Roy Hudson, also known as Roy B. Hudson, served on the national executive board (also called the national committee)[1] of theCommunist Party USA[2] and national trade union director[3][4] and trade union expert.[5]
WithAl Lannon,[6] Hudson helped found and then became national secretary of theMarine Workers Industrial Union (MWIU) at its founding in 1930.[7] Earlier, in 1927, CPUSA member George Mink traveled to the USSR, attended the fourth congress of theProfintern, and returned to the US as the Profintern's representative of a Transport Workers International Committee for Propaganda and Agitation (TWICP&A) to organize maritime workers in the US. Working withWilliam Z. Foster'sTrade Union Educational League (TUEL). Mink established a Marine Workers Progressive League (MWPL) by 1928. During the CPUSA's factional in-fighting 1928-1929 between followers ofJames P. Cannon,Jay Lovestone, and Foster,[8] Mink laid low. WhenJoseph Stalin appointed Foster as head of the CPUSA in 1929, Mink continued his efforts with marine workers.[9] On April 26–27, 1930, a Marine Workers' League of New York (itself organized in 1928 by theTrade Union Unity League or "TUUL") called a convention that created the Marine Workers' Industrial Union of the USA. This national convention followed coastal conventions held during 1928–1930. The convention adopted a constitution,[10] openly supported the USSR, and elected three delegates to attend the fifth world congress of the Red International of Labor Unions or "Profintern" (itself an arm of theCommunist International or "Comintern").[11] The MWIU openly affiliated with TUUL.[11][12] According to another source, MWIU decided against TUUL and decided instead to affiliate with the Profintern's Red International of Transport Workers[13] via an International Seamen and Harbors Workers Union (ISH),[14] based in Hamburg, Germany.[9] During the1934 West Coast waterfront strike, theInternational Seamen's Union and the Marine Transport Workers (MTW) of theIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW) joined the strike, but the "Communist-dominated MWIU undercut the strike" byscabbing.[15]
In June 1934, Hudson, as MWIU general secretary, toured West Coast ports.[16] In 1935, Hudson, a ranking MWIU official, dissolved the union (then, with 14,000 members) without a vote, and theInternational Seamen's Union of America succeeded to it.[12] In July 1936, Hudson spoke at the CPUSA's ninth national convention at theManhattan Opera House on "the struggles of the seamen and the need for a maritime industrial union."[17]
In November 1938, theSocialist Appeal characterized Hudson as the "Stalinist behind-the-scenes-men at the convention" of theUnited Automobile Workers of America (UAW).[19]
In October 1939, Hudson championed theCongress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) over theAmerican Federation of Labor (AFL) and urged US workers to keep out of the "imperialist war" (World War II), following announcement of theHitler-Stalin Pact and the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939.[20] (In August 1941, Trotskyist David Coolidge wrote that the Hudson (a "Stalinist") had written the "party line" (i.e., the Communist Party line) for the UAW, an about-face following the 1941 Nazi invasion of Russia ("Operation Barbarossa").[21])
In July 1941, Hudson voiced CPUSA support for then-current UAW presidentR. J. Thomas and secretaryGeorge Addes.[22]
On October 31, 1943, during a CIO convention in Philadelphia, the FBI recorded conversations of Hudson, CPUSA labor secretary. Hudson met with CIO union leaders (includingHarry Bridges). On November 5, they heard identified the voice of a man whom Hudson instructed on Party demands for changes in the CIO platform: the name wasLee Pressman. Pressman's meetings continued with Hudson into September 1944.[23]
In May 1944, Hudson's name appeared as a vice president among the officers of theCommunist Political Association (CPA), along withEarl Browder,William Z. Foster,Robert Minor,Eugene Dennis,Elizabeth Gurley Flynn,James W. Ford,Gilbert Green,Benjamin J. Davis Jr.,Morris Childs,Robert G. Thompson,William Schneiderman,John Williamson, andCharles Krumbein.[24] On June 2, 1945, Hudson abstained from voting on the demise of the (CPA).[25] Shortly thereafter, Hudson, who "has occupied a leading role in directing activities in various large unions" affiliated with the CIO, reversed his abstention and voted to change CPA "revolutionary" policy to adhere to "aggressive class struggle" in line with Stalinism.[26] On June 11,TrotskyistAlbert Glotzer (writing as "Albert Gates") denounced Hudson as "the party’s commissar, who enforced theBrowder 'line' in the union movement."[27] In July 1945, Hudson characterized his leadership in the CPA as follows: "I went along because, my inadequate grasp of Marxism prevented me from understanding that something was fundamentally wrong."[28] In March 1948, ex-CPUSA publishers ofThe Spark published "Three Letters on Opportunism" about the fall of the CPA and quoted Hudson from a 1946 letter as writing "However, when I raise serious objections, and they are ignored or when there is no effort or when there is an inadequate effort to explain and convince, or when my motives are challenged – then I will continue to protest, although perhaps in the future, I will find a better way of doing it than abstaining from voting."[29]
In January 1945, Hudson attacked the UAW'sWalter Reuther and other "Trotskyite" leaders in their fight against a no-strike pledge.[30]
In the 1950s,George Andersen of the San Francisco-based law firm of Gladstein, Andersen, Leonard & Sibbett represented Hudson as well asDonald Niven Wheeler, Paul Schlipf, and Paul Chown.[31]
In 1951, Hudson's name came up duringHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings on Communist infiltration in Hollywood. Roy M. Brewer, aIATSE leader, described Irving Henschel as "lead of the Communist faction in 1944" and "member of the Rank and File Committee which attempted to set up a revolt in our organization during the 1945 strike in Hollywood." When Henschel contacted CPUSA officialMax Weiss in Ohio, Weiss reported Henschel's conduct to Roy Hudson in New York.[32]
In May 1954, during HUAC testimony, ex-Communist Elizabeth Boggs Cohen identified Hudson as "national trade union director."[3] In July 1954, during HUAC testimony, ex-CIO press directorLen De Caux refused to answer whether he was acquainted with Roy Hudson and even CIO colleague Lee Pressman.[33]
Hudson married Edith Embrey. According to ex-Soviet spyWhittaker Chambers, Hudson's girlfriend was Andre (or Ondra) Embrey, a Hungarian-American who worked at theBureau of Indian Affairs and whose roommate succeeded him as courier betweenJ. Peters andWare Group members.[2]
In April 1934, Joseph North characterized Hudson, among other "lieutenants of revolution" as "a powerful, driving personality, steeled by years of proletarian experience and organizational activity into a dynamic leader."[34] In 1940, North referred to him, writing "They have met men like Roy Hudson in the union halls."[35]Hudson appears in the correspondence of fellow CPUSA memberSamuel Adams Darcy.[36] In 1972,Joseph Starobin described Hudson as "a former sailor with unimpeachable proletarian credentials."[37]
Hudson wrote mostly pamphlets published by Workers Library Publishers as well as articles for the CPUSA's theoretical journalThe Communist and its successorPolitical Affairs.
Books (Pamphlets)
Shipowners Plot Against Spanish Democracy (1936)[38]
^abN. Sparks (1930).The Struggle of the Marine Workers(PDF). International Pamphlets (International Publishers). pp. 49–50,59–61, 63. Retrieved14 June 2021.
