The New Haven area of the Communist Party is reorganized with William Weinstone as District Organizer chairing the meeting.

‘New Haven Holds Successful Party Conference’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 3 No. 85. April 21, 1926.

NEW HAVEN, Conn., April 19. The Connecticut sub-district of District No. Two recently held an enlarged conference attended by many representatives of New Haven, Waterbury, Bridgeport, Springfield and Ansonia sections of the Workers Party.

Wm. Weinstone, general secretary of District No. 2, spoke on the work of the C.E.C. organizational conference, dealing particularly with the reorganization. He showed that the reorganization is not a task accomplished in one blow, but is an operation which begins with the establishment of the new form of organization and must continue with the activity of the units. He made proposals for making units more active and recommended particularly to section committees of each of the cities that they assign one active comrade who speaks English from the city section committee to each factory unit. He also pointed out that shop bulletins must be gotten out by units, or else the comrades will be discouraged, feeling they are not making progress in their work.

Comrade Weinstone referred to other shop nuclei that are functioning where the first shop bulletin brought really tremendous results, giving great encouragement and stimulation for work among the comrades. He further recommended that comrades of each city arrange that there shall be no conflicting meeting hours, so that fraction meetings and other meetings do not Interfere with functioning of units. The city committees would have to regular the hours of meeting for all units in the various cities.

Street Nuclei.

In the case of street nuclei, difficulties which they have due to language can be overcome gradually if comrades will not insist upon the speaking of English by comrades who cannot do so. Every opportunity must be given them to express themselves as best they can, though they should be urged to speak English, as in many instances they can do so when encouraged by the other comrades.

The units must work out division of labor and street units must issue street bulletins, the same as shop nuclei. They must help in the formation of women’s councils, International Labor Defense, clubs and other organizations. Street nuclei also must help organize shop nuclei in their neighborhood shops, and can do so if they have one comrade in the shop. They must aim especially to organize shop nuclei in big shops, because in Connecticut these shops have thousands of workers. Comrades can do so if they concentrate on them by holding mass meetings, distributing leaflets at the shops. At meetings comrades should see that application cards are distributed to everyone interested in the organization. From these cards prospective candidates for the party can be secured and later shop nuclei organized.

Negro Work.

Weinstone also reported on the necessity for organizing the Negro workers and reported that the district has an organizer for this work; everywhere the party should support the American Negro Labor Congress in the formation of its units.

Dealing with the united front campaigns, Weinstone pointed out the necessity for the Connecticut comrades getting away from mechanical conceptions of dealing with the united front and aim to reach outside organizations.

This can be done as illustrated already, by the activity of Connecticut sub-district. Foreign-born council and Passaic relief established in Connecticut are good example of what can be accomplished if special effort is made to reach outside organizations. He pointed out that the tendency of calling conferences which appear always under the banner of the Workers’ Party tends to give the impression that these Workers’ Party conferences are not united front conferences as they are intended to be, and recommended that as a general rule in calling united front conferences we should aim to get preliminary united front arrangements with other organizations and call the conference under their auspices.

Ideological Level.

Comrade Weinstone then pointed out the need of raising the ideological level of the Connecticut membership thru establishment of classes and good non-partisan forums. He also emphasized the need of our members getting into the unions and forming functioning fractions in the left wing, building the Trades Union Educational League and building up the left wing wherever there is no organization.

Reports were given by Comrade Wersnitzky of Waterbury, Copsh of Ansonia, Kling, Weissman, Schlossberg and others of New Haven and by Comrade Blum of Springfield and the representatives of Bridgeport, showing that reorganization has taken place and that the immediate task was the building up of the shop nuclei and the functioning of the units; also that foreign-born conferences were established in Waterbury, Ansonia, Bridgeport, New Britain and New Haven. In New Haven the foreign-born conference secured the endorsement of the trades council.

Organizer Reports.

Comrade Shklar, sub-district organizer, reported for the sub-district that all the units have been regularly covered and that the various cities are active; that the units of the American Negro Labor Congress were established by the organizer of the American Negro Labor Congress in Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport; that greater centralization of the sub-district has been accomplished and that successful meetings were held which brought an income to the sub-district, enough to overcome the previous disorganization that existed; also that steps have been taken to establish councils of Working-class Housewives.

The conference went on record as approving the report of the sub-district and district organizers.

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/1926/1926-ny/v03-n085-NY-apr-21-1926-DW-LOC.pdf