Communist Party USA
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The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA),[9] also known as the American Communist Party, is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revolution.[6][10]
The history of the CPUSA is closely related to the history of the
The transformative changes of the New Deal era combined with the US alliance with the
The CPUSA received significant funding from the Soviet Union and crafted its public positions to match those of Moscow.
History
During the first half of the 20th century, the Communist Party was influential in various struggles. Historian Ellen Schrecker concludes that decades of recent scholarship[note 2] offer "a more nuanced portrayal of the party as both a Stalinist sect tied to a vicious regime and the most dynamic organization within the American Left during the 1930s and '40s."[20] It was also the first political party in the United States to be "fully"[clarification needed] racially integrated.[21]
By August 1919, only months after its founding, the Communist Party claimed to have 50,000 to 60,000 members. Its members also included anarchists and other radical leftists. At the time, the older and more moderate Socialist Party of America, suffering from criminal prosecutions for its antiwar stance during World War I, had declined to 40,000 members. The sections of the Communist Party's International Workers Order (IWO) organized for communism around linguistic and ethnic lines, providing mutual aid and tailoring cultural activities to an IWO membership that peaked at 200,000 at its height.[22]
During the Great Depression, some Americans were attracted by the visible activism of Communists on behalf of a wide range of social and economic causes, including the rights of African Americans, workers, and the unemployed.[23] The Communist Party played a significant role in the resurgence of organized labor in the 1930s.[24] Others, alarmed by the rise of the Falangists in Spain and the Nazis in Germany, admired the Soviet Union's early and staunch opposition to fascism. Party membership swelled from 7,500 at the start of the decade to 55,000 by its end.[25]
Party members also rallied to the defense of the Spanish Republic during this period after a nationalist military uprising moved to overthrow it, resulting in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).[26] The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, along with leftists throughout the world, raised funds for medical relief while many of its members made their way to Spain with the aid of the party to join the Lincoln Brigade, one of the International Brigades.[27][26]
The Communist Party was adamantly opposed to fascism during the Popular Front period. Although membership in the party rose to about 66,000 by 1939,[28][26] nearly 20,000 members left the party by 1943.[26] While general secretary Browder at first attacked Germany for its September 1, 1939 invasion of western Poland, on September 11 the Communist Party received a communique from Moscow denouncing the Polish government.[29] Between September 14–16, party leaders bickered about the direction to take.[29]
On September 17, the
In August 1940, after NKVD agent Ramón Mercader killed Trotsky with an ice axe, Browder perpetuated Moscow's line that the killer, who had been dating one of Trotsky's secretaries, was a disillusioned follower.[36]
The Communist Party's early labor and organizing successes did not last long. As the decades progressed, the combined effects of
The party attempted to recover with its opposition to the Vietnam War during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, but its continued uncritical support for an increasingly stultified and militaristic Soviet Union further alienated it from the rest of the left-wing in the United States, which saw this supportive role as outdated and even dangerous. At the same time, the party's aging membership demographics distanced it from the New Left in the United States.[39]
With the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev and his effort to radically alter the Soviet economic and political system from the mid-1980s, the Communist Party finally became estranged from the leadership of the Soviet Union itself. In 1989, the Soviet Communist Party cut off major funding to the American Communist Party due to its opposition to glasnost and perestroika. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the party held its convention and attempted to resolve the issue of whether the party should reject Marxism–Leninism. The majority reasserted the party's now purely Marxist outlook, prompting a minority faction which urged social democrats to exit the now reduced party. The party has since adopted Marxism–Leninism within its program.[6] In 2014, the new draft of the party constitution declared: "We apply the scientific outlook developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin and others in the context of our American history, culture, and traditions."[40]
The Communist Party is based in New York City. From 1922 to 1988, it published Morgen Freiheit, a daily newspaper written in Yiddish.[41][42] For decades, its West Coast newspaper was the People's World and its East Coast newspaper was The Daily World.[43] The two newspapers merged in 1986 into the People's Weekly World. The People's Weekly World has since become an online only publication called People's World. It has since ceased being an official Communist Party publication as the party does not fund its publication.[44] The party's former theoretical journal Political Affairs is now also published exclusively online, but the party still maintains International Publishers as its publishing house. In June 2014, the party held its 30th National Convention in Chicago.[45] The party's 31st National Convention in 2019 celebrated the party's 100th year since its founding.
