Communist Party USA

The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is one of several Marxist-Leninist groups in the United States. While the CPUSA played a significant role in organizing industrial unions and defending the rights of African-Americans in the 1930s and 1940s, it was effectively eliminated as a political force by McCarthyism and the Cold War.

Fall of Communism

The era of glasnost and perestroika and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union led to a crisis in the party. 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.

Related Topics:
Glasnost - Perestroika - Collapse of the Soviet Union - Mikhail Gorbachev - Communist Party of the Soviet Union - 1989

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The CPUSA's 1991 convention was consumed by a debate on the future orientation of the party following the collapse of the Eastern bloc. A moderate minority urged the Gus Hall leadership to reject Leninism and take the party on a post-Communist, democratic socialist direction. The party majority reasserted the orthodox line and the minority formed the Committees of Correspondence in 1992 as a moderate wing of the party. Unable to influence the CPUSA, the group soon left the party and established itself as an independent democratic socialist organization, now called the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

Related Topics:
Eastern bloc - Leninism - Democratic socialist - Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism

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