David Tenner
2018-01-09 05:47:12 UTC
What if Charles Ruthenberg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._E._Ruthenberg
who was at least nominally the leader of the American Communist Party from
its birth in 1919 until his death on March 1, 1927, lived longer? (His
death, after an emergency operaton for a burst appendix, came as a
surprise; he was only 44 years old.) Ruthenberg's last words, as reported
by his lieutenant and successor Jay Lovestone, sound a little bit too
edifying to be true: "'Tell the comrades to close their ranks, to build
the Party,' Ruthenberg had allegedly said. 'The American workers [in the
*Daily Worker* version this becaame "the American working class"--see
https://preview.tinyurl.com/y7wgnpxx for the obituary] under the
leadership of our Party and the Comintern, will win. Let's fight on!'"
https://books.google.com/books?id=BCMXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT224
Theodore Draper in his *American Communism and Soviet Russia* evaluated
Ruthenberg as follows:
"American Communism owed much to Ruthenberg. As its titular leader since
1919, he had done more than anyone else to rid it of its underground
mentality and to hold it together. At crucial periods, however, he had
yielded the real leadership to others, particularly to [John] Pepper. [See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pepper for some background on Pepper.]
Yet a stronger or a weaker man in his position might have split the party.
He assumed the role of one too proud, too dignified, too sure of himself
to stoop to the petty vices of his rivals and supporters. This attitude
struck some as merely an exasperating pose. But, on the whole, it had
served Ruthenberg's ambitions well by partially disarming the opposition,
which could never work up as much animus against him as it could against
Pepper or Lovestone. In Moscow, he had always been trusted to lead the
party, but not to lead it too much...
"Ruthenberg's era of Communist leadership in large part paralleled the
postwar upswing of American capitalism as well as Zinoviev's reign in the
Comintern. Neither was propitious for the emergence of a truly successful
and creative American Communist leader. The economic tide beat back every
movement of reform as well as of revolution, and Zinoviev's Comintern
prized obedience far above originality. No great practical achievement and
no significant theoretical contribution was linked with Ruthenberg's name.
He gave American Communism an efficient, respected, colorless office
manger; he did not give it an authoritative, inspiring, path-finding
leader." https://books.google.com/books?id=qzYrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA247
James Cannon (who with William Z. Foster and Alexander Bittelman led a
faction oppposed to Ruthenberg--until 1928 when Cannon underwent a sudden
conversion to Trotskyism and was expelled from the Party--would later
write,
"We often speculated how things might have worked out if Ruthenberg had
lived. Ruthenberg was a factionalist like the rest, but he was not so
insane about it as Lovestone was. He was far more constructive and
responsible, more concerned for the general welfare of the party and for
his own position as a leader of a party rather than of a fragmented
assembly of factions. Moreover, he was far more popular and influential,
more respected in the party ranks, and strong enough to veto Lovestones
factional excesses if he wanted to.
"It is quite possible that an uneasy peace, gradually leading to the
dissolution of factions, might have been worked out with him. His sudden
death in March 1927 put a stop to all such possibilities. The Ruthenberg
faction then became the Lovestone faction, and the internal party
situation changed for the worse accordingly."
https://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/letters/spr56b.htm
We should not underestimate Ruthenberg as a factionalist, though. He
fought more "honorably"--at least less obnoxiously--for his faction than
Lovestone did, but still he fought. In 1926, he wrote Lovestone "Our
opponents (Bittelman, Browder, Foster) have submitted at least 150 pages
of documents against us. . . . They are shining examples of Foster's
methods--continuous, shameless lying. If one needs to be convinced that
there can be no peace while Foster's methods continue, one need only read
a score of pages of his brazen lies."
https://books.google.com/books?id=BCMXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210
And while Ruthenberg's opponents may not have hated him as much as they
did Lovestone, and at times were willing to coexist with him, they still
wanted to remove him from power if they could. In 1925, at the fourth
convention of the Workers (Communist) Party it seemed that Foster was on
the verge of doing just that--until the Comintern's envoy Sergei Gusev
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Ivanovich_Gusev simply overruled the
majority and in effect handed control of the Party back to Ruthenberg.