The party announced on April 7, 2021, that it intended to run candidates in elections again, after a hiatus of over thirty years.[46] Steven Estrada, who ran for city council in Long Beach, was one of the first candidates to run as an open member of the CPUSA again (although Long Beach local elections are officially non-partisan).[47] Estrada received 8.5% of the vote.[48]
Beliefs
Constitution program
According to the constitution of the party adopted at the 30th National Convention in 2014, the Communist Party operates on the principle of democratic centralism,[49] its highest authority being the quadrennial National Convention. Article VI, Section 3 of the 2001 Constitution laid out certain positions as non-negotiable:[50]
[S]truggle for the unity of the working class, against all forms of national oppression, national chauvinism, discrimination and segregation, against all racist ideologies and practices, ... against all manifestations of male supremacy and discrimination against women, ... against homophobia and all manifestations of discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.
Among the points in the party's "Immediate Program" are a $15/hour
Bill of rights socialism
The Communist Party emphasizes a vision of socialism as an extension of American democracy. Seeking to "build socialism in the United States based on the revolutionary traditions and struggles" of American history, the party promotes a conception of "Bill of Rights Socialism" that will "guarantee all the freedoms we have won over centuries of struggle and also extend the Bill of Rights to include freedom from unemployment" as well as freedom "from poverty, from illiteracy, and from discrimination and oppression."[52]
Reiterating the idea of property rights in socialist society as it is outlined in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's Communist Manifesto (1848),[53] the Communist Party emphasizes:
Many myths have been propagated about socialism. Contrary to right-wing claims, socialism would not take away the personal private property of workers, only the private ownership of major industries, financial institutions, and other large corporations, and the excessive luxuries of the super-rich.[52]
Rather than making all wages entirely equal, the Communist Party holds that building socialism would entail "eliminating private wealth from stock speculation, from private ownership of large corporations, from the export of capital and jobs, and from the exploitation of large numbers of workers."[52]
Living standards
Among the primary concerns of the Communist Party are the problems of
Millions of workers are unemployed, underemployed, or insecure in their jobs, even during economic upswings and periods of 'recovery' from recessions. Most workers experience long years of stagnant and declining real wages, while health and education costs soar. Many workers are forced to work second and third jobs to make ends meet. Most workers now average four different occupations during their lifetime, many involuntarily moved from job to job and career to career. Often, retirement-age workers are forced to continue working just to provide health care for themselves and their families. Millions of people continuously live below the poverty level; many suffer homelessness and hunger. Public and private programs to alleviate poverty and hunger do not reach everyone, and are inadequate even for those they do reach. With capitalist globalization, jobs move from place to place as capitalists export factories and even entire industries to other countries in a relentless search for the lowest wages.[52]
The Communist Party believes that "class struggle starts with the fight for wages, hours, benefits, working conditions, job security, and jobs. But it also includes an endless variety of other forms for fighting specific battles: resisting speed-up, picketing, contract negotiations, strikes, demonstrations, lobbying for pro-labor legislation, elections, and even general strikes".[52] The Communist Party's national programs considers workers who struggle "against the capitalist class or any part of it on any issue with the aim of improving or defending their lives" part of the class struggle.[52]
Imperialism and war
The Communist Party maintains that developments within the foreign policy of the United States—as reflected in the rise of neoconservatives and other groups associated with right-wing politics—have developed in tandem with the interests of large-scale capital such as the multinational corporations. The state thereby becomes thrust into a proxy role that is essentially inclined to help facilitate "control by one section of the capitalist class over all others and over the whole of society".[52]
Accordingly, the Communist Party holds that right-wing policymakers such as the neoconservatives, steering the state away from working-class interests on behalf of a disproportionately powerful capitalist class, have "demonized foreign opponents of the U.S., covertly funded the
