Steve
Nelson
was
born in Yugoslavia
in 1903. After emigrating
to the United States he became a carpenter.
Nelson became involved in the trade union
movement and in 1925 joined the American
Communist Party.
Nelson moved to Chicago
where he became a full-time party worker. This included the organization
of the International Unemployment Day demonstration on 6th March 1930.
During the demonstration Nelson, Joe Dallet,
Oliver
Law
and eleven other activists
were arrested and badly beaten by the police. Two weeks after the
beatings Nelson had recovered sufficiently to march with 75,000 demonstrators
to demand unemployment insurance.
On the outbreak of the
Spanish
Civil War Nelson
wanted to immediately join the Abraham Lincoln
Battalion, a unit that volunteered to fight for the Popular
Front government against the military uprising in Spain.
At the time he was working among the anthracite coal miners in Pennsylvania
and the party rejected the offer claiming he was more important to
the cause in America.
After the disaster of Jarama
the leaders of the American
Communist Party changed
its mind about the role of its activists and allowed Nelson, Joe
Dallet and 23 other volunteers to go to Spain. However, Nelson
and his team were arrested by the French authorities on the Spanish
border and spent three weeks in prison before reaching the International
Brigades at Albacete in May 1937.
Nelson
and Dallet both became political commissars and were instructed
to restore battalion morale. Nelson later explained how he tried to
do this "The men must learn the basis of the whole struggle -
the fundamentals of the whole war. You must be one of the boys, concern
yourself directly with their problems. I trusted the men and they
trusted me."
In July
1937 the Abraham Lincoln Battalion fought
alongside the George Washington Battalion
at Brunete. Oliver
Law was
one of those killed and Nelson now took over as commander of the battalion.
Casualties were so high during the campaign that on 14th July the
two units were merged. Mirko Markovicz, a Yugoslav-American, was appointed
as commander of the Lincoln-Washington Battalion and Nelson became
his political commissar.
Soon afterwards,
Markovicz was ordered by Colonel Klaus of the International
Brigades to
move his men forward to protect a company of Spanish marines. Markovicz
refused, explaining: "I will not order the American battalion
to carry out this order because it will result in a disaster, like
the one in Jarama." Markovicz was arrested and Nelson became
the new commander. The next morning the order was cancelled and Markovicz
was released.
In August
1937 the American forces were reorganized. Nelson was promoted to
brigade commissar and Robert
Merriman
became brigade
chief of staff. Hans Amlie, who had now
recovered from the wounds suffered at Brunete,
became commander of the Lincoln-Washington
Battalion.
The next
major action involving the Lincoln-Washington
Battalion took
place during the Aragón
offensive
at the end of August 1937. The campaign began with an attack on the
town of Quinto. This involved dangerous street fighting against snipers
that were within the walls of the local church. After two days the
Americans were able to clear the town of Nationalist forces. This
included the capture of nearly a thousand prisoners.
The Lincoln-Washington
Battalion then
headed towards the fortified town of Belchite.
Once again the Americans had to endure sniper fire. Robert
Merriman
ordered
the men to take the church. In the first assault involving 22 men,
only two survived. When Merriman ordered a second attack, Hans
Amlie at first refused saying the task of taking the church was
impossible. He help Amlie, Nelson
led a diversionary
attack. This enabled the Lincoln-Washington
Battalion to
enter the town. The Americans suffered heavy casualties, Nelson, Merryman
and Amlie received head wounds and amongst the dead were Wallace Burton,
Henry Eaton and Samuel Levinger.
Nelson
recuperated from his wounds in Valencia.
After he recovered he was given the task of escorting prominent Americans
who were visiting Spain. This included
John Bernard, Dorothy
Parker and
Lillian
Hellman.
He was then brought back to the United States by Earl
Browder and
was assigned a national speaking tour on behalf of the Popular
Front government in
Spain.
After the
Second World War Nelson moved to Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania to assume leadership of the regional American
Communist Party.
