Internal 1936 report on Communist Party problems in Boston and steps of reorganization.

‘Building Party Branches in the City of Boston’ by George Blake from Party Organizer. Vol. 9 No. 5. May, 1936.

WE FORMERLY had twelve units in the city of Boston. They were small in size and functioned poorly. Attendance fluctuated and only a few comrades could be relied upon to carry out sustained activity in the neighborhood. New members were easily discouraged. In short, the Party unit consisted of a loose group of comrades, many of them hard-working, but completely isolated from the community. It played no role of any importance in the neighborhood. In most cases, its existence was known only to the workers who had been contacted with the Daily Worker. Hence, the popular conception prevailed that the Party was a small, conspiratorial outfit, working in dark alleys, distributing ‘subversive literature,’ afraid and incapable of meeting the workers face to face.

The Lack of Party Participation

First, in the November elections to the City Council of Boston, the Party neglected to run candidates for office from the wards. True, the District was extremely negligent in failing to make preparations, Fundamentally, the failure to run ward candidates was because of the complete isolation of the Party organizations from local and community politics. The units were not organized on the basis of a political sub-division. They were not organized to plan activities on a ward scale, to search into political questions that interested the workers, etc. Yes, Coughlin, Townsend, etc., organized in the wards, participated actively in the elections, caught the imagination of many thousands of workers, and flourished. Our perspective, inevitably formed by working in small units, was narrow. We watched the procession go by.

Hence, election came and went, with no Party participation and a heavy loss of prestige among many class-conscious workers who were denied political expression. We learned a great deal. A good campaign could have been organized in a number of wards on the basis of the gas-rate campaign initiated by the Party and the Working Women’s Council, just as the “boycott” of the election subsequently weakened the campaign.

The Lenin Memorial Meeting

The second experience was the splendid Lenin Memorial Meeting held in Boston Symphony Hall on January 20. The meeting inspired the Party. Whereas all previous affairs had been held in small, usually dingy halls, accommodating a maximum of 700 people, the Lenin meeting was held in the finest hall of its size in the city. Twenty-seven hundred people crowded into the auditorium and roared their approval of Comrade Browder’s speech. Over one thousand people were turned away. No room. The meeting had created quite a stir in the city. The Boston American (Hearst) organized a vicious campaign against the holding of the meeting, and tried to have it cancelled. We mobilized well and defeated every attempt of Hearst to stop the meeting. The Party no longer felt itself a small, impotent force in Boston. It no longer considered itself a body in full retreat. We were speaking openly to the masses, proud of our program, proud and confident of our Party.

We decided, following these two opposite experiences, to act and reorganize the Party units into branches on the basis of the proposals made by the Central Committee at the November Plenum. The change was completed in February. Branches of thirty-five to fifty members were organized in South Boston, West End, South End, Roxbury, and Dorchester. On the whole, the reorganization was welcomed by the Party membership. Ward maps suddenly appeared on the walls of branch headquarters. In some branches, discussions were held on the local political machine, its connections with the Mansfield and Curley machines, its roots in the neighborhood clubs, churches, and other organizations, composition of the ward population, issues, etc. These discussions helped to make the Party comrades conscious of conditions in the neighborhood and the key organizations to penetrate (in one branch, the comrades because of extreme isolation, were compelled to search the telephone book to determine the organizations in their community!)

The life of the new branches is generally superior to that of the old units. The size alone has helped to liven up the meetings. There is more spirit, a greater feeling of confidence, will to do, and potential strength. In several branches, plans are being made to organize neighborhood forums (Roxbury), to issue a regular bulletin, (West End), and conduct study circles during the spring and summer (Dorchester). The open branch meetings are more attractive to the newcomer, particularly to the American worker who very often cordially disliked the small unit. Recruiting is easier. There are a number of other favorable features which have been cited in the Party publications which also apply to the branches in Boston (see article in March Party Organizer, report on Ninth Assembly District Branch).

On the whole, to sum up the positive results to date, the branch is unquestionably a superior form for neighborhood work on the basis of present conditions.

The Lack of Mass Activity in the Neighborhoods

On the other hand, the branches have not yet solved the decisive problem of organized mass activity in the neighborhoods. In fact, the orientation is almost exclusively inward. The mass work is still carried out by a few leading comrades as before and not organized and planned by the branch itself. As a result, the Party membership in the branch is isolated from actual developments. In the West End a few comrades initiated a movement to compel the city to build a Youth Center to serve the youth of the West End and North End. A conference was organized under the auspices of the West End and North End Joint Planning Boards (semi-official bodies) at Faneuil Hall on April 5. Over sixty organizations responded! Some comrades in the branch helped to contact youth clubs, churches, etc., but the campaign was and is not the campaign of the branch. This movement has broad popular support in these densely populated proletarian districts. It responds to a real and vital need of the youth. The movement is mot now gaining the necessary Momentum. Only a few comrades are active on top, only two or three comrades are in the principal community organizations. Last summer the same comrades initiated a splendid struggle for a beach and playground on the Charles River. The campaign set in motion thousands of adult and young workers. The politicians were forced at the end to get on the band wagon and support the campaign. Victory was won and the city appropriated $40,000 for the project! The Youth Council set up during the campaign, loosely organized, fell apart even prior to the victory. No real attempt was made by the Party and the Y.C.L. to penetrate the key organizations, particularly of the youth,

