The American Political Spectrum in the 1930s
I.
What did the political map look like in 1928? In 1932?
II.
How did the Great Depression and New Deal programs impact American politics?
Did Americans seek out choices beyond the traditional two-party options? What was the
impact of radical political movements?
III.
Left-wing radicalism
A.
American Communist Party
Had its origins in the international socialist movement that grew out of the writings of
Karl marx in late 19th century.
Socialist movement was united in opposition to capitalism and desire to help working
class achieve power.
Socialists disagreed about whether that would be achieved through violent means.
After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in russia seemed to vindicate the militant strategy of
VI Lenin and his followers, left-wing Socialists throughout world organized themselves
into Communist parties.
American Communist Party came into being in the summer of 1919.
Always plagued by internal dissension and external repression.
Role of the Red Scare, Immigration restriction, etc.
By mid-1920s, as the euphoria of Russian Rev. faded and official harassment eased up,
party turned its attention to building up of labor unions. Closely allied with the Soviet
union, looked to moscow to settle its internal party problems. Soviet Union in 1920s
romanticized as a promised land of socialist revolution.
Many communist party members were dedicated to the party and were hard party
workers, so despite their small numbers, had more influence than one would expect.
Throughout the 1920s, remained rather small.
B. Communist Party in the 1930s
Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe transformed Am Communist Party
from tiny, faction-ridden sect composed primarily of radical immigrants into the most
important and dynamic organization on the political left.
Beginning of decade: 7500; end of decade, about 55,000 membership.
Great Depression: Many Americans disillusioned by the apparent failure of capitalism.
Communism seemed to offer an alternative.
Also seemed effective.
While other groups talked, Communists acted.
In early 1930s, they were a visible presence in most important social movements.
Communists organized demonstrations of the unemployed in Chicago
CP appealed to those who had been forgotten or displaced by the New Deal.
Appealed to idealistic and energetic young men and women who were eager to address
stark social and economic problems of Depression era.
Defended Scottsboro boys
Organized tenants and sharecroppers
Led strikes of California farmworkers.
Rural Laborers – looked to new radical political groups that were not interested in racism
and the politics of white supremacy; rural poor and industrial working class were willing
to undertake new risks and make new alliances in an attempt to gain some sort of relief.
Rise of Hitler – also aided growth of party
Communist Party was especially strong in the Popular Front period of late 1930s.
Rise of Hitler, his expansion throughout Europe; Spanish civil war
Soviet Union ordered communists everywhere to give up revolutionary rhetoric and
create a broad antifascist coalition.
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C.
Popular Front Organizations
Broad left-wing movement grown up around CP in US in late 1930s.
Many members of this movement did not belong to party.
Sympathized with party’s goals, supported its activities, but were not hard-core members;
Encompassed dozens of organizations.
Popular Front groups involved in a wide-range of activities; ran schools, theaters, literary
magazines, student groups;
The most imp org. with which party members became involved were trade unions.
Because of their experience and dedication, communists were in great demand as
organizers, esp. by CIO.
Because of their skill and energy, communists had a disproportionate influence within the
CIO in 1930s and until end of WWII.
By end of WWII, probably 1/5 of all CIO unions had some connection to the Communist
party.
American Communist party not without its problems:
Condoned Stalin’s crimes and ignored Stalin’s extermination of millions of peasants in
the 1920s and 1930s, slave labor camps, and many purges of party officials in the 1930s
and 1940s.
The most dramatic turnabout came in August 1939.
Stalin abandoned his alignment with Britain and France and signed a nonaggression
treaty with Germany.
American CP suddenly dropped its campaign against Hitler and began to champion
american neutrality on the grounds that Western powers were as bad as Nazis.
When hitler broke the treaty and invaded Russia in June 1941, party flipped again and
began to support American intervention and aid to the Allies.
US entry into WWII turned communists into superpatriots.
But with the end of the war and the heating up of American-Soviet tensions, the party
reversed itself again.