On 31st August 1950 Nelson was arrested and charged with sedition
against the state of Pennsylvania. Two years later Nelson was convicted
of sedition and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 1956 the Supreme
Court overturned the ruling and Nelson was released.
(1)
Steve Nelson explained why he joined the American
Communist Party in
the book, Steve Nelson: American Radical
(1981)
I saw the logic of socialism. I knew I was going to be
a worker, and if I was going to be a worker. I wanted to do what was
best for workers.
(2)
Steve Nelson, Steve Nelson: American Radical
(1981)
Our purpose throughout three years of civil war was not
to set up some sort of workers' republic, be it socialist, anarchist,
or what have you. There was clearly a progressive content to the political
program of the Popular Front that
would have extended civil liberties, strengthened the bargaining power
of workers and spurred land reform. And there were openly revolutionary
currents within it. Yet the goal of the Popular Front was not a socialist
republic.
(3)
Steve Nelson explained why Oliver
Law
was promoted to company commander when he was
interviewed by Peter N. Carroll on 9th June 1990.
The
idea was that we do something about advancing a black. But the thing
that mattered most was that he had military experience. Law was the
guy who had the most experience and was the most acquainted with military
procedures on the staff.
(4)
Frank
Ryan,
The Fifteenth Brigade (1938)
Those
who try to account for the immense popularity of Steve Nelson by attributing
it to his exceptional personality have only a partial answer. His
personality - sympathetic, understanding and trustworthy had undoubtedly
a great deal to do with it. But his great success was due to one thing
- he was everything a good Political Commissar should be.
First and foremost Steve
was an organizer. His long years in the working-class movement in
the States, his ability to translate politics into the everyday activities
of life all contributed to make him into one of the best Political
Commissars the International Brigades produced.
Steve was "one of
the boys" and yet always a full step ahead of them. As "one
of the boys" he knew exactly what the boys thought, felt, needed.
His political understanding and his grasp of military matters made
him always fully aware of the exigencies of any situation. And as
an organizer he understood fully how to harmonize the interests of
the Command
and that of the boys with the best interests of the Spanish Republican
cause.
Steve didn't have to threaten
or cajole. All he had to do was explain to have the men fall in line
with his proposals. "Gaining the complete confidence of the men"
is what every Commissar is striving for. Steve had it. He didn't gain
it in one fell swoop, he earned it be degrees, by his attention to
men, by his willingness to share danger, by his coolness
under fire, by working incessantly in their interest, by thinking
of the men first and of himself afterwards, in short - by setting
a personal example at all times as expected and requested from a Commissar.
(5)
Howard Fast,
reviewing The Thirteenth Juror by Steve Nelson in Masses
& Mainsream (June, 1955)
I have been told that it is difficult to read a book objectively
when you know the author; and there is an old saying which asks, "How
can he be a genius? I know him." Neither precisely to the case
in point, for I know Steve Nelson well and cannot think of him as
a genius, but only as a very great and brave man; and I read his new
book, not objectively, but with a deeply subjective and highly personal
involvement - read it from cover to cover almost in a sitting. And
when I had finished it, I knew I had read one of those very rare and
wonderful books - a book that changes you in the process of its reading,
so that finished with it, I was something more than I had been when
I opened it.
I also know that I cannot
write of the book without writing of the man; for the book is most
profoundly moving in its utter and implacable truth, and this truth
is also the man. Both are a part of the same experience. I have never
read another book quite like this one, but I have also never known
another man quite like Steve Nelson; and the knowledge of both fills
me with pride and humility, not only because I have shared something
of the struggle that produced both, but because through both I came
better to understand people and what people will be someday.
The Thirteenth Juror is
the story of Steve Nelson's trial, his trial before a court of law,
as law exists in the United States today, and his trial in the court
of horror and infamy that is otherwise known as Blawnox Workhouse.
