Jacob Zumoff
New Jersey City University, History, Faculty Member
- Social History, Political History, Latin American and Caribbean History, Communism, Caribbean History, Black Studies Or African American Studies, and 8 moreLabor History and Studies, Central America and Mexico, Mexico, Panama, Communist International, Socialism, Marxism, and History of Cominternedit
- My original research focused on the role of the Communist International in helping the Communist movement in the Unit... moreMy original research focused on the role of the Communist International in helping the Communist movement in the United States come to grips with American reality. I completed my doctoral dissertation on this subject at the University of London in 2003; Brill Academic Press published a revised version of my dissertation in 2014.
My research interest has widened since graduate school. Besides the history of Communism in the United States, one area of interest is the intersection of radicalism, labour organising, and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora in the interwar period.
I have also finished a book about the 1926 Passaic textile strike, which should be published by Rutgers University Press in 2020 or 2021.
Another area of research is the intersection of popular culture and political radicalism in the United States in this same period. Particularly, I have published several articles on Dashiell Hammett, and am currently engaged in writing a political biography of this seminal "hardboiled" writer.
Please note that I tend not to post entire articles, especially for more recent articles . If you are affiliated with a university, you can probably get these through your library or another database. If you are not affiliated with a major university, or are outside the United States, and you cannot find an article, please email me: j.a.zumoff@gmail.com.edit
This essay examines the vision of society presented in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon (1930). In contrast to critics who argue that Hammett brought a Marxist perspective to the novel, reflecting his support to the Communist Party... more
This essay examines the vision of society presented in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon (1930). In contrast to critics who argue that Hammett brought a Marxist perspective to the novel, reflecting his support to the Communist Party later in the decade, this current article argues that The Maltese Falcon presents a vision of society with no fundamental order or meaning, in which all rules are arbitrary, and in which every attempt to present a grand narrative fails. This nihilist conception of society is in keeping with the rise of modernism and reflects the shift from a rural, agricultural, traditionalist society to an urban, industrial one. It is not, however, a Marxist view.
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The restoration of capitalism in East Europe and the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s revitalised capitalism, setting the stage for the resurgent hegemony of United States imperialism. This was accompanied by its... more
The restoration of capitalism in East Europe and the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s revitalised capitalism, setting the stage for the resurgent hegemony of United States imperialism. This was accompanied by its economic reflection, globalisation, and its ideological justification, liberalism. Most Marxists in the Anglophone imperialist world, capitulated to this dominant liberalism (that is, to US imperialist hegemony), converting Marxism into left-wing critiques of liberalism, not a revolutionary tool to overthrow capitalism. This paper in particular examines Alex Callinicos and his treatment of the antiglobalisation movement of the early 2000s. We are now seeing the breakdown of the post-Soviet hegemony of United States imperialism, which is making the world much more unstable. Again, Marxists in the Anglophone imperialist world, instead of using Marxism as a tool to fight against capitalism, are turning it into a liberal tool, in this case by asserting that the current world situatio n is somehow objectively leading towards socialism. This essay concludes by examining Radhika Desai as an example.
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E. Franklin Frazier is rightfully remembered as one of the most important and influential sociologists in the United States, and one of the nation's most prominent Black sociologists. Although Frazier deserves this fame, it tends to... more
E. Franklin Frazier is rightfully remembered as one of the most important and influential sociologists in the United States, and one of the nation's most prominent Black sociologists. Although Frazier deserves this fame, it tends to overshadow his lifelong radicalism and refusal to accept (in practice or theory) the naturalness of Black oppression in the United States. This radicalism infuses all of his writing, but is especially evident in his earlier writings when, rather than an academic, Frazier was best known as a radical "New Negro" voice.
It is clear that as the hundred-year anniversary of Frazier's "The Pathology of Race Prejudice" approaches, it continues to resonate. At the same time, few scholars have examined Frazier's 1927 article or the circumstances surrounding its publication in depth. This lack of attention reflects the hybrid nature of the piece, as well as scholars' neglect of Frazier's early writings, which have tended to be overshadowed by his later works such The Negro Family in the United States and The Black Bourgeoisie. Frazier's importance to American sociology justifies this attention to his later writings, but overemphasizing them contributes to diminishing Frazier's radicalism and militancy and overlooking how the radical ideals of his earlier writings continued to infuse his later publications. In the 1920s, before he earned his doctorate from the University of Chicago, Frazier had already developed a radical critique of Black oppression in the United States, reflecting and contributing to the reenergized "New Negro" trend in Black politics and culture in the 1920s. "The Pathology of Race Prejudice" reiterates themes central to Frazier's radial vision.
