasks will be to work out a common program and basis of struggle for all.

When the oppressed of the world join forces the oppressor’s knell has sounded. If it fulfills the promise of its origin, the Pan American Anti-Imperialist League should prove an important factor in the overthrow of capitalism.

The Workers Monthly 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 Party publication. In 1927 Workers Monthly ceased and the Communist Party began publishing The Communist as its theoretical magazine. Editors included Earl Browder and Max Bedacht as the magazine continued the Liberator’s use of graphics and art.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/wm/1925/v4n07-may-1925.pdf