Francis Franklin
1908 - 1994
Francis Franklin was born and raised in Virginia, the son of a Baptist minister. He joined the Communist Party in November, 1932 and engaged in political activity in the Deep South until 1937 when he moved to New York City. There he was the Education Director of the Young Communist League from 1937-39.
Thereafter, he was involved in a variety of CPUSA educational activities. These included teaching classes on behalf of the Party's organization department and working as an assistant to V.J. Jerome, editor of the Party's theoretical journal, The Communist.
Franklin was an instructor at the Workers School (1942-43), and at the Jefferson School of Social Science (1944-47). In 1944, his Browderist history, Rise of the American Nation, 1789-1824 was published by International Publishers. Franklin also published articles in the New Masses and other Party publications.
When, in 1945, the Communist Party was reconstituted (after having been converted into the Communist Political Association) and Earl Browder was ousted as its leader, Franklin believed that the reconstituted Party was failing to sufficiently break with its Browderist past. As a result, he was expelled from the CP in 1948. He mainly sought to present his anti-revisionist views through a small group he organized under the name "Bill Haywood Communist Club of Illegally Expelled Members of the C.P.U.S.A." and its publication called Toward Socialism, of which 13 issues were published. Soon, however, he broke with other anti-revisionists and thereafter devoted himself to individual study and writing. Franklin died in 1994.
Works:
1937: Model Youth Congress Votes on Its Bills, Daily Worker, July 6, 1937
1938: For a Free, Happy and Prosperous South, The Communist, January 1938
1938: Education As An Art, Young Communist Review, March 1938
1938: Our Twelve Week Course of Study, Young Communist Review, April 1938
1938: Marxism: A Scientific Philosophy of Life, Young Communist Review, June 1938
1938: Teaching with Pictures, by Jacob Kainen
1938: July 4th - Birthday of American Democracy, The Communist, July 1938
1938: Science and Capitalism, Young Communist Review, July 1938
1938: Volume X of Lenin's Works is on Third International, Daily Worker, August 31, 1938
1938: Problems of the Democratic Front in the South, The Communist, September 1938
1938: Science and Marxism, Young Communist Review, September 1938
1938: Marxism and Materialism, Young Communist Review, October 1938
1938: What is Dialectics?, Young Communist Review, November 1938
1939: The Cultural Heritage of the Negro People, The Communist, June 1939
1941: Obscuring History, [review of Louis M. Hacker's The Triumph of American Capitalism]
1943: The Democratic Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson
1943: The Rise of the American Nation, 1789-1824
1944: Our Calvinist Legacy, Part I; Part II;
1945: From Thales to Washington
1945: Allies of Working Class in Postwar Period, Daily Worker, June 27, 1945
1948: Communists Expell Francis Franklin, Daily Worker, March 24, 1948
1948: Fight Against Trotskyite Wreckers in the Pacific Northwest District, Henry Huff and C. Van Lydegraf
1948: Appeal to "Turning Point" Comrades to Reconsider Their Course, [reprinted from Toward Socialism], Turning Point, September 1948
1948: Remarks on Appeal to "TP" from Towards Socialism, Turning Point, September 1948
1949:Toward Socialism, Vol. 1, No. 10, February 20, 1949
1949: Franklin's Socialism Through Constitutional Amendment, Turning Point, May 1949
1949: Toward Socialism, Vol. 1, No. 12, June 15, 1949
1949: Francis Franklin Turns Rat, Turning Point, November 1949