From its ideological framework, the Communist Party understands imperialism as the pinnacle of capitalist development: the state, working on behalf of the few who wield disproportionate power, assumes the role of proffering "phony rationalizations" for economically driven imperial ambition as a means to promote the sectional economic interests of big business.[52]
In opposition to what it considers the ultimate agenda of the conservative wing of American politics, the Communist Party rejects foreign policy proposals such as the Bush Doctrine, rejecting the right of the American government to attack "any country it wants, to conduct war without end until it succeeds everywhere, and even to use 'tactical' nuclear weapons and militarize space. Whoever does not support the U.S. policy is condemned as an opponent. Whenever international organizations, such as the United Nations, do not support U.S. government policies, they are reluctantly tolerated until the U.S. government is able to subordinate or ignore them".[52]
Juxtaposing the support from the
Thousands of grassroots peace committees [were] organized by ordinary Americans ... neighborhoods, small towns and universities expressing opposition in countless creative ways. Thousands of actions, vigils, teach-ins and newspaper advertisements were organized. The largest demonstrations were held since the Vietnam War. 500,000 marched in New York after the war started. Students at over 500 universities conducted a Day of Action for "Books not Bombs."
Over 150 anti-war resolutions were passed by city councils. Resolutions were passed by thousands of local unions and community organizations. Local and national actions were organized on the Internet, including the "Virtual March on Washington DC" .... Elected officials were flooded with millions of calls, emails and letters.
In an unprecedented development, large sections of the US labor movement officially opposed the war. In contrast, it took years to build labor opposition to the Vietnam War. ... For example in Chicago, labor leaders formed Labor United for Peace, Justice and Prosperity. They concluded that mass education of their members was essential to counter false propaganda, and that the fight for the peace, economic security and democratic rights was interrelated.[54]
The party has consistently opposed American involvement in the
The Communist Party does not believe that the threat of terrorism can be resolved through war.[55]
Women and minorities
The Communist Party Constitution defines the U.S. working class as "multiracial and multinational. It unites men and women, young and old, gay and straight, native-born and immigrant, urban and rural." The party further expands its interpretation to include the employed and unemployed, organized and unorganized, and of all occupations.[49]
The Communist Party seeks equal rights for women, equal pay for equal work and the protection of reproductive rights, together with putting an end to sexism.[56] They support the right of abortion and social services to provide access to it, arguing that unplanned pregnancy is prejudiced against poor women.[57] The party's ranks include a Women's Equality Commission, which recognizes the role of women as an asset in moving towards building socialism.[58]
Historically significant in American history as an early fighter for African Americans' rights and playing a leading role in protesting the lynchings of African Americans in the South, the Communist Party in its national program today calls racism the "classic divide-and-conquer tactic".[note 3][59] From its New York City base, the Communist Party's Ben Davis Club and other Communist Party organizations have been involved in local activism in Harlem and other African American and minority communities.[60] The Communist Party was instrumental in the founding of the progressive Black Radical Congress in 1998, as well as the African Blood Brotherhood.[61]
Historically significant in Latino working class history as a successful organizer of the Mexican American working class in the Southwestern United States in the 1930s, the Communist Party regards working-class Latino people as another oppressed group targeted by overt racism as well as systemic discrimination in areas such as education and sees the participation of Latino voters in a general mass movement in both party-based and nonpartisan work as an essential goal for major left-wing progress.[62]
The Communist Party holds that racial and ethnic discrimination not only harms minorities, but is pernicious to working-class people of all backgrounds as any discriminatory practices between demographic sections of the working class constitute an inherently divisive practice responsible for "obstructing the development of working-class consciousness, driving wedges in class unity to divert attention from class exploitation, and creating extra profits for the capitalist class".[63][note 4]
The Communist Party supports an end to
Geography
The Communist Party garnered support in particular communities, developing a unique geography. Instead of a broad nationwide support, support for the party was concentrated in different communities at different times, depending on the organizing strategy at that moment.
