Mr. Dennett. Seattle was the district headquarters of the party, and I was trying to win the agreement of Alex Noral to permit me to do something to get more members, at least in the unemployed council, in the hope that if I got them in the unemployed council I might be able to work upon them to win them to membership in the Communist Party.
But Noral was very adamant. He insisted that I must follow the exact directions which the national leader, Herbert Benjamin, had issued with respect to the policy of unemployment councils. And, of course, Herbert Benjamin had earlier outlined that the organization of the unemployed was one of the most important political tasks confronting the party because he called attention to the fact that the Russian revolution had obtained its greatest strength because it had organized the unemployed prior to the 1905 revolt, and that during the course of the 1905 revolt these unemployed organizations became Soviets, they became councils, and that when the 1917 revolution broke out these soviets had been reconstituted and the unemployed had comprised a very essential part of the organization to begin with, and therefore the masses of unemployed in the United States were looked upon as the elementary core around which it might be possible to develop a Soviet power in the United States.
Mr. Moulder. To what period of time are you now referring?
Mr. Dennett. That was in 1932.
We had another situation in Bellingham at that time. Noral had been there prior to my assignment. He wasn’t their section organizer, but he had been there on a visit as the district representative, and he had taken part in disciplining some people who apparently, prior to my arrival, had had ideas similar to my own, namely, that the people who were unemployed should be organized for the purpose of getting some assistance to solve their problems of hunger and housing and clothing, and that that should be the center of our attention.
But Noral was adamant with my predecessor as he was with me and had brought about the expulsion of a person there. A person who is known by the name of M. M. London.
Mr. London had adopted this name of London in honor of Jack London. It was not his real name at all.
But Mr. London was a very sharp-thinking person and very devoted to his neighbors and associates, and felt that the unemployed, the people who were suffering should be fighting for immediate relief whereas the unemployment councils had offered the slogan that the solution must be in the form of unemployment insurance.
Well, to the person who is hungry the hope of unemployment insurance, which required the adoption of legislation, which would take a longer period of time, wasn’t a very realistic thing.
But the demand for immediate relief was a very realistic thing. And the people in Bellingham flocked to the banner of London, and London organized what was known as the people’s councils.