International Committee for Political Prisoners

The International Committee for Political Prisoners (I.C.P.P.) was established in 1924 to raise funds and agitate for the release of political prisoners throughout the world.

The committee was dissolved in 1942.

The International Committee for Political Prisoners (I.C.P.P.) was established in 1924 to agitate for the release and raise funds for the relief of political prisoners throughout the world. Its chairman and the moving force behind the committee was Roger Nash Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. Among the first committee members were Henry G. Alsberg, Felix Frankfurter, Louis Gannett, Arthur Garfield Hays, Paul Kellog, Freda Kirchwey, and Oswald Garrison Villard.

An impetus to the committee's formation was the imprisonment of Menshevists, Social Revolutionaries, Maximalists, Anarchists, and other dissenters in the U.S.S.R. Consequently, the committee's first major effort was the publication of Letters from Russian Prisons in 1925. This book profiled imprisoned revolutionaries, and its criticism of the Soviet government generated controversy in leftist circles.

The committee did, however, form expressly to address oppression of opinion all over the world and rapidly extended its fact-gathering missions to other parts of Europe, particularly Italy and Poland. Two other I.C.P.P. publications resulted from this activity: The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy (1926) and Political Prisoners in Poland (1927). The committee also fought against dictatorship in Latin America and for the cases of nationalists in India. Its work of appeal letters and relief funds eventually stretched to 40 some nations. Noted liberals and reformers - such as Clarence Darrow, John Dewey, and Waldo Frank - aided the committee in these matters throughout its years.

As the world situation worsened in the 1930s, the number of political prisoners increased dramatically, and the I.C.P.P.'s ability to provide relief was thwarted. With the advent of World War II, its work became even more difficult, and the committee chose to dissolve in 1942.