Communist leader Foster testifies in Washington: 1939
Labor and communist leader William Z. Foster testifies before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) September 29, 1939 in Washington, D.C. where he defended the Nazi-Soviet peace pact.
Foster blasted the western democracies for repeatedly refusing to enter into an alliance with the Soviet Union against German Nazi leader Adolph Hitler and defended the Soviet occupation of the eastern half of Poland after Nazi troops invaded from the west.
Over his career, Foster was a left-wing labor organizer and a member of the Socialist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World and the Communist Party. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1924-34 and from 1945-57.
Foster in his early years was a syndicalist who believed in building the power of unions and was skeptical of political work. In some ways this thread ran throughout his career.
Foster broke with the IWW over its refusal to work with existing unions and its insistence on setting up a dual union where one already existed.
Foster’s first large-scale breakthrough occurred with Chicago’s packinghouse workers in 1917 when he formed a Stockyards Labor Council composed of all unions active in the industry to organize the 50,000 workers in the yards.
Foster was convinced a strike would be lost, but organized as if one were in the offing. Since the U.S had entered World War I, President Woodrow Wilson sought to forestall any strike and pressured the stockyard owners to agree to arbitration.
The resulting award was an overwhelming victory for workers who won the eight-hour day, overtime pay and significant wage increase. However, union recognition did not come with the award, but by some measures union membership in the industry doubled.
After the war was over the employers forced a strike and broke the unions. However, Foster’s vision of organizing along industrial lines was boosted.
Foster next took on the steel industry where he led the effort that signed up 100,000 members. When the steel owners refused to meet, Foster called a strike. 250,000 workers walked out September 22, 1919.
With the war over, the employers went all out to break the union and fourteen strikers were killed in the first 10 days of the strike. Worker meetings were broken up. At its height during the strike, 350,000 workers had joined the union.
However, by January 1920, the strikers were facing certain defeat and the strike was called off. Foster’s vision of industrial unionism would have to wait another 15 years.
Foster joined the newly formed Communist Party shortly afterward and launched a new organization, the Trade Union Educational League. Foster was attempting to form an organization of left wing and militant trade unionists to work within existing American Federation of Labor unions.
The organization had some success, but in the late 1920s the Communist Party changed its position and began advocating the formation of revolutionary unions as opposed to working within the AFL.
Once again, Foster had some success and the core of this Trade Union Unity League would go on to form much of the organizational basis for the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the mid and late 1930s and provide many of the organizers.
Foster ran for U.S. president in 1924, 1928 and 1932 on the Communist Party ticket, drawing just over 100,000 votes in 1932--the year Franklin Roosevelt was elected.
He headed the Communist Party beginning in 1924, but had to step down as chair of the party in 1934 due to ill health in favor of Earl Browder.
Foster was at the center of many of the ideological battles within the Communist Party. Perhaps his biggest fight occurred in 1944 when he opposed chairman Earl Browder’s proposal to dissolve the party in favor of a communist political association along with a proposal to continue the war time no-strike pledge after the WWII.
Nearly all his colleagues initially denounced him, but after World War II ended a criticism by French communist Jacques DuClos of Browder’s move changed the game.
The Communist Party in the U.S. was re-formed with Foster at its helm in June 1945.
He was indicted as a Communist Party leader in the first of many cases in 1949, but because of ill health, never stood trial.
He was to oversee the party through its most turbulent period of Smith Act trials, House and Senate hearings, state trials, expulsion of 10 unions headed by communists or allies from the CIO, the execution of the Rosenbergs, Khrushchev’s denunciation of deceased Soviet leader Josef Stalin and the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
He retired in 1957 and later went to live in the Soviet Union where he died in 1961 and was interred in Red Square.
Despite his tendencies toward syndicalism, he is generally viewed by communists as having upheld the revolutionary wing of the Communist Party and opposed the reformist wing. His book, Toward a Soviet America, remains required reading for serious communists.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmHJXpxD
The photographer is unknown. The image is a Harris and Ewing photograph housed at the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.
