Abstract
Early activity of Polish communists in the United States. The case of Daniel Elbaum In the article the author discusses the American period in the activity of Daniel Elbaum, worker organiser and communist, participant in the 1905 revolution, activist of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania. After escaping from exile, in 1913 Elbaum went to the United States, where he became an activist in Polish socialist and then communist circles, campaigner for the separation of the Polish Section from the Socialist Party of America and its subsequent accession as a so-called language federation to the Communist Party USA, established in 1919. Elbaum was one of the founders of the Polish radical left in the USA. His activities in the context of the events taking place in America (explosion of political radicalism and repression against left-wing activists) first consisted in winning support for Polish communist circles, taking control of the Polish faction of the Socialist Party, then editing its periodical, Głos Robotniczy (Workers’ Voice), and participating, as a delegate from Michigan, in the founding convention of the Communist Party USA in Chicago in September 1919. Arrested in 1920 and threatened with deportation, Elbaum escaped from prison in March 1920, managing to get to Europe, where he continued his work as a communist activist. His career in the USA also illustrates the divisions among American socialists, growing role of immigrants among them and their gradual radicalisation, which eventually led to a split and the founding of the Communist Party USA.
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