William Weinstone
William Wolf Weinstone (1897–1985) was an American Communist politician and labor leader. Weinstone served as Executive Secretary of the unified Communist Party of America, the forerunner of today's Communist Party USA, from October 15, 1921, to February 22, 1922, and was an important figure in the party's activities among the auto workers of Detroit during the 1930s. Background William Weinstone was born December 15, 1897, in Vilnius, then part of the Tsarist Russian Empire. Will was the son of Jewish parents who emigrated from Russia to escape that nation's pervasive antisemitism during the late Tsarist period. His original surname was "Weinstein," a name which he Americanized when he was older. Career Early years In June 1919, Weinstone was elected as an alternate delegate to the Left Wing National Conference held in New York City, at which he was seated to replace a regular delegate on the last day of the gathering. Weinstone was elected as a delegate to the founding convention of the Communist Party of America, called to order in Chicago on September 1, 1919. During the first years of the 1920s, the Communist Party of America was forced underground by the mass operation of the U.S. Department of Justice remembered as the Palmer Raids. During this interval, Weinstone served as Executive Secretary of the secret party organization from October 15, 1921, to February 22, 1922, under the pseudonym "G. Lewis." In the summer of 1929, following the removal of Jay Lovestone and Benjamin Gitlow from the leadership of the Communist Party, Weinstone was added to the ranks of a new collective leadership called the Secretariat. Although he had aspirations of permanent leadership, Weinstone was ultimately unable to retain the top leadership, which soon fell to Earl Browder, a longtime factional rival. In July 1929, Weinstone ran for Mayor of New York City. Following the campaign, Weinstone was selected by the Communist Party as its representative to the Executive Committee of the Communist International in Moscow, a post which he occupied until 1931. On January 15, 1931, William Albertson was to serve as secretary of a "Provisional Anti-War Youth Committee" of New York State to hold a rally for a Liebknecht Memorial and Anti-War Demonstration at the Star Casono at Park Avenue and 117 Street in Manhattan; CPUSA executive Weinstone and YCL leader Gil Green were to attend. Weinstone ran for U.S. Senator from New York in 1932. As an executive officer of the Communist Party in Michigan during a wave of Great Depression union activity during the mid-1930s, Weinstone played a significant role in the founding of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) in May 1935, pressing the unionized workers to make use of the sit-down strike, a tactic first employed by the Industrial Workers of the World union. The union's wave of successful sit-down strikes culminated in the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936–1937, in which the striking UAW workers occupied several General Motors plants for over forty daysrepelling the efforts of the police and National Guard to