Investigation of Communist Activities in Seattle, Wash., Area, Hearings, Part 1United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities
History
Investigation of Communist Activities in Seattle, Wash., Area, Hearings, Part 1
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities
Communism -- Washington (State) -- Seattle
The national center of the revolutionary industrial union movement
in the United States is the Trade Union Unity League, organized in
Cleveland, August 31, 1929. The TUUL coordinates and binds all the
revolutionary union forces into one united organization. It leads
and directs the general struggle of the new union movement. It is
the American section of the Red International of Labor Unions.
Is that just what you have been telling us, Mr. Witness?
Mr. DENNETT. Correct.
Mr. TAVENNER. I desire to read again from page 35 of this
document.
In the event of an imperialist war it will mobilize the workers to
struggle against American imperialism and to transform this war
into a class war against the capitalist system itself.
Do you recall that as one of the objectives of the Trade Union Unity
League?
Mr. DENNETT. Yes, of course, I do. It is very plain. It is in
black and white. I think that it has to be admitted by anyone with any
knowledge of the subject that that was the objective, that was the
policy. That goes back a long way. That goes back to Lenin’s teaching.
It goes back to the teachings of Marx. In fact, it goes back to the
teachings of almost any of the philosophers, the idea that when a
given set of circumstances becomes impossible to withstand it is to be
expected that somebody is going to break the bonds somewhere.
Mr. TAVENNER. I find this following paragraph on the same page
under the title “Defend Soviet Union”:
The Trade Union Unity League especially organizes and educates
the masses to fight in defense of the Soviet Union. The Soviet
Union is the stronghold of the world’s working class. It is the
cause of the workers in all countries. The overthrow of the Soviet
Union by the capitalists would mean not only the slaughter of
tens of thousands of Russian workers but would mark the beginning
of the worst period of reaction internationally that the world
has ever known. It would lead to widespread Fascist terrorism,
and wholesale destruction of workers’ economic, political, and
cultural organizations and the wiping out of conditions won by
the workers through a century of sacrifice and struggle. It would
throw back for decades the development of the world labor movement.
The workers must fight to the end in defense of the Soviet Union.
Is that paragraph in accord with what you understood at the time to be
the objectives of the Trade Union Unity League?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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