Over next few years, party became increasingly hostile to American govt. Eventually fell
apart in 1956 when Khrushchev revealed Stalin’s crimes and then invaded Hungary.
IV.
The Great Depression, New Deal, and Southern Politics
One of the regions that experienced a tremendous degree of political awakening because
of the Great Depression and the New Deal was the American South.
Organize new political organizations
A.
Grassroots activism
Stirred southerners, both white and black, to action.
Membership in the NAACP in southern states increased.
Whites and black joined together in the Southern Conference for Human Welfare –
focused on increasing voter registration and in getting rid of the poll tax.
Organized 1938; held first meeting in Birmingham; was a coalition of all sorts of people:
new deal liberals, socialists, communists, labor people; civil rights activists.
CIO becomes part of a lose coalition of organizations including SCHW and NAACP;
became more political, fighting the poll tax, and focused on registering working class and
black voters;
B.
Southern Electoral Politics
Although the New Deal had mixed results for the South; the region desperately needed
and benefitted from the money provided by New Deal programs, yet the programs
worked imperfectly; nevertheless, the fact that Roosevelt was pursuing programs that
focused on economics and the problems of poverty won him a new and powerful
coalition of voters.
Key among these were poor whites in the South, who began voting in greater numbers in
1930s for Roosevelt and who began to elect at the state level governors, congressmen,
and senators who campaigned on liberal economic platforms and not just race baiting.
What did it mean to be a New Dealer?
Meant you believed in the positive expansion of the federal government to address
economic inequities and to protect the rights of workers, elderly, and the poor.
It did not necessarily mean, and for most southern New Dealers it did not mean, racial
equality – did not mean an end to segregation.
But for many white southern new dealers, it did mean an end to the poll tax, equal
distribution of relief money to white and black families alike, and the right of workers to
organize for fair wages.
To talk about economic justice opened the door just wide enough for those who hoped to
get some racial justice to slip in.
Alabama:
In the 1930s and 1940s, Alabama had the most liberal congressional delegation of any
southern state. Led by senator Lister Hill and congressman John Sparkman (Sparkman
eventually becomes senator);
South Carolina: With the strong support of the state’s industrial workers, South Carolina
elected a former millhand as governor in 1934. Johnston was a staunch supporter of
workers’ rights, supporter of unionization, did not support the use of the national guard
against striking workers; avoided race baiting in his election; once in office worked hard
for a workmen’s compensation bill.
C.
Roosevelt, Race, and Politics
Did not say anything about race; nevertheless, gave blacks hope because he focused on
the poor.
Roosevelt’s problems:
Traditional southern leaders becoming increasingly uncomfortable with direction of New
Deal in 1936-1938;
Court-packing
Purge
V.
Roosevelt’s critics: Demagogues
A.
Huey Long: Background; governor and senator from LA; populist appeal;
Share our Wealth program; threat to Roosevelt.
B. Father Charles Coughlin: Background; role of technology; entry into public
issues;
VI.
Critics on the Right
A.
Anti-Communist Network
Roosevelt had long had enemies on the Right.
They were relatively demoralized in the early 1930s; began attacking him and the New
Deal with regularity by 1934.
Opposition to the labor movement and to the administration’s perceived support for it
inspired much hostility;
Accused Roosevelt of becoming a dictator;
By 1936, the Republican VP candidate Frank Knox announced that FDR was “leading us
towards Moscow.”
Powerful group of congressional leaders turned against the New Deal in the mid 1930s;
Many had close ties to the business community; resented the administration’s focus on
welfare spending and on its support for organized labor;
Many of these politicians came from rural areas and reflected their constituents’
suspicions of the apparent urban bias of the New Deal.
Southern Democrats remained uneasy about the New Deal’s potential for disrupting
white supremacy.
Beginning in about 1937, more serious conservative challenge to the Administration and
the New Deal.
Serious recession threw into question the efficacy of earlier New Deal measures;
Growing hostility to sit-down strikes – massive propaganda campaign which sought to
link the New Deal, the CIO, and the CP together in the public mind.
