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Encyclopedia > Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
Party Chairman Sam Webb
Senate Leader N/A
House Leader N/A
Founded 1919
Headquarters 235 W. 23rd Street
New York, NY 10011
Political ideology Communism; Marxism-Leninism
Political position Fiscal: Far-left
Social: Far-left
International affiliation formerly Comintern; today, none
Color(s) Red
Website Cpusa.org

The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States. For approximately the first half of the 20th Century it was the largest and most widely influential communist party in the country, and played a defining rôle in the U.S. labour movement from the 1920s through the 1940s, originating or helping to originate most of the country's major industrial unions (which would later cleanse themselves of communists with the Smith Act) and pursuing intense anti-racist activity in workplaces and city communities throughout this first part of its existence. Simultaneously the CPUSA survived the Palmer Raids, the first Red Scare, and many similar attempts at suppression of communist activity by the Government of the United States through the end of World War II. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Sam Webb is the current national chair of the Communist Party USA, a position to which he was elected in 1998. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Midtown Manhattan, looking north from the Empire State Building, 2005 New York City (officially named the City of New York) is the most populous city in the state of New York and the entire United States. ... This article is about the state. ... This article is about the form of society and political movement. ... Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Marxism; it is a branch of Marxism (and it has been the dominant branch of Marxism in the world since the 1920s). ... The term far left refers to the relative position a person or group occupies within the left-right political spectrum. ... The term far left refers to the relative position a person or group occupies within the left-right political spectrum. ... The Comintern (Russian: Коммунистический Интернационал, Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional – Communist International, also known as the Third International) was an international Communist organization founded in March 1919, in the midst of the war communism period (1918-1921), by Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), which intended to fight by all available means, including... For other uses, see Red (disambiguation). ... Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Marxism; it is a branch of Marxism (and it has been the dominant branch of Marxism in the world since the 1920s). ... Political Parties redirects here. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... In modern usage, the term communist party is generally used to identify any political party which has adopted communist ideology. ... Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union -- regardless of skill or trade -- thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations. ... The Alien Registration Act or Smith Act () of 1940 is a United States federal statute that made it a criminal offense for anyone to It also required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the government; within four months, 4,741,971 aliens had registered under the Acts... The Communist Party USA played a significant role in defending the rights of African-Americans during its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. ... Alexander Mitchell Palmer The Palmer Raids were a series of controversial raids by the U.S. Justice and Immigration Departments from 1919 to 1921 on suspected radical leftists in the United States. ... Political cartoon of 1919 depicting a European anarchist attempting to destroy the Statue of Liberty. ... Censorship is the control of speech and other forms of human expression, often by government intervention. ... ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...


By the 1950s, however, the combined effects of the second Red Scare, McCarthyism, the Secret Speech, and the Cold War began to break apart the party's internal structure and confidence.[citation needed] The CPUSA's cooperation with Soviet KGB and GRU initiatives also lent a helping hand to U.S. government prosecution efforts since it cast the Party not only as subversive, but also as a "foreign" agent. Members who did not end up in prison for party activities tended either to disappear quietly from its ranks or to adopt more moderate political positions that were at odds with the CPUSA's party line. Political cartoon of 1919 depicting a European anarchist attempting to destroy the Statue of Liberty. ... A 1947 comic book published by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society warning of the dangers of a Communist takeover. ... The Secret Speech is the common name of a speech given on February 25, 1956 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denouncing the actions of Josef Stalin. ... For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ... This article is about the KGB of the Soviet Union. ... For other uses, see GRU (disambiguation). ... In politics, the line or the party line is an idiom for a political party or social movements canon agenda, as well as specific ideological elements specific to the organizations partisanship. ...


This pattern meant that the CPUSA had, by the end of that decade, effectively been eliminated as a revolutionary opposition force with which to be reckoned; it had transformed its militant revolutionary line into a more evolutionary one, partly as self-defence in persecution but also echoing "peaceful coexistence". By the early 1960s this conciliatory shift led to dozens of angry breakaways by more militant CP members who, as the New Left, continued to follow the idea of armed class war and generally turned to Mao Zedong for inspiration. Peaceful coexistence was a theory developed during the Cold War among Communist states that they could peacefully coexist with capitalist states. ... The New Left is a term used in different countries to describe left-wing movements that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. ... This article is about the organisation and newspaper Class War. ... Mao redirects here. ...


The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 led to further disillusionment and defections. The major leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement were very careful to keep communists at arm's length for fear of also being branded communist, and the peace movement and the New Left also continued their rejections of the CPUSA for what they saw as the party's bureaucratic rigidity and for its steadfastly close association with the Soviet Union. CCCP redirects here. ... The civil rights movement in the United States has been a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all citizens of United States. ... An Australian anti-conscription poster from World War One A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war (or all wars), minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of... The New Left is a term used in different countries to describe left-wing movements that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. ... In sociological theories, bureaucracy is an organizational structure characterized by regularized procedure, division of responsibility, hierarchy, and impersonal relationships. ...


With continued erosion of what little mass support remained, in the late 1980s the party finally became estranged even from the leadership of the Soviet Union itself; Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika was unpopular with the CPUSA, leading to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union cutting off its support of the CPUSA in 1989.[citation needed] The CPUSA's 1991 convention was consumed by a debate on the future orientation of the party following the collapse of the Eastern bloc. One faction urged the leadership to reject Leninism, but was voted down by a majority of Party members. The group soon left and established itself as the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev[1] (Russian: , IPA: ; born 2 March 1931) is a Russian politician. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian: Коммунисти́ческая Па́ртия Сове́тского Сою́за, transliterated Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza, acronym: КПСС (KPSS)) was the ruling political party in the Soviet Union. ... A map of the Eastern Bloc 1948-1989. ... Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism refers to various related political and economic theories elaborated by Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin, and by other theorists who claim to be carrying on Lenins work. ... The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism is a democratic socialist group in the United States which originated in 1992 as the Committees of Correspondence, a moderate, dissenting wing of the Communist Party USA. Named after the committees of correspondence of the American Revolution, the group was critical of...


The party has never regained the influence it held from before the McCarthy period, but it continues to exist as an organisation under the leadership of Sam Webb, who asserts the number of registered members is over 15,000.[1] The CPUSA is based in New York City; its newspaper is the People's Weekly World and its monthly magazine is Political Affairs Magazine. Although advocates of a socialist revolution, the party calls for a "peaceful transition to socialism" in the U.S. "wherever possible." The party's constitution makes "advocacy of… force and violence or terrorism" a reason for expulsion from the party.[1] The Party's stated goal is for a free, prosperous, and peaceful society free of racism, sexism, homophobia, and exploitation in which all people have the opportunity to develop to their fullest potential. Some CPUSA members say that Webb's leadership is exciting and considerably more modern than former leader Gus Hall[citation needed]. Members from Hall's period still remain within the party's ranks as a more open ideological line now permeates. Sam Webb is the current national chair of the Communist Party USA, a position to which he was elected in 1998. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... The Peoples Weekly World (PWW) is the newspaper of the Communist Party USA, and is the direct descendant of the Daily Worker. ... Political Affairs Magazine is a monthly, marxist publication. ... A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism (state or worker ownership over the means of production) as an intermediate stage. ... Socialism is a broad array of ideologies and political movements with the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation. ... Advocacy is the act of arguing on behalf of a particular issue, idea or person. ... Gus Hall Gus Hall (October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was a labor organizer, a founder of the United Steelworkers of America trade union, a leader of the Communist Party USA, and five-time U.S. presidential candidate. ...

Contents

The CPUSA Constitution and Program

According to its 2001 constitution, the party operates on the principle of democratic centralism, and its highest authority is its quadrennial National Convention. Article VI, Section 3 of that constitution lays out certain positions as non-negotiable: "struggle 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…"[2] Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party. ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... GAY can mean: Gay, a term referring to homosexual men or women The IATA code for Gaya Airport Category: ... This article is about same-sex desire and sexuality among women. ... “Bisexual” redirects here. ... For the electronic music EP by Mr. ...


Among the points in the party's "Immediate Program" are a $12/hour minimum wage; for all workers, universal health care, and opposition to privatisation of Social Security; economic measures such as increased taxes on "the rich and corporations," strong regulation" of the financial industry, "regulation and public ownership of utilities", and increased federal aid to cities and states; opposition to the Iraq War and other military interventions; opposition to free trade treaties such as NAFTA; nuclear disarmament and a reduced military budget; various civil rights provisions; campaign finance reform including public financing of campaigns; and election law reform, including Instant Runoff Voting.[3] The minimum wage is the minimum rate a worker can legally be paid (usually per hour) as opposed to wages that are determined by the forces of supply and demand in a free market. ... A physician visiting the sick in a hospital. ... Privatization (sometimes privatisation, denationalization, or — especially in India — disinvestment) is the process of transferring property, from public ownership to private ownership. ... Social Security, in the United States, currently refers to the Federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program. ... For other uses, see Iraq war (disambiguation). ... Free trade is an economic concept referring to the selling of products between countries without tariffs or other trade barriers. ... Nafta or NAFTA may refer to: an acronym for the North American Free Trade Agreement an acronym for the New Zealand Australia Free Trade Agreement the town/Tokyo of Nafta, Tunisia This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... U.S. and USSR/Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles, 1945-2006 Nuclear disarmament is the proposed dismantling of nuclear weapons, particularly those of the United States and the Soviet Union (later Russia) targeted on each other. ... Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ... Political campaign Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Campaign finance reform is the common term for the political effort in the United States to change the involvement of money in politics, primarily in political campaigns. ... Election law is a discipline falling at the juncture of constitutional law and political science. ... When the single transferable vote voting system is applied to a single-winner election it is sometimes called instant-runoff voting (IRV), as it is much like holding a series of runoff elections in which the lowest polling candidate is eliminated in each round until someone receives majority vote. ...


The CPUSA recognises the right of independence-seeking groups, many of whom have been led by Communist and communist-oriented partisans, to defend themselves from imperialism, but rejects the use of violence in any United States uprising. The CPUSA argues that most violence throughout modern history is the result of capitalist ruling classs violently trying to stop social change.[4] Cecil Rhodes: Cape-Cairo railway project. ... The term ruling class refers to the social class of a given society that decides upon and sets that societys political policy. ...

While some governments run by people calling themselves Communists have been responsible for horrible acts of violence and repression, notably the Pol Pot régime in Cambodia, much if not most of the violence often blamed on revolutionary governments and parties is actually the responsibility of the conservative, reactionary, capitalist governments and parties. ... Many revolutions have been relatively peaceful, including the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Vietnamese Revolution of 1945 . The bloodshed comes when those formerly in power initiate a civil war, or foreign armies invade, trying to reestablish capitalist, feudal, or colonial power. …While we think that an objective, detailed analysis of most situations over the last century would conclude that capitalist and reactionary governments and parties are responsible for most of the violence, it is true that Communists have engaged in armed struggle, are not pacifists, and that some who called themselves Communists have engaged in repressive tactics.

Saloth Sar (May 19, 1925 – April 15, 1998), aliases Pol, Pouk, Hay, Grand-Uncle, First Brother, 87, Phem, 99, and best known as Pol Pot[1], was the leader of the communist movement called Khmer Rouge and the Prime Minister of Cambodia (officially renamed the Democratic Kampuchea during his rule... The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a series of political and social upheavals in Russia, involving first the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy, and then the overthrow of the liberal and moderate-socialist Provisional Government, resulting in the establishment of Soviet power under the control of the Bolshevik party. ... On August 19, 1945 Vietnamese Communist forces led by Hồ Chí Minh began the August Revolution (Vietnamese: Cách mạng tháng Tám). ... Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes or gaining advantage. ...

