Foster, William Z

Foster, William Z(ebulon)

(born Feb. 25, 1881, Taunton, Mass., U.S.—died Sept. 1, 1961, Moscow, Russian S.F.S.R.) U.S. labour organizer and Communist Party leader. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1909 and became nationally prominent as a leader of the American Federation of Labor in the bloody steel strike of 1919. In 1921 the Soviet communists chose him as chairman of the U.S. Communist Party, and he ran as its presidential candidate in 1924, 1928, and 1932 on a platform that envisioned the ultimate demise of capitalism and the establishment of a workers' republic. Ill health forced his resignation in 1932. Soviet dissatisfaction with his successor, Earl Browder, brought him back as chairman (1945–56), but he fell from favour and was made chairman emeritus in 1957.