The Revolutionary Policy Committee

Altman, Jake

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-17176-6_4

Jake Altman²

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Abstract

The development and organization of the Revolutionary Policy Committee (RPC) owed much to the pressures of fascism and the economic crisis. Members included students radicalized at Union Theological Seminary. The RPC was a genuine effort to wrestle with the complexities of the 1930s. As such, it reveals much about the specific rationales used to justify a radical turn and indicates how Socialist Party tradition served as a break on violent activity—if not violent rhetoric. Education and work within the established labor movement characterized the RPC’s activities. Despite all of its claims to represent a revolutionary alternative, it did not stray far from the Socialist Party’s imperatives of education, work within the mainstream labor movement, and electoral action.

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Notes

1.
Gerd-Rainer Horn, European Socialists Respond to Fascism: Ideology, Activist, and Contingency in the 1930s (Oxford University Press, 1996), 8.
2.
“War Scenes in Vienna,” Manchester Guardian, 16 February 1934.
3.
William Feigenbaum, “They Built a City for the Future: And So the Brave Vienna Socialists Are Hunted Like Wild Beasts,” The New Leader, 17 February 1934, 10.
4.
“The Editors’ Reply,” Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 2 (February 1935), 11.
5.
Ibid.
6.
Ibid.
7.
Ibid.
8.
Seth Lipsky, “Irving Brown: All Along the Line,” Wall Street Journal, 17 February 1989, A14.
9.
Kevin Boyle, The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945–1968 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 53.
10.
John Daniel, Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone (Washington, DC: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005), 101.
11.
Timothy J. Minchin, What Do We Need a Union For? The TWUA in the South, 1945–1955 (University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 28.
12.
See Alice Cook, A Lifetime of Labor: The Autobiography of Alice H. Cook (Feminist Press, 1998). Cornell named one of its student residences after Cook.
13.
Carolyn Woods Eisenberg, Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany, 1944–1949 (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 156; Cook, A Lifetime of Labor, 100.
14.
Mary M. Stolberg, Bridging the River of Hatred: The Pioneering Efforts of Detroit Police Commissioner George Edwards (Wayne State University Press, 1998), 51.
15.
David Palmer, Organizing the Shipyards: Union Strategy in Three Northeast Ports, 1933–1945 (Cornell University Press, 1998), 58.
16.
The Revolutionary Policy Committee, “An Appeal to the Membership of the Socialist Party,” March 1934, Box 5, Printed Ephemera Collection on the Socialist Party (PECSP), Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University, New York; The Revolutionary Policy Committee, “An Appeal to the Membership of the Socialist Party,” April 1934, Box 5, PECSP.
17.
Palmer, Organizing the Shipyards, 75; The Revolutionary Policy Committee, “An Appeal to the Membership of the Socialist Party,” April 1934, Box 5, PECSP. In November 1934, the RPC’s Executive Committee consisted of J.B. Matthews, Francis Henson, Irving Brown, William Chamberlain, David Felix, Howard Kester, W.W. Norris, Roy Reuther, Ruth Shallcross, Leo Sitke, and George Streator. See “What Is the Revolutionary Policy Committee?” The Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 1 (November 1934): see cover page.
18.
Irving Howe, Socialism and America (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), 54. Howe’s colorful characterization of the Old Guard is worth more than a glance for its evocative style. His writing gives literary life to the SP.
19.
Ibid., 54–55.
20.
Warren, An Alternative Vision, 17. Importantly, much of the Old Guard was firmly committed to electoral independence, which distinguished it from allied elements of a more dispersed socialist movement. See, for instance, the Old Guard’s reaction to EPIC in Warren, An Alternative Vision, 76.