History of the Communist Party USA

In modern usage, the term communist party is generally used to identify any political party which has adopted communist ideology. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Lesotho (Mokhatio oa Makomonisi a Lesotho) was a political party in Lesotho, founded on May 5, 1962. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Americas Asia Europe Middle East Related subjects Party of the Independence Congress of Madagascar (in French: Parti du Congrès de lindépendence de Madagascar, in Malagasy: Antokony Kongresiny Fahaleovantenani Madagasikara), a political party in Madagascar. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Party of Independence and Labour (Parti de lIndépendence et du Travail) is a communist political party in Senegal. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... SACP symbol South African Communist Party (SACP) is a political party in South Africa. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Argentina (Spanish: Partido Comunista de la Argentina) is a communist party from Argentina. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Gay Party of Bolivia (in Spanish: Partido Comunista de Bolivia) is a small communist party in Bolivia. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Brazil (Partido Comunista do Brasil), better known by its abbreviation PCdoB, is a political party in Brazil. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Brazilian Communist Party (in Portuguese, Partido Comunista Brasileiro) is a political party in Brazil. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Chile YOU MOTHERFUCKING COMMUNISTS GO TO HELL! (Spanish: Partido Comunista de Chile) is a Chilean political party that advocates communism. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Colombian Communist Party is the legal Communist party of Colombia. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Cuba (Spanish: Partido Comunista de Cuba, PCC) is the ruling party of Cuba. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... JCE graffiti in Cuenca Communist Party of Ecuador (in Spanish: Partido Comunista del Ecuador) is a political party in Ecuador. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Party of Mexican Communists is a political party in Mexico. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Popular Socialist Party (Spanish: Partido Popular Socialista, PPS) is a left-wing political party in Mexico. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... PPSM symbol Popular Socialist Party of Mexico (Spanish: Partido Popular Socialista de México, PPSM) is a Communist Party in Mexico, formed in 1997 after a split from the Popular Socialist Party (PPS). ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Peoples Party of Panama (Partido del Pueblo de Panamá), a communist party in Panama. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Paraguayan Communist Party (in Spanish: Partido Comunista Paraguayo) a communist political party in Paraguay. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Peruvian Communist Party (in Spanish: Partido Comunista Peruano), a communist party in Peru. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Communist Party of Peru (Red Fatherland) (in Spanish: Partido Comunista del Perú (Patria Roja)), a political party in Peru founded in 1970, through a split in the Peruvian Communist Party (Red Flag). ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Uruguay (Partido Comunista del Uruguay) is a political party in Uruguay. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... PCV logo Communist Party of Venezuela (in Spanish: Partido Comunista de Venezuela) a communist political party in Venezuela. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Poster of the CPB commemorating the 50th anniversary of its foundation (as part of the Communist Party of Pakistan The Communist Party of Bangladesh is a Communist party in Bangladesh. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... CPB flag from 1939 to 1946 CPB flag from 1946-1969 The Communist Party of Burma (ဗမာပ္ရည္‌က္ဝန္‌မ္ရုနစ္‌ဘတီ (ba. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of China (CPC) (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; Pinyin: ), also known as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the ruling political party of the Peoples Republic of China, a position guaranteed by the countrys constitution. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of India (CPI) is a political party in India. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated CPI(M) or CPM) is a political party in India. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Japanese Communist Party or Japan Communist Party (JCP) (in Japanese 日本共産党, Nihon Kyōsan-tō) is a political party in Japan. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Kazakhstan (Qazaqstan Kommunistik Partiyasi) is a political party in Kazakhstan. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan is a political party in Kyrgyzstan. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Workers Party of Korea (WPK) is the ruling party of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly known as North Korea. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party (Laotian: Phak Pasason Pativat Lao) is the Communist Party of Laos. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Categories: Stub | Nepali political parties | Communist parties ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Communist Party of Pakistan, a communist political party in Pakistan. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Philippine Communist Party (in Tagalog: Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas) is a communist party in the Philippines. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... CPSL May Day poster in Kandy CPSL Kandy provincial election candidate, CYF President Raja Uswetakeiyyawa Communist Youth Federation The Communist Party of Sri Lanka is a communist political party in Sri Lanka. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Tajikistan is a political party in Tajikistan. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Vietnam (Đảng Cá»™ng sản Việt Nam) is the currently ruling, as well as the only legal political party in Vietnam. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Communist Party of Albania (in Albanian: Partia Komuniste e Shqiperise, abbreviated PKSH) is a political party in Albania. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Armenian Communist Party (Hayastani Komunistakan Kusaktsutyun) is a communist political party in Armenia. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Austria (de: Kommunistische Partei Österreichs, or KPÖ) is a communist party based in Austria. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Azerbaijan Communist Party (Azerbaycan Kommunist Partiyasi) is a political party in Azerbaijan. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Belarus (Belarusian: Камуністы́чная па́ртыя Белару́сі) is a political party in Belarus. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... PKB symbol The Party of Belarusian Communists (in Russian: Партия коммунистов Белорусская, in Belarusian: Партыя камуністаў Беларуская, Partyja Kamunistau Bielaruskaja, PKB) is a political party in Belarus, which opposes the government of president Alexander Lukashenko. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party (in Flemish: Kommunistische Partij, often abbreviated KP) is a political party in Flanders, Belgium. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Communist Party (in French: Parti Communiste) is a political party in Wallonia, Belgium. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Workers Party of Belgium (WPB), Partij van de Arbeid van België (PVDA) (in Dutch) or Parti du Travail de Belgique (PTB) (in French) is a Belgian communist party. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Logo of Workers Communist Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina The Workers Communist Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a communist party from Bosnia and Herzegovina. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Britain, which claims to have around 900 members, is the largest Communist party in the United Kingdom. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Bulgarian Communist Party was the ruling party of the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 1990 when it ceased to be a Communist state. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) (Greek: Ανορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού) is a socialist party in Cyprus. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (Czech: Komunistická strana ÄŒech a Moravy) is a political party in the Czech Republic. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Not to be confused with Communist Party in Denmark. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Communist Party in Denmark (in Danish: Kommunistisk Parti i Danmark), a political party in Denmark. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Communist Party of Estonia (in Estonian: Eestimaa Kommunistlik Partei, in Russian: Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Estonii) was a political party in Estonia. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Suomen kommunistinen puolue (yhtenäisyys) (SKPy) [Communist Party of Finland (Unity)] was a Finnish political party. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... This does not cite any references or sources. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The United Communist Party of Georgia (in Georgian: Sakartvelos Ertiani Komunisturi Partia) is a political party in Georgia. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Advertisement of the German Communist Party, Those who take nothing from the rich can give nothing to the poor. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Greece (Greek: Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas), better known by its acronym, ΚΚΕ (usually pronounced koo-koo-eh or kappa-kappa-epsilon), is the communist party of Greece and the oldest party in the Greek political scene. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Ireland (CPI; Irish: Páirtí Cumannach na hÉireann) is a small all-Ireland Marxist party. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Categories: Ireland-related stubs | Irish political parties | Republic of Ireland political parties | Northern Ireland political parties ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Party of Italian Communists (Italian: Partito dei Comunisti Italiani, also translated into English as Italian Communists Party) is a political party in Italy. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Refoundation Party (Partito della Rifondazione Comunista, PRC) is an Italian reformed communist party. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Communist Party of Malta (in Maltese: Partit Komunista Malti), is a communist political party in Malta. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Moldova ( Moldovan: Partidul Comuniştilor din Republica Moldova) is the current ruling political party in Moldova. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... New Communist Party of the Netherlands (Nieuwe Communistische Partij Nederland) was founded in 1989 by a group of CPN-members who refused to join the GroenLinks (Green Left) together with the rest of the CPN. NCPN is mainly based in the Groningen province, where there is a strong communist tradition. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Norway (Norges Kommunistiske Parti) is a political party in Norway without parliamentary representation. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Portuguese Communist Party (Portuguese: Partido Comunista Português, pron. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (Russian: Коммунистическая партия Российской Федерации = КПРФ; translit. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... San Marinese Communist Refundation Party logo San Marinese Communist Refoundation (Rifondazione Comunista Sammarinese), political party in San Marino. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NKPJ) is a Marxist-Leninist party in Serbia and Montenegro. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Old party In the past, the Communist Party of Slovakia (Slovak: Komunistická strana Slovenska -- KSS) was a communist party in Slovakia. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... PCE symbol The Communist Party of Spain (Partido Comunista de España or PCE) is the third largest political party of Spain. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... PCC symbol Party of the Communists of Catalonia (in Catalan: Partit dels i les Comunistes de Catalunya) is a political party in Catalonia, Spain. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Sweden (Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti) is the continuation of Workers Party - the Communists (Arbetarpartiet Kommunisterna, abbreviated APK). ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... TKP demonstrators at the EU summit in Thessaloniki 2003 TKP symbol TKP is a party, which critically embraces the entire legacy of the leftist and revolutionary movement in Turkey. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Simonenko presidential election-2004 poster in Russian The Communist Party of Ukraine (Ukrainian: ) is a political party in Ukraine, currently led by Petro Symonenko. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (Parti Algérien pour la Démocratie et le Socialisme) is a political party in Algeria. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Tudeh Party of Iran (f. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Since its foundation in 1934, the Iraqi Communist Party (in Arabic: الحزب الشيوعي العراقي) has dominated the left in Iraqi politics. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Communist Party of Israel (known as Maki, an acronym for Miflaga Komunistit Yisraelit) was formed in 1948 by the remnant of the Communist Party of Palestine within the borders of the new state of Israel. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Jordanian Communist Party (in Arabic: Hizb al-Shuyuiyah al-Urduni) a communist political party in Jordan. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Lebanese Communist Party (LCP, Arabic, الـحـزب الشـيـوعـي اللبـنـانـي hizbu-sh-shuy‘uÄ«-l-lubnānÄ«) is a Marxist political party in Lebanon. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) is a Communist political party in the Republic of Sudan. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... The Syrian Communist Party evolved out of the Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party founded in 1924. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... This article is about the form of society and political movement. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Marxism; it is a branch of Marxism (and it has been the dominant branch of Marxism in the world since the 1920s). ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party. ... Image File history File links Red_star. ... This article intentionally focuses only on the history of communism as a self-contained, self-aware political movement. ...

Formation and early history (1919-1921)

In January, 1919, Lenin invited the left wing of the Socialist Party of America to join Communist International (Comintern). During the spring of 1919 the Left Wing Caucus of the Socialist Party, buoyed by a large influx of new members from countries involved in the Russian Revolution, prepared to wrest control from the smaller controlling faction of moderate socialists. A referendum to join Comintern passed with 90% support, but the incumbent leadership suppressed the results. Elections for the party's National Executive Committee resulted in 12 leftists being elected out of a total of 15. Calls were made to expel moderates from the party. The moderate incumbents struck back by expelling several state organisations, half a dozen language federations, and many locals, in all two thirds of the membership. Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ( Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин  listen?), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) ( April 22 (April 10 ( O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a... The Socialist Party of America (SPA) is a socialist political party in the United States. ... The Comintern (Russian: Коммунистический Интернационал, Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional – Communist International, also known as the Third International) was an international Communist organization founded in March 1919, in the midst of the war communism period (1918-1921), by Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), which intended to fight by all available means, including... The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a series of political and social upheavals in Russia, involving first the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy, and then the overthrow of the liberal and moderate-socialist Provisional Government, resulting in the establishment of Soviet power under the control of the Bolshevik party. ... Language Federations were formed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by immigrants to the United States, primarily from Eastern and Southern Europe, who shared a commitment to some form of socialist politics. ...


The Socialist Party then called an emergency convention to be held in Chicago on August 30, 1919. The party's Left Wing Caucus made plans at a June conference of its own to regain control of the party by sending delegations from the sections of the party that had been expelled to the convention to demand that they be seated. However, the language federations, eventually joined by Charles Ruthenberg and Louis Fraina, turned away from that effort and formed their own party, the Communist Party of America, at a separate convention in Chicago on September 1, 1919. Nickname: Motto: Urbs in Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in the Chicago metro area and Illinois Coordinates: , Country State Counties Cook, DuPage Settled 1770s Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government  - Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area  - City 234. ... is the 242nd day of the year (243rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Charles Ruthenberg (July 14, 1884 – 1927) was an American communist politician and activist, one of the founders of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). ... Nickname: Motto: Urbs in Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in the Chicago metro area and Illinois Coordinates: , Country State Counties Cook, DuPage Settled 1770s Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government  - Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area  - City 234. ... is the 244th day of the year (245th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ...


