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Proletarian Party of America Records, 1925-1968 (majority within 1953-1965)

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Summary

Creator:
Proletarian Party of America
Abstract:
Political group formed in Wayne, Michigan in 1920, with roots in the old Socialist Party of America. This "Michigan faction" was expelled from Communist Party shortly after its founding in 1919, in part for its "consistent adherence to majority action and repudiation of the Communist Party's minority action concept." The party moved its headquarters to Chicago in 1925 where it maintained an office until disbanding in 1968. Consists mainly of correspondence of National Secretary Al Wysocki.
Extent:
3.3 linear feet
Photograph (1) - Box 4
Drawing (1) - Box 4
Some minor Proletarian Party publications, mostly in mimeograph form, located in box 4.
Language:
English.
Authors:
Collection processed and finding aid prepared by Paul F. Schaffner, March 1996

Background

Scope and Content:

The records of the Proletarian Party survive in an unusual condition, requiring an organizational scheme with some unusual features to accommodate them. Most of the records were torn up by hand when the party disbanded in 1968, usually into quarters or halves. Perhaps 75% of the records have since then been largely or wholly reconstituted by being pasted onto sheets or strips of paper or occasionally clipped or stapled together; the remainder exist only as fragments. These fragments have been variously treated depending on the series to which, if whole, they would belong. Fragments of general correspondence, if dated, are placed in separate folders of fragmentary correspondence at the end of each year's correspondence files; undated fragments are divided by medium and shape, handwritten fragments in one folder, typescript (mostly carbon copy) fragments into several, depending on whether they represent the top left, bottom left, or bottom right corners, the entire left side, or some miscellaneous portion of the original page. This should make it possible to reassemble individual letters when necessary, assuming that all the component parts still exist. Fragments of mundane official correspondence and other material is not distinguished from non-fragmentary examples of the same, fragments that have lost their date being treated as undated.

Note also that many of the records consist of carbon copies, often made on the verso of other documents of interest (flyers, bulletins, the Constitution of the Proletarian Party, etc.). With one or two exceptions, it is the later use as a carbon that is reflected in the item's organizational placement. Researchers seeking the documents accidentally preserved in this way may need to examine the whole collection personally.

The value of the collection resides chiefly in the correspondence. Taken in bulk, it provides an almost intimate acquaintance with the people and ideas that animated the Proletarian Party during its last ten to fifteen years of existence, as well as recollections of its past. The jargon and mechanisms of the party are well illustrated, as is, poignantly, the inability of either to cope with the refusal of history to cooperate with the party's program, or to accept the weariness its members. The decline of the party is well captured in passages like this (John Davis to Al Wysocki, May Day, 1963): "We are dying on the vine as it were, there isn't many more than a dozen of us left. You can't call this a political party. The bulk of our funds go to the paying of rent for the Headquarters and the Kerr store room. I ma not at all clear about what can be done." Or this, from one of the last two members of the Detroit Local (Phil Drouin to Al Wysoki, 6 May 1964): "I have been trying to get a meeting of the remaining members in local Detroit and the only one that shows up is myself and Bennie so we keep postponing it and contact the other members and they always have excuses so...it looks like local Detroit is finish." To which Wysoki can only reply vainly (9 May 1964): "The local Detroit members are asleep on their revolutionary duties."

For comments on the Sarah Lovell for Mayor (of Detroit) campaign, see general correspondence, April 1957. For Wysocki's exchanges with curious student Arthur Maglin, see general correspondence, May, 1960; with student Douglas Hainline, see May and July 1962. For comments on the correct interpretation of the assassination of J.F.Kennedy, see general correspondence of 29 November and 9 December 1963.

Biographical / Historical:

The Proletarian Party of America was founded 27-28 June 1920 in Wayne, Michigan, its founders including John Keracher and Al Renner, who had "headed the 'proletarian group' in the old S[ocialist] P[arty of] A[merica]," who insisted on study of Marxism, and who recognized the Russian Revolution as normative (Letter from Wysocki to Downs, 20 June 1961).The party began as a schismatic "Michigan group" expelled from the Communist Party immediately after the organization of the latter in Chicago in 1919, partly on the grounds of its "consistent adherence to majority action and repudiation of the Communist Party's minority action concept" (The Proletarian, 8.3-4 (April, 1925): 11).Though it consistently stressed adherence to "the fundamental principles of Marxian communism," it insisted also that the principles of communism could only realistically be implemented with the wide public support of an awakened laboring class. Accordingly, its chief objective was educational, "To enlighten and marshal the workers for the conquest of political power..." (party broadside, n.d.):"To arouse the working people of America to a realization of the historic role they are called upon to play, namely, their self-emancipation from the yoke of capitalist exploitation" (The Proletarian Party: Its Principles and Program [1957?], 2).

