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 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and World War II

The CPUSA was adamantly opposed to fascism during the Popular Front period. Although membership in the CPUSA rose to about 75,000 http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/sova.html by 1938, many members left the party after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Nonaggression Pact of 1939. Signing of a pact with Hitler meant that the CPUSA turned its focus from anti-fascism to advocacy of peace. The CPUSA even went so far as to accuse Winston Churchill and Roosevelt of provoking aggression against Hitler and denouncing the Polish government as fascist after the German and Soviet invasion.

Related Topics:
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - Nonaggression Pact - Hitler - Winston Churchill - Polish

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In loyal, indeed abject, allegiance to the Soviet Union, the party changed this policy again after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. So sudden was this change that CPUSA members of the UAW negotiating on behalf of the union reportedly changed their position from favoring strike action to opposing it in the same negotiating session.

Related Topics:
June 22 - 1941

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Throughout the rest of World War II, the CPUSA went from pursuing a policy of militant, if sometimes bureaucratic trade unionism to opposing strike actions at all costs. The leadership of the CPUSA was among the most patriotic elements during these years, advocating social peace, supporting the prosecution of leaders of the Socialist Workers Party under the newly enacted Smith Act, and opposing A. Philip Randolph's efforts to organize a March on Washington to dramatize black workers' demands for equal treatment on the job.

Related Topics:
World War II - Socialist Workers Party - Smith Act - A. Philip Randolph

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