The story of Teamsters Local 544’s Union Defense Guard to protect the working class and its organizations from fascist threats.

‘Minneapolis Defense Guard Has Kept That City Clear of Nazi Thugs’ by A Guard from Socialist Appeal. Vol. 3 No. 28. April 28, 1939.

Strongly-Organized Force of Union Workers Has Kept the Would-Be Storm Troopers With Their Backs Against the Wall

By A Defense Guard (Special to the Socialist Appeal) MINNEAPOLIS. Who says the American workers are ready to fight fascism? Minneapolis, Minneapolis says so. The Minneapolis Union Defense Guard says so, it is a lie and a reactionary lie that American workers have not grasped the fundamental meaning of fascism on the basis of what Fascism has done to the workers of Europe. Far, far more clearly than the craven-hearted and demoralized “liberals” have the workers in this country understood the lessons of Germany, of Austria, and of Spain and France.

And given the chance–which means given an honest and courageous leadership–the American workers are willing, yes, eager, to organize for a struggle to the death against the fascist monster that would smash their strikes and their unions, raid their union halls, kill their leaders, crush their political parties, and force them into a monstrous slavery.

About one year ago the Silver Shirts held a series of public meetings in Minneapolis. It happened that in this city it was the Silver Shirts. In another city it might be the German-American Bund, the Black Legion, the White Legion, or some other aspiring fascist group.

The Fascist Plan

Roy Zachary, the Silver Shirt organizer, was pretty crude about his intentions. He worked his audience up with the usual anti-Semitic bunk, and then got down to work. Right away he proposed a raid on Local 544’s hall. He picked out General Drivers Local 544 as the first victim because he knew the score. If the General Drivers Union can be cracked then the rest is easy pickings. Zachary learned this from the organized bosses of this state, who have been following out that policy since 1934.

If Zachary was crude, the president of the Minneapolis Associated Industries was even cruder. He attended a Silver Shirt meeting!

The Unions Plan Too

Minneapolis workers are not dumb. They got the point immediately. If the fight to protect their union had now reached the point where the bosses were ready to subsidize the fascist rats, then let’s get ready for the fight and see who can take who.

The Minneapolis Union Defense Guard was launched as a result of the fascist meetings and threat. This organization, the first an strongest of its kind in the country, has been built through the painstaking and persistent work of trade union militants. Today it stands as a permanent trained force. The growth of reaction only stimulates the growth of the Union Guard as a bulwark of union strength against assault.

Two Hundred Squads

Under the strong and experienced leadership of a Guard Commander and two Guard Lieutenants all men of military training–the Guard during the past year has completed its basic organization of 200 active Guard Captains, each Captain leading a squad of four men, making a unit of five. Five is a handy unit to transport by auto. Provision is made for doubling each unit in the period of emergency that are sure to come.

The Guard Captains are hand-picked men, the most loyal and active unionists, seasoned, resourceful, fearless, intelligent. The Captains have carefully picked their squads.

Test Mobilizations

Every man who SO proudly wears the little gold badge– 544UDG–is dead serious about his membership in his Union Guard. From time to time, test mobilizations have proven this.

Last November, for example, on one hour’s notice, the Guard met for a trial mobilization on a vacant lot in the center of the city. Only three people knew whether the occasion was a real crisis. Three hundred men in fighting clothes poured into the vacant lot and formed ranks under direction of their Captains. It was only after short talks by the Guard leaders, followed by the announcement that it was just a test mobilization to be celebrated afterward at a local theatre, that the grimness turned to merriment.

Another bright memory in the history of the Union Guard is a big dance held the Saturday before Christmas. Trade unionists attended by the hundreds. Proceeds of the affair were placed in the Guard fund.

Drilling and Study

The Minneapolis Union Defense Guard has just recently completed a six-weeks’ course of drill work, with Guard meetings three nights weekly. When hard-working men demonstrate their understanding by such activity, only cowards or fools can say that a Hitler will necessarily come to power in America. “The only thing a fascist understands is a cracked head.” says the Minneapolis Guard. It is ready to the last man to increase the understanding of any fascist gang so foolhardy as to move against the union movement here.

On the last night of the six-weeks’ drill course, the regular meeting was turned into a Guard party. Guardsmen heard an analysis of “Union Enemies and Low to Fight Them” by V.R. Dunne.

Based on Unions

The Minneapolis Guard at the present time is composed chiefly of workers in the driving crafts with the main base in Local 544. Workers from other unions have joined, however, and are preparing themselves to form active Guard Units in their own organizations. Guard leaders anticipate steady growth of the organization.

A special feature of the Minneapolis Guard is its Intelligence Department. Guard members and their allies circulate throughout the Twin Cities and surrounding regions, and keep a sharp eye cocked for fascist literature, anti-Semitic activities, fink propaganda, and the like. This information is weighed and filed at a central point. One can almost hear the horrified liberal, or some labor fake, exclaiming: “But all this is terrible. There is no surer way to provoke fascism, etc., etc.”

No Fascists Meet

But there hasn’t been a single Silver Shirt or Bund meeting in Minneapolis during the past six months, despite a tenseness in the class struggle locally that would have made such meetings inevitable had the Union Defense Guard not existed.

This isn’t saying the fascists won’t try to hold meetings here. The legislative attacks against the union movement, such as Stassen’s anti-labor bill, will embolden the bosses and their agents. The next drop in the business index will bring the fascists.

When that time comes, Minneapolis will be ready. The workers of every city must prepare now so that they can say the same thing. Trade unionists everywhere who are interested in further details and aid in setting up Guard units have been invited to correspond with Guard Commander, c/o General Drivers Union local 544, 237 Plymouth Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

There have been a number of periodicals named Socialist Appeal in our history, this Socialist Appeal was edited in New York City by the “Left Wing Branches of the Socialist Party”. After the Workers Party (International Left Opposition) entered the Socialist Party in 1936, the Trotskyists did not have an independent publication. However, Albert Goldman began publishing a monthly Socialist Appeal in Chicago in February 1935 before the bulk of Trotskyist entered the SP. When there, they began publishing Socialist Appeal in August 1937 as the weekly paper of the “Left Wing Branches of the Socialist Party” but in reality edited by Cannon and other leaders. Goldman’s Chicago Socialist Appeal would fold into the New York paper and this Socialist Appeal would replace New Militant as the main voice of Fourth Internationalist in the US. After the expulsion of the Trotskyists from the the Socialist Party, Socialist Appeal became the weekly organ of the newly constituted Socialist Workers Party in early 1938. Edited by James Cannon and Max Shachtman, Felix Morrow, and Albert Goldman. In 1941 Socialist Appeal became The Militant again.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/socialist-appeal-1939/v3n28-apr-28-1939-hole.pdf