Sylvia Scahill
Hons 2011J
Hunter College-CUNY
Professor María Hernández-Ojeda
John Gates: An American Communist
There are many ways to study and narrate history. Some people see the world as a succession of wars or great leaders, some see it through cultural and social evolution, some say narrative histories are dangerous and only historical materialism is the way. There are merits to all of these methods, depending on your aims. The story I am going to tell here is of one man: John Gates, born in Manhattan in 1913. Gates was to become a soldier in the Spanish Civil War, and a prominent leader of the American Communist Party until split from the party during the 1950s. Through it all, he remained a life long advocate of workers rights until his death in 1992.
The personal story of one man can tell us the story of his era. Through Gate’s political journey,we
can understand the economic realities and ideological battles of the world during this tumultuous time. Gates was drawn to Communism as a young CUNY student. He dropped out to become a full-time union organizer in Ohio at age 19[1]. From there he went to Spain and later World War II, always deeply committed to the communist ideology. After the war, He became the editor in chief of the Communist newspaper The Daily Worker. He suffered persecution from the law and spent time in jail during the McCarthy era. From inside the jail he began to question the communist party and eventually split from the party after 27 years of service[2].
I am drawn to Gate’s story, despite our different backgrounds and epochs, I relate to his conviction to an ideology of equality and dedication to his work. Like Gates in the 1930s, I am a CUNY student, searching for answers and explanations for the brutal and unequal power structures in this world. I, like Gates first became seriously interested and sympathetic to Marxist ideologies through other CUNY students. Gates committed his whole life to the fight for justice and the freedom of the working class. I, who am now at the beginning of this journey, admire his bravery, thoughtfulness and dedication. Our circumstance, both personally and globally are very different, but I have been surprised by the congruence.
Gates was born with the name Saul Rubenstreif, to Polish immigrant parents in the slums of the Lower East Side. His father worked for a restaurant on Delancey Street and eventually bought his own Candy store. They moved from Lower Manhattan to the slightly more well to do Upper West Side. The small business was a family effort, and everyone was expected to worked hard in the store. It was the family’s key to a middle class life[3]. Gates was a bright student and always did well in school. He was awarded by the city for his study of Spanish, a skill that would come in handy later during his time in the Spanish Civil War[4]. Growing up in New York City, the kid saw the interaction of many different peoples and groups. Gates reflected towards the end of his life “How one becomes involved socially, you know, with political movements…, I suppose your whole life really goes into that, all your experiences.[5]”
Gates eventually got to study at City University of New York City College on regent’s scholarship.[6] In the throws of the great depression caught between global conflicts, City College was a hotbed for socialist and communist activists. There were huge student organizing efforts against militarization on campus and for student rights. Students were involved in many issues like access to education and the unfair treatment of black America under the criminal justice system. Mac Weis was a communist student leader who helped start a paper that criticized the school administration and the ROTC presence on campus. At that time, students were fighting against a repressive administration and militarization on campus. The controlling president of CCNY expelled Weis for his published dissent. There was outrage on campus and student activists demanded freedom of expression and the re-instatement of Mac Weis. Gates got involved in the campaign, and his initial work with the communists impressed him[7]. Reflecting on what initially drew him to Communist organizing, Gates recalled:
“Listening to these debates it seemed to me that the communists were a little more sincere, a little more active, more successful etc., … In the course of the fight [to end the suspension of Mac Weiss] that most of the people that did most of the work were the communists and the people who had most of the ideas were the communists, the people that did most of the sacrificing were the communists.”
The work and dedication of other student communists is what first attracted Gates to the work. Though Gates had always been an avid reader, these experiences exposed him to the theories of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin for the first time. Against the background of the 1929 crash, Marx and Engels provided explanations and ideas that no one else could to explain the economic structure he experienced as an immigrant in New York City. Gates was also impressed by their action and the work they did to enact these ideologies[8].
