American League Against War and Fascism

The American League was formed at the US Congress Against War, a gathering of activists arranged by the CPUSA in 1933.{{Cite journal |last=Rossinow |first=Doug |date=2004-04-01 |title="The Model of a Model Fellow Traveler": Harry F. Ward, the American League for Peace and Democracy, and the"Russian Question"in American Politics, 1933-1956 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0130.2004.00288.x |journal=Peace Change |language=en |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=177–220 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0130.2004.00288.x |issn=0149-0508|url-access=subscription }}

The American League Against War and Fascism, attempted to attract as broad a following as possible and included members of the Roosevelt administration.{{Cite book |last=Vials |first=Chris |title=Haunted by Hitler: liberals, the left, and the fight against fascism in the United States |date=2014 |publisher=University of Massachusetts Press |isbn=978-1-62534-130-3 |location=Amherst Boston |pages=48-49}} By 1937, its Communist Party members boasted that 30 percent of the entire organized labor movement was represented in the League, and labor delegates occupied 413 of the 1416 seats at the national convention. African-Americans were also well represented in both the leadership and rank-and-file delegates.{{Citation needed|date=January 2019}}

In 1937 the organization changed its name to the American League for Peace and Democracy. Helen Silvermaster was associated with this group.[http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/silversm.htm Nathan Silvermaster Group], Investigation reports, FBI

At its peak in 1939, the American League claimed over 20,000 dues paying members, and 1,023 affiliated organizations, bringing its combined membership to around 7 million members.{{Cite book |last=Ceplair |first=Larry |title=Under the shadow of war: fascism, anti-facism and marxists 1918 - 1939 |date=1987 |publisher=Columbia Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-231-06532-0 |location=New York}}

The American League dissolved after the 1939 signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty between Josef Stalin's Soviet Union and Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany that ended the CPUSA's anti-Hitler activity until the 1941 Nazi invasion of the USSR, discouraged its non-communist members.Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, The Secret World of American Communism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995, pgs. 10-11 Its communist elements then influenced the founding of the American Peace Mobilization front to lobby against American help for the Allies, particular the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in their struggle against Hitler in the opening years of World War II.

Leaders included J. B. Matthews, and Rev. Harry F. Ward.

Prominent members included Earl Browder, Roger Baldwin, Paul Reid, William Spofford, H. W. L. Dana, Israel Amter, A. J. Muste, Dorothy Detzer, William Pickens, Oscar Ameringer, William Z. Foster, Devere Allen, Robert, Minor, and Elizabeth Bentley (later Soviet spy, later FBI informant).{{Cite web |title=The Fight Against War and Fascism |url=https://dlib.nyu.edu/fawf/ |access-date=2023-09-10 |website=The Fight Against War and Fascism |language=en-us}}

{{cite web

| title = Elizabeth Bentley

| publisher = Vassar Encyclopedia

| url = http://vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu/alumni/elizabeth-bentley.html

| date =

| accessdate = 6 October 2018}}

The League produced a monthly broadsheet entitled FIGHT Against War and Fascism,{{cite web |title=The Fight Against War And Fascism |url=http://dlib.nyu.edu/fawf/ |website=NYU Libraries |publisher=New York University |access-date=26 September 2021}} This is a complete archive. published in New York City under the editorship of Liston M. Oak.{{cite news |title=Liston Oak dies; leftist editor |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/09/archives/liston-oak-dies-leftist-editor-exhead-of-new-leader-quit-communists.html|volume=CXIX |issue=40924 |access-date=26 September 2021 |work=The New York Times |publisher=The New York Times Company|page=39 |date=February 9, 1970}}

• List of anti-war organizations

{{reflist|2}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050904144933/http://home.datawest.net/esn-recovery/resrch/oiu's/oiu5pt1.htm#The%20Communists%20Discover%20the%20Churches Communists Discover the Churches]
• [https://archive.org/details/proceed00amer Proceedings: fourth national congress, People's congress for democracy and peace, Pittsburgh, Nov. 26–28, 1937]

{{Communist Party USA}}

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Category:1933 establishments in the United States

Category:Anti-fascist organizations in the United States

Category:Communist Party USA mass organizations

Category:Peace organizations based in the United States

Category:Organizations established in 1933