ABSTRACT
The Farmer-Labor movement's revenge was ironic. Dead, the movement disturbed the Communists more than it had disturbed them alive. William Z. Foster's majority said that the Farmer-Labor movement was dead beyond recall and was not useful any more even as an "agitational slogan". A mass trade-union basis, the argument ran, was indispensable for a real Farmer-Labor movement. The experience of 1925 showed that the way to win a majority in the party was to win the confidence of the Comintern. This lesson was never forgotten by either the victors or the losers. It was not the first time the Comintern had played a crucial role in American Communist affairs. The Fourth Convention of the Workers party opened in Chicago on August 21, 1925. The high-powered American delegation to the Fifth Plenum, which opened on March 21, 1925, was composed of Foster, James Cannon, and John Williamson for the majority; Charles Emil Ruthenberg, Lovestone Pepper, and John Pepper for the minority.
