William Wolf Weinstone (December 15, 1897 – October 22, 1985) was an American Communist politician and labor leader. Weinstone served as Executive Secretary of the unified Communist Party of America, the forerunner of today's Communist Party USA, from October 1921 to February 1922, and was an important figure in the party's activities among the auto workers of Detroit during the 1930s.

Background William Weinstone was born in Vilnius (then a part of the Vilna Governorate in the Russian Empire) on December 15, 1897. He was the son of Jewish parents who brought him to the United States to escape that nation's pervasive antisemitism during the late Tsarist period. His original surname was "Weinstein", which he Americanized when he was older.

Weinstone grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York and attended City College. By 1914, he was active in the labor and socialist movements, joining the Socialist Party of America in 1915. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1918 to 1919.

Career

Early years

In June 1919, Weinstone was elected as an alternate delegate to the Left Wing National Conference held in New York City, at which he was seated to replace a regular delegate on the last day of the gathering.

Weinstone was elected as a delegate to the founding convention of the Communist Party of America, called to order in Chicago on September 1, 1919.

During the first years of the 1920s, the Communist Party of America was forced underground by the mass operation of the US Department of Justice remembered as the Palmer Raids. During this interval, Weinstone served as Executive Secretary of the secret party organization from October 15, 1921, to February 22, 1922, under the pseudonym "G. Lewis.""The Communist Party of America (1919-1946): Party Officials," Early American Marxism website, www.marxisthistory.org/ Retrieved June 6, 2011.

In the summer of 1929, following the removal of Jay Lovestone and Benjamin Gitlow from the leadership of the Communist Party, Weinstone was added to the ranks of a new collective leadership called the Secretariat.Theodore Draper, American Communism and Soviet Russia. New York: Viking Press, 1960; pg. 431. Although he had aspirations of permanent leadership, Weinstone was ultimately unable to retain the top leadership, which soon fell to Earl Browder, a longtime factional rival.

In 1929, Weinstone ran for Mayor of New York City."Communists Name Municipal Ticket: Weinstone Chosen to Run for Mayor," New York Times, July 15, 1929. Following the campaign, Weinstone was selected by the Communist Party as its representative to the Executive Committee of the Communist International in Moscow, a post which he occupied until 1931. On January 15, 1931, William Albertson was to serve as secretary of a "Provisional Anti-War Youth Committee" of New York State to hold a rally for a Liebknecht Memorial and Anti-War Demonstration at the Star Casono at Park Avenue and 117 Street in Manhattan; CPUSA executive Weinstone and YCL leader Gil Green were to attend.

Weinstone served as editor of the Daily Worker from 1931 to 1932. He ran for U.S. Senate in 1932.

Weinstone served as secretary of the Michigan district of the Communist Party from 1934 to 1938, during a wave of Great Depression union activity. He played a significant role in the founding of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) in May 1935, pressing the unionized workers to make use of the sit-down strike, a tactic first employed by the Industrial Workers of the World union.Berger, Michael L. The Automobile in American History: A Reference Guide. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001; pg. 76; the Industrial Workers of the World union's role in the founding of the sit-down strike is retold by Bruce Watson in Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream. New York: Penguin Books, 2005; pg. 54. The union's wave of successful sit-down strikes culminated in the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936–1937, in which the striking UAW workers occupied several General Motors plants for over forty daysrepelling the efforts of the police and National Guard to drive them from the auto plant's premises.

A member of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party during the same period, Weinstone concurrently worked on the party's cause on behalf of oppressed African Americans in the segregated southern states. Writing for such communist publications as The International Communist, he was a strong champion of the defense of the falsely-accused Scottsboro Boys, whose successful legal defense was organized by the Communist-funded International Labor Defense, as was the famous case of young African American organizer Angelo Herndon.

