1919 proved a life-transforming year for both Charles Ruthenberg and Anita Whitney. That year, both left socialism to become communists, participated actively in the formation of communist party branches, and were arrested under state criminal syndicalism statutes. In June, Ruthenberg joined ninety-four delegates from twenty states at the Left Wing Conference in New York to debate the means of overtaking the Socialist Party and transforming it into a Marxist working-class party governed by communist principles. At the September national convention of the Socialist Party in Chicago, the left-wingers abandoned the convention to begin the American Communist movement, but the movement divided at birth into the Communist Party of America (the more radical branch, led by Ruthenberg as National Secretary) and the Communist Labor Party of America (with Alfred Wagenknecht as Executive Secretary). The C.L.P.’s National Program called for a “unified revolutionary working class movement in America,” recommended the general strike as a political weapon, and endorsed the Industrial Workers of the World by declaring: “In any mention of revolutionary industrial unionism in this country, there must be recognized the immense effect upon the American labor movement of the propaganda and example of the Industrial Workers of the World, whose long and valiant struggle and heroic sacrifices in the class war have earned the affection and respect of all workers everywhere.” It was this tribute to the I.W.W. that would later prove to be Whitney’s tribulation.[31]
Returning to California, the left-wing delegates were eager to win over the Socialists for the newly formed Communist Labor Party. Anita Whitney was among those who voted to change their affiliation. The first convention of the Communist Labor Party of California assembled at Loring Hall in Oakland on November 9; Whitney was selected as a member of the credentials and resolutions committees. After morale-boosting preliminaries – three enthusiastic cheers for the Bolsheviki and some spirited singing – the convention got down to business. Most of the convention’s energy was consumed in a fiery dispute over a resolution recognizing “the value of political action.” Whitney strongly backed the “political action” resolution, but the majority feared that it represented no more than a reversion to the parliamentarianism of the Socialist Party and rejected it in favor of the more belligerent language of the C.L.P. National Program. That vote did not deeply alienate Anita: she remained at the convention until it adjourned and subsequently attended at least one state executive committee meeting of the newly created party.[32]
The Oakland Enquirer’s next-day report on the convention dropped a bomb that set off chain reactions for months to come. “The American flag hung in one corner of the room,” the story read. “But, during the noon hour, a huge red cloth was hung so that the American flag was no longer visible while the radicals prepared to adopt their un-American constitution.” On November 11, 400 American Legion members and sympathizers raided Loring Hall; the rioters hurled furniture, pictures, charters, and insignia from the Communist Labor Party office windows, and set the place ablaze. (On the same day, a Legionnaire raid of the IWW hall in Centralia, Washington, ended in a lynching of one IWW member.) In all of this, the flames of Oakland’s frenzy were fanned by national hysteria: having ordered his infamous “red raids,” Attorney General Mitchell Palmer declared on November 14 that he had a list of 60,000 individuals, both citizens and aliens, under Justice Department investigation.[33]