Before
Unlike open mass organizations like the Socialist Party or the NAACP, the Communist Party was a disciplined organization that demanded strenuous commitments and frequently expelled members. Membership levels remained below 20,000 until 1933 and then surged upward in the late 1930s, reaching 66,000 in 1939 and reaching its peak membership of over 75,000 in 1947.[66]
The party fielded candidates in presidential and many state and local elections not expecting to win, but expecting loyalists to vote the party ticket. The party mounted symbolic yet energetic campaigns during each presidential election from 1924 through 1940 and many gubernatorial and congressional races from 1922 to 1944.
The Communist Party organized the country into districts that did not coincide with state lines, initially dividing it into 15 districts identified with a headquarters city with an additional "Agricultural District". Several reorganizations in the 1930s expanded the number of districts.[67]
Relations with other groups
United States labor movement
The Communist Party has sought to play an active role in the labor movement since its origins as part of its effort to build a mass movement of American workers to bring about their own liberation through socialist revolution.
Soviet funding and espionage
From 1959 until 1989, when
Somewhat more controversial than mere funding is the alleged involvement of Communist members in espionage for the Soviet Union. Whittaker Chambers alleged that Sandor Goldberger—also known as Josef Peters, who commonly wrote under the name J. Peters—headed the Communist Party's underground secret apparatus from 1932 to 1938 and pioneered its role as an auxiliary to Soviet intelligence activities.[70] Bernard Schuster, Organizational Secretary of the New York District of the Communist Party, is claimed to have been the operational recruiter and conduit for members of the party into the ranks of the secret apparatus, or "Group A line".
Stalin publicly disbanded the
There are a number of decrypted World War II Soviet messages between NKVD offices in the United States and Moscow, also known as the
It was the belief of opponents of the Communist Party such as
At one time, this view was shared by the majority of the Congress. In the "Findings and declarations of fact" section of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 (50 U.S.C. Chap. 23 Sub. IV Sec. 841), it stated:
[T]he Communist Party, although purportedly a political party, is in fact an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United States. It constitutes an authoritarian dictatorship within a republic ... the policies and programs of the Communist Party are secretly prescribed for it by the foreign leaders ... to carry into action slavishly the assignments given .... [T]he Communist Party acknowledges no constitutional or statutory limitations .... The peril inherent in its operation arises [from] its dedication to the proposition that the present constitutional Government of the United States ultimately must be brought to ruin by any available means, including resort to force and violence ... its role as the agency of a hostile foreign power renders its existence a clear present and continuing danger.[75]
In 1993, experts from the Library of Congress traveled to Moscow to copy previously secret archives of the party records, sent to the Soviet Union for safekeeping by party organizers. The records provided an irrefutable link between Soviet intelligence and information obtained by the Communist Party and its contacts in the United States government from the 1920s through the 1940s. Some documents revealed that the Communist Party was actively involved in secretly recruiting party members from African American groups and rural farm workers. Other party records contained further evidence that Soviet sympathizers had indeed infiltrated the State Department, beginning in the 1930s. Included in Communist Party archival records were confidential letters from two American ambassadors in Europe to Roosevelt and a senior State Department official. Thanks to an official in the Department of State sympathetic to the party, the confidential correspondence, concerning political and economic matters in Europe, ended up in the hands of Soviet intelligence.[72][76][77]
Counterintelligence
In 1952, Jack and Morris Childs, together codenamed SOLO, became FBI informants. As high-ranking officials in the American Communist Party, they informed on the CPUSA for the rest of the Cold War, monitoring the Soviet funding.[78][79] They also traveled to Moscow and Beijing to meet USSR and PRC leadership.[80] Jack and Morris Childs both received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1987 for their intelligence work. Morris's son stated, "The CIA could not believe the information the FBI had because the American Communist Party had links directly into the Kremlin."[81]
According to intelligence analyst Darren E. Tromblay, the SOLO operation, and the Ad Hoc Committee, were part of "developing geopolitical awareness" by the FBI about factors such as the Sino-Soviet split.[82] The Ad Hoc Committee was a group within CPUSA that circulated a pro-Maoist bulletin in the voice of a "dedicated but rebellious comrade." Allegedly an operation, it caused a schism within the CPUSA.[83]
Criminal prosecutions
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 prosecution was continued in 1919 and January 1920 in the Palmer Raids as part of the First Red Scare. Rank and file foreign-born members of the Communist Party were targeted and as many as possible were arrested and deported while leaders were prosecuted and, in some cases, sentenced to prison terms. In the late 1930s, with the authorization of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the FBI began investigating both domestic Nazis and Communists. In 1940, Congress passed the Smith Act, which made it illegal to advocate, abet, or teach the desirability of overthrowing the government.
