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

As part of the international communist movement and a member of the Comintern, the CPUSA, like the Chinese Communist Party, was directly under Comintern leadership. Major decisions of the CPUSA had to be approved by the Comintern, and it had to implement Comintern directives, adopt the Soviet stance on major international issues, and resolve internal disputes under Comintern coordination. This situation often put the CPUSA in an awkward position. In the eyes of Americans who had lived on this land for generations, the CPUSA appeared as a “foreign agent” organization, and its revolutionary agenda seemed threatening and subversive to the American way of life. This was one reason American industrial workers were not enthusiastic about joining the CPUSA, which is why many early members were immigrants. To change this situation, the CPUSA attempted to organize its own labor unions to compete with socialist party unions. Since CPUSA leaders and their trained “movement organizers” were mostly small intellectuals, they were even sent to “work in factories” to understand workers’ actual conditions—but with poor results.

During the first half of the twentieth century, the CPUSA operated under Comintern support but was never a mainstream force in American leftist politics. In fact, for the general working population, joining the Communist Party’s revolutionary movement required living in poverty to the point of desperation. This was true worldwide. However, in the highly developed capitalist United States, the poor had more breathing room. With abundant natural and institutional space, people had opportunities to improve their living conditions, making a Communist revolution based on “overthrowing the old system” less appealing to ordinary poor people.

After the “Rosenberg Case” in the 1950s, the CPUSA threw all its energy into legal avenues to support Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, further reinforcing the impression among Americans that the CPUSA was a “foreign agent.” “McCarthyism” dealt a certain blow to the CPUSA. For several years, to “preserve its strength,” the CPUSA’s leadership ordered several senior and thousands of mid-level cadres underground. Some prominent Communists or sympathizers were investigated by the FBI, prosecuted, imprisoned, or went into exile in Europe. In 1954, President Eisenhower signed the Communist Control Act, banning the Communist Party. Although the act was never truly enforced, it remained legally valid.

However, the CPUSA’s greatest blow came not from the FBI but from the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party.

At the 20th Congress in 1956, Soviet General Secretary Khrushchev suddenly launched a challenge, delivering a secret report denouncing Stalinism. When the CIA obtained and published this report, many CPUSA members learned the reality of the Soviet Union and were disillusioned. Coupled with the U.S. society’s vigilance against communist ideology and the CPUSA during the Cold War, this led to a massive wave of departures. Within just over a year, CPUSA membership fell to around 10,000—almost back to its founding numbers—including more than 1,500 informants secretly infiltrated by the FBI. From that point on, the CPUSA never regained direct influence in American politics. In the following decades, the CPUSA continued to appear in significant U.S. events, at least superficially, but usually only as a minor player.

The CPUSA still exists as a political party, headquartered in Manhattan, New York. In April 2000, the party amended its charter at the 27th Congress, defining itself as “the party of the American working class serving the American working class” with the guiding ideology of “the scientific principles of Marxism-Leninism.” According to its official website, joining the CPUSA is far less formal than joining the CCP. There is no requirement to swear to “keep party secrets” or “never betray the party.” Membership is voluntary: one simply accepts the charter, pays an annual $60 membership fee, submits an online application or applies through a local party “club,” and upon approval becomes a member.

The real influence of the CPUSA lies not in its membership numbers but in its “fellow travelers”—sympathizers or supporters of the communist movement. These individuals are found across all walks of life. They may not be formal CPUSA members but support communist ideology, sympathize with the international communist movement, and knowingly or unknowingly spread communist ideas, thereby expanding the party’s influence directly or indirectly. According to CPUSA veterans, over the decades since its founding, roughly one million Americans at various points in their lives were “communists,” most of them fellow travelers rather than formal party members.

During its peak, the CPUSA placed great emphasis on training “organizers” to coordinate protests, strikes, and other activities nationwide. This tradition evidently continues. For example, Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, admitted earlier this year that she was trained as a “Marxist” by several fellow travelers from the 1960s. In this sense, the CPUSA continues to exert influence in similar ways.

The history of the CPUSA shows that while the party never became a major force, it has persisted in the United States for over a century for a reason. North America provided a certain degree of equality and opportunity to all who came, and a Communist revolution that might be compelling elsewhere lost its allure here, fundamentally disproving Marx’s idea that a proletarian revolution inevitably arises in the advanced stages of capitalism. On the other hand, as long as human society maintains significant wealth gaps without consciously addressing injustices caused by globalization, the market for the communist utopia will always exist—especially among young people who lack social awareness and life experience.

Source: New Century