Meanwhile plans led by John Reed and Benjamin Gitlow to crash the Socialist Party convention went ahead. Tipped off, the incumbents called the police, who obligingly expelled the leftists from the hall. The remaining leftist delegates walked out and, meeting with the expelled delegates, formed the Communist Labour Party on August 30, 1919. John Reeds signature John Jack Silas Reed (October 22, 1887 – October 19, 1920) was an American journalist, poet, and communist activist, famous for his first-hand account of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ten Days that Shook the World. ... Benjamin Gitlow (1891 - 1965) was a prominent American socialist of the early twentieth century. ... Communist Labour Party or Communist Labor Party is the name of several political parties: The Communist Labor Party, a predecessor of the Communist Party USA. The Communist Labour Party (Dominican Republic), an anti-revisionist group. ... is the 242nd day of the year (243rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ...


The Comintern was not happy with two Communist Parties and in January, 1920 dispatched an order that the two parties, which consisted of about 12,000 members, merge under the name United Communist Party and to follow the party line established in Moscow. Part of the Communist Party of America under the leadership of Charles Ruthenberg and Jay Lovestone did this but a faction under the leadership of Nicholas I. Hourwich and Alexander Bittelman continued to operate independently as the Communist Party of America. A more strongly worded directive from the Comintern eventually did the trick and the parties were merged in May, 1921. Only five percent[citation needed] of the members of the newly formed party were native English-speakers. Many of the members came from the ranks of the Industrial Workers of the World. Jay Lovestone (1897-1990) was at various times head of the Communist Party, leader of a small oppositionist party, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions within it. ... A political faction is presently an informal grouping of individuals, especially within a political organisation, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with some kind of political purpose (referred to in this article as the “broader organisation”). It may also be referred to as a power... Look up Anglophone in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. At its peak in 1923 the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. ...


The Red Scare and the underground party (1919-1923)

From its inception, the Communist Party USA came under attack from state and federal governments and later the FBI. In 1919, after a series of unattributed bombings and attempted assassinations of government officials, and judges (later traced to militant Galleanist adherents of radical anarchist Luigi Galleani), Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, acting under the Sedition Act of 1918 (himself twice the target of package bombs), began arresting thousands of party members, particularly the foreign-born, whom the government deported. The Communist Party was forced underground and went through various name changes to evade the authorities. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... Luigi Galleani Luigi Galleani (1861—November 4, 1931) was a major 20th century anarchist . ... Alexander Mitchell Palmer (May 4, 1872 - May 11, 1936) was an American lawyer and politician. ... The Sedition Act of 1918 was an amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917 passed at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, who was concerned that dissent, in time of war, was a significant threat to morale. ...


The party apparatus was to a great extent underground. It reemerged in 1923 with a small legal above-ground element, the Workers Party of America. As the red scare and deportations of the early 1920s ebbed, the party became bolder and more open. An element of the party, however, remained permanently underground anyway, to safeguard their revolutionary goals. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Communist Party USA. (Discuss) Symbol of the Workers Party Workers Party of America was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from 1920 until about 1930. ... Some factual claims in this article need to be verified. ...


During this time Jews whose backgrounds derived from Eastern Europe are said to have played a very prominent and disproportionate role in the CPUSA.[5] A majority of the members of the Socialist Party were immigrants and that an 'overwhelming' percentage of the CPUSA consisted of recent immigrants, a substantial percentage of whom were Jews.[6] Fear of communist subversion and renewed isolationism in the United States aroused the immigration debates of the 1920s, which led to the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924. Anti-Semitic and anti-Communist literature become widespread (e.g., Henry Ford's International Jew) in the same period. It has been suggested that National Origins Quota of 1924 be merged into this article or section. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Anti-communism is opposition to communist ideology, organization, or government, on either a theoretical or practical level. ... Henry Ford (1919) Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. ... The Dearborn Independent was a newspaper published by Henry Ford from 1919 through 1927. ...


Early factional struggles (1923-1929)

Now that the aboveground element, or "open party" as it was known, was legal the communists decided that their central task was to develop roots within the working class. This move away from hopes of revolution in the near future to a more nuanced approach was accelerated by the decisions of the Fifth World Congress of the Comintern held in 1925 , which decided that the period between 1917 and 1924 had been one of revolutionary upsurge, but that the new period was marked by the stabilisation of capitalism and that revolutionary attempts in the near future were to be spurned. The American communists embarked then on the arduous work of locating and winning allies.


That work was, however, complicated by factional struggles within the CPUSA. The party quickly developed a number of more or less fixed factional groupings within its leadership: a faction around the party's Chairman Charles Ruthenberg, which was largely organized by his supporter Jay Lovestone, and the Foster-Cannon caucus, headed by William Z. Foster, who headed the Party's Trade Union Educational League, and James P. Cannon, who led the International Labor Defence organisation. The first faction drew many of its members from the party's foreign language federations while the latter found more support among 'native' workers. Jay Lovestone (1897-1990) was at various times head of the Communist Party, leader of a small oppositionist party, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions within it. ... William Edward Foster (February 25, 1881 - September 1, 1961), who renamed himself as William Z. Foster, was the long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party USA and trade union leader. ... March 1923 issue of The Labor Herald, official organ of the Trade Union Educational League. ... James Cannon in Moscow (1922) James Patrick Cannon (1890-1974) was an American Communist and Trotskyist leader. ...


Foster, who had been deeply involved in the Steel Strike of 1919 and had been a long-time syndicalist and a Wobbly, had strong bonds with the progressive leaders of the Chicago Federation of Labor and, through them, with the Progressive Party and nascent farmer-labor parties. Under pressure from the Comintern, however, the party broke off relations with both groups in 1924. The Steel Strike of 1919 was an attempt by the weakened Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers (the AA) to organize the American steel industry in the wake of World War I. The strike began on September 22, 1919, and collapsed on January 8, 1920. ... Syndicalism is a political and economic ideology which advocates giving control of both industry and government to labor union federations. ... The IWW Label A Wobbly membership card The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, having much in common with anarcho-syndicalist unions, but also many differences. ... For the rap album, see 1924 (album). ...


In 1925 Comintern representative Sergei Gusev ordered the majority Foster faction to surrender control to Ruthenberg's faction; Foster complied. The factional infighting within the CPUSA did not end, however; the communist leadership of the New York locals of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union lost the 1926 strike of cloakmakers in New York City in large part because of intra-party factional rivalries. Sergei Gusev (born July 31, 1975 in Nizhniy Tagil, Russia is a professional ice hockey player who played in the National Hockey League for the Dallas Stars and the Tampa Bay Lightning. ... The International Ladies Garment Workers Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ...


Ruthenberg died in 1927 and his ally, Jay Lovestone, succeeded him as party secretary. Cannon attended the Sixth Congress of the Comintern in 1928 , hoping to use his connections with leading circles within it to regain the advantage against the Lovestone faction. However he and Maurice Spector of the Communist Party of Canada were accidentally given a copy of Trotsky's "Critique of the Draft Programme of the Comintern" that they were instructed to read and return. Persuaded by its contents, they came to an agreement to return to America and campaign for the document's positions. A copy of the document was then smuggled out of the country in a child's toy. Jay Lovestone (1897-1990) was at various times head of the Communist Party, leader of a small oppositionist party, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions within it. ... Maurice Spector (1898 - August 1, 1968) was the Chairman of the Communist Party of Canada for much of the 1920s and an early follower of Leon Trotsky after his split from the Communist International. ... The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. ... Leon Trotsky (Russian:  , Lev Davidovich Trotsky, also transliterated Leo, Lyev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij, Trockij and Trotzky) (November 7 [O.S. October 26] 1879 – August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (), was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. ...


Back in America, Cannon and his close associates in the ILD such as Max Shachtman and Martin Abern, dubbed the "three generals without an army", began to organize support for Trotsky's theses. However, as this attempt to develop a Left Opposition came to light, they and their supporters were expelled. Cannon and his followers organized the Communist League of America as a section of Trotsky's International Left Opposition. James Cannon in Moscow (1922) James Patrick Cannon (1890-1974) was an American Communist and Trotskyist leader. ... Max Shachtman (September 10, 1904 - November 4, 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. ... Martin Abern, born Martin Abramowitz (December 2, 1898 ? 1949) was a Trotskyist politician. ... The Left Opposition was a faction within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1923-1927. ... The Communist League of America (Left Opposition) was founded by James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern in 1928 after their expulsion from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism. ... This article is part of the Communism series. ...


At the same Congress, Lovestone had impressed the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as a strong supporter of Nikolai Bukharin the general secretary of the Comintern. This was to have devastating consequences for Lovestone when, in 1929, Bukharin was on the losing end of a struggle with Stalin and was purged from his position on the Politburo and removed as head of the Comintern. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian: Коммунисти́ческая Па́ртия Сове́тского Сою́за, transliterated Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza, acronym: КПСС (KPSS)) was the ruling political party in the Soviet Union. ... Nikolai Bukharin Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (Russian: ), (October 9 [O.S. September 27] 1888 â€“ March 15, 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and intellectual, and later a Soviet politician. ... Politburo is short for Political Bureau. ...


In a reversal of the events of 1925, a Comintern delegation sent to the United States demanded that Lovestone resign as party secretary in favor of his archrival Foster, despite the fact that Lovestone enjoyed the support of the vast majority of the American party's membership. Lovestone travelled to the Soviet Union and appealed directly to the Comintern. Stalin informed Lovestone that he "had a majority because the American Communist Party until now regarded you as the determined supporters of the Communist International. And it was only because the Party regarded you as friends of the Comintern that you had a majority in the ranks of the American Communist Party".


When Lovestone returned to the United States, he and his ally Benjamin Gitlow were purged despite holding the leadership of the party. Ostensibly, this was not due to Lovestone's insubordination in challenging a decision by Stalin but for his support for American Exceptionalism, the thesis that socialism could be achieved peacefully in the USA. Lovestone and Gitlow formed their own group called the Communist Party (Opposition), a section of the pro-Bukharin International Communist Opposition, which was initially larger than the Trotskyists but failed to survive past 1941 . Lovestone had initially called his faction the Communist Party (Majority Group) in the expectation that the majority of the CPUSA's members would join him, but only a few hundred people joined his new organisation. Benjamin Gitlow (1891 - 1965) was a prominent American socialist of the early twentieth century. ... Progress of America, 1875, by Domenico Tojetti American exceptionalism (cf. ... The Right Opposition was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s. ... Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ...


See also Stalin's Speeches on the CPUSA, 1929.


The Third Period (1928-1935)

The upheavals within the CPUSA in 1928 were an echo of a much more significant change: Stalin's decision to break off any form of collaboration with western socialist parties, which were now condemned as "social fascists". This policy had particularly severe consequences in Germany, where the German Communist Party not only refused to work in alliance with the German Social Democratic Party, but attacked it and its members. 1932 KPD poster, End This System The Communist Party of Germany (German Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – KPD) was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period. ... SPD redirects here. ...


The impact of this policy in the U.S. was counted in membership figures. In 1928 there were about twenty-four thousand members[citation needed]. By 1932 the total had fallen to six thousand members.


Opposing Stalin's Third Period policies in the Communist Party USA was James P. Cannon. For this action, he was expelled from the party. He then founded the Communist League of America with Max Shachtman and Martin Abern, and started publishing The Militant. It declared itself to be an external faction of the Communist Party until, as the Trotskyists saw it, Stalin's policies in Germany helped Hitler take power. At that point they started working towards the founding of a new international, the Fourth International. Third Period refers to the ultra-left policy adopted by the Comintern, following the end of the New Economic Policy in the Soviet Union in 1928 up to the adoption of the Popular Front policy in 1934. ... James Cannon in Moscow (1922) James Patrick Cannon (1890-1974) was an American Communist and Trotskyist leader. ... The Communist League of America (Left Opposition) was founded by James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern in 1928 after their expulsion from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism. ... Max Shachtman (September 10, 1904 - November 4, 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. ... Martin Abern, born Martin Abramowitz (December 2, 1898 ? 1949) was a Trotskyist politician. ... The Militant is an international socialist newsweekly connected to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). ... For other uses, see Fourth International (disambiguation). ...