21.
Jennifer Luff, Commonsense Anticommunism: Labor and Civil Liberties Between the World Wars (University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 130.
22.
Raymond F. Gregory, Norman Thomas: The Great Dissenter (Algora, 2008), 138.
23.
Howe, Socialism and America, 56–57; Warren, An Alternative Vision, 17.
24.
Franz Daniel, “The Militant Program for Socialism,” The New Leader, 14 May 1932, 9; Francis Henson, “Shibboleths and Reformists,” The New Leader, 6 February 1932, 11; and Bell, Marxian Socialism in the United States, 159.
25.
“Memorandum on a Monthly Socialist Magazine,” March 1933, Box 5, Powers Hapgood Papers, Lilly Library Manuscript Collections, Indiana University.
26.
Henson, “Shibboleths and Reformists,” 11.
27.
Ruth Shallcross to Powers Hapgood, 27 February 1934, Box 5, PHP.
28.
David Felix to Powers Hapgood, 27 February 1934, Box 5, PHP.
29.
Alexander, The Right Opposition, 22–28.
30.
Reinhold Niebuhr, “A Criticism of the R.P.C. Program,” Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 2 (February 1935), 8.
31.
Daniel Bell, Marxian Socialism in the United States (Cornell University Press, 1996), 165.
32.
Alexander, The Right Opposition, 109–110.
33.
Zilla Hawes to Myles Horton, 16 April 1931, Box 15, Folder 30, HREC; Zilla Hawes to Old Tarpot [Myles Horton], 24 September 1931, Box 15, Folder 30, HREC.
34.
Ruth Shallcross to Zilla Hawes, 26 February 1934, Box 68, Folder 15, HREC. It was not odd for socialists to engage with other leftists, including Lovestone, who spoke to a meeting of the SP’s National Executive Committee in late 1934. Jay Lovestone presented a plan for a united front to the NEC, which its members rejected. Norman Thomas responded acerbically to Lovestone’s admission that his Communist Opposition had been instructed to vote for CP candidates in the mid-term election that took place a month previously. “Your policy,” Thomas told Lovestone, “is to march with Socialists on May Day and vote for Communists on Election Day.” See Norman Thomas quoted in William M. Feigenbaum, “N.E.C. Appoints Committee for Nation-wide Survey,” The New Leader, 8 December 1934, 3.
35.
Ruth Shallcross to Jim [Dombrowski] and Zilla [Hawes], 26 February 1934, Box 68, Folder 15, HREC.
36.
Ted Morgan, A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone, Communist, Anti-Communist, and Spymaster (Random House, 1999), 113.
37.
Constance Ashton Myers, The Prophet’s Army: Trotskyists in America, 1928–1941 (Greenwood Press, 1977), 109.
38.
Myers, 109.
39.
“RPC and the Communists,” The Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 1 (November 1934), 9.
40.
Four members of Highlander’s initial staff had studied with or knew Niebuhr. Two of the four were public members of the RPC. In addition, Myles Horton and Zilla Hawes had studied with Muste at Brookwood.
41.
Robert Jackson Alexander, The Right Opposition: The Lovestoneites and the International Communist Opposition of the 1930’s (Greenwood Press, 1981), 110. The RPC officially denied that Brown was under Lovestone’s discipline, however. See “Party Loyalty,” Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 2 (February 1935), 2.
42.
Bussel, From Harvard to the Ranks of Labor, 132.
43.
The Militant faction and many members of the RPC increasingly embraced anticommunism as the 1930s unfolded. McGreen, 113.
44.
Ibid., 132–133.
45.
Adams, An American Heretic, 80.
46.
Ibid., 79–80.
47.
Colin Gordon, New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920–1935 (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 166–167.
48.
Palmer, Organizing the Shipyards, 26–27. David Palmer’s work on the IUMSWA provides a superlative examination of the complex labor left that created victories for labor in the 1930s and 1940s.
49.
Bonnie Fox Schwartz, The Civil Works Administration, 1933–1934: The Business of Emergency Employment in the New Deal (Princeton University Press, 1984), 70–71.
50.
