Communist Party of the United States of America | |
|---|---|
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| Presidium | National Convention[1] |
| Co-chairs | Joe Sims Rossana Cambron |
| Founder | C. E. Ruthenberg[2] Alfred Wagenknecht |
| Founded | September 1, 1919; 106 years ago (1919-09-01) |
| Merger of | Communist Party of America Communist Labor Party of America United Toilers of America Workers Party of America |
| Split from | Socialist Party of America |
| Preceded by | Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party |
| Headquarters | 235 W 23rd St, New York, New York 10011 |
| Newspaper | People's World[3] |
| Youth wing | Young Communist League[note 1] |
| Membership(2025) |  5,000 |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-left[7] |
| International affiliation | IMCWP (since 1998) Comintern (until 1943) |
| Colors | Red |
| Slogan | "People and Planet Before Profits" |
| Members in elected offices | 2[8][9][10] |
| Party flag | |
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| Website | |
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TheCommunist Party USA (CPUSA), officially theCommunist Party of the United States of America, is a far-leftcommunist party in theUnited States. It was established in 1919 in the wake of theRussian Revolution, emerging from the left wing of theSocialist Party of America (SPA). The CPUSA sought to establish socialism in the U.S. via the principles ofMarxism–Leninism, aligning itself with theCommunist International (Comintern), which was controlled by theSoviet Union.
The CPUSA's early years were marked by factional struggles and clandestine activities. The U.S. government viewed the party as a subversive threat, leading to mass arrests and deportations in thePalmer Raids of 1919–1920. Despite this, the CPUSA expanded its influence, particularly among industrial workers, immigrants, andAfrican Americans. In the 1920s, the party remained a small but militant force. During theGreat Depression in the 1930s, the CPUSA grew in prominence under the leadership ofWilliam Z. Foster and laterEarl Browder as it played a key role inlabor organizing andanti-fascist movements. The party's involvement instrikes helped establish it as a formidable force within theAmerican labor movement, particularly through theCongress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). In the mid-1930s, the CPUSA followed the Comintern's "popular front" line, which emphasized alliances with progressives and liberals. The party softened its revolutionary rhetoric, and supported PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt'sNew Deal policies. This shift allowed the CPUSA to gain broader acceptance, and its membership surged, reaching an estimated 70,000 members by the late 1930s. On the outbreak ofWorld War II in 1939, the CPUSA initially opposed U.S. involvement, but reversed its stance afterGermany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, fervently supporting the war effort. The Popular Front era of CPUSA lasted until 1945, when Earl Browder was ousted from the party and replaced by William Z. Foster.
As theCPUSA's role in Soviet Espionage activities became more widely known, the Party suffered dramatically at onset of theCold War. TheSecond Red Scare saw the party prosecuted under theSmith Act, which criminalized advocacy of violent revolution and led tohigh-profile trials of its leaders. This decimated the CPUSA, reducing its membership to under 10,000 by the mid-1950s. TheKhrushchev Thaw and revelations ofJoseph Stalin's crimes also led to internal divisions, with many members leaving the party in disillusionment. The CPUSA struggled to maintain relevance during the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. While it supportedcivil rights, labor activism, andanti-Vietnam War efforts, it faced competition fromNew Left organizations, which rejected the party's rigid adherence to Soviet communism. TheSino-Soviet split further fractured the communist movement, with some former CPUSA members defecting toMaoist orTrotskyist groups. Under the leadership ofGus Hall (1959–2000), the CPUSA remained loyal to the Soviet Union even as other communist parties distanced themselves from Moscow's policies, which marginalized it within theAmerican left. Thecollapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 dealt a devastating blow to the party, leading to financial difficulties and a further decline in membership.
In the 21st century, the CPUSA has focused onlabor rights,racial justice,environmental activism, and opposition tocorporate capitalism. The CPUSA publishes the newspaperPeople's World and continues to engage in leftist activism.
