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Abstract
This article charts the history of a now largely forgotten Pan-African gathering, the historic First International Conference of Negro Workers, organised by the Communist International (CI) and held in Hamburg in 1930. The CI had taken an interest in organising Africans and those of African descent in the colonies, and in Europe and the US, from its foundation, but the key factor in developing political work concerned with the ‘Negro Question’ was the founding of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers in 1928 and the activities of black communists. The difficulties experienced in organising the conference in Hamburg suggest that these activists were key to holding this historic event. The Hamburg Conference linked the communist movement with important black trade union and anti-colonial activists in Africa, the Caribbean, the US and Europe and subsequently had a significant influence on the future development of the Pan-African movement.
Notes
1. CitationDaniels, A Documentary History of Communism Vol. 2: 89
2. Harrison was born in St Croix in the Caribbean. See Perry (Citation2001); James (Citation1998), 26). See also Edwards (Citation2003), p. 244) and Rogers (1996, pp. 432–443).
3. On the African Blood Brotherhood see Solomon (Citation1998), pp. 3–22).
4. Reed to Zinoviev, 19 February 1919, Comintern Archives held at the Russian State Archive of Social-Political History (RGASPI) 495/155/1/3.
5. From the Small Bureau of the ECCI [Executive Committee of the CI] to Comrades Reed, Fraina, Gurvitch, and Jansen Scott n.d., RGASPI 495/155/1/2. Those names were requested to ‘draw up a preliminary plan of organisation for that Congress and present same to the Bureau’.
6. See A. Davidson et al, South African and the Communist International: p.78. The ECCI's Bureau of Colonial and Semi-Colonial Countries subsequently resolved to create a ‘Department of Dominion Countries and Negro Peoples’ and to appoint Jones as its head. Idem. footnote 1.
7. See, ‘Remarks on proposal to call a Negro congress at Moscow’, RGASPI 495/155/3/1 and, ‘Further note on the proposed Negro congress’, 23 March 1922, RGASPI 495/155/3/4.
8. Discussion in CI Anglo-Saxon Group Meeting, 10 May 1922, RGASPI 495/155/3/5.
9. Discussion in CI Anglo-Saxon Group Meeting, 10 May 1922, RGASPI 495/155/3/5.
10. See, ‘Remarks on proposal to call a Negro congress at Moscow’, RGASPI 495/155/3/3.
11. Solomon, The Cry was Unity: 41
12. Otto Eduard Huiswoud (1893_1961) was a founder member of the Communist Labor Party which later became the CPUSA. For a recent biography see J. Moore Turner, Caribbean Crusaders and the Harlem Renaissance.
13. The Commission included representatives from the US, Egypt, Tunis, Java, England, Holland, Belgium, Russia, Japan and South Africa. See, ‘Report by S. P. Bunting on the 4th Congress of CI, 29 April 1923 (Extracts)’ in A. Davidson et al., eds, South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Vol. 1: 130
14. Wilson, Russia and Black Africa:130
15. R. Kanet, ‘The Comintern and the “Negro Question”: Communist Policy in the United States and Africa, 1921-1941’: 86-122.
16. See W. James, Holding Aloft: 181.
17. C. McKay, ‘For a Negro Congress’, n.d., 495/155/43/159. The delegate for South Africa, Sydney Bunting had his own reservations about the Thesis, the commission that produced it and the practical arrangements required to convene a Negro congress. Indeed, he questioned the wisdom of holding such a congress bearing in mind South African conditions. In particular, he was critical of the fact that the thesis appeared to lay down ‘as universal a policy which is chiefly allocable to conditions in the United States’. Letter from S. P. Bunting to General Secretary, CI, 1 January 1923, in A. Davidson, South Africa and the Communist International, 111-117. See also Report by S.P. Bunting on 4th Congress of Comintern, Idem. p. 130.
18. See, e.g. 495/155/44/27.
19. RGASPI 495/155/44/28.
20. Letter from the Provisional Secretary for Calling the Negro Conference to Executive Committee CPSA, 23 July and 15 November 1923, in A. Davidson, South Africa and the Communist International: 131–133. See also, ECCI, ‘Draft Manifesto on the Negro Question’, LOC 495/155/4/16-26.
21. ECCI, ‘Draft Manifesto on the Negro Question’, 495/155/4/16-26.
22. For Katayama's remarks, see ‘Action for the Negro Movement should not be Postponed’, 22 May 1923, 495/155/17/9-12 and ‘Negro Race as a Factor in the coming World Revolution, 14 July 1923’, 495/155/17/13-23. However, Katayama appears to have seen the entire ‘Negro Question’ largely in relation to the US. See also Minutes of the Meeting of the Negro Commission held on 30 May 1923, 495/155/8/4 and Minute of meeting of Commission appointed by the Orgbureau to prepare and guide the work for the forthcoming World Negro Congress, n.d., 495/155/8/1.
23. Secretary of Negro conference to CC of the CPF [Central Committee of the Communist Party of France], 20 February 1924, RGASPI 495/155/27/6.
