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.

The crises of 1956

The 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Secret Speech of Nikita Khrushchev to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union criticizing Stalin had a cataclysmic effect on the CPUSA http://www.trussel.com/hf/onleave.htm. 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. Perhaps the greatest single blow dealt to the party in this period was the loss of the Daily Worker, published since 1924, which was suspended in 1958 due to falling circulation.

Related Topics:
1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary - Secret Speech - Nikita Khrushchev - Daily Worker - John Gates - 1924 - 1958

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Most of the critics would depart from the party demoralized, but remained active in progressive causes often working harmoniously with party members. This diaspora rapidly came to provide the audience for publications like the National Guardian and Monthly Review, which were to be important in the development of the New Left in the 1960s.

Related Topics:
New Left - 1960s

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The post-1956 upheavals in the CPUSA also saw the advent of a new leadership around former steel worker Gus Hall. Hall's views were very much those of his mentor Foster, but the younger man was to be more rigorous in ensuring the party was completely orthodox than the older man in his last years. Therefore, while remaining critics who wished to liberalize the party were expelled, so too, in 1961, were other critics who sought to return the party to an even more stringent form of Stalinism.

Related Topics:
Gus Hall - Stalinism

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Never a coherent or organized faction, these critics would include elements on both coasts who would come together to form the Progressive Labor Movement in the early 1960's. Through Progressive Labor, which soon adopted the title of party, former CPUSA cadre would come to play a role in many of the numerous Maoist organizations of the 1970s. Jack Shulman, Foster's secretary, who also played a role in these organizations, was not expelled but resigned.

Related Topics:
Progressive Labor Movement - Maoist - 1970s - Jack Shulman

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~