Foster, William Zebulon

(1881-1961)

   Born in Taunton, Massachusetts, William Foster grew up in poverty in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Having traveled the country as an itinerant worker, he joined the Socialist Party of America in 1901 but left to join the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Foster gradually gravitated away from the IWW in favor of converting existing trade unions to syndicalism. In 1912, he established the Syndicalist League of North America, which became the Independent Trade Union League in 1914. During World War I, he helped mobilize the meatpacking workers. The American Federation of Labor then appointed him to lead the drive to unionize the steel industry in 1919. The resultant strike ended in defeat, partially because Foster’s past affiliations were used to brand the strikers as revolutionaries. Foster converted to communism in the early 1920s and was the candidate for the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) in the 1924, 1928, and 1932 presidential elections.

   As leader of the demonstration in New York’s Union Square in March 1930, which turned into a riot, Foster was jailed for six months. The jailing did not stop him from running for president, and in 1932 he won more than 100,000 votes. He resumed leadership of the CPUSA following the ideological differences between the established executive led by his long-time rival, Earl Browder, and Moscow in 1945. In 1948, Foster was one of 11 communist leaders indicted by the government under the Smith Act of 1940. He was not jailed due to his ill health, but his codefendants were. Foster, who was unswervingly loyal to the Soviet Union, died in Moscow and received a state funeral there before his ashes were flown back to the United States.