24. Thomas Bell to J. Amter, 17 August 1923, RGASPI 495/155/16/2-3. The CPGB was even unable to provide Amter with any information about the Pan-African Congress organised by Du Bois and held in London in 1923 and did not publish his article on it, ‘Pan-African Congress – A Futile Congress’. A. McManus to Amter, 15 March 1924, RGASPI 495/155/27/7.
25. Amter to McManus, 31 March 1924, 495/155/27/8.
26. Fort-Whiteman thought that the Congress should be held after the CI's sixth congress and should be called ‘International Congress of African Races’. ‘Some suggestions pertaining to the proposed Negro World Congress to be held in Moscow’, 495/155/25/5-8.
27. Decisions of the Negro Commission, 16 January 1925, 495/155/30/1–3
28. P.S. Foner and J.S. Allen (Eds.) American Communism and Black Americans: A Documentary History, 1919-1929: 123.
29. See Ruthenberg to Secretariat, CI, 1 June 1925, LOC 495/155/33/6 and, e.g. L. Fort-Whiteman to Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of France, 12 December 1925, 495/155/33/34.
30. See S. Johns, Raising the Red Flag: the International Socialist League and the Communist Party of South Africa 1914-1932: 213.
31. RGASPI 495/155/53/2
32. James Ford (1893-1957) was born in Alabama and later became the CPUSA candidate for vice-president in the 1932, 1936 and 1940 US elections. In 1935 he was elected an alternate member of the ECCI and in 1944 when the CPUSA was dissolved he became vice-president of the Communist Political Association. No biography exists.
33. Johns, Raising the Red Flag: 216-217. Ford was to repeat his criticisms at the sixth congress of the CI.
34. See Ford (n.d., p. 24). The 6th Congress of the CI was also the occasion for many criticisms levelled against the communist parties of Britain, France, the US and South Africa in regard to the ‘Negro Question’, and much discussion of this issue in the Congress and its Negro Commission. Ford was even critical of the main report to the Congress by Bukharin, because it did not touch sufficiently on ‘Negro work’. See International Press Correspondence (Inprecor), 8 (44), 3 August 1928, pp. 972_973. One consequence of such criticisms was that in November 1928 the Eastern Secretariat of the ECCI established a Negro Bureau, part of which also functioned as the Negro Commission of the Anglo-American Secretariat. RGASPI 495/155/54/6-7. In August 1928 a Negro Bureau or Commission was also established within the Kresinterrn (Peasant International affiliated to the Comintern). RGASPI 495/155/56/42-3.
35. See RGASPI 534/3/306/58-59.
36. RILU's International Bureau of Negro Workers was originally composed of Ford, La Guma (South Africa), Ducados (Guadeloupe) and an unnamed Cuban member. The ITUCNW initially had some eight members, including two African Americans, William Paterson and Harry Hayword.
37. RGASPI 534/3/306/25.
38. RGASPI 495/155/53/1. The ITUCNW immediately issued an 18-point Trade Union Programme of Action for Negro Workers. The first edition of the ITUCNW's publication, The Negro Worker, was launched on 16 July 1928, i.e. before the meeting of the Executive Bureau.
39. RGASPI 534/3/306/58. Minutes of the Meeting of Executive Bureau of RILU, 31 July 1928. The Russian, George Slavin, was elected Secretary of the ITUCNW.
40. RGASPI 495/155/53/3.
41. RGASPI 495/155/53/3.
42. The organisations represented included the American Negro Labour Congress (Mary Burroughs/William Patterson), National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (William Pickens), Trade Union Educational League(James Ford) and Haitian Society from the US (Henry Rosemond); the Federation of Non-European Trade Union and the Trade Union Congress, from South Africa (DeKeersmeacker); the Paris-based Ligue de Defense de la Race Noir (Garan Kouyaté); and the Kenyan Kikuyu Central Association (Kenyatta). Representatives of British and French trade unions, the Indian National Congress and the All-China Trade Union Federation also participated in these meeting.
43. Ford, who was a member of the Executive of the LAI, had initially argued in that body that the LAI should postpone its congress until after the conference of the ITUCNW. Speech of Comrade Ford at the meeting of the Executive Committee of the LAI, 16 January 1929, RGASPI 534/3/450.
44. Report on the Negro Question at the LAI Congress, 3 October 1929, RGASPI 534/3/450. See also Inprecor, 10 (29), 19 June 1930, p. 530.
45. Report of Comrade Ford to the Negro Bureau, 14 November 1929, RGASPI 534/3/450.
46. RGASPI 495/155/80/95-96.
47. RGASPI 534/3/408/31.
48. RGASPI 534/3/499.
49. Patterson also complained that the CPGB had not encouraged Small to send Africans for training. RGASPI 495/18/809/86.
50. RGASPI 495/18/809/87.
51. Georg Padmore (1902-59) was born in Trinidad but attended college in the US where he joined the CPUSA. He eventually became Secretary of the ITUCNW and editor of the Negro Worker. He was later expelled from the communist movement and became a leading Pan-Africanist. For a biographical account see L.J. Hooker, 1967, Black Revolutionary. London: Pall Mall Press.
