Increasing focus on winning Black workers to the Party in the later 1920s forced Communists to confront white chauvinism within its ranks, in many ways the first time the U.S. left had even acknowledged a problem. Here, Gebert looks at the issue, particularly among Polish-speaking workers in his Chicago area. Polish-born Boleslaw ‘Bill’ Gebert came to the U.S. finding work as a miner and joining the Socialist Party by 1915. A leader of the Party’s Polish Federation, based himself in Polish-heavy Detroit and Chicago, and was long an editor of the Polish language Socialist and Communist newspapers. An original member of the Left Wing, Gebert was a founder of the (old) C.P.A. in 1919 and a member of is Central Committee since 1920. Associated with the Cannon-Foster faction in the 1920s, he became more prominent after 1929’s ouster of the former Lovestone leadership. An important ‘secondary leader’ in the Communist Party, among his roles being being the Organizer of the Party’s important District Eight (Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri), particularly heading its turn to Black workers, in the 1930s. The rest of that decade saw him as a national leader of the International Workers Order and a then a key force in the CIO’s the Steel Workers Organizing Committee focusing on foreign-born workers. Returning to Poland after the war, he was active with unions, as an editor, and mostly as a diplomat for the Polish People’s Republic, serving as ambassador to Turkey for much of the 1960s. He died in Warsaw in at age 90 in 1986.

‘White Chauvinism Is the Main Barrier in Winning Negro Masses’ by B.K. Gebert from The Daily Worker. Vol. 8 No. 304. December 19, 1931.

In recent months the Chicago District made some gains among the Negro masses. Thousands of Negro workers are in the Unemployed movement. As a matter of fact, in the city of Chicago, where about 10,000 unemployed workers are organized, about 40 per cent are Negro workers. In the ranks of the Party there are about 500 Negro workers, constituting 25 per cent of the total Party membership in the District. But this, by no means, indicates that we take advantage of the situation which exists to reach not a few hundred or few thousand, but tens of thousands of Negro workers and organize them in the revolutionary movement.

Revolutionary Prerequisite For Successful Struggle.

Our experiences in work definitely show that the prerequisite for successful work among the Negro masses is determined struggle against any manifestation of white chauvinism. We can safely say that if we would not have carried the struggle against white chauvinism, we would have made no progress in winning Negro masses. This is natural.

The Negro masses are being oppressed, suppressed, persecuted and lynched by the white ruling class and they do distrust the whites. This distrust and hate can be turned against the white ruling class and the Negro masses won and united with the revolutionary forces of the working class. But this can be accomplished only then when the Negro workers will feel not only that they have equal rights in the revolutionary mass organizations, but that revolutionary organizations are fighting for the Negro rights. However, we have manifestations to the contrary, and here are a few recent examples.

Concrete Examples of Chauvinism.

On December 7, a mass meeting was held in Gary in support of the demands of the National Hunger March in Washington. A large number of Negro workers came, to the mass meeting, but there was no fraternizing of the Negro and white workers at meetings in the hall before the opening of the meeting, and the Negro workers began to take seats in the hall by themselves and the white workers by themselves, creating a line between the Negro and white workers. It was only, thanks to the proper approach by a member of the District Committee that this was stopped, and after a short explanation this artificial line was broken up and Negro and white workers sat together. This “little accident” showed very much that there, as yet, is no real unity established between Negro and white workers, and without this there can be no successful struggles of the workers in Gary or any other place where such manifestations are noticeable. But this is not the only incident of this character. There are more and more serious ones. Here are some.

Youth Not Immune.

A member of the Young Communist League who is active in the youth branches of the IWO developed ideas that we should have special Negro branches of the International Workers Order, jim-crow branches. It is true that after an explanation the comrade somehow changed his attitude toward the question, but the fact that such ideas can creep out in the minds of the comrades are indications that the basic problems on this question are not known to the membership.

On the South Side of Chicago the Polish Workers Club, which is located in the vicinity of the stockyards, permitted the following situation. The management of the club systematically refused to rent the hall to the YCL because the YCL invited Negro workers to the hall. And when once the hall was rented it was with the warning not to carry agitation among the Negro workers to attend the dance given by the YCL.

In the Unemployed Councils.

Similar warnings were made to the branch of the Unemployed Council, and at the dance of the IWO, when a large number of Negro workers came, they were not welcome, they felt that they were not a part of the gathering, as nobody would dance with them, which resulted that a majority of the Negro workers present left the hall.

All of these acts of white chauvinism have been explained by the manager of the club in a very interesting manner, that all this was done for the interest of the Polish Workers Club. And what are these interests? Very simple. The management of the club has an agreement with the owner of the hall that no Negro workers will be permitted to attend the mass meetings or affairs in the club.

