Fred Beal Passes Away (1954)

Mon Nov 15, 1954

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Fred Beal (1896 - 1954) was an American labor organizer who played a leading role in the Loray Mill Strike of 1929 and a former communist who renounced his beliefs upon his exile to Soviet Russia. He died on this day in 1954.

In the Loray Mill Strike, Fred Beal was a leading labor organizer, who, along with six Loray Mill workers, were indicted for the murder of a police chief that happened during the protests. Beal was convicted and skipped bail, fleeing to the Soviet Union. There, he became ambivalent about the state of the Bolshevik revolution and sought to return to the United States.

After successfully fleeing to his home country, Beal changed his mind once more, returning to the Soviet Union and working as a manager in a Ukrainian tractor factory. It was here that he became disillusioned for good with the communist system, noting bitterly that he was still a labor organizer, facing Soviet versions of the same issues that had prompted the North Carolinians to strike, only now he was urging workers not to demand better conditions.

Upon returning to the U.S., he became an anti-communist critic, publishing his experiences in a book titled “Proletarian Journey”. According to author Matthew Disler, much of “Proletarian Journey” is clearly embellished, repeating dialogues from decades earlier, frequently editorializing, and mixing anecdotes from his experiences with diatribes about his enemies within the Communist movement. Bisler also claims that these inconsistencies are even worse in Beal’s 1949 book, “The Red Fraud”.

After serving four years in prison, Beal was paroled and began working at a textile mill, participating in union activities there. He died on November 15th, 1954 of a heart attack.