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Haase, Hugo (1863–1919) .
German Social Democrat. Of Jewish origin from East Prussia, ‘the poor people’s lawyer’ in Koenigsberg. Member of International Socialist Bureau and Reichstag Deputy 1897-1918, SPD (Sozialistische Partei Deutschlands, Social-Democratic Party). In 1911, he became SPD chairman along with August Bebel, and in 1912, together with Philipp Scheidemann, he became chairman of the SPD Parliamentary fraction. Opposed vote for war credits within the Party in 1914, but succumbed to Majority decision in interests of discipline. Spokesman for centrist minority from 1916. Leader of Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) from its foundation in 1916. People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs and Colonies in Ebert’s "Socialist" Coalition in November 1918. Resigned on December 29, 1918. Leader of USPD Right, assassinated on the steps of the Reichstag by a Monarchist officer.
See Leon Trotsky Haase, Ebert and David and Karl Liebknecht and Hugo Haase
Habermas, Jürgen (1929 - )
German philosopher; one of the most infuential members of the Frankfurt School (See Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin); his major work concerned the process of formation of public opinion and ideas as to how rational discussion was possible in a modern, developed society; Habermas could be seen as a modern-day advocate of the Enlightenment.
In his 1962 Strukturwandel der Offentlichkeit, he showed that the bourgeois conception of democracy was nothing more than a translation of the relations of buying and selling into politics. As in the market, a monopoly was inevitably cornered by the ruling interests.
In his 1968 Knowledge and Human Interest Habermas distinguished between the technical interests which motivated empirical-analytic enquiry, the practical (in the Kantian sense) interests which motivated huamnistic sciences, which he saw as concenred with communicative action, and the emancipatory interests which motivated philosophical enquiry, whose objective is to lay bare how consensus is obstructed by various forces, be they psychological or social.
Habermas quite consciously tried to develop a form of Marxism which was eclectic and able to draw on insights coming from other directions. As an advocate of “networking” and dialogue, his ideas about democracy and and rational decision-making have been influential in many social movements.
Haldane, John Burton Sanderson [J B S] (1892-1964)
British biologist, philosopher of science and Marxist.
Haldane was born into an aristocratic intellectual Scottish family, educated at Eton College and at New College, Oxford. His father was a scientist, a philosopher and a liberal, but his mother was an ardent Tory. During the First World War, he served with the Black Watch in France and Iraq, and whilst in the army, became a socialist.
Between 1919 and 1922 he was a fellow of New College, then moved to Cambridge University until 1932. He then moved to University College, London where he spent most of the remainder of his academic career. In 1924, Haldane met Charlotte Burghes (née Franken) and the two later married.
In his earliest excursions into the realm of the philosophy of science, Haldane had held while materialism had been the most appropriate philosophy for the science of the Newtonian era, Kantianism was the appropriate philosophy of science of the Einsteinian era, for which the laws of natural science were merely forms of human perception.
But in 1928, Haldane, went to the Soviet Union, where he encountered Marxist philosophy of science for the first time, although it would be several years yet before he would come to embrace it as his own.
His father, John Scott Haldane, had also indulged in philosophical speculation on the natural sciences, somewhat along Hegelian lines, he sought to undermine materialism as a philosophy of science. JBS took the further step from Hegel to Marx, but saw his work as a continuation of his father’s.
JBS Haldane’s famous book, The Causes of Evolution (1932), was a major work of what came to be known as the “modern evolutionary synthesis,” re-establishing natural selection as the premier mechanism of evolution by explaining it in terms of the mathematical consequences of Mendelian genetics.
As one of many “fellow-travellers” of the Communist Party among the British intelligentsia in the 1930s, he wrote many articles for The Daily Worker, but only joined the Communist party in 1937. He left in 1950, shortly after having considered standing as a Communist Party candidate for Parliament. The rise of Lysenko’s pseudo-science, with the overt support of Stalin was the principal factor which turned Haldane away from the Communist Party.
In his essay, On Being the Right Size, Haldane put forward the thesis that the simple size of an animal determined much of its nature: “Insects, being so small, do not have oxygen-carrying bloodstreams. What little oxygen their cells require can be absorbed by simple diffusion of air through their bodies. But being larger means an animal must take on complicated oxygen pumping and distributing systems to reach all the cells.” This idea has been referred to as “Haldane’s principle.”
