No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Making of a Native Marxist: The Early Career of Earl Browder
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
In June, 1945, America's Communists replaced their leader, Earl Browder, who had sought an East-West détente instead of the Cold War. Eight months later they expelled him from the movement altogether, although he had spent twenty-four years in its service. Since 1934, when he had gained undisputed control, he had dominated the Communist party of the United States (CPUSA) “as no one had done before or could do afterward.” Under him it had taken advantage of the Great Depression to achieve a degree of respectability previously unknown. It even enjoyed “a measure of prestige in at least some sections of society.” Probably the best-organized political party to the left of the New Deal, during the thirties it also became the largest Marxian group by outdistancing the socialists. The CPUSA grew in number from 7,000 in 1930 to about 100,000 during the Second World War, with influence ranging far beyond its membership rolls. In contrast to its success under Browder, after his ouster it receded rapidly into political oblivion.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1977
References
1 Draper, Theodore, American Communism and Soviet Russia: The Formative Period (New York, 1960), p. 435Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Draper, Soviet); Shannon, David A., The Decline of American Communism (New York, 1959). p. 3Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Shannon). Although Norman Thomas polled 903,000 votes in 1932; 187,500 in 1936 and 80,000 in 1944—while the CPUSA total never exceeded its 100,000 of 1932—these figures can be misleading. Thomas's vote total reflected his personal popularity more than actual support for the Socialist party. Membership figures reveal the actual situation more clearly. The SP had 21,000 on the rolls in 1934; 16,000 in 1936; and 7000 in 1938. Bell, Daniel, in Marxian Socialism in the United States (Princeton, 1967), p. 187Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Bell), notes that after 1942 the Socialist party remained “alive only because of Norman Thomas.” Bell enumerates reasons for its decline (pp. 90–117), including the appeal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, splits among the Socialists, and their refusal to support collective security against the Nazi menace.
2 Draper, , Soviet terminates at 1930Google Scholar, the year Browder came to power. Starobin, Joseph R., American Communism in Crisis, 1943–1957 (Berkeley, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter cited as Starobin) discusses the Browder reign, but only as background for postwar developments. Howe, Irving and Coser's, LewisAmerican Communist Party: A Critical History (New York, 1962)Google Scholar is based entirely upon published materials. It displays a militant Cold War bias and contributes little to the reader's understanding of the Communists.
Jaffe's, Philip J.Rise and Fall of American Communism (New York, 1975)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Jaffe) reflects the view of a friend and financial patron of Browder. The account is based upon the author's library of rare party documents. Although the study presents several secret communications between the Russians and Browder, it is in no sense comprehensive. Jaffe admits that it is incomplete and neither a biography nor a history of the party (p. 15). Unfortunately the book lacks footnotes and bibliography. Moreover, Jaffe failed to use federal records.
3 As non-Marxists many of us may see the two as essentially the same. But the American Communists cited them as separate indictments. Furthermore, in today's world of diverse Marxism, the above distinctions have added meaning. China and Yugoslavia openly flaunt their independence from Moscow. Yet neither claims to be nonrevolutionary and neither permits opposition parties. By contrast, the Communist parties of Italy and France, in addition to denying allegiance to the USSR, also seek the electoral path to power. They pledge to allow opposition parties and to accept elections that remove them from office.
4 Reported in Time, May 31, 1976, pp. 25–27; also June 14, pp. 20–32 and July 5, pp. 38–39.
5 Starobin, p. 261; The Communist, December, 1938; Glazer, Nathan, The Social Basis of American Communism (New York, 1961) pp. 90, 100Google Scholar; Nollau, Gunther, International Communism and World Revolution (New York, 1961), pp. 209, 220Google Scholar. Nollau cites the postwar rebellious parties as those of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Poland. But “it was only in respect of Yugoslavia, which had been liberated by her own military action, that the ‘Stalinists’ seemed willing to admit the principles of equality of rights and non-intervention” (p. 212).
