In the Mirror – Communists, Steel, and Ideology in Western Pennsylvania, 1941-1952: Part 1

Abstract

Phillip Bonosky, writer, steelworker, and union leader was an articulate voice for the Communist Party USA for seven decades. He maintained a detailed journal, likely unique in the American Communist movement. The following article employs the journal as its crucial source. Entries shed light on steel labor and the role of Communists in the labor movement in Western Pennsylvania during the early and mid-40s, which is this article’s framework. Of Lithuanian background, Bonosky was a blast furnace worker and editor of the newspaper of the local Steel Workers Organizing Committee until he was blacklisted from the industry in 1942. He thereafter became a Party organizer in McKeesport, Duquesne, Homestead, Monessen, and Braddock, among others, whose social life and atmosphere receive his painstaking attention. Crucial is his response to “Browderism,” named for Party leader Earl Browder. Bonosky’s promotion of Browder’s premises, featuring the basic amelioration of class conflict under capitalism thus obviating the need for a Communist Party – indicates that many grassroots workers viewed, and in fact, backed the controversial theory.