Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia by Peter Cole

Author:Peter Cole [Cole, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Ethnic Studies, American, Labor & Industrial Relations, United States, Social Science, African American & Black Studies, 20th Century, Political Science, History, Politics, General
ISBN: 9780252090851
Google: 3Ig6p1Z8MssC
Goodreads: 17196047
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2007-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

7 The Philadelphia Controversy

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In August 1920 the IWW suspended Local 8 for loading ammunition on a vessel allegedly destined for the enemies of the Russian Revolution. The IWW’s national weekly Solidarity claimed that the union “would rather face death and dismemberment than stand the disgrace of having its members render any assistance in keeping its workers enslaved to the Moloch of capitalism.” Thus, the largest and most durable IWW branch, as well as its only local with a significant black membership, was punished. Shortly after settling this matter, Local 8 was suspended again, this time for charging new members unconstitutionally high initiation fees. These two matters, lasting until November 1921, make up what became known as the “Philadelphia Controversy.”1

The American Left, always at risk from external repression, underwent an internal crisis with the creation of the world’s first socialist nation. In the decade leading up to World War I, America’s radical Left had been dominated by the IWW. During the war, though, the Wobblies suffered from systematic repression. Many historians believe that this campaign deserves the primary role in the IWW’s decline, even though the union’s highest official membership occurred after the war.2 Simultaneously, many people sympathetic to the Left found a new champion in the Soviet Union. To many, including some American Wobblies and Soviet leader V. I. Lenin, it seemed logical that the IWW fold itself into the new “Red International.” After all, the Bolsheviks had achieved what leftist groups the world over had only dreamed about, namely overthrowing a capitalist state. Eventually, though, the IWW decided against aligning with the Soviet Union. How did Communism affect the IWW, and why did it, after a flirtatious courtship, reject the Communists? It was not, simply, because the IWW had been rendered powerless by a combined government-employer offensive. The brutal infighting among pro- and anti-Soviet Wobblies also resulted in the Philadelphia Controversy and foreshadowed a further decline in the IWW when the debate over centralization crescendoed in 1924. These forces—domestic and international, internal and external—whipsawed Local 8 and the entire IWW.3

This chapter examines the complex interrelationships between the IWW and Communists and within the IWW over means and ends in order to see how the Philadelphia Controversy played a vital role in undermining the IWW generally and Local 8 particularly. Ben Fletcher believed, as did Fred Thompson (the IWW’s in-house historian for four decades), that the IWW-Communist conflict lay at the heart of the Philadelphia Controversy. The combination of Communist efforts to capture the mainstream AFL and eventual IWW rejection of Bolshevism resulted in a fierce split between these competing left-wing movements. As a result, Communists in the United States sought to undermine the IWW, beginning with its most powerful branch, Local 8. Further, this crisis revealed a deep fissure in the IWW over short- and long-term goals. Local 8’s efforts to protect itself, during its second suspension, pitted the practical needs of the local to limit the labor supply against the revolutionary goal of bringing more workers into the fold.

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