11. Who Gets the Bird? Communists and the CIO

Aug 5, 2024

Judith Stepan-Norris, a historical sociologist who studies labor and red-led unions, joins to probe the Communist Party’s tangled role in building the CIO. They trace organizing drives, internal discipline, factional fights in the UAW, the Popular Front shift, and case studies like Local 600. The conversation focuses on how communist practice shaped union democracy, racial and gender equality, and tactical choices in industrial organizing.

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INSIGHT

CP Shifted From Infiltration To Independent Red Unions

Party strategy shifted from boring from within (TOOL) to creating independent red unions (Trade Union Unity League) during the Third Period.
That move produced militant, often failing, strikes in the Piedmont and transformed CP tactics toward separate mass organizations.

insights

INSIGHT

Popular Front Drove CP Into Broad Alliances With Democrats

The Comintern-declared Popular Front (1935) forced US communists to ally broadly against fascism, pushing them into the New Deal coalition and electoral support for Democrats.
This produced tactical softening and mass-union collaboration but also strategic confusion about revolutionary aims.

insights

INSIGHT

Popular Front Choices Weakened CP Rank-and-File Base

Popular Front integration undermined factory-level organization as CP folded local shop papers and cells into coalition work and avoided running popular rank-and-file leaders.
Mortimer never ran for UAW president and CP abolished many factory cells by 1938, weakening grassroots defense.

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Why examine the Communist Party and the CIO

01:41 • 3min

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Audience reaction and party claims about democracy

04:34 • 2min

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Challenges in telling the CP story

06:29 • 5min

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Everyday life of party members

11:10 • 1min

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Why the CP matters to the CIO narrative

12:15 • 6min

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Size, structure, and discipline of the CP

CP role in the Flint sit-downs

28:59 • 2min

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Factional tensions inside the UAW

30:38 • 3min

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Varieties of American left politics

34:06 • 4min

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UAW as battleground for ideology

37:40 • 3min

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Anti-communist resolutions and accommodation

40:31 • 3min

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Jay Lovestone and factional intervention

43:55 • 3min

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Origins and immigrant roots of the CP

46:31 • 6min

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Comintern influence and policy swings

52:26 • 6min

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From bore-from-within to independent unions

58:13 • 10min

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Popular Front and new alliances

01:07:54 • 5min

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Tension between rank-and-file work and prestige politics

01:13:02 • 9min

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Interview: Introducing Judith Stepan-Norris

01:22:04 • 3min

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Why past scholarship misrepresents the CP

01:25:03 • 9min

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Tactics: TU/TUUL and pushing industrial unionism

01:34:25 • 7min

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Measuring contract strength and grievances

01:41:19 • 6min

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Local 600 case study: River Rouge democracy

01:47:42 • 4min

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How communists won leadership

01:52:01 • 13min

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Management prerogatives and bargaining toughness

02:05:30 • 6min

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CP impact on shop-floor democracy and equality

02:11:55 • 7min

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Why this history keeps mattering

02:18:35 • 11min

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Who gets the bird—legacy and open questions

Lipset, Trow, and Coleman

Union Democracy analyzes internal governance and democratic practices within American unions, arguing that genuine internal democracy is rare and exploring conditions that produce it. The authors examine case studies to show how structures, leadership, and institutional rules influence levels of member participation and accountability. The work has been influential in debates about union reform and the limits of rank-and-file control. It often serves as a reference point for comparisons with unions that buck the trend, such as those analyzed by Stepan-Norris. The book helped shape mid-20th-century scholarship on labor organizational behavior and reform.

The Many and the Few

Henry Krauss

The Many and the Few is a firsthand account by Henry Krauss, who edited a local UAW paper and reported on the Flint sit-down strike, capturing the dynamics of rank-and-file organizing. Krauss's writing offers detailed descriptions of tactics, leadership, and the community supports that sustained the strike, reflecting the perspectives of activists on the ground. The book situates the Flint events within broader patterns of industrial unrest and labor resurgence in the 1930s. It serves as a valuable primary source for historians studying the emergence of the UAW and the role of left-wing organizers. Krauss's narrative highlights the contributions of multiple actors, including Communist Party members and socialists, to the strike's success.