Foster's later claim that "During the factional fight Ruthenberg enjoyed
the confidence of both warring groups, so that even during its bitterest
phases he remained general secretary" https://preview.tinyurl.com/yaechey3
is thus wildly misleading. As Draper wrote, "Unluckily for Ruthenberg,
Foster chose to show his confidence in peculiar ways; and luckily for
Ruthenberg, he enjoyed the Comintern's confidence in addition to Foster's.
Foster's strange desire to pay homage to Ruthenberg's memory probably
arises less from a guilty conscience than from the need to find at least
one past general secretary of the party of whom some good may be said. Yet
Foster has never faced up to the basic contradiction in his latter-day
apotheosis of Ruthenberg--that Ruthenberg was the party's first great,
good leader but that the two men who worked with him so closely and so
long, Pepper and Lovestone, were, according to Foster, the party's
greatest, most sinister misleaders..."
https://books.google.com/books?id=qzYrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA246
The big question of course is whether, unlike Lovestone in OTL, Ruthenberg
could stay in Stalin's good graces. "Lovestone states that Ruthenberg got
fed up with the maneuvers in Moscow [in 1925] before the tide turned in
his favor. On one occasion, Lovestone says, Ruthenberg told him: "We
shouldn't stay here. They don't want an American movement." Lovestone then
talked him out of breaking away: "No, this is not the time. We don't
control the party yet" (interview with Lovestone, June 21, 1954).
Lovestone apparently referred to this incident in his testimony
(Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities, Vol. XI, p. 7146). I
have not come across any other evidence that Ruthenberg ever entertained
any thought of breaking away from the Comintern. However, Melech Epstein
also offers this opinion: "If not for his death in March 1927, in his
middle forties, Ruthenberg would undoubtedly have been expelled by the
Comintern," a conclusion evidently based in part on Ruthenberg's behavior
in Moscow in 1925 (Jewish Labor in U.S.A. 1914-1952, New York: Trade Union
Sponsoring Committee, 1953, p. 116)."
https://books.google.com/books?id=qzYrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA503 But even if
Lovestone's quote is authentic, it may simply have been a passing mood on
Ruthenberg's part; Foster too at times showed a spark of rebellion but
always yielded to the Comintern in the end.
In any event, I don't see any evidence that Ruthenberg was particularly
"right-wing" or an "American exceptionalist" at the time of his death in
1927--except in the sense that the entire Comintern was! As of early 1927,
it was entirely orthodox to maintain that American capitalism, unlike
European, was still "on the upgrade." (Indeed, if anything, maybe
Ruthenberg was starting to move a little to the left, well before the
Comintern did. Shortly before his death, Ruthenberg said that a depression
was "in the offing" in the US which would lead to a sharpening of the
class struggle.) This was the Comintern's line, supported by Stalin as
well as Bukharin, and in the American CP by the Bittelman-Foster faction
as well as Ruthenberg's. It is really hard for me to see Ruthenberg
sticking with Bukharin as long as Lovestone did (Lovestone even quoted
Bukharin approvingly as late as December 1928, when anyone could see that
Bukharin had fallen into disfavor). Lovestone really seems to have
imagined that his control over the American CP was so absolute that he
could seriously negotiate with Stalin in Moscow, rather than submit to
him. I doubt that Ruthenberg would have had any such delusions. In
addition, Stalin--and he wasn't alone in this--seems to have found
Lovestone *personally* offensive in a way which he might not have found
Ruthenberg.