Gates joined the Young Communist League at age 17 and didn’t look back. Gradually, organizing became the focus of his life, and took precedence over school. He only went to school to collect the $100 reagents scholarship fund. All of his time was dedicated to his political activity. Being a student was not an admirable thing for young Communists. In Marxist ideology, the proletariat sector of the economy is the revolutionary class because they are the most exploited and hold the power of labor. He eventually quit school and got a job at an electric condenser factory that paid 35 cents an hour. He took up his first leadership position as a young Communist League unit organizer[9].
He committed his life to the party, and soon after he was moved to Youngstown Ohio to become a full time organizer. The goal was to organize the unorganized, by creating a union of steel workers where there was none. This was a huge task to accomplish: “It was hard enough to organize a union at all in the steel industry, but to organize a union led by communists, that’s was ten times harder.” Gates remembered.
In his four-year stay, he developed his leadership style while doing this work. He was always carful to remain a humble leader. He put a lot of consideration in how to lead, and how to work with others. He was conscious of the fact that he was an outsider coming into this community from New York City. He was able to connect with people and gain mutual respect; this is what made him a successful leader.
Gates moved to Ohio in 1932, and the Spanish civil war broke out in 1936. Everywhere, the World was on the brink of conflict. The Soviet Communist experiment was still young, and fascism was on the rise. America had maintained staunch non-interventionist policies even as Franco threw a coup and turned the Spanish Army on his own people. Communists, Socialists, and Anarchists resisted. The whole world was paying close attention. Mac Weis, Gate’s old friend from CCNY who had initially gotten Gate’s involved in the party, was the first to tell Gates about the American Communists effort to organize volunteers to fight in Spain. Gates listened “all stary eyed” and decided imagined fighting for leftists people’s army. Although his life in Ohio was secure and satisfying, he felt called to fight with the people of Spain. He had doubts about his capabilities or qualification, but Gates became the first man to volunteer from Ohio to fight for the Republicans of Spain. He recruited four people from Ohio to go with him and was given leadership position, and Gates lead the team to Europe[10].
Many of the American volunteers had little to no military training. America held the embargo against the republican army and resources were tight for the leftists; The Soviet weaponry of the republican army was infamously outdated. The only military training Gates had, was from rifle training he had organized at the Youngstown YMCA.[11] As soon as they arrived in Spain, they fought in the battle of Jarama. The republican side took huge casualties in this tragic battle, including two of the four men that came with Gates to Spain. Gates didn’t initially use the leadership paper he was issued, but they were useful to him later in the war.[12]
Most Americans who fought in the war were in the 15th brigade; Gates was sent to the 20th, a far more international brigade, with a plurality of languages and nationalities represented. Brigades were often organized by nationalities and ideologies. Each brigade had a commissar: a leader that worked with the commander and informed the soldiers on the politics of the war. Thru an electoral process, he replaced the commissar of the Anglo-American battalion international brigade in February 1937.[13] His Experience working with so many immigrant populations in Youngstown Ohio gave him the skills to communicate with different people even through language barriers.[14]
The United States remained non-interventionist; it was illegal to fight in Spain. While many were sympathetic with the cause of the Spanish people, the Communists were the main group willing to orchestrate the clandestine operation.[15] Most of the 3,000 or so American volunteers were sent through Communist Party. Different parties and ideologies were represented under the people’s government of the Republic. There were socialist and anarchist brigades; Gates’s brigade and many others were communist. The American Abraham Lincoln Brigade was not overtly communist because they wanted to garner support at home. Gates was fully committed to the Party throughout the war and later remarked that the diluted ideology of the Americans undermined the left and the factional strife weakened the republic.[16]
Gates was always conscious of how to be a good leader as a foreigner in the Spanish Civil War. This was challenging task in the politically fraught landscape of War. The Pablo Iglesias battalion was a socialist battalion from Valencia. After being badly defeated and demoralized and humiliated for the defeat, they were absorbed into Gate’s battalion. This caused a lot of competition, factionalism and distrust. When the commissar of their group tried to make a trip to Valencia to reorganize the group, Gates “raised holy hell about how he was allowed to go without my permission” because his Italian commander and given him a directive to watch over these socialists. It became an ugly fight between Socialists and Communists. Gates regretted this later in his life, he thought his approach was simplistic and had ignored the raw human element to what was going on for the Spanish people. He was acutely aware of being an outsider in a civil war[17].