Rank and File

Personal Histories of Working Class Organizers

Alice Lind

Robert Staughton Lynd

Rank and File gathers firsthand narratives from dozens of organizers who led strikes, sit-downs, and local campaigns, illuminating the tactics and solidarities behind labor victories. Edited by Alice and Staughton Lynd, the volume foregrounds grassroots perspectives, showing how ordinary workers developed leadership, confronted management, and created new forms of workplace democracy. The book situates these stories within broader political struggles over race, gender, and class, revealing the social networks that sustained organizing efforts. By emphasizing personal histories, it preserves lessons on strategy and movement-building often absent from institutional accounts. The collection has become a classic resource for scholars and activists seeking practical and historical insight into labor organizing.

Talking Union

Judith Stepan-Norris

Maurice Eitlin

Talking Union compiles first-person accounts from workers and organizers who built unions and led key strikes, providing a vivid oral-history record of grassroots labor activism. The volume highlights tactics, daily organizing work, and the social contexts in which workers mobilized, illuminating the lived experience behind broader labor transformations. Editors analyze how local practices, leadership styles, and community networks shaped outcomes in major industrial disputes. By privileging voices from the shop floor, the book complements institutional and archival histories, offering insight into motivations, strategies, and contentious moments. It serves as both a historical resource and a practical archive for contemporary organizers studying past practice.

#26489

• Mentioned in 3 episodes

Foundations of Leninism

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin's "Foundations of Leninism" systematically explains Lenin's theories, providing a framework for understanding Marxism in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. The book analyzes key concepts like the dictatorship of the proletariat, the role of the peasantry, and the importance of a revolutionary party. It critiques the Second International's opportunism and emphasizes the need for a militant, revolutionary approach to achieve socialism. Stalin's work became a foundational text for Marxist-Leninist movements globally, shaping their strategies and interpretations of Lenin's legacy. Its enduring relevance lies in its analysis of imperialism, class struggle, and the complexities of revolutionary transformation.

#17042

• Mentioned in 4 episodes

• Mentioned in 5 episodes

Prisoners of the American dream

Mike Davis

Episode 11 of Fragile Juggernaut concerns the Communist Party and its complex role in the creation of the CIO. Andrew and Ben trace the strategic zigzags of America’s far-left, recount their pioneering role in organizing drives, and measure the Party’s own accounts of its politics against the often ambiguous, even contradictory realities of its practice.

Did Communists merely supply the shock troops for someone else’s political ambitions, or did they put their stamp on the CIO, in ways that were durable and lasting? Did their practice of unionism conform to the mainstream of the labor movement, or did it contain the germs of another kind of CIO? What, ultimately, did the CIO do to the Communist Party? We discuss this and more amongst our co-hosts, and with our special guest, the historical sociologist Judith Stepan-Norris, co-author of Left Out and Talking Union (our interview begins around 1:25:00).

Featured music: “The Bourgeois Blues” by Lead Belly; “The United Front” by New Singers; “Our Line's Been Changed Again” by Joe Glazer; “Internationale” by New Singers)

Archival audio credits: Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists (1983)

Fragile Juggernaut is a Haymarket Originals podcast exploring the history, politics, and strategic lessons of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the rank and file insurgency that produced it. Support Fragile Juggernaut on Patreon and receive our exclusive bimonthly newsletter, full of additional insights, reading recommendations, and archival materials we’ve amassed along the way.

Buy Rank and File, 20% Off: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/396-rank-and-file

Read Gabriel Winant on the Popular Front in The London Review of Books: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n15/gabriel-winant/we-can-breathe

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