Raising money and awareness in defense of class-war prisoners over the holidays in 1928.

‘Christmas Fund Campaign of the International Labor Defense’ by E. Welter from Labor Defender. Vol. 3 No. 12. December, 1928.

It is an old and beautiful usage of proletarian solidarity in the hard winter months and above all during Christmas to remember especially those who, for the sake of the working class, sit in the prisons of the bourgeoisie and to remember all other victims of the revolutionary class struggle, their wives and children. This usage is of certain value to the Christmas campaign of the International Labor Defense and in the National Office of the I.L.D. all preparations have already been made to mobilize the broadest masses of workers to bring together the thousands of doners, so that this year, just as in preceding years, our political prisoners, their wives and children can be provided with a special Christmas eve relief in the form of double assistance.

In New Bedford alone in the weeks preceding Christmas Eve, 662 workers still face the harsh judgement of the capitalist courts. In Washington 22 workers are in prison because they demonstrated against the war preparations of the American bourgeoisie and for the release of their imprisoned comrade, John Porter. Mooney and Billings, the Centralia victims, and many others, for whose freedom the I.L.D. has fought for many years, are still behind prison walls. During the next few months the I.L.D. will have to defend a thousand class war prisoners in the courts, and just as many families, women and children will the I.L.D. have to support to ward off the worst privation.

At the same time the call for help of our class brothers in other countries cannot go unheard. Tens of thousands of political prisoners, their wives and children, in the Latin-American countries, in Poland, Roumania, Bulgaria, Italy, Hungary, China, etc. wait for the help of the American workers, for the help of the I.L.D.

The Christmas campaign must be for all I.L.D. organizations a new means of bringing closer to the broad masses of workers the importance of the I.L.D. and the work carried on by it on the domain of workers’ defense to awaken them to thoughts of practical solidarity with the political class-war prisoners, their wives and children.

How is this work to be carried out? In the first place, mobilization of the members of the I.L.D. All district and local organizations should call special meetings of functionaries and members at the beginning of December and arrange for the whole work of the Christmas campaign. In what shall this work consist? There are many ways of carrying on this work. We will only indicate a few here.

In the first place there are special Christmas affairs of the district and local organizations. No local, no branch must neglect to organize at least one affair, a special Christmas celebration, a Christmas Ball, a small bazaar, etc. With some activity on the part of the locals and branches it is easy to collect everything necessary for such a bazaar thru the donations of members and friends of the I.L.D.

In such preparations we must not forget the political side of the matter, as happens all too often. At every such affair one of the speakers of the I.L.D. must point out the tasks and the meaning of the I.L.D. and all efforts must be made to draw the audiences into our organization.

Another way of carrying thru the Christmas campaign in the district, local and branch is the mobilization of all friendly workers’ organizations, clubs, etc. During Christmas time many affairs of these organizations and clubs will take place.

This very day all I.L.D. organizations must direct their attention to these affairs. The I.L.D. locals and branches must make connections with all these organizations, clubs, etc., and attempt to come to an understanding with their officials to the effect that at their meetings in the month of December, or at their special conferences, a talk be given on the Christmas campaign and that at the close of that talk a collection for the I.L.D. should take place.

The third task in this campaign is our agitation from house to house. In this work, which ought to be done during the Christmas holidays, all members of the I.L.D. must take part. All local and branch officials must immediately work out a plan for this house to house propaganda. In actual practise the plan would be something like this: the section to be worked is divided into city blocks, and various streets are then assigned to members of our organization and to all friends who wish to help along in this work. All comrades should carry an I.L.D. identification which designates them as collectors for the I.L.D. These can be obtained at the locals.

Thus equipped the comrades go to their assigned streets (For the most part, naturally, the working class section) from house to house, from apartment to apartment, and tell the workers in a few words about the I.L.D. and our Christmas campaign and ask them for a solidarity contribution. At the same time the collectors must have with them our I.L.D. literature, above all the Labor Defender, and also attempt to bring these into the workers’ dwellings.

This work must be carried out above all in the days preceding and during the Christmas holidays, for on exactly those days, when nearly every worker, almost every family is preparing a small holiday feast, it will be easiest for us to awaken his feelings of solidarity with the political prisoners and their wives and children.

Perhaps this kind of work, this individual work, is new for many of our comrades. That must not scare us and every member of the I.L.D. should dedicate these few hours of personal work for the sake of our class brothers behind prison walls. If we begin preparations immediately in all I.L.D. organizations and if we use the time before Christmas in order to mobilize all the members of the I.L.D. and all its friends for this work, then certainly results will not fail us.

Let us begin!

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. 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/1928/v03n12-dec-1928-LD.pdf