Great Plains Studies, Center for

 

Date of this Version

Summer 1984

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 4, No. 3, Summer 1984, pp. 178.

Comments

Copyright 1984 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Abstract

By surveying Communist efforts to organize farmers and farm workers, Lowell K. Dyson has done for agriculture what Bert Cochran did for the CIO in Labor and Communism-presented a full account of Communist activities uncolored by Red-baiting or apologies. Dyson begins by noting the paradox in Communist efforts: "Communists sought to change the very nature of the American agricultural system, but the programs which won them the broadest hearing among farmers were aimed at preserving the system" (p. xi). Maintaining an even-handed objectivity, Dyson nonetheless conveys a sympathetic understanding of how some farmers came to espouse radicalism.

In the 1920s, Non-Partisan League and Farmer-Labor activities on the northern Great Plains suggested fertile ground for Communist organizing. Dyson points to shifting signals from Moscow to explain why Communists controlled, then wrecked the Farmer-Labor party in 1923-24. In 1926, Communists formed the United Farmers Educational League (UFEL), counterpart of the Trade Union Educational League, with the same objective of proselytizing within existing organizations. In 1930, reflecting Stalin's switch to "Third Period" concepts, the UFEL became the United Farmers League and broke with other groups. The 1934-35 shift to the Popular Front brought dissolution of the UFL as most members joined the National Farmers Union (NFU). By the late 1930s, Popular Fronters helped to make the NFU the major farm organization supporting the New Deal.

According to Dyson, "the story of the Communist party and American farmers ended during the rise of the Popular Front" (p. 187). 178 Mergers so diluted Communists' numbers as to render them almost invisible and powerless. Throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s, the interests of Popular Fronters and other NFU members coincided in supporting the New Deal and then the war. As late as March 1948, the NFU rejected an anti-Communist resolution, but later that year supported Truman rather than Wallace and soon purged Popular Fronters.

This summary by no means exhausts Dyson's subjects. He also deals with Communist activity among southern sharecroppers, California field workers, and Finns in the upper Great Lakes region. Dyson recounts the dominant role of Communists in the CIO's agricultural union and surveys Communist relations with the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and New York dairymen.

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