William Wolf Weinstone (1897–1985) was an American Communist politician and labor leader. Weinstone served as Executive Secretary of the unifiedCommunist Party of America, the forerunner of today'sCommunist Party USA, from October 15, 1921, to February 22, 1922, and was an important figure in the party's activities among the auto workers ofDetroit during the 1930s.
William Weinstone was born December 15, 1897, inVilnius, then part of thetsaristRussian Empire. Will was the son ofJewish parents who emigrated from Russia to escape that nation's pervasiveantisemitism during the late Tsarist period. His original surname was "Weinstein", a name which he Americanized when he was older.
In June 1919, Weinstone was elected as an alternate delegate to theLeft Wing National Conference held inNew 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 theUS Department of Justice remembered as thePalmer Raids. During this interval, Weinstone served as Executive Secretary of the secret party organization from October 15, 1921, to February 22, 1922, under thepseudonym "G. Lewis."[1]
In the summer of 1929, following the removal ofJay Lovestone andBenjamin Gitlow from the leadership of the Communist Party, Weinstone was added to the ranks of a new collective leadership called the Secretariat.[2] Although he had aspirations of permanent leadership, Weinstone was ultimately unable to retain the top leadership, which soon fell toEarl Browder, a longtime factional rival.[2]
In1929, Weinstone ran forMayor of New York City.[3] Following the campaign, Weinstone was selected by the Communist Party as its representative to theExecutive Committee of the Communist International inMoscow, a post which he occupied until 1931.[2] 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 aLiebknecht Memorial and Anti-War Demonstration at the Star Casono at Park Avenue and 117 Street in Manhattan; CPUSA executive Weinstone andYCL leaderGil Green were to attend.[4]
Weinstone ran forU.S. Senator from New York in1932.
As an executive officer of the Communist Party inMichigan during a wave ofGreat Depression union activity during the mid-1930s, Weinstone played a significant role in the founding of theUnited Auto Workers Union (UAW) in May 1935, pressing the unionized workers to make use of thesit-down strike, a tactic first employed by theIndustrial Workers of the World union.[5] The union's wave of successful sit-down strikes culminated in theFlint Sit-Down Strike of 1936–1937, in which the striking UAW workers occupied severalGeneral Motors plants for over forty days – repelling the efforts of the police andNational 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 asThe International Communist, he was a strong champion of the defense of the falsely-accusedScottsboro Boys, whose successful legal defense was organized by the Communist-fundedInternational Labor Defense, as was the famous case of young African American organizerAngelo Herndon.
In 1938, Weinstone was named Director of theNew York Workers School, the Communist Party's ideological training school located on theLower East Side ofManhattan. He served in that role until 1944.[6]
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 ofHighlights 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 inThe Great Sit-Down Strike, a work produced by the party-organized Workers Library Publishers in 1937.[citation needed]
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.[7] 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 theSoviet invasion of Hungary in November 1956.[citation needed]
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 andFBI informantMorris Childs to have been considering seeking employment and staying in the USSR on a long-term basis.[8] Childs persuaded Weinstone to return to the United States, however, and he returned to America on November 1, 1959.[8]
Weinstone married Gertrude Haessler, sister ofCarl Haessler, who headed theFederated Press.[9]
Will Weinstone died on October 26, 1985.[citation needed]
Weinstone's papers reside with the Manuscript Division of theLibrary of Congress inWashington.[10]
Weinstone was immortalized in film as one of the "witnesses" inWarren Beatty's film,Reds, sharing his personal recollections of radical journalistJohn Reed and Reed's wife,Louise Bryant.
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