History of the Communist Party USA
CPUSA faced many challenges in gaining a foothold in the United States as they endured two eras of the Red Scare and never experienced significant electoral success.
By the mid-1890s, the SLP came under the influence of Daniel De Leon and his radical views led to widespread discontent amongst the members, leading to the formation of the reformist-oriented Socialist Party of America (SPA) around the turn of the 20th century.
The moderate incumbents struck back by expelling several state organizations, half a dozen language federations, and many locals in all two-thirds of the membership.
[12][page needed][13] From its inception, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) came under attack from state and federal governments and later the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Investigation.
Foster, who headed the party's Trade Union Educational League (TUEL); and James P. Cannon, who led the International Labor Defense (ILD) organization.
[18] Back in the United States, Cannon and his close associates in the ILD such as Max Shachtman and Martin Abern, dubbed the "three generals without an army",[19] began to organize support for Trotsky's theses.
At the same Congress, Lovestone had impressed the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) as a strong supporter of Nikolai Bukharin, the general secretary of the Comintern.
This was to have unfortunate consequences for Lovestone as in 1929 Bukharin was on the losing end of a struggle with Joseph Stalin and was purged from his position on the Politburo and removed as head of the Comintern.
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 United States.
The Communist 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.
[26] However, early efforts in Camp Hill, Alabama where plagued with poor organization and brushes with local authorities resulting in arrests and tension.
[26] When CPUSA called for the right of self-determination and recognized distinctions in the African American struggle, they created a new political ally in the working class and had the means to become an interracial party that could stand clearly against segregation and racial injustice.
[31] The ideological rigidity of the third period began to crack with two events: the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as President of the United States in 1932 and Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933.
[32] Browder uncritically supported Stalin, likening Trotskyism to "cholera germs" and calling the Great Purge "a signal service to the cause of progressive humanity".
[33] He compared the show trial defendants to domestic traitors Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, disloyal War of 1812 Federalists and Confederate secessionists while likening persons who "smeared" Stalin's name to those who had slandered Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D.
[36][37] The British, French and German Communist parties, all originally war supporters, abandoned their anti-fascist crusades, demanded peace and denounced Allied governments.
[38] In October and November, after the Soviets invaded Finland and forced mutual assistance pacts from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the Communist Party considered Russian security sufficient justification to support the actions.
[39] Secret short wave radio broadcasts in October from Comintern leader Georgi Dimitrov ordered Browder to change the party's support for Roosevelt.
Throughout the rest of World War II, the Communist Party continued a policy of militant, if sometimes bureaucratic, trade unionism while opposing strike actions at all costs.
The leadership of the Communist Party was among the most vocal pro-war voices in the United States, advocating unity against fascism, supporting the prosecution of leaders of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) under the newly enacted Smith Act[44] and opposing A. Philip Randolph's efforts to organize a march on Washington to dramatize black workers' demands for equal treatment on the job.
In turn, the U.S. government began to lift prewar restrictions on the CPUSA in order to maintain good United States-Soviet Union relations during the war.
[31] 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.
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.
In 1949's Foley Square trial, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) prosecuted eleven members of the Communist Party's leadership, including Gus Hall and Eugene Dennis.
[62] 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.
But through the hard work of many of the core leadership, the Party rebuilt itself through the nation-wide creation of WEB DuBois clubs, and the founding of the Young Worker’s Liberation League.
The popular work of high-profile leaders like Angela Davis and Bettina Aptheker, regained a national prominence for the Party in the anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist struggle.
However, as reforms were carried out, neoliberal leaders Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher began to praise Gorbachev, which prompted Communists to double take on their assessment.
The more moderate reformists, including Angela Davis, left the party altogether, forming a new organization called the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS).
[78] An increasingly militant and growing youth sector played instrumental roles in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and in the national fight to save Public Housing.
