The Jefferson School of Social Science was established by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1943 as part of that organization's effort to expand the teaching of Marxism to the working class.
[3] The school was built around a library of 30,000 volumes and offered scores of classes each term covering history, politics, trade union affairs, ideology, and the sundry social sciences.
[4] Traditional lecture-based adult education was further supplemented by the Jefferson School's hosting of periodic public events, including single-admission lectures, workshops, musical concerts, and dramatic performances.
[6][7] During the Second Red Scare of the early 1950s, the United States government attempted to identify, isolate, and discredit various so-called front groups of the Communist Party.
The February 1956 secret speech of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences," had the effect of disorienting and discouraging the membership of the CPUSA.
Shocked by Khrushchev's revelations of the mass crimes of the Stalin era, the party lost a spate of members and split into bitterly feuding factions who disagreed about the nature of the Soviet state and the path forward for American radicals.
[11] The school became in its last year loosely associated with the Gates reform faction, which was opposed by a group favoring continuation of past practices, which included party leaders William Z.
[12] According to investigation led by Benjamin Mandel of the US Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), the school's 1951 administration included Frederick V. Field as secretary and Alexander Trachtenberg as treasurer.