UAW formed by Communisits?

[silvrsvt]

Found this gem:

 

Givens, George. (2006). Taken from 300 Little-Known Facts in U.S.:Americans immigrate to Russia (1931). History p.252

 

In the 1930s Russia found itself short of skilled workers for expanding industries, while in the United States the Great Depression had put thousands of skilled workers out on the street. A logical solution appeared in an ad sponsored by the Amtorg Company in 1931 asking for applicants for "six thousand skilled workers to work in Russia."

 

The results, according to Business Week, was 100,000 applicants for the jobs, everything from barbers and funeral directors to engineers and teachers. About 85 percent of those applying were citizens of the United States, although 60 percent were foreign born. The main reasons given for wanting to go to Russia were the need for a job, disgust with conditions in the United Stated, and an interest in the Soviet experiment, communism.

 

Most of the emigrants stayed to become citizens of Russia, but two who didn't were Victor and Walter Reuther. They returned to the United States, where Walter Reuther, making use of his anticapitalisitc ideas acquired in the Soviet Union, became the head of the United Auto Workers, one of the largest labor unions in the world.

[Pioneer]

Does this thread have a point?

[LSFan00]

Geeze, I guess the secret is out now. Next there will be information made public that the UAW leadership generally leans left, favors protectionist trade policies, and votes/endorses dimocrats.

[96 Pony]

Geeze, I guess the secret is out now. Next there will be information made public that the UAW leadership generally leans left, favors protectionist trade policies, and votes/endorses dimocrats.

 

[Furious1Auto]

Geeze, I guess the secret is out now. Next there will be information made public that the UAW leadership generally leans left, favors protectionist trade policies, and votes/endorses dimocrats.

No one would ever spill the beans, because of the fear of retort: Management Leans right, , favors Globalization and the reduction of the blue collar work force, and votes/endorses Repukagain.

Edited March 31, 2008 by Furious1Auto

[Moosetang]

Because everything was better back in the good old days before organized labor:

[Edstock]

They returned to the United States, where Walter Reuther, making use of his anticapitalisitc ideas acquired in the Soviet Union, became the head of the United Auto Workers, one of the largest labor unions in the world.

Crappy journalism.

 

Eugene Debs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Debs

 

Gene Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American union leader, one of the founders of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), as well as five-time Socialist Party of America candidate for President of the United States. [1]

 

The point is, there was a strong anti-capitalist culture in America and a legitimate Socialist political party almost 50 years before the voyages of Reuther. Given the horrific working conditions of the time, it didn't take much to become an anti-capitalist; sweat-shops kind of breed that attitude. Reuther didn't acquire anticapitalist ideas in the USSR, they were home-grown, from American working-class poverty. What he probably acquired in the USSR was a sense of fear.

 

Up until about 1931-32, it was easy to believe that the Russkies had brought the workers' heaven to Earth.

 

That was because, as a way of thumbing their noses at the oligarchs, liberal journalists like Lincoln Steffens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Steffens "is also known for his 1921 statement, upon his return from the Soviet Union: "I have been over into the future, and it works." In fact, according to historian Richard Pipes, Steffen wrote those words on a train in Sweden before he had even arrived in the USSR. His more famous quote "I've seen the future, and it works" can be found on the titlepage of his wife's, Ella Winter, 1933 edition of Red Virtue. [1]"

 

Then the New York Times had Walter Duranty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

 

Wally "served as the New York Times Moscow bureau chief from 1922 through 1936. Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for a set of stories written in 1931 on Joseph Stalin's Five-Year Plan to industrialize the Soviet Union. Duranty's reporting has fallen into disrepute because of his highly favorable portrayal of Stalin, his denial of the Ukranian famine, and his uncritical coverage of Stalin's show trials." With Wally, everything was wonderful with Uncle Joe's Super Socialist theme park.

 

As well, the Comintern and Amtorg had business offices open in major US cities, to spread the word.

 

With Harry Bennett and his thugs running Ford security, maybe drinking vodka with the comrades seemed like a vacation.

 

They probably got a rude awakening. By 1930, Lenin was 3 years dead, and Stalin was consolidating power by shooting his opposition, using a psychopath by name of Genrikh Yagoda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda to do the whacking. By 1934, Yagoda had gotten the team together, and the show-trial industry started.

 

The point is, by '30-'31, the terror had started. Being a foreigner in the growing paranoia must have been scary, Reuther may have seen very rapidly that Harry wasn't so bad, after all.