In introducing and underling the Communist Party C.C.’s ‘Organizational Directives on the Scottsboro Case,’ Robert Minor, here writing as head of the Communist Party’s ‘Negro Department,’ takes comrades and Party bodies to task for not properly absorbing the importance of the campaign and building its work. The campaign, here just beginning, would be one of the most sustained in the Party’s history, becoming central to its identity in the 1930s.

‘Organizational Aspects of the Scottsboro Campaign’ by Robert Minor from The Daily Worker. Vol. 8 No 116. May 14, 1931.

(Head of the Negro Dept. of Central Committee.)

THE Central Committee, in its directives on page 1 today [below], is obliged to draw sharply to the attention of all leading comrades, a serious danger arising in one of the most important mass campaigns that the Party has ever undertaken–the campaign around the Scottsboro case.

The danger arises out of an almost complete failure of leading committees of the Party in the organizing of the mass base for this campaign.

Comrades! Old habits and the weaknesses of a purely propaganda party must be resolutely thrown aside. The saving of the lives and the liberty of the nine Negro youths framed up at Scottsboro can be accomplished only by a movement which has not been stirred into motion before.

Your District Committee as a whole is placed under full responsibility for this campaign throughout your district. We have reports that the campaign is being relegated to sub-departments and to non-Party organizations in direct violation of the instructions of the Central Committee. It is impossible to tolerate any such course on the part of the District Committee, the Buros and District organizers. You, comrades, the full District Committee, as among your first and most important duties must take charge and put the machinery of the Party itself into this campaign, utilizing its departments and involving all mass organizations, but with the District Committee directly in charge, the Buro supervising and directing the whole work as a task which is second to none. Incomplete reports on May Day demonstrations in more than 100 cities show that in some places good results have been obtained for the Scottsboro defense in the sphere of agitation and demonstration although in many cities there was very bad neglect of the important task of reaching the Negro masses and drawing these into the demonstrations as active, organized participants. On the whole, the agitational work considered as a beginning, has been good and to the credit of our Party, and has already made possible the first small legal victory for the Scottsboro defendants–the securing of a change of venue. But what of the organizational work.

The organization work is not being done. The practice of confining our Scottsboro campaign, aside from demonstrations, etc. to the visiting of organizations is an opportunist error of the worst sort. Our only connections with the masses would be through the supposed “good will” of officials who could deflate the whole defense campaign at the most critical moment.

The visiting of organizations and in this way securing their participation in the United Front Conference is important work and must be continued; but the united front in this case, as in all others, must be primarily and at all costs a united front from the bottom–a united front of the rank and file masses of Negro people and black and white workers for the purpose of saving the Scottsboro boys. This mean the organization of masses in support of this campaign, even if at first only in a more or less loose form for the duration of the campaign. Without this there can be no success in this campaign no matter how “successful” the agitational side of it may otherwise be.

Your first attention must be given to the formation of Neighborhood Committees of the L.S.N.R. for the Scottsboro boys.

The following instructions for Neighborhood Committees must be immediately put into effect:

1. The District Committee through the Bureau takes full responsibility, and itself directs and checks up on the work.

2. As the means of day-to-day execution of directives the regular departments of the District Committee will function, not separately in a routine way, but under close and constant guidance of the District Organizer and Org. Secretary. In all Districts the Negro Department is very weak, it must immediately be strengthened and must become the strongest possible department that the District Committee can form. The District Organizer or Org. Secretary must be a member of this department from the moment of receipt of this communication and must attend every session.

3. The District Committee and Section Committees to allot to very Unit of the Party a certain selected territory, bounded by certain specific streets in Negro and white working class residence districts.

4. The special meeting of every unit in your District must be devoted solely to the Scottsboro case, and primarily to the organizational work of building neighborhood committees of the L.S.N.R. for a united front to defend the framed-up Negro boys at Scottsboro. This first meeting must open with a report on the case by a comrade familiar with Negro work.

5. A general outline of the case will be sent you within two days. To this the District Buro must add a short section giving a local adaptation of the meaning of the case to the Negro masses and white working class, black and white, concretizing on local activities as well as local issues of persecution of Negroes.

6. A simple popular leaflet of the L.S.N.R. will be sent you very quickly, and this, together with an I.L.D. leaflet, must be carefully distributed to every apartment within residence neighborhoods assigned to comrades as shown in following directives. (Also to workers in factories, as later specified).