The first half of the book is devoted to Blawnox, and as such, it
has few equals in the whole history of prison literature. In the same
breath, one must note, Blawnox Prison in Pennsylvania is possibly
unequaled today, as a place of horror and degradation, in all of these
United States and very likely in much of the world outside of our
borders.
Into Blawnox came Steve
Nelson, political prisoner, Communist, veteran of the International
Brigade in Spain - now sentenced to twenty years, sentenced on charges
that were no charges, on evidence that was no evidence, on the word
of stool pigeons and paid informers - into a dungeon of hell and horror,
and told by the guards as he entered that there was no road back,
that he could neither survive this place nor ever hope to leave this
place; and the story of this dungeon, of how he faced it, fought it
as one man, sick and weak, and finally triumphed over it, is the story
Nelson tells in the first half of his book. In this, the first half
of his book, Steve Nelson reaches his highest point of artistry as
a writer - in a breathless and splendidly-told story of man's courage
and man's will to survive.
Parts of this section,
such as Nelson's experience in the "hole" and his leadership
and organization of the other prisoners in the "hole," are
of a quality that a reader cannot easily forget, and will, simply
as literature, long survive the memory of the men who did this to
Steve Nelson; and as a whole, this section comprises a unique and
fine literary product. The second half of the book tells the story
of Steve Nelson's trial before Judge Montgomery in a Pittsburgh courthouse,
of how, unable to find a lawyer, he defended himself, of how a sick
and broken body was forced by an indomitable spirit to wage a legal
battle and defense that will rank with Dimitrov's famous defense before
a Nazi Court. The book concludes with Nelson's eloquent plea to the
Jury - his battle against the "thirteenth" juror, who is
bigotry, prejudice and fear.
To one degree or another,
all of America lived through the content of this book. Some, all too
many, knew only the bare facts of Steve Nelson's name and the charges
leveled against him. Others, who read the newspaper stories a little
more closely, heard Nelson accused as an atom-bomb spy, an agent of
a foreign power, a Communist "master-mind." Still others,
men in high places, in the Pennsylvania judiciary, in the nests of
the steel and aluminum moguls of Pittsburgh, in the offices of the
Justice Department in Washington, played parts in the manufacturing
of false charges, in the rigging of juries, in the hiring of informers
- coldly and deliberately, so that they might destroy this man they
feared and hated. Still others worked and testified in the defense
of Steve Nelson, as Art Shields and Herbert Aptheker did, and others
turned ears deafened by fear and indifference to pleas that they come
to the defense of a good and brave man. And all over America, millions
of workers, who knew nothing of the case and were indifferent to it
to the extent of the lies and slanders fed to them these many years,
also lived through the content for out of their struggles, their hopes
and needs and ideology, had come the man whom we know as Steve Nelson,
and the courage of the man and the splendor of the man as well.
Within this context, The
Thirteenth Juror must be seen and understood; for this book is
a symbol of the America we have known and lived in and worked in this
decade past; and in so being, it contains the worst and the best that
is America. The book will live, because it is a truthful and profound
human document, and it will still be read when the situation which
produced it has long since come to an end. At that time, it will be
judged anew as literature, and without question parts of it will be
reprinted innumerable times as literature; but an objective literary
judgment is almost impossible today - just as it would have been both
impossible and insufferable to have judged Julius Fuchik's Notes
From the Gallows as literature while Czechoslovakia still lay
under the Nazi heel. Then, as now, we were concerned with the man;
and perhaps so long as our literature comes out of an agony, we will
continue to be concerned with the man before we are concerned with
the book.
Thus, it is important to
dwell for a moment on the man - the manner of a man who wrote this
book. The book is a tense, well-written and extremely moving document,
but above all these things, it is an exceedingly simple document.