6 Speech reprinted as Teheran and America (New York, 1944). Quotation from pp. 43–44.
7 See Draper, , Soviet, pp. 268–282Google Scholar.
8 Browder, , Teheran: Our Path in War and Peace (New York, 1944), pp. 47–48Google Scholar.
9 Shannon, p. 3.
10 Browder, , Teheran: Our Path in War and Peace, p. 11Google Scholar; Teheran and America, p. 14.
11 Although late in his life Browder often exaggerated his own historical significance (as shown in his unfinished autobiographical manuscript at Syracuse University and the Columbia Oral History Project) he denied in 1972 that Khrushchev had borrowed either the phrase “peaceful coexistence” or the policy from him. He insisted that the Russian had1 arrived at them independently. (Interview with Browder, March 13, 1972, Princeton, New Jersey.)
12 Sunday Worker, October 11, 1936. Of course a capitalist refusal to abide by the results of an election, as well as a right-wing coup to resist duly enacted Socialist laws (such as in Chile in 1974) would face the same fate as any violent uprising against the federal government. All existing governments claim this elementary right to the use of force to defend parliamentary processes. Amazingly enough, however, some English “radicals” have allowed the fear of violence by their enemies to prevent them from advocating uncompensated nationalization. See Barry, E. Eldon, Nationalization in British Politics: The Historical Background (Stanford, 1965), pp. 164–165Google Scholar.
13 H. R. 2827. Browder spoke at hearings conducted by a subcommittee of the House Committee on Labor, February 12, 1935. He also testified before the Senate Finance Committee, February 19, 1935. Since at least 1930 the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) had demanded these reforms, but there is no evidence to suggest it ever contemplated having a national Marxist leader appear before a “capitalist” legislature to request them. See “Resolution of the Political Secretariat of the ECCI on the Situation and Tasks of the CPUSA” (9-page manuscript, 1930)Google Scholar.
14 For example the Communist platform of 1940 advocated enactment of the federal anti-lynching bill and an end to poll taxes, anti-alien legislation and every restriction on “freedom of speech, press, radio and assembly” (Browder, , The Way Out [New York, 1941], pp. 48–49)Google Scholar; Bella Dodd, a middleaged leader of the New York City teachers' union was one of the CPUSA's vice presidents. Quote from her book School of Darkness (New York, 1954), p. 149Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Dodd).
15 Browder, , Teheran and America, p. 24Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Arthur Jr, The Vital Center (Cambridge, 1949), p. 110Google Scholar.
16 Interviewed by Foster, Cedric W. of station WTHT, Hartford, Conn. Reported in Daily Worker, 10 8, 1936Google Scholar.
17 Hofstadter, Richard and Wallace, Michael, American Violence: A Documentary History (New York, 1970), p. 30Google Scholar.
18 U.S. Congress, House, Special Committee on Un-American Activities (hereafter cited as Dies Committee), 76th Congress, 1st Session, September 5, 1939, p. 4340; Hoffer, Eric, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (New York, 1951), p. 76Google Scholar.
19 Reported in Time, July 12, 1976, p. 24; May 31, pp. 25–27.
20 DeSantis, Vincent P., “American Politics in the Gilded Age,” Review of Politics, XXV (1963), p. 559Google Scholar.
21 Browder, , What Is Communism? (New York, 1936), p. 173Google Scholar; Jaffe, p. 200. To fellow travelers such as Jaffe, however, Browder was usually cordial.
22 Just before his fiftieth birthday he stood 67 inches tall and weighed 165 pounds. (“Admission Summary,” Atlanta Penitentiary, File # 66–373, Office of the Pardon Attorney) (hereafter cited as PA), p. 4a, “medical.” Photographs suggest that he had weighed less when he was younger.
