International Workers Order
The International Workers Order (IWO) was an insurance, mutual benefit and fraternal organization founded in 1930 and disbanded in 1954 as the result of legal action undertaken by the state of New York in 1951 on the grounds that the organization was too closely linked to the Communist Party. At its height in the years immediately following World War II, the IWO reached nearly 200,000 members and provided low-cost health and life insurance, medical and dental clinics, and supported foreign-language newspapers, cultural and educational activities. The organization also operated a summer camp and cemeteries for its members.[1]
Predecessor
1930
1954
3,000–5,000 members (1930), 67,000 (1935), 141,000 (1938), 155,000 (1941)
Rubin Saltzman
Organizational history[edit]
Factional war in the Arbeter Ring (1920s)[edit]
The International Workers Order began as the byproduct of a split of The Workmen's Circle (Der Arbeter Ring, now called The Workers Circle), a Jewish mutual benefit society of social democratic coloration. Principal functions of the Workmen's Circle included the provision of unemployment insurance, medical insurance, and life insurance for its members, as well as providing a setting for the discussion of social problems at its meetings. During the factionally charged political climate of the American Left in the 1920s, a parallel Communist fraternal benefit society emerged—the IWO.[2]
The origins of the split that established the IWO date back to 1922. In February of that year, a nominating conference of the Arbeter Ring was held, at which a new Executive Committee was to be nominated. Nearly 200 delegates attended this conference, which was dominated by adherents of the Socialist Party of America (SPA), who prevented adherents of the Communist movement from gaining a single seat on the Credentials Committee. A spontaneous walkout of Left Wing delegates resulted.[2]
In May 1922 the Workmen's Circle held its 22nd Convention at Toronto. This gathering was attended by 26 Left Wing delegates out of a total of 138. These two fractions battled over two resolutions of the Executive Committee: one against Soviet Russia for its judicial action against the Socialist Revolutionaries and other political opponents of the regime, and a second directed against the Workers Party of America and its Yiddish language organ, the Morgen Freiheit (Morning Freedom). While the SPA-influenced delegates held the day, a "Protest Convention" quickly organized in response to the resolutions of the 22nd Convention. This was held on June 2, 1922, and attended by 338 delegates, representing 235 branches of the organization from 23 states.[2]
The National Executive Committee of the Workmen's Circle struck back, dissolving the Left Wing-dominated Boston District Committee and removing several Left Wingers from positions of authority in the organization. The Left Wing found itself in a majority position in Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, Texas, and Ontario, inspiring the National Executive Committee to dissolve the five state organizations, as well as various Left Wing branches. Despite the rough treatment, the Left Wing resisted splitting the organization, instead opting to continue its fight within the Workman's Circle organization itself. This tactic was followed through 1925.[2]
The 1925 Convention of the Arbeter Ring was particularly bitter. Nearly 1,000 delegates were in attendance, of whom approximated one-fourth supported a program of the Left Wing calling for the Workmen's Circle to become an actively political organization. The Left Wing fought relentlessly to win the right to read a 10-minute statement to the convention, declaring that "to our shame, the Workmen's Circle, our Order, lately has become and out-and-out toll and weapon in the hands of the reactionary element in the Jewish working class movement." A two-day "National Protest Conference" was held in response to the Socialist-dominated convention, which was attended by the representatives of 191 branches. The conference organized itself into a "Left Wing Alliance" and declared that it would fight "against the terror of the Right Wing machine" and "for the non-party [i.e. non-Socialist Party] character of the Workmen's Circle." Aid to the children's school movement, a pet project of the Left, was pledged.[2]
The National Executive Committee of the Workmen's Circle responded to the organization of the Left Wing Alliance predictably, expelling 64 branches with a membership of close to 15,000. This put the Executive Committee of the Alliance in a precarious situation. Rather than risk "suicide" through a premature split, the Executive Committee instructed its branches to comply with various requests of the NEC to resign from the Alliance or be expelled. A split was thereby narrowly averted. The NEC adopted a lengthy process for reinstatement of expelled branches, drawing out the process over months and demoralizing the Left Wing.[2]
As the Communist movement became more radical at the end of the 1920s, following the doctrine of the so-called Third Period of new revolutionary upheaval, the bad marriage of Socialists and Communists in the Arbeter Ring crashed upon the rocks. The 1929 Convention attempted to eliminate the Left Wing from participation. The gathering was addressed by a guest speaker, Victor Chernov, leader of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR), considered a notorious counterrevolutionary by the Communists of the day. In the supercharged environment, it was charged that a physical attack was made on the reporter of the Communist Party's Yiddish daily, the Freiheit. The convention renewed the two controversial Toronto resolutions of 1922 and formally approved the action of the NEC in suppressing the Left Wing movement in the Workmen's Circle.[2]
A split was at hand. On October 11, 1929, a three-day "National Conference of Minority Groups of the Workmen's Circle" gathered in New York City, attended by 193 delegates, representing 108 branches and 23 minority factions of branches. These delegates unanimously decided to leave the Workmen's Circle and build a new explicitly working class order. A manifesto issued by the conference declared:
Legacy[edit]
Following the demise of the IWO, Camp Kinderland became an independent entity and the Jewish People's Fraternal Order reconstituted itself as the Jewish Cultural Clubs and Societies without the mutual benefit component of JPFO. A Canadian equivalent of the JPFO, the United Jewish Peoples' Order, still exists as does the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the IWO received mention as a mutual aid society that might bear revisit for applicability to the growing number of gig workers, left out of a 20th-century system whose benefits to employees depends on full-time employment[10] (also considered for mutual aid societies more broadly[11]), though others have questioned the IWO's contemporary relevance if based on intersectionality."[12]