SAN FRANCISCO REDS : COMMUNISTS IN THE BAY AREA, 1919-1958

By Robert W. Cherny

University of Illinois Press. 293 pages. £23.99. ISBN 978-0-252-08793-6

Reviewed by Jim Burns

The sub-title of Robert Cherny’s book noticeably refers to “Communists” and not “Communism”, suggesting that the emphasis is to be on people and not too much on Communist Party policies. The latter were important, of course, and affected how people behaved, what they believed in, rhe decisions thay made, and much more. When they spoke of giving their whole life to the Party they were often not exaggerating. It took time, effort, and not a little courage to be openly communist in America in the period covered by Cherny. Poverty, prejudice, prison in some cases, and encounters with violence, were not uncommon experiences. Not everyone was prepared to tolerate such circumstances, nor were they ready to follow the twists and turns of Party ideology, but some were. Cherny is often largely concerned with their methods of survival.

It has to be said that, reading Cherny, it’s obvious that from the start the American Communist Party was a hotbed of rivalries and factional fighting. Without going too far into its history it originally got underway as two parties – the Communist Party of America (CPA) and the Communist Labor Party (CLP). They did eventually come together to form  the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), though factionalism was to play a great part for several years in District 13, which covered the area designated for the California Communist Party.

It might give an indication of the kind of problems that organisers had to face up to by pointing to the fact that different branches existed for language groups. Of the five hundred or so members of District 13 in the early 1920s, “twenty two were members of English branches, and the rest – the large majority – belonged to foreign language branches, organisational forms inherited from the SPA (the Socialist Party of America). Los Angeles had English, Finnish, Hungarian, Jewish, and Lithuanian branches. The Jewish branch was the largest.  San Francisco, at various times in the early-1920s, had English, Estonian, Finnish, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Jewish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, and South Slav branches, none so dominant as the Jewish branch was in the south”.

It may indicate the level of enthusiasm projected by the early converts to communism if I mention the case of Enoch Nelson. He grew up in a Finnish community at Fort Bragg, north of San Francisco. He wrote for the Party’s Finnish-language newspaper, and in 1925 “went to Karelia, the part of Soviet Russia nearest Finland”. He “became a Soviet citizen and a party member”, and, among other things, acted as a “political instructor, whose duties were ‘to encourage the workers’ and prevent sabotage”. He was there “until 1937-1938 when he was among the two thousand Finns executed as part of the Great Terror”.

Matters didn’t improve in California, despite calls for unity, and a 1928 report referred to “decay and degeneration”, and the fact that many of the “most loyal, self-sacrificing and active” members had either dropped out or been driven out: “The atmosphere within the Party is one of personal gossip, rumours, scandals, investigations of private lives, family life, etc”.  And “the district has gone ideologically from bad to worse”. A pertinent chapter in the book is headed “Unceasing Factional Struggle, 1925-1930”. This was the period when Trotskyism became a term of abuse, and over on the East Coast one-time communist stalwarts like Jay Lovestone, Benjamin Gitlow, and Bertram Wolfe were expelled for “intrigue, falsehoods and disruptive activity”, in other words failing to adhere to the Party line. Cherny notes that later, “All became strongly anti-communist”.

I think it’s true to say that most Communist Parties outside Russia frequently found it difficult to follow Instructions from Moscow. The Third Period philosophy required Party members to treat socialists and social democrats as “social fascists” and to refuse to enter into collaborations with them. Even trade union leaders who co-operated with the bourgeoisie in any way were seen as enemies who were leading workers away from their true inclinations to join up with the Communist Party as the only political organisation with a practical approach that could lead to the overthrow of capitalism.

It was a policy that would only change when the political realities of the 1930s caused the authorities in Moscow to advocate the launching of what became known as the Popular Front. It was then permissible for communists to stand alongside social democrats, church groups, unions, even capitalists in a united opposition to fascism. Interestingly, it was during this period that the California communists achieved some successes, though mostly minor, and increased their membership. There were organising drives among the unemployed and agricultural workers. Cherny points to a strike by “twelve thousand cotton pickers” during which two strikers were killed and others wounded. It was around this time that John Steinbeck wrote the strike novel, In Dubious Battle, published in 1936 and with a prominent character supposedly based on Samuel Adams Darcy, a leading light among the San Francisco communists.

Prior to communist involvement in the fields there had been the events surrounding the 1934 San Francisco General Strike. The 1930s had seen the rise of union activity and, in San Francisco, Harry Bridges and the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) were particularly active. Cherny has written at length about Bridges (see his Harry Bridges : Labour Radical, Labour Legend, University of Illinois Press, 2023), and suffice to say here that the unions in San Francisco called a general strike for several days after two strikers were shot by police. Communists were present in the ILWU and Bridges himself constantly faced accusations of being a Party member, though he always denied it, and the American government could never prove otherwise.  There were several attempts to deport him as an Australian citizen who had allegedly made false declarations when applying for American citizenship.