In 1949, the federal government put Eugene Dennis, William Z. Foster and ten other Communist Party leaders on trial for advocating the violent overthrow of the government. Because the prosecution could not show that any of the defendants had openly called for violence or been involved in accumulating weapons for a proposed revolution, it relied on the testimony of former members of the party that the defendants had privately advocated the overthrow of the government and on quotations from the work of Marx, Lenin and other revolutionary figures of the past.[84] During the course of the trial, the judge held several of the defendants and all of their counsel in contempt of court. All of the remaining eleven defendants were found guilty, and the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of their convictions by a 6–2 vote in Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951). The government then proceeded with the prosecutions of more than 140 members of the party.[85]
Panicked by these arrests and fearing that the party was dangerously compromised by informants, Dennis and other party leaders decided to go underground and to disband many affiliated groups. The move heightened the political isolation of the leadership while making it nearly impossible for the party to function. The widespread support of action against communists and their associates began to abate after Senator Joseph McCarthy overreached himself in the Army–McCarthy hearings, producing a backlash. The end of the Korean War in 1953 also led to a lessening of anxieties about subversion. The Supreme Court brought a halt to the Smith Act prosecutions in 1957 in its decision in Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957), which required that the government prove that the defendant had actually taken concrete steps toward the forcible overthrow of the government, rather than merely advocating it in theory.
African Americans
The Communist Party played a role in defending the rights of African Americans during its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. The
Gay rights movement
One of the most prominent sexual radicals in the United States[
The Communist Party endorsed
United States peace movement
The Communist Party opposed the United States involvement in the early stages of
The Communist Party was consistently opposed to the United States' 2003–2011 war in Iraq.[90] United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) includes the New York branch of the Communist Party as a member group, with Communist Judith LeBlanc serving as the co-chair of UFPJ from 2007 to 2009.[91]
Election results
Presidential tickets
Year | President | Vice President | Votes | Percent | Name |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1924 | William Z. Foster |
Benjamin Gitlow |
38,669 | 0.1% | Workers Party of America |
1928 | William Z. Foster |
Benjamin Gitlow |
48,551 | 0.1% | Workers (Communist) Party of America |
1932 | William Z. Foster |
103,307 | 0.3% | Communist Party USA | |
1936 | Earl Browder |
79,315 | 0.2% | ||
1940 | Earl Browder |
48,557 | 0.1% | ||
1948 | No candidate; endorsed Henry Wallace |
No candidate; endorsed Glen H. Taylor |
N/A | ||
1952 | No candidate; endorsed Vincent Hallinan |
No candidate; endorsed Charlotta Bass | |||
1968 | Charlene Mitchell |
Michael Zagarell |
1,077 | nil% | |
1972 | Gus Hall |
Jarvis Tyner |
25,597 | nil% | |
1976 | Gus Hall |
Jarvis Tyner |
58,709 | 0.1% | |
1980 | Gus Hall |
Angela Davis |
44,933 | 0.1% | |
1984 | Gus Hall |
Angela Davis |
36,386 | nil% |
Best results in major races
Office | Percent | District | Year | Candidate |
---|---|---|---|---|
President | 1.5% | Florida | 1928 | William Z. Foster |
0.8% | Montana | 1932 | Earl Browder | |
0.6% | New York | 1936 | ||
US Senate | 1.2% | New York | 1934 | Max Bedacht |
0.6% | New York | 1932 | William Weinstone | |
0.4% | Illinois | 1932 | William E. Browder | |
US House | 6.2% | California District 5 | 1934 | Alexander Noral |
5.2% | California District 5 | 1936 | Lawrence Ross | |
4.8% | California District 13 | 1936 | Emma Cutler |
Party leaders
Name | Period | Title |
---|---|---|
Charles Ruthenberg[92]
|
1919–1927 | Executive Secretary of old CPA (1919–1920); Executive Secretary of WPA/W(C)P (May 1922 – 1927) |
Alfred Wagenknecht | 1919–1921 | Executive Secretary of CLP (1919–1920); of UCP (1920–1921) |
Charles Dirba | 1920–1921 | Executive Secretary of old CPA (1920–1921); of unified CPA (May 30, 1921 – July 27, 1921) |
Louis Shapiro | 1920 | Executive Secretary of old CPA |