It is clear that as the hundred-year anniversary of Frazier's "The Pathology of Race Prejudice" approaches, it continues to resonate. At the same time, few scholars have examined Frazier's 1927 article or the circumstances surrounding its publication in depth. This lack of attention reflects the hybrid nature of the piece, as well as scholars' neglect of Frazier's early writings, which have tended to be overshadowed by his later works such The Negro Family in the United States and The Black Bourgeoisie. Frazier's importance to American sociology justifies this attention to his later writings, but overemphasizing them contributes to diminishing Frazier's radicalism and militancy and overlooking how the radical ideals of his earlier writings continued to infuse his later publications. In the 1920s, before he earned his doctorate from the University of Chicago, Frazier had already developed a radical critique of Black oppression in the United States, reflecting and contributing to the reenergized "New Negro" trend in Black politics and culture in the 1920s. "The Pathology of Race Prejudice" reiterates themes central to Frazier's radial vision.
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On May 9, 1933, engineers working for the Rockefeller family ordered Diego Rivera to stop work on Man at the Crossroads, a mural for the Radio City of America building at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. The family took offense at the... more
On May 9, 1933, engineers working for the Rockefeller family ordered Diego Rivera to stop work on Man at the Crossroads, a mural for the Radio City of America building at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. The family took offense at the inclusion of a portrait of Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in the mural. After covering up the unfinished mural, the Rockefellers had it destroyed in February 1934, while Rivera repainted the mural, refashioned as El hombre, controlador del universo (Man, Controller of the Universe) at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.Through a close reading of the left-wing press of the time, this article examines the “battle at Rockefeller Center,” through Rivera’s relationship to three competing self-styled Communist groups and their role in the campaign to defend Rivera.
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In September-October 1925, there occurred in Panama a…
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Resumen: Este artículo examina la interacción de los comunistas judíos y negros en las décadas de 1920 y 1930, las primeras décadas del movimiento comunista en Estados Unidos. Durante este período, los militantes de raíces judías... more
Resumen: Este artículo examina la interacción de los comunistas judíos y negros en las décadas de 1920 y 1930, las primeras décadas del movimiento comunista en Estados Unidos. Durante este período, los militantes de raíces judías constituyeron un gran número de militantes del Partido Comunista, y uno de los enfoques comunistas más importantes fue la lucha por la liberación negra. Muchos judíos comunistas vieron la lucha contra la opresión negra como un reflejo de su propia lucha contra la opresión antijudía, a pesar de que ambas formas de opresión tenían papeles diferentes en el capitalismo estadounidense. Esto se expresó por el hecho de que cuando la Comintern luchó por "americanizar" el comunismo en los Estados Unidos, esto significó disminuir la influencia de las federaciones de lenguas extranjeras (incluido el grupo ídish) y enfatizar la lucha por la liberación negra. Los judíos comunistas fueron cruciales en este proceso de "americanización", en parte debido a su identificación con la lucha contra la opresión negra.
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This article examines how groups to the left of the Socialist Party in the United States reacted to that party's political disintegration in the mid-1930s in the face of the Great Depression. It looks at the role of the Communist Party,... more
This article examines how groups to the left of the Socialist Party in the United States reacted to that party's political disintegration in the mid-1930s in the face of the Great Depression. It looks at the role of the Communist Party, the followers of Leon Trotsky, and the followers of Jay Lovestone.
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"The current article examines how Communists sought to use the film to build solidarity with the strikers so they would win. Communists used the film to create a narrative of the strike. More practically, they used the film to raise money... more
"The current article examines how Communists sought to use the film to build solidarity with the strikers so they would win. Communists used the film to create a narrative of the strike. More practically, they used the film to raise money and support for the Passaic strikers among the working-class and labor movement. In these ways, the Communists tapped into radical traditions—most notably the attempts by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) to use spectacle to build support—at the same time they pioneered new solidarity methods. In doing so, the Communists strived to show themselves as the vanguard of the proletariat, uniquely willing to lead the working-class struggle against the capitalists during the roaring 1920s. The film developed from how [Albert] Weisbord and the Communists (no doubt with the aid of [Mary Heaton] Vorse and former IWW leader Elizabeth Gurley Flynn) transformed the strike into a dramatic performance of the class struggle on a life-scale. This article does not emphasize a textual analysis of the film—the author largely agrees with Brownlow’s and Ross’s analyses—but the film’s role in the strike."