Communist leader Foster testifies in Washington: 1939
Labor and communist leader William Z. Foster testifies before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) September 29, 1939 in Washington, D.C. where he defended the Nazi-Soviet peace pact.
Foster blasted the western democracies for repeatedly refusing to enter into an alliance with the Soviet Union against German Nazi leader Adolph Hitler and defended the Soviet occupation of the eastern half of Poland after Nazi troops invaded from the west.
Over his career, Foster was a left-wing labor organizer and a member of the Socialist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World and the Communist Party. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1924-34 and from 1945-57.
Foster in his early years was a syndicalist who believed in building the power of unions and was skeptical of political work. In some ways this thread ran throughout his career.
Foster broke with the IWW over its refusal to work with existing unions and its insistence on setting up a dual union where one already existed.
Foster’s first large-scale breakthrough occurred with Chicago’s packinghouse workers in 1917 when he formed a Stockyards Labor Council composed of all unions active in the industry to organize the 50,000 workers in the yards.
Foster was convinced a strike would be lost, but organized as if one were in the offing. Since the U.S had entered World War I, President Woodrow Wilson sought to forestall any strike and pressured the stockyard owners to agree to arbitration.
The resulting award was an overwhelming victory for workers who won the eight-hour day, overtime pay and significant wage increase. However, union recognition did not come with the award, but by some measures union membership in the industry doubled.
After the war was over the employers forced a strike and broke the unions. However, Foster’s vision of organizing along industrial lines was boosted.
Foster next took on the steel industry where he led the effort that signed up 100,000 members. When the steel owners refused to meet, Foster called a strike. 250,000 workers walked out September 22, 1919.
With the war over, the employers went all out to break the union and fourteen strikers were killed in the first 10 days of the strike. Worker meetings were broken up. At its height during the strike, 350,000 workers had joined the union.
However, by January 1920, the strikers were facing certain defeat and the strike was called off. Foster’s vision of industrial unionism would have to wait another 15 years.
Foster joined the newly formed Communist Party shortly afterward and launched a new organization, the Trade Union Educational League. Foster was attempting to form an organization of left wing and militant trade unionists to work within existing American Federation of Labor unions.
The organization had some success, but in the late 1920s the Communist Party changed its position and began advocating the formation of revolutionary unions as opposed to working within the AFL.
Once again, Foster had some success and the core of this Trade Union Unity League would go on to form much of the organizational basis for the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the mid and late 1930s and provide many of the organizers.
Foster ran for U.S. president in 1924, 1928 and 1932 on the Communist Party ticket, drawing just over 100,000 votes in 1932--the year Franklin Roosevelt was elected.
He headed the Communist Party beginning in 1924, but had to step down as chair of the party in 1934 due to ill health in favor of Earl Browder.
Foster was at the center of many of the ideological battles within the Communist Party. Perhaps his biggest fight occurred in 1944 when he opposed chairman Earl Browder’s proposal to dissolve the party in favor of a communist political association along with a proposal to continue the war time no-strike pledge after the WWII.
Nearly all his colleagues initially denounced him, but after World War II ended a criticism by French communist Jacques DuClos of Browder’s move changed the game.
The Communist Party in the U.S. was re-formed with Foster at its helm in June 1945.
He was indicted as a Communist Party leader in the first of many cases in 1949, but because of ill health, never stood trial.
He was to oversee the party through its most turbulent period of Smith Act trials, House and Senate hearings, state trials, expulsion of 10 unions headed by communists or allies from the CIO, the execution of the Rosenbergs, Khrushchev’s denunciation of deceased Soviet leader Josef Stalin and the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
He retired in 1957 and later went to live in the Soviet Union where he died in 1961 and was interred in Red Square.
Despite his tendencies toward syndicalism, he is generally viewed by communists as having upheld the revolutionary wing of the Communist Party and opposed the reformist wing. His book, Toward a Soviet America, remains required reading for serious communists.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmHJXpxD
The photographer is unknown. The image is a Harris and Ewing photograph housed at the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.