7. A good number of the best members of every Unit to be mobilized for work, and each of these to be given a specific number of evenings (if working in day time) or must be given specific hours during day time if unemployed, and each must report promptly, under the direction of the Unit executive, and each member must be assigned personally to visit tenants within territory and apartment houses allotted. According to the strength of the Unit and the local conditions the Unit executive may send the members singly or in pairs (perhaps one Negro comrade and one white) to make these visits.

8. The District Committees must see that all Units are promptly supplied with copies of the Liberator and other literature to be left with the families visited.

9. Each comrade must talk with and request all whom he visits to enroll himself in a “Neighborhood Committee’ for the defense of the Scottsboro boys under the auspices of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights.

10. Very important. From the very beginning, the comrades visiting both Negro and white working class families must seek to get members of these families, men, women or youths, themselves to go out, as you are going (preferably with a Party member or more experienced L.S.N.R. member) and to visit their neighbors, as representatives of the L.S.N.R. to get their neighbors also to enroll. Comrades, this is the means to obtain self-activity of the masses themselves. It will mean a break with bad habits of the past. In the past we have too much permitted the masses to be passive while depending upon our own members alone for activity in leading and doing work of mass movements. Now we must make this break, and must really draw into active, organizational work non-Party men, women and youths of the working class and of the Negro people. Don’t leave the masses merely “enrolled,” but inactive. Meetings must be held in the homes of Negro and white workers, of these Neighborhood Committees, and they must be made to understand the case, to feel that it is their own case, and at the same time they must be encouraged to bring forward their own creative proposals—in short, in the non-Party masses we must find leading forces to help organize the mass movement.

11. The functions of the Neighborhood Committees are: (1) Mobilization and organization for the United Front Conferences: (2) Organizing rank and file groups of persons belonging to mass organizations, to work in an organized way within such organizations to secure support by such mass organizations for the Scottsboro united front campaign and against bourgeois leadership, developing minority formations within these organizations; (3) Sale and distribution of the Liberator for that end (each Neighborhood Committee to order bundles of Liberator and assign members to sell and distribute; (4) Correspondence with the Liberator; (5) Undertaking collections for the Scottsboro defense, under guidance of the I.L.D., although these Neighborhood Committees are part of the L.S.N.R.; (6) Giving organized participation in all demonstrations, organizing their own local meetings and demonstrations, and; (7) Organizing and holding affairs (to be supported by the Party and mass organizations) for benefit of Scottsboro defense.

12. Members of functioning shop nuclei are to be given special instructions, to be worked out by the District Committee in the case of each important nucleus on the basis of its own possibilities and conditions at work, for activity in the shops where they are employed, and in visiting during the evenings, fellow workers with whom they make contacts in the shops. District Committees will give specific directions to each shop nucleus as the organizational forms to be accomplished by this work. The existence or non-existence of a shop committee is an important factor. In some cases the beginning of a shop committee can be accomplished for the first time by the rising of this question amongst the workers in the shop. Where shop committees are in existence, the shop committee must be utilized to enroll workers in the shop as willing to cooperate in the Scottsboro defense, as members of the L.S.N.R., and as members of the existing shop committee itself, to commit itself to cooperation with the L.S.N.R. for this defense.

13. Every comrade working in a shop, factory or mine (whether there is a shop nucleus or not) must carry on the campaign of the Scottsboro defense among the workers in the shop where he is employed, and the District and Section Committees must see to it that the agitational work is followed up immediately with organizational measures appropriate to the particular shop.

14. Every meeting of the Buro of District and Sections without exception (for the present)–must receive at least an information report on the execution of the campaign for Scottsboro defense. The work in all cases must be work under direction, checking up and correction of weaknesses and mistakes by the leading committees of the Districts and Sections.

15. United Front conference, of which many are occurring in the latter half of this month, are called under auspices of L.S.N.R. and the I.L.D. These are to be followed up by bigger conferences. The Neighborhood Committees as well as factory committees must be made a basis for swelling these united front conferences in size and representation and mass support, and in strengthening the class composition of the conferences, which otherwise might contain too large a proportion of artificial and opportunistic representatives not closely enough connected with the masses.

16. The Neighborhood Committees must be organized. That is, they must elect executive committees and chairmen for the neighborhoods. Representatives of the Neighborhood Committees must be brought together in executive meetings under the direct auspices of the L.S.N.R.

