Troubled Fall

After a highly eventful summer in Ohio, I had mixed feelings about returning to my studies at Michigan State. Being exposed to working as a steelworker in a production giant of one of the country’s basic manufacturing industries, returning to school seemed to fall flat and unimportant. More than I realized my CP experiences over the summer just furthered my immersion and uncritical indoctrination into its Stalinist politics. I had been so excited in becoming a part of higher education at first, but now this just seemed like some tepid “petty bourgeois porridge.” Superficial. Outside of the more seemingly exciting realm of class struggle at the point of production.

A BA seemed of no great significance to seek. To pursue graduate studies and become a history professor was fast losing its appeal to me. More attractive goals in education were now to pursue labour studies that might lead to employment as a labour organizer or journalist or researcher. Michigan State did not offer a labour studies program. Few universities did in those days. I had taken my French grammar book with me to Ohio to stay tuned with the language after my freshman French class in which I had done well. I had barely cracked the book all summer. So when I started my second year French, I’d forgotten much of what I’d learned during the first round. I kept falling behind in the course and finally dropped it just before the deadline for doing so. So this pretty much put the kibosh toward a liberal arts degree in history and to go further in grad school.

An MSC student comrade urged me to read a new book, On the Drumhead, just published in that same year of 1948 by West Coast Communist writer Mike Quin, which was a colorful account of the 1934 waterfront general strike in San Francisco that brought about the birth of the powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union and provided a huge boost to the growth of the maritime union movement on the West Coast in general. The strike was led by an Australian immigrant and former IWW member Harry Bridges who became one of the most powerful Communist union leaders in US history. I bought the book and loved it which helped shape my future plans for life on the Left. It was well-written and was congruent with the CP line, of course.

It was no sweat to find out about the California Labour School in San Francisco in the CP press, which provided training for men and women who wanted to be involved in labour movement careers or to provide labour education and skill sets to union activists in the workplace.. Considerable funding was provided for the school by the ILWU and other pro-CP left unions. At its beginning the school also came under the provisions of the Federal GI Bill for veterans. So what the hell was I waiting for? I sent away for the attractive CLS catalogue and was formulating a potential transfer there from MSC after the end of the Fall quarter.

But many things were happening at State which drew my attention away from the classroom. I continued to live in my Whitman House Co-op and kept busy as publicity director the campus AVC chapter. Many of the MSC lefties focussed on the Wallace campaign for the November elections. There was no great interest on campus for the Democratic candidate and I don’t remember seeing anything in the way of Harry Truman buttons worn by the students. But the campus Progressive Party activists carried on a lively campaign for Henry Wallace.

But came election day, we were all crushed by Harry Truman’s fight-back victory to elect him to remain at the White House for a full term. He had carried on a spirited and populist railroad whistle stop campaign veering toward the left with his “Give ’em Hell Harry” speeches. That and a red-baiting campaign had its effect on Wallace’s support as he was tagged for what was seen as a pro-Soviet orientation although his politics were basically New Dealish but critical of the growing Cold War mentality. The racist States Rights Democratic campaign by Strom Thurmond took away both Democratic and right wing Republican votes. The stiff-necked colorless race by Republican Governor Thomas Dewey of New York fell short although the Chicago Tribune the morning after the election had declared him the winner. Wallace disappointed us supporters only 1,157,338 votes, 2.77% of the national total. Dismal for a former Vice President. Thurmond edged out Wallace with 1,175,032 votes, and 2.41% of the total, with 39 Southern states electoral votes to boot. Truman won with over 24 million and 49.55% and Dewey garnered just under 22 million and 45.13%.

Other Left candidates followed with the Socialist Party’s Norman Thomas running his sixth and last campaign with 139,564 votes, a meager 0.29%. The ancient Socialist Labor Party’s hopeful Edward Teichert came up with 29,244, 0.06%. Minnesota’s Farrell Dobbs, the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party choice, tailed with 13,613 and 0.03%. Many years after late SP member Eugene Suter told me the only reason Norman Thomas ran was to not let Henry Wallace dominate the left electoral scene because of his and the Progressive Party’s pro-Soviet tinge, and the strong presence of the CP in its campaign. At that time Thomas was a critical supporter of the West on foreign policy against a powerful totalitarian Communist bloc in an intensifying Cold War. As it was, the Progressive Party declined and vanished after a couple of more Presidential elections. Since then the CP has been more oriented to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party with several token races under its own banner to get its message out. It supported and campaigned in Barack Obama’s two Presidential races with not one critical word against him or the Democratic Party. Contrary to the rest of the radical left currents critical of his centrist politics and hawkish foreign policies and of the Democrats being a capitalist party.