23 “Meet Earl Browder,” Current History, October, 1936, p. 93; heavy-set, bitter Benjamin Gitlow spent over a decade “exposing” the CPUSA after his own expulsion, but never won public respect. Quote from his I Confess: The Truth about American Communism (New York, 1940), p. 200Google Scholar; Dodd, p. 68; Stein, Harry, “Marx's Disenchanted Salesman,” American Heritage, XXIII (1971), p. 59Google Scholar. An interview, this does not develop the subject; Lyons, Eugene, The Red Decade (New York, 1941), p. 63Google Scholar. Lyons, admits his perspective is “frankly journalistic and polemic” [sic], p. 15Google Scholar.
24 Cannon, James P., The First Ten Years of American Communism: Report of a Participant (New York, 1962), p. 114Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Cannon). Cannon, intelligent but dogmatic, was expelled for supporting Leon Trotsky in his power struggle against Joseph Stalin in the Soviet government. Cannon subsequently founded the Socialist Workers' Party, to propagate the Trotskyite brand of communism.
25 Gitlow, I Confess; Josephson, Matthew, Infidel in the Temple (New York, 1967), p. 128Google Scholar; Ogden, August R. C.S.C., The Dies Committee: A Study of the Special House Committee for the Investigation of Un-American Activities (Washington, 1945), p. 134Google Scholar; Carr, Robert K., The House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1945–1950 (Ithaca, 1952), p. 28Google Scholar.
26 Official report by the prison psychologist, April 18, 1941, PA, p. 4b.
27 Official report by the prison psychiatrist, PA, p. 4b and following page (also numbered 4b ).
28 Olgin, M. L., That Man Browder (New York, 1936), p. 3Google Scholar.
29 Earl and William Browder explored their father's family tree through extensive correspondence. See D. P. Browder to William, October 25, 1935; Frank G. Browder to Earl, September 22, 1936. In PA extensive records on the general secretary's nuclear family were compiled. Five siblings are listed as still living in 1941, two of them younger than Earl (p. 3). In his unfinished “Political Autobiography” (manuscript stops at 1928) among the Earl Browder papers (hereafter cited as BP) at Syracuse University, he claims to have been (p. 22)Google Scholar; see below for reasons behind Browder's extreme secrecy about the eighth child and that two had died before his parents moved to Wichita his family.
30 The 1936 Current History article lists William Browder's illness as such, but no other source, including the prison records, states the cause; PA, pp. 3a and 3b; autobiographical manuscript, p. 28.
31 Autobiographical manuscript, p. 44; he received a Bachelor of Laws degree from Lincoln-Jefferson University (PA, p. 3a).
32 Draper, Theodore, The Roots of American Communism (New York, 1957), p. 308Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Draper, Roots).
33 Tall, lean William Z. Foster was perhaps the most “proletarian” of the CPUSA's early leaders. Born into a large Irish-American family and raised in a slum, he ran away from home as an adolescent. He held a variety of unskilled labor jobs in various parts of the nation; autobiographical manuscript, p. 70; Draper, , Roots, p. 309Google Scholar.
34 Autobiographical manuscript, p. 75. Browder claimed that Debs expressed sympathy for his plight. When they met years later (Browder guessed 1923) Debs remembered him. See Browder to historian Ginger, Ray, 05 18, 1948, BPGoogle Scholar.
35 Draper, , Roots, p. 309Google Scholar; Open letter, on Workers World stationery, by Reeve, Ella Bloor requesting subscriptions, 07 22 [1919], BPGoogle Scholar.
36 PA, p. 1; interview with Browder, March 13, 1972. See the Internal tional Socialist Review's 1917 issues for complaints of brutality and pictures of “slackers” in prison garb.
37 In 1939 Benjamin Gitlow told the Dies Committee, incorrectly, that a Kitty Harris had been Browder's first wife. According to Gitlow she was now an agent of the Soviet secret police (OGPU). (Dies Committee, September 9, 1939, p. 4861). He repeated these charges in a more spectacular fashion in his two subsequent books, I Confess and The Whole of Their Lives (New York, 1948)Google Scholar. Despite their sensationalism, neither book sold well, increasing Gitlow's frustration.
