Invariably I was questioned: "And what about the American revolution?" When I replied I think it was a long way off, the audiences did not like me to say that. I must admit that the Russians in those days were eager to be deceived. I remember that I was asked to attend a large and important meeting of Young Communists. When I had finished talking the president got up and said: "Comrade, we appreciate what you feel about our revolution, but we want you to tell us about the American revolution. When will there be the American revolution?"
It was a direct question and I answered directly. I said that I could not prophesy about an American revolution; but that perhaps if the American ruling class started a wholesale suppression of labor organizations, if the people had to read radical literature in secret, if the radicals had to hold all their meetings in secret, if the liberals and radicals who agitated for more civil liberties and the rights of the working class were deported to the Philippines, then possibly in ten or fifteen years America might develop a situation similar to that in Russia in 1905.
The interpreter, a comrade commander in the navy, asked if he should translate me literally. I said "Word for word." And when he had finished there was no sound of applause. That was the first time that I was not applauded when I spoke, but I preferred that.
The young president of the Young Communists took the platform: "Comrade," he said, "you are a defeatist. The American revolution cannot be so far away. But if that is your opinion, we command you at once to do your part and help make the revolution." I said to the interpreter: "Tell the young comrade that I am a poet."
After the meeting my friend Comrade Venko said to me: "You should have told them the American revolution is right around the corner. That's what they want to hear." (He had lived many years in England and had acquired some Anglicisms.) I said, "You know I read somewhere that Lenin said that it is necessary to face facts and tell the truth always."
"Yes, Comrade," said Venko, "but Lenin is Lenin and we are just ordinary mortals."
Yet in spite of my obstinacy I was still everywhere demanded. When the American Negro delegate was invited to attend meetings and my mulatto colleague went, the people asked: "But where is the chorny (the black)?" The mulatto delegate said: "Say, fellow, you're all right for propaganda. It's a pity you'll never make a disciplined party member."
"Bigger shots than you have said the same thing," I replied. Zinoviev had referred to me as a non-partisan. "My destiny is to travel a different road."
We were sitting in on the discussions as to whether there should be an illegal or legal Communist party in America, and on the Negro in American life. I was there not only as a writer, but I was given the privileges of a special delegate. One thing sticks in my memory about that American delegation in Moscow. It had the full support of the Finnish Federation and the Russian Federation of America. The representatives of these organizations voted en bloc, rallying to the support of an illegal party. The argument of the Yankee representatives of the legal group was unanswerable, but they were outvoted every time by the foreign federations. The Finnish and the Russian federations were not only the most highly organized units of the American party, but, so I was informed, they contributed more than any other to the party chest. They controlled because they had the proper organization and the cash.
I said to the mulatto delegate: "That's what Negroes need in American politics—a highly organized all-Negro group. When you have that—a Negro group voting together like these Finns and Russians—you will be getting somewhere. We may feel inflated as individual Negroes sitting in on the councils of the whites, but it means very little if our people are not organized. Otherwise the whites will want to tell us what is right for our people even against our better thinking. The Republicans and the Democrats do the same thing. They give a few plum places to leading Negroes as representatives of the race and our people applaud vicariously. But we remain politically unorganized. What we need is our own group, organized and officered entirely by Negroes, something similar to the Finnish Federation. Then when you have your own group, your own voting strength, you can make demands on the whites; they will have more respect for your united strength than for your potential strength. Every other racial group in America is organized as a group, except Negroes. I am not an organizer or an agitator, but I can see what is lacking in the Negro group."