Haldane was friends with the author Aldous Huxley, and was the basis for the biologist Shearwater in Huxley’s novel Antic Hay. Ideas from Haldane’s Daedalus, or, Science and the Future, written before Haldane had visited the Soviet Union, such as ectogenesis (the development of foetuses in artificial wombs), also influenced Huxley’s Brave New World.
In one of the last speeches of his life, Biological Possibilities for the Human Species of the Next Ten Thousand Years in 1963, he coined the word “clone,” from the Greek word for twig.
Hall, Stuart (1932-2014)
Stuart Hall was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1932. He moved to England with his mother in 1951. They lived in Bristol before Hall entered Merton College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He wrote his PhD on American literature, but it was his informal education at Oxford that introduced Hall to nationalist West Indian thought, left-wing British History, international socialist politics, and continental philosophy.
A socialist, in the 1950s he joined forces with Charles Taylor, Raphael Samuel, and Gabriel Pearson to launch the journal Universities and New Left Review, later merging with E. P. Thompson’s The New Reasoner to become the New Left Review.
In 1964, he co-wrote The Popular Arts, resulting in him being invited to join the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University, where he became Director in 1974. Hall was one of those who defined “Cultural Studies” as an academic discipline.
In these years, he wrote several books including Situating Marx: Evaluations and Departures (1972), Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse (1973), Reading of Marx's 1857 Introduction to the Grundrisse (1973) and Policing the Crisis (1978).
In 1979 Hall was appointed as Professor of Sociology at the Open University and retired from the Open University in 1997 to sit on the Runnymede Trust's Commission on the Future of Multi-ethnic Britain.
Hall was faithful to a Marxist, democratic tradition, and committed to investigating a rapidly changing British society. He criticized the New Right during the 1980s, and in the 1990s criticized New Labour for what he perceived to be their lack of principle. He has been active in a number of social movements, including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
His works include Policing the Crisis (1978), New Ethnicities (1988), The Hard Road to Renewal (1988), Resistance Through Rituals (1989), Modernity and Its Future (1992), What is Black in Popular Culture? (1992), Cultural Identity and Diaspora (1994), Questions of Cultural Identity (1996), Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (1996), Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (1997) and Visual Cultural (1999).
Hallas, Duncan (1925-2002)
Born into a working class family in Manchester, Duncan Hallas joined the Trotskyist Workers International League while still a young worker during World War II. Conscripted into the army in 1943 he was involved in the great mutiny in Egypt after the end of the War.
Back in Britain he was one of the small number of comrades who rallied around Tony Cliff’s critique of “orthodox” Trotskyism and was a founder member of the Socialist Review Group, the forerunner of today’s British Socialist Workers Party and the International Socialist Tendency.
During the long boom of the 1950s and early 1960s he lost contact with the group although he remained politically active in the teachers’ union and elsewhere. During the great upheaval of 1968 he rejoined the International Socialists, as the organisation was then called. From that time he was a leading member of the organisation, a great populariser of Marxism and an inspired speaker, until ill health forced him out of active politics in 1995.
Hamid Ashraf (1946-1976)
Hamid Ashraf was born in 1946 to a middle-class family in Tehran, Iran. Soon, at the age of 17, when still a high school student, he joined Jazani-Zarifi group. Co-founded by Bijan Jazani, well-known theorist and organizer of the armed struggle in Iran, and Hassan Zia Zarifi. The group intended to form a military organization to wage guerrilla warfare in the countryside. However, the group was discovered by the secret police, SAVAK, that had infiltrated a spy into the group. However, the identity of Hamid Ashraf and some other members was not revealed to the police so that he, and other survivors, reorganized the group that finally planned attacking a gendarmerie police station in Siahkal, Gilan Province, on February 8, 1971. This event is known as the starting point of the “new revolutionary communist movement.” Hamid Ashraf was a key figure in this story and was in charge of communication between the sections of the group: urban network and the countryside band.
After that, the Siahkal insurrection was severely suppressed by the regime of Shah; remnants of the group, including Hamid Ashraf, continued the struggle and after merging with another group (Puyan-Ahmadzadeh-Meftahi group) the People’s Fedayeen Guerrilla Organization of Iran was born. During his six-year clandestine life, he frequently escaped sieges and traps set by the secret police. He actually turned into the fabulous commander of the guerrilla movement – a myth embraced by a generation of young political activists. Parviz Sabeti, a high-ranking official of the secret police of Iran in Pahlavi regime, recently published his memoires. He says, “after receiving each blow, People’s Fedayeen Guerrillas reorganized their organization. Hamid Ashraf was both the leader of the organization and the commander of military operations. He was very brave and experienced and personally participated in some assassinations and had escaped conflicts even when surrounded by police on several occasions. In our reports to the Shah we used to designate him as the leader of IPFGO, and each time when a member of this organization was arrested or killed in clashes, the Shah asked ‘what happened to Hamid Ashraf?’.”