Here I use simple in the best sense, in terms of a proletarian clarity
which evokes the best from the language. In the same manner, one must
see the author - as one does see him through this book - as a simple
man, a virtuous man, and above all things, a good man. In the process
of an ethical decay in our society during this past decade, we have
retained the meaning of certain words used to describe people, but
we have wholly lost the meaning of others. This too is a question
of values. We still comprehend what one means when one calls a person
brilliant, clever, witty, dogged, stubborn, etc. Our understanding
clouds a little when such words as sincere and forthright are used;
and in a society which maintains only one criterion for values - did
he get away with it? - we are becoming at a loss to comprehend the
meaning of good and honorable.
Yet the essence of Steve
Nelson is that he is an honorable and a good man. His nature is neither
brilliant nor derived from fanaticism; his wisdom, a deep and wonderfully
profound wisdom, is the wisdom of the good man who understands evil,
and therefore must set his face against evil and venture his life
in the struggle against evil - and his understanding is the understanding
of a member of the working class who has become a Marxist and a Communist.
This combination of values is not new on this earth, but it is rare
in America. On the other hand, it is America that has produced Steve
Nelson.
And not alone Steve Nelson,
for one of the hallmarks of the decade we have lived through are the
men and women of quality and stature who have emerged as figures and
symbols of American resistance. In other times of the past and in
times still to come, the quality of America was and will be symbolized
by mass motion and mass courage; but when the situation is such as
not to produce these mass currents, the responsibility for patriotism
- a very high and historic responsibility - falls upon the shoulders
of a few. Thus, in time to come, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg will be
a part of the living and honored tradition of America, not the mean
and craven Judge Irving Kaufman who acted as their executioner. If
there was only here and there a lonely example of such courage and
nobility as the Rosenbergs displayed, then one could have little hope
and less respect for the American people; but there have been literally
thousands who displayed, to one degree or another, the superb courage
of the Rosenbergs, and out of these thousands came the giants like
Nelson - even as the thousands came out of the body-whole of the population.
The Thirteenth Juror
tells the story of the contest between Steve Nelson and Judge Montgomery
of Pittsburgh, between those gathered around Nelson for his defense,
Art Shields, Herbert Aptheker, Pat Cush, Ben Careathers, Margaret
Nelson and those who gathered around Montgomery for the prosecution,
Musmanno, Cercone, Cvetic, Crouch. On the one hand, Nelson, anti-fascist
soldier and Communist, stands with a great journalist, a noted historian
and scholar, an old labor leader, a Communist trade-unionist and organizer,
and a brave mother and companion; on the other hand, Montgomery, political
hack and traducer of justice, stands with a notorious fascist and
former admirer of Mussolini, the nephew of this fascist, a craven
and stupid political appointee, with a psychopathic liar and professional
informer, and lastly Crouch, professional informer. Thus, the contest,
and thus, symbolically, the two Americas that exist within this body
whole known as the United States.
The contest is also a battle
between honor, courage and integrity on the one hand and dishonor,
cowardice and perversion of all decency on the other hand. As to which
of these will win, there can be little doubt. All of life and all
of the future stands with the Steve Nelsons, and in good time, millions
of Americans will come to know this and take their place by his side.
And as for Montgomery, Musmanno, Cercone they too will be remembered,
but only as the shameful and craven creatures who obeyed the orders
of the iron and munition lords of Pittsburgh and framed and convicted
a great man.
One more word must be said
of the fine job Steve Nelson does of exposing another part of the
shameful and rotten prison system that exists in the United States
- a system which in the land of plenty reduces men to starvation,
denies them medical care, and - being an integral part of the "free
world" - subjects them to such mental and physical torture as
would shame the keeper of a medieval dungeon. If you have been puzzled
about the rash of prison riots breaking out everywhere in the country,
this book will provide your answer. I also profoundly hope that it
will provide a death blow to that unspeakable cancer on the body of
the State of Pennsylvania - Blawnox Workhouse.
(6)
William A. Reuben, review of The Secret World of American Communism
in the journal Rights (1995).
