Benjamin Gitlow
Benjamin Gitlow | |
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Member of the New York State Assembly from the 3rd Bronx district | |
In office January 1, 1918 – December 31, 1918 | |
Preceded by | office created |
Succeeded by | Robert S. Mullen |
Personal details | |
Born | Republican | 22 December 1891
Benjamin Gitlow (December 22, 1891 – July 19, 1965) was a prominent American
Background
Benjamin Gitlow was born on December 22, 1891, in
Radicalism seems to have run deeply in the family. Guests to the family home told stories about their personal and political experiences in Tsarist Russia. Gitlow later recalled this experience as formative to his own political development:
I would listen intently to the adventures of the Russian revolutionary leaders, of their experiences with the police, the days and years spent in prisons and their exile to the wastes of Siberia. I would grow indignant hearing how the Tsar mistreated the people. I thrilled at the stories of the underground movement, of the conspiring activities, how deeds of violence against the Tsarist oppressors were planned... The stories of personal experiences when raids were made by the secret police upon revolutionists' homes held me spellbound. I anticipated every incident that would be related. I also listened to discussions, very idealistic in their essence, in which the participants showed how Socialism would transform the world, and to arguments over methods of how Socialism would be achieved.[1]
In later years, his mother achieved some notice as an important Communist women's leader, serving as Secretary of the Women's Committee of the Workers Party of America in 1924.[3] However, she resigned from the party in 1930 and became a bitter opponent of the Stalin regime until her death in 1940.[4]
Career
Gitlow studied law while working as a
Following his blacklisting from the retail sales industry, Gitlow worked briefly as a cutter in the garment industry before entering the world of radical journalism in 1919.[3]
Entry into radical politics
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As soon as he turned 18 and became eligible for membership, Ben Gitlow joined the Socialist Party of America. Gitlow was a committed and active member of the party and he was elected a delegate to the New York state convention of the SPA in 1910, the year after his joining.[3] In the fall of 1917, Gitlow was elected on the Socialist ticket to the New York State Assembly (Bronx Co., 3rd D.), and sat in the 141st New York State Legislature.[6] He was one of 10 Socialists elected to the Assembly of 1918, all of them from New York City.[7]
Despite (or perhaps because of) his two years as a Socialist parliamentarian, Ben Gitlow professed a belief in
Following the
John Reed was named the editor of the a new monthly labor magazine of the Left Wing Section, called Voice of Labor. Ben Gitlow also served as business manager of this publication, which was adopted by the Communist Labor Party in the fall, shortly before its termination due to lack of finances.[citation needed]
Arrest and trial
For his publicized connection on the staff of The Revolutionary Age Benjamin Gitlow was targeted for arrest during the coordinated raid of the Communist movement conducted by New York state authorities and the
Ben Gitlow's widely publicized trial began in
Political activity after prison
Following his release from prison on bail in the spring of 1922, Ben Gitlow was made a full-time employee of the Communist Party of America. The governing Central Executive Committee named him as Industrial Organizer (party organizer in the unions) for a large area which stretched from New York City to Philadelphia and which encompassed the entire New England region.[13]
He was elected as a delegate to the Communist Party's ill-fated
From May 1923 until early in 1924, Gitlow — a devoted partisan of the party faction headed by C.E. Ruthenberg and an opponent of the faction headed by William Z. Foster — was named the editor of the Workers' Party's
In 1924, Gitlow was named the candidate of the Workers Party of America for Vice President of the United States.[citation needed]
Return to prison
Three years after his release on bail, on June 8, 1925, the US Supreme Court upheld his conviction in the case of Gitlow v. New York, by a vote of 7 to 2, confirming that the publication of the Left Wing Manifesto in The Revolutionary Age did, in fact, constitute a punishable act under the law. As the legal wrangling and backstage politics continued, Ben Gitlow prepared to return to jail.[citation needed]
In November 1925, Gitlow was ordered back to Sing Sing Prison by the court to finish his sentence. This would not be "hard time," however. Gitlow was immediately transferred to a new section of the prison located on a hill, a much more comfortable facility than that in which he had previously been confined. Gitlow was assigned to a cleaning detail that occupied only about one hour of his time. The cells had fresh air, a comfortable mattress, hot water in the basin, and clean, smoothly painted steel walls. Gitlow later recalled that "had a bath been included, it would have been equivalent to a good small room in a modern hotel."[1] Gitlow anticipated a short stay in the facility as the American Civil Liberties Union assured him that it had obtained a verbal commitment from Governor Al Smith that Gitlow would be pardoned expeditiously.[citation needed]