Roosevelt also seemed to be growing increasingly dictatorial and meddlesome in the late
1930s, meddling in the judicial as well as the electoral process:
Roosevelt’s ill-fated court-packing plan, which alienated many moderates as well
as conservatives. When a federal or supreme court judge reached the age of 70 and had
not resigned or retired, the president might add a new judge to the bench;
He could appoint as many as 6 new supreme court justices and 44 federal judges to lower
tribunals;
Senate Purge: Walter George of Georgia, Cotton Ed Smith of South Carolina, and
Millard Tydings in Maryland; As a result, when FDR’s attempt to purge his senatorial
enemies in the 1938 elections backfired, he had already lost control of Congress.
International situation becoming more volatile; president stopped seeking new social
reforms for fear of antagonizing the congressional conservatives he needed to suport his
foreign policy.
Special House Committee on Un-American Activities – 1938
HUAC
Roosevelt’s political enemies gave themselves an institutional vehicle for their campaign
against the New Deal.
Chaired by Martin Dies; was only supposed to last 7 months; gave him the authorization
to investigate un-American propaganda.
Committee was reauthorized every year; finally became a permanent committee in 1945,
after which it did its best work.
Almost from the start, clear that Dies and HUAC embarked on a thoroughly partisan
venture to embarrass the administration.
Dies had turned against the administration and the New Deal following the sit-down
strikes;
Committee devoted most of its time exposing the communist influence in the CIO and in
New Deal agencies;
Dies attacks on the CIO ensured the backing of wealthy businessmen; Henry Ford even
offered to supply cars to HUAC and its staff;
They often drew real blood, embarrassing the Roosevelt administration, effectively
casting suspicions of communist influence on several New Deal agencies and politicians;
Of particular interest to the committee was the national Labor Relations Board, which
had been set up to oversee the collective bargaining process that the 1935 Wagner Act
put under federal protection.
NLRB had communists in its organization. Made it vulnerable to attack;
Roosevelt, sensitive to attacks on this issue, succeeded in restructuring the NLRB to
make it less labor-friendly.
Committee destroyed the Federal Theater Project after a set of hearings in late 1938;
Dies’s strategy was to take testimony from professional ex-Communists and disgruntled
civil servants and then challenge the administration to dismiss the alleged subversives his
witnesses had named;
Investigated fascist organizations as well, but major focus was on communists.
B.
The Far Right
In the early 1930s there were some 120 far right-wing or fascist organizations.
Inspired by the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany.
By 1939, there were more than 800 that were pro-fascist or pro-nazi;
Dreamed of bringing this form of authoritarianism to America.
Referred to as fascists, although there is only a loose consistency between their fascism
and Germany under Hitler.
Some elements in common:
Passionately anti-communist;
Strident anti-Semites
Believed that sinister Jewish conspirators dominated american politics and world affairs.
Militaristic element
Strong sense of nationalism
Many came from devout Protestant backgrounds; grounded politics and prejudice in
religious faith;
Often closer to mainstream than many people would like to admit;
Attracted intermittent support from prominent officials and businessmen;
Their campaign techniques often overlapped with those of centrists;
Most important, their antisemitism and racism had long been a part of American society;
much as we find these ideas abhorrent today, a certain segment of society was quite
comfortable with them.
But fond of conspiracy theories;
Use of anti-semitism and conspiracy theories – much like the targets of Huey Long and
Father Coughlin – gave certain Americans easy answers to difficult questions.
Their conspiratorial natures and fantasies make them somewhat difficult to analyze as
they did not subscribe to what one would call a consistent or recognizable political
philosophy.
Relatedly, these individuals were often mentally unstable, so to try to understand them
often seems like a fruitless endeavor;
Important, nevertheless, to be aware of them and their impact.
1.
Elizabeth Dilling
2.
Gerald Winrod
3.
William Dudley Pelley
4.
German-American Bund