Finally, on June 29, 1976, the police discovered the hideout of the central committee of the OIPFG and stormed the house. In the clash, Hamid Ashraf and ten members of the central committee were killed and the life of a legendary Marxist guerrilla reached its final page.
Hampton, Fred (1948-1969)
Fred Hampton was the Chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) as well as deputy chairman of the national BPP. He was responsible for organizing a groundbreaking non-aggression pact between Chicago street gangs, emphasizing the destructive nature of "turf wars" amongst the poor in contrast to their shared struggle with Chicago's rich. He's also known for his involvement in the founding of the Rainbow Coalition, an organization uniting poor people across racial barriers. Within the Coalition were the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican group; the Young Patriots, a white Appalachian migrant group; the Black Panthers; and more.
Due to his prolific success in his organizing and his exemplary oratory skills, Hampton attracted the ire of Chicago Police and became a central target of the FBI's COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program), a covert and illegal project aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations. Through this program the Chicago FBI office recruited William O'Neal, twice arrested for interstate car theft and the impersonation of a federal officer, to infiltrate the BPP as a counterintelligence operative. O'Neal's successful infiltration led to his becoming the Chicago BPP's Director of security and Hampton's personal bodyguard.
On December 4th, officers assigned to Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan raided a home associated with the Fred Hampton and Black Panther Party with a warrant in search of illegal weapons. When the FBI's COINTELPRO became public knowledge, it was revealed that the raid had been organized in collaboration with the FBI to explicitly target Hampton for assassination. O'Neal aided the raid by poisoning Fred Hampton with a sleep agent and providing the FBI and Chicago Police with schematics of the home and information on where to find a sedated Hampton — who was shot and murdered in his sleep.
Four weeks after witnessing Hampton's death at the hands of the police, Deborah Johnson—Hampton's fiancée—gave birth to their son Fred Hampton Jr. A year later, survivors of the raid along with relatives of Hampton filed a civil suit seeking $47.7 million in damages. After a deadlock verdict the case was dismissed but later appealed and in 1982 the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government agreed to a settlement of $1.85 million to a group of nine plaintiffs.
See Fred Hampton Archive.
Handal, Schafik Jorge (1930-2006)
General Secretary of the Communist Party of El Salvador, and guerrilla
commander in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in the
1980s. After the peace accords signed in the early 1990s, he led the
FMLN in its transition to a peace-time party, and was elected to the
Salvadoran Congress.
See Schafik Jorge Handal Archive.
See also: Greenleft Weekly biography and Washington Report.
Hardie, Keir (1856-1915)
Prominent British labour movement leader. Lanarkshire coal miner from age of 10, and organized for his trade union. Influenced by the ideas of Henry George. Established Scottish Parliamentary Labour Party in 1888, elected to Parliament from East London in 1892. Founded ILP in 1893. MP for Merthyr Tydfil from 1900. Visited Australia in 1908 in support of the anti-conscription movement.
Hamid II, Abdul (1842-1918)
Reigned from 1876 to 1909, when he was deposed by the Young Turks.
Harney, George Julian (1817-97)
Radical Chartist leader (1842-48). Editor of the Chartist paper The Northern Star. In this capacity he came into close connection with Marx and Engels. He came out in favour of the use of force ("physical force man") and a revolutionary representation of the people. At the Chartist Convention he opposed the exclusive use of legal methods of struggle. It was Harney who maintained the contact between the Chartists and the Continental workers and revolutionaries. In 1845 Harney founded a London branch of the international society known as the Fraternal Democrats: Marx and Engels both spoke at a meeting organised by this society in Drury Lane, London, on November 29, 1847, the anniversary of the polish revolution of 1830. Harney was a member of the Communist Correspondence Committee set up in London. Harney and Jones met Marx in Paris in March 1848 after Marx’s expulsion from Belgium. The first English translation of the Communist Manifesto, was published in The Red Republican in 1850. Owing to proceedings taken against it under the Stamp Act, this paper changed its name to The Friend of the People in December 1850. Later on, Harney became a member of the First International but was not further prominent politically. He lived in the USA from 1863-88.