On December 11, 1925, Gitlow's first wedding anniversary, he was visited by his wife, who showed him a letter from an ACLU attorney stating that he would be free to leave Sing Sing on parole if he agreed to the conditions of his release. Gitlow considered this an unfortunate turn of events, as he sought freedom to continue his political activities without the constraint of parole supervision and the threat of a rapid return to jail. Gitlow's wife received word by telephone at that time that his decision on whether to accept a parole was moot, however, as the Governor had decided to grant him a full pardon. Freed from jail the next day, Gitlow arrived by train to a packed Grand Central Station, where he received a rousing hero's welcome from the assembled party members and friends.[1]
In 1926, Gitlow ran on the ticket of the Workers Party of America for Governor of New York.[citation needed]
In 1928, Gitlow was once again named the candidate of the Workers Party of America for Vice President of the United States, running for a second time on a ticket headed by William Z. Foster.[citation needed]
Gitlow reached the summit of his political life as a Communist Party leader shortly after the conclusion of the 1928 campaign, when on March 16, 1929, Gitlow was named to the three-man Secretariat at the helm of the Communist Party, assuming the post of Executive Secretary. His time at the top proved to be momentary, however, as on March 23 he boarded an ocean liner for Moscow as part of a 10-person delegation seeking to appeal the Comintern's decision to expel Jay Lovestone from the Communist Party. The job of Executive Secretary was turned over to factional ally Robert Minor in the interim.[1]
Radical oppositionist
In 1929 Communist Parties around the world were purged of so-called "Right Oppositions" by the
Gitlow was named a member of the governing National Council of the CP(MG) in October 1929. At the 1st National Conference of the organization, held July 4–6, 1930 in New York City, Gitlow was elected Secretary of the Lovestone political organization, a role in which he continued at least through 1932.[14] In the fall of 1930, Gitlow was sent on a month-long tour of the United States on behalf of the Lovestoneites, taking him to Detroit, Chicago, and Superior, Wisconsin, before returning to the east coast.[15]
Throughout the first 5 years of its existence the Lovestone organization continued to seek accommodation with the regular Communist Party. Gitlow's own views had gradually changed, however. In May 1933 he and Lazar Becker split from the Lovestoneites to found the
Anti-Communist years
After briefly rejoining the Socialist Party in 1934, Gitlow became disillusioned with radicalism of all shades and emerged as an outspoken
In 1940, Gitlow published his first work of political autobiography, I Confess: The Truth About American Communism. The book was controversial and widely noticed, pushing Gitlow into the public eye as a leading opponent of American Communism. The book remains an important primary document for the study of American Communism in the 1920s and 1930s.[1]
In 1948, Gitlow followed his 1940 memoir with a steamier retelling of old tales called The Whole of Their Lives: Communism in America. Non-specialists should use the historical accounts in this later book, written as a
On May 1, 1950, in Mosinee, Wisconsin, a local American Legion outpost staged a mock Communist takeover to illustrate what life under Soviet conquest might be like. Gitlow played the role of General Secretary of the "United Soviet States of America", while ex-Communist Joseph Zack Kornfeder played the new commissar of the newly renamed town of "Moskva." A Soviet flag flew in front of the American Legion outpost.[19][20]
Ben Gitlow's final pamphlets, written in the early 1960s, were published by fundamentalist preacher Billy James Hargis's Christian Crusade Ministries, an organization committed to stopping the spread of Communism in the world.[21]
Personal life and death
In 1924, Gitlow married Badana Zeitlin.[citation needed]
Benjamin Gitlow died in Crompond, New York, on July 19, 1965.[citation needed]
Gitlow's papers are housed at the Hoover Institution Archives, located at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.[citation needed]
Publications by Benjamin Gitlow
- The "Red Ruby": Address to the Jury; Also, Darrow; The Judge; Giovanitti. Archived 2010-07-21 at the Wayback Machine n.c. [New York]: Communist Labor Party of America, n.d. [1920].
- Acceptance speeches. With William Z. Foster. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1928.
- Some Plain Words on Communist Unity. New York: Workers Age Publishing Association, n.d. [1932]. alternate link
- America for the People!: Why We Need a Farmer Labor Party. New York: Labor Party Association, 1933.
- Why the Boycott of Nazi Germany? London: British Section of the World Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi Council to Champion Human Rights, n.d. [middle 1930s].
- I Confess: The Truth About American Communism. New York:E. P. Dutton, 1940.
- The Whole of Their Lives: Communism in America: A Personal History and Intimate Portrayal of Its Leaders. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948.
- How to Think about Communism. Whitestone, N.Y., Graphics Group, 1949. — Illustrated reprint of selections from "The Whole of Their Lives."
- Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev and the Downgrading of Stalin. Tulsa, OK: Christian Crusade, n.d. [c. 1962].
