ABSTRACT
The Communist Party leadership was as anxious to preserve peace in the United Auto Workers (UAW) as in other Congress of Industrial Organizations unions. The Communists' troubles in the UAW began in 1937 when their presence and activities became a major issue in the union's factional war. Foster was barking up the wrong tree if he expected the American Communist Party to alter policies that had achieved such spectacular results and so gratified the Comintern. Oral histories are adding significantly to our store of information about American Communism. Historians, however, must be cautious about accepting on faith the stories of men and women who have political scores to settle. Roger Keeran relied in part on an extensive interview with William Weinstone, who directed Party activity in Michigan in 1937 and was still, in 1982, active on its Historical Commission. New evidence is now available, however, to settle part of this old argument.