Harrington, James (1611-1677)
James Harrington was an English political philosopher, best known for his controversial work, Oceana.
He was born of an old Rutland family, the son of Sir Sapcotes Harrington of Rand, Lincolnshire, and great-nephew of the first Lord Harington of Exton (d. 1615).
In 1629 he entered Trinity College, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner. One of his tutors was the famous William Chillingworth. After several years spent travelling, and a period as a soldier in the Dutch army, he returned to England and lived quietly till 1646, when he was appointed to accompany King Charles I, who was being taken from Newcastle as a prisoner. Though republican in his ideas, Harrington won the king’s regard and esteem, and accompanied him to the Isle of Wight. He aroused the suspicion of the parliamentarians and was dismissed: it is said that he was punished for declining to swear to refuse assistance to the king should he attempt to escape.
After Charles’s death Harrington devoted his time to the composition of his Oceana, a work which pleased no one. By order of Oliver Cromwell, it was seized when passing through the press. Harrington, however managed to secure the favour of the Protector’s favourite daughter, Mrs Claypole; the work was restored to him, and appeared in 1656, dedicated to Cromwell. The views embodied in Oceana, particularly that bearing on vote by ballot and rotation of magistrates and legislators, Harrington and others (who in 1659 formed a club called the “Rota”) endeavoured to push practically, but with no success.
In November 1661, by order of Charles II, Harrington was arrested on a charge of conspiracy, and was thrown into the Tower of London. Despite his repeated request no public trial took place, and when at length his sisters obtained a writ of habeas corpus he was secretly moved to St Nicholas Island off Plymouth. There his health gave way owing to his drinking guaiacum on medical advice, and his mind appeared to be affected. Careful treatment restored him to bodily vigour, but his mind never wholly recovered. Some time after his release he married – the date does is not known. Following his death, he was buried next to Sir Walter Raleigh in St Margaret’s, Westminster.
Harrington’s writings consist of the Oceana, and of papers, pamphlets, aphorisms, even treatises, in defence of the Oceana. His Works were edited with biography by John Toland in 1700; Toland’s edition, with additions by Thomas Birch, appeared in 1747, and again in 1771. Oceana was reprinted by Henry Morley in 1887. See Dwight in Political Science Quarterly (March, 1887). Harrington has often been confused with his cousin Sir James Harrington, a member of the commission which tried Charles I, and afterwards excluded from the acts of pardon.
See Utopian Socialism Subject Archive.
Source: 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Harvani, Ansarul Haq (1916– 1996)
Born Rudauli (Barabanki District, UP), son of Siraj ul Haq, brother of the revolutionary poet, Ansarul Haq Majaz. Educated Aligarh Muslim University and Lucknow University. Participated in founding the All-India Students Federation, 1937. All-India Congress Committee, 1939. Attended Ramgarh session of Congress, 1940. Participated in Quit India struggle. Jailed at Alipur Jail in Calcutta and Lucknow Central Jail, 1942-45. President, All-India Youth League (youth wing of Forward Bloc), 1945, and General Secretary, U.P. Provincial Forward Bloc. Later joined Congress in U.P. Member, Lok Sabha, 1957-67. Chief Reporter, The National Herald (Lucknow), and special representative, Amrit Bazar Patrika (Calcutta). Author: Before Freedom and After: Personal Recollections of One of the Key Witnesses of Indian Events Over the Last Half a Century (New Delhi, 1989) and Gandhi to Gandhi: Private Faces of Public Figures (New Delhi, 1996).
Compiled by Charles Wesley Ervin
Hasselmann, Wilhelm (born 1844)
Lassallean: One of the representatives of the General Association of German Workers in the negotiations for unity--co-reporter on the programme question at the Unity Congress of the Party at Gotha (1875) Member of the Reichstag 1874-76 and 1878-80. After resigning from the editorial board of Vorwärts he founded an organ of his own in Elberfeld---Die Rote Fahne--in which he attacked the Party leadership from the "Left." He gradually went over to open anarchism and, together with Most, was therefore expelled from the Party at the Wyden Congress (1880). He then emigrated to America.
Hausen, Reich (1900–) .