Similarly mistaken testimony on Browder's private life appeared in 1949 from William O'Dell Nowell, a former Communist Negro leader working as a clerk for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. He claimed that in 1931 a Katherine Harrison of the International Workers Relief had told him she once married Earl Browder. Nowell also cited party gossip that Browder had previously wedded a Jean Montgomery. Nowell noted that neither woman resembled Raissa Berkmann. (Given before Inspector Herbert E. Lovett, June 21, 1949, in Detroit, Michigan. File #A-f280774, United States Immigration and Naturalization Service.)
38 Browder revealed details “in a sullen manner [and] only because he was obliged to do so.” He was “somewhat resentful of what he termed unnecessary inquiry into his private life” (PA, p. 3c). The Office of the Pardon Attorney acquired copies of these records after Browder petitioned for Executive Clemency on August 25, 1941.
39 PA, pp. 3, 3a, 3b, 3c; Gladys Browder to the writer, December 21, 1976. In January, 1937, Beverly Browder, wife of Browder's son Jay, contacted the general secretary to enlist his aid in obtaining employment for Jay in the radiofield. She finally received a reply from the general secretary in May, but there is no evidence that he offered aid. After mutual promises to see each other when in the same part of the country, the relationship seems to have terminated there. See Beverly Browder to Earl Browder, January 29 and May 28, 1937. Jay, who also wrote on May 27, showed no bitterness but addressed his letter “Dear Earl” and eschewed the terms father or dad. One of the Marxist's sisters, Nina Browder Turner, began correspondence in the mid-1940's.
40 PA, p. 3; testimony of Browder, William E., Dies Committee, 09 12, 1939, p. 4830Google Scholar.
41 Raissa, warm, outgoing, and stocky, held a Russian law degree. Quotes from PA, p. 3b; see also Browder, Raissa to Goodwyn, E. R., acting executive parole officer, Atlanta Penitentiary, 04 14, 1941, p. 3b, BPGoogle Scholar; interview with William Browder (Earl's youngest son), Princeton, N.J., March 13, 1972.
42 Jaffe, p. 194.
43 Autobiographical manuscript, p. 117. On the Palmer Raids see Murray, Robert K., The Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria (Minneapolis, 1955)Google Scholar; for a broader perspective, see Preston, William Jr, Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903–1933 (New York, 1963)Google Scholar.
44 Draper, , Roots, p. 310Google Scholar; for analysis of the early schisms in the American Communist movement, see pp. 176–210; also Bell, pp. 122–133.
45 Autobiographical manuscript, p. 119; Draper, , Roots, p. 310Google Scholar. Although Draper mentions the charter membership, his wording seems to imply that Browder had planned to divorce himself totally from the movement. Of course Draper, writing before enactment of the Freedom of Information law, did not have access to the Pardon Attorney's file.
46 The representatives were Charles E. Scott, Louis Fraina and Sen Katayama, members of the American Agency formed in Moscow in 1921. Their main assignment was to cement the unity of America's various Communist sects. See Draper, , Roots, p. 270Google Scholar, and Bell, p. 125; Draper, , Roots, pp. 319–320Google Scholar.
47 Justice Department File #146–1–11–350 contains copies of some passports used illegally by Browder (Nicholas Dozenberg, issued March 12, 1921, and George Morris, November 19, 1927). They contain the Kansan's picture and handwriting.
48 Draper, , Roots, p. 321Google Scholar. Ruthenberg was formal and humorless. While most of the CPUSA's leaders went by their first names, he was always “Comrade Ruthenberg.” He did, however, allow his wife and personal friends to call him “C.E.” On his career see Millett, Stephen M., “The Midwest Origins of the American Communist Party: The Leadership of Charles E. Ruthenberg, 1919–1927,” The Old Northwest, I (Fall, 1975), pp. 253–290Google Scholar.
49 Autobiographical manuscript, p. 169; Cannon, p. 109; Starobin, p. 52; Current Biography, October, 1944, pp. 10–14 BP; Cannon, p. 213.