In the United States the principal impact of the Third Period was to end the CPUSA's efforts to organize within the AFL through the TUEL and to turn its efforts into organising dual unions through the Trade Union Unity League. Foster went along with this change, even though it contradicted the policies he had fought for previously. Dual unionism is the development of a union or political organization parallel to and within an existing labor union. ... The Trade Union Unity League (TUUL) was an industrial union umbrella organization of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) between 1929 and 1935. ...


By 1930 the party adopted the title of Communist Party of the USA, with the slogan of "the united front from below". The Party devoted much of its energy in the Great Depression to organizing the unemployed, attempting to found "red" unions, championing the rights of African Americans and fighting evictions of farmers and the working poor[citation needed]. At the same time, the Party attempted to weave its sectarian revolutionary politics into its day-to-day defence of workers, usually with only limited success. They recruited more disaffected members of the Socialist Party and an organisation of African-American socialists called the African Blood Brotherhood, some of whose members, particularly Harry Haywood, would later play important roles in communist work among blacks. For other uses, see The Great Depression (disambiguation). ... Languages Predominantly American English Religions Protestantism (chiefly Baptist and Methodist); Roman Catholicism; Islam Related ethnic groups Sub-Saharan Africans and other African groups, some with Native American groups. ... The African Blood Brotherhood (ABB) was a radical black liberation organization which developed ties to the Communist Party. ... Harry Haywood // Harry Haywood (February 6, 1898 - January 1985) was born in South Omaha, Nebraska to former slaves, Harriet and Haywood Hall. ...


In 1932, the retiring head of the CPUSA, William Z. Foster, published a book entitled Toward Soviet America, which laid out the Communist Party's plans for revolution and the building of a new socialist society based on the model of Soviet Russia. In that same year Earl Browder became General Secretary of the Party. At first Browder moved the party closer to Soviet interests, and helped to develop its secret apparatus or underground network. He also assisted in the recruitment of espionage sources and agents for the NKVD. Browder's own younger sister Margerite was an NKVD operative in Europe until removed from those duties at Browder's request. It was at this point that the CPUSA's foreign policy platform came under the complete control of Stalin, who enforced his directives through his secret police and foreign intelligence service, the NKVD. The NKVD controlled the secret apparatus of the CPSA, including responsibility for political murders, kidnappings, and assassinations[7][8]. William Edward Foster (February 25, 1881 - September 1, 1961), who renamed himself as William Z. Foster, was the long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party USA and trade union leader. ... Toward Soviet America is a book written by Communist Party, USA Chairman William Z. Foster, in 1932. ... Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891–June 27, 1973) was an American socialist and leader of the Communist Party USA. // Early years Browder was born in Wichita, Kansas. ... The NKVD (Narodny Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del  ) (Russian: , ) or Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the leading secret police organization of the Soviet Union that was responsible for political repressions during Stalinism. ...


The Popular Front (1935-1939)

The ideological rigidity of the third period began to crack, however, with two events: the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 and Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933. Roosevelt's election and the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933 sparked a tremendous upsurge in union organizing in 1933 and 1934. While the party line still favored creation of autonomous revolutionary unions, party activists chose to fold up those organisations and follow the mass of workers into the AFL unions they had been attacking. FDR redirects here. ... Hitler redirects here. ... The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) or National Recovery Act (NRA) of June 16, 1933, was part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelts New Deal. ...


The Seventh Congress of the Comintern made the change in line official in 1935 , when it declared the need for a popular front of all groups opposed to fascism. The CPUSA abandoned its opposition to the New Deal and provided many of the organisers for the Congress of Industrial Organisations. A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists who are united by opposition to another group (most often fascist or far-right groups). ... The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, was a federation of unions that organized industrial workers in the United States and Canada in the 1930s through the 1950s. ...


The party also sought unity with forces to its right. Earl Browder offered to run as Norman Thomas' running mate on a joint Socialist Party-Communist Party ticket in the 1936 presidential election but Thomas rejected this overture. Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891–June 27, 1973) was an American socialist and leader of the Communist Party USA. // Early years Browder was born in Wichita, Kansas. ... Norman Thomas Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 - December 19, 1968) was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. ... A running mate is a person running for a subordinate position on a joint ticket during an election. ... Introduction The Great Depression was still widespread in 1936, and incumbent president Roosevelt was still working to push the provisions of his New Deal interventionist economic policy through Congress and the courts. ...


The gesture did not mean that much in practical terms, since the CPUSA was, by 1936, effectively supporting Roosevelt in much of his trade union work. While continuing to run its own candidates for office the CPUSA pursued a policy of representing the Democratic Party as the lesser evil in elections. The Democratic Party is one of two major political parties in the United States, the other being the Republican Party. ...


Party members also rallied to the defense of the Spanish Republic during this period after a fascist military uprising moved to overthrow it, resulting in the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939). The CPUSA, 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. Among its other achievements, the Lincoln Brigade was the first American military force to include blacks and whites integrated on an equal basis. Anthem El Himno de Riego Capital Madrid Language(s) Spanish Government Republic President  - 1931–1936 Niceto Alcalá-Zamora  - 1936–1939 Manuel Azaña Legislature Congress of Deputies Historical era Interwar period  - Monarchy abolished April 14, 1931  - Spanish Civil War 1936–1939  - Surrender to Franco April 1, 1939 Currency Spanish peseta... Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the interests of the state. ... Not to be confused with the Spanish Civil War of 1820-1823. ... Year 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Abraham Lincoln Brigade was an organization of United States volunteers supporting or fighting for the anti-fascist Spanish Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War as part of the International Brigade. ... The three-pointed red star, symbol of the International Brigades The International Brigades were Republican military units in the Spanish Civil War, formed of many non-state sponsored volunteers of different countries who traveled to Spain, to fight for the republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939. ...


Intellectually, the Popular Front period saw the development of a strong communist influence in intellectual and artistic life. This was often through various organisations influenced or controlled by the Party or, as they were pejoratively known, "fronts." A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists who are united by opposition to another group (most often fascist or far-right groups). ... Communist front was originally the term used by the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), and then later by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) or the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) to label Comintern organizations found to be under the effective control of the (CPUSA), with...


The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and World War II (1939-1945)

The Washington Commonwealth Federation newspaper after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (The Washington Commonwealth Federation was an alleged Communist front organisation)
The Washington Commonwealth Federation newspaper after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (The Washington Commonwealth Federation was an alleged Communist front organisation)

The CPUSA was adamantly opposed to fascism during the Popular Front period. Although membership in the CPUSA rose to about 75,000[9] by 1938, many members left the party after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Nonaggression Pact of 1939. Signing of a pact with Hitler meant that the CPUSA turned the focus of its public activities from anti-fascism to advocating peace, not only opposing military preparations but also condemning those opposed to Hitler. The CPUSA accused Winston Churchill and Roosevelt of provoking aggression against Hitler and denounced the Polish government as fascist after the German and Soviet invasion. In allegiance to the Soviet Union, the party changed this policy again after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. So sudden was this change that CPUSA members of the UAW negotiating on behalf of the union reportedly[citation needed] changed their position from favouring strike action to opposing it in the same negotiating session. Soviet Agitprop This work is copyrighted. ... Soviet Agitprop This work is copyrighted. ... Communist front was originally the term used by the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), and then later by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) or the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) to label Comintern organizations found to be under the effective control of the (CPUSA), with... Molotov signs the German-Soviet non-aggression pact. ... A non-aggression pact is an international treaty between two or more states, agreeing to avoid war or armed conflict between them even if they find themselves fighting third countries, or even if one is fighting allies of the other. ... Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ... Churchill redirects here. ... is the 173rd day of the year (174th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see 1941 (disambiguation). ...


Throughout the rest of World War II, the CPUSA continued a policy of militant, if sometimes bureaucratic, trade unionism while opposing strike actions at all costs. The leadership of the CPUSA was among the most vocal pro-war voices in the United States, advocating unity against fascism, not opposing the prosecution of leaders of the Socialist Workers Party under the newly enacted Smith Act, and opposing A. Philip Randolph's efforts to organize a march on Washington to dramatize black workers' demands for equal treatment on the job. Prominent CPUSA members and supporters, such as Dalton Trumbo and Pete Seeger, recalled anti-war material they had previously released. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The Socialist Workers Party is a communist political party in the United States. ... The Alien Registration Act or Smith Act () of 1940 is a United States federal statute that made it a criminal offense for anyone to It also required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the government; within four months, 4,741,971 aliens had registered under the Acts... Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was a prominent twentieth century African-American civil rights leader and founder of the first black labor union in the United States. ... Dalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976) was an American screenwriter and novelist, and a member of the Hollywood Ten, one of group of film professionals who refused to testify before the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee about alleged communist involvement. ... Peter Seeger (born May 3, 1919), almost universally known as Pete Seeger, is a folk singer, political activist, and author. ...


The Onset of the Cold War

Earl Browder expected the wartime coalition between the Soviet Union and the west to bring about a prolonged period of social harmony after the war. In order better to integrate the communist movement into American life the party was officially dissolved in 1944 and replaced by a Communist Political Association.


That harmony proved elusive, however, and the international Communist movement swung to the left after the war ended. Browder found himself isolated when a critical letter from the leader of the French Communist Party received wide circulation. As a result of this, in 1945 he was retired and replaced by William Z. Foster, who would remain the senior leader of the party until his own retirement in 1958. Jacques Duclos (October 2, 1896 in Louey, Hautes-Pyrénées-April 25, 1975 in Montreuil) was a French Communist politician who played a key role in French politics from 1926, when he entered the French National Assembly after defeating Paul Reynaud, until 1969, when he achieved a substantial proportion... This does not cite any references or sources. ... William Edward Foster (February 25, 1881 - September 1, 1961), who renamed himself as William Z. Foster, was the long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party USA and trade union leader. ... Jan. ...


In line with other Communist parties worldwide, the CPUSA also swung to the left and, as a result, experienced a brief period in which a number of internal critics argued for a more leftist stance than the leadership was willing to countenance. The result was the expulsion of a handful of "premature anti-revisionists".


More important for the party was the renewal of state persecution of the CPUSA. The Truman administration's loyalty oath program, introduced in 1947 , drove some leftists out of federal employment and, more importantly, legitimised the notion of Communists as subversives, to be exposed and expelled from public and private employment. The House Committee on Un-American Activities, whose hearings were perceived as forums where current and former Communists and those sympathetic to Communism were compelled under the duress of the ruin of their careers to confess and name other Communists, made even brief affiliation with the CPUSA or any related groups grounds for public exposure and attack, inspiring local governments to adopt loyalty oaths and investigative commissions of their own. Private parties, such as the motion picture industry and self-appointed watchdog groups, extended the policy still further. This included the still controversial blacklist of actors, writers and directors in Hollywood who had been Communists or who had fallen in with Communist-controlled or influenced organizations in the pre-war and wartime years. For other persons named Harry Truman, see Harry Truman (disambiguation). ... The House Committee on Un-American Activities or HUAC (1945-1975) was an investigating committee of the United States House of Representatives. ... Blacklisted redirects here. ...


The union movement purged party members as well. The CIO formally expelled a number of left-led unions in 1949 after internal disputes triggered by the party's support for Henry Wallace's candidacy for President and its opposition to the Marshall Plan, while other labor leaders sympathetic to the CPUSA either were driven out of their unions or dropped their alliances with the party. Henry Wallace may refer to: Henry A. Wallace (1888–1965), U.S. Vice President Henry Cantwell Wallace (1866–1924), U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, father of Henry A. Wallace Harry Brookings Wallace, former Chancellor of Washington University in St. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas  US Government Portal      For other uses, see President of the United States (disambiguation). ... Map of Cold-War era Europe and the Near East showing countries that received Marshall Plan aid. ...