Son of worker, electrician-fitter. Conscripted in 1918, in USPD in 1919, in VKDP (Vereinigte Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands/United Communist Party of Germany) in 1920. Secretary of Lausitz district in 1922, member of Central Committee in 1923. Played important role in preparing insurrection in 1923. Served 20 months imprisonment, then was secretary in Silesia. Accuser of Thaelmann in Wittorf affair, expelled in December 1928. Organiser and leader of KPO, arrested and sentenced in 1934, emigrated to France when released. Interned, went to USA in 1941 and settled there.
Havel, Vaclav (b. 1936)
Playwright; longstanding dissident in Czechoslovakia; the movement in his defence built up to bring down the Stalinist regime in 1989, and Havel was elected President.
Hayes, Max S. (1866-1945)
Hayes was a printer by trade and an active member of the Typographical Union. Hayes was founder and editor of the Cleveland Citizen, 1891. Hayes served as Secretary of Local Cleveland SLP in 1890s and was head of the SLP’s Board of Appeals during the bitter 1899 split of the so-called “Kangaroos,” actively supporting the anti-DeLeon insurgency. Hayes was an arch opponent of Samuel Gompers in the AFL. In 1900, Hayes was nominated for Vice President of the United States by the Rochester SDP, but he withdrew in favor of Job Harriman, who ran with Eugene V. Debs on a SDP unity ticket. Hayes was a vehement opponent of IWW from its founding in 1905. In 1911 Hayes challenged Gompers for AFL presidency, polling 30 percent of the convention vote in a losing effort. Hayes resigned from the SPA on May 7, 1919. In 1920 he was nominated by the new Labor Party for Vice President of the United States, running on a ticket headed by Parley Parker Christensen. Hayes was active in the Conference for Progressive Political Action, 1922-24 and he continued as editor of the Cleveland Citizen until stepping down in 1939. Max S. Hayes died in Cleveland at the age of 79.
Haymarket Martyrs (1887)
On a May 4, 1886, a Chicago rally called to protest the killing of two workers by police, turned into a violent clash after a bomb was thrown. The chaotic scene that left several workers and seven policemen dead, and the legal aftermath, was to become known as the Haymarket Affair. Two of the leaders who spoke at the rally, Albert Parsons, and August Spies, as well as fellow anarchists George Engel and Adolph Fisher, were arrested, tried and executed by the state in 1887. Louis Lingg was condemned to death, but killed himself in prison. Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden and Oscar Neebe were pardoned in 1893.
Further Reading:
The Haymarket defendant’s speeches in court
Subject: May Day.
Haywood, (Big) Bill (1869-1928)
William D. Haywood was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 4th February, 1869. When he was a young boy he lost an eye in an accident. His parents were poor and at the age of nine he began work down a mine in Winnemucca, Nevada. While working as a miner Haywood met Pat Reynolds, a member of the Knights of Labor. Reynolds was to have a lasting influence on Haywood’s political views.
In 1896 Haywood found work in the Blaine mine in Silver City, Idaho, and soon afterwards joined the Western Federation of Miners (WFM). Haywood became active in the union campaigns to increase wages and to bring an end to child labour in the mines. In 1901 Haywood was elected secretary-treasurer of the WFM. Later that year he joined the American Socialist Party.
Haywood also edited the Miners’ Magazine, the journal of the WFM, and he used this position to promote the idea of socialism and argued that America should become a cooperative commonwealth. Other trade union leaders such as Eugene V. Debs and Daniel De Leon were also converted to socialism.
Haywood and his political friends were unhappy with the conservative approach of the American Federation of Labor and on 27th June, 1905, they held a meeting in Chicago. Those who attended the meeting included Eugene V. Debs, Daniel De Leon, Mother Jones, Lucy Parsons and Charles Moyer. At the convention it was decided to form the radical labor organisation, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
In 1905 Haywood was charged with taking part in the murder of Frank R. Steunenberg, the former governor of Idaho. Steunenberg was much hated by the trade union movement after using federal troops to help break strikes during his period of office. Over a thousand trade unionists and their supporters were rounded up and kept in stockades without trial.
James McParland, from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, was called in to investigate the murder. McParland was convinced from the beginning that the leaders of the Western Federation of Miners had arranged the killing of Steunenberg. McParland arrested Harry Orchard, a stranger who had been staying at a local hotel. In his room they found dynamite and some wire.
McParland helped Orchard to write a confession that he had been a contract killer for the WFM, assuring him this would help him get a reduced sentence for the crime. In his statement, Orchard named Hayward and Charles Moyer (president of WFM). He also claimed that a union member from Caldwell, George Pettibone, had also been involved in the plot. These three men were arrested and were charged with the murder of Steunenberg.