17. Every piece of literature issued in the District must contain appropriate slogans on the Scottsboro case, which can be selected from the official slogans already published in the Daily Worker.

18. Every meeting of the Unemployed Council and every meeting of the T.U.U.L. or any of its unions and its minority organizations should have the Scottsboro defense kept before its attention, with reports of progress, proposals from the rank and file members, etc.

19. This letter deals almost exclusively with the organizational forms which are to be under the L.S.N.R. The District Committee must resolutely act to convince any comrades who are reluctant to build up the LSNR through underestimation of its importance or misunderstanding of its role (see recent resolution of the Central Committee on Negro Work published in the Daily Worker March 23rd).

20. But this must not be permitted to cause neglect of the role of the I.L.D. in the Scottsboro case. The I.L.D. has from the beginning played the most prominent role in the case, and the I.L.D. has a relatively strong organization in many places where the L.S.N.R. hardly exists, if at all. This strength must be utilized continuously. No one must get the idea that the I.L.D. is confined to the legal aspects of the case. The I.L.D. also is an organization of masses for mass support of the defense. The Neighborhood Committees are LSNR committees. But the I.L.D. continues the work actively in the Scottsboro case and its appeal for membership and collections in all meetings in which the I.L.D. participates together with the L.S.N.R. and other organizations. The two organizations must be made to work harmoniously for the common cause. Mass meetings should continue to be held under separate and joint auspices of the L.S.N.R. and the I.L.D., together with any other appropriate organizations which can be brought not only to participate in the meetings but to share the auspices.

21. Of course these special directives for work to be done through a non-Party organization (L.S.N.R.) do not mean that the Party itself in its own name does not continue and multiply its work of agitation and demonstration in its own name and organization in its own ranks as well as its open leadership of the struggle within the mass organizations. The Party, as such, continues and increases its activity as evidenced in the May Day demonstrations.

Comrades! We have pointed out certain of the more obvious right errors that would endanger the success of the campaign. The danger of right errors is the greatest danger in this case, involving as it does, mass work among new elements not all of which are of proletarian character. This danger concretely concerns chiefly the likelihood of falling into the error of “united front from the top” and the failure to win the more healthy elements of the Negro masses and working class.

However, it is necessary also to warn the comrades against “left” errors (also opportunistic in fact) which confront this campaign and which would wreck all efforts to get any mass movement which alone can save the victims. Comrades must overcome all sectarian fear of close contacts with the non-Communist masses and failure to do so would be a failure to realize the revolutionary potentialities of the Negro masses and of the working class.

The Central Committee calls upon every District and every Section and Unit to throw itself with full strength and devotion into this campaign which can very well prove to be an epoch-making one in the struggle of the Negro masses and the working class.

Organizational Directives on the Scottsboro Case

(Issued by the Central Committee, C.P.U.S.A.)

THE struggle initiated by our Party to save the lives of the 9 Scottsboro Negro boys has already resulted in a broad protest movement. The organizational consolidation of this movement is now a burning problem. The Central Committee, therefore, gives the following directives which are to be quickly applied by all District Committees:

1.) The rapid activization of great numbers of non-Party elements is the chief immediate organizational objective. Only by securing the help of thousands of hitherto politically inactive elements, or of workers previously following reformist leadership, in broadening this struggle can the lives of these boys be saved and substantial beginnings made in creating a great organized mass movement for Negro rights.

2.) Other work (factory, unemployment, trade union, etc.) must not be neglected because of the Scottsboro fight. A real division of work must be quickly inaugurated in the Party units and sections. Without disrupting other work, each unit, according to its size, shall assign from two to four comrades to the task of carrying forward the work of the L.S.N.R. and a similar number to the work of the I.L.D. These comrades shall be permanently and exclusively assigned to the work of these organizations. It is their task to build these organizations, drawing into the work of these organizations as many non-Party workers as possible.

One comrade from each section committee shall be assigned to direct the work of these comrades who are assigned by the units. The District Committee shall be responsible for guidance to these comrades in the sections and the leading fractions of the mass organizations, carefully coordinating their work.

Other comrades in the unit now assigned to factory work, unemployment work, trade union work, or work in other mass organizations, while remembering that their chief task is the work to which they are directly assigned (preparing and organizing the struggle against wage cuts, for our unemployment demands, etc.), must also raise the Scottsboro issue. They should endeavor to have protest telegrams or resolutions adopted; have delegates elected to the united front conferences; from their factory or mas organization; arrange for speakers of the Party, L.S.N.R., or I.L.D. to appear before these organizations; prepare their organizations to participate in mass demonstrations; etc.