The ten or so years between the mid-1930s and 1945 were probably the high tide of communism in the United States. The rise of the Popular Front, communist activity in the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO), which represented unions in auto manufacturing, steel, rubber, and other trades not under the blanket of the longer-established American Federation of Labour (AFL), and the shattering economic effects of the Depression, all combined to persuade people to look for an alternative to capitalism. There were also the rise of Fascist dictatorships in Germany and Italy, and the Spanish Civil War, to add fuel to the fire. In the minds of many Party members it must have seemed that the Soviet Union was the only country willing to present a programme which provided both an alternative to an outdated social and economic system, and a willingness to make a stand against Fascism.

But in 1939 came the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. Party membership slumped, though hardliners tried to justify Stalin’s actions : “The CP interpreted the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as an entente, and variations on Third Period rhetoric returned to PW (People’s World, the Party newspaper), with denunciations of Roosevelt for warmongering and attacks on New Deal Democrats who supported Roosevelt or favored assistance to the Allies”. An illustration in the book shows an American worker refusing to get involved in a European War under a headline which reads “The Yanks Are Not Coming”. The Party referred to what was happening in Europe as “The Second Imperialist War”.

All that was to change in June 1941 when Germany launched a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union. Suddenly, it became legitimate to praise Roosevelt and to call for aid to be sent to Russia and Britain . And when, in December 1941, Japan attacked the American  fleet at Pearl Harbour, the old ideas were even more relevant  : “Fascism was again the enemy. the Popular Front was back, and the CPUSA was in full-throated support of U.S. aid to those fighting Germany, especially the Soviet Union”. Membership began to increase as it became almost respectable to belong to the Party. Films appeared from Hollywood extolling the dedication and fierce resistance being offered by the Russian people to the advancing German armies. There were benefit concerts to raise funds for Russia, and celebrities signed petitions and appeals.

In actual fact, a deep suspicion of communism still existed under the surface of so-called wartime unity, and it wouldn’t be long after hostilities ended before a reaction set in. Individuals would soon begin to regret their enthusiasm for Stalin as the post-war years brought evidence of widespread Russian espionage activities in America, and in Europe countries like Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and more fell under Russian domination. The Cold War had begun and its effects would soon be felt among the San Francisco communists.

It needs to be noted that in 1944 the CPUSA had been dissolved by its then leader, Earl Browder, and reformed as the Communist Political Association (CPA) with a pragmatic policy of co-operation with bourgeois organisations and individuals. Not everyone was in agreement with this, and as early as January 1945 a French communist, Jacques Duclos, probably under orders from Moscow, wrote an article condemning Browder’s actions. He was replaced, hardliners like Wiliam Z.Foster and Eugene Dennis took over, and the CPUSA was reconstituted. It wouldn’t be true to say that the CPUSA went into a total decline from this date. Cherny points out that “San Francisco’s labor-left culture.....continued to thrive into the late 1940s and early 1950s, with the California Labor School at its center.....The CLS long resisted the rising tensions of the Cold War, domestic anti-communism, and the increasing isolation of the CP”.  The school had “maintained a diverse curriculum that attracted thousands of non-Communist students”. Humanities and art classes were popular.

However, the writing really was on the wall by the beginning of the 1950s. The CLS was investigated by a California Committee on Un-American Activities and classified as a “Communist Front” organisation, and individual Party members were being summoned to appear before various  Committees. Unions were purging known communists from their ranks. Within the Party itself, there were factional fights and expulsions and a seeming determination to impose greater discipline on members. A Party report on the CLS claimed that there had been “promotion of unreliable and anti-Party element into positions of responsibility and leadership, including bohemian elements, drunkards, homos, lesbians, chauvinists, and possible agents operating within this grouping”.  For some communists it must have been a case of, if the Party doesn’t slander you, the authorities will do their best to give you a bad name. Cherny says that it was clear that HUAC hearings were designed to “label a person as a ‘Red’ in a way that would make local headlines and might cause the person to lose their job”. 

Cherny’s account essentially ends in 1958, by which time the CPUSA was a spent force. Membership had fallen drastically and the Party had been infiltrated by the FBI to such an extent that it’s activities were less than effective. Quite a few old members had resigned or simply stopped being involved when Kruschev made his 1956 revelations about Stalin’s crimes, and when the Soviets invaded Hungary. Cherny mentions Bill Bailey, who had fought in the Spanish Civil War, and in 1993 published a colourful memoir, The Kid From Hoboken, about his adventures at sea, behind bars, in Spain, and much else. He wasn’t the only one who wrote about their experiences. Tillie Olson published Yonnondio: From the Thirties, though perhaps her best known book is Tell Me a Riddle. And there was the communist journalist Mike Quin’s The Big Strike, which tells the story of the 1934 events. Quin (real name Paul William Ryan) also wrote crime novels set in San Francisco under the name of Robert Finnegan. Cherny’s book has numerous notes and a useful bibliography.

One San Francisco communist I can’t resist referring to is Leo Nitzberg who, in 1937, went to Spain despite being only seventeen. Cherny says that, after leaving the Party in the 1950s, he “frequented the beatnik coffee-houses in North Beach, worked on photography, and  eventually became an accomplished potter”. What would the party have thought of such bohemian tendencies? San Francisco Reds is full of fascinating snippets of information about individuals, as well as being a brisk account of Party policies and proceedings.