- Communism — A World-Wide Failure? Tulsa, OK: Christian Crusade, n.d. [c. 1962].
- The Negro Question: Communist Civil War Policy. Tulsa, OK: Christian Crusade, n.d. [c. 1962].
Related Publications
- Women in politics by Kate Gitlow New York: United Council of Working Women, 1924
- Is the Stalin general line correct? New York, N.Y: Workers Communist League, 1933.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g
Gitlow, Benjamin (1940). I Confess: The Truth About American Communism. E.P. Dutton & Co. pp. 4 (background), 5–6 (family), 283 (Nov 1925), 284–287 (Dec 11 1925), 523 (1928–1929). ISBN 9781787208667. Retrieved 20 October 2018.
- ^
Gitlow, Benjamin (1940). I Confess: The Truth About American Communism. E.P. Dutton & Co. pp. 611 (total). LCCN 40027077.
- ^ a b c d e Salon DeLeon, ed. (1925). The American Labor Who's Who. Hanford Press. p. 86.
- ^ "Deaths: Mrs. Kate Gitlow, 72," PM, Nov. 20, 1940
- ProQuest 97619064.
- ProQuest 99871894.
- ProQuest 99840833.
- ^ The complete 10 issue run of The New York Communist was reissued in book form as well as microfilm by Greenwood Reprint Corp., Westport, CT, in 1970. Historian James Weinstein wrote the introduction for this reprint, a contribution which was included in Greenwood's two-volume The American Radical Press, 1880-1960, Joseph R. Conklin, ed., v. 1, pp. 145-154.
- ^ See: The New York Communist, Westport, CT: Greenwood Reprint Corp.,1970. Issue of June 14, 1919, page 2.
- ^ The complete run of The Revolutionary Age was also reissued in elephant folio book form as well as microfilm by Greenwood Reprint Corp. in 1968 as part of their "Radical Periodicals in the United States" series. The introduction for the reprint edition were written by Martin Glaberman and George P. Rawick.
- ^ The Revolutionary Age, v. 2, no. 1 (July 5, 1919), pg. 2. The publication continued until August 23, 1919, at which time it was replaced by the new national organs of the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party.
- ^ Benjamin Gitlow, The "Red Ruby": Address to the Jury. New York: Communist Labor Party, [1920], pg. 4.
- ^ Details on Gitlow's inner party activity may be found in the files of the Communist Party USA held by the Comintern Archives in Moscow. This material from the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) is part of fond 515, opis 1, and was microfilmed in 326 reels in the mid-1990s. Film is available for sale from the Dutch company IDC.
- ^ See: Benjamin Gitlow, Some Plain Words on Communist Unity. New York: Workers Age Publishing Co., n.d. [c. May 1932]; pp. 5-6, in which Gitlow reprints a letter dated April 20, 1932, listing him as "Secretary" of a three man Secretariat that included Jay Lovestone and Will Herberg.
- ^ "Report of the Gitlow Tour," The Revolutionary Age, vol. 1, no. 21 (November 22, 1930), pg. 14.
- ^ Max Shachtman, "Footnote for Historians," The New International, v. 4, no. 12 (Dec. 1938), pp. 377-379.
- ^ Associated Press. "CLASH OVER REDS MARKS DIES INQUIRY; Marcantonio Denies I.L.D. Link With Communists, but Gitlow Contradicts Him; LATTER CITES INCOME; Organization Is Main Support of The Daily Worker, Witness Says at Hearing" New York Times October 18, 1939
- ^ Krause, Allen (2010). "Rabbi Benjamin Schultz and the American Jewish League Against Communism: From McCarthy to Mississippi". Southern Jewish History. Southern Jewish Historical Society: 167 (quote), 208 (fn25 on founding). Retrieved 21 March 2020.
- ^ "Mosinee in Hands of 'Reds' After a Make Believe Coup", Milwaukee Journal, May 1, 1950
- ^ "Mayor, Pastor Die at Mosinee", Milwaukee Journal, May 8, 1950, p3; "D-Day in Mosinee" Archived 2014-10-16 at the Wayback Machine, by Carl Weinberg, OAH Magazine of History (October 2010)
- ^ Some of Rev. Hargis's books include Communist America — Must It Be? (1960), The Facts About Communism and Our Churches (1962), Communism: The Total Lie (1963), The Real Extremists — The Far Left (1964), and Our Enemy in Vietnam is Russia! (1969).
External links
- Works by or about Benjamin Gitlow at Internet Archive
- Benjamin Gitlow Papers:, J. Murrey Atkins Library, University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
- "Footnote for Historians" by Max Shachtman in New International, Vol.4, No.12 (Dec. 1938), pp. 377–379.