Volume 12 – Section 1

  • Section I From the Impact of the Russian Revolution to the Outbreak of World War II

  • A. Early Years, 1924-28

  • (1) New words to the ?Pledge of Allegiance?.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8470.pdf

    Written by Rae Spiegel (Raya Dunayevskaya), December 1923, at the age of 13. Dunayevskaya had arrived in the U.S. a little more than a year earlier from Russia. Published in the Young Comrade, newspaper of the under-15 age group of the Workers (Communist) Party in January 1924. The pledge became widely used by youth groups in the U.S. Dunayevskaya credits the impact of the 1917 Russian Revolution on a young child with her early rebellion against conditions in the U.S.

  • (2) Cregier Public School strike,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8471.pdf

    April, 1924. Newspaper article and photo from Chicago Tribune, April 8, 1924. The strike broke out April 7, 1924, as elementary school students demanded the removal of school principal Mary E. Tobin. Dunayevskaya and other student leaders of the protest charged Tobin with practicing corporal punishment and anti-Semitism. The strike gained national news attention because of the age of the students.

  • (3) Harvester Worker.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8473.pdf

    Issues of February and March 1927. Newspaper of the Communist shop caucus at International Harvester in Chicago. Distributed by Dunayevskaya at the plant gates of the old McCormick Works, the scene of the first events of the Haymarket tragedy of 1886.

  • (4) The Fourth National Convention, Workers (Communist) Party of America.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8481.pdf

    Held in Chicago, August, 1925. Included on the microfilm is the section on ?The American Negro and the Proletarian Revolution?, with a discussion of plans to found the American Negro Labor Congress.

  • (5) Negro Champion.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8494.pdf

    Issue of June, 1926. This is the only known copy of the newspaper of the American Negro Labor Congress during its Chicago years, 1925 through 1927. The Negro Champion was edited by Lovett Fort-Whiteman, with Irving Dunjee as managing editor. Dunayevskaya worked in the office of the Negro Champion and wrote book reviews for the paper, until its removal to New York in 1928.

  • (6) Eric Walrond letter to Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya),

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8511.pdf

    July 28, 1927. Dunayevskaya had written to him about his essay on Charles Chesnutt and Paul Laurence Dunbar, published in 1922.Walrond, essayist and short story writer, was one of the major figures of the Harlem Renaissance.

  • (7) William Pickens letter to Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya),

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8512.pdf

    Aug. 26 and Nov. 28, 1927. Pickens, Field Secretary of the NAACP in New York, wrote to Dunayevskaya about her dramatization of his story. ?Vengeance of the Gods?.

  • (8) Associated Negro Press letter to Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya),

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8514.pdf

    Nov. 5, 1927. The ANP accepted Dunayevskaya?s article on Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dunbar, poet, novelist, short story writer and son of ex-slaves, was acknowledged by the Garvey movement as the ?poet laureate of the Negro race?.

  • (9) Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya) letter to Chauncey Townsend,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8515.pdf

    editor of the Gary American, a Black newspaper in Gary, Indiana. June 4, 1928 letter responds to Townsend?s request that Dunayevskaya participate in a symposium on Blacks and Jews. Also included is a reference to Dunayevskaya in the Gary American, Sept. 7, 1928.

  • (10) Review of E.B. Reuter?s The American Race Problem,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8518.pdf

    by Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya). Published in the Young Worker, June, 1927. Young Worker was the newspaper of the Young Workers League, the youth section of the Workers (Communist) Party. In 1928 Dunayevskaya was expelled from the Young Workers League for questioning a resolution to denounce Leon Trotsky. Called a ?Trotskyist?, though no such group then existed, Dunayevskaya left Chicago for New York.

  • B. The 1930s — The CIO; the Spanish Revolution; Leon Trotsky

  • (3) Sketch on Maxim Gorki?s life and work,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8527.pdf

    written by Dunayevskaya and included on the dust jacket of the English translation of Gorki?s Bystander, published in New York by Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1930.

  • (4) Max Sterling letter to Dunayevskaya,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8529.pdf

    May 10, 1933. A description of the protest demonstration against Rockefeller?s destruction of murals by Diego Rivera in New York. Dunayevskaya was visiting Chicago at the time.

  • (6) National ?Free Tom Mooney? conference.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8536.pdf

    Held in Chicago, May, 1933. Dunayevskaya was a participant from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Communist League of America. Note published in Young Spartacus, June, 1933.

  • (7) ?Just Received! October Russian Bulletin?.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8537.pdf

    Article by Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya) in Militant, Nov. 4, 1933. Dunayevskaya served as Business Manager of the Russian Bulletin of the Opposition, 1933-34, and again in 1938.

  • (9) Special issue of the Militant,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8771.pdf

    Feb. 17, 1934. Issue devoted to Hitler?s threat to Austria. During the emergency, the Militant appeared three times a week. Dunayevskaya sold hundreds of copies in one day in Union Square.