As if progressives had not in recent years been battered
and bludgeoned enough already, we now learn that J. Edgar Hoover,
Senator Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn, Elizabeth Bentley, Whittaker Chambers
& company really got it right: all Communists are/were actual,
or wannabee, Russian spies. We also learn that during the Cold War
years (and even before) hordes of leftists were abroad in the land,
stealing "our" atomic secrets (and God only knows what else)
for delivery to Joseph Stalin.
In recent days, this message
has been dunned into our ears by such opinion-makers as William F.
Buckley, Jr., George Will, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Theodore Draper,
Michael Thomas, Edward Jay Epstein and David Garrow in the pages of
The New York Times, The New Republic, Commentar,
Wall Street Journal, The National Review, the "McNeil-Lehrer
NewsHour," and lots more (without a dissenting voice to be heard
anywhere).
This all-out blitz has
been fueled by The Secret World of American Communism, written
by Professor Harvey Klehr, of Emory University, John Earl Haynes,
of the Library of Congress, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, formerly
of the Comintern Archives in Moscow at the Russian Center for the
Preservation and Study of Documents in Recent History. The authors
claim to have put together a "massive documentary record"
from the hitherto secret Comintern archives, revealing "the dark
side of American communism." These documents establish, they
say, proof both of "Soviet espionage in America" and of
the American Communist Party's "inherent" connection with
Soviet espionage operations and with its espionage services; and that
such spy activities were considered, by both Soviet and the American
CP leaders, "normal and proper."
Such assertions are not
all that different from what J. Edgar Hoover (and his stooges) were
saying half a century ago. But what reinforces the authors' statements
are not only the documents from the Russian archives they claim to
have uncovered, but also the imposing editorial advisory committee
assembled to give this project an eminent scholarly cachet. This editorial
advisory committee consists of 30 academics whose names are listed
opposite the title page. They include seven Yale University professors,
along with professors from Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, Brandeis,
Southern Methodist, Pittsburgh and Rochester universities. There are
also an equal number of members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
and of officials of various Russian archives.
Reproduced in the book
are 92 documents offered by the authors as evidence of what they say
is the United States Communist Party's continuous history of "covert
activity." These documents, according to Professor Steven Merrit
Minor in The New York Times Book Review, reveal that American Communists
"relayed atomic secrets to the Kremlin" and also support
the testimony of Whittaker Chambers and others that the American Communist
Party was engaged in underground conspiracies against the American
Government. The authors also say that the documents suggest that those
"who continued to claim otherwise were either willfully naive
or, more likely, dishonest."
In actuality, many of the
documents are ambiguously worded or in some sort of code known only
to the senders and recipients. They often contain illegible words,
numbers and signatures; relate to unidentifiable persons, places and
events; and are preoccupied with bookkeeping matters, inner-party
hassles or with protective security measures against FBI and Trotskyite
spies. Most importantly, not a single document reproduced in this
volume provides evidence of espionage. Ignoring all evidence that
contradicts their thesis, the authors attempt to make a case relying
on assumption, speculation, and invention about the archival material
and, especially, by equating secrecy with illegal spying.
The book's high points
are sections relating to what the authors call atomic espionage and
the CP Washington spy apparatus. As someone who has carefully examined
the archives at the Russian Center, and who over the past four decades
has studied the trial transcripts of the major Cold War "spy"
cases, I can state that "The Secret World of American Communism,"
notwithstanding its scholarly accouterments, is a disgracefully shoddy
work, replete with errors, distortions and outright lies. As a purported
work of objective scholarship, it is nothing less than a fraud.
In this context, certain
facts ought to be noted:
* The Moscow archives contain
no material relating to these key figures in the Cold War "spy"
cases: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Morton Sobell, Ruth and David Greenglass,
Harry Gold, Klaus Fuchs, Elizabeth Bentley, Hede Massing, Noel Field,
Harry Dexter White, Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, Colonel Boris
Bykov and J. Peters. In my possession is a document, responding to
my request, and dated October 12, 1992, signed by Oleg Naumov, Deputy
Director of the Russian Center for the Preservation and Study of Documents
of Recent History, attesting that the Center has no files on, or relating
to, any of the above-named persons.
