{{Short description|American communist and trade unionist}} {{Use American English|date=January 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2026}} thumb|right|Oehler {{circa}} 1928 '''Edward Hugo Oehler''' (1903–1983) was an American Trotskyist.
==Biography== An active trade unionist, Oehler joined the Communist Party USA in its early days,<ref>Joseph Hansen, ''Organisational Methods and Political Principles: A Study of Clique Politics in a Revolutionary Party''</ref> and by 1927 was a district organizer for the party in Kansas.<ref>Theodore Draper, ''American Communism and Soviet Russia''; Constance Ashton Myers, ''The Prophet's Army: Trotskyists in America, 1928-1941.'' Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977; pg. 116.</ref> He was also known for his ability to organize workers, both in the southern textile mills and the mines of Colorado.<ref>''[http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/backiss/Vol1/No2/spanleft.html The Spanish Left in its Own Words]''</ref>
At the 7th National Convention of the Communist Party USA in 1930, Oehler controversially demanded that the Trotskyists be permitted to rejoin the party, abruptly ending his career with the official party. He then joined James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern in the Communist League of America, the nation's first Trotskyist group.<ref>Myers, ''The Prophet's Army,'' pg. 116.</ref> He was soon elected to the group's governing National Committee.<ref name="international">Robert J. Alexander, ''International Trotskyism, 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement''</ref>
Oehler remained a prominent member of the League, serving on the committee of the International Labor Defense following the Loray Mill Strike.<ref>John A. Salmond, ''Gastonia 1929: The Story of the Loray Mill Strike''</ref> He organised unemployed workers during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934.<ref name="international" />
In 1934, the Communist League merged with A. J. Muste's American Workers Party, becoming the Workers Party of the United States, and later entered the Socialist Party of America as part of Trotsky's "French Turn." Oehler objected to this entrism as a tactic, believing that it would lead to the group becoming influenced by reformism, although once the group had entered, he argued that it should not leave, as this would be unprincipled. As a result, he exited the Workers Party in November 1935 to form the Revolutionary Workers League (RWL) with Tom Stamm and Sidney Lens.<ref name="footnote">Max Shachtman, ''Footnote for Historians.''</ref>
During the Spanish Civil War, the RWL supported only the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM). Oehler visited Spain to report for the RWL, where he was involved in the Barcelona May Days struggles, and wrote ''Barricades in Barcelona'' about his experiences. When he tried to leave the country, he was arrested on charges of spying and held without communication with the outside world for a month, before eventually being permitted to return home.<ref>Hugo Oehler, ''[http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/backiss/Vol1/No2/barric.html Barricades in Barcelona] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060514224630/http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/backiss/Vol1/No2/barric.html |date=2006-05-14 }}''</ref>
In 1937, Oehler broke with Leon Trotsky, concluding that Trotsky had split with Marxism in 1934. Stamm countered that Trotsky had degenerated in 1928, and the two split.<ref name="footnote" /> In 1939, he severely criticised Trotsky's position for an independent Ukraine. In a polemic, he described his main differences with the Trotskyists as being "on revolutionary defeatism, on support for left-bourgeois governments, on support for third capitalist parties".<ref>Hugo Oehler, ''[http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/backiss/Vol3/No2/Oehler.html The Ukraine question: A Reply to Trotsky's Polemic]''</ref>
With the declaration of the Trotskyist Fourth International, Oehler concentrated on finding international contacts, which he grouped into the Provisional International Contact Commission for the New Communist (Fourth) International. However, World War II proved the start of a dramatic decline for the RWL, which appears to have been disbanded in the early 1950s, and Oehler faded into obscurity.
In the 1970s, Oehler lived in Denver, Colorado, and was interviewed there by Prometheus Research Library archivist Carl Lichtenstein.<ref>''[http://icl-fi.org/english/wv/984/carl-obit.html Carl Lichtenstein, 1942-2011]'', ''Workers Vanguard'' no 984, August 5, 2011</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Communist Party Oral Histories - Hugo Oehler |url=https://digitaltamiment.hosting.nyu.edu/s/cpoh/item/4163 |website=Digital Tamiment |access-date=20 June 2021}}</ref>
==Footnotes== {{reflist}}
== Works == *[https://archive.org/details/AmericasRoleInGermany ''America's Role in Germany.''] Philadelphia: Communist League of America (Opposition), 1933. *''[https://archive.org/details/DialecticalMaterialismACritiqueOfMaxEastman Dialectical Materialism: A Critique of Max Eastman ]'' [Chicago] Revolutionary Workers League, U.S. 1941
== External links == *[https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/oehler/index.htm Hugo Oehler Archive] at Marxists Internet Archive *[https://web.archive.org/web/20110702104823/http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/oehler_content.html Guide to the Hugo Oehler: Factional Documents and Spanish Civil War Reports, Correspondence and Ephemera TAM 066 ]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Oehler, Hugo}} Category:1903 births Category:1983 deaths Category:Abraham Lincoln Brigade members Category:American Marxists Category:American Trotskyists Category:Members of the Communist League of America Category:Members of the Communist Party USA Category:Members of the Workers Party of the United States