Comrade Jeff Miller

Comrade Jeff Miller 
Jeffrey Mayer Miller, a founder of the New Unionists which later became the New Union Party (NUP), died in Minneapolis on October 15 of complications from leukemia.  He was 72 and had been an apartment resident of the Ebenezer Park Tower, a senior living center.  He was a private person and in his later years kept to himself, living an austere life while dealing with health issues.

Miller's 1984 Campaign for U.S. Senate

Miller married Gudrun, the daughter of Karl Heck, a Socialist Labor Party (SLP) stalwart in St. Paul.  Heck later worked against Miller and helped push him out of the SLP in 1977.  Jeff and Gudrun had a child, Jennifer, who still lives in St. Paul, though she has not been located yet.  Jennifer was named after Jennifer Marx.  Jeff’s grandparents were from Lithuania while Jeff was born in Minneapolis.

The New Unionists started as ‘section Minneapolis’ within the Daniel DeLeonist SLP.  The SLP had a very authoritarian internal structure according to members of the New Unionists - one factor that led to their resignation from the SLP in August 1977.  As an example, the SLP actually forbade members from talking to leftists from other currents.  The SLP is now inactive.  Their paper “The People” is no longer published and their website has nothing on it to indicate recent activity except an address in California.

The NUP was consolidated in 1980 with some comrades from other cities.  It held discussions and forums, tabled, marched in the local May Day parade, ran in elections, had an office in the Twin Cities and representatives in other U.S. cities.  It put out a monthly paper, “The New Unionist.”  Like the SLP, its politics were a based on those of Daniel DeLeon, an early American Marxist who advocated ‘socialist industrial unionism,’ and ‘one big union.’ The organization had a heavy emphasis on labor issues and believed in a peaceful transition to socialism.  Jeff worked with local comrades Earl Balfour, Tom Dooley, George Kane, Dick Taylor, Craig Palmer, Kathy Kleckner, Jane Christian, Lila and Bo Holmdahl, Michael Jefferis, Brian McNeil  and Bill Comiskey.  Comrades from other cities were Connie Furdik, Joann Forman and Rado Mijanovich. Later some of these people participated in the “Working Democracy” study group that met at the NUP offices in Minneapolis and later at May Day Books.

Miller was the editor of The New Unionist and wrote many of the unsigned articles in it. According to some, he understood Marxism better than anyone in the organization and was able to popularize and explain it.  He was passionate about the subject and could be an inspirational speaker.  He was even generous with fools in discussions.  Miller specialized in Marxist economics, especially teaching Marx’s “Value, Price and Profit” and “Wage-Labour and Capital” and the works of DeLeon, specifically “What Means This Strike?” and “The Burning Question of Trade Unionism.”  He also taught “The Communist Manifesto.”

To layout the monthly paper Miller worked on a compositor typewriter, then an Apple computer.  The paper never went on-line. He held the NUP together and did most of the work and so was elected time and time again as editor. Tom Dooley was the local distributor of the paper with Craig Palmer doing a good bit of the legwork.  An almost full selection of The New Unionist is located at the U.W. Madison periodicals library, which has a massive cache of left-wing materials from various organizations.

The NUP was founded in 1977 and lasted until 2005, a long time for a relatively small group.  In that year the paper was closed and all efforts were put into electing Miller to the U.S. Senate under a “Campaign for a Working Democracy.”  The campaign materials did not mention socialism but instead concentrated on labor issues due to the bad connotations of the word ‘socialism’ at the time.  Miller was not comfortable with DeLeonism being relegated to a side issue in Working Democracy.  According to Michael Jefferis, the end of the NUP ended a large part of his life.

As part of his frugal and Spartan lifestyle, he slept in the office as part of his ‘payment’ as NUP editor.  He had a pickup truck and lawnmower early on, and sometimes earned money through lawn jobs and temp work.  He refused to accept a used car or other gifts from comrades, as he did not believe in consumerism. Jeff liked opera and classical music and oddly, followed the Minnesota Vikings.  He watched news programs like Al Jazeera and spent a lot of time visiting the library for books and music, as he could not afford otherwise.

Red Frog, with contributions from Craig Palmer, Dick Taylor, Michael Jefferis and George Kane.

November 8, 2019