In 1938, Weinstone was named Director of the New York Workers School, the Communist Party's ideological training school located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He served in that role until 1944.Marvin E. Gettleman, "The New York Workers School, 1923–1944: Communist Education in American Society," in Michael E. Brown et al., New Studies in the Politics and Culture of U.S. Communism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1993; pg. 271.

Later years Still publishing material for the communist cause into the twilight of his life, Winestone, together with Theodore Bassett and Philip A. Bart, was also co-editor of Highlights of a Fighting History: 60 Years of the Communist Party, USA, a broad selection of speeches, essays, and documents from the party's history; his recollection of organizing work during the autoworkers' sit-down strike was published in The Great Sit-Down Strike, a work produced by the party-organized Workers Library Publishers in 1937.

In 1953, Weinstone and 12 other communist leaders were convicted in Federal District Court in Manhattan under the Smith Act of conspiracy to advocate the violent overthrow of the government. His role in the conspiracy was the writing of two newspaper articles, in 1948 and 1950, reviewing the party's educational work and plans to raise membership. He served two years in a Federal prison and was fined $4,000. Weinstone remained a loyalist to the Communist Party throughout his entire life, remaining in the organization even after its bitter factional struggle of 1956 to 1958, brought about by the so-called "Secret Speech" of Nikita Khrushchev in February 1956 and the Soviet invasion of Hungary in November 1956.

In 1959, Weinstone was among the first American communists to visit the Soviet Union again, following a protracted break in direct contacts with the outside world. Weinstone traveled at that time without portfolio and was reported by high-ranking party member and FBI informant Morris Childs to have been considering seeking employment and staying in the USSR on a long-term basis.Morris Childs, "Information Concerning William Weinstone," December 3, 1959. Published in "FBI SOLO Files - March 1958 to August 1960." Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation, August 2011; part 15, pdf page 12. Childs persuaded Weinstone to return to the United States, however, and he returned to America on November 1, 1959.

Personal and death Weinstone married Gertrude Haessler, sister of Carl Haessler, who headed the Federated Press. He later remarried with Monette Solataroff.Laura J. Kells, William W. Weinstone Papers: A Finding Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress. Washington, DC: Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, 2009. He had three daughters.

Weinstone died at LaGuardia Hospital in Queens, New York on October 22, 1985.

Legacy Weinstone's papers reside with the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress in Washington.

Weinstone was immortalized in film as one of the "witnesses" in Warren Beatty's film, Reds, sharing his personal recollections of radical journalist John Reed and Reed's wife, Louise Bryant.

Works How the Auto Workers Won. (with William Z Foster) New York: The Daily Worker, 1937. The Great Sit-down Strike. New York: Workers Library Pub., 1937. Factionalism — The Enemy of the Auto Workers. (with Boleslaw Gebert) Detroit, Communist Party of Michigan 1938. The Case against David Dubinsky. New York: New Century Publishers, 1946 The Atom Bomb and You. New York: New Century Publishers, 1950. Our Generation Will Not Be Silent: Statement of the Labor Youth League in Answer to the Attorney General's Charges under the McCarran Act. New York: The League, 1953. Against Opportunism: For a Marxist-Leninist, Vanguard Party of the American Working Class. New York: Waterfront Section, Communist Party, U.S.A., 1956. Study Outline on the History of the Communist Party, USA. New York: National Education Dept., Communist Party, U.S.A., 1969.

References

External links

Laura J. Kells, William W. Weinstone Papers: A Finding Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress. Washington, DC: Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, 2009. William Weinstone, New Outlook Publishers (Union Square), New York, New York. Photos by Bill Andrews.: Jul 3, 1968 Communist Party of the United States of America Receive Dmitrov Awards, Bulgarian Mission to the United Nations. Participants include Henry Winston, Gus Hall, Fern Winston, Helen Winter, Carl Winter, John Pittman, William Weinstone and Jarvis Tyner. Photos by Garry Tyler.: May 1973 William Weinstone 80th Birthday Celebration.: Dec 1977