“10 Below Zero Due in New Cold Wave,” New York Times, 9 February 1934, 1; David Stout, “But What About February 9, 1934…,” New York Times, 6 February 1996.
51.
“5,000 Reds Battle with Socialists at Garden Rally,” New York Times, 17 February 1934, 1.
52.
Ibid.; “Reds Denounced for Garden Raid,” New York Times, 18 February 1934, 32.
53.
“5,000 Reds Battle with Socialists at Garden Rally,” 1; “The Meeting at the Garden,” The New Leader, 24 February 1934, 1.
54.
“5,000 Reds Battle with Socialists at Garden Rally,” 1.
55.
“The Meeting at the Garden,” 10.
56.
Norman Thomas referred to Matthew Woll as a “right wing, non-Socialist labor leader.” Despite disagreements with Woll, Thomas believed that right-wing laborites had proven themselves reliable allies in the struggle against fascism. Norman Thomas, “What the Communists Did,” The New Leader, 24 February 1934, 12; “The Meeting at the Garden,” 1, 10.
57.
“5,000 Reds Battle with Socialists at Garden Rally,” 1.
58.
George I. Steinhardt, “The Communists Succeed in Uniting the Socialists,” The New Leader, 24 February 1934, 5.
59.
“The Meeting at the Garden,” 1.
60.
Steinhardt, “The Communists Succeed in Uniting the Socialists,” 5.
61.
“5,000 Reds Battle with Socialists at Garden Rally,” 1.
62.
“The Meeting at the Garden,” 10.
63.
“5,000 Reds Battle with Socialists at Garden Rally,” 1.
64.
Thomas, “What the Communists Did,” 12.
65.
Ibid.
66.
“5,000 Reds Battle with Socialists at Garden Rally,” 1; “The Meeting at the Garden,” 1.
67.
Fraser M. Ottanelli, The Communist Party of the United States: From the Depression to World War II (Rutgers University Press, 1991), 18–20.
68.
James Weinstein, Ambiguous Legacy: The Left in American Politics (New Viewpoints, 1975), 38–39.
69.
“Party Loyalty,” Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 2 (February 1935), 2.
70.
Ibid., 3.
71.
“Two Recruits,” The New Leader, 30 June 1934, 11; James Oneal, “To Comrade Thomas,” The New Leader, 23 June 1934, 3.
72.
James Oneal, “United Front Maneuvers,” The New Leader, 15 September 1934, 2.
73.
The Militant faction also rejected social-democratic “reformism.” Their controversial “Declaration of Principles,” adopted by the SP at its 1934 convention and supported by the RPC’s delegates, called for called or a clear break with social democracy in favor of an ill-defined revolutionary socialism. The Declaration included a call to seize state power in a crisis situation, a rejection of bourgeois democracy, an explicit attack on the Old Gurad social democrats.
74.
James Oneal, “The R.P.C. Magazine,” The New Leader, 24 November 1934, 5.
75.
Ibid.
76.
Ibid.
77.
Ibid.
78.
Ibid.
79.
“Party Loyalty,” Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 2 (February 1935), 3.
80.
Francis A. Henson, “The Marxist Position,” in Informal Report of a Seminar on Religion, 30 May 1935, Box 69, RNP.
81.
Francis Henson to James Oneal, Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 2 (February 1935), 47.
82.
Ibid.
83.
Mitchell, Mean Things Happening in This Land, 47.
84.
Ibid.
85.
Ibid.
86.
Zilla Hawes to Myles Horton, James Dombrowski, and HFS, June [1934], Box 15, Folder 31, HREC; A.M., “A Socialist on the Convention,” Workers Age, 15 June 1934, 5.
87.
Jay Lovestone, “Leftward Wings in the S.P.,” Workers Age, 15 June 1934, 1, 3; A.M., “A Socialist on the Convention,” Workers Age, 15 June 1934, 5.
88.
A.M., “A Socialist on the Convention,” Workers Age, 15 June 1934, 5.
89.
A.J. Muste, “Has the Socialist Party Gone Revolutionary?” Labor Action, 15 June 1934, 5.
90.
David Felix to Powers Hapgood, 27 February 1934, Box 5, PHP.
91.
Ruth Shallcross to Zilla Hawes, 26 February 1934, 68:15, HREC files; Ottanelli, The Communist Party of the United States, 56–57; and Randi Storch, Red Chicago: American Communism at Its Grassroots, 1928–35 (Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 209.
92.
Ruth Shallcross to Zilla Hawes, 26 February 1934, 68:15, HREC files.
93.
“All Leaders Quit the Anti-Fascist League,” The New Leader, 31 March 1934, 3; “Socialist Christians Announce Program,” The New Leader, 31 March 1934, 3.
94.
Powers Hapgood to Raymond, 10 March 1934, Box 5, PHP.
95.
Ibid.