Even if Stalin approved of Ruthenberg's remaining in charge of the
American CP, there would have been one more problem--in the early 1920's
Ruthenberg had been sentenced to at least three years in prison by a court
in Michigan under that state's "criminal syndicalism" law. He died before
having to actually serve his sentence, but IIRC he had exhausted his
appeals, and if he really would have had to serve his sentence, I doubt
that on release he could just pick up and resume his Secretaryship the way
Browder did in 1942 after a much shorter sentence.
who was at least nominally the leader of the American Communist Party from
its birth in 1919 until his death on March 1, 1927, lived longer? (His
death, after an emergency operaton for a burst appendix, came as a
surprise; he was only 44 years old.) Ruthenberg's last words, as reported
by his lieutenant and successor Jay Lovestone, sound a little bit too
edifying to be true: "'Tell the comrades to close their ranks, to build
the Party,' Ruthenberg had allegedly said. 'The American workers [in the
*Daily Worker* version this becaame "the American working class"--see
https://preview.tinyurl.com/y7wgnpxx for the obituary] under the
leadership of our Party and the Comintern, will win. Let's fight on!'"
https://books.google.com/books?id=BCMXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT224
Theodore Draper in his *American Communism and Soviet Russia* evaluated
Ruthenberg as follows:
"American Communism owed much to Ruthenberg. As its titular leader since
1919, he had done more than anyone else to rid it of its underground
mentality and to hold it together. At crucial periods, however, he had
yielded the real leadership to others, particularly to [John] Pepper. [See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pepper for some background on Pepper.]
Yet a stronger or a weaker man in his position might have split the party.
He assumed the role of one too proud, too dignified, too sure of himself
to stoop to the petty vices of his rivals and supporters. This attitude
struck some as merely an exasperating pose. But, on the whole, it had
served Ruthenberg's ambitions well by partially disarming the opposition,
which could never work up as much animus against him as it could against
Pepper or Lovestone. In Moscow, he had always been trusted to lead the
party, but not to lead it too much...
"Ruthenberg's era of Communist leadership in large part paralleled the
postwar upswing of American capitalism as well as Zinoviev's reign in the
Comintern. Neither was propitious for the emergence of a truly successful
and creative American Communist leader. The economic tide beat back every
movement of reform as well as of revolution, and Zinoviev's Comintern
prized obedience far above originality. No great practical achievement and
no significant theoretical contribution was linked with Ruthenberg's name.
He gave American Communism an efficient, respected, colorless office
manger; he did not give it an authoritative, inspiring, path-finding
leader." https://books.google.com/books?id=qzYrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA247
James Cannon (who with William Z. Foster and Alexander Bittelman led a
faction oppposed to Ruthenberg--until 1928 when Cannon underwent a sudden
conversion to Trotskyism and was expelled from the Party--would later
write,
"We often speculated how things might have worked out if Ruthenberg had
lived. Ruthenberg was a factionalist like the rest, but he was not so
insane about it as Lovestone was. He was far more constructive and
responsible, more concerned for the general welfare of the party and for
his own position as a leader of a party rather than of a fragmented
assembly of factions. Moreover, he was far more popular and influential,
more respected in the party ranks, and strong enough to veto Lovestones
factional excesses if he wanted to.
"It is quite possible that an uneasy peace, gradually leading to the
dissolution of factions, might have been worked out with him. His sudden
death in March 1927 put a stop to all such possibilities. The Ruthenberg
faction then became the Lovestone faction, and the internal party
situation changed for the worse accordingly."
https://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/letters/spr56b.htm
We should not underestimate Ruthenberg as a factionalist, though. He
fought more "honorably"--at least less obnoxiously--for his faction than
Lovestone did, but still he fought. In 1926, he wrote Lovestone "Our
opponents (Bittelman, Browder, Foster) have submitted at least 150 pages
of documents against us. . . . They are shining examples of Foster's
methods--continuous, shameless lying. If one needs to be convinced that
there can be no peace while Foster's methods continue, one need only read
a score of pages of his brazen lies."
https://books.google.com/books?id=BCMXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210
And while Ruthenberg's opponents may not have hated him as much as they
did Lovestone, and at times were willing to coexist with him, they still
wanted to remove him from power if they could. In 1925, at the fourth
convention of the Workers (Communist) Party it seemed that Foster was on
the verge of doing just that--until the Comintern's envoy Sergei Gusev
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Ivanovich_Gusev simply overruled the
majority and in effect handed control of the Party back to Ruthenberg.
Foster's later claim that "During the factional fight Ruthenberg enjoyed
the confidence of both warring groups, so that even during its bitterest
phases he remained general secretary" https://preview.tinyurl.com/yaechey3
is thus wildly misleading. As Draper wrote, "Unluckily for Ruthenberg,
Foster chose to show his confidence in peculiar ways; and luckily for
Ruthenberg, he enjoyed the Comintern's confidence in addition to Foster's.
Foster's strange desire to pay homage to Ruthenberg's memory probably
arises less from a guilty conscience than from the need to find at least
one past general secretary of the party of whom some good may be said. Yet
Foster has never faced up to the basic contradiction in his latter-day
apotheosis of Ruthenberg--that Ruthenberg was the party's first great,
good leader but that the two men who worked with him so closely and so
long, Pepper and Lovestone, were, according to Foster, the party's
greatest, most sinister misleaders..."
https://books.google.com/books?id=qzYrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA246
The big question of course is whether, unlike Lovestone in OTL, Ruthenberg
could stay in Stalin's good graces. "Lovestone states that Ruthenberg got
fed up with the maneuvers in Moscow [in 1925] before the tide turned in
his favor. On one occasion, Lovestone says, Ruthenberg told him: "We
shouldn't stay here. They don't want an American movement." Lovestone then
talked him out of breaking away: "No, this is not the time. We don't
control the party yet" (interview with Lovestone, June 21, 1954).
Lovestone apparently referred to this incident in his testimony
(Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities, Vol. XI, p. 7146). I
have not come across any other evidence that Ruthenberg ever entertained
any thought of breaking away from the Comintern. However, Melech Epstein
also offers this opinion: "If not for his death in March 1927, in his
middle forties, Ruthenberg would undoubtedly have been expelled by the
Comintern," a conclusion evidently based in part on Ruthenberg's behavior
in Moscow in 1925 (Jewish Labor in U.S.A. 1914-1952, New York: Trade Union
Sponsoring Committee, 1953, p. 116)."
https://books.google.com/books?id=qzYrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA503 But even if
Lovestone's quote is authentic, it may simply have been a passing mood on
Ruthenberg's part; Foster too at times showed a spark of rebellion but
always yielded to the Comintern in the end.
In any event, I don't see any evidence that Ruthenberg was particularly
"right-wing" or an "American exceptionalist" at the time of his death in
1927--except in the sense that the entire Comintern was! As of early 1927,
it was entirely orthodox to maintain that American capitalism, unlike
European, was still "on the upgrade." (Indeed, if anything, maybe
Ruthenberg was starting to move a little to the left, well before the
Comintern did. Shortly before his death, Ruthenberg said that a depression
was "in the offing" in the US which would lead to a sharpening of the
class struggle.) This was the Comintern's line, supported by Stalin as
well as Bukharin, and in the American CP by the Bittelman-Foster faction
as well as Ruthenberg's. It is really hard for me to see Ruthenberg
sticking with Bukharin as long as Lovestone did (Lovestone even quoted
Bukharin approvingly as late as December 1928, when anyone could see that
Bukharin had fallen into disfavor). Lovestone really seems to have
imagined that his control over the American CP was so absolute that he
could seriously negotiate with Stalin in Moscow, rather than submit to
him. I doubt that Ruthenberg would have had any such delusions. In
addition, Stalin--and he wasn't alone in this--seems to have found
Lovestone *personally* offensive in a way which he might not have found
Ruthenberg.
Even if Stalin approved of Ruthenberg's remaining in charge of the
American CP, there would have been one more problem--in the early 1920's
Ruthenberg had been sentenced to at least three years in prison by a court
in Michigan under that state's "criminal syndicalism" law. He died before
having to actually serve his sentence, but IIRC he had exhausted his
appeals, and if he really would have had to serve his sentence, I doubt
that on release he could just pick up and resume his Secretaryship the way
Browder did in 1942 after a much shorter sentence.
--
David Tenner
***@ameritech.net
David Tenner
***@ameritech.net