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In September-October 1925, there occurred in Panama a tenants' strike that helped define the development of the left and workers' movement in that nation. This article presents an overview of the strike—important because no synthetic... more
In September-October 1925, there occurred in Panama a tenants' strike that helped define the development of the left and workers' movement in that nation. This article presents an overview of the strike—important because no synthetic English-language account exists—and then analyzes the role of black West Indians in the event. West Indians were prominent among the ranks of workers in Panama, and among the slums of Panama City and Colón. Nonetheless, they were not central to the rent strike. This absence reflects the historic relationship between West Indian and Hispanic workers in the isthmus, the effect of the recent defeat of strikes led by West Indians in the Panama Canal Zone, and the lack of attention paid to attracting West Indian support by the Hispanic leadership of the tenants' strike. This division between the West Indian population and the broader labor movement in Panama had lasting effects in the history of the Panamanian left, reinforcing divisions between the struggle for Panamanian self-determination and the struggle against racist oppression of West Indians and their descendants in Panama.
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In the fall of 1925, S.J. Saklatvala, an Indian-born Communist Member of the British Parliament, attempted to travel to the United States for the annual meeting of the Interparliamentary Union. At the last minute, the US government... more
In the fall of 1925, S.J. Saklatvala, an Indian-born Communist Member of the British Parliament, attempted to travel to the United States for the annual meeting of the Interparliamentary Union. At the last minute, the US government revoked his visa because of his Communist politics. This article examines this affair, analyses American government's decision and the British government's reaction, and places this in the context of the anti-Communist sentiment in Britain and the United States during the 1920s. Finally, the article examines the unsuccessful campaign against the ban, emphasising how the campaign allowed Communists to build support among different sectors of the population.
Research Interests: British History, British Imperial & Commonwelath History - 19th & 20th century, Communism, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), British Imperialism, and 5 moreIndia, Imperialism, Communist Party of Great Britain, South Asian Diaspora, Diaspora Studies, Afro-Pessimism, African American Studies, Antiblackness In Communities of Color (Primarily South Asian), Intersectionality, Critiques of Post-Colonialism, the Subaltern, and Neo-liberalism, Psychoanalysis, and Communism and national question
This article examines the role of Albert Weisbord and the Communist Party more broadly in the Passaic textile strike, arguing that while Weisbord was the main Communist organizer, the strike built upon earlier Communist work in Northern... more
This article examines the role of Albert Weisbord and the Communist Party more broadly in the Passaic textile strike, arguing that while Weisbord was the main Communist organizer, the strike built upon earlier Communist work in Northern New Jersey. It examines debates within the Communist Party, including over the question of "dual unionism."
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While the role of Caribbean immigrants in the “New Negro” movement in the United States is now well established, the concurrent militancy of black Caribbean workers in Panama is much less understood. The present article examines the rise... more
While the role of Caribbean immigrants in the “New Negro” movement in the United States is now well established, the concurrent militancy of black Caribbean workers in Panama is much less understood. The present article examines the rise and fall of Afro-Antillano militancy in both the U.S.- controlled Canal Zone and the Republic of Panama from 1914-1921. The presence of black people in the Panamanian isthmus went back centuries, West Indian migrants were especially discriminated against because they were English-speaking and Protestant. The Canal Zone authorities instituted Jim Crow style segregation (under the “Gold” and “Silver” system) to divide the work force, leaving black Caribbean workers paid less, discriminated against, and oppressed. In the face of this, these workers were not so passive or pro-British as they are often depicted. Instead, there was an outpouring of labor militancy in this period, including two massive strikes. However, the defeat of these strikes undercut the development of a united-working-class movement in Panama, and caused many black Caribbean migrants to leave Panama and made many of those remaining wary of labor radicalism. The Universal Negro Improvement Association of Marcus Garvey-- the most prominent black Caribbean organization in Panama at the time--had originally sympathized with the labor militancy, but in the wake of working-class defeats, became increasingly anti-labor.
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This essay examines the relationship between politics and the early writings of hard-boiled detective author Dashiell Hammett. Although Hammett in the mid-1930s joined the American Communist Party, most of his writing (published in the... more
This essay examines the relationship between politics and the early writings of hard-boiled detective author Dashiell Hammett. Although Hammett in the mid-1930s joined the American Communist Party, most of his writing (published in the 1920s) is not typically left-wing. In fact, as with other modernist writers of the 1920s, there are portions of his writings that lend themselves to distinctly conservative, even reactionary, readings. The essay examines Hammett’s experience as a Pinkerton detective and its influence on his writing; his relationship to modernism; and his later Communism. Although Hammett is not a central figure in American literature in the broad sense, examining his writings in the 1920s allows not only to better understand the political origins of hard-boiled detective writing, but also to understand the greater social changes the U.S. was undergoing at the time.
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Although Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest is often read as a Marxist novel, this essay argues that the novel's politics are much more ambiguous, reflecting Hammett's position at the time as between his earlier employment as a Pinkerton... more
Although Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest is often read as a Marxist novel, this essay argues that the novel's politics are much more ambiguous, reflecting Hammett's position at the time as between his earlier employment as a Pinkerton detective and his later sympathy with the Communist Party.
