Activity

Though the CPUSA moved toward the Front populaire slowly and uncertainly in 1935 and 1936, the party was fully committed to working with New Deal Democrats by mid-1937. During 1937–1939 the California CP moved very close to the political mainstream—partly through circumstances over which the party …

Throughout 1935 the Western Worker continued to attack Roosevelt and the New Deal, condemning the work-relief programs of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as “a wage-cutting, anti-strike club held over the heads of every worker.” The Western Worker also condemned “the strike-breaking activit…

The West Coast strikes of 1934 came as the Executive Committee of the Comintern was moving away from the Third Period analysis and toward what in France was called the Front populaire, the People’s Front, and was usually called the Popular Front in the United States. Georgi Dimitrov, head of the Co…

The striking unions agreed to arbitration. The CP generally opposed arbitration. In the end, the arbitration board granted the ILA’s major demands: the six- hour day, a wage increase (less than the union had wanted, but significant), and union control of dispatching through a jointly funded hiring …

During the general strike, anti-Communist actions erupted across the Bay Area. On the first day of the general strike, Oakland police raided that city’s CP office and beat and arrested those inside; 50 men attacked the party office in Hayward, beat its occupants, and burned its furnishings; and 150…