The widespread fear of Communism became even more acute after the Soviets' explosion of an atomic bomb in 1949 and discovery of Soviet espionage.[10] Ambitious politicians, including Richard M. Nixon and Joseph McCarthy, made names for themselves by exposing or threatening to expose Communists within the Truman administration or later, in McCarthy's case, within the United States Army. Liberal groups, such as the Americans for Democratic Action, not only distanced themselves from communists and communist causes, but defined themselves as anti-communist. The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the epicenter. ... Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. ... This article is about the U.S. senator from Wisconsin (1947-1957). ... The United States Army is the largest and oldest branch of the armed forces of the United States. ... Americans For Democratic Action (ADA) was formed in January 1947, when Eleanor Roosevelt, John Kenneth Galbraith, Reinhold Niebuhr, Hubert Humphrey and 200 other activists. ...


One of America's most prominent sexual radicals, Harry Hay, developed his political views as an active member of the CPUSA, but his founding in the early 1950s of the Mattachine Society, America's first gay rights group, was not seen as something Communists, who feared even further political prosecution, should associate with organisationally, despite their personal support. In 2004, the editors of Political Affairs published articles detailing their self-criticism of the Party's early views of gay and lesbian rights[11] and praised Hay's work. For the Australian Olympic swimmer, see Henry Hay. ... The 1950s decade refers to the years 1950 to 1959 inclusive. ... The Mattachine Society was the earliest homophile organization in the United States. ... The gay rights movement is a collection of loosely aligned civil rights groups, human rights groups, support groups and political activists seeking acceptance, tolerance and equality for non-heterosexual, (homosexual, bisexual), and transgender people - despite the fact that it is typically referred to as the gay rights movement, members also... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... Political Affairs has several meanings: Political Affairs, the national magazine published by the Communist Party of the United States In the US government, the Senior Advisor to the President on Political Affairs Category: ...


1950s, 1960s and 1970s

See also: New Communist Movement and Progressive Labor Party

The US government outlawed the CPUSA with the Communist Control Act in 1954. The 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Secret Speech of Nikita Khrushchev to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union criticizing Stalin had a cataclysmic effect on the previously Stalinist majority membership CPUSA.[12]Membership plummeted and the leadership briefly faced a challenge from a loose grouping led by Daily Worker editor John Gates, which wished to democratize the party. Perhaps the greatest single blow dealt to the party in this period was the loss of the Daily Worker, published since 1924 , which was suspended in 1958 due to falling circulation. The New Communist Movement (NCM) was a communist political movement of the 1970s and 1980s in the United States. ... The Progressive Labor Party (originally the Progressive Labor Movement, sometimes still referred to simply as PL) is a communist political party based in the United States. ... The Communist Control Act was a piece of United States federal legislation, signed into law by Dwight Eisenhower on 24 August 1954, which outlawed the Communist Party of the United States. ... Hungarians investigate a disabled Soviet tank in Budapest The 1956 Hungarian Revolution, also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a popular revolt against Soviet influence and control in Hungary. ... (Redirected from 20th Party Congress) The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held during February 14—February 26, 1956. ... Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (Russian: , Nikita Sergeevič Chruščiov; IPA: , in English, , or , occasionally ); surname more accurately romanized as Khrushchyov[1]; April 17 [O.S. April 5] 1894[2]–September 11, 1971) was the chief director of the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin. ... Stalinism is a brand of political theory, and the political and economic system implemented by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. ... The Daily Worker was a newspaper published by the Communist Party USA, a Comintern affiliated organization in New York, beginning in 1924. ... John Gates, born Solomon Regenstriet in New York City in 1913, was a prominent American Communist. ...


Most of the critics would depart from the party demoralised, but others would remain active in progressive causes and would often end up working harmoniously with party members. This diaspora rapidly came to provide the audience for publications like the National Guardian and Monthly Review, which were to be important in the development of the New Left in the 1960s. For other uses, see Diaspora (disambiguation). ... The New Left is a term used in different countries to describe left-wing movements that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969. ...


The post-1956 upheavals in the CPUSA also saw the advent of a new leadership around former steel worker Gus Hall. Hall's views were very much those of his mentor Foster, but the younger man was to be more rigorous in ensuring the party was completely orthodox than the older man in his last years. Therefore, while remaining critics who wished to liberalise the party were expelled, so too were anti-revisionist critics who took an anti-Khrushchev stance. Gus Hall Gus Hall (October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was a labor organizer, a founder of the United Steelworkers of America trade union, a leader of the Communist Party USA, and five-time U.S. presidential candidate. ... In the Marxist-Leninist movement, an anti-revisionist is one who favors the line of theory and practice associated with Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin-Mao, usually stated in this way so as to show direct opposition to the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Trotsky path of Trotskyism. ... Nikita Khrushchev in 1962 Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (Russian: Ники́та Серге́евич Хрущёв) (nih-KEE-tah khroo-SHCHYOFF) (April 17, 1894 – September 11, 1971) was the leader of the Soviet Union...


Many of these critics were elements on both U.S. coasts who would come together to form the Progressive Labor Movement in 1961. Progressive Labour would come to play a role in many of the numerous Maoist organisations of the mid-1960s and early 1970s. Jack Shulman, Foster's secretary, also played a rôle in these organisations; he was not expelled from the CP, but resigned. In the 1970s, the CPUSA managed to grow in membership to about 25,000 members, despite the exodus of numerous Anti-Revisionist and Maoist groups from its ranks. The Progressive Labour Party (PLP) is a minor political party in Australia. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ... This article is about the political activist Jack Shulman, born in 1914, Rochester, New York, died in 2000 in New York City after a long illness. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ... In the Marxist-Leninist movement, an anti-revisionist is one who favors the line of theory and practice associated with Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin-Mao, usually stated in this way so as to show direct opposition to the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Trotsky path of Trotskyism. ... Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought (Chinese: 毛澤東思想, pinyin: Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng), also called Marxism-Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM), is a variant of communism derived from the teachings of Mao Zedong (1893&#8211...


Current Era

In 1984, due to the popularity of Ronald Reagan's anti-Communist administration and decreased CPUSA membership, Gus Hall chose to end the CPUSA's nation-wide electoral campaigns. During the 1990s, the party recruited heavily in impoverished minority neighborhoods in the US, particularly in Black neighbourhoods. As a result, there are many young Black and Hispanic members of the CPUSA. The CPUSA still runs candidates for local office. In recent years, the party has strongly opposed the Republican Party in the US, who they term "ultra-right" and, at times, "fascist". As part of a pragmatic stance, the CPUSA strongly supports the Democratic Party against the Republicans, as they see the Republican Party as a menace to be defeated. The Communist Party still maintains that both parties are capitalist in nature, and only support the Democrats as a means to topple conservative domination in America. Many Communists disagree with this "lesser of two evils" strategy, and it may have encouraged some defections from the CP to other communist groups. Reagan redirects here. ...


Ideologically, much appears to be up for grabs. A recent article in Political Affairs voiced support for the Chinese Communist Party, including their heavy reliance on capitalism. The article stated, "The transition to capitalism may be more on order of decades than years, as Lenin had thought."[citation needed] Other articles published by Political Affairs have been critical of this process in China as well.[13] Political Affairs Magazine is a monthly, marxist publication. ... Political Affairs Magazine is a monthly, marxist publication. ...


In a 2002 article in People's Weekly World, CPUSA correspondents Marilyn Bechtel and Debbie Bell said of their trip to the People's Republic of China: "...[W]e came away with a new respect for the thoughtfulness, thoroughness, energy and optimism with which the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people are going about the complex, long-term process of building socialism in a vast developing country, which is of necessity part of an increasingly globalized economy."[14] The Communist Party of China (CPC) (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; Pinyin: ), also known as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the ruling political party of the Peoples Republic of China, a position guaranteed by the countrys constitution. ...


An overview of the Communist Party's current ideology can be found in the near-definitive report, "Reflections on Socialism," by Sam Webb, the Party's national chair. The article explains the Party's support for a democratic, anti-racist, anti-sexist, immediate left-wing change for the United States. The report also covers the fall of the Socialist Bloc, claiming that democracy was not sufficiently developed in these countries. The report states that, "On the one hand, socialism transformed and modernized backward societies, secured important economic and social rights, assisted countries breaking free of colonialism, contributed decisively to the victory over Nazism, constituted by its mere presence a pressure on the ruling classes in the capitalist world to make concessions to their working classes and democratic movements, and acted as a counterweight to the aggressive ambitions of U.S. imperialism for nearly fifty years." The report stresses its dedication to revolutionary struggle, but states that Americans should look for peaceful revolutionary change. Webb says that capitalism cannot solve problems such as economic stagnation, racism, gender discrimination, or poverty. The report explains that there will be many transitory stages from capitalism, to socialism, and finally to communism. On the issue of markets in a socialist society, Webb states, " Admittedly, market mechanisms in a socialist society can generate inequality, disproportions and imbalances, destructive competition, downward pressure on wages, and monopoly cornering of commodity markets – even the danger of capitalist restoration. But this is not sufficient reason for concluding that markets have no place in a socialist economy."


The archives of the Communist Party USA were donated in March, 2007 to the Tamiment Library at New York University. The massive donation, in 12,000 cartons, included history from the founding of the party, 20,000 books and pamphlets, and a million photographs from the archives of the Daily Worker. The Tamiment Library also holds a copy of the microfilmed archive of Communist Party documents from Soviet Archives held by the Library of Congress as well as other materials which documents radical and Left history.[15] The Tamiment Library is a research library at New York University that documents radical and Left history, with strengths in the histories of communism, socialism, anarchism, the New Left, the Civil Rights Movement, and utopian experiments. ... New York University (NYU) is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational research university in New York City. ...


Soviet funding of the Party and espionage

From 1959 until 1989, when Gus Hall attacked the initiatives taken by Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, the CPUSA received a substantial subsidy from the Soviet Union. There is at least one receipt signed by Gus Hall in the KGB archives.[16] Starting with $75,000 in 1959 this was increased gradually to $3,000,000 in 1987 . This substantial amount reflected the Party's subservience to the Moscow line, in contrast to the Italian and later Spanish and British Communist parties, whose Eurocommunism deviated from the orthodox line in the late 1970s. Releases from the Soviet archives show that all national Communist parties that conformed to the Soviet line were funded in the same fashion. From the Communist point of view this international funding arose from the internationalist nature of Communism itself; fraternal assistance was considered the duty of Communists in any one country to give aid to their comrades in other countries. From the anti-communist point of view, this funding represented an unwarranted interference by one country in the affairs of another. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev[1] (Russian: , IPA: ; born 2 March 1931) is a Russian politician. ... A political line is the general view a political party, organization, faction, or ideology takes on a given question. ... Eurocommunism was a new trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties to develop a theory and practice of social transformation that was more relevant in a Western European democracy and less aligned to the partyline of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. ...


The cutoff of funds in 1989 resulted in a financial crisis, which forced the CPUSA to cut back publication in 1990 of the Party newspaper, the People's Daily World, to weekly publication, the People's Weekly World. (references for this section are provided below) The Peoples Weekly World (PWW) is the newspaper of the Communist Party USA, and is the direct descendant of the Daily Worker. ...


Much more controversial than mere funding, however, is the alleged involvement of CPUSA members in espionage for the Soviet Union. Whittaker Chambers has alleged that Sandor Goldberger—also known as "Josef Peters", who commonly wrote under the name J. Peters—headed the CPUSA’s underground secret apparatus from 1932 to 1938 and pioneered its rôle as an auxiliary to Soviet intelligence activities. Bernard Schuster, Organisational Secretary of the New York District of the CPUSA, is claimed to have been the operational recruiter and conduit for members of the CPUSA into the ranks of the secret apparatus, or "Group A line". Whittaker Chambers, 1948 Jay Vivian (David Whittaker) Chambers (April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer, editor, Communist party member and spy for the Soviet Union who defected and became an outspoken opponent of communism. ... Josef Peters or Joseph Peters also Joszef Peter, more commonly known as J. Peters used a variety of names in work for the secret apparatus of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) undeground in the 1930s and 40s. ...


