◆ SpookStack

the same old sputnik with a new name, The names of Communist sputniks have had a way of Wearing out and, when they do, the Party thinks Up new names in order to seduce new followers. Thus, the American League Against War and Fascism became the Américan League for Peace and Democracy when the new united- from line was adopted after the Seventh World Con- gress of the Communist International in 1935. During World War H, the Young Communist League metamor- phosed into American Youth for Democracy on October 17, 1943—same convention, same officers, same revolv- tionary objectives. Later on, the Southern Conference for Human Welfare became the Southern Conference Educational Fund in 1947-——same officers, same address, same telephone number, same publication (Southern Patriot), and same Communist objectives. There was no attempt to conceal the Communist Par- t's enntrol of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights. Among the national council members of the organiza- tion were such high functionaries of the Communist Party as William Z. Foster, Earl Browder, James W. Ford, Robert Minor, Benjamin J. Davis, Harry Hay- wood, Cyril Briggs, Clarence Hathaway, Irving Potash, Louls Weinstock, Israel Amter, Claude Lightfoot, and Aone: W. Berry (of the Highlander Folk School semi- mrt} § Fovolity, Land, and Freedom: A Program for Negro Liberation, published by the League of Struggle for Negra Richts, New York, 1933, p. 44-46) \..ugsion Hughes was president of the League of Strugele for Negro Rights. in ils Pregram for Negro Liberation, the LSNR re- x tcd the doctrine of Negro nationhood: “ec toclaim before the whole world that the + siset’ Negroes are a nation—a nation striving -sird munhood but whose growth is violently re- istded and which is viciously oppressed by American vpocusm. The program here presented outlines ‘Ae caly course of action which guarantees the de- velopment of the American Negroes to full nation- hood, which will elevate them to that rightful place of equality before all and subservience before none. (ibid, p. 7-8) jue program ot the LSNR also reiterated the Com- menist demands for confiscation of the property of the Southern whites: The Ts oe of Struggle for Negro Righ:s therefore roots the eanfiseation without compensation of the ‘ald Ol ihe big landlords and capitalists in the South and sts distribution among the Negroes and white sriall farmers and sharecroppers. (ibid, p. 10) it: tus Report of the Central Committee to the Eighth Convcr tien of the Communist Party, held in Cleveland, whe, Apri! 2-8, 1934, Earl Browder said: 32 A more broad and all-inclusive organizational form for the Negro liberation struggles is the League of Struggle for Negro Rights. This should embrace in its activities all of the basic economic organizations of Negro and white workers standing on the program of Negro liberation, and further unite with them all other sections of the Negro population drawn to- wards this struggle, especially those large sections of the petty-bourgeoisie, intellectuals, professionals, who can and must be won to the national liberation cause. The L. 5. N. R. must, in the first place, be an active federation of existing mass organizations; and second- ly, it must directly organize its cwn membership branches composed of its most active forces and all supporters otherwise unorganized. The present be- ginnings of the L. S. N. R. and its paper, The Liber- ator, which with only a little attention have already shown mass vitality, must be energetically taken up, and spread throughout the country. (Communism in the United States, 1935, p. 9} Browder’s grandiose conception of the LSNR was a piece of typical Communist wishful thinking. The LSNR gave way to the National Negro Congress in 1936. National Negro Congress The fact that the Communist Party was preparing to launch one of its sputniks, the National Negro Congress, was noisily proclaimed long before it was sent revolving around the Party. The very suggestion that the National Negro Congress be launched was made by the Negro Communist leader, James W, Ford. In his book, The Negro People in American History, William Z. Foster writes: This bread movement (the National Negro Con- gress), which operated in the tradition of the historic Negro people's conventions, had been suggested two years before by James W. Ford, in a debate with Oscar de Priest and Frank Crosswaith. (p. 488) The Party Organizer of March, 1935, let it be known that the Communist Party was laying careful plans to launch the National Negro Congress. This was almost one year before its plans came to fruition. The Party Organizer, in publishing excerpts from a report to one of the plenums of the Communist Party, said: In connection with the question of the united front on the Negro question—if we work properly now and see that we must penetrate these organizations (the churches, the National Association for the Ad- vancement of Colored People, etc.) there is the pos- sibility of building up a National Negro Congress on a broad united front basis. We had a discussion about this conference in the N. Y. District (of the Communist Party) in which we discussed the Negro