EatTheRich
President
Many people are surprised to learn that there was once a strong Communist Party presence in Sheridan County, Montana. This wheat-farming county, in the northeastern corner of the state, which borders North Dakota and Saskatchewan, has after all long been solidly Republican (Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat to win the county, in 1976). Indeed, the embarrassed parents of many people born there in the 1940s and 1950s never told their children that they (the parents) had grown up singing songs in praise of Joseph Stalin in their public schools.
The backbone of Communist Party support in Sheridan County was among the Finnish-American immigrant farmers who were the majority of the county, many of them supporters of the Social Democratic Party of Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic and some of them veterans of the Finnish Red Guards who had fled Finland after the Reds lost the Finnish Civil War. The Communist Party also had considerable support among the smaller culturally similar Swedish-American community. Opposition to the Communist Party was centered among the German-American farmers, who leaned Republican although some were pro-Communist; adherents of the Lutheran Church, which supported the Republicans; in the Democratic stronghold of Scobie, the second-largest town; and in the county seat, Plentywood, which had considerable Communist Party support but also many Democratic, Republican, and Socialist Party supporters.
Farm country had long been in revolt against the power of industrial capital and specifically the railroad interest, and farmers had long been associated with The Grange, a cooperative movement dominated by large agricultural interests and tied at the national level to the Democratic Party. More radical farmers were drawn into the Populist Party movement that sought to ally farmers with the rising power of organized labor. When this party collapsed amid a retreat into Jim Crow race-baiting and fell into the orbit of the Democratic Party, some Western farmers associated with the Society of Equity, which advocated that farmers form an independent political force that endorsed candidates it considered farmer-friendly, including candidates associated with the Democratic, Republican, and Socialist Parties.
When Sheridan County was established in 1913, many of its people were Socialist Party supporters. Many had supported socialist movements in their home countries (especially Finland or Sweden) before immigrating, and many others were drawn to the Socialist Party through the Society of Equity. The Nonpartisan League, founded in 1915 in North Dakota, grew out of the Society of Equity and the left wing of the Socialist Party, and demanded that the state nationalize banks and farm-related industry.
As the Nonpartisan League dominated the North Dakota state elections in 1916, it gained many adherents in nearby Sheridan County, which alongside nearby Eastern Montana counties elected a Nonpartisan League candidate to the State Legislature ; and Nonpartisan League organizers in St. Paul, Minnesota sent Charlie Taylor to Plentywood to edit a new party newspaper, the Producers' News. The Bolshevik Revolution and the wave of radical Finnish-American immigration further radicalized Sheridan County, and Taylor covered the Revolution sympathetically and took the side of the Communist Party in the wake of its split with the Socialist Party.
The Nonpartisan League merged with the Union Labor Party, a radical syndicalist party dominated by the Milwaukee brewers' union, to form the Farmer-Labor Party in 1920, and Taylor endorsed the Farmer-Labor ticket in 1920; the Republican candidate (Warren G. Harding), who won in a national landslide, won the county in a landslide in that election, but the Farmer-Labor Party came in a close third after the Democratic Party, and the Communist Party and Socialist Party candidates also did well.
Meanwhile, under the pressure of the counterrevolution in Russia, the Communist Party moved toward the right and an opportunistic alliance with the Farmer-Labor Party, just as Sheridan County continued to move to the left. Through the influence of the Farmer-Labor Party, Taylor came to join the Communist Party in 1921. By this point, the Producers News, the pro-Soviet line of which attracted radical farmers from across the nation, had grown to be the largest Communist Party paper in the United States by circulation, with more readers than the Daily Worker.
The backbone of Communist Party support in Sheridan County was among the Finnish-American immigrant farmers who were the majority of the county, many of them supporters of the Social Democratic Party of Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic and some of them veterans of the Finnish Red Guards who had fled Finland after the Reds lost the Finnish Civil War. The Communist Party also had considerable support among the smaller culturally similar Swedish-American community. Opposition to the Communist Party was centered among the German-American farmers, who leaned Republican although some were pro-Communist; adherents of the Lutheran Church, which supported the Republicans; in the Democratic stronghold of Scobie, the second-largest town; and in the county seat, Plentywood, which had considerable Communist Party support but also many Democratic, Republican, and Socialist Party supporters.
Farm country had long been in revolt against the power of industrial capital and specifically the railroad interest, and farmers had long been associated with The Grange, a cooperative movement dominated by large agricultural interests and tied at the national level to the Democratic Party. More radical farmers were drawn into the Populist Party movement that sought to ally farmers with the rising power of organized labor. When this party collapsed amid a retreat into Jim Crow race-baiting and fell into the orbit of the Democratic Party, some Western farmers associated with the Society of Equity, which advocated that farmers form an independent political force that endorsed candidates it considered farmer-friendly, including candidates associated with the Democratic, Republican, and Socialist Parties.
When Sheridan County was established in 1913, many of its people were Socialist Party supporters. Many had supported socialist movements in their home countries (especially Finland or Sweden) before immigrating, and many others were drawn to the Socialist Party through the Society of Equity. The Nonpartisan League, founded in 1915 in North Dakota, grew out of the Society of Equity and the left wing of the Socialist Party, and demanded that the state nationalize banks and farm-related industry.
As the Nonpartisan League dominated the North Dakota state elections in 1916, it gained many adherents in nearby Sheridan County, which alongside nearby Eastern Montana counties elected a Nonpartisan League candidate to the State Legislature ; and Nonpartisan League organizers in St. Paul, Minnesota sent Charlie Taylor to Plentywood to edit a new party newspaper, the Producers' News. The Bolshevik Revolution and the wave of radical Finnish-American immigration further radicalized Sheridan County, and Taylor covered the Revolution sympathetically and took the side of the Communist Party in the wake of its split with the Socialist Party.
The Nonpartisan League merged with the Union Labor Party, a radical syndicalist party dominated by the Milwaukee brewers' union, to form the Farmer-Labor Party in 1920, and Taylor endorsed the Farmer-Labor ticket in 1920; the Republican candidate (Warren G. Harding), who won in a national landslide, won the county in a landslide in that election, but the Farmer-Labor Party came in a close third after the Democratic Party, and the Communist Party and Socialist Party candidates also did well.
Meanwhile, under the pressure of the counterrevolution in Russia, the Communist Party moved toward the right and an opportunistic alliance with the Farmer-Labor Party, just as Sheridan County continued to move to the left. Through the influence of the Farmer-Labor Party, Taylor came to join the Communist Party in 1921. By this point, the Producers News, the pro-Soviet line of which attracted radical farmers from across the nation, had grown to be the largest Communist Party paper in the United States by circulation, with more readers than the Daily Worker.
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