Communist Party USA

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The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is one of several Marxist-Leninist groups in the United States. For many years (1959-2000) it was led by Gus Hall. Perhaps the most famous member of the CPUSA is Angela Davis.

Contents

Early History

The two predecessors of the Communist Party USA formed in 1919 as splinter groups of the left-wing of the Socialist Party over the issue of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. The left wing socialists supported Lenin and Trotsky, and broke off the SP to form two rival parties: the Communist Party of America and Communist Labor Party. Under pressure from the Communist International, these two communist parties officially merged in May, 1921. From its inception, the Communist Party, USA came under attack from the FBI and Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer for defying the Sedition Act of 1918. Consequently, the Communist Party went underground and went through name changes to evade the authorities.

Following the Soviet Lead

Since its inception, the CPUSA was known for closely following the orders of the Communist International (“Comintern”). This was evident in 1928 when, upon the orders of Stalin, the CPUSA expelled James Cannon and the Trotskyist left opposition from the organization. A year later Jay Lovestone and Benjamin Gitlow, considered right oppositionists allied with the Soviet faction led by Nikolai Bukharin were also purged. Stalin's comments

Leaders of the Party

After 1929 the party was led by Earl Browder who actually dissolved the party in 1944 replacing it with a Communist Political Association. For this he was in turn expelled and William Z. Foster became head of the party. Foster was to lead the party until he retired in 1958 and was succeeded by Gus Hall.

Crisis of 1956

The 1956 invasion of Hungary and the Secret Speech of Nikita Khrushchev to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union criticising Stalin had a cataclysmic effect on the CPUSA [1]. Membership plummeted and the leadership briefly faced a unsuccessful challenge from a faction who wished to democratise the party. Some members who prefered an orthodox Stalinist line, such as Jack Shulman either resigned or were expelled as, in 1961, those who supported China after the Sino-Soviet split. This faction, which was not numerous, but very energetic, began independent operations as the Progressive Labor Party. The Progressive Labor party and other anti-revisionists who looked back to the halcyon days of the 1930s initially supported the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Stalinist regime in Albania. As a group they have been described as the New Communist Movement.

Electoral Activities

During the 1950s, the Communist Party was decimated by Senator Joe McCarthy and his anti-Communist campaign. In 1984, seeing the onslaught of Ronald Reagan's anti-Communist administration and decreased CPUSA membership, Gus Hall chose to end the CPUSA's nation-wide electoral campaigns, and the CPUSA has endorsed the Democratic Party in every national election ever since. The CPUSA still runs candidates for local office.

Throughout most of its history the Communist Party has been under pressure from the United States government, especially the FBI and was heavily infiltrated. Following the McCarthy years, membership and activities of the Communist Party were kept secret with very few visible members, although the Party claims that many community leaders thoughout the United States were affiliated with the Party.

Soviet Subsidies

From 1959 until 1989 when Gus Hall attacked the initiatives taken by Gorbachev in the Soviet Union the Party received a substantial subsidy from the Soviet Union. Starting with $75,000 in 1959 this was increased gradually to $3 million in 1987. This substantial amount reflected the Party's subservience to the Moscow line in contrast to the French and Italian Parties whose Eurocommunism deviated from the orthodox line. The cutoff of funds in 1989 resulted in a financial crisis resulting in cutting back publication in 1990 of the Party newspaper, the People's Daily World to weekly publication, the People's Weekly World.

The Daily Worker

During its most active years the English language newspaper of the Party was the Daily Worker which was published from 1924 to 1958 when publication was suspended due to reduced circulation and an editorial dispute with John Gates, its last editor who took a disagreeably liberal point of view.

Communist Idealism

Communist party members consider Party membership an honor and often work very hard toward realization of the idealistic goals of communism. Generally the life of a Communist is organized around Party activities with the expectation that they will in a disciplined way advance the goals of the Party.

Front Groups

Communists have often participated in the organization of quasi-independent organizations (front groups) which support some aspect of their platform or serve organizing goals. In addition, Communist Party members, working together within an organization such as a labor union proceeding skillfully, were often able, together with others who supported them (or at least did not actively oppose them), to rise to leadership positions and in some cases to dominate the organization. In some cases, especially in labor organizations such as the Screen Actors Guild this practice resulted in a backlash as more conservative members such as Ronald Reagan [2] competed for control of the organization.

