Postwar Purges

1
Postwar Purges

• I. The Problem
• A. Communism
• B. Corruption
• II. Pressure from below
• A. Popular anti-Communism
• B. Democratic desires
• III. Pressure from above
• A. Political winds
• B. Ambition Sensationalism
• C. New Laws
• IV. Reds or Rackets?
• A. Anti-Communist purge
• B. The War on Gangsterism
• C. The Hollow core?

2
Radicalism
Farrell Dobbs, chair, Central States
Drivers Socialist Workers Party

• Issues
• Loyalty to U.S.
• Apologists for tyranny
• Undermines labors hard-won legitimacy
• Ambivalent attitude towards democracy

Police battle Minneapolis teamsters, 1934
3
Corruption
? Con Shea

• Embezzlement
• Tolerate gang power
• Gangsters are seldom effective unionists
• Exploit workers for personal benefit
• Deny democracy, crush dissent
• Teamsters
• Laborers

Jimmy Hoffa
? Dave Beck
4
Popular anti-Communism

• React to pressure, propaganda
• Government
• Church
• But also genuine concern about Communist control
• USSR expands control over Eastern Europe
• Suppresses Catholicism
• Stalins crimes exposed

UE workers vote to disaffiliate their local, 1949
5
Democratic Desires
Longshoremen stage wildcat strike, 1948
Rev. John Corridan, S.J., 1951

• Rank and file workers rise up against the leaders
  of the International Longshoremens Association
• East Coast dockworkers
• Controlled by New York hit man Albert Anastasia
• Kickbacks, favoritism, coercion, tyranny

6
Political Winds

• House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC),
  1938-1975
• Attacks domestic Communists, socialists,
  liberals, racial egalitarians
• World War II
• Smith Act of 1940
• Election of 1948
• Harry Truman (D)
• Thomas Dewey (R)
• Strom Thurmond (Dix)
• Henry Wallace (Prog)

Rep. Martin Dies (D-TX) exhibits criminal records
of CIO officials
7
Scandals Accusations

• Murder Inc.
• Garment unions contain both Communists and
  gangsters
• Hillman fights both
• Conservatives hope Lepke will implicate Hillman

Sidney Hillman ACWA president
Louis Lepke Buchalter
8
Ambition Sensationalism

• HUAC
• Kefauver, 1951
• McClellan, 1957-8

Bobby Kennedy, 1957
9
New Laws

• Taft-Hartley Act, 1948
• Limits strikes, boycotts
• Restores federal labor injunctions
• Outlaws closed shop, allowed states to bar
  undermine union shops
• Unions officers must file affidavits swearing not
  to be Communists
• Landrum-Griffin Act, 1959
• Regulates internal union affairs
• Forbids former-Communists and ex-cons from
  holding a union office for five years
• Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act
  (RICO), 1970

Senator Robert Taft (R-OH)
10
Anti-Communist Purge

• Major internal fights
• UAW
• Steelworkers
• Between 1949-51, CIO expels eleven unions, over
  one million members
• In 1955, CIO expels
• Seafarers
• Marine Engineers

Harry Bridges defends Communist CIO unions, 1949
11
The War on Gangsterism

• Journalists, politicians, unionists themselves
  seek to stem corruption
• Targets fight back
• But the 1930s are over
• Government demands unions be responsible

Riesel describes his blinding, 1956
12
The Hollow Core?

• AFL-CIO purges some of labors most aggressive
  unions
• What remains is conservative, mainstream,
  reasonably honest
• But what remains is not equipped to deal with the
  insurgent corporations of the period 1980-present.