In 2011, CPUSA claimed 2,000 members.[11] In 2017 and 2018, CPUSA claimed 5,000 members.[12][13] In 2019, former Party member Daniel Rosenberg claimed that "nearly half" of new joiners since 2000 had "paid no dues" and merely signed up for the mailing list.[14]: 54 In 2023, CPUSA claimed 15,000 members.[15] In 2024, CPUSA claimed 20,000 members on its mailing list.[16]
During the first half of the 20th century, the Communist Party was influential in various struggles. HistorianEllen Schrecker concludes that decades of recent scholarship[note 2] offer "a more nuanced portrayal of the party as both aStalinist sect tied to a vicious regime and the most dynamic organization within theAmerican Left during the 1930s and '40s."[17] It was also the first political party in the United States to be racially integrated.[18]
By August 1919, only months after its founding, the Communist Party claimed to have 50,000 to 60,000 members. Its members also includedanarchists and otherradical leftists. At the time, the older and more moderateSocialist Party of America, suffering from criminal prosecutions for its antiwar stance during World War I, had declined to 40,000 members. The sections of the Communist Party'sInternational Workers Order (IWO) organized for communism around linguistic and ethnic lines, providingmutual aid and tailoring cultural activities to an IWO membership that peaked at 200,000 at its height.[19]
During theGreat Depression, some Americans were attracted by the visible activism of Communists on behalf of a wide range of social and economic causes, including the rights of African Americans,workers, and the unemployed.[20] The Communist Party played a significant role in the resurgence of organized labor in the 1930s.[21] Others, alarmed by the rise of theFalangists in Spain and theNazis in Germany, admired the Soviet Union's early and staunch opposition tofascism. Party membership swelled from 7,500 at the start of the decade to 55,000 by its end.[22]
Party members also rallied to the defense of theSpanish Republic during this period after a nationalist military uprising moved to overthrow it, resulting in theSpanish Civil War (1936–1939).[23] TheCommunist Party of the Soviet Union, along withleftists 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 theLincoln Brigade, one of theInternational Brigades.[24][23]
The Communist Party was adamantly opposed to fascism during thePopular Front period. Although membership in the party rose to about 66,000 by 1939,[25][23] nearly 20,000 members left the party by 1943.[23] While general secretaryBrowder at first attacked Germany for its September 1, 1939invasion of western Poland, on September 11 the Communist Party received a communique from Moscow denouncing the Polish government.[26] Between September 14–16, party leaders bickered about the direction to take.[26]
On September 17, theSoviet Union invaded eastern Poland and occupied the Polish territory assigned to it by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, followed by coordination with German forces in Poland.[27][28] The Communist Party then turned the focus of its public activities from anti-fascism to advocating peace, opposing military preparations. The party criticized British Prime MinisterNeville Chamberlain and French leaderÉdouard Daladier, but it did not at first attack President Roosevelt, reasoning that this could devastate American Communism, blaming instead Roosevelt's advisors.[29] The party spread the slogans "The Yanks Are Not Coming" and "Hands Off," set up a "perpetual peace vigil" across the street from theWhite House, and announced that Roosevelt was the head of the "war party of the American bourgeoisie."[30] The party was active in theisolationistAmerica First Committee.[31] In October and November, after theSoviets invaded Finland andforced mutual assistance pacts from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the Communist Party considered Russian security sufficient justification to support the actions.[32] TheComintern and its leaderGeorgi Dimitrov demanded that Browder change the party's support for Roosevelt.[32] On October 23, the party began attacking Roosevelt.[30] The party changed this policy again after Hitler broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact byattacking the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.
In August 1940, after NKVD agentRamón Mercader killed Trotsky with anice axe, Browder perpetuated Moscow's line that the killer, who had been dating one of Trotsky's secretaries, was a disillusioned follower.[33]
The Communist Party's early labor and organizing successes did not last long. As the decades progressed, the combined effects ofMcCarthyism (also known as the Second Red Scare) andNikita Khrushchev's 1956 "Secret Speech" in which he denounced the previous decades ofJoseph Stalin's rule and the adversities of the continuingCold War mentality, steadily weakened the party's internal structure and confidence. Party membership in theCommunist International and its close adherence to the political positions of the Soviet Union gave most Americans the impression that the party was not only a threatening, subversive domestic entity, but that it was also a foreign agent that espoused an ideology which was fundamentally alien and threatening to the American way of life. Internal and external crises swirled together, to the point when members who did not end up in prison for party activities either tended to disappear quietly from its ranks, or they tended to adopt more moderate political positions which were at odds with theparty line. By 1957, membership had dwindled to less than 10,000, of whom some 1,500 were informants for theFBI.[34] The party was also banned by theCommunist Control Act of 1954, although it was never really enforced and Congress later repealed most provisions of the act, also with some declared unconstitutional via the court system.[35]
The party attempted to recover with its opposition to theVietnam War during thecivil rights movement in the 1960s, but its continued uncritical support for an increasingly stultified and militaristic Soviet Union further alienated it from the rest of the left-wing in the United States, which saw this supportive role as outdated and even dangerous. At the same time, the party's aging membership demographics distanced it from theNew Left in the United States.[36]
With the rise ofMikhail Gorbachev and his effort to radically alter the Soviet economic and political system from the mid-1980s, the Communist Party finally became estranged from the leadership of the Soviet Union itself. In 1989, the Soviet Communist Party cut off major funding to the Communist Party USA due to its opposition toglasnost andperestroika. With thedissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the party held its convention and attempted to resolve the issue of whether the party should rejectMarxism–Leninism. The majority reasserted the party's now purelyMarxist outlook, promptinga minority faction which urgedsocial democrats to exit the now reduced party. The party has since adopted Marxism–Leninism within its program.[37] In 2014, the new draft of the party constitution declared: "We apply thescientific outlook developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin and others in the context of our American history, culture, and traditions."[38]
The Communist Party is based in New York City. From 1922 to 1988, it publishedMorgen Freiheit, a daily newspaper written inYiddish.[39][40] For decades, its West Coast newspaper was thePeople's World and its East Coast newspaper wasThe Daily World.[41] The two newspapers merged in 1986 into thePeople's Weekly World. ThePeople's Weekly World has since become an online only publication calledPeople's World. It has since ceased being an official Communist Party publication as the party does not fund its publication.[42] The party's former theoretical journalPolitical Affairs is now also published exclusively online, but the party still maintainsInternational Publishers as its publishing house.