Government Persecution

When the Communist Party was formed in 1919 the United States government was engaged in prosecution of Socialists who had opposed World War I and military service. This persecution was continued in 1919 and January, 1920 in the Palmer Raids or the Red Scare. Many ordinary members of the Party were arrested and deported; leaders were prosecuted and in some cases sentenced to prison terms. In the late 1930s with the authorization of President Franklin Roosevelt the FBI began investigating both domestic Nazis and Communists. The Smith Act which outlawed advocacy of violent overthrow of the government was passed in 1940.

It was during 1940 to 1949 that Herbert Philbrick, acting as a citizen volunteer, joined the Communist Party while meanwhile transmitting a record of his activities and contacts to the FBI. He surfaced, together with a few others, at the trial under the Smith Act of the leadership of the Communist Party in 1949, United States v. Foster, et. al..

Discoveries of instances of Soviet espionage and Communist infiltration of government and industry resulted in great apprehension during the postwar period about Communist activities [3]. Must of this was justified but particularly in the case of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his ilk there were excesses. Such excessive suspicion and persecution became known as McCarthyism and resulted in a backlash, see Reaction to McCarthyism.

Current Activities

The current National Chair is Sam Webb. The newspaper is the People's Weekly World. Political Affairs is the Party's journal of political commentary.

See also: McCarthyism, List of political parties in the United States

External links

Further Reading

History

  • American Communist History a peer-reviewed journal published by the Historians of American Communism. [4]
  • Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes, "The American Communist Movement: Storming Heaven Itself, Twayne Publishers (Macmillan), 1992, hardcover, 210 pages, ISBN 080573855X, trade paperback ISBN 0805738568
  • Theodor Draper, The Roots of American Communism, Viking, 1957
  • Theodor Draper, American Communism and Soviet Russia: The Formative Period, Viking, 1960
  • Harvey Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism:The Depression Decade, Basic Books, 1984, hardcover, ISBN 0465029450, trade paperback, 1985, ISBN 0465029469
  • Maurice Isserman, Which Side Were You On?: The American Communist Party During the Second World War, Wesleyan University Press, 1982 and 1987, University of Illinois Press, 1993, trade paperback, ISBN 0252063368, reprint edition ISBN 0819561118
  • Philip J. Jaffe, Rise and Fall of American Communism, Horizon Press, 1975, hardcover, ISBN 0818008172
  • Joseph R. Starobin, American Communism in Crisis, 1943-1957, Harvard University Press, 1972, hardcover, ISBN 0674022750
  • Irving Howe and Lewis Coser, The American Communist Party: A Critical History, Beacon Press, 1957
  • Guenter Lewy, The Cause That Failed: Communism in American Political Life, Oxford University Press, 1997, hardcover, ISBN 0195057481
  • Aileen S. Kraditor, Jimmy Higgins: The Mental World of the American Rank-And-File Communist, 1930-1958 Greenwood Publishing Company, 1988, hardcover, ISBN 0313262462
  • Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes, The American Communist Movement: Storming Heaven Itself (Social Movements Past and Present), Twayne Publishers, 1992, hardcover, ISBN 080573855X

Union history

  • Bert Cochran, Labor and Communism: The Conflict That Shaped American Unions, Princeton University Press, 1977, ISBN 0691046441
  • Harvey Levenstein, Communism, Anticommunism, and the CIO, Greenwood, 1981, hardcover, ISBN 0313220727
  • Max M. Kampelman, Communist Party Vs the Cio: A Study in Power Politics (American Labor Series No. 2), Ayer Company Publishing, 1971, hardcover, ISBN 0405029292
  • Ronald W. Schatz, Electrical Workers: A History of Labor at General Electric and Westinghouse, 1923-60, University of Illinois Press, 1983, hardcover, ISBN 0252010310; paperback reprint ISBN 0252014383
  • Joshua B. Freeman, In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933-1966 With a New Epilogue, Temple University Press, 2001, trade paperback 446 pages, ISBN 156639922X
  • Roger Keeran, Communist Party and the Auto Workers Unions, Indiana University Press, 1980, hardcover, ISBN 0253157544
  • Cletus E. Daniel, Bitter Harvest: A History of California Farmworkers, 1870-1941, University of California Press, 1982, trade paperback, ISBN 0520047222; textbook binding, Cornell University Press, 1981, ISBN 0801412846

