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Hillman, while not a known [[Communist Party]] member, understood the Communist Party and its methods and would not permit his union to harbor groups that take orders from other sources. The membership of his union was overwhelmingly [[Socialist]] who lived within the capitalist system. Hillman was at all times sympathetic to the Communist philosophy, and was a [[revolutionist]].
Hillman, while not a known [[Communist Party]] member, understood the Communist Party and its methods and would not permit his union to harbor groups that take orders from other sources. The membership of his union was overwhelmingly [[Socialist]] who lived within the capitalist system. Hillman was at all times sympathetic to the Communist philosophy, and was a [[revolutionist]].
==Contract with Lenin==
After the [[Bolshevik Revolution]], in 1922 Hillman organized the Russian-American Industrial Corporation with himself as president to operate the "textile and clothing industry of Russia." Hillman's corporation sold to labor organizations at $10 a share a quarter of a million dollars of stock. Hillman went to Russia to sell the idea to [[CPSU]] General Secretary [[Vladimir Lenin]]. He cabled back from Moscow: "Signed contract guarantees investment and minimum 8 per cent dividend. Also banking contract permitting to take charge of delivery of money at lowest rate. Make immediate arrangements for transmission of money. Had long conference with Lenin who guaranteed Soviet support."
After the [[Bolshevik Revolution]], in 1922 Hillman organized the Russian-American Industrial Corporation with himself as president to operate the "textile and clothing industry of Russia." Hillman's corporation sold to labor organizations at $10 a share a quarter of a million dollars of stock. Hillman went to Russia to sell the idea to [[CPSU]] General Secretary [[Vladimir Lenin]]. He cabled back from Moscow: "Signed contract guarantees investment and minimum 8 per cent dividend. Also banking contract permitting to take charge of delivery of money at lowest rate. Make immediate arrangements for transmission of money. Had long conference with Lenin who guaranteed Soviet support."
Hillman was deeply sympathetic to the Communist cause in Russia and to the extreme [[leftwing]] ideal in America, and he was a bitter man. When [[John L. Lewis]] and David Dubinsky later left the CIO, Hillman would be supreme.
Hillman was deeply sympathetic to the Communist cause in Russia and to the extreme [[leftwing]] ideal in America, and he was a bitter man. When [[John L. Lewis]] and David Dubinsky later left the CIO, Hillman would be supreme.
==Lepke==
Hillman was one of the first labor leaders to use the goon as part of his enforcement machinery. In 1931 a garment manufacturer in Brooklyn named Guido Fererri got into a bitter quarrel with Hillman's Amalgamated and was threatened by one of its officials. A few days later Fererri was found shot to death on the street. A notorious character named Louis Buckhalter, known as Lepke, was a goon for a labor union and Lepke was suspected of this crime. Some time later a Brooklyn jury found this same Lepke guilty of murder in the first degree for killing Joseph Rosen in a Brooklyn candy store on November 30, 1936. He was sentenced to be electrocuted but Lepke was in Leavenworth Penitentiary serving a term of 14 years as the mastermind behind a tenmilliondollar narcotics ring and another term of 30 years for labor racketeering, both of which would keep him in Leavenworth until 1980. Governor [[Thomas Dewey]] of New York demanded delivery of Lepke in order to execute him for the Rosen murder. He demanded delivery four times but each time [[FDR]]’s Attorney General Francis Biddle refused.