In June 2014, the party held its30th National Convention in Chicago.[43] On April 7, 2021, the party announced that it intended to run candidates in elections again, after a hiatus of over thirty years.[44] Steven Estrada, who ran for city council inLong Beach, was one of the first candidates to run as an open member of the CPUSA again (although Long Beach local elections are officially non-partisan).[45] Estrada received 8.5% of the vote.[46] In 2025 the party increased its electoral activity, fielding candidates for city council inIthaca andNorthampton, with both candidates advancing from the primary.[47] That November, their candidate in Ithaca, Hannah Shvets,[9] was elected with 64% of the vote.[48] Additionally, Communist Party member Daniel Carson[10] was elected to theBangor city council, coming in second place out of nine candidates (the top three were elected)[49] in a non-partisan election.[8][50]
In July 2024, dissenting members of the CPUSA formed their own party, theAmerican Communist Party, citing the CPUSA's support for theDemocratic Party and alleged abandonment ofMarxism–Leninism, with online political commentatorsHaz Al-Din as its founding chairman andJackson Hinkle as a founding Plenary Committee member.[51][52] The party, Al-Din, and Hinkle have drawn criticism for populist tactics such asMAGA Communism.[53]
According to the constitution of the party adopted at the 30th National Convention in 2014, the Communist Party operates on the principle ofdemocratic centralism,[54] its highest authority being the quadrennial National Convention. Article VI, Section 3 of the 2001 Constitution laid out certain positions as non-negotiable:[55]
[S]truggle for the unity of the working class, against all forms of national oppression, national chauvinism, discrimination and segregation, against all racist ideologies and practices, ... against all manifestations of male supremacy and discrimination against women, ... against homophobia and all manifestations of discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.
Among the points in the party's "Immediate Program" are a $15/hourminimum wage for all workers, national universal health care, and opposition toprivatization ofSocial 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 are also included in the Immediate Program, as are opposition to theIraq War and other military interventions; opposition tofree trade treaties such as theNorth American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA);nuclear disarmament and a reduced military budget; variouscivil rights provisions;campaign finance reform including public financing of campaigns; andelection law reform, includinginstant runoff voting.[56]
The Communist Party emphasizes a vision of socialism as an extension of American democracy. Seeking to "build socialism in the United States based on the revolutionary traditions and struggles" of American history, the party promotes a conception of "Bill of Rights Socialism" that will "guarantee all the freedoms we have won over centuries of struggle and also extend theBill of Rights to include freedom from unemployment" as well as freedom "from poverty, from illiteracy, and from discrimination and oppression."[57]
Reiterating the idea of property rights in socialist society as it is outlined inKarl Marx andFriedrich Engels'sCommunist Manifesto (1848),[58] the Communist Party emphasizes:
Many myths have been propagated about socialism. Contrary to right-wing claims, socialism would not take away the personal private property of workers, only the private ownership of major industries, financial institutions, and other large corporations, and the excessive luxuries of the super-rich.[57]
Rather than making all wages entirely equal, the Communist Party holds that building socialism would entail "eliminating private wealth from stock speculation, from private ownership of large corporations, from the export of capital and jobs, and from the exploitation of large numbers of workers."[57]
Among the primary concerns of the Communist Party are the problems ofunemployment,underemployment andjob insecurity, which the party considers the natural result of the profit-driven incentives of the capitalist economy:
Millions of workers are unemployed, underemployed, or insecure in their jobs, even during economic upswings and periods of 'recovery' from recessions. Most workers experience long years of stagnant and declining real wages, while health and education costs soar. Many workers are forced to work second and third jobs to make ends meet. Most workers now average four different occupations during their lifetime, many involuntarily moved from job to job and career to career. Often, retirement-age workers are forced to continue working just to provide health care for themselves and their families. Millions of people continuously live below the poverty level; many suffer homelessness and hunger. Public and private programs to alleviate poverty and hunger do not reach everyone, and are inadequate even for those they do reach. With capitalist globalization, jobs move from place to place as capitalists export factories and even entire industries to other countries in a relentless search for the lowest wages.[57]
The Communist Party believes that "class struggle starts with the fight for wages, hours, benefits, working conditions, job security, and jobs. But it also includes an endless variety of other forms for fighting specific battles: resisting speed-up, picketing, contract negotiations, strikes, demonstrations, lobbying for pro-labor legislation, elections, and even general strikes".[57] The Communist Party's national programs considers workers who struggle "against the capitalist class or any part of it on any issue with the aim of improving or defending their lives" part of the class struggle.[57]
The Communist Party maintains that developments within theforeign policy of the United States—as reflected in the rise ofneoconservatives and other groups associated withright-wing politics—have developed in tandem with the interests of large-scale capital such as themultinational corporations. The state thereby becomes thrust into a proxy role that is essentially inclined to help facilitate "control by one section of the capitalist class over all others and over the whole of society".[57]
Accordingly, the Communist Party holds that right-wing policymakers such as the neoconservatives, steering the state away from working-class interests on behalf of a disproportionately powerful capitalist class, have "demonized foreign opponents of the U.S., covertly funded theright-wing-initiated civil war in Nicaragua, and gave weapons to theSaddam Hussein dictatorship in Iraq. They picked small countries to invade, includingPanama andGrenada, testing new military equipment and strategy, and breaking down resistance at home and abroad to U.S. military invasion as a policy option".[57]
From its ideological framework, the Communist Party understandsimperialism as the pinnacle of capitalist development: the state, working on behalf of the few who wield disproportionate power, assumes the role of proffering "phony rationalizations" for economically driven imperial ambition as a means to promote the sectional economic interests of big business.[57]
In opposition to what it considers the ultimate agenda of the conservative wing of American politics, the Communist Party rejects foreign policy proposals such as theBush Doctrine, rejecting the right of the American government to attack "any country it wants, to conduct war without end until it succeeds everywhere, and even to use 'tactical' nuclear weapons and militarize space. Whoever does not support the U.S. policy is condemned as an opponent. Whenever international organizations, such as the United Nations, do not support U.S. government policies, they are reluctantly tolerated until the U.S. government is able to subordinate or ignore them".[57]
Juxtaposing the support from theRepublicans and the right-wing of theDemocratic Party for theBush administration-ledinvasion of Iraq with the many millions of Americans who opposed the invasion of Iraq from its beginning, the Communist Party notes the spirit of opposition towards the war coming from the American public:
Thousands of grassroots peace committees [were] organized by ordinary Americans ... neighborhoods, small towns and universities expressing opposition in countless creative ways. Thousands of actions, vigils, teach-ins and newspaper advertisements were organized. The largest demonstrations were held since the Vietnam War. 500,000 marched in New York after the war started. Students at over 500 universities conducted a Day of Action for "Books not Bombs."
Over 150 anti-war resolutions were passed by city councils. Resolutions were passed by thousands of local unions and community organizations. Local and national actions were organized on the Internet, including the "Virtual March on Washington DC" .... Elected officials were flooded with millions of calls, emails and letters.
In an unprecedented development, large sections of the US labor movement officially opposed the war. In contrast, it took years to build labor opposition to the Vietnam War. ... For example in Chicago, labor leaders formed Labor United for Peace, Justice and Prosperity. They concluded that mass education of their members was essential to counter false propaganda, and that the fight for the peace, economic security and democratic rights was interrelated.[59]
The party has consistently opposed American involvement in theKorean War, theVietnam War, theFirst Gulf War and the post-September 11 conflicts in bothIraq andAfghanistan. The Communist Party does not believe that the threat of terrorism can be resolved through war.[60]
The Communist Party Constitution defines the U.S. working class as "multiracial and multinational. It unites men and women, young and old, gay and straight, native-born and immigrant, urban and rural." The party further expands its interpretation to include the employed and unemployed, organized and unorganized, and of all occupations.[54]
The Communist Party seeks equal rights for women, equal pay for equal work and the protection of reproductive rights, together with putting an end to sexism.[61] They support the right of abortion and social services to provide access to it, arguing that unplanned pregnancy is prejudiced against poor women.[62] The party's ranks include a Women's Equality Commission, which recognizes the role of women as an asset in moving towards building socialism.[63]
Historically significant in American history as an early fighter for African Americans' rights and playing a leading role in protesting the lynchings of African Americans in the South, the Communist Party in its national program today calls racism the "classic divide-and-conquer tactic".[note 3][64] From its New York City base, the Communist Party's Ben Davis Club and other Communist Party organizations have been involved in local activism inHarlem and other African American and minority communities.[65] The Communist Party was instrumental in the founding of theprogressiveBlack Radical Congress in 1998, as well as theAfrican Blood Brotherhood.[66]
Historically significant inLatino working class history as a successful organizer of the Mexican American working class in the Southwestern United States in the 1930s, the Communist Party regards working-class Latino people as another oppressed group targeted by overt racism as well as systemic discrimination in areas such as education and sees the participation of Latino voters in a general mass movement in both party-based and nonpartisan work as an essential goal for major left-wing progress.[67]
The Communist Party holds that racial and ethnic discrimination not only harms minorities, but is pernicious to working-class people of all backgrounds as any discriminatory practices between demographic sections of the working class constitute an inherently divisive practice responsible for "obstructing the development of working-class consciousness, driving wedges in class unity to divert attention fromclass exploitation, and creating extra profits for the capitalist class".[68][note 4]
The Communist Party supports an end toracial profiling.[56] The party supports continued enforcement ofcivil rights laws as well asaffirmative action.[56]
The Communist Party garnered support in particular communities, developing a unique geography. Instead of a broad nationwide support, support for the party was concentrated in different communities at different times, depending on the organizing strategy at that moment.
BeforeWorld War II, the Communist Party had relatively stable support inNew York City,Chicago andSt. Louis County, Minnesota. However, at times the party also had strongholds in more rural counties such asSheridan County, Montana (22% in1932),Iron County, Wisconsin (4% in1932), orOntonagon County, Michigan (5% in1934).[69] Even in theSouth at the height ofJim Crow, the Communist Party had a significant presence inAlabama. Despite thedisenfranchisement ofAfrican Americans, the party gained 8% of the votes in ruralElmore County. This was mostly due to the successful biracial organizing ofsharecroppers through theSharecroppers' Union.[69][70]
Unlike open mass organizations like theSocialist Party or theNAACP, the Communist Party was a disciplined organization that demanded strenuous commitments and frequently expelled members. Membership levels remained below 20,000 until 1933 and then surged upward in the late 1930s, reaching 66,000 in 1939 and reaching its peak membership of over 75,000 in 1947.[71]
The party fielded candidates in presidential and many state and local elections not expecting to win, but expecting loyalists to vote the party ticket. The party mounted symbolic yet energetic campaigns during each presidential election from 1924 through 1940 and many gubernatorial and congressional races from 1922 to 1944.
The party also attracted a significant Jewish membership.[72] 15% of the CPUSA's membership during the 1920s were American Jews.[72] Around 1/3rd of the Central Committee of the CPUSA were Jewish throughout its history up to 2004.[73]
The Communist Party organized the country into districts that did not coincide with state lines, initially dividing it into 15 districts identified with a headquarters city with an additional "Agricultural District". Several reorganizations in the 1930s expanded the number of districts.[74]
The Party has always been headquartered in New York and that city accounted for a significant portion of national membership, usually at least one-third, sometimes approaching half of the total. In 1930, 3,084 out of 6,822 members lived in District 1 (New York state). In 1939, 25,327 out of 66,000 total membership were New Yorkers; and 25,000 out of 54,000 in 1949. District 8, headquartered in Chicago usually accounted for about 10% of members in the 1920s and early 1930s, but then was overtaken by District 13 (California) starting in the late 1930s.[75]
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The Communist Party has sought to play an active role in the labor movement since its origins as part of its effort to build a mass movement of American workers to bring about their own liberation through socialist revolution.
From 1959 until 1989, whenGus Hall condemned the initiatives taken byMikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, the Communist Party received a substantial subsidy from the Soviets. There is at least one receipt signed by Gus Hall in the KGB archives.[76][77] Starting with $75,000 in 1959, this was increased gradually to $3 million in 1987. This substantial amount reflected the party's loyalty to the Moscowline, in contrast to theItalian and laterSpanish andBritish Communist parties, whoseEurocommunism 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 as fraternal assistance was considered the duty of communists in any one country to give aid to their allies in other countries. From the anti-Communist point of view, this funding represented an unwarranted interference by one country in the affairs of another. The cutoff of funds in 1989 resulted in a financial crisis, which forced the party to cut back publication in 1990 of the party newspaper, thePeople's Daily World, to weekly publication, thePeople's Weekly World (see references below).
Somewhat more controversial than mere funding is the alleged involvement of Communist members in espionage for the Soviet Union.Whittaker Chambers alleged that Sandor Goldberger—also known as Josef Peters, who commonly wrote under the nameJ. Peters—headed the Communist Party's underground secret apparatus from 1932 to 1938 and pioneered its role as an auxiliary to Soviet intelligence activities.[78] Bernard Schuster, Organizational Secretary of the New York District of the Communist Party, is claimed to have been the operational recruiter and conduit for members of the party into the ranks of the secret apparatus, or "Group A line".
Stalin publicly disbanded theComintern in 1943. A Moscow NKVD message to all stations on September 12, 1943, detailed instructions for handling intelligence sources within the Communist Party after the disestablishment of the Comintern.
There are a number of decrypted World War II Soviet messages between NKVD offices in the United States and Moscow, also known as theVenona cables. The Venona cables and other published sources appear to confirm thatJulius Rosenberg was responsible for espionage.Theodore Hall, a Harvard-trainedphysicist who did not join the party until 1952, began passing information on the atomic bomb to the Soviets soon after he was hired atLos 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.[79]
It was the belief of opponents of the Communist Party such asJ. Edgar Hoover, longtime director of the FBI; andJoseph McCarthy, for whomMcCarthyism is named; and otheranti-Communists that the Communist Party constituted an activeconspiracy, was secretive, loyal to a foreign power and whose members assisted Soviet intelligence in the clandestineinfiltration of American government. This is the traditionalist view of some in the field ofCommunist studies such asHarvey Klehr andJohn Earl Haynes, since supported by several memoirs of ex-Soviet KGB officers and information obtained from theVenona project and Soviet archives.[80][81][82]
At one time, this view was shared by the majority of theCongress. In the "Findings and declarations of fact" section of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 (50 U.S.C. Chap. 23 Sub. IV Sec. 841), it stated:
[T]he Communist Party, although purportedly a political party, is in fact an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United States. It constitutes an authoritarian dictatorship within a republic ... the policies and programs of the Communist Party are secretly prescribed for it by the foreign leaders ... to carry into action slavishly the assignments given. ... [T]he Communist Party acknowledges no constitutional or statutory limitations. ... The peril inherent in its operation arises [from] its dedication to the proposition that the present constitutional Government of the United States ultimately must be brought to ruin by any available means, including resort to force and violence ... its role as the agency of a hostile foreign power renders its existence a clear present and continuing danger.[83]
In 1993, experts from the Library of Congress traveled to Moscow to copy previously secret archives of the party records, sent to the Soviet Union for safekeeping by party organizers. The records provided an irrefutable link between Soviet intelligence and information obtained by the Communist Party and its contacts in the United States government from the 1920s through the 1940s. Some documents revealed that the Communist Party was actively involved in secretly recruiting party members from African American groups and rural farm workers. Other party records contained further evidence that Soviet sympathizers had indeed infiltrated the State Department, beginning in the 1930s. Included in Communist Party archival records were confidential letters from two American ambassadors in Europe to Roosevelt and a senior State Department official. Thanks to an official in the Department of State sympathetic to the party, the confidential correspondence, concerning political and economic matters in Europe, ended up in the hands of Soviet intelligence.[80][84][85]
In 1952, Jack andMorris Childs, together codenamed SOLO, became FBI informants. As high-ranking officials in the party, they informed on the CPUSA for the rest of the Cold War, monitoring the Soviet funding.[86][87] They also traveled to Moscow and Beijing to meet USSR and PRC leadership.[88] Jack and Morris Childs both received thePresidential Medal of Freedom in 1987 for their intelligence work. Morris's son stated, "The CIA could not believe the information the FBI had because the Communist Party of the USA had links directly into the Kremlin."[89]
According to intelligence analyst Darren E. Tromblay, the SOLO operation, and the Ad Hoc Committee, were part of "developing geopolitical awareness" by the FBI about factors such as theSino-Soviet split.[90] The Ad Hoc Committee was a group within CPUSA that circulated a pro-Maoist bulletin in the voice of a "dedicated but rebellious comrade." Allegedly an operation, it caused a schism within the CPUSA.[91]
When the Communist Party was formed in 1919, the United States government was engaged in prosecution of socialists who had opposed World War I and military service. This prosecution was continued in 1919 and January 1920 in thePalmer Raids as part of theFirst Red Scare. Rank and file foreign-born members of the Communist Party were targeted and as many as possible were arrested and deported while leaders were prosecuted and, in some cases, sentenced to prison terms. In the late 1930s, with the authorization of PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt, the FBI began investigating both domestic Nazis and Communists. In 1940, Congress passed theSmith Act, which made it illegal to advocate, abet, or teach the desirability of overthrowing the government.
In 1949, the federal government putEugene Dennis, William Z. Foster and ten other Communist Party leaders on trial for advocating the violent overthrow of the government. Because the prosecution could not show that any of the defendants had openly called for violence or been involved in accumulating weapons for a proposed revolution, it relied on the testimony of former members of the party that the defendants had privately advocated the overthrow of the government and on quotations from the work of Marx, Lenin and other revolutionary figures of the past.[92] During the course of the trial, the judge held several of the defendants and all of their counsel in contempt of court. All of the remaining eleven defendants were found guilty, and theSupreme Court upheld the constitutionality of their convictions by a 6–2 vote inDennis v. United States,341 U.S.494 (1951). The government then proceeded with the prosecutions of more than 140 members of the party.[93]
Panicked by these arrests and fearing that the party was dangerously compromised by informants, Dennis and other party leaders decided to go underground and to disband many affiliated groups. The move heightened the political isolation of the leadership while making it nearly impossible for the party to function. The widespread support of action against communists and their associates began to abate after SenatorJoseph McCarthy overreached himself in theArmy–McCarthy hearings, producing a backlash. The end of theKorean War in 1953 also led to a lessening of anxieties about subversion. The Supreme Court brought a halt to the Smith Act prosecutions in 1957 in its decision inYates 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.
The Communist Party played a role in defending the rights of African Americans during its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. TheAlabama Chapter of the Communist Party USA helped organize the unemployed Black workers, the AlabamaSharecroppers' Union and numerous anti-lynching campaigns. Further, the Alabama chapter organized young activists that would later go on to be prominent members in the civil rights movement, such as Rosa Parks.[70] Throughout its history several of the party's leaders and political thinkers have been African Americans.James Ford,Charlene Mitchell,Angela Davis andJarvis Tyner, the current executive vice chair of the party, all ran as presidential or vice presidential candidates on the party ticket. Others likeBenjamin J. Davis,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, socialist thought, cultural struggle, and more. African American thinkers, artists and writers such asClaude McKay,Richard Wright,Ann Petry,W. E. B. Du Bois,Shirley Graham Du Bois,Lloyd Brown,Charles White,Elizabeth Catlett,Paul Robeson,Gwendolyn Brooks, and others were one-time members or supporters of the party, and the Communist Party also had a close alliance with Harlem CongressmanAdam Clayton Powell Jr.[94]
Harry Hay developed his political views as an active member of the Communist Party. Hay founded in the early 1950s theMattachine Society, America's secondgay rights organization. However, gay rights were not seen as something the party should associate with organizationally.[citation needed] Many party members sawhomosexuality as somethingdone by those with fascist tendencies (following the lead of the Soviet Union in criminalizing the practice for that reason). Hay, along with all other homosexual members, were expelled from the party as an ideological risk, with leadership considering them "vulnerable to blackmail from the FBI."[95] In 2004, more than a decade after thefall of the Soviet Union and afterRussia had legalized male homosexual relations, the editors ofPolitical Affairs published articles detailing theirself-criticism of the party's early views of gay and lesbian rights and praised Hay's work.[96]
The Communist Party endorsedLGBT rights in a 2005 statement.[97] The party affirmed the resolution with a statement a year later in honor ofgay pride month in June 2006.[98]
The Communist Party opposed the United States involvement in the early stages ofWorld War II (until June 22, 1941, the date of theGerman invasion of the Soviet Union), theKorean War, theVietnam War, theinvasion of Grenada, and American support foranti-Communist military dictatorships and movements in Central America. Meanwhile, some in thepeace movement and theNew Left rejected the Communist Party for what it saw as the party's bureaucratic rigidity and for its close association with the Soviet Union.
The Communist Party was consistently opposed to the United States' 2003–2011 war in Iraq.[99]United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) includes the New York branch of the Communist Party as a member group, with Communist Judith LeBlanc serving as the co-chair of UFPJ from 2007 to 2009.[100]
| Year | President | Vice president | Votes | Percent | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1924 |  William Z. Foster |  Benjamin Gitlow | 38,669 | 0.1% | Workers Party of America |
| 1928 | William Z. Foster | Benjamin Gitlow | 48,551 | 0.1% | Workers (Communist) Party of America |
| 1932 | William Z. Foster |  | 103,307 | 0.3% | Communist Party USA |
| 1936 |  Earl Browder | | 79,315 | 0.2% | |
| 1940 | Earl Browder | | 48,557 | 0.1% | |
| 1948 |  No candidate; endorsedHenry Wallace |  No candidate; endorsedGlen H. Taylor | N/A | ||
| 1952 |  No candidate; endorsedVincent Hallinan |  No candidate; endorsedCharlotta Bass | |||
| 1968 |  Charlene Mitchell |  Michael Zagarell | 1,077 | nil% | |
| 1972 |  Gus Hall |  Jarvis Tyner | 25,597 | nil% | |
| 1976 | Gus Hall | Jarvis Tyner | 58,709 | 0.1% | |
| 1980 |  Gus Hall |  Angela Davis | 44,933 | 0.1% | |
| 1984 | Gus Hall | Angela Davis | 36,386 | nil% | |
| Office | Percent | District | Year | Candidate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| President | 1.5% | Florida | 1928 | William Z. Foster |
| 0.8% | Montana | 1932 | Earl Browder | |
| 0.6% | New York | 1936 | ||
| US Senate | 1.2% | New York | 1934 | Max Bedacht |
| 0.6% | New York | 1932 | William Weinstone | |
| 0.4% | Illinois | 1932 | William E. Browder | |
| US House | 6.2% | California District 5 | 1934 | Alexander Noral |
| 5.2% | California District 5 | 1936 | Lawrence Ross | |
| 4.8% | California District 13 | 1936 | Emma Cutler |
| Name | Period | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Charles Ruthenberg[101] | 1919–1927 | Executive Secretary of old CPA (1919–1920); Executive Secretary of WPA/W(C)P (May 1922 – 1927) |
| Alfred Wagenknecht | 1919–1921 | Executive Secretary of CLP (1919–1920); of UCP (1920–1921) |
| Charles Dirba | 1920–1921 | Executive Secretary of old CPA (1920–1921); of unified CPA (May 30, 1921 – July 27, 1921) |
| Louis Shapiro | 1920 | Executive Secretary of old CPA |
| L.E. Katterfeld | 1921 | Executive Secretary of unified CPA |
| William Weinstone | 1921–1922 | Executive Secretary of unified CPA |
| Jay Lovestone | 1922; 1927–1929 | Executive Secretary of unified CPA (February 22, 1922 – August 22, 1922); of W(C)P/CPUSA (1927–1929) |
| James P. Cannon[102] | 1921–1922 | National Chairman of WPA |
| Caleb Harrison | 1921–1922 | Executive Secretary of WPA |
| Abram Jakira | 1922–1923 | Executive Secretary of unified CPA |
| William Z. Foster[103] | 1929–1945; 1945–1957 | Party Chairman; General Secretary |
| Earl Browder | 1932–1945 | General Secretary |
| Eugene Dennis | 1945–1961; 1957–1959 | Party Chairman; General Secretary |
| Gus Hall | 1959–2000 | General Secretary |
| Sam Webb | 2000–2014 | Chairman |
| John Bachtell | 2014–2019 | Chairman |
| Rossana Cambron | 2019–present | Co-chair |
| Joe Sims | 2019–present | Co-chair |
| Name | Years active | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elizabeth Benson | 1939–1968[104] | Party Organizer | A child prodigy, Benson moved to Houston at the age of 22 to organize the area for the national party.[105] Benson is best known for leading Texas organizing during the 1939 convention in San Antonio, where 5,000 people surrounded the building and rioted at the opening ceremonies. Benson and several others were escorted out by police. |
| Homer Brooks | 1938–1943 | Texas State Party Chair; 1938 Candidate for Governor | First husband ofEmma Tenayuca. Brooks faced a draft evasion charge that became an exercise in red-baiting. He was sentenced to 60 days in prison, but the charge was overturned.[105] |
| Peter Cacchione | 1932–1947 | Party Leader; New York City Councilman | Served as a member of theNew York City Council fromBrooklyn At-Large from 1942 to 1947, making him the first Communist to hold any elected office in the state ofNew York.[106] |
| Angela Davis | 1969–1991 | Member, California Communist Party | A supporter of the Communist Party until thedissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 following therevolutions of 1989, which ended communism in most countries worldwide. Davis then created theCommittees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a former reformist faction within the Communist Party, which is now independent and promotes democratic socialism. |
| Benjamin J. Davis Jr. | 1933–1964 | Party Leader; New York City Councilman | Served as a member of theNew York City Council fromManhattan At-Large from 1944 to 1949, making him the second and last Communist to hold any elected office in the state ofNew York.[107] |
| Richard Durham | 1940s | Member | Creator and writer of theDestination Freedom radio series in Chicago. Durham was a CPUSA member while writing forNew Masses, theChicago Defender, theChicago Star, and theIllinois Standard newspapers.[108][109][110] |
| Si Gerson | 1928–2004 | Party Leader; Confidential Examiner to the Borough President of Manhattan | Served as Confidential Examiner to theBorough President ofManhattan from 1938 to 1940, making him the first Communist to hold any appointed office inNew York City.[111] He was later an editor for theDaily Worker.[112] |
| Dorothy Ray Healey | 1920s–1973 | Member, California Communist Party | An early supporter of the Communist Party, she became disillusioned with the leadership ofGus Hall and furthermore was against theSoviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Healey criticized CPUSA orthodoxy after thecrimes of Stalin wereexposed by Nikita Khrushchev. She eventually left the party and joined theNew America Movement, an organization promotingnew-left activism. |
| Jackson Hinkle | ? | Member (self-claimed; denied by CPUSA) | A notableanti-Zionistsocial media influencer,[53] Hinkle claims to have once been expelled from the CPUSA, though CPUSA leadership claimed that he had never joined the party, beyond signing up for their newsletter.[53] Hinkle later founded theAmerican Communist Party, a "MAGA Communist" party.[113] |
| Tupac Shakur | ? | Member, BaltimoreYoung Communist League[114][115] | Known for his career as a rapper and actor, Tupac Shakur was at one time a member of the Young Communist League in Baltimore. He found the platform of the party appealing, having grown up in poverty. Shakur also dated the daughter of the director of the local Communist Party.[115] |
| Charles E. Taylor | ? | Member, Montana Communist Party; State Senator | Started a left-wing newspaper called "Producers News" inSheridan County, Montana after being sent there by theNonpartisan League of North Dakota. The newspaper slandered members of the community, sparking a libel case and newspaper war.[116][117] |
| Emma Tenayuca | 1936–1939(?) | Party Organizer | Emma Tenayuca (December 21, 1916 – July 23, 1999), also known as Emma Beatrice Tenayuca, was an American labor leader,union organizer and educator. She is best known for her work organizing Mexican workers in Texas during the 1930s, particularly for leading the1938 San Antonio pecan shellers strike. |
All three have greatly shrunk from their heydays. The Socialist Party has about 1,000 members nationally. The Communists claim 2,000. The Democratic Socialists, which for many years included luminaries like Michael Harrington and Irving Howe, have about 6,000.
Of the country's 300 million inhabitants, the organization currently has some 5,000 members nationwide.
Founded in 1919, the CPUSA has some 5,000 members spread across the country. The party has been active in a range of political and social movements from the labor workers' rights to the environmental protection and peace issues, according to Bachtell.
The CPUSA rented out most of the floors in its Manhattan headquarters to private companies, drawing valued income. Party clubs assumed increasingly virtual form. Facebook, Twitter, and website outreach seemingly bore fruit, producing online adherents. The Party carefully charted "likes" and "shares." Nearly half the online joiners paid no dues. Most "likes" came from outside the United States.
Communist Party USA has about 15,000 people on its membership list, said party co-chair Joe Sims. The list is "pruned regularly," he said, but some of that group may not be active members.
The breakdown of capitalism saw a short-lived revival of organized labor during the 1930s, often led by the Communist Party.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)Reviewing the bookWord Warrior by Sonja D. Williams
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