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Communist Party USA

Overview

The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), officially the Communist Party of the United States of America, is a communist party established in 1919, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, emerging from the left wing of the Socialist Party of America (SPA). The CPUSA sought to establish socialism in the United States via the principles of Marxism–Leninism, aligning itself with the Communist International (Comintern), which was controlled by the Soviet Union. It was considered to be the most important left-wing organization in the United States through the mid-twentieth century.

The CPUSA's early years were marked by factional struggles and clandestine activities. The U.S. government viewed the party as a subversive threat, leading to mass arrests and deportations in the Palmer Raids of 1919–1920. Despite this, the CPUSA expanded its influence, particularly among industrial workers, immigrants, and African Americans. In the 1920s, the party remained a small but militant force. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, the CPUSA grew in prominence under the leadership of William Z. Foster and later Earl Browder as it played a key role in labor organizing and anti-fascist movements. The party's involvement in strikes helped establish it as a formidable force within the American labor movement, particularly through the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). In the mid-1930s, the CPUSA followed the Comintern's "popular front" line, which emphasized alliances with progressives and liberals. The party softened its revolutionary rhetoric, and supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies. This shift allowed the CPUSA to gain broader acceptance, and its membership surged, reaching an estimated 70,000 members by the late 1930s. On the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the CPUSA initially opposed U.S. involvement, but reversed its stance after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, fervently supporting the war effort. The Popular Front era of CPUSA lasted until 1945, when Earl Browder was ousted from the party and replaced by William Z. Foster.

As the CPUSA's role in Soviet Espionage activities became more widely known, the Party suffered dramatically at onset of the Cold War. The Second Red Scare saw the party prosecuted under the Smith Act, which criminalized advocacy of violent revolution and led to high-profile trials of its leaders. This decimated the CPUSA, reducing its membership to under 10,000 by the mid-1950s. The Khrushchev Thaw and revelations of Joseph Stalin's crimes also led to internal divisions, with many members leaving the party in disillusionment. The CPUSA struggled to maintain relevance during the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. While it supported civil rights, labor activism, and anti-Vietnam War efforts, it faced competition from New Left organizations, which rejected the party's rigid adherence to Soviet communism. The Sino-Soviet split further fractured the communist movement, with some former CPUSA members defecting to Maoist or Trotskyist groups. Under the leadership of Gus Hall (1959–2000), the CPUSA remained loyal to the Soviet Union even as other communist parties distanced themselves from Moscow's policies, which marginalized it within the American left. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 dealt a devastating blow to the party, leading to financial difficulties and a further decline in membership.

In the 21st century, the CPUSA has focused on labor rights, racial justice, environmental activism, opposition to corporate capitalism, and continues to engage in leftist activism. The CPUSA publishes the newspaper People's World, and as of May of 2026, is in the process of re-establishing its theoretical journal, Political Affairs.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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The independent movement of the working classes had, by the revolution, been broken up for a time. The immediate wants and circumstances of the movement were such as not to allow any of the specific demands of the Proletarian party to be put in the foreground. In fact, as long as the ground was not cleared for the independent action of the working men, as long as direct and universal suffrage was not yet…
Friedrich Engels, Revolution and Counter-Revolution
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When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of…
Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party
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But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus the ten-hours’ bill in England was carried. Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a…
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
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Communist Party USA

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