* Despite the authors'
assertion that the documents in this volume show that the CPUSA's
elaborate underground apparatus collaborated with Soviet espionage
services and also engaged in stealing the secrets of America's atomic
bomb project, not one of the 92 documents reproduced in this book
supports such a conclusion.
* The authors claim the
documents corroborate Whittaker Chambers' allegations about a Communist
underground in Washington, D.C. in the 1930s, and while the authors
concede that Alger Hiss's name does not appear in any of the documents,
they assert that the "subsequent documentation has further substantiated
the case that Hiss was a spy." Yet, not one document from the
Russian archives supports any of these damning statements.
A total of 15 pages in
"Secret World" have some reference either to Hiss or Chambers.
By my count, these contain 73 separate misrepresentations of fact
or downright lies. For example, the authors claim that J. Peters "played
a key role in Chambers' story" that Hiss was a Soviet spy. Peters
played no role in Chambers' story about espionage. Chambers said that
the key figure in his espionage activities with Hiss was a Russian
named "Colonel Boris Bykov," a character whose identity
the FBI spent years futilely trying to establish.
The authors claim Chambers
testified he worked in the Communist underground in the 1930s with
groups of government employees who "provided the CPUSA with information
about sensitive government activities." In fact, Chambers testified
to the exact contrary on 12 separate occasions.
References to Ethel and
Julius Rosenberg and their case can be found on five pages. In those
pages, by my tally, are 31 falsehoods or distortions of evidence.
For example, the authors say the Rosenbergs' conviction was for "involvement
in...atomic espionage." In fact they were convicted of conspiracy,
and no evidence was ever produced that they ever handed over any information
about anything to anyone.
The authors also say the
Rosenbergs were arrested as a result of information the authorities
obtained from Klaus Fuchs, which led to Harry Gold, who led them to
David Greenglass, who implicated the Rosenbergs. All of these statements
are based on an FBI press release. In fact, no evidence has ever been
produced that indicates that Fuchs, Gold or Greenglass ever mentioned
the Rosenbergs before their arrests.
Discussing one other "spy"
case, that of Judith Coplon, against whom all charges were dismissed,
the authors in typical contempt of official court records write that
"there was not the slightest doubt of her guilt." In comments
running no less than half a page, they invent a scenario of the Coplon
case that contains 14 outright lies and distortions. For instance,
the authors say she "stole" an FBI report and she was arrested
when she handed over' the stolen report "to a Soviet citizen."
All these statements are false; in her two trials, no evidence was
ever adduced that she ever stole anything or that she ever handed
over anything to anyone.
The late Steve Nelson,
a onetime CP official who is referred to many times by the authors,
is thus characterized, on page 230: "After World War II, U.S.
officials charged that he was involved in Soviet spying, including
atomic espionage."
Such a charge was once
made against Nelson by the Republican-dominated HUAC. Following two
weeks of secret hearings at the beginning of the 1948 presidential
election campaign, HUAC, on September 27, 1948, issued a 20,000 word
report charging that the Democratic Party was indifferent to Soviet
espionage. It named Nelson as the pivotal figure in an atom spy network
that was allegedly operating in the United States.
To equate the thoroughly
discredited HUAC with "U.S. officials," as do the authors
of "Secret World," is bad enough, but much worse is ignoring
what was actually said by U.S. officials. This came by way of a statement
issued that September by the Department of Justice. These U.S. officials
branded the HUAC report as utterly without merit, an exercise in "political
gymnastics," issued by a "politically minded Congressional
committee with one eye on publicity and the other on election results."
Of course, neither Nelson nor any of the others named as members of
a Soviet atom spy ring was ever charged with any such crime.
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