After the National Bureau of the group upheld its support for the current position on the Russian question at a New York mass meeting on February 2, 1933 Gitlow resigned.
[7][8] At the next plenum of the Communist Party (Opposition)'s National Committee, February 11–13, Becker presented an appeal with the signatures of 13 members which criticized the Lovestone leadership on the "Russian question" and on a number of other issues related to the groups work within the labor movement and relationship to the official Communist Party.
In September he attended a conference sponsored by the League for Independent Political Action that was attempting to build a movement for a Farmer–Labor Party, but nothing came of it.
The Amalgamated, under joint CLA-Gitlowite leadership, led a general strike of at least 4,000 workers in some of New York's most famous hotels, including the Astor, Biltmore and Commodore.
[14] On February 15 the case went to the NRA Regional Labor Board and the union was able to get an agreement with the owners that the strikebreakers would be dismissed, the workers could return to their jobs under joint union-management auspices and that the RLB would hold hearings on the conditions in the hotels.
For this, and for alleged clique rule and attempts to curry favor with "bourgeoisie public opinion" Field and his associate in the union leadership, Aristodimos Kaldis, were expelled from the Communist League of America on February 18.
[10]: 577–580 On August 23 the Gitlow group within the Organization Committee for a Revolutionary Party announced their intention to join the Socialists.
[16] On October 29 Gitlow held a conference with "several founders and former leaders of the Communist party" including delegates from Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.
The general pro-communist tone of the Militants upset him, especially after they started co-operating with the Communists organizationally during the popular front period.
[10]: 580–582 Lazar Becker would stay with the party until at least its 1940 convention, when he led the opposition to Norman Thomas' pacifist stance on World War II.