According to Robbyelee Terry (letter to the Labadie Collection, 1968?), the Proletarian Party "moved to Chicago in about 1925 where they kept their national headquarters until June, 1968. At that time building in which their headquarters was located was being razed by urban renewal, only a handful of party members was left and the old man [Al Wysocki] who was party secretary was having to partly pay the rent from his social security check. They had long been unable to publish their newspaper. So they disbanded."Wysocki had become acting national secretary in the summer of 1953, (confirmed in the post at the national convention in November of 1953), when John Keracher became too ill to continue in the position and moved for his health's sake to first Arizona and then Los Angeles, where he died five years later, 11 January 1958.

The history of the party during Wysocki's tenure, despite occasional inquiries from young people and brief spurts of activity (as in L.A. during Keracher's last years), seems to have been one of uninterrupted decline, as aging members died, withdrew, or drifted away. In the mid fifties there were active "Locals" in at least Boston, Toledo, Los Angeles, Flint, Detroit, Tampa, and South Bend, with references to Locals having existed in Rochester, N.Y. and Elkhart, Indiana; a solitary member jokingly refers to himself as "the entire St. Paul Local"; by 1963 only Chicago, Flint, and Detroit remain, and Detroit's chapter is moribund. The party newspaper, Proletarian News, effectively ceased publication in 1961 and repeated efforts to raise enough money to publish failed. By 1963 there was talk of a strategic withdrawal around the party's only remaining asset, the Charles Kerr publishing company.

Terry refers to the party's ownership of Kerr, a renowned socialist publisher who had published the first American edition of Das Kapital, as its "most notable achievement": In 1925, John Keracher...bought the controlling shares of stock in the Kerr Co. He earned this money as a shoe maker, and paid approximately $30,000 for the shares. From that time on the P.P. controlled the Kerr Co. In the 40's and 50's some pamphlets were published by Kerr, but other than a few pamphlets by other authors, nothing new was printed, and few titles reprinted since the P.P. acquired the Co.... After Keracher's death..., the controlling shares of stock were left to Al Wysocki.... Wysocki has been unable to locate more than 10% of the persons holding stock in the co. and has been unable to hold a stockholder's meeting for years.

From what one can gather from the correspondence preserved in this collection, Kerr was in the end more a burden than an asset, costing money, for example, just to keep its printing plates from being melted down as scrap lead, never yielding more than an occasional sale or two, and serving chiefly as a reminder to a dying party of a glorious era in the socialist movement now irrecoverably passed.

Additional information on the Proletarian Party and its leaders can be found in the party's publications, especially The Proletarian, of which the Labadie Collection possesses a scattered run (and a couple of issues of which are included in this collection), and its successor, Proletarian News, of which the Labadie possesses a nearly complete set. Some limited biographical information appears scattered in this collection: e.g., information on Al Wysocki in a letter to Raymond Rector, 16 April 1953, and information on John Keracher in Wysocki's notes for a eulogy (notes and drafts folder). One letter refers to a manuscript history of the party by Keracher, but this does not appear to be extant.

Acquisition Information:
Purchased by the Labadie Collection from rare books and manuscripts dealer Carmen D. Valentino, Philadelphia. Received September 24, 1992 and accessioned September 15, 1995.
Processing information:

Collection processed and finding aid prepared by Paul F. Schaffner, March 1996.

Arrangement:

The collection is divided into three series:

  • General Correspondence, arranged chronologically
  • Mundane Official Correspondence, arranged chronologically
  • Other Material, arranged alphabetically

The distinction between the three categories is not always clear-cut, since mundane correspondence may contain added personal notes, article drafts and clippings attached to letters, and fragments are not always intelligible enough to be classified with confidence.

Most of the records were torn up by hand when the party disbanded in 1968, usually into quarters or halves. Perhaps 75% of the records have since then been largely or wholly reconstituted.

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Contents

Using These Materials

Info for Visitors

How to Request

Ordering Reproductions

Download PDF Finding Aid
RESTRICTIONS:

The collection is open for research.

USE & PERMISSIONS:

Copyright has not been transferred to the Regents of the University of Michigan. Permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s).

PREFERRED CITATION:

Proletarian Party of America Records, University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center)