The Communist Party USA (Marxist–Leninist) was a small American Maoist group founded in 1965 by Los Angeles members of the Provisional Organizing Committee to Reconstitute a Marxist–Leninist Party (POC) around Michael Laski.
Laski stated in a 1968 interview that this split was motivated by dissatisfaction with the POC's response to the Watts riots.
[1][2] In 1967 Detective James C. Harris of the Los Angeles district attorney's office testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee about the group.
He stated that the "intent of the CPUSA-ML has been to aggravate" the African-American population in Los Angeles "to the point of civil disobedience and to attempt to condition their minds to respond in a rebellious way in the event of a contact with a police officer."
In 1969, the Laski group merged with the Proletarian Revolutionary Party led by Jonathan Leake.