Agricultural issues

  • Robin D.G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression, University of North Carolina Press, 1990, trade paperback, ISBN 0807842885
  • Lowell K., Dyson, Red Harvest: The Communist Party and American Farmers, University of Nebraska Press, 1982, hardcover, ISBN 0803216599

Social and ethnic issues

  • Nathan Glazer, The Social Basis of American Communism, Greenwood, 1974, ISBN 0837174767
  • Harvey E. Klehr, Communist Cadre: The Social Background of the American Communist Party, Hoover Institution Press, 1960, ISBN 0685672794
  • Auvo Kostiainen, The Forging of Finnish-American Communism, 1917-1924: A Study in Ethnic Radicalism, Annales Universitatis Turkuensis, Series B, No. 147, University of Turku, Turku, Finland, 1978
  • Mark Naison, Communists in Harlem During the Depression, University of Illinois Press, 1983, hardcover, ISBN 0252006445; Grove Press reprint, 1985, ISBN 0802151833
  • Charles H., Martin, The Angelo Herndon Case and Southern Justice Louisiana State University Press, 1976, ISBN 0807101745
  • Dan T. Carter, Scottsboro a Tragedy of the American South, Oxford University Press, 1972, trade paperback, ISBN 0195014855; Louisiana State University Press; 1979, trade paperback, ISBN 0807104981

Related issues

  • Daniel Aaron, Writers on the Left: Episodes in American Literary Communism, Harcourt Brace & World, 1959
  • Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930-1960, Doubleday, 1980, hardcover, ISBN 0385129009; University of Illinois Press, 2003, trade paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0252071417
  • Robert Rosenstone, Crusade on the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War, Pegasus, 1969.
  • Constance Ashton Myers, The Prophet's Army : Trotskyists in America, 1928-1941, Greenwood, 1977, hardcover, 281 pages, ISBN 0837190304
  • Robert Jackson Alexander and Robert S. Alley, Right Opposition: The Lovestoneites and the International Communist Opposition of the 1930's, Greenwood, 1981, hardcover, 342 pages, ISBN 0313220700

New Left

  • Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the '60s, Summit Books, 1989, hardcover, ISBN 0671667521; Summit Books, trade paperback, ISBN 0671701282; Simon and Schuster, 1996, trade paperback, 398 pages, ISBN 0684826410
  • Todd Gitlin, Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, Bantam, 1987, hardcover, ISBN 0553052330; Bantam Dell, 1993, trade paperback, ISBN 0553372122
  • James E. Miller also known as Jim or James Miller, Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago, Touchstone Books, 1988, hardcover, ISBN 0671530569; Harvard University Press, 1994, trade paperback, ISBN 0674197259; Touchstone Books, 1988, trade paperback, ISBN 067166235X

Espionage and infiltration

  • Allen, Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, Knopf, 1978, hardcover, ISBN 0394495462
  • Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, The Rosenberg File: A Search for the Truth, Henry Holt, 1983, hardcover, ISBN 0030490367; Yale University Press, 2nd edition, 1997, trade paperback, 616 pages, ISBN 0300072058
  • Earl Latham, Communist Controversy in Washington: From the New Deal to McCarthy, Holiday House, 1972, ISBN 0689701217; hardcover, ISBN 1125650796
  • Richard M. Fried, Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective, Oxford University Press, 1991, trade paperback, ISBN 019504360X; ISBN 0195043618

Joe McCarthy

  • David M. Oshinsky, Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy, Simon and Schuster, 1985, trade paperback, ISBN 0029237602; Free Press, ISBN 0029234905
  • Thomas C. Reeves, Life and Times of Joe McCarthy, Stein & Day, 1983, hardcover, ISBN 0812823370

Bibliography

References

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