L.E. Katterfeld
|
1921 | Executive Secretary of unified CPA |
William Weinstone | 1921–1922 | Executive Secretary of unified CPA |
Jay Lovestone | 1922; 1927–1929 | Executive Secretary of unified CPA (February 22, 1922 – August 22, 1922); of W(C)P/CPUSA (1927–1929) |
James P. Cannon[93] | 1921–1922 | National Chairman of WPA |
Caleb Harrison | 1921–1922 | Executive Secretary of WPA |
Abram Jakira | 1922–1923 | Executive Secretary of unified CPA |
William Z. Foster[94] | 1929–1934; 1945–1957 | Party Chairman |
Earl Browder | 1934–1945 | Party Chairman |
Eugene Dennis | 1945–1959 | General Secretary |
Gus Hall | 1959–2000 | General Secretary |
Sam Webb | 2000–2014 | Chairman |
John Bachtell | 2014–2019 | Chairman |
Rossana Cambron | 2019–present | Co-chair |
Joe Sims | 2019–present | Co-chair |
Notable CPUSA members
Name | Years Active | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Angela Davis | 1969–1991 | Member, California Communist Party | A supporter of the Communist Party until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 following the revolutions of 1989, which ended communism in most countries worldwide. Davis then created the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a former reformist faction within the Communist Party, which is now independent and promotes democratic socialism. |
Charles E. Taylor | ? | Member, Montana Communist Party; State Senator | Started a left-wing newspaper called "Producers News" in Sheridan County, Montana after being sent there by the Nonpartisan League of North Dakota. The newspaper slandered members of the community, sparking a libel case and newspaper war.[95][96] |
Dorothy Ray Healey | 1920s–1973 | Member, California Communist Party | An early supporter of the Communist Party, she became disillusioned with the leadership of Gus Hall and furthermore was against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Healey criticized CPUSA orthodoxy after the crimes of Stalin were exposed by Nikita Khrushchev. She eventually left the party and joined the New America Movement, an organization promoting new-left activism. |
Elizabeth Benson | 1939–1968[97] | Party Organizer | A child prodigy, Benson moved to Houston at the age of 22 to organize the area for the national party.[98] Benson is best known for leading Texas organizing during the 1939 convention in San Antonio, where 5,000 people surrounded the building and rioted at the opening ceremonies. Benson and several others were escorted out by police. |
Emma Tenayuca | 1936–1939(?) | Party Organizer | Emma Tenayuca (December 21, 1916 – July 23, 1999), also known as Emma Beatrice Tenayuca, was an American labor leader, union organizer and educator. She is best known for her work organizing Mexican workers in Texas during the 1930s, particularly for leading the 1938 San Antonio pecan shellers strike. |
Homer Brooks | 1938–1943 | Texas State Party Chair; 1938 Candidate for Governor | First husband of Emma Tenayuca. Brooks faced a draft evasion charge that became an exercise in red-baiting. He was sentenced to 60 days in prison, but the charge was overturned.[98] |
Richard Durham | 1940s | Member | Creator and writer of the Destination Freedom radio series in Chicago. Durham was a CPUSA member while writing for New Masses, the Chicago Defender, the Chicago Star, and the Illinois Standard newspapers.[99][100][101] |
Tupac Shakur | ? | Member, Baltimore Young Communist League[102][103] | Known for his career as a rapper and actor, Tupac Shakur was at one time a member of the Young Communist League in Baltimore. He found the platform of the party appealing, having grown up in poverty. Shakur also dated the daughter of the director of the local Communist Party.[103] |
See also
- English-language press of the Communist Party USA (annotated list of titles)
- History of Soviet espionage in the United States
- International Publishers
- Jencks v. United States
- Language federation
- National conventions of the Communist Party USA
- Non-English press of the Communist Party USA (annotated list of titles)
- Progressive Labor Party (United States)
- Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
- Socialist Workers Party (United States)
- W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs of America
- Young Communist League USA
- List of Communist Party USA members who have held office in the United States
Notes
- ^ The party voted to dissolve its youth wing in 2015 and voted to re-establish it in 2019. Final Resolutions for the 31st National Convention. June 10, 2019.
- ^ She mentions James Barrett, Maurice Isserman, Robin D. G. Kelley, Randi Storch and Kate Weigand.
- The Communist Party and African-Americans and the article on the Scottsboro Boysfor the Communist Party's work in promoting minority rights and involvement in the historically significant case of the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930s.
- ^ See also Executive Vice Chair Jarvis Tyner's ideological essay "The National Question". CPUSA Online. August 1, 2003. Retrieved April 7, 2009.
References
- ^ "CPUSA Organizational Chart". March 26, 2020.
- ISBN 978-0300138009.
- OCLC 09168021. Retrieved January 21, 2019.
- ^ Gómez, Sergio (April 19, 2017). "Communist Party membership numbers climbing in the Trump era". People's World. People's World. Retrieved December 12, 2023.
- ^ "CPUSA Constitution". CPUSA Online. September 20, 2001. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
- ^ a b c Constitution of the Communist Party of the United States of America. Communist Party of the United States of America. 2001. Archived from the original on January 21, 2014.
- ^ "Bill of Rights Socialism". CPUSA Online. May 1, 2016. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
- .
- ^ "The name of this organization shall be the Communist Party of the United States of America. Art. I of the "Constitution of the Communist Party of the United States of America".
- ^ ISBN 978-1405198073.
- ^ Shannon, David A. (1967). "The Rise of the Communist Party USA during the Great Depression". Journal of American History, 54(2), 351–365.
- ^ Kann, Kenneth (2014). "Comrades and Critics: The Communist Party's Role in the New Deal Era". American Communist History, 13(2–3), 123–142.
- ^ Ottanelli, Fraser M. (1991). "From the Margins to the Mainstream: The Transformation of the Communist Party USA in the 1930s". The Journal of American-East European Relations, 1(2), 185–209.
- ^ Gregory, James. "Communist Party Membership by Districts 1922–1950". Civil Rights and Labor History Consortium. University of Washington.
- ^ Browder, Earl. (1936). "Communism and 20th Century Americanism." Political Affairs. p.123. In this seminal work, Browder himself brands communism as '20th Century Americanism,' outlining his perspective on the relationship between communism and American national identity.
- ^ Minutes of the Communist Party Convention, Saturday, May 20, 1944., Published in The Path to Peace, Progress and Prosperity: Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the Communist Political Association, New York, May 20–22, 1944.
- ISBN 0300071507; p. 148.
- ISBN 0300071507; p. 74.
- ISBN 978-1351484749.
- ^ Ellen Schrecker, "Soviet Espionage in America: An Oft-Told tale", Reviews in American History, Volume 38, Number 2, June 2010 p. 359. Schrecker goes on to explore why the Left dared to spy.
- ^ Rose, Steve (January 24, 2016). "Racial harmony in a Marxist utopia: how the Soviet Union capitalised on US discrimination". The Guardian. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
- ISBN 978-0465029457.
- ISBN 0394726979, pp. 52–58
- ISBN 978-1501152672.
The breakdown of capitalism saw a short-lived revival of organized labor during the 1930s, often led by the Communist Party.
- ^ "Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History". gilderlehrman.org.
- ^ ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved November 27, 2019.
- ^ "Soviet Union and the Spanish Civil War". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved November 27, 2019.
- ^ Soviet and American Communist Parties in Revelations from the Russian Archives, Library of Congress, January 4, 1996. Retrieved August 29, 2006.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-585-28017-2.
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- ISBN 0-415-33873-5.
- ISBN 978-0-585-28017-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-585-28017-2.
- ISBN 9780837178226
- ^ ISBN 978-0-585-28017-2.
- ISBN 978-0-585-28017-2.
- ISBN 0393024040.
- ^ Click, Kane Madison. "Communist Control Act of 1954". www.mtsu.edu. Retrieved November 27, 2019.
- ^ Naison, Mark. "The Communist Party USA and Radical Organizations, 1953–1960" (PDF).
- ^ "New CPUSA Constitution (final draft)."
- ^ Klehr, Harvey; Haynes, John Earl; Gurvitz, David (February 15, 2017). "Two Worlds of a Soviet Spy – The Astonishing Life Story of Joseph Katz". Commentary Magazine. Commentary, Inc. Retrieved June 4, 2017.
- ^ Henry Felix Srebrnik, Dreams of Nationhood: American Jewish Communists and the Soviet Birobidzhan Project, 1924–1951. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2010; p. 2.
- ^ Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957)
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- ^ See Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2.
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Further reading
- Arnesen, Eric, "Civil Rights and the Cold War at Home: Postwar Activism, Anticommunism, and the Decline of the Left", American Communist History (2012), 11#1 pp 5–44.
- Draper, Theodore, The Roots of American Communism. New York: Viking, 1957.
- Draper, Theodore, American Communism and Soviet Russia: The Formative Period. New York: Viking, 1960.
- ISBN 0765805138.
- Lewis Coser, The American Communist Party: A Critical History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957.
- Isserman, Maurice, Which Side Were You On?: The American Communist Party During the Second World War. Wesleyan University Press, 1982 and 1987.
- Jaffe, Philip J., Rise and Fall of American Communism. Horizon Press, 1975.
- Klehr, Harvey. The Heyday of American Communism: The Depression Decade, Basic Books, 1984.
- Klehr, Harvey and Haynes, John Earl, The American Communist Movement: Storming Heaven Itself, Twayne Publishers (Macmillan), 1992.
- Klehr, Harvey, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov. The Secret World of American Communism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
- Klehr, Harvey, Kyrill M. Anderson, and John Earl Haynes. The Soviet World of American Communism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
- Lewy, Guenter, The Cause That Failed: Communism in American Political Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
- McDuffie, Erik S., Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011
- Ottanelli, Fraser M., The Communist Party of the United States: From the Depression to World War II. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991.
- Maurice Spector, James P. Cannon, and the Origins of Canadian Trotskyism, 1890–1928. Urbana, IL: Illinois University Press, 2007
- Palmer, Bryan, James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890–1928. Urbana, IL: Illinois University Press, 2007.
- Service, Robert. Comrades!: a history of world communism (2007).
- Shannon, David A., The Decline of American Communism: A History of the Communist Party of the United States since 1945. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1959.
- Starobin, Joseph R., American Communism in Crisis, 1943–1957. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972.
- Zumoff, Jacob A. The Communist International and US Communism, 1919–1929. [2014] Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015.
Archives
- "Communist Party of the United States of America Records", Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives, New York University Special Collections
- Communist Party of the United States of America Records, 1956–1960. At the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
- Communist Party of the United States of America, Washington State District Records, 1919–2003. At the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
- Marion S. Kinney Papers, 1930–1983. At the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
External links
- Media related to Communist Party USA at Wikimedia Commons
- Young Communist League USA – youth group
- People's World – weekly newspaper
- Communism in Washington State History and Memory Project
- Manifesto and program. Constitution. Report to the Communist International – first pamphlet of the Communist Party of America
- Manifesto to the workers of America
- FBI files on the CPUSA on the Internet Archive