Charles Darrow, a man who specialized in defending trade union leaders, was employed to defend Hayward, Moyer and Pettibone. The trial took place in Boise, the state capital. It emerged that Harry Orchard already had a motive for killing Steunenberg, blaming the governor of Idaho, for destroying his chances of making a fortune from a business he had started in the mining industry.
During the three month trial, the prosecutor was unable to present any information against Hayward, Moyer and Pettibone except for the testimony of Orchard and were all acquitted.
In 1908 the Wobblies, as they became known, split into two factions. The group headed by Eugene V. Debs advocated political action through the Socialist Party and the trade union movement, to attain its goals. The other faction, led by Haywood, believed that general strikes, boycotts and even sabotage were justified in order to achieve its objectives. Haywood’s views prevailed and Debs, and others who thought like him, left the organisation.
Haywood remained active in the Socialist Party and was seen as the leader of the radical left. Eventually, in 1912 Victor Berger and Morris Hillquit, the leaders of the right-wing, gained control and expelled Haywood and his followers.
In January 1912 the America Woolen Company reduced the wages of its workers. This caused a walk-out and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), who had been busy recruiting workers into the union, took control of the dispute. The IWW formed a strike committee with two representatives from each of the nationalities in the industry. It was decided to demand a 15 per cent increase in wages, double-time for overtime work and a 55 hour week.
Haywood, Carlo Tresca and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn now arrived in Lawrence and took over the running of the strike. On 12th March, 1912, the America Woolen Company acceded to all the strikers’ demands. By the end of the month, the rest of the other textile companies in Lawrence also agreed to pay the higher wages.
In 1913 Haywood and the Industrial Workers of the World helped organize the silk workers at the Paterson Silk Mills. During the dispute over 3,000 pickets were arrested, most of them received a 10 day sentence in local jails. Two workers were killed by private detectives hired by the mill workers. These men were arrested but were never brought to trial. However, the strike fund was unable to raise enough money and in July, 1913, the workers were starved into submission.
During the events First World War the Industrial Workers of the World opposed United States participation in the conflict. After United States entered the war in 1917, its leaders, including Haywood, were arrested under the Espionage Act. Haywood was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a fine of $30,000, however, released on bail during the appeal, Haywood fled to Russia.
In 1920, the Communist International addressed an Open Letter to the IWW invited them to join the Comintern. Hayward said of this letter: ‘After I had finished reading it I called Ralph Chaplin and said to him: "Here is what we have been dreaming about; here is the IWW all feathered out!"’. Haywood went to the USSR to escape repression, "to end his days in the stuffy rooms of the Lux Hotel, among Marxists, not one of whom tried to understand him" (Serge).
The Russian government placed Haywood in charge of the Kuzbas coal-mining colony. His heath was poor and William D. Haywood died in Moscow on 18th May, 1928. His autobiography, Bill Haywood’s Book (1929) was published after his death.
From http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/
Haywood, Harry (1898-1985)
A member of the Communist Party of the United States, serving on the Central Committee from 1927 to 1938 and on the Politburo from 1931 until 1938. In 1964, as the CPUSA supported Moscow against Peking, Haywood helped to found the pro-Mao New Communist Movement.
He is best known as the main theorist of the African American National Question within the CPUSA. Specifically, Haywood developed the theory that African Americans make up an oppressed nation in the Black Belt region of the South where they have the right to self-determination, up to and including the right to independence. Harry Haywood led the CP's work in the African American national movement for some time, both as the Chair of the CP's Negro Commission and as the General Secretary of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, where he was instrumental in organizing the Sharecroppers Union and the Scottsboro defense. He lived for four and half years in the Soviet Union where he helped to author the 1928 and 1930 Comintern Resolutions on the African American National Question.
During the Spanish Civil War he served with the international brigades. Following the CPUSA's turn toward revisionism in the late 1950s, Harry Haywood turned to the Chinese Revolution led by Mao Zedong for inspiration and guidance. He became a leader of the Maoist New Communist Movement of the 1960s and '70s, first as a founder of the Provisional Organizing Committee, and then as a leader of the October League / Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist).
His major writings are Negro Liberation (1948), For a Revolutionary Position on the Negro Question (1958), and Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro American Communist (1978). Importantly, Harry Haywood's analysis laid the foundation for later Marxist-Leninist theoretical work not only on the African American Nation in the Black Belt, but also on the Chicano Nation in the Southwest.