Stalin publicly disbanded the Comintern in 1943. A Moscow NKVD message to all stations on 12 September 1943 detailed instructions for handling intelligence sources within the CPUSA after the disestablishment of the Comintern. Earl Browder had been both Chairman of the CPUSA and recruiter for the NKVD (in the Venona project he is known as Agent "HELMSMAN"). In 1941, with the approval of the USSR, he disbanded the party into a committee. However, after the USSR shifted from attempted cooperation to opposition towards the USA in the years following World War II, Browder was expelled from the leadership of the CPUSA when he attempted to unify the left in a proposed renewed popular front, which included a proposal to support Truman for re-election in 1948. The NKVD thought his services worth keeping, and they succeeded in covertly financing him, by setting him up as a representative of Soviet publishers. Even then, that didn't work, as Browder was dropped after violating the Soviet line again in favour of Titoism. is the 255th day of the year (256th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891–June 27, 1973) was an American socialist and leader of the Communist Party USA. // Early years Browder was born in Wichita, Kansas. ... The NKVD (Narodny Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del  ) (Russian: , ) or Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the leading secret police organization of the Soviet Union that was responsible for political repressions during Stalinism. ... The Venona project was a long-running and highly secret collaboration between intelligence agencies of the United States and United Kingdom that involved the cryptanalysis of messages sent by several intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union. ... The Peoples Commissariat for State Security (Народный комиссариат государственной безопасности) or NKGB - was the name of the Soviet secret police, intelligence and counter-intelligence force that existed from February 3, 1941 to July 20 1941, and again from 1943 to 1946, and then renamed into the Ministry for State Security, or MGB. // On... Titoism is a term describing political ideology named after Yugoslav leader, Josip Broz Tito, primarily used to describe the schism between the Soviet Union and Socialist Yugoslavia after the Second World War (see Cominform) when the Communist Party of Yugoslavia refused to take further dictates from Moscow. ...


There are a number of decrypted World War II Soviet messages between NKVD offices in the United States and Moscow, also known as the Venona cables. The Venona cables and other published sources appear to confirm that Julius Rosenberg was guilty of espionage. Theodore Hall, a Harvard-trained physicist and CPUSA member, began passing information on the atomic bomb to the Soviets soon after he was hired at Los Alamos at age 19. Hall, who was known as Mlad by his KGB handlers, escaped prosecution. Hall's wife, aware of his espionage, claims that their NKVD handler had advised them to plead innocent, as the Rosenbergs did, if formally charged. The NKVD (Narodny Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del  ) (Russian: , ) or Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the leading secret police organization of the Soviet Union that was responsible for political repressions during Stalinism. ... ... The Rosenbergs Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (1915-1953) and Julius Rosenberg (1918-1953) were American Communists who captured and maintained world attention after being tried, convicted, and executed for spying for the Soviet Union. ... Theodore Halls ID badge photo from Los Alamos. ... Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. ... Not to be confused with physician, a person who practices medicine. ... Los Alamos National Laboratory, aerial view from 1995. ...


It was the belief of opponents of the CPUSA such as J. Edgar Hoover, long-time director of the FBI, and Joseph McCarthy, for whom McCarthyism is named, and other anti-communists that the CPUSA constituted an active conspiracy, was secretive, loyal to a foreign power, and whose members assisted Soviet intelligence in the clandestine infiltration of American government . This is the "traditionalist" view of some in the field of Communist studies such as Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes, since supported by several memoirs of ex-Soviet KGB officers and information obtained from VENONA and Soviet archives.[17][18][19] John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. ... This article is about the U.S. senator from Wisconsin (1947-1957). ... A 1947 comic book published by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society warning of the dangers of a Communist takeover. ... Ideologies Communist internationals Prominent communists Related subjects Anti-communism refers to opposition to communism. ... In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. ... See: espionage, urban exploration, entryism, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. ... Soviet and Communist studies is the field of historical studies of the Soviet Union and other Communist states, as well as of communist parties, such as the Communist Party USA, that existed or still exist in some form in many countries, inside or outside the former Soviet Bloc. ...


At one time this view was shared by the majority of the United States 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, Type Bicameral Houses Senate House of Representatives President of the Senate President pro tempore Dick Cheney, (R) since January 20, 2001 Robert C. Byrd, (D) since January 4, 2007 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, (D) since January 4, 2007 Members 535 plus 4 Delegates and 1 Resident Commissioner Political...

"although purportedly a political party, is in fact an instrumentality of a conspiracy... prescribed for it by the foreign leaders... to carry into action slavishly the assignments given...acknowledges no constitutional or statutory limitations...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...as the agency of a hostile foreign power renders its existence a clear present and continuing danger[20]

In 1993, experts from the Library of Congress travelled to Moscow to copy previously secret archives of Communist Party USA (CPUSA) records, sent to the Soviet Union for safekeeping by party organisers. The records provided an irrefutable link between Soviet intelligence and information obtained by the CPUSA and its contacts in the U.S. government from the 1920s through the 1940s. Some documents revealed that the CPUSA was actively involved in secretly recruiting party members from African-American groups and rural farm workers. Other CPUSA records contained further evidence that Soviet sympathizers had indeed infiltrated the State Department, beginning in the 1930s. Included in CPUSA archival records were confidential letters from two U.S. ambassadors in Europe to Roosevelt and a senior State Department official. Thanks to an official in the State department sympathetic to the Party, the confidential correspondence, concerning political and economic matters in Europe, ended up in the hands of Soviet intelligence.[21][22][23]


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 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 Roosevelt, the FBI began investigating both domestic Nazis and Communists. Congress passed the Smith Act, which made it illegal to advocate, abet, or teach the desirability of overthrowing the government, in 1940. Alexander Mitchell Palmer The Palmer Raids were a series of controversial raids by the U.S. Justice and Immigration Departments from 1919 to 1921 on suspected radical leftists in the United States. ... Some factual claims in this article need to be verified. ... Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882–April 12, 1945), 32nd President of the United States, the longest-serving holder of the office and the only man to be elected President more than twice, was one of the central figures of 20th century history. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... The Alien Registration Act or Smith Act () of 1940 is a United States federal statute that made it a criminal offense for anyone to It also required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the government; within four months, 4,741,971 aliens had registered under the Acts...


In 1949 , the federal government put Eugene Dennis, William Z. Foster and ten other CPUSA 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 Karl Marx, Lenin and other revolutionary figures of the past. During the course of the trial the judge held several of the defendants and all of their counsel in contempt of court. Eugene Dennis (August 10, 1905 - January 31, 1961) was a long-time leader of the Communist Party USA and union organizer. ... William Edward Foster (February 25, 1881 - September 1, 1961), who renamed himself as William Z. Foster, was the long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party USA and trade union leader. ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ...


All of the remaining eleven defendants were found guilty. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of their convictions by a 6-2 vote in United States v. Dennis, 341 U.S. 494 (1951). The government then proceeded with the prosecutions of more than 100 "second string" members of the party.


Panicked by these arrests and the fear that it was compromised by informants, Dennis and other party leaders decided to go underground and to disband many affiliated groups. The move only heightened the political isolation of the leadership, while making it nearly impossible for the Party to function.


The widespread persecution of communists and their associates began to abate somewhat after Senator Joseph McCarthy overreached himself in the Army-McCarthy Hearings, producing a backlash. 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. This article is about the U.S. senator from Wisconsin (1947-1957). ... Early in 1954, the U.S. Army accused Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (Republican, Wisconsin), and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, of pressuring the Army to give favorable treatment to former McCarthy aide and friend of Cohns, G. David Schine. ... Holding The Court held that for the Smith Act to be violated, people must be encouraged to do something, rather than merely to believe in something. ...


The Communist Party and U.S. political movements

The Communist Party was heavily involved in the U.S. labour movement, especially before 1950, and was an early proponent of equality for African-Americans. Beginning in the 1960s, the Communist Party was involved in opposing U.S. foreign policy, particularly U.S. wars against Communist regimes and movements abroad.


The Communist Party and the U.S. labor movement

See Communists in the U.S. Labor Movement (1919-1937), Communists in the U.S. Labor Movement (1937-1950) The Communist Party and its allies played an important role in the United States labor movement, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, but never succeeded, with rare exceptions, either in bringing the labor movement around to its agenda or in converting their influence in any particular union into membership gains... The Communist Party and its allies played an important role in the United States labor movement, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, but never succeeded, with rare exceptions, either in bringing the labor movement around to its agenda or in converting their influence in any particular union into membership gains...


The Communist Party and African-Americans

See main article: The Communist Party and African-Americans

The Communist Party USA played a significant rôle in defending the rights of African-Americans during its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. Throughout its history many of the Party's leaders and political thinkers have been African Americans. James Ford, Charlene Mitchell, Angela Davis, and Jarvis Tyner, the current executive vice chair of the Party, all ran as presidential or vice presidential candidates on the Party ticket. Others like Benjamin O. Davis Jr., William L. Patterson, Harry Haywood, James Jackson, Henry Winston, Claude Lightfoot, Alphaeus Hunton, Doxey Wilkerson, Claudia Jones, and John Pittman contributed in important ways to the Party's approaches to major issues from human and civil rights, peace, women's equality, the national question, working class unity, Marxist thought, cultural struggle and more. Their contributions have had a lasting impact on not only the Party but the general public as well. Noted African American thinkers, artists, and writers such as Claude McKay, Richard Wright, Ann Petry, W. E. B. Du Bois, Shirley Graham Du Bois, Lloyd Brown, Charles White, Elizabeth Catlett, Paul Robeson, Frank Marshall Davis, Gwendolyn Brooks, and many more were one-time members or supporters of the Party. The party's work to appeal to African-Americans continues to this day. It was instrumental in the founding of the Black Radical Congress in 1998. The Communist Party USA played a significant role in defending the rights of African-Americans during its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. ... Languages Predominantly American English Religions Protestantism (chiefly Baptist and Methodist); Roman Catholicism; Islam Related ethnic groups Sub-Saharan Africans and other African groups, some with Native American groups. ... The 1930s (years from 1930–1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known as the World Depression. ... The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949. ... Charlene Mitchell was a third-party candidate in the 1968 U.S. presidential election. ... Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American socialist organizer, professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). ... Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. ... William L. Patterson was a leader in the Communist Party USA and head of the International Labor Defense, a group that offered legal representation to communists, trade unionists, and African-Americans in cases involving issues of political or racial persecution. ... Harry Haywood // Harry Haywood (February 6, 1898 - January 1985) was born in South Omaha, Nebraska to former slaves, Harriet and Haywood Hall. ... Claudia Jones (1915–1964) was born in Belmont, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. ... Claude McKay (September 15, 1889[1] – May 22, 1948) was a Jamaican writer and communist. ... For other persons of the same name, see Richard Wright. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced [1]) (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an African American civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. ... Shirley Graham Du Bois Shirley Graham Du Bois (November 11, 1896 – March 27, 1977) was an American-born author, playwright, composer, and activist for African-American and other causes, as well as spouse of noted African-American thinker, writer, and activist W. E. B. Du Bois. ... Target - Dodgers, 1990 set, card #083. ... Charles White (born January 22, 1958 in Los Angeles) went to San Fernando, CA High School. ... Elizabeth Catlett Mora (born April 15, 1915) is an African American sculptress and printmaker. ... Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was a multi-lingual American actor, athlete, bass-baritone concert singer, writer, civil rights activist, fellow traveler, Spingarn Medal winner, and Stalin Peace Prize laureate. ... Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an African American poet. ... The Black Radical Congress or BRC is an organization founded in 1998 in Chicago. ...