  • (10) ?On the Resolution of the National Youth Committee?.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8772.pdf

    Discussion article by Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya), March 24, 1934. On proletarian revolutionary traditions in America and their links to Marxism. A dissent from the ?confusion? of the proposed Spartacus Youth Clubs resolution. Published in the Militant.

  • (11) ?Organizing the Home Relief Workers?.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8774.pdf

    Article by Dunayevskaya in the Militant, March 24,1934. Describes organizing campaign of January-March 1934 in the Emergency Home Relief Bureau (Single Men?s Division) in New York City. Dunayevskaya worked in the typing pool there.

  • (12) ?Strike Struggles Continue Militant Traditions?.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8776.pdf

    Article by Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya) in Young Spartacus, June, 1934. On the 1934 strike wave, which reached high points in Toledo, Minneapolis and San Francisco, and its roots in the 1877 strikes, especially the St. Louis general strike. During June and July, 1934, Dunayevskaya participated in the street demonstrations of the San Francisco general strike.

  • (13) Note on the first public meeting of the Spartacus Youth Club in Los Angeles.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8777.pdf

    Published in Young Spartacus, June, 1934. Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya) spoke on ?War?, May 9, 1934 and later gave classes to the youth. In this period Dunayevskaya participated in the Los Angeles free speech fight, protesting police restrictions on open air speeches.

  • (14) Announcement for ?The C.I. Turns Right Again?,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8778.pdf

    a forum in Los Angeles sponsored by the Workers Party of the U.S. Speakers are Charles Curtis and Rae Ruskin (Raya Dunayevskaya). Published in New Militant, Feb. 2, 1935.

  • (15) Announcement of class in International Workers School (Los Angeles)

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8779.pdf

    on ?Fundamental Party Principles for the Youth?. Class by Rae Ruskin (Dunayevskaya). Printed in New Militant, March 2, 1935.

  • (17) Sara Weber letter to Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya),

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8781.pdf

    Sept. 11, 1936. On the security situation for Trotsky in Norway. Dunayevskaya was then living in Washington, D.C. and helped raise money for Trotsky?s defense from sympathizers. During this period she was also involved in support work for striking Arkansas sharecroppers.

  • (19) Letters to and from Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya) in Mexico with Leon Trotsky. Correspondents are James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8784.pdf

    September-November 1937. See # 2305 for other letters by Dunayevskaya as Trotsky?s secretary. Also see # 2241 for Dunayevskaya?s translation of Trotsky?s ?Ninety Years of the Communist Manifesto?, referred to in letter of Nov. 17, 1937.

  • (20) Articles on the Spanish Revolution by Leon Trotsky in original typescript as transcribed/translated by Dunayevskaya.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8792.pdf

    Articles include: 1) ?The Insurrection in Barcelona?, May 12, 1937;2) ?The Test of Ideas and of Individuals through the experience of the Spanish Revolution?, Aug. 24, 1937;3) ?Answers to Questions Concerning the Spanish Situation?, Sept. 14, 1937. See # 2241 for letter by Trotsky mentioning Dunayevskaya?s translation of Trotsky?s Civil War speeches on the Red Army, which were sent to Spain in December, 1938.

  • (21) Photographs from Dunayevskaya?s period in Mexico with Trotsky, 1937-38.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8809.pdf

    Some signed by Trotsky. Includes signed photograph of Leon Trotsky, presented to Dunayevskaya when she left Mexico in 1938. The inscription reads: ?To my dear Rae, who came at a difficult moment, as a true collaborator, in appreciation and with love, L. Trotsky?. Photographs held by the WSU Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs

  • (25) Charles Malamuth letter to Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya),

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8832.pdf

    Nov. 2, 1938. On Dunayevskaya?s search for a publisher for her article ?The Man Trotsky?. Malmuth translated Trotsky?s book, Stalin, into English.

  • (26) Articles by John F. Dwyer on his expulsion from the Socialist Party, and on left-wing activity in the party.

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8835.pdf

    Published in the Socialist Appeal, September-October, 1937. Three articles. Dwyer was a founding member of News and Letters Committees and columnist for News & Letters under the pen name Peter Mallory. For a full view of the work of John F. Dwyer in the 1930s — in the CIO, the Socialist Party and Trotskyism — and his independent development of a state-capitalist position in the 1940s, see the John F. Dwyer Collection held at the WSU Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs.

  • (27) Articles and ads by Rae Spiegel (Dunayevskaya) in Socialist Appeal,

    link to PDF file: http://rayadunayevskaya.org/raya/ArchivePDFs/8838.pdf

    June, July and November, 1938, on the Russian Bulletin of the Opposition. Includes reference to Bulletin?s tenth anniversary meeting, with Antoinette Konikow and Rae Spiegel as speakers, and letter from Business Manager of Bulletin in Paris, April 12, 1939.