Foster became a prominent figure within the union, serving as its representative at an international labor conference in Budapest in 1911 and a contributor to its papers.

Foster lost the battle, however, and soon thereafter left the IWW and formed his own organization, the Syndicalist League of North America (SLNA).

He continued his syndicalist campaign, this time through the International Trade Union Educational League, while obtaining a position as a general organizer for the AFL in 1915.

His syndicalism led him to drop any criticism of the more conservative union leaders; in his eyes, organizing workers was a step toward dismantling capitalism.

In addition, the federal government had an interest in maintaining production unimpeded and avoiding the disruption that a strike of 50,000 packinghouse workers would entail.

Rather than create a wholly new organization, which would have immediately found itself fighting other unions in the CFL over jurisdiction, Foster hit on the idea of creating a Stockyards Labor Council (SLC) that, like the railroad federations that had recently come into being, would fuse all of the interested unions into a single body with the ability to organize the industry as a whole.

The SLC was formed a week later, with representatives from all of the crafts—machinists, electricians, carpenters, coopers, office workers, steamfitters, engineers, railway carmen, and firemen.

While this body was only a coalition created for the purpose of organizing workers, and would not have had the authority to bargain for them as a single group, it was an important step toward industrial unionism.

Another factor posed a serious obstacle to organizing packinghouse workers: many of the unions in the SLC excluded African-Americans from membership, either overtly or in practice.

The arbitrator's initial award, ordering the eight-hour day, overtime pay and significant wage increases, was a major victory for the workers.

The arbitration award had not required the employers to recognize the unions, leading some workers to believe that the government, not the SLC, was responsible for these improvements in their wages and hours.

Without the funds to launch a truly national campaign, Foster decided to start close to home, sending organizers into Gary, Indiana, and South Chicago, where they received a tumultuous outpouring of support, in August 1918.

The National Committee's organizing efforts had produced mixed results: while it enrolled around 350,000 steelworkers during the course of the strike, its greatest strength was among immigrant workers.

The authorities attacked with their customary violence: within ten days fourteen people had been killed, all of them strikers or strike sympathizers.

In the meantime General Leonard Wood imposed martial law in Gary while authorities in Pennsylvania broke up strike meetings wherever they could be found.

TUEL was strongest in Chicago, where Foster and Jack Johnstone had close relations with Fitzpatrick and many other unionists with a background in labor radicalism.

Fitzpatrick's project presented Foster with a paradox: he did not think that electoral politics had much potential for advancing the rights of workers, much less revolutionary goals, and he had even less regard for progressive reformists such as Robert La Follette, Sr. On the other hand, he was attacked from the left within the party for his relations with Fitzpatrick and the CFL, which were denounced as too conservative.

At the same time the Party's newspaper, then known as The Worker, published a flattering article about Foster in 1923 that identified him as a Communist, something he had to that point avoided admitting.

While Foster and the CP had enjoyed a close relation with Sidney Hillman and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, it began organizing an opposition caucus within the ACWA.

Forming an alliance with a smaller faction led by James P. Cannon, Foster was able to control the majority of the party's leadership in 1923 and again in 1925.

Foster also played a major role in the revolt against John L. Lewis' leadership in the United Mine Workers of America.

As it turned out, Foster's halting efforts to establish a separate power center within the UMWA had this effect in any case, as Howat, Brophy and his allies dropped out of the "Save the Union" movement as the CP's leadership in it became apparent.

[4] The lead organizer and defendant, Fred Beal later charged that Foster had "directed the whole Gastonia show and that the people in the Kremlin insisted on getting weekly reports".

[6][7] C. E. Ruthenberg died on March 2, 1927, and his longtime factional ally Jay Lovestone took over his position as Executive Secretary of the party.

The factional fighting between the Foster and Lovestone groups continued, but now became overshadowed by the larger struggle in the Soviet Union between Joseph Stalin and his opponents.

While the Party's trade union policies in the Popular Front era was close to what Foster had advocated in the 1920s, the Party's strength was not in the areas in which it had been active during the TUEL era—garment, railroads, and mining—but in the mass production industries with little history of union organization—automobile and electrical manufacturing, meatpacking, longshore on the west coast, maritime on the east coast, hard rock mining and lumber in the west and public transit in New York City.

The Party members who had denounced Foster and questioned his grasp of Marxism and his mental faculties a year earlier now condemned Browder as a class traitor.

In 1948 Foster was among the party leaders indicted for subversive activity under the Smith Act,[9] but, because of his precarious health, he was not brought to trial.

[1] The Soviet Union gave him a state funeral in Red Square and Khrushchev personally headed the honor guard.

[13] His book Toward Soviet America remains a favorite among American communists, and has been continuously republished by both leftists and anti-communists who see it as scandalous.