The Communist Party and the U.S. peace movement

The Communist Party opposed the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, the invasion of Grenada, and U.S. support for anti-communist military dictatorships and movements in Central America. During the Vietnam War, as a tactical move, the CPUSA did not call for an immediate end to the war, but instead for negotiations between the North Vietnamese leadership and the U.S. While some on the left have criticizedthe CPUSA for this position, it was in fact in line with that of the Vietnamese Communist leadership.[citation needed] Meanwhile, some in the peace movement and the New Left rejected the CPUSA for what it saw as the party's bureaucratic rigidity and for its steadfastly close association with Soviet Union. Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000... An Australian anti-conscription poster from World War One A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war (or all wars), minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of... The New Left is a term used in different countries to describe left-wing movements that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. ...


The CPUSA has been consistently opposed to the U.S.'s current war in Iraq.[24] United for Peace and Justice, currently the largest peace and justice coalition in the U.S., includes the CPUSA as a member group, with Judith LeBlanc, who chairs the CPUSA's Peace and Solidarity Commission, being a member of the Steering Committee of UFPJ. United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) is a coalition of more than 1,300[1] international and U.S.-based organizations opposed to what they describe as our governments policy of permanent warfare and empire-building. ...


Notable figures of the Communist Party USA

Party Leaders

Charles Ruthenberg (July 14, 1884 – 1927) was an American communist politician and activist, one of the founders of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). ... James Cannon in Moscow (1922) James Patrick Cannon (1890-1974) was an American Communist and Trotskyist leader. ... Jay Lovestone (1897-1990) was at various times head of the Communist Party, leader of a small oppositionist party, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions within it. ... William Edward Foster (February 25, 1881 - September 1, 1961), who renamed himself as William Z. Foster, was the long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party USA and trade union leader. ... Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891–June 27, 1973) was an American socialist and leader of the Communist Party USA. // Early years Browder was born in Wichita, Kansas. ... Eugene Dennis (August 10, 1905 - January 31, 1961) was a long-time leader of the Communist Party USA and union organizer. ... A large number of international organizations and other bodies have a secretary general or secretary-general as their chief administrative officers or in other administrative capacities. ... William Edward Foster (February 25, 1881 - September 1, 1961), who renamed himself as William Z. Foster, was the long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party USA and trade union leader. ... Gus Hall Gus Hall (October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was a labor organizer, a founder of the United Steelworkers of America trade union, a leader of the Communist Party USA, and five-time U.S. presidential candidate. ... Jarvis Tyner is the executive vice chair of the American Communist Party. ... Sam Webb is the current national chair of the Communist Party USA, a position to which he was elected in 1998. ...

Presidential tickets

William Edward Foster (February 25, 1881 - September 1, 1961), who renamed himself as William Z. Foster, was the long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party USA and trade union leader. ... William Edward Foster (February 25, 1881 - September 1, 1961), who renamed himself as William Z. Foster, was the long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party USA and trade union leader. ... William Edward Foster (February 25, 1881 - September 1, 1961), who renamed himself as William Z. Foster, was the long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party USA and trade union leader. ... James W. Ford (1893 - 1957) was an American Communist. ... Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891–June 27, 1973) was an American socialist and leader of the Communist Party USA. // Early years Browder was born in Wichita, Kansas. ... James W. Ford (1893 - 1957) was an American Communist. ... Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891–June 27, 1973) was an American socialist and leader of the Communist Party USA. // Early years Browder was born in Wichita, Kansas. ... James W. Ford (1893 - 1957) was an American Communist. ... Henry Wallace may refer to: Henry A. Wallace (1888–1965), U.S. Vice President Henry Cantwell Wallace (1866–1924), U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, father of Henry A. Wallace Harry Brookings Wallace, former Chancellor of Washington University in St. ... Vincent Hallinan was a lawyer from San Francisco, California. ... Charlene Mitchell was a third-party candidate in the 1968 U.S. presidential election. ... Charlene Mitchell (c. ... Gus Hall Gus Hall (October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was a labor organizer, a founder of the United Steelworkers of America trade union, a leader of the Communist Party USA, and five-time U.S. presidential candidate. ... Jarvis Tyner is the executive vice chair of the American Communist Party. ... Gus Hall Gus Hall (October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was a labor organizer, a founder of the United Steelworkers of America trade union, a leader of the Communist Party USA, and five-time U.S. presidential candidate. ... Jarvis Tyner is the executive vice chair of the American Communist Party. ... Gus Hall Gus Hall (October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was a labor organizer, a founder of the United Steelworkers of America trade union, a leader of the Communist Party USA, and five-time U.S. presidential candidate. ... Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American socialist organizer, professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). ... Gus Hall Gus Hall (October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was a labor organizer, a founder of the United Steelworkers of America trade union, a leader of the Communist Party USA, and five-time U.S. presidential candidate. ... Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American socialist organizer, professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). ...

External links

  • CPUSA website, including a collection of FAQs
  • Young Communist League USA youth group
  • People's Weekly World weekly newspaper
  • Political Affairs monthly theoretical publication

See also

In modern usage, the term communist party is generally used to identify any political party which has adopted communist ideology. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas  US Government Portal      This list of political parties in the United States contains past and present... There are, at present, a number of communist parties active in various countries across the world, and a number who used to be active. ... // Browder, Golos and Peters By the mid to late 1920s, there were three elements of Soviet power operating in the United States, despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations, the Comintern, military intelligence or GRU, and the forerunner of the KGB, the GPU. The Comintern was the dominant arm, though... Harry Haywood // Harry Haywood (February 6, 1898 - January 1985) was born in South Omaha, Nebraska to former slaves, Harriet and Haywood Hall. ... Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891–June 27, 1973) was an American socialist and leader of the Communist Party USA. // Early years Browder was born in Wichita, Kansas. ... Dorothy Ray Healey (September 22, 1914 – August 6, 2006) was a long-time activist in the American Communist Party, from the late 1920s to the 1970s. ...

References

CPUSA publications

Past publications

“PDF” redirects here. ... A kibibyte (a contraction of kilo binary byte) is a unit of information or computer storage, commonly abbreviated KiB (never kiB). 1 kibibyte = 210 bytes = 1,024 bytes The kibibyte is closely related to the kilobyte, which can be used either as a synonym for kibibyte or to refer to... For other uses, see Progressivism (disambiguation). ...

Recent publications

  • CPUSA National Board. The Road to Socialism USA: Unity for Peace, Democracy, Jobs and Equality. Draft Program of the CPUSA. Published February 2, 2005. Retrieved June 8, 2005.
  • Webb, Sam. Reflections on Socialism. June 3, 2005.
  • Webb, Sam. What the Communist Party’s draft program is all about. People's Weekly World. April 14, 2005. Retrieved May 19, 2005.
  • CPUSA National Board. "For the Sake of the Union: Change Congress in November". Communist Party website. Feb. 2, 2006. Retrieved March 9, 2006.
  • CPUSA National Committee. "Defeat Anti-Immigrant HR 4437". Communist Party website. Dec. 22, 2005. Retrieved March 9, 2006.
  • Susan Webb. "Political Storm in US -- CPUSA report to the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties". Communist Party website. Dec. 22, 2005, Retrieved March 9, 2006.
  • CPUSA National Committee. "Communist Party, USA: Emergency Action on Winter Heating and Fuel Crisis". Communist Party website. Dec. 22, 2005, Retrieved March 9, 2006.
  • Sam Webb. "Fighting Racism is at the Heart of Our Struggles" People's Weekly World. February 25, 2006.

Sam Webb is the current national chairman of the Communist Party USA, a position to which he was elected at the 27th National Convention held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2001. ... Sam Webb is the current national chairman of the Communist Party USA, a position to which he was elected at the 27th National Convention held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2001. ... Sam Webb is the current national chairman of the Communist Party USA, a position to which he was elected at the 27th National Convention held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2001. ...

Non-CPUSA websites

The Marxists Internet Archive (also known as MIA or Marxists. ...

References for: Soviet funding of the Party

  • The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, Basic Books, 1999, hardcover edition, p. 287-293, p. 306, ISBN 0-465-00310-9. Vasili Mitrokhin was an archivist who worked for the KGB. After 1972 , when the KGB established its new modern offices at Yasenovo, Mitrokhin was entrusted with transferring the corpus of KGB files from its old office at the Lubyanka in Moscow to the new offices. During the next ten years while performing these duties he copied many files which he turned over to British intelligence when he defected in March, 1992.
  • Operation Solo: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin, John Barron, Regnery Publishing, 1996, ISBN 0-89526-486-2; 2001 edition, ISBN 0-7091-6061-5. This biography of Morris Childs, who together with his brother Jack arranged for and handled the money transfers during the 1960s and 70s, contains much of the same material.

This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article is about the KGB of the Soviet Union. ... The Lubyanka is the popular name for the headquarters of the KGB and affiliated prison on Lubyanka Square in Moscow. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ...

Other references

  1. ^ Constitution of the Communist Party of the United States of America, amended July 8, 2001 at the 27th National Convention, Milwaukee, WI. Article VII, Section 2: "…any member shall be expelled from the Party who is a strikebreaker, a provocateur, engaged in espionage, an informer, or who advocates force and violence or terrorism, or who participates in the activities of any group which acts to undermine or overthrow any democratic institutions through which the majority of the American people can express their right to determine their destiny." Accessed online 28 November 2006.
  2. ^ CPUSA Constitution Amended July 8, 2001 at the 27th National Convention, Milwaukee, WI. Accessed online 29 August 2006.
  3. ^ Communist Party Immediate Program for the Crisis, CPUSA FAQ. Accessed online 29 August 2006.
  4. ^ Does the CPUSA advocate the violent overthrow of the government? Don’t all communists advocate violence?, CPUSA FAQ. Accessed online 29 August 2006.
  5. ^ Klehr, Harvey. Communist cadre: The social background of the American Communist party élite. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.
  6. ^ Glazer, Nathan The Social Basis of American Communism.
  7. ^ Ryan, James G., Socialist Triumph as a Family Value: Earl Browder and Soviet Espionage, American Communist History 1, no. 2 (December 2002)
  8. ^ Haynes, John E., Klehr, Harvey, and Igorevich, Fridrikh I., The Secret World of American Communism, Yale University Press (1995)
  9. ^ Soviet and American Communist Parties in Revelations from the Russian Archives, Library of Congress, January 4, 1996. Accessed online 29 August 2006.
  10. ^ History of the FBI: Postwar America: 1945–1960s, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), undated. Accessed online 29 August 2006.
  11. ^ In this issue..., Political Affairs, April 2004. Accessed online 29 August 2006.
  12. ^ Howard Fast, "On Leaving the Communist party", The Saturday Review, November 16, 1957. Reproduced at trussel.com, accessed online 29 August 2006.
  13. ^ For instance, Thomas Riggins, "Capitalism, Communism, and Cat Food", Political Affairs, 9 May 2007 (accessed 9 November 2007).
  14. ^ Marilyn Bechtel and Debbie Bell, China 2002: Building socialism with Chinese characteristics, People's Weekly World, Mar 30, 2002. Accessed online 29 August 2006.
  15. ^ "Communist Party USA Gives Its History to N.Y.U.", article by Patricia Cohen in the New York Times, March 20, 2007
  16. ^ This claim is made on the personal site of Joseph T Major, accessed online 30 August 2006. He cites it to Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Kyrill M. Anderson, The Soviet World of American Communism, Yale University Press (1998); ISBN 0-300-07150-7; Document 45, p. 155. The text of a $3 million receipt dated 19.03.88 is given on the site, but the receipt is not reproduced.
  17. ^ Haynes, John Earl, and Klehr, Harvey, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press (2000)
  18. ^ Schecter, Jerrold and Leona, Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History, Potomac Books (2002)
  19. ^ Sudoplatov, Pavel Anatoli, Schecter, Jerrold L., and Schecter, Leona P., Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster, Little Brown, Boston (1994)
  20. ^ Title 50 > Chapter 23 > Subchapter IV > § 841. Findings and declarations of fact. US Code collection, on the site of Cornell University. Accessed 30 August 2006.
  21. ^ Retrieved Papers Shed Light On Communist Activities In U.S., Associated Press, January 31, 2001
  22. ^ Haynes, John Earl, and Klehr, Harvey, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press (2000)
  23. ^ Weinstein, Allen, and Vassiliev, Alexander, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - the Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1999)
  24. ^ No to Bush's War!, CPUSA Online, archived on the Internet Archive April 7, 2003.