50 Alias Joseph Pogany, a veteran of the abortive Communist government of Hungary in 1919, he was the first Comintern agent to reside in the United States; autobiographical manuscript, p. 205; quote from Draper, , Soviet, p. 77Google Scholar; Browder, , Unemployment (New York, 1924)Google Scholar; Draper, , Soviet, pp. 122, 269–270Google Scholar.
51 Browder, Columbia Oral History Project, Columbia University, p. 194; this and his article “The American Communist Party in the Thirties” (in Simon, Rita James, ed., As We Saw the Thirties [Chicago, 1967] hereafter cited as Simon)Google Scholar are the least useful of the sources on Browder—at best unreliable and at worst dishonest. They illustrate the need for independent verification of any of his reminiscences. See also note 55.
Studies on Russian influence in China include: Van Slyke, Lyman P., Enemies and Friends: The United Front in Chinese Communist History (Stanford, 1967)Google Scholar; Hsiao, Tso-liang, Power Relations Within the Chinese Communist Movement, 1930–1934 (Seattle, 1961)Google Scholar; Brandt, Conrad, Stalin's Failure in China, 1924–1927 (Cambridge, 1958)Google Scholar; and Snow, Edgar, Red Star Over China (New York, 1938)Google Scholar.
Gitlow, in his two books, claims that Soviet agent Nicholas Dozenberg brought “Moscow gold,” in the form of a $10,000 bill, to Browder's “wife,” Kitty Harris, in the United States during the late 1920's. She supposedly gave it to Browder who, by trying to cash it in the Philippines, attracted authorities. They in turn followed him to his secret hideaway in Shanghai, smashed a Soviet spy ring there and destroyed Stalin's work in China. Gitlow also contends that for this Browder was severely criticized by the Comintern (Confess, pp. 536–37; Whole of Their Lives, p. 186).
Browder denied the charges under oath before the Dies Committee, pp. 4275–4528. The studies of Russian influence in China cited above fail to confirm Gitlow's amazing tale. Furthermore, material presented earlier has demonstrated that Browder never married a Kitty Harris, Katherine Harrison or anyone else of similar name. Browder was arrested frequently. Significantly, however, he was never charged with espionage.
Philip Jaffe, though attacking Gitlow as extremely unreliable, agrees that the Soviets gave the money to Kitty Harris, who he declares was Browder's girlfriend. The Russians did not reprimand the Kansan when he attracted attention because they had been foolish in using the large note for clandestine activities. (Interview with Jaffe, January 3–4, 1977, New York, N.Y.) Although Jaffe is a most trustworthy source, demonstrating a remarkably accurate memory, the story is difficult to believe without physical evidence—admittedly rare in such cases. At the time of this writing the FBI had not acted upon the writer's Freedom of Information request because of a backlog.
52 Jaffe, p. 29.
53 Browder to literary agent von Auw, Ivan Jr07 10, 1951, BPGoogle Scholar; Browder, Oral History, p. 190; Tsou, Tang, ed., China in Crisis, II (Chicago, 1968), p. 27Google Scholar. On Lin see Kau, Michael Y. M., The Lin Piao Affair: Power Politics and Military Coup (White Plains, 1975)Google Scholar and Central Intelligence Agency, Bibliography of Literature Written in the People's Republic of China during the Campaign to Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius, July 1973-December 1974 (Washington: CIA, 1975)Google Scholar.
54 Browder, Oral History, pp. 195–196. On Liu see Dittmer, Lowell, Liu Shao-ch'i and the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Mass Criticism (Berkeley, 1974)Google Scholar and Chen, Yung Ping, Chinese Political Thought: Mao Tsetung and Liu Shao-ch'i (The Hague, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Browder's closest friend, Philip Jaffe, states that the Kansan “did meet many leaders of the Chinese CP” but often only to shake hands. (Letter, Jaffe to the writer, March 9, 1977; hereafter cited as Jaffe, 1977 Letter.)
