Documented Perfidy
Ozanne, Robert
Documented Perfidy The Communist Party vs. the C.I.O., by Max M. Kampelman. Praeger. 299 pp. $6. Reviewed by Robert Ozanne In The Communist Party vs. the C.I.O., Max M. Kampelman has brought...
...Party-controlled unions were most easily identified by their abrupt foreign policy changes...
...They followed John L. Lewis in his support of Wendell Willkie only to desert Lewis as soon as Hitler attacked Russia...
...For example, could the touch-and-go United Auto Worker-General Motors battle of 1937 have been won by the union minus its Communist cadres...
...The 1949 C.I.O...
...With the exception of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union and the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, the expelled unions have virtually disintegrated or have been absorbed by non-Communist unions...
...The Marshall Plan became "American imperialism...
...The overriding perfidy was the use of American trade unions as mere pawns in the furtherance of Soviet foreign policy goals...
...In at least one instance, Kampelman weakens his case by the use of questionable evidence...
...These men gave vivid descriptions of party caucuses, instructions from outside non-labor Communist officials, intrigue against non-Communist leaders, all of which revealed dictatorial manipulation of American trade unions for Soviet purposes...
...From 1989 to June, 1941, they were isolationists...
...Apparently in most unions, rank and file apathy permitted active Communist Party leadership to do as it pleased, provided collective bargaining gains were adjudged satisfactory...
...Equally as impressive is the extensive documentation from the records of the expulsion trials conducted by special C.I.O...
...The foreign policy switches of the Communist-led unions were blatantly headlined in their own union publications...
...One feature of The Communist Party vs...
...The all-out support of Henry Wallace against Harry Truman by the Communist unions crystallized the non-Communist sentiment among C.I.O...
...policy, Communist-dominated unions supported labor conscription and tossed aside traditional union opposition to incentive pay...
...The postwar period saw gradually rising rank and file discontent...
...How was such leadership possible...
...convention and subsequent executive board actions saw the expulsion of all 11 Communist-led unions...
...Besides being a documented story of the control of certain C.I.O...
...unions in the 1930's...
...defense effort, he cites a statement to that effect by the 1947 House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor...
...Not all accusations are conclusively proved...
...is the series of indictments against certain union leaders for their presumed subservience to the Russian-directed Communist Party...
...is not a complete analysis of the role of the Communist Party in the C.I.O., it ably chronicles and documents the destruction of the Communist edifice in the labor movement...
...committees, during 1950...
...Other manifestations of the pro-Soviet orientation were found in their successful opposition to Senator Robert M. LaFollette, Jr., in the 1946 Republican primary in Wisconsin and their opposition to the liberalization of immigration laws because the refugees coming to this country were then chiefly anti-Soviet...
...As told by Kampelman this involves the recital of one Communist perfidy after another...
...foreign policy...
...the C.I.O., Max M. Kampelman has brought together a story more truly improbable than the revelations of the McClellan Committee...
...Contrary to C.I.O...
...The chief witnesses against the Communist-led unions were a number of their own former officers who broke with the Communists in the postwar period...
...With the postwar break between Russia and the West, these unions attacked U.S...
...This reviewer wonders if amidst the many perfidies of the Communist Party as chronicled by Kampelman, he has touched too lightly on the contribution which the Communists made in organizing the various C.I.O...
...Harry Bridges swore off strikes not only for the "duration" but for the postwar period as well...
...While The Communist Party vs...
...Kampelman's careful noting of the dates of these foreign policy switches is by all odds the most reliable way to identify Communist activity...
...In his effort to document his accusation that the Allis-Chalmers strike of 1941 was called to hinder the U.S...
...Progressive readers will recognize in the Communist control of labor unions the same pattern of tactics and foreign policy gyrations which the Communist Party follows generally...
...Secret caucuses, control of union publications and staff positions all abetted Communist manipulations...
...Montgomery Ward workers striking against Sewell Avery's defiance of the War Labor Board were denounced by Communist union leaders across the country...
...leadership...
...It is the story of how a paper-thin layer of Communist union officials controlled or had substantial influence in unions representing 25 per cent of the C.I.O.'s six million membership...
...unions by the Communist Party, the book describes the slow development of anti-Communist opposition and the ultimate breaking of Communist power through the expulsion of Communist-dominated unions by the C.I.O...
...The foreign policy reversals and the Wallace support demonstrate the ability of Communist leadership to manipulate unions against the memberships' wishes and interests...
...Before August, 1939, they pushed a "popular front-quarantine the aggressor" line...
...Kampelman would have been on sounder ground if he had given his own studied conclusion on this difficult and doubtful point...
...The committee was at that time, June, 1941, gathering evidence which resulted in the Taft-Hartley Act...
...Could John L. Lewis have manned the many organizing drives of the late 1930's without extensive dependence on the tirelessly dedicated persons who had received their training and inspiration from the Communists...
...How are these charges documented...
...This was, of course, a partisan political committee...
...Because the energies and activities of the Communist Party were greatest in the trade union field, this book is a more revealing source of information on Communist goals and methods than the much publicized Communist activity in government...
...From June, 1941, through 1945, the Communist-dominated unions took the no-strike pledge with all the fanaticism of the reformed sinner...
...In this period, Kampelman notes, the party-controlled unions put on a series of strikes not to make trade union gains, but to hamper American defense efforts...
...While former Communists are not the best witnesses, the mass of detail, the consistency of their testimony, and the face-to-face meetings of Communist and former Communist union officials are very convincing...
Vol. 22 • October 1958 • No. 10