52. RGASPI 534/4/330.
53. RGASPI 534/4/330. Maxton agreed that he would pursue the matter in the House of Commons if the government declined the request. Patterson's letter and the responses of the Colonial Office can be found in The National Archives (TNA) CO 323/1096/10.
54. RGASPI 495/155/87/29.
55. WW [W. Patterson] to Negro Bureau Profintern, 18 April 1930, RGASPI 534/4/330.
56. Padmore had already communicated these difficulties to Patterson, who in turn wrote to those in the US who had written recommendations for him. Patterson to Lozovsky, Profintern Secretariat, 7 May 1930, RGASPI 534/4/330.
57. G. Padmore to Dear Comrades, 2 and 12 May 1930, RGASPI 534/4/330.
58. RGASPI 495/155/87/117.
59. Ford also wrote an article, ‘Negro Toilers Initiate International Conference’, outlining some of the preparations made in Frankfurt and the agenda of the Conference, which appeared in Inprecor, 10 (29), 19 June 1930, p. 530.
60. ‘The International Conference of Negro Workers’, 29 July 1930, RGASPI495/155/87/245.
61. The situation had been complicated by the fact that Padmore had written a letter apparently supporting Rosemond's election.
62. O. Huiswood to George, 14 April 1930, RGASPI 534/4/330.
63. JJ. Ford, ‘Report,’ op.cit.
64. W. Patterson to Haywood, 24 June 1930, RGASPI 534/4/330.
65. Patterson to Dear Comrades, 29 April 1930; Patterson to Lozovsky, Profintern Secretariat, 7 May 1930, RGASPI 534/4/330.
66. Patterson to Dear Comrades, 29 April 1930; Patterson to Lozovsky, Profintern Secretariat, 7 May 1930, RGASPI 534/4/330.
67. Colonial Office officials who were asked to comment on Patterson's letter to the Home Secretary, J.R. Clynes, noted that he managed to combine ‘an attack on the conditions in the British colonies and an application for official recognition of this conference.’ They were clear that this was a conference organised under the auspices of the Comintern and were therefore hostile to it. One Colonial Office official wrote summed up the general approach by arguing that the conference should be opposed because it ‘will be detrimental to the colonies … but also because it would cause the gravest possible offence to the Union of South Africa if it was to be permitted to take place on British soil’. G. Clauson memo, 2 May 1930, (TNA) CO 323/1069/10.
68. One of these articles, penned under the pseudonym of William Wilson, was entitled ‘The Black Masses and the British Empire’ and appeared in International Press Correspondence (Inprecor) in early June 1930. The article argued that the Labour government's refusal had exposed it and the oppressive nature of the British Empire even further in the eyes of the ‘Black Masses’. It concluded: ‘the Labour Government has said that British democracy does not embrace the black masses of the Empire; that the white workers whose standard of living is being constantly lowered through the ruthless exploitation and oppression of the colonial masses shall not see the alliance with the colonial world as the only way to their emancipation. The Labour Party the standard bearer of British Imperialism says there will be no black workers’ conference in London. But the answer of the International Committee of Negro Workers will be to make that answer the basis of the exposure before the black workers and toiling masses who – come what may – will have the first international conference of Negro Workers in July 1930.’ Inprecor, 10 (27), 5 June 1930, p. 498.
69. Patterson to Negro Bureau, Profintern, 24 May 1930, RGASPI 534/4/330.
70. Padmore to Dear Comrades, 30 June 1930, RGASPI 534/3/546.
71. Nine delegates were prevented from attending and there were also three ‘fraternal delegates’ from other communist organisations.
72. Macaulay later stated that Padmore's visit to Lagos had contributed to attempts by younger members in the NNDP to oust the older leadership and to ask for Padmore's assistance. His own election as a delegate had been par of this struggle to make the NNDP more democratically answerable to its members. Minutes of the meeting of the International Secretariat with the Negro friends, 14 October 1930, RGASPI 542/1/40.
73. The MOPR representative could not follow all of the proceedings because of language difficulties. The report, originally written in German in July 1930, is contained in RGASPI 534/3/527.
74. In addition to attending the RILU congress, there were also plans to hold a special conference of ‘Negro delegates to discuss the special problem of trade union work amongst Negro workers’. RGASPI 495/155/83/96
75. RGASPI 534/3/527.
76. ‘The First International Conference of Negro Workers’, Inprecor, 10 (34), 25 July 1930, p. 635.
77. ‘The First International Conference of Negro Workers’, Inprecor, 10 (34), 25 July 1930, p. 636.
78. ‘The First International Conference of Negro Workers’, Inprecor, 10 (34), 25 July 1930, p. 636.
79. RGASPI 534/3/490.
80. RGASPI 534/3/490.
81. RGASPI 534/3/490.
82. RGASPI 534/3/490.
83. ‘The International Conference of Negro Workers’, 29 July 1930, RGASPI 495/155/87/243.
84. RGASPI 495/155/87/277.
85. ‘The First International Conference of Negro Workers and Future Tasks’, 14 August 1930, RGASPI 495/155/87.
86. ‘The First International Conference of Negro Workers and Future Tasks’, 14 August 1930, RGASPI 495/155/87.