Well we know how the Spanish war ended. Franco, with his fascist baking steadily won to war after three years. Backed by Hitler and Moussillinni the army bombed the lands of Spain with unrelenting brutality. The republican side had no weapons, no food and eventually no soldiers. Late in 1938 after major withdrawals, Gates briefly became commissar of the 15th Brigade but the army was dying fast[18]. The International Brigades became so depleted the Americans were absorbed into the Spanish army[19]. The International volunteers withdrew in the fall of 1938. Franco had won the war.
World War II started one year later. Gates marched from one war to the next. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Gates volunteered for the war and became a soldier for the States. Gates had no hesitation about fighting for his own Country as he once had for the Spanish people. In both of these wars, his identity as a Communist was equally important to him as his identity as a Communist. While many Americans may see these two aspects as contradictory, for Gates they were not. As a Communist and an American, he was willing to sacrifice his life for freedom.
After the War, Gates remained faithful to the Party. He became a respected party leader and the editor of The Daily Worker. It was not a good time to be a communist in America. The party remained dogmatically committed to the Soviet Union while being increasingly persecuted by the United States government. Gate’s himself was targeted and was prosecuted by the state in the famous 1949 Trials. Eleven top members of the Communist Party were charged under the Smith Act for attempting to overthrow the government. They were not charged with any specific action but rather for promoting Marxist-Lenonist ideology and publishing communist ideas. They were convicted in 1951; Gates endured the repression of the state with dignity and pride. Yet it was during Gate’s five-year stay in an Atlanta Jail, that he first began to doubt the Party.
In 1956 Soviet troops started shooting in Budapest. “For the first time in all my years in the Party, I feel ashamed of the name Communist!” Gates cried out[20]. The American Communist Party remained staunchly in support of Stalin’s legacy and Khrushchev’s apparent aggression. As these human right violations became apparent to the world, the Party would not recognize and denounce them. With increasing conviction, Gates began to dissent from the party. There was mounting tension internally because of these disagreements. The numbers of communists had gone from 75,000 members in 1945 to 7,000 by the 1950s[21]. “It never occurred to me that this movement, based on a theory od change as Marxism is supposed to be, might find itself left behind by the changes in American life itself.” Gates reflected after leaving the party[22].
John Gates officially split from the communist party in 1958. His resignation was a notable point in the downfall of the Communist Party. His break from the party highlighted internal conflict and contradiction that the dwindling membership could not ignore. It shook the organization. A press release issued by the Communist Party on January 11, 1958 denounced Gates as a liberal reformist who aimed to divide the communist party. “Gates was afforded every opportunity to express his viewpoint within the framework of the Communist Party and its constitution,” they justified in curt disdain.
Internally they discussed the matter and passed “The Resolution on John Gates.” They acknowledged his resignation was “a matter of serious concern to the Party.” They presented a list of arguments that demonized Gates. The type of arguments that Gates presented to the Party would become known disdainfully as “Gates Revisionism”. Yet by the end of this resolution, the writers declared that the Party did not need dissenters like Gates and it would only fortify the strength and cohesion of the communists. What happened instead was a continual decline and eventual death of the Party.
His resignation was notable outside of communist circles as well, and Liberal media used his story to attack the Party. Gates published a series of articles titled Evolution of an American Communist in the New York Post and later as a self-published pamphlet. This would be the precursor to his autobiography Story of an American Communist. In the articles in the Post, Gates reviewed all he had done and worked for during the 27 year membership and explained why he defaulted. He writes a vivid tho not overly sentimental memoir. The Post published a short op-ed after the series explaining why they published the articles. They write with sneering contempt:
“Obviously we did not publish the series because we thought Gates would impart sudden and total wisdom to mankind’s ordeal. In some ways he writes like a man rubbing his eyes and taking his first faltering steps in the sunlight after liberty after a long sojourn in a dark alley. Nevertheless we publish his account because it seems to us – what its deficiencies or inadequacies – an important human and political document with certain world-wide relevancies.”