In other words, the Polish Workers Club, instead of developing struggles for equal social rights of the Negro workers, supports the petty-bourgeois and bourgeois ideas of the landlord.

We have a similar situation in Burnside, where the Ukrainian Club refused to rent the hall for the school because Negro workers would be invited and that neighborhood is located in a “white neighborhood.”

More Serious Incidents.

One more manifestation of it, which is very serious, took place on December 7 in Chicago. After the demonstration in Union Park, an announcement was made that the workers shall leave for their headquarters in groups. It so happened that practically 50 per cent or more of the workers began to march in one direction and a few blocks away from the demonstration police attacked the workers, singling out Negro workers, and beating them up.

The white workers, because no preparatory work was made to defend, did not defend the Negro workers and the result was that a number of Negro workers made the remarks “no more will we attend central demonstrations, the white workers do not defend us.”

Likewise, some workers began to state that the International Workers Order is a jim-crow organization, and this has a detrimental effect on the Negro workers in the stockyards, where a large number of Polish and Negro workers are employed.

What Must Be Done.

Organizational measures are necessary against people who are responsible for these acts. They must be exposed not only in the ranks of the Party, but by mass trials, and removed from their posts and expelled from their organizations. But this alone is not sufficient.

The most systematic work must be carried out in the Party amid the broad masses of white workers, explaining the need of unity of Negro and white workers, developing struggles for the Negro rights; a campaign against white chauvinism cannot be carried out successfully unless it is linked up with the immediate struggle for the Negro rights in which white workers are brought in, involved in it, and under the joint leadership of Negro and white workers.

We must not repeat the mistakes made in St. Louis and Gary in previous months, where the struggle against white chauvinism was confined in the narrow circles, without developing around these issues campaigns for Negro rights and exposure of the acts of white chauvinism.

Dangerous Tendencies.

There are still in the Party elements who maintain that facts of this nature shall not be exposed publicly, that this will hurt the Party and the working class. These positions are of a dangerous character and are the worst opportunist positions one can imagine. The Communist Party in Chicago District is determined to burn out white chauvinism in the ranks of the Party. It has demonstrated on a number of occasions its ability to unite Negro and white workers in common struggles, as in the case of the unemployed movement, the 110,000 workers who demonstrated on August 8 on the South Side of Chicago, etc. But there was a little tendency to believe just because of the successful demonstration of August 8 that we already solved the problem of unification of Negro and white workers. This is not the case.

Ceaseless Drive of Capitalist Agencies.

The bourgeoisie is systematically carrying its poisonous campaign in the factories, organizations and press, attempting to antagonize white workers against Negro workers and the Negro workers against the white. These campaigns take many forms. One, for instance, when the Unemployed Council in a white neighborhood demanded relief, the heads of the relief agency stated the following: “We would be glad to give you relief, but all the money we have now is being spent on the South Side. Therefore, there is no money for you.” Such a campaign very clearly indicates the position of the bourgeoisie.

They are utilizing the most vicious methods and will utilize them further.

In the city of Chicago, with 210,000 Negro population, the overwhelming majority of whom are proletarians, there can be no successful struggle of any kind without unity of the Negro and white workers; without winning the Negro workers for the struggle there can be no successful struggle, and the winning of the Negro workers der ends primarily on demonstrating, not in words, but in deeds that the Party and the revolutionary organizations are daily carrying out the struggle for the Negro rights.

The Question of Leadership.

In this connection I want to raise one more very important problem, that is of drawing Negro workers into the leadership of revolutionary organizations. Up till now insufficient Negro workers have been drawn into the leadership of such organizations as the TUUL, ILD, FSU. There is a complete absence of any activities by the International Workers Order among the Negro masses and in the Party proper, there is no systematic effort of promoting Negro workers into the leadership.

More Negro Workers in Leading Positions.

It is true that there are a number of Negro workers who are engaged in the general activities of the Party and in a leading position. But this number is too small and many more Negro workers must be immediately drawn into the Section committees and District committees, into the leading positions of our Party, as our Party is the Party of the American proletariat, black and white, native and foreign born.

It is particularly today that we must demonstrate in action to the Negro masses, because they are oppressed, segregated, jim-crowed, persecuted and lynched, that we not only put them on an equal basis but that we are fighting for their rights and developing conscious proletarian leadership from the broad Negro masses.

The struggle against white chauvinism must be made part of the campaign of the Party in its daily work and not occasionally, from time to time. Any other approach to this question is detrimental to the revolutionary movement, to our Party, to the Negro masses and the whole working class.

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/1931/v08-n304-NY-dec-19-1931-DW-LOC.pdf