Appendix III: Tracing the Footprints of the Communist Party of the United States (Part I)

Li Jianglin

I was born into a Chinese Communist family; everyone in my family except me was a Communist Party member. From a young age, I had encountered many Communists, and as I grew older, I became highly sensitive to everything the Communist Party had brought to China. I often wondered why China and the Communist Party have been so deeply intertwined for over a century. Thirty years ago, when I came to the United States, it was natural for me to wonder how the international communist movement had developed in a capitalist country like the U.S. I already knew that the Communist Party’s iconic May Day, International Workers’ Day, originated in the labor movement in Chicago. According to Marxist theory, revolution would first break out in the most developed capitalist countries that were in crisis, and the working class was the most advanced revolutionary class. By that logic, the United States should have been a place where the Communist Party could thrive. Yet, in China, I could always run into a Communist Party member anytime, anywhere, while in decades in the U.S., I had never seen a single Communist Party member. Where is the Communist Party of the United States?

My training in history led me first to explore the history of the American Communist Party. Works on the history of the CPUSA are not easy to find in bookstores or public libraries. Fortunately, the U.S. has an excellent interlibrary loan system, and my many years of library work made me very familiar with this system. In this way, during the pandemic in the U.S., I read a batch of books on the history of the American Communist Party through interlibrary loans, trying to understand the CPUSA and the role it played in American society.

The Past and Present of the CPUSA

As part of the international socialist movement, socialist parties in the U.S. predated the Communist Party. The predecessor of the CPUSA can be traced back to the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), founded in 1876. In the 1890s, the party’s left wing split off to form the Socialist Party of America (SPA). The SPA opposed violent revolution, advocating for social reforms through the “parliamentary path,” and supported workers’ movements, women’s movements, and other social causes. During World War I, the SPA’s right wing supported the U.S. government, while the left wing opposed the war from an internationalist perspective.

The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia established Soviet rule and offered a new path for world communist parties—a route through armed revolution rather than the “parliamentary path.” The SPA’s left wing supported the October Revolution, while the right wing insisted on the parliamentary approach, leading to conflict between the two factions. In early March 1919, the Communist International (Comintern, or “Third International”) was established in Moscow. At that time, the CPUSA had not yet been founded, so the left wing of the SPA represented the U.S. at the first Comintern congress. This faction formally split from the SPA and declared the founding of the American Communist Party on September 1, 1919, with Charles Emil Ruthenberg (1882–1927) as executive secretary. Other communist organizations that emerged at the same time were later merged under Comintern guidance.

In its early years, the CPUSA was mainly active in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and other major cities. Between 1881 and 1900, more than nine million European immigrants came to the U.S. to escape war and poverty, most concentrating in major cities and working low-income jobs, becoming urban poor or sweatshop laborers. Some of these people had been influenced by European communist thought, while others were intellectuals, university students, or wealthy but spiritually empty youth. They became the CPUSA’s “core mass.” When the CPUSA was founded, membership numbered around 2,000–3,000; including anarchists and other radical factions, the number reached 5,000–6,000. Early members were mostly low-income industrial workers, the vast majority of whom did not speak English. Only about 5% were English-speaking and U.S.-born. Therefore, the CPUSA had an “International Section,” not for foreign “sister parties” but for non-English-speaking domestic members, publishing newspapers and propaganda in more than a dozen languages.

When the Chinese Communist Party promotes itself, there is a familiar saying for our generation: “The sound of the October Revolution brought Marxism to us.” Americans did not need the October Revolution to learn about Marxism—European immigrants had already brought Marxist ideas to the U.S. in abundance. Yet there is no doubt that the success of the Soviet Revolution catalyzed the formation of the American Communist Party. Those who had previously embraced Marxism only intellectually now saw that revolutionary ideals could indeed be realized; the vision of a utopia lay within reach.

The 1930s and 1940s were the heyday of the CPUSA, with membership reaching over 50,000 (some sources say 75,000). This number does not include the CPUSA youth organizations (similar to the Communist Youth League) and other affiliated groups. During this period, the CPUSA was socially active as a political force. Although the number of formal members (“card-carrying” members) was small compared to international labor unions, the party was quite successful in organizing strikes among industrial and farm workers. Beyond labor, women’s, and African American rights movements, the CPUSA actively participated in local and federal elections, fielding candidates for mayor, governor, and even president. Although electoral successes were limited, these activities significantly increased the party’s visibility and influence.