Communist Work among the Nationality and Ethnic Groups Living in Western Capitalist Countries

Dr. Angelo D’Angelo Chairman of the U.S. Friends of Soviet People

Not since the 1920s, Thirties, Forties and Fifties have Communists living in the West placed priority among organizing among the working class within the various nationality and ethnic groups. The very birth of the Communist Party of Canada and the United states resulted primarily when the different nationality groups or Federations broke away from the old Socialist Party over the issue of not supporting World War I and of supporting the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the young Soviet Russia.

For the next forty years, Communists saw the importance of creating social and fraternal organizations that reflected progressive socialist traditions in each nationality group’s cultural traditions. At the same time, Marxists-Leninists realized that it was also their responsibility to struggle against the fascists, clerical and bourgeois aspects in each of the ethnic groups.

Communist newspapers and magazines in different languages were printed and distributed among the Jewish, Italian, German, Hungarian, Greek, Russia, Ukrainian, Carpatho-Russian, Slovak, Yugoslav, Polish Finnish, Bulgarian groups, just to name a few. Youth and adult summer camps were set up, language schools and cultural groups were formed.

In the USA, we Communists had the International Workers Order (IWO), a very active fraternal ethnic organization with over 100,000 dues paying members. In Canada there was a similar organization called the Workers Benevolent Association (WBA).

It was these efforts that were rooted in the Socialist traditions of the European immigrants that really formed the backbone of the pro-Soviet Russia movements in North America, as well as the core of the building of the Communist Parties in both Canada and the USA, as well as the trade union left which resulted in the culmination of the birth of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the Thirties and Forties.

There is an old saying, which states: “If it is not broken, don’t fix it!” It can be applied to our Communist work amongst the nationality groups. There was no need to drastically change our policy which bore so much fruit, so much so that the Capitalist Ruling Class deliberately saw fit to unleash the vicious witch-hunts of the Cold War and McCarthy periods in order to destroy the Communist Left in North America. Their targets included the vast army of nationality groups, their summer camps, publications and fraternal organizations that the Communists influenced.

It was also at about this time that their appeared among certain sections of the Communist Party leaders, who felt that it was much more important to stress the “native born” aspects of recruiting into the Party and less emphasis on the “foreign born” roots of many of its members. In other words, making the party “more Canadian” and “more American” to the masses of potential recruits. One way of recruiting should not have eliminated other ways of recruitment, especially since the language groups and federations were very successful in maintaining the continuous structure of the Party life and its growth.

I have given this short history of the Communist work among the ethnic groups and an introduction of what can and must be reinstated especially among the various groups who have recently immigrated to Canada and the USA from former USSR – especially amongst the Russian immigrants.

In parts if New York City (Brooklyn and Staten Island) there has developed large communities of Russian-speaking immigrants, and among these I have discovered that many of them have very favorable attitudes towards their life under Socialism and the Soviet Union. There is an opportunity to do political work amongst these people.

We here have undertaken (as well as our friends in Canada) several steps in this direction, including the distribution of the pro-Soviet newspapers and Northstar Compass in English and Russian languages. Also here in Staten Island we have made available on public access to Community Television, a Russian language television program, called “Soviet Classics Revisited”- which airs weekly for one hour each Monday evening. Also we have begun to set in motion a Russian-American Cultural Society on the Staten Island of New York City.

We suggest that such projects be copied in other places where there are Russian or Ukrainian immigrant communities.

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What Happened To The Russian Doukhobors Who Were So Active In Canada?

Am writing as a former member of the Canada-USSR Association in Canada in British Columbia province? The hard work and dedication of George Legebokoff especially amongst the Russian Doukhobors was so successful that he established Canada-USSR Association branches in 8 BC cities.

Somehow after Gorbachev gave a medal to the head of the Russian Doukhobors Mr. Veregin – after that the branches started to disappear. No one ever explained to us, former members of these Doukhobor branches as to what happened and why did they not join the Canadian Friends of Soviet People as I and my friends did.

Always with Soviet people
Maria Stergeoff

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