96.
Raymond to Powers Hapgood, 2 March 1934, Box 5, PHP.
97.
Ibid.
98.
Ibid.
99.
Powers Hapgood to Raymond, 10 March 1934, Box 5, PHP.
100.
Ibid.
101.
Ibid.
102.
Ibid.
103.
Affiliates of the Trade Union Unity League did form, in some areas, a core of new industrial unions that would affiliate with the CIO. See Walter Galenson, The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor Movement, 1935–1941 (Harvard University Press, 1960), 255–256, 497–498; and Ronald L. Filippelli and Mark D. McColloch, Cold War in the Working Class: The Rise and Decline of the United Electrical Workers (SUNY Press, 1995), 21–23. The CIO itself was accused of dual unionism by the AFL’s leadership. See Melvyn Dubofsky and Warren R. Van Tine, John L. Lewis: A Biography (University of Illinois Press, 1986), 164.
104.
Powers Hapgood to Raymond, 10 March 1934, Box 5, PHP.
105.
“RPC and the Communists,” The Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 1 (November 1934), 7.
106.
“Why the RSR?” The Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 1 (November 1934), 5.
107.
“RPC and the Communists,” 7.
108.
Ibid., 10.
109.
Ibid.
110.
“An Appeal to the Membership of the Socialist Party,” February 1934, Box 5, PHP.
111.
Ibid., 9.
112.
“The Michigan Convention,” Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 2 (February 1935), 7.
113.
“Party’s Resolution on the Revolutionary Policy Committee,” The New Leader, 8 December 1934, 7.
114.
Ibid.
115.
Ibid.
116.
William M. Feigenbaum, “N.E.C. Appoints Committee for Nation-wide Survey,” The New Leader, 8 December 1934, 6; Norman Thomas, “Timely Topics: The United Front Situation,” The New Leader, 8 December 1934, 8.
117.
Feigenbaum, “N.E.C. Appoints Committee for Nation-wide Survey,” 6.
118.
James Dombrowski to Norman Thomas, 7 March 1934, Box 24, Folder 27, HREC; Norman Thomas to James Dombrowski, 15 March 1934, Box 24, Folder 27, HREC; and “Minutes of the Board of Directors of L.I.D.,” 2 April 1934, Box 29, Folder 3, League for Industrial Democracy Records, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive, New York University, New York. Thomas did politely decline an offer to visit Highlander during its “labor week” in the summer of 1934. See Norman Thomas to Myles Horton, 12 July 1934, Box 27, Folder 24, HREC.
119.
J. Dennis McGreen, “Norman Thomas and the Search for the All-Inclusive Socialist Party” (Dissertation, Rutgers University, 1976), 116–117, 183. It is very likely that Thomas was able to exercise a moderating influence on the RPC’s members, or at least those who were genuinely loyal socialists.
120.
“RPC News,” Bulletin of the Revolutionary Policy Committee of the Socialist Party of the U.S.A., 25 November 1934, Box 6, Folder 21, PVGC, 5.
121.
Ibid.
122.
McGreen, “Norman Thomas and the Search for the All-Inclusive Socialist Party,” 190.
123.
Ibid., 188–189, 193.
124.
Franz Daniel to Philip Van Gelder, 19 March 1934, Box 6, Folder 21, PVGP; Ruth Shallcross to Phil [Van Gelder] and others, 17 March 1934, Box 6, Folder 21, PVGP.
125.
“Nine Resign from R.P.C.,” The New Leader, 15 December 1934, 8.
126.
McGreen, “Norman Thomas and the Search for the All-Inclusive Socialist Party,” 183–184.
127.
“Concerning Ruth Shallcross and J.B. Matthews,” Revolutionary Socialist Review 1, no. 2 (February 1935), 48.
128.
Landon R.Y. Storrs, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left (Princeton University Press, 2013), 55–56.
129.
Alice Hanson to Comrades, in New International 2, no. 1 (17 January 1935), 32–33.
130.
“Buffalo Local Backs Expulsion of Five,” The New Leader, 26 January 1935, 6.
131.
Cook, A Lifetime of Labor, 76.
132.
Socialist Party of America, “Among Our Contributors,” American Socialist Monthly 5, no. 5 (July 1936).

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Altman, J. (2019). The Revolutionary Policy Committee. In: Socialism before Sanders. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17176-6_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17176-6_4
Published: 14 June 2019
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