Count two of the indictment invoked the Smith Act, an outright thought-control measure adopted in 1940. In this instance, too, we were the first ones brought to trial under that particular law. It carried penalties of up to ten years' imprisonment, a fine of $10,000, or both.--Farrell Dobbs, from Teamster Bureaucracy.

Farrell Dobbs was a central leader of the struggles in the Midwest in the 1930s that built on the successful 1934 strike for union recognition by members of Teamsters Local 544 in Minneapolis. The struggle opened the door to massive battles by workers in the trucking industry to establish the union on an industrial basis across the Midwest. As the U.S. imperialists drove to enter the widening inter-imperialist conflict that became World War II, the administration of Franklin Roosevelt moved to bring the unions to heel and break the fighting capacity of the growing ranks of labor. He found willing allies in the top echelons of the unions.

Among the attacks on the labor movement were the federal indictments outlined above by Dobbs against 29 militants in the Socialist Workers Party and in union organizations. Among them were 14 officers, organizers, or job stewards of Local 544, or members of the editorial staff of the Northwest Organizer, the union's newspaper. Six were officers or outstanding activists in the Federal Workers Section, an organization allied with 544-CIO. Four were national leaders of the SWP.

The article below is from "Washington's 50-Year Domestic Contra Operation," published in New International no. 6. Copyright © 1987 by 408 Printing and Publishing Corp., reprinted by permission. Subheadings are by the Militant.
 

The legal centerpiece of the Roosevelt administration's antilabor offensive was the use for the first time of the Smith Act, which had been adopted in 1940. For the first time in the United States since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, this gag law made the expression of ideas a crime.

In June 1941, FBI agents and U.S. marshals raided the branch offices of the Socialist Workers Party in St. Paul and Minneapolis. They hauled away cartons of communist literature from the bookstores and libraries on the premises.

In Washington, D.C., Attorney General Biddle himself announced the plans for prosecution. "The principal Socialist Workers Party leaders against whom prosecution is being brought are also leaders of Local 544-CIO in Minneapolis," he told the press. "The prosecution is brought under the criminal code of the United States against persons who have been engaged in criminal seditious activities, and who are leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and have gained control of a legitimate labor union to use it for illegitimate purposes." Biddle's harangues against editors of Black papers provide a pretty good idea of the broad scope the attorney general gave to the term "seditious activities." From the standpoint of the government, any union activity dissenting from the drive toward entry into the war was illegitimate.

The government had three objectives in the crackdown on the Teamster local and the SWP.

First, it aimed to purge the labor movement of those who would not go along with imperialist war goals and militarization of the country and to intimidate into silence others, inside and outside the unions.

Second, the government wanted to erase the stronghold of union power and democracy represented by the Minneapolis Teamsters. The leadership of that union was inspiring emulation of class-struggle methods throughout the Midwest and educating workers in the need for socially conscious labor action and political independence from the capitalist parties. Although these leaders represented a minority point of view in the labor movement, that could change. The fight they were waging could become a rallying point to draw together significant forces in the unions, among the unemployed and unorganized, among Blacks, and among working farmers.

Third, the government sought to push the SWP in the direction of going underground. It wanted to force the party to give up some of its public activities and to concede that it must function at least in part illegally. The rulers' goal was to restrict the space for working-class politics.  
 
Nationwide defense effort
The relationship of class forces imposed by the labor movement's retreat allowed the capitalist government a good measure of success in its first and second objectives. But it totally failed in driving the SWP underground. One of the party's first responses to the indictments was to nominate James P. Cannon, its national secretary and one of those facing trial, for mayor of New York City. The SWP launched a vigorous petition campaign to win Cannon a spot on the ballot. The party also initiated a nationwide defense effort that continued until the last of the defendants was released from prison.

Throughout this fight, the SWP forcefully asserted its constitutional right to carry out political activity. It published and distributed Marxist literature. It participated in and helped to advance the activities of the unions, the NAACP, and other organizations. SWP members explained communist ideas to fellow GIs, fought together with them against race discrimination in the armed forces and other abuses of citizen-soldiers, and took advantage of every opportunity to present the views of the party.

A central issue in the Minneapolis trial was the SWP's opposition to any policy of subordinating the interests of unionists, Blacks, GIs, farmers, or other working people to the profits and power of the exploiters, who called for "national unity" in wartime to silence opposition to their policies. In time of war, the SWP explained, the struggle for the independence of the trade unions from the capitalist state and the fight for trade union democracy become even more critical.