In the South End, last May, a few comrades initiated the Provisional Committee for Equal Opportunities. The movement grew rapidly and culminated in the Eastern New England Congress on February 9, attended by 150 delegates from 89 organizations, 65 of which were Negro organizations. A resolution to organize a people’s party on the program of the Congress was unanimously endorsed. The Boston Chronicle, a local Negro newspaper, which had for a long time taken a hostile attitude to the work of the local committee, was obliged to characterize the Congress as a “stirring event”. The N.A.A.C.P. now sends an official delegate to the biweekly meetings of the Congress. The prestige of the movement is considerable. Over 400 Negro people crowded into Ebenezer Church on March 16 to hear reports from the delegates that attended the National Negro Congress. On the platform were ministers who had either been indifferent or antagonistic in the past. The manager of the local bank made the collection appeal.

The Party branch, with a membership of fifty, is, however, isolated from these developments. We are beginning to reach literally thousands of Negro workers for the first time through this splendid movement and hence it is imperative that our comrades in the South End branch join the youth clubs, churches, and settlement houses, etc., to strengthen and spread the influence of the Congress. To correct this situation, a leading comrade in this work led a discussion at the branch on the present work of the Congress and following this, the Executive Committee then assigned 14 comrades to work in different organizations in the South End. The branch has now an objective. It is no longer simply a center for the sale of Party literature. The work of the comrades in the organization is tied up with the immediate campaigns of the Congress. The whole life of the branch, including problems of inner organization (education, division of tasks, etc.) now has content. Each member now feels that he is part of a mass movement.

In Roxbury, Dorchester, and South Boston, the Party branches are even more removed from the neighborhood. At a recent open meeting of the Dorchester branch which the writer attended, the routine affairs were discussed and disposed of with commendable efficiency. Not one single word on the problems and issues of Dorchester! Blindfolded, the writer would not have guessed what branch was meeting. It might have been a branch in Oshkosh. Another instance of similar character, again a product of long isolation, was a discussion held on the united front in the West End branch about a month ago. The discussion was excellent throughout. Practically all the comrades participated. Fine! Later in the meeting, however, when the comrades discussed the reorganization of the West End Neighborhood Assembly (an unemployed organization which did excellent work last year), and its plans to send a delegate to the Unity Convention in Washington, not one comrade (out of 30) proposed approaching the local Socialist Party for united action in sending the delegate, and launching a branch of the Workers’ Alliance. And the discussion earlier in the evening had been on the united front!

This isolation is expressed in still another and a more significant form. The Party in Boston recruited in the first quarter of 1936 four times what it had recruited in the same period in 1935. The recruitment, however, did not come from the organized activity of the Party branches. Under these circumstances, we cannot speak of Party growth. The danger of fluctuation increases, and in fact the average attendance at branch meetings is 50 per cent of the membership.

Establishing a City Committee

In order to tackle this whole situation, we have set up in Boston (eliminating Sections which were useless barriers in these circumstances) a City Committee of the Party, consisting of the leading representatives from the branches and industrial units. The City Committee is responsible for planning the political and organizational activity of the Party branches in Boston. Formerly, the units carried out their activity on the basis of general directives from the District, which, in many cases, the comrades did not know how to apply locally. The lower organizations were removed by a great distance from the Party leadership. This has accounted for much of the confusion and some of the stagnation of the old units and the new branches. Now the comrades from the branches participate in hammering out a line of action on a city and community scale. A thorough educational campaign is being planned. In June, a special Boston training school will be held for 25 picked students to train as Branch organizers, trade union leaders, educational cadres, etc. In the garment strike, our comrades were among the most militant pickets, but were not leaders. We have a strong fraction in the C.L.U., but no comrade undertakes to speak. Socialist Party and progressive trade unionists take the floor on the Farmer-Labor resolution, our comrades are mute. We have a rapidly growing membership in Boston, as well as in the entire District. Education and training are vital.

GEORGE BLAKE, District Organizational Secretary

The Party Organizer was the internal bulletin of the Communist Party published by its Central Committee beginning in 1927. First published irregularly, than bi-monthly, and then monthly, the Organizer was primarily meant for the Party’s unit, district, and shop organizers. The Organizer offers a much different view of the CP than the Daily Worker, including a much higher proportion of women writers than almost any other CP publication. Its pages are often full of the mundane problems of Party organizing, complaints about resources, debates over policy and personalities, as well as official numbers and information on Party campaigns, locals, organizations, and periodicals making the Party Organizer an important resource for the study and understanding of the Party in its most important years.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/party-organizer/v09n05-may-1936-Party%20Organizer.pdf