page_title: James S. Allen
section_title: Emissary to Philippines
hierarchical_section_title: James S. Allen / Biography / Emissary to Philippines
caption_attribution_description: English: Philippine President broadcasts to home folks. Washington, D.C., April 5. President Manuel Quezon of Philippine Commonwealth broadcast from Washington today to his fellow-countrymen in Manila. For the 25 minutes he was on the air, President Quezon discussed woman suffrage and urged the 10-year independence program be limited to a shorter period, 4/5/1937
context_page_description: James S. "Jim" Allen, born Sol Auerbach, was an American Marxist historian, journalist, editor, activist, and functionary of the Communist Party USA. Allen is best remembered as the author and editor of over two dozen books and pamphlets and as one of the party's leading experts on African-American history.
  Allen is credited with helping to save from execution the young black men charged in the Scottsboro case by his prompt and relentless publicity of the case, which helped make their trial a cause célèbre.
context_section_description: At the behest of the Communist International, Allen was sent to Manila, the capital of the Philippines, then an American protectorate, on two missions in an attempt to end sectarian squabbling and to achieve unity between the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the rival Socialist Party of the Philippines (SPP). In accord with the strategy of the popular front, the Communist International then sought to build broad alliances against the rising tide of fascism and was therefore interested in minimizing conflict between communists and socialists.
  The first of Allen's trips to the Philippines came in 1936. Allen's mission was that of convincing Crisanto Evangelista, the general secretary of the CPP, and his jailed comrades to accept a conditional pardon from Philippine President Manuel Quezón and to gain their freedom so they could lead the fight against Japanese militarism. Allen then spoke personally with Quezón and convinced him of the urgent need for Philippine unity in the face of the Japanese Empire's expansionism in the region. Allen was successful, and Evangelista and the other imprisoned Communist leaders were released on December 31, 1936.
  Allen returned to the Philippines in September 1938. His new mission was to expand the conditional pardons that had been granted to Evangelista and his associates to the full restoration of civil rights so that they could mobilize radical Philippine workers against fascism by public meetings and mass demonstrations.
  Allen presented Quezón with petitions gathered by various labor organizations and successfully made the case for a full pardon for the Communist leaders. An absolute pardon was granted on December 24, 1938, in the context of a Christmas amnesty.
  Next, Allen sought to broker actual unity between the two parties, conferring both with the CPP leadership and with Pedro Abad Santos, the president of the SPP, on the matter. Allen used the utmost diplomacy in making his case to Santos to bury tactical differences with the Communists and to accept merger, in the interest of constructing a stronger organization in opposition to fascism. Unity between the organizations was achieved at the Third National Congress of the Communist Party of the Philippines, from October 29 to 31, 1938.
  Allen addressed the gathering, conveying the greetings of CPUSA General Secretary Earl Browder, who had himself been a Communist International representative to the Philippines in 1927. The united organization temporarily took the cumbersome name "Communist Party of the Philippines (merger of the Communist and Socialist parties)" until it later adopted the simpler "Communist Party of the Philippines" again. Evangelista was named the National Chairman and Abad Santos the Vice Chairman of the newly united organization.
  His mission accomplished, Allen returned to the United States and composed a long and detailed report on his trip, in a document dated February 13, 1939.
caption: Philippines President Manuel Quezón preparing for an April 1937 radio broadcast. Allen was instrumental in gaining the release of jailed Philippine Communist leaders through Quezón.
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