SWP leaders turned the courtroom into a platform from which to explain the party's views on the war. They explained that the Second World War was really three wars in one.

First, it was a war to defend the Soviet Union, the first--and at that time the only--workers state, against imperialist efforts spearheaded by Germany's rulers to overturn it and restore capitalist rule. In this conflict the workers' movement throughout the world stood with the Soviet workers state.

Second, it was a war for national liberation, especially in Asia. The Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, and other colonial peoples were waging massive struggles against imperialist occupation and domination, taking advantage of the conflict between the world imperialist powers to push for their own freedom. In this war all of progressive humanity stood with the colonial peoples against their imperialist overlords.

Third, it was a war among imperialist rivals for domination of the world. In this conflict, the capitalist rulers of the United States and those of its allies sought to enlist the political support of working people by presenting their goals as the defeat of fascism and defense of democracy. But, as SWP leader James P. Cannon explained from the witness stand, U.S. working people could combat fascism only by strengthening their own organizations not by subordinating their struggle to support for the imperialist government, in wartime or not. Cannon was asked:

What is the party's position on the claim that the war against Hitler is a war of democracy against fascism? Answer: We say that it is a subterfuge, that the conflict between American imperialism and German imperialism is for the domination of the world. It is absolutely true that Hitler wants to dominate the world, but we think it is equally true that the ruling group of American capitalists has the same idea, and we are not in favor of either of them. We do not think that the Sixty Families who own America want to wage this war for some sacred principle of democracy. We think they are the greatest enemies of democracy here at home. We think they would only use the opportunity of a war to eliminate all civil liberties at home, to get the best imitation of fascism they can possibly get.¹

A jury returned convictions against eighteen of the twenty-eight defendants on one count of the indictment, finding them guilty of a conspiracy to "advise and teach the duty, necessity, desirability and propriety of overthrowing and destroying the Government of the United States by force and violence...." Sentencing took place on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese forces attacked the main naval base in the U.S. colony of Hawaii, and the day Congress voted a formal declaration of war. Twelve of the defendants received sentences of sixteen months in federal prison, and six were sentenced to one year.

Opponents of this political persecution joined together to organize the Civil Rights Defense Committee (CRDC). The guilty verdict brought forth a round of protests from union locals and central labor bodies speaking for more than a million union members. Union bodies contributed money to the CRDC to pay for legal appeals and help spread the word about the case. Support came from NAACP chapters around the country. W.E.B. DuBois, the historian and Black rights leader, declared his solidarity with the Smith Act defendants. Adam Clayton Powell, then a member of the New York City Council and a prominent figure in the Black community, declared: "Whenever the civil liberties of any American or any American group are threatened, then the civil liberties of all are in danger, and this is the issue in Minneapolis." The American Civil Liberties Union announced its support for the appeal, warning that the Smith Act is a "dangerous weapon against civil rights of labor and radicals of all varieties."

Support for the defense effort was not universal in the working-class movement, however. Most AFL and CIO officials remained silent; some even publicly supported the prosecution.

A treacherous stand was taken by the Stalinized Communist Party, which gave political support to the Roosevelt administration and its appeals for "national unity." In the union movement, the CP was among the most fervent backers of the no-strike pledge agreed to by most of the top labor officialdom for the duration of the war. When the United Mine Workers went on strike in 1943, the CP's Daily Worker openly opposed it and called for the "[John L.] Lewis line" of defying the no-strike pledge to be "utterly defeated." In the Black movement, the CP opposed the Double V campaign on the grounds that too much emphasis on the fight against race discrimination in the army and in the war plants would disrupt "national unity." The CP also supported the internment of Japanese-Americans, suspended from the party its Japanese-American members, and urged these former members not to resist their own internment.²

Consistent with these positions, the Communist Party actively supported the prosecution of the Minneapolis defendants. The Daily Worker branded those who supported the Civil Rights Defense Committee as "tools" being used by "Hitler agents."
 
 
1. The complete transcript of Cannon's courtroom testimony is contained in James P. Cannon, Socialism on Trial (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1973).

2. Patti Iiyama, "American Concentration Camps," International Socialist Review (April 1973), p 28.
 
 
Related article:
1920 Palmer raids targeted postwar labor upsurge  
 
 
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