Samuel Adams Darcy (born Samuel Dardeck , as known as "Sam Darcy," 1905 – November 8, 2005) was an American political activist who was a prominent Communist leader in both New York and California. While active in the organization of New York City's unemployment march in 1930, he was perhaps most famous for his role in the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike and support for Harry Bridges.
Background
"Samuel Adams Darcy" was born Samuel Dardeck in 1905 in the Russian Empire, the son of Fagella Weissbly and Isidor Dardeck. In 1908 he and his family immigrated to New York. He spent his early years growing up in New York City, attending DeWitt Clinton High School in Midtown, and eventually New York University. At an early age Darcy witnessed his father, an ardent union member, severely beaten by police at a garment workers picket line. According to Darcy that was a defining moment in the development of his own political beliefs. During a 1998 radio interview, he recalled: My father was a worker in American factories until his 79th year. He was a member of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, and I was about ten years old when he started taking me to union meetings. He was in Local 35. It ignited an interest in American workers' welfare that has stayed for me to this day, in fact... We tried to organize child laborers. When I was twelve and a half years old, I worked for the O'Sullivan Rubber Heel Company in Lower Manhattan about 1917 ... From my previous couple of years in my father's union, I became interested in organizing young child laborers, who were employed illegally, against laws which prohibited children [from] working in factories below the age of sixteen. We organized something called the Young Workers League. In the YWL, we looked around for help, working out a program for improvement ... I read the findings of Darwin ... and the Communist Manifesto.
Career
Communist years
In 1917, while still in high school, Darcy joined the Young People's Socialist League. In December 1921, following the Russian Revolution, Darcy joined the Communist Party USA (CPUSA—then the Workers Party of America), using his affinity for public speaking and organizing to rise in the organization's ranks.
In 1927, the Party sent a 22-year-old Darcy to Moscow. He taught American History at the Lenin School. During 1927–1928, he joined the Communist International, where he served on the executive committee of the Young Communist International (YCI), served as chair of International Children's Committee of the YCI, and traveled to China and Philippines to organize working-class movements.
Darcy returned to the United States in 1929 and quickly rose to prominence within the CPUSA. When Earl Browder emerged from the Party's fighting among American factions (followers of Jay Lovestone, James P. Cannon, and William Z. Foster) in the late 1920s, Browder moved Darcy over as editor of the Daily Worker – according to Darcy, Browder hoped responsibilities at the Daily Worker would consume him and take him out of Party politics. Darcy also headed the New York Workers School (following the departure of Jay Lovestone from the Party and of Bertram Wolfe and other co-founders from the school). In 1930, he also became the head of the Party's International Labor Defense group, which (Darcy later claimed) helped make him de facto chairman of the CPUSA.
1930: March 6 Protest
Darcy was one of the main organizers of the New York unemployment march, which took place on March 6, 1930 as part of International Unemployment Day.
Even with the massive turnout, however, internal criticism arose that the CPUSA did not reap the benefits by failing to sufficiently increase their membership. Party General Secretary Earl Browder made Darcy a scapegoat for these perceived failures by "exiling" him to San Francisco, far from the CPUSA national headquarters to a multi-state district where Party affairs were in shambles. While many in the Party anticipated Darcy would fade into oblivion, the shifting political climate put more organizing emphasis on the West Coast, essentially giving Darcy the platform he needed to do some of his most famous and influential work.
1934: San Francisco Waterfront Strike
From 1931 to 1935, Darcy headed the CPUSA's California district (including Nevada and Arizona), then the Party's second largest district. He helped organize agricultural workers and helped fight California's criminal syndicalism law.