Vera Buch faced a potential death penalty after her arrest for ‘murder’ during the Gastonia strike in 1929, later ending in a mistrial. Here, she worries that the crisis of the 30s may force the Communist movement underground and into illegality; for which it was ill-prepared.

‘Illegality and the Communist Movement’ by Vera Buch from Class Struggle (C.L.S.). Vol. 3 No. 1. January, 1933.

Broadly speaking, the Communist movement, before the Revolution is always illegal, in the sense that it is a conspiracy of an oppressed, propertyless class to overthrow the class which is still in possession of the means of production as well as of political power. Our use of the word “conspiracy” must by no means be interpreted to mean “adventure” or “putsch”. We fully understand the necessity for an objective basis for the success of the proletarian revolution as well the guiding role of the steeled Communist Party, possessed of revolutionary science. Our meaning will be plainest if we compare the workers situation now with that of the bourgeoisie when they seized power. They had already come into possession of the means of production and had become economically the master class, wealthy and influential, while the political framework of feudal society still endured. Their revolution had to overthrow this political hindrance and as a final step to abolishing feudal ruling classes and seating themselves firmly in the saddle. Now on the contrary, the political blow which overthrows the capitalist state power and sets up a proletarian one, initiates the seizure of the means of production on the basis of which the socialist society can be built. We see the Communist parties with all the wealth and influence of capitalist rule against them carrying on as it were in darkness, mole-like preparatory work building up their ideological base.

The legality which the Communist movement is granted in democratic countries is at best but partial. Any but the most naive people are aware that in the U.S. where democracy has flowered as freely as anywhere the constitution itself embodies various checks upon democracy which are likewise safeguards for the propertied class, as for example, the existence of two legislative bodies, the Senate, the supposedly more conservative, serving as a check upon the House; such as the President’s veto and the Supreme court an arch conservative appointed body which sits upon decisions of State courts; such as the gap between the election of a new President and his inauguration during which time, if the ruling class sees democracy threatening its power by the election of the wrong President (and this does not mean the replacement of the Repubican Party by the Democratic Party) it can gather its forces for the coup d’ etat.

Our constitution guarantees us free speech. Yet we see an American Civil Liberties Union handling hundreds of cases annually of suppression of civil liberties, denial of free speech and assemblage, etc. The workers movement, even the trade union movement, is so familiar with attacks upon its liberty by means of injunctions, frame-ups, etc. that it is hardly necessary to speak of them. As far as political bodies go, the government will suppress the Communist Party whenever it seems to constitute a threat to its power and the more acute the situation, the sharper the suppression. So in colonial countries like China and India the Communist Party is generally illegal, in Canada and in the French dominated countries which form a cordon sanitaire around the U.S.S.R. in Europe (Poland, Roumania etc). While the Communist Party as a whole is legal in the U.S. today many states have “criminal anarchy” and “criminal syndicalism” laws which can readily be evoked against C.P. members. The Fish Committee Anti-alien Bills to be proposed to Congress constitute a smashing club against the foreign-born radical.

“In the midst of life we are in death” those dismal words of the church, may well be paraphrased for the Communist: “In the midst of legality we are in illegality”. Suppression of papers (Young Worker, denial of second class mailing privileges to the Class Struggle etc) raiding of district offices of the Party or the I.L.D. (Chicago, Birmingham etc). Arrests of leaders have been comparatively frequent occurrences. In the period of the Palmer Raids of 1919-1920 the C.P.U.S.A. experienced an illegality of a rather artificial character. Surely the newly formed ultra-leftest C.P. of those days (even though it claimed some 50,000 members) did not constitute a menace to the U.S. government. The Red scare of that time was due to a war hysteria combined to a reflex action of the Russian Revolution which stirred up the government as well as the working class here. The party, then not rooted among the masses quickly fell to 10,000 members or less.

When will illegality come again? This is really a test question. Will those Communists who feel so secure in the present legal period, with its many party-controlled organizations offering hundreds of jobs and those who will toe the line, who are rooted in open methods of work stand the tests of raids and suppression? This would at any rate sort out the wheat from the chaff, the fakers would fly to cover and the real revolutionists would appear in their true light. The outbreak of another world war would bring on illegality. To say this may come within a year is without exaggeration. It is possible that any real activity among the unemployed (even if not stimulated by the Communists) would cause the government to drive the party underground. Already we see the Michigan cases being revived.

Preparedness is the only conclusion to be drawn. Is the Communist movement prepared? Witness how all three Communist groups, the Communist League of Struggle alone excepted, nonchalantly hand over lists of names and addresses of their subscribers to the U.S. postoffice in order to get second class mailing privilages for their papers, thus betraying the whereabouts of thousands of radicals. Only a most amateurish movement would do this. The utmost care in revealing membership, development of secret codes, etc., and many small precautions which should be ingrained in a serious Communist Party are constantly flaunted. But most of all, the Party must be rooted organizationally among the masses. A mere vague sympathy for its propaganda will be of no help when raids, arrests, etc. descend.

Shop nuclei in the factories and other work places which function under cover in any circumstances cannot so easily be destroyed. The territorial branch, whose meetings are exposed to any spies activities, are the loosest possible form and can be wiped out at one swoop. The criminal failure of the C.P. to build real lasting shop nuclei to any extent after so many years (this was first ordered by the C.I. in 1921) is a plain unmistakable confession that no real Communist movement as yet exists. Testing of membership, struggle against espionage, can be carried out successfully only in such workshop units where members know each other from daily contact on the job. The combatting of espionage in the movement is an important subject meriting another article. We only wish here in closing, without hysteria, to sound a warning note. With the present divided, weak state of the Communist movement, especially the state of the C.P. itself, with its raw untested membership, its equally untested leadership depending for guidance on directives relayed from Moscow and thence from one “higher up” body to another, (but when we are illegal the cables will be cut and the incompetent emptiness will stand exposed) a period of illegality, unless the situation is corrected before then, threatens to smash the movement to atoms.

The Communist League of Struggle was formed in March, 1931 by C.P. veterans Albert Weisbord, Vera Buch, Sam Fisher and co-thinkers after briefly being members of the Communist League of America led by James P. Cannon. In addition to leaflets and pamphlets, the C.L.S. had a mostly monthly magazine, Class Struggle, and issued a shipyard workers shop paper,The Red Dreadnaught. Always a small organization, the C.L.S. did not grow in the 1930s and disbanded in 1937.

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