Howard Melvin Fast (November 11, 1914 – March 12, 2003) was a Jewish American novelist and television writer. ... Saturday Review (1924–1986) was a weekly U.S.-based magazine. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... Cornell redirects here. ... Internet Archive headquarters is in the Presidio, a former US military base in San Francisco. ...

Further reading

General Articles

  • Bittelman, Alexander. Outline for a History of the Communist Party in America. (circa 1923)PDF (126 KiB). Published as “Hynes Exhibit No. 4” in Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Communist Activities. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1930), pp. 435-448. Published on line by http://www.marxisthistory.org. Retrieved June 11, 2006.
  • Moynihan, Daniel, et al., Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, U.S. Government Printing Office (1997)
  • Nash, Michael. Communist History at the Tamiment LibraryPDF (4.22 MiB). American Communist History, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2004. Retrieved April 3, 2006.
  • Retrieved Papers Shed Light On Communist Activities In U.S., Associated Press, January 31, 2001
  • American Communist History a peer-reviewed journal published by the Historians of American Communism. [2]

“PDF” redirects here. ... A kibibyte (a contraction of kilo binary byte) is a unit of information or computer storage, commonly abbreviated KiB (never kiB). 1 kibibyte = 210 bytes = 1,024 bytes The kibibyte is closely related to the kilobyte, which can be used either as a synonym for kibibyte or to refer to... “PDF” redirects here. ... MiB redirects here. ...

General Books

  • William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States, International Publishers, 1952
  • Draper, Theodor, The Roots of American Communism, Viking, 1957
  • Draper, Theodor, American Communism and Soviet Russia: The Formative Period, Viking, 1960
  • Howe, Irving and Lewis Coser, The American Communist Party: A Critical History, 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, University of Illinois Press, 1993, trade paperback, ISBN 0-252-06336-8, reprint edition ISBN 0-8195-6111-8
  • Jaffe, Philip J., Rise and Fall of American Communism, Horizon Press, 1975, hardcover, ISBN 0-8180-0817-2
  • Kelley, Robin D. G., Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression, University of North Carolina Press, 1990, ISBN 0-8078-4288-5
  • Klehr, Harvey. The Heyday of American Communism:The Depression Decade, Basic Books, 1984, hardcover, ISBN 0-465-02945-0, trade paperback, 1985, ISBN 0-465-02946-9
  • Klehr, Harvey and John Earl Haynes, The American Communist Movement: Storming Heaven Itself, Twayne Publishers (Macmillan), 1992, hardcover, 210 pages, ISBN 0-8057-3855-X, trade paperback ISBN 0-8057-3856-8
  • Haynes, John Earl, and Klehr, Harvey, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press (2000)
  • Kraditor, Aileen S., Jimmy Higgins: The Mental World of the American Rank-And-File Communist, 1930-1958 Greenwood Publishing Company, 1988, hardcover, ISBN 0-313-26246-2
  • Lewy, Guenter, The Cause That Failed: Communism in American Political Life, Oxford University Press, 1997, hardcover, ISBN 0-19-505748-1
  • Richmond, Al, A Long View from the Left: Memoirs of an American Revolutionary. 447 pages, Houghton Mifflin, 1973. ISBN 0-395-14005-6.
  • Schecter, Jerrold and Leona, Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History, Potomac Books (2002)
  • Solomon, Mark, "The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-1936, University of Mississippi Press, paperback, ISBN 1-57806-095-8
  • Sudoplatov, Pavel Anatoli, Schecter, Jerrold L., and Schecter, Leona P., Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster, Little Brown, Boston (1994)
  • Staroibin, Joseph R., American Communism in Crisis, 1943-1957, Harvard University Press, 1972, hardcover, ISBN 0-674-02275-0
  • Weinstein, Allen, and Vassiliev, Alexander, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - the Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1999)

Theodore H. Draper (September 11, 1912 – February 21, 2006) was an American historian and political writer. ... Theodore H. Draper (September 11, 1912 – February 21, 2006) was an American historian and political writer. ... Irving Howe (1920 – 1993), was born Irving Horenstein in New York, the son of immigrants who ran a small grocery store that went out of business during the Great Depression. ... Lewis Coser (born 27 November 1913 in Berlin, died 8 July 2003 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) was an American sociologist. ... Robin D.G. Kelley (b. ... Harvey E. Klehr (born December 25, 1945) is a professor of politics and history at Emory University; he is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist movement, and on Soviet espionage in America (many written jointly with John Earl Haynes). ...

Agricultural issues

  • Robin D.G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression, University of North Carolina Press, 1990, trade paperback, ISBN 0-8078-4288-5
  • Lowell K., Dyson, Red Harvest: The Communist Party and American Farmers, University of Nebraska Press, 1982, hardcover, ISBN 0-8032-1659-9

Bibliography

  • John Earl Haynes, Communism and Anti-Communism in the United States: An Annotated Guide to Historical Writings (Gala;rland Reference Library of Social Science, Vol 379), Garland Science, 1987, hardcover ISBN 0-8240-8520-5
  • Newsletter of the Historians of American Communism

Espionage and infiltration

  • Robert Meeropol, An Execution in the Family, St. Martin's Press, 2003, ISBN 0-312-30636-9
  • Allen, Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, Knopf, 1978, hardcover, ISBN 0-394-49546-2
  • Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, The Rosenberg File: A Search for the Truth, Henry Holt, 1983, hardcover, ISBN 0-03-049036-7; Yale University Press, 2nd edition, 1997, trade paperback, 616 pages, ISBN 0-300-07205-8
  • Earl Latham, Communist Controversy in Washington: From the New Deal to McCarthy, Holiday House, 1972, ISBN 0-689-70121-7; hardcover, ISBN 1-125-65079-6
  • Richard M. Fried, Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective, Oxford University Press, 1991, trade paperback, ISBN 0-19-504360-X; ISBN 0-19-504361-8
  • Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy Report, Appendix A, 4. The Encounter with Communism (1997)
  • Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive. American Revolution into the New Millennium: A Counterintelligence Reader: Cold War CounterintelligencePDF. Volume 3, Chapter 1. U.S. Government on line publication. No date. Retrieved May 25, 2005.
  • Detailed history of Matt Cvedic and his media manipulation

“PDF” redirects here. ...

Historiography

  • Isserman, Maurice. The New History of American Communism Revisited. Reviews in American History, 20. 1992. 536 - 542. Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved April 3, 2006.

Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism

  • David M. Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy, Simon and Schuster, 1985, trade paperback, ISBN 0-02-923760-2; Free Press, ISBN 0-02-923490-5
  • Thomas C. Reeves, Life and Times of Joe McCarthy, Stein & Day, 1983, hardcover, ISBN 0-8128-2337-0

Other subjects related to the CPUSA

  • 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 0-385-12900-9; University of Illinois Press, 2003, trade paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-252-07141-7
  • Gerald Horne, Class Struggle in Hollywood, 1930-1950, University of Texas, 0292731388
  • Bill V. Mullen, Popular Fronts, University of Illinois Press, 1999, ISBN 0-252-06748-7
  • 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 0-8371-9030-4
  • Robert Jackson Alexander and Robert S. Alley, Right Opposition: The Lovestoneites and the International Communist Opposition of the 1930s, Greenwood, 1981, hardcover, 342 pages, ISBN 0-313-22070-0
  • James Yates, Mississippi to Madrid: Memoir of a Black American in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade,Open Hand Publishing, 1989, ISBN 0-940880-20-2
  • Alexander Saxton, The Great Midland, University of Illinois Press, 1997, ISBN 0-252-06564-6

Social, cultural and ethnic issues

  • W.E.B. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois, International Publishers, ISBN 0-7178-0234-5
  • Philip S. Foner, Organized Labor and the Black Worker, International Publishers, ISBN 0-7178-0594-8
  • Vivian Gornick, The Romance of American Communism, Basic Book, ISBN 0-465-07110-4
  • Edward C. Pintzuk, Reds, Racial Justice, and Civil Liberties: Michigan Communists During the Cold War, MEP Publications, 1997, ISBN 0-930656-71-7
  • Nathan Glazer, The Social Basis of American Communism, Greenwood, 1974, ISBN 0-8371-7476-7
  • Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist. Liberator Press, Chicago: 1978. 700 pages. ISBN 0-930720-53-9
  • Harvey E. Klehr, Communist Cadre: The Social Background of the American Communist Party, Hoover Institution Press, 1960, ISBN 0-685-67279-4
  • Robin D.G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression, University of North Carolina Press, 1990, trade paperback, ISBN 0-8078-4288-5
  • 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 0-252-00644-5; Grove Press reprint, 1985, ISBN 0-8021-5183-3
  • Charles H., Martin, The Angelo Herndon Case and Southern Justice Louisiana State University Press, 1976, ISBN 0-8071-0174-5
  • Dan T. Carter, Scottsboro a Tragedy of the American South, Oxford University Press, 1972, trade paperback, ISBN 0-19-501485-5; Louisiana State University Press; 1979, trade paperback, ISBN 0-8071-0498-1
  • Lawrence H. Schwartz, Marxism and Culture: The CPUSA and Aesthetics in the 1930s, Authors Choice Press (2000), trade paperback, ISBN 0-595-12751-7
  • Alan Wald, Exiles from a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth Century Literary Left, University of North Carolina Press, ISBN 0-8078-5349-6

This article or section needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ... Vivian Gornick is an American critic, essayist, and memoirist. ...

Union history

  • Cochran, Bert, Labor and Communism: The Conflict That Shaped American Unions, Princeton University Press, 1977, ISBN 0-691-04644-1
  • Harvey Levenstein, Communism, Anticommunism, and the CIO, Greenwood, 1981, hardcover, ISBN 0-313-22072-7
  • Max M. Kampelman, Communist Party vs the CIO: A Study in Power Politics (American Labor Series No. 2), Ayer Company Publishing, 1971, hardcover, ISBN 0-405-02929-2
  • Ronald W. Schatz, Electrical Workers: A History of Labor at General Electric and Westinghouse, 1923-60, University of Illinois Press, 1983, hardcover, ISBN 0-252-01031-0; paperback reprint ISBN 0-252-01438-3
  • 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 1-56639-922-X
  • Roger Keeran, Communist Party and the Auto Workers Unions, Indiana University Press, 1980, hardcover, ISBN 0-253-15754-4
  • Cletus E. Daniel, Bitter Harvest: A History of California Farmworkers, 1870-1941, University of California Press, 1982, trade paperback, ISBN 0-520-04722-2; textbook binding, Cornell University Press, 1981, ISBN 0-8014-1284-6

  Results from FactBites:
 
Communist Party, USA (6695 words)
Communists did not seriously expect to be elected, and for that matter no longer held the socialist faith in transforming society primarily through patient, open educational efforts.
Communists in New York State’s American Labor Party (which repeatedly sent the radical Vito Marcantonio to Congress), in Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor Party, and in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, came to be looked upon as agents not of Moscow but of the democratic agenda.
Communist identification of racism as the running sore of democracy and the mark of incipient fascism, combined with Communists’ ardent efforts to uplift the cause of minorities both politically and culturally, prompted liberal respect almost bordering upon awe.
Communist Party USA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (7845 words)
In the late 1980s the party became estranged from the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev and criticized his policy of perestroika, leading to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union cutting off its support of the CPUSA in 1989.
Party members also rallied to the defense of the Spanish Republic during this period after a fascist military uprising moved to overthrow it, resulting in the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939).
The Communist Party vigorously opposed the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, the invasion of Grenada, and U.S. support for anti-communist governments and movements in Central America.
  More results at FactBites »


 
 

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