Black and Foreign-Born, Unite and Fight: Finnish-American Communists and the “Race Question” in Interwar Harlem

Transgressions of racial boundaries have long fascinated scholars of U.S. history. The Communist Party’s 1930s campaign for racial solidarity under the slogan “Black and White, Unite and Fight” is one such much-studied effort to transgress and contest racial divisions. Much of the existing scholarship has drawn on English-language sources produced by the Party’s top cadre. Most of the Party’s rank and file was, however, non-English speaking: Jewish, Russian, Finnish, Lithuanian, and other European migrants. Despite their preponderance in the Communist Party, the migrants’ involvement in the Party’s anti-chauvinist campaigning has not been thoroughly studied. This paper contributes to the filling of this gap in scholarship.

The paper examines how Finnish Communists in Harlem attempted to build solidarity with the neighborhood’s black residents in the 1930s. As one of the largest foreign nationality groups within the U.S. Party, the Finns had a central role in the CP’s campaign for racial equality. In discussing race, the Communist Finns were influenced by the Party rhetoric but brought also their own understandings of difference and power to bear on their interpretations. In particular, they sought to emphasize the shared interests of non-naturalized foreign-born workers and the oppressed “black nationality” in the United States. Their discussion on black rights was also informed by progressive Soviet nationality policies in the realm of the former Russian Empire. After Finland had gained its independence from Russia in 1917, tens of thousands of Finnish radicals had exiled to the Soviet Union. Harlem’s radical Finns were in intimate contact with these Soviet Finns—a contact that had an influence on their views on race and nationality as well. By bringing into focus this connectedness of Harlem’s migrant Communists to the other side of the Atlantic, the paper contributes to bourgeoning efforts to globalize U.S. racial history.