55 Chou En-lai to Browder, June 24, 1937 (reprinted in Simon, pp. 248–249). Jaffe affirms that he brought the letters but has no copies and cannot attest to their accuracy. They do not appear in BP. He characterizes Browder's Simon article as “a perfect example of his romantic view of the period.…” Jaffe also notes that “Browder manages chiefly by omission and partly by misstatements, to paint a picture of those important years that hinders our understanding of them,” (Jaffe, , pp. 186–187)Google Scholar.
56 The Worker, October 4, 1942; Memorandum, “China, the State Department and the Communists,” April 22, 1950, pp. 2–3, BP (hereafter cited as “China and State”). Welles to Browder, , 10 6, 1942, BPGoogle Scholar; in 1948 a former courier in Soviet espionage, Elizabeth Bentley, swore Currie was a Communist; he denied it (Latham, p. 397). Latham, But, who accepts much of her story, concedes that “her book [Out of Bondage (New York, 1951)]Google Scholar contains inaccuracies, verbatim reports of some conversation she could not have reproduced without stenotype or tape recorder, touches of romantic exclamation, and quick girlish excursions into psychological speculation, desolate either of knowledge or perception. [Her] unwarranted use of names led to successful legal actions for redress” (pp. 159–160); Currie also sought the recall from China of Joseph Stillwell “the supposedly pro-Communist general” (p. 242).
57 Three-page statement to the press by Browder, , 10 15, 1942, BPGoogle Scholar; “China and State” p. 5, BP.
58 Eighty-first Congress, Second Session, U.S. Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings Pursuant to S. Res. 231, A Resolution to Investigate Whether There Are Employees in the State Department Disloyal to the United States, part 1, p. 682 (usually called the Tydings Committee); Browder, “China and State,” BP; Latham, pp. 152; 315.
59 Jaffe, 1977 Letter. On page 252 of the Simon article Browder slyly implies “intimate” association with the Chairman, although a careful reading of the text reveals that the content antecedent for the words “intimate association” is the “international Communist leadership” instead; letter from Mao to Browder, June 24, 1937; a third message to the CPUSA leader, having the same date, came from Chu Teh, commander of the Redl Army in China. All are reprinted in Simon, pp. 247–249.
60 Mao to Browder, April 3, 1945, translated by Annie Szeto, Syracuse University Class of 1977, November 9, 1976; “Introduction to China's New Democracy?” (6-page manuscript, 11 1, 1944)Google Scholar, BP. Mao had published the booklet in 1941. Browder blamed “the rigid blockade and censorship” of the Kuomintang for the delay; Simon, p. 252; Jaffe, p. 83 (Mao's letter to Foster arrived on July 29, 1945).
61 Jaffe, p. 56. His source was an American liaison officer stationed in Yenan at the U.S. Army Observer Section during the war. Similar officials of the Chinese Communist party were also there. They received and translated Browder's book and sent it to Mao. “When Browder was expelled” Sanzo Nosaka, leader of Japan's CP, told the same American that he agreed with the Chairman Jaffe, p. 56.
62 Jaffe, p. 83; typewritten copy “Excerps [sic] from Laszlo Rajk and His Accomplices Before the People's Court, Budapest, 1949, official report of the Rajk Trial” BP; Jaffe, p. 156.
63 Draper, , Soviet, pp. 279, 304Google Scholar; quote from 305; Bukharin, intelligent and congenial, lacked Stalin's ruthless thirst for personal power and did not deliberately cultivate a personal following.
64 Lovestone was young, attractive in appearance and college-educated. Also ambitious and a master of invective, he was an avid reader of business journals. Quotes from Draper, , Soviet, pp. 299–310Google Scholar.
65 Cannon, p. 113.
66 Draper, , Soviet, p. 397Google Scholar.
67 The studious Weinstone lacked the temperament for conducting a successful struggle for leadership.