The Communist Party USA

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The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) is a left wing political party that was formed in 1919, just two years after the Russian Revolution had overthrown the monarchy and established the Soviet Union. It is the largest communist party in the United States and its history is closely related to the United States labor movement. The party plays a major role in founding most of the country’s first industrial unions. It also became known for opposing racism and fighting for integration in workplaces during the height of the Jim Crow period of United States racial segregation. However the success of the party stops and the party is brought to the brink of collapse because of the first and second Red Scares. It is the overall fear and hysteria during these …show more content…
They proposed an ideological concept called the Third Period. According to the Comentern, the Third Period was to be a time of widespread economic collapse and mass working class radicalization. This time of economic distress would make it easy for proletarian revolution if militant policies were ran by communist parties. Communist policies during the Third Period were characterized by extreme hostility and political reform. In the United States (US) the impact of the Third Period was to end the CPUSA’s efforts to organize within the American Federation of Labor through the TUEL. The CPUSA during this time finally could help the working class. The CPUSA organized dual unions through the Trade Union Unity League. Dual unions were unions parallel to and within an existing labor union. The party devoted much of its time during the Great Depression to organizing the unemployed. The Great Depression helped the party grow and in the 1932 Presidential Election, the party candidate, William Z. Foster polled 102,991 votes (0.3%), but Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party candidate, polled seven times that figure, showing that the SPA still had more influence in politics than the CPUSA. In 1932, the retiring head of the CPUSA, William Z. Foster, published a book entitled Toward Soviet America, which laid out the party’s plans for revolution and the building of a new socialist society based on the model of …show more content…
Their history that spans almost one hundred years is full of membership loss and secrecy. The two and most fatal times of the CPUSA’s existence were the first and second Red Scares where hysteria against communism was rampant and membership dropped to 5,000. The Red Scares coupled with the Cold war idea of Containment greatly weakened the party. The party does make a comeback, although it takes about 30 years for membership to grow fairly steadily. The future of the CPUSA is unclear, but based off of their one hundred year history, there is a good chance that their membership will not increase very much and they will not impact nearly the amount of people that C.E. Ruthenberg envisioned over ninety years
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