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Dashiell Hammett's short story "The Golden Horseshoe" (1924) presents a vision of society as fundamentally corrupt. Because it takes place in Tijuana, Baja California, many critics have read it as a description of Mexican or Tijuanan... more
Dashiell Hammett's short story "The Golden Horseshoe" (1924) presents a vision of society as fundamentally corrupt. Because it takes place in Tijuana, Baja California, many critics have read it as a description of Mexican or Tijuanan corruption. The author analyzes this corruption in Hammett's story and argues that the story depicts a North American corruption rather than a Mexican corruption
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Jacob A. Zumoff reviewing Workers Against the City: The Fight for Free Speech in Hague v. CIO, by Donald W. Rogers.
Book Review
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This book tells the story of 15,000 wool workers who went on strike for more than a year, defying police violence and hunger. The strikers were mainly immigrants and half were women. The Passaic textile strike, the first time that the... more
This book tells the story of 15,000 wool workers who went on strike for more than a year, defying police violence and hunger. The strikers were mainly immigrants and half were women. The Passaic textile strike, the first time that the Communist Party led a mass workers’ struggle in the United States, captured the nation’s imagination and came to symbolize the struggle of workers throughout the country when the labor movement as a whole was in decline during the conservative, pro-business 1920s. Although the strike was defeated, many of the methods and tactics of the Passaic strike presaged the struggles for industrial unions a decade later in the Great Depression.
This book will be published in the summer of 2021.
This book will be published in the summer of 2021.
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Since the Cold War, most historians have set up an opposition between the "American" and "international" aspects of early American Communism. This book examines the development of the Communist Party in its first decade, from 1919 to... more
Since the Cold War, most historians have set up an opposition between the "American" and "international" aspects of early American Communism. This book examines the development of the Communist Party in its first decade, from 1919 to 1929. Using the archives of the Communist International, it argues that the International played an important role in the early part of this decade in forcing the party to "Americanise". Special attention is given to the attempts by the Comintern to orient American Communists on the role of black oppression, and to see the struggle for black liberation and the fight for socialism as inextricably linked. The later sections of the book provide the most detailed account now available of how the Comintern, reflecting the Stalinisation of the Soviet Union, intervened in the American party to ensure the Stalinisation of American Communism.
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This was a virtual class that I taught at NJCU in Fall 2020.
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Review of my book by Paul Buhle, Portside, 6 September 2015: http://bit.ly/1J8ZCC5
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This is an interview from the Jacobin website, published on 18 August 2015. : http://bit.ly/1KwAgzq
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Published on Marx & Philosophy Review of Books website, 6 June 2015
http://bit.ly/1PmWg3w
http://bit.ly/1PmWg3w
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Published on New Politics website 27 February 2015
http://bit.ly/1NvJh0K
http://bit.ly/1NvJh0K
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People's World, 26 January 2015
http://bit.ly/1NCXTvm
http://bit.ly/1NCXTvm
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Communism and the 1926 Passaic Textile Strike Broadcast on C-SPAN 3, 14 May 2017 https://www.c-span.org/video/?426919-1/communism-1926-passaic-textile-strike Jacob Zumoff talked about the Passaic, New Jersey, Textile Strike in 1926,... more
Communism and the 1926 Passaic Textile Strike
Broadcast on C-SPAN 3, 14 May 2017
https://www.c-span.org/video/?426919-1/communism-1926-passaic-textile-strike
Jacob Zumoff talked about the Passaic, New Jersey, Textile Strike in 1926, which was the first Communist-led strike in the United States. Mr. Zumoff spoke about how the strike affected people’s perceptions of Communism and the explored the legacies of the strike today.
Broadcast on C-SPAN 3, 14 May 2017
https://www.c-span.org/video/?426919-1/communism-1926-passaic-textile-strike
Jacob Zumoff talked about the Passaic, New Jersey, Textile Strike in 1926, which was the first Communist-led strike in the United States. Mr. Zumoff spoke about how the strike affected people’s perceptions of Communism and the explored the legacies of the strike today.
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The first decade of the American Communist Party is difficult to sentimentalize. Unlike the campaign to defend the Scottsboro Boys-or even the patriotic hokum of the Popular Front days ("Communism is Twentieth Century Americanism!") when... more
The first decade of the American Communist Party is difficult to sentimentalize. Unlike the campaign to defend the Scottsboro Boys-or even the patriotic hokum of the Popular Front days ("Communism is Twentieth Century Americanism!") when the members and sympathizers numbered around a million-the party's early years saw more state repression and internal conflict than decisive action or steady growth. No sepia-toned image of it is burned into the American left's historical memory. But the CP was also the first socialist group in the United States to make the fight against racial oppression central to its program. Most members were working-class immigrants; the party had deep roots in ethnic communities while also taking pride in its internationalism and anti-imperialism.