With such a division of work and with each comrade carrying through the task to which he is assigned the greatest organizational results can be secured.

3.) The central task of those comrades assigned to the work of the L.S.N.R. It. shall be the building of Neighborhood Committees and Groups of the L.S.N.R. Contacts for the, setting up of such committees and groups can be secured at agitational meetings held in connection with the Scottsboro case, through other mass organizations, in the factories, but chiefly through visiting workers at their homes, and convincing them of the necessity of helping in the fight to save these 9 innocent Negro boys from the electric chair. When such contacts are secured, our comrades, with the help of these non-Party workers, should undertake to organize a neighborhood meeting preferably in the home of one of these non-Party workers where the Scottsboro case is to be explained and a committee of the L.S.N.R. sets up to further carry on the work in the neighborhood.

This committee should be given only a few simple tasks that inexperienced non-Party workers can perform, such as, 1.) election of delegates to the united front conference; 2.) distribution of a limited number of leaflets and “Liberators;” 3.) arranging another and broader meeting to further popularize the Scottsboro case and to draw still greater numbers of non-Party workers into the campaign; and 4.) drawing as many people as possible in an organized manner into any demonstrations that are held.

These two or more comrades who are assigned by the unit of the Party to the task of building these L.S.N.R. committees on the Scottsboro issue must remember that it is absolutely necessary to give the closest attention and cooperation to these committees after they are formed, carefully guiding the in their work, preparing them to become permanent groups of the L.S.N.R. and recruiting the most advanced and self-sacrificing workers for the Party.

4.) The chief task of those comrades assigned to work in the I.L.D. shall be to activize and build the existing branches of the I.L.D., to establish new branches where none now exist, to secure the affiliation of mass organizations to the I.L.D., and to secure the broadest possible representation to the Scottsboro united front conferences called jointly by the I.L.D. and the L.S.N.R. They shall also be responsible for organizing tag days or other collections in their territory and for aiding in mobilizing the workers for mass meetings and demonstrations of protest. They shall enlist the aid of the L.S.N.R. committees and neighborhood groups in carrying through tag days and other collections for the Scottsboro defense. They must also remember to prominently bring forward the other cases being defended by the I.L.D. (Paterson, Harlan, Imperial Valley, Mooney, local cases, etc.)

5.) Mass organizations (A.F. of L. and revolutionary unions, clubs. lodges, etc.) must be systematically visited by Party, L.S.N.R. and I.L.D. speakers (both Party and non-Party) in connection with Scottsboro, presenting this case as a particular manifestation of the persecution and lynch terror against Negroes, and as a part of the general capitalist terror against all workers (bringing in also the other cases–Paterson, Imperial Valley. etc.) These organizations should be urged to send protest telegrams and resolutions to the Governor and judge, elect delegates to the Scottsboro united front conference, and to participate in all the mass activities (meetings, demonstrations, conferences, etc.) to save the 9 Scottsboro boys. In addition they should be urged to themselves carry on activity to broaden the campaign.

Where possible such mass organizations should be won for permanent affiliation to the I.L.D. or the L.S.N.R–a flexible policy being adopted depending on the character of the organization, its purposes, its leadership, etc. Where these organizations cannot be won, minority groups should be organized and drawn into the campaign, carrying on a fight also against the leaders who block the entrance of the organization as a whole into the fight.

6.) The United Front conferences which are built up from these Party, L.S.N.R., and I.L.D. activities must be kept alive as a real united front movement, which, with the direction of our Party fractions, leads the whole Scottsboro struggle in accordance with the political directives which will be issued from time to time as the case develops.

These united front conferences which arise from the foregoing activities must greatly stimulate the organizational work. More L.S.N.R. groups: more branches of the I.L.D.: more affiliated mass organizations to both the L.S.N.R. and the I.L.D.; more effective mass mobilization for bigger meetings, conferences and demonstrations–all this must follow the united front conferences by arousing and enthusing there still greater number of non-Party workers, preparing them organizationally and politically to systematically carry forward the fight to save the 9 Scottsboro boys. In this way a powerful and permanent mass movement can be built.

CENTRAL COMMITTEE, COMMUNIST PARTY, U.S.A.

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. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist.

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