CONTINUE NEXT COLUMN

 ZARICHNY EXPELLED FROM MICHIGAN STATE

Another happening that shook up us campus Stalinists was the MSC Administration’s expulsion of our comrade Jim Zarichny for his parole violation. You may recall in Installment #8 this author told about him being put on a probationary status as a student following his censure as a Communist by the Michigan State Senate’s Un-American Activities Committee, led by GOP Senator Matthew Callahan. Jim had refused to admit to Party membership at his hearing under his Fifth Amendment rights on grounds of self-incrimination. MSC didn’t expel him but placed him on probation provided he not participate in any campus politics or even attend any Communist or other meetings. Well, it finally happened.

The campus CP had invited Carl Winter, state chair of the Michigan Communist Party, under indictment of the Smith Act along with 10 other national committee members of the organization, to address an off-campus meeting in East Lansing. It was open to the public. So members of our student, faculty, and community CP branches attended, at a packed house mostly of students. Jim came, quietly sitting in the hall not speaking and keeping as obscure as possible. But the university powers-that-be had planted a snitch in the audience who spotted and recognized Jimmy and turned him in. The retribution followed immediately and Jim was expelled. It was a blow to all his comrades and friends.

By this time Jim had become my closest friend and comrade on campus although I had established solid friendships with some of my fellow co-opers at Howland House, I was unsuccessful in persuading any of them in joining me in the CP (for which I’m so glad now.) Jim again was fairly effective as a mentor and proselytizer and brought a number of campus recruits into our CP branch.

I can remember when one evening in a near-campus café he was engaged in discussing the Party with a young student couple active in the Henry Wallace campaign. They questioned him why they should prefer the CP to other socialist groups like the Trotskyist SWP and Socialist Party when they too had sincere and dedicated members? Some other CPer might become apoplectic and denounce particularly the Trotskyists as a bunch of wreckers, disrupters and even fascist agents. But Jimmy kept his cool and calmly and dispassionately contended that the next stage of history would bring victory to the Communist movement throughout the world while these differing left currents would be just transitory obstacles to that inevitability, although he made no attempt to demonize them. He pointed out that the October Revolution of 1917 had established the Soviet Union only three decades ago which now encompassed one third of the world along with addition of the “peoples’ democracies” of Eastern Europe (established at the point of Soviet guns!) Meanwhile in China, Mao Tse Tsung’s Communist “liberation army” had turned the tide of battle against the corrupt Chung Kai Shek’s Kuomingtang forces and was opening its massive offensive to bring about a Red China. (That conquest was finalized on Oct. 1, 1949 when Mao announced the Chinese Communist government as reality.) So I and the young couple being wooed were convinced by Jim’s persuasive style of argument. In a few months the couple joined our campus flock.

So Jim continued to live in East Lansing with his sister for a time and with his parents in Flint while unsuccessfully seeking work. I kept up with my studies but didn’t act yet on my plan to apply to California Labor School, as it was a big move and although I was excited about getting acquainted with the West Coast for the first time, and I also had some trepidation about such a giant step. So one day during the late Fall Jim stopped by the coop introducing me to Jack White, a full-time paid organizer for the CP in Flint, which had a fair size membership, dating from the time of the great sit-down strikes in the 1930s which gave the UAW a huge presence in Flint. White was a heavy-set Irishman in his early to middle 40s. He and Jimmy thought my going to California wasn’t the best move. They had another proposal which would allow me to stay in Michigan and would be compatible with my focus.

They said the national CP was planning to set up a week or two school for newer Party members like me to deepen my Communist education (indoctrination?) in Detroit starting in early January, 1949. Then Jack White said I could come to work in the auto industry in Flint and do party and union work there after finishing the January class. They said this would be in line with my original plans for California except I would be involved as party cadre in the basic auto industry in Michigan in which I would be sorely needed. I further learned of CP plans to get college students dropping out to find work in heavy basic industry in the Midwest such as auto and steel and get involved in union work and help build a political base among the production workers. We would be given free housing in Detroit in the homes of local CP members during our January classes. Approval to be accepted for this schooling was a certainty for me, I was told. This option made sense to me and after some thought I agreed. In fact, I thought it an honor at that point in my life.

My grades were fine after final exams ending the Fall Quarter and made the high honor roll again with my grade point average. I took a winter holiday trip back home to Fitchburg and took a Post Office temp job during the Christmas rush there to make some extra money. My sister Irma was 16 and on vacation from Fitchburg High. Although I didn’t tell my mother specifically about my new political affiliation she easily guessed it from my line of political discourse and was most unhappy about it. I don’t know if Norman Thomas made the ballot in Massachusetts for the November elections but Mamma like most of the New England Finnish Raivaaja Socialists had voted for Truman and the Democrats in the Fall. The Finnish Communists had all voted for Wallace and so she guessed I must have become at least a CP fellow traveler. When I left to return to Michigan after the holidays I didn’t tell her of my plans to attend a Communist school in Detroit and drop out of Michigan State. So I eagerly took the Greyhound bus back to Michigan after my uneasy visit home and on to an exciting life in the “real world!”

End of Installment 10