ABSTRACT
The Comintern began to crack down on the American Communists at the Second Congress. At the end of March, Leroy Scott, Louis C. Fraina, and Sen Katayama received word that the Third Congress of the Comintern would be held in June and that the First Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions (R.I.L.U). The slogan of the Third Congress-To the Masses!told what the Russian leaders wanted. The Russians put the American Communists in their place by informing them that they "are still before the first and simplest task of creating a Communist nucleus and connecting it with the working masses." This was the official end of the American Communists' dream. The Americans were told to "try by all ways and means to get out of their illegalized condition into the open among the wide masses." The main American spokesman, Robert Minor (Ballister), accepted the implied rebukes humbly.
