In February., 1925, while visiting in the Soviet Union, two leading American Communists, William Z. Foster and James P. Cannon, analyzed the Sacco and Vanzetti case: They agreed on the need for an organization in the United States that could organize and fund public defense campaigns for similar "political prisoners." Moreover, such an entity could help to "educate" American workers about the class nature of "capitalist justice." On 28 June 1925 more than 150 political activists assembled at the Ashland Auditorium in Chicago to organize the International Labor Defense Fund (ILDF). Representatives of various leftist political views were at this meeting, but the majority of" those in attendance were Communists, and from the start the ILDF was viewed as a Communist front group. The delegates agreed to defend all "victims of American ruling class terror" regardless of "color, creed, nationality, or political belief." Besides providing free legal...