The wider liberal press could not take any perspective from the left seriously. While the communists resented Gates for selling out to the bourgeoisie press, the press was patronizing and used Gate’s story to their own end.
Gates was public and firm about where he stood and what he believed. He appeared on the Mike Wallace show during this time and gave a TV interview about the communist party and why he decided to leave. In between advertisements from Parliament filtered cigarettes, the show’s sponsor, Wallace grills Gates on how one can be both an advocate of freedom, American and a Communist. Gates attempts to explain the nuances of his position. He never once regrets being a communist and he maintains that the party did a lot of good for American workers. The communists are dedicated to freedom and equality but the road they were on would not lead them there. He would later say “Today, the Communist Party has become irrelevant.[23]” They had blindly committed themselves to defending the Kruschev and the Soviet Union and had become too isolated from the American people.
So Gates left the Party, and many others were to follow. It wasn’t long till there was only a faint memory that an American Communist Party had ever existed en mass, and then there wasn’t even a memory. Gates moved from Queens to Florida with his Wife Lillian. He became a senior research assistant at the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and helped workers with compensation, unemployment and Social Security until retirement in 1987. Gates remained dedicated to his ideals until he died in 1992 at age 78[24].
For me, Gate’s story is a revelation. The legacy of American Communism is obscured by the domination of neoliberalism and the violence of the 20th Century. The way people talk now, one would think there were never any communists in the United States. Gates’s story reveals some of the good intentions and work and the communists achieved in America. His eventual departure also holds some of the answers about where the communists went wrong. For leftists today, we must directly consider the mistakes of the past. While initially it was the innovation and practical dedication of the communists that attracted Gates, it was immovable commitment to outdated dogma that isolated communists from the American people and caused Gates to leave the party. Gates’s life offers a unique and overlooked perspective in the story of 20th century American Politics.
[1] Mike Walla Interview with John Gates, January 25, 1958
[2] Gates, John, Evolution of an American Communist (Self Published, New York: 1958)
[3] Oral History of the Left Transcript, 1-2
[4] Ibid, 44
[5] Ibid, 1
[6] Ibid, 10
[7] Ibid, 9
[8] Ibid, 10
[9] Oral History of the Left, 12
[10] Ibid, 30
[11] Ibid, 42
[12] Ibid, 38
[13] Ibid, 39
[14] Ibid, 44
[15] Ibid, 31
[16] Ibid, 33
[17] Ibid, 48
[18] Ibid, 54
[19] Ibid, 60
[20] John Gates, Evolution of an American Communist (Self Published NYC: 1958), 5
[21] Ibid, 7
[22] Ibid, 6
[23] Bruce Lambert, John Gates, 78, Former Editor of the Daily Worker, is Dead. (New York Times. May 25, 1992)
[24] Ibid
Works Cited
Communist Party Press Release on Resignation of John Gates. 1958. Tamiment Archives TAM 519 Box 1 File 1
“Democracy, Despotism and Men”, New York Post, Tamiment Archives, TAM142 Bix 1 Folder 5
Encyclopedia of the American Left. Ed. Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Copyright 1990, 1998 by Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas.
John Gate Biography. Abraham Lincoln Brigade Association. Web. http://www.alba-valb.org/volunteers/john-gates/?searchterm=john%20gates
Gates, John. The Story of an American Communist. Thomas Nelson & Sons: Edinburgh. 1958. Print. Timinent Archives Call No. JK2391.C5 G35
Gates, John. Evolution of an American Communist. Print. Tamiment Archives. PE 043 Box 39 File 4
Lambert, Bruce. John Gates, 78, Former Editor Of The Daily Worker, Is Dead. New York Times. May 25, 1992. Web. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/25/nyregion/john-gates-78-former-editor-of-the-daily-worker-is-dead.html
The Mike Wallace Interview John Gates, 1/18/1958. Video and Transcipt. http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/gates_john_t.html
Transcript Oral History of the Left John Gates Interview. Tamiments Archives ALBA 18 Box 2 File 10