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Red Corner: The Rise and Fall of Communism in Northeastern Montana

The Red Corner chronicles the meteoric rise and decline of Communism on the prairies of northeastern Montana. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Sheridan County boasted a government largely run by Communists, a Communist camp for local youth, and an official newspaper of the Communist Party USA-the Producers News. By the mid-i930s, however, Communist influence in the region had waned, and area residents soon came to regard the county's embrace of Communism as a shameful period in its history.

Through meticulous research in newspaper accounts, oral histories, FBI reports, and internal Communist Party flies, author Verlaine Stoner McDonald reveals the colorful stories of such influential local Communists as newspaper editor and state senator Charles E. "Red Flag" Taylor and his comrade, county sheriff Rodney Salisbury, who was allegedly involved in graft, prostitution, and bootlegging. In so doing, she offers insights into how this remote part of the West came to be home to one of the nation's most successful rural Communist organizations and how it eventually rejected radicalism and reconstituted itself as a typical farming community.

Verlaine Stoner McDonald is a professor in the Department of English, Theatre, and Speech Communication at Berea College. She grew up on the Sheridan County farm homesteaded by her great-grandparents and now lives in Berea, Kentucky, with her family.

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Red Corner: The Rise and Fall of Communism in Northeastern Montana

The Red Corner chronicles the meteoric rise and decline of Communism on the prairies of northeastern Montana. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Sheridan County boasted a government largely run by Communists, a Communist camp for local youth, and an official newspaper of the Communist Party USA-the Producers News. By the mid-i930s, however, Communist influence in the region had waned, and area residents soon came to regard the county's embrace of Communism as a shameful period in its history.

Through meticulous research in newspaper accounts, oral histories, FBI reports, and internal Communist Party flies, author Verlaine Stoner McDonald reveals the colorful stories of such influential local Communists as newspaper editor and state senator Charles E. "Red Flag" Taylor and his comrade, county sheriff Rodney Salisbury, who was allegedly involved in graft, prostitution, and bootlegging. In so doing, she offers insights into how this remote part of the West came to be home to one of the nation's most successful rural Communist organizations and how it eventually rejected radicalism and reconstituted itself as a typical farming community.

Verlaine Stoner McDonald is a professor in the Department of English, Theatre, and Speech Communication at Berea College. She grew up on the Sheridan County farm homesteaded by her great-grandparents and now lives in Berea, Kentucky, with her family.

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Red Corner: The Rise and Fall of Communism in Northeastern Montana

Red Corner: The Rise and Fall of Communism in Northeastern Montana

by Verlaine Mcdonald
Red Corner: The Rise and Fall of Communism in Northeastern Montana

Red Corner: The Rise and Fall of Communism in Northeastern Montana

by Verlaine Mcdonald

Overview

The Red Corner chronicles the meteoric rise and decline of Communism on the prairies of northeastern Montana. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Sheridan County boasted a government largely run by Communists, a Communist camp for local youth, and an official newspaper of the Communist Party USA-the Producers News. By the mid-i930s, however, Communist influence in the region had waned, and area residents soon came to regard the county's embrace of Communism as a shameful period in its history.

Through meticulous research in newspaper accounts, oral histories, FBI reports, and internal Communist Party flies, author Verlaine Stoner McDonald reveals the colorful stories of such influential local Communists as newspaper editor and state senator Charles E. "Red Flag" Taylor and his comrade, county sheriff Rodney Salisbury, who was allegedly involved in graft, prostitution, and bootlegging. In so doing, she offers insights into how this remote part of the West came to be home to one of the nation's most successful rural Communist organizations and how it eventually rejected radicalism and reconstituted itself as a typical farming community.

Verlaine Stoner McDonald is a professor in the Department of English, Theatre, and Speech Communication at Berea College. She grew up on the Sheridan County farm homesteaded by her great-grandparents and now lives in Berea, Kentucky, with her family.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780975919675
Publisher: Montana Historical Society Press
Publication date: 04/13/2010
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 220
Sales rank: 434,717
Product dimensions: 6.38(w) x 9.06(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Verlaine Stoner McDonald is Associate Professor at Berea College in Kentucky. She was born and raised in Sheridan County, Montana.

Read an Excerpt

It was a headline that appalled the residents of Sheridan County, Montana. When the March 4, 1932 issue of the Producers News was published, much of the nation was gripped by dark events unfolding at home and abroad. The infant son of American icon Charles Lindbergh had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. The military forces of Imperial Japan were ravaging China. Meanwhile, fifteen million Americans were out of work as the nation’s economy teetered on the brink of collapse. Remarkably, it was a local story in their hometown newspaper that inspired outrage among Sheridan County residents. Headlined, “Bolshevik Funeral for Valiant Young Pioneer,” the story was about fourteen-year-old Janis Salisbury, who had died from complications related to appendicitis. Instead of a church, Salisbury’s funeral was held in the local Farmer Labor Temple, and it featured speakers from the local branch of the United Farmers League, affiliated with the Communist Party, as well as members of the local Communist youth group. The editor of the Producers News, a member of the Communist Party, wrote a controversial account of the funeral, describing the service in detail.This editorial decision would have profound consequences for the Communist farm movement in northeastern Montana, which, in the 1920s, had achieved stunning political success. The “reds” had occupied every elected county office and sent a covert Communist state senator to Helena. Local youths could attend camps where they were actively indoctrinated with Communist ideals, and the radicals’ newspaper was circulated nationwide. Janis Salisbury’s father, Rodney, was on the ballot in an attempt to become the nation’s first Communist governor. Sheridan County was, in the estimation of one historian, “one of the most class-conscious areas in the nation.”

Table of Contents

Illustrations ix

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Abbreviations xvii

Introduction: The Peculiar Case of Sheridan County Communism 1

Chapter 1 Plentywood, Montana 3

"A New Metropolis in the Northwest"

Chapter 2 "No Place for the Feeble" 13

Homesteading on the Northeastern Montana Prairie

Chapter 3 The Agrarian Myth and Prairie Politics 24

Precursors to Radicalism

Chapter 4 Mountain Politics 35

Radicalism in the Western Mining Districts

Chapter 5 The Nonpartisan League and the "Old Time Socialists" 43

Chapter 6 Marketing the Farmers' Movement 56

The Nonpartisan League and the Producers News

Chapter 7 Bait and Switch 71

Communism Creeps into Sheridan County

Chapter 8 Bootleggers and Boycotts 82

Liquor, the Law, and Radical Politics

Chapter 9 No Longer under Cover 91

Unconcealed Communism in Sheridan County

Chapter 10 Big Trouble in "Little Moscow" 100

A Newspaper War Erupts

Chapter 11 In and Out of the Fold 121

Sheridan County Radicals and the Communist Party USA

Chapter 12 "Seeing Red" 131

Radicalism and Opposition Escalate

Chapter 13 Personnel Problems Take a Toll at the Polls 151

Chapter 14 Death Throes of a Movement 163

Chapter 15 The Demise of Communism in Sheridan County 179

Notes 191

Bibliography 209

Index 219

Interviews

Today, it is a little-known fact that Communism gained a toehold in northeastern Montana in the 1920s. This lively book tells the outrageous story of what happened when disgruntled farmers, scrappy editors, corrupt politicians, and Communist big-wigs met in Sheridan County.

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