Nov. 9, 1919: 102 years ago, Nov 9 1919, Socialist Party members from San Francisco, San [...]

102 years ago, Nov 9 1919, Socialist Party members from San Francisco, San Jose, Fresno, and beyond met in Oakland to form the California chapter of the Communist Labor Party. The Bay Area’s first Leninist group, the CLP was immediately the target of brutal government suppression

The CLP had been founded two months earlier in Chicago, after the Socialist Party expelled 40,000 left-wing members who supported the October Revolution in Russia. These expelled revolutionaries, many of whom were Eastern European immigrants, formed two rival communist parties

The SPA’s left wing had long dominated its Oakland chapter, which had close ties to the IWW. When the split came, the Oakland chapter almost immediately joined the CLP, and was soon chosen to host the founding conference of the California CLP
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Delegates at the conference sang “Bolshevik songs” and adopted a platform based, in part, on the Soviet constitution. The local press inflamed controversy about the delegates’ decision to hang a large red banner over a case containing an American flag

Almost immediately, the California CLP faced a barrage of attacks, legal and extralegal. Two days after the convention, a group of American Legion members stormed the Oakland CLP office, burning furniture, red flags, and IWW pamphlets, with the tacit support of police

The CLP was also targeted by the state’s Criminal Syndicalism Law, which explicitly outlawed radical speech. Nearly the entire Bay Area leadership was brought up on criminal syndicalism charges. Some were convicted; at least one fled to the Soviet Union
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Soon, multiple police raids on the CLP’s Oakland headquarters left the organization with practically nothing, and no ability to hold public meetings. Forced underground, the CLP would continue to exist until it eventually merged with another group to form the Communist Party