Vernon L. Pederson. The Communist Party on the American Waterfront

This study of the Communist Party’s organizing among sailors and longshoremen focuses on the period from the mid-twenties through the mid-thirties, carrying the story from the Trade Union Unity League’s Marine Workers Industrial Union (MWIU) to the foundation of the CIO’s International Longshore Workers Union (ILWU) and National Maritime Union (NMU). The Communist Party on the American Waterfront is well-grounded in the Russian archival material—the papers of the Communist International (Comintern), the Red International of Labor Unions, and the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA), perhaps less well situated in the secondary literature on the Communist Party and the waterfront unions. The Russian archival material is significant because it allows the author to document behind the scenes party planning, emphasizing Communist influence and the connections between labor organizing, party factionalism, and Comintern intervention. He sticks close to a narrative of internal party dynamics; we get less on the broader context—the lives and work of ordinary sailors and longshoremen.

Archaeology · Communism · Context (archaeology) · Economic history · League · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Socialism · Sociology · Trotskyism · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Public Administration · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies