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Older discussion can be found at:

• Talk:Communist Party USA/Archive 1, roughly through March 2004
• Talk:Communist Party USA/Archive 2, roughly April 2004 – August 2005

Current membership

Recently, anonymously, without citation changed from 2,500 to 5,500. Neither number is cited, and I can't quickly find anything on line. Does someone have a decent citation on this? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:53, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

The CPUSA does not publish membership figure (some might infer that this is because they are low) but party members I know suggest that even 2,500 is too high a number in reality.

The below news sources have sited that the membership is 3,000 Ap new york Newsday: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--communistpartyusa0408apr08,0,7022954.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

Wnbc: http://www.wnbc.com/news/11576324/detail.html

I recall reading about Gus Hall when he died - perhaps in Time Magazine or one of the other popular periodicals, and I think I remmber it saying the actual card-carrying, active membership had dropped to less than 3,000...I recall being very surprised at how far they had dropped...In any event, 15,0000 is surely too high...??? Engr105th 22:01, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that number is just made up. Fred Bauder 23:55, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

CPUSA and SWP

The article claims incorrectly that the CPUSA supported the prosecution of the Socialist Workers Party under the Smith Act. This is a terrible slander. It is true that the party didn't put much energy into defending SWP, but the Party's official position was always that it was against this prosecution. (Gerald Horne, Black Americans and American Socialism). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bradj2424 (talk • contribs) 11 Dec 2005.

If the information in the article that CPUSA supported the prosecution of the Socialist Workers Party came from a source, that source has been lost or was never included in the article. I have seen that information in published sources but like all unsourced information it can be removed from the article. With respect to the source you provide you should also give the page the information is to be found on and perhaps the ISBN so your reference can be easily found. Fred Bauder 14:02, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

It is interesting that you fail to mention the fact that the SWP was used as a tool by the goverment to create factionalism and confusion. Below is the link:

www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cpusa.htm

Recent additions to lead

The lead paragraph currently refers to the party as "advocating the abolition of most privately-owned businesses, resources and goods and massive redistribution of wealth from the bourgeoisie." This is not necessarily inaccurate, but it may be a bit misleading. A few things:

1. "Abolition of most privately-owned businesses" is certainly not in the party's "immediate program"; I suppose it is implicit in their call for socialist revolution, but the party has shown little sign in the last half-century of being a more than nominally revolutionary organization.
2. "massive redistribution of wealth from the bourgeoisie" Again, insofar as the "immediate program" is concerned, the term "massive" seems out of line, unless one would also apply it to most of the European Union: much of what is called for in the "immediate program" is essentially commonplace in the EU.
3. Using the word "bourgeoisie" here seems to be an effort to give a 19th-century cast to a present-day party: they rarely use this term themselves except when quoting old texts.

I have no objection to mentioning the party's stances in the lead section, but think there should at least be a distinction made between "immediate program" and vague calls for revolution. - Jmabel | Talk 05:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this stuff is unsourced material that has no place in the article. My personal experience is that the Party has only one plank in their platform: control of any organization they participate in. Fred Bauder 14:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Fred (or his first sentence, I don't have the personal experience to confirm the second, though I've met plenty of other self-styled Marxist-Leninist organisations that would apply to). It sounds like somebody just lammed it all into the lead on the basis of what they thought a communist organisation must believe in. Palmiro | Talk 14:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Sectioning?

I think the sectioning has to be reorganized- this article has one of the scariest TOCs I've seen on wikipedia... Borisblue 21:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

CPUSA position on fascism

A recent edit has added the completely false allegation that, after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the "CPUSA turned from fighting fascism." Further, a part of a newspaper page from the Washington Commonwealth Federation (WCF) has also been added.

It seems to me, if someone says that the CPUSA believed such and so, they should be able to quote from: 1) the offical organ of the Party, the Daily Worker, or 2) from books or pamphets by the national leadership of the Party, or 3) from resolutions passed at a national convention of the Party.

I don't see the relevance of the WCF newspaper at all. The unstated insinuation is that it was a Communist paper. The WCF was a liberal-left coaltion of groups for political and economic reform in the Puget Sound region of Washington State.

The WCF was a front group see http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/379/1/76/ A page on the Communist Party USA website which contains the following paragraph: "One anecdote from the 30s is about the Party caucus in the Washington State legislature. At one point, the caucus had six or seven members, all elected as Democrats, through the agency of the Washington Commonwealth Federation, including Tom Rabbit and Bill Pennock. When they wanted to meet, they would have the pages go around announcing a meeting of the “Committee on Roads and Bridges.” There was no such committee." So the illustration, though not fully explained, no one has yet tried to write the front group article, is fair enough. Fred Bauder 22:16, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

Your "argument" is not convincing. 1) No evidence to call WCF a "front group". 2) No evidence that CP's peace talk was soft on fascism. 3) The insistence on using a third-hand source shows the weakness of the claims. --Jose Ramos 06:43, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No source has been supplied for the disputed allegations. If you cannot supply a primary source, shouldn't they be removed?

Encyclopaedia Britannica, or any other major encyclopedia, would never behave this way. --Jose Ramos 05:51, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

IN FACT Party propaganda against "Fascism" all but disappeared from the Party press. It is impossible to "cite" the dropping of a campaign other than to note that such propaganda no longer existed. This paralled the European-wide dropping of the struggle "against Fascism" as well with emphisis on fighting "imperialism".''--DW''

To address your ‘concerns’:

1) the offical organ of the Party, the Daily Worker

Earl Browder in the Daily Worker for February 25, 1941 "If my kind of crime rates four years in prison, what should be the punishment for Franklin Roosevelt, who got a third term on a false passport, a promise to keep America out of war? I think the supreme punishment for this crime will be written in history that he betrayed the peace and prosperity of the American people."

2) from books or pamphets by the national leadership of the Party

J Fields BEHIND THE WAR HEADLINES, Workers Library, 1940

3) from resolutions passed at a national convention of the Party

From May 31 to June 1, 1940 the 11CPUSA held a special antiwar conference in New York City that was attended by about two thousand party officials and delegates. A microfilmed transcript of the proceedings was sent to Moscow. Every party leader of note and many local members spoke at length opposing either assistance to Britain and France or American military preparation

A good source of information on this topic can be found in thr book, Soviet World of American Communism written by Harvey E. Klehr and John Earl Haynes. While I am sure you will doubt the creidibility of its authors, they have excelent documentation of what they write, backing it up with thousands of KGB documents, Venona transcripts, personal letters written by CPUSA officials, CIA and NSA documents, as well as plenty of clippings from the Daily worker. TDC 16:17, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There was strong support for fascism and anti-Semitism in America emanating from some very influential public figures, such as Henry Ford, Henry Luce (of Time Magazine), and the Catholic radio priest, Father Charles Coughlin, to name a few. There were forces who wanted the U.S. to go into war against the Soviet Union as an ally of Germany. If you examine the Communist peace talk in context, you will see that it opposed war against socialism and for fascism.

At the same time, U.S. industrialists were trading with Hitler. For example, the oil companies were actively arming Hitler, selling him crucial rubber technology and high-grade aviation fuel technology, obviously for his war machine. He had already used his airforce to bomb Spanish cities as, for example, Guernica.

To show the extent to which some were willing to go, look at what Senator Truman said: "If we see that Germany is winning the war we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible" (New York Times, June 24, 1941).

There was absolutely no diminution of anti-fascist feeling among Communists at any time whatsoever.

Communists had fought Hitler and Mussolini in Spain, a fight in which the U.S. was formally neutral. That is, Germany and Italy could invade Spain, but the U.S. government did not want to get involved to save the Spanish Republic, and actually interdicted aid to the legal government of Spain. This objectively aided the fascist cause. Germany and Italy were using Spain as a training ground for the coming war, and only the Left came to Spain's defense.

Further, the Soviet Union only entered into the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact after the pointed refusal of the U.S. and Britain to join the Soviet Union in multilateral action to "staitjacket the madman (Hitler)". Churchill was more interested in "strangling the Bolshevik baby in its crib". Communists saw this as an attempt by reactionary forces in the West to use Hitler to destroy the Soviet Union. --Jose Ramos 19:49, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Woah ... Slow down there. Most of your argument has nothing to do with the argument in question. Who cares about Ford, Couglin, Time magazine . It has nothing o to with the article and not much to do with the point.

The CPUSA's members did loose respect for the party, well quite a few at any rate, when the CPUSA on direction from the Comitern, followed Moscow's stance on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Stalin, for whatever reason trusted Hitler, and entered into the pact thereby getting a chink of Poland.

A good example of this rank-n-file disillusionment is sci-fi author Frederick Pohl, who dropped out of the CPUSA around this time, when anti-facist talk went out the window for real-politick. It's detailed in his book _The Way the Future Was_.

If you still believe that Stalin did not trust Hitler then how does one explain the initial rout the Soviets faced during Barbarosa, when Soviet intel knew the exact date and time it was going to begin more than 6 weeks beforehand and relayed that info to Stalin.

From September 1939 to June 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, the CPUSA dropped its support for an antifascist Popular Front. It denounced President Roosevelt’s efforts to aid Britain, France, and other nations at war against Germany and opposed FDR’s reelection in 1940. The Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, led by Milton Wolff, tacked in parallel with the CPUSA and opposed all assistance to the anti-Nazi belligerents. After the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, all this changed. The CPUSA once again donned the cloak of antifascism, and the VALB called for American intervention in the war.

You seem to believe that the CPUSA was somehow driven by principal and ideology, instead of bieng nothing more than a puppet for whatever its Soviet bosses told them to do.

Well here are some revelations that can all be verified.

The CPUSA was controlled by Moscow.

All CPUSA officials were controlled by Moscow.

All CPUSA platforms reflected the will of Moscow.

Your bias is very obvious. --Jose Ramos 06:43, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This is becoming more and more undeniable by the day, Mabey 10 or 15 years ago we could argue about the CPUSA and whether of not it was a Soviet puppet because at best all of my evidence would be circumstantial and hearsay.

This is no longer the case. Since 1991, there has been an avalanche of info on Soviet espionage and infiltration of western progressive movement like the anti nuclear movement.

As I continue to read and condense, this article will reflect these facts.TDC 20:45, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If the CPUSA wasn't a Soviet puppet, how do you explain all of the financial disbursements between the CPSU Central Committee to the CPUSA that were uncovered in the Soviet archives. That's not to mention that I interviewed Gen. Oleg Kalugin who personally oversaw the operation for the Soviets. He said the CPUSA was little more than a KGB front operation.--68.45.161.241 17:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The disputed language seems to be "Signing of a pact with Hitler meant that the CPUSA turned its focus from anti-fascism to advocacy of peace." This, of course, refers to the public activity of the Party, not to its ultimate goals, Perhaps, "Signing of a pact with Hitler meant that the CPUSA turned its focus of its public activity from anti-fascism to advocacy of peace." ? Fred Bauder 01:15, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

My two cents: I am rarely in agreement with TDC on political matters, even historical ones, but there is no doubt that during the period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact the CPUSA almost completely dropped the rhetoric of anti-fascism in favor of the rhetoric of peace. This is probably the greatest of the many embarrassments in the CPUSA's history, but that doesn't make it a lie. Plenty of CPUSA members said things during those few months that they disowned the moment the pact broke down.

On other matters discussed in this exchange: yes, CPUSA officials were pretty much controlled by Moscow; some of them at times tried to buck the Moscow line, but they were promptly booted out of the party. I would certainly agree that Moscow had a veto over the party platform, though I would not say that platforms were entirely dictated by Moscow: a veto is not the same thing as authorship. Conversely, at the local level, on particular actions or campaigns that were not of international significance, Moscow often had no clear line. As in almost any organization of this size in the U.S., there was a good deal of initiative from the bottom, and often it was allowed to go on for some time without much interference from above. But when it comes to things like Molotov-Ribbentrop? One could either follow the (repugnant) party line, lie low for a while, or leave the party. - Jmabel | Talk 01:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Ed Clark/Angela Davis ticket?

These two Ohio sites http://serform2.sos.state.oh.us/sos//results/80/1980/presEle.htm say http://www.co.wood.oh.us/Boe/Wood%20County,%201980-1989.pdf that in addition to the Libertarian Clark/Koch ticket, Clark was on the Communist Party ticket in place of the official candidate Gus Hall. Does anyone know why that might have been? Esquizombi 18:17, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

History or Propaganda?

Look the Cold War is over, we have the archives, the party was on the right side. Get over it. McCartyism destroyed the party as a political force. The actions of the Soviet Union did, and the party's habit of playing its tune on everything, from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to the Invasion of Afghanistan. It's over. Your parents were wrong, you were wrong. Anyone who still believes otherwise is a bloody narcissist. Let's do a real page here, warts and all -- which means in this case, a whole lot of warts! 68.5.64.178 10:45, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

That's your POV. I have a different POV. Neither one belong in the article. One could make a case that COINTELPRO played a role. But it is true that a lot of factors were involved. I personlly think it was largely two things, problems with the policy taken by the CPUSA at a certain point, errors of leadership, and problems in Moscow, all exacerbated by COINTELPRO (the cointelpro files are open, after all, and like you said, there are a lot of warts!). Nonetheless, we don't need original research here. Comzero 15:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

This is not OR, many scholars have made this point. Defacto Soviet control of the part began long before COINTELPRO.

From the article:

The CPUSA was adamantly opposed to fascism during the Popular Front period. Although membership in the CPUSA rose to about 75,000 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 the focus of its public activities from anti-fascism to an advocate of peace. The CPUSA accused Winston Churchill and Roosevelt of provoking aggression against Hitler and denouncing the Polish government as fascist after the German and Soviet invasion. In 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.

The CPUSA was the one of the most vocal backers of the Smith Act; just so long as it was bieng used on Trotskyites. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 15:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

My point was that all of that nonsense about "wrong wrong wrong" is POV, and speculating about what "destroyed the party" is original research. I don't deny soviet money, support for the Smith Act against the SWP, etc. Comzero 21:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

What's POV? To say that the Soviet Union lost the Cold War, to say they were wrong, or to say the C.P.U.S.A. were on the red side of the Cold War fence side? What this article should say is that every single member of the C.P.U.S.A was objectively (your terminology, not mine) working to bring the gulag to Idaho and were apologists for this http://www.brown.edu/Courses/HI0135/Documents/famine.jpg . Having a section which should be entitled 'but, but, but We were nice to Blacks !!!!!' is sad, really, but whatever makes you feel better about your continued advcacy of the political equivalent of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is fine I guess. I don't have time to keep changing the article every day like you guys - unlike the 'International Workers of the World', I have a job. 80.4.195.109 15:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

POV edit

This edit has some good points (I especially like the pipe from "Stalinist dictatorship" to Stalinism), but seems to simply substitute one point of view for another. Fred Bauder 18:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I've restored my previous edits in a less POV way, leaving in the red scare and McCarthyism bits. Aside from jailing of party members, McCarthyism wasn't really responsible for the CP losing members so much as losing allies. Losing allies contributed to the party's loss of influence, of course, so I left it in this time, as I should have last time. From what I've read, what caused members of the CP to leave in the 50s wasn't McCarthy, but the growing realization of the truly evil nature of Communism. Argyriou 01:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

User:DJ Silverfish's reversion of my edits to Communist Party USA leaves the article with a very POV, and factually inaccurate, introduction. I have re-written the introduction again. Please discuss here or provide sources before reverting my edits.

Some notes:

• The claim "played a defining role in the first phase of the US Labor movement" is ridiculous on its face, because the first phase of the US Labor movement occured in the 19th Century, before there was a CPUSA. The phrase "defining role" is also rather strong, given the evidence presented in the link.
• The claim that the CPUSA "organized and led most major industrial unions" is also not supported by the evidence at the link, nor by the article on industrial unions or the article on the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The CP did play an important part in organizing some industrial unions, but not most.
• There is no evidence presented in favor of the simplistic statement:

However, by the 1950s, the combined effects of the second Red Scare, McCarthyism, and the Cold War began to break apart the party's internal structure and confidence. Many members who did not wind up in long-term prison for party activity either quietly disappeared from its ranks or adopted more moderate political positions that were at odds with the CPUSA's basic program.

over my formulation

while the second Red Scare, McCarthyism, and the Cold War caused many of the party's former allies to distance themselves from the party, or to expel party members, diminishing the party's effectiveness.

The CPUSA says that some of its leaders were jailed, but their version of history agrees more with my statement than yours.

• My statement that "However, by the 1950s, the combined effects of Stalin dictatorship, the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and the publication of Kchrushchev's "Secret Speech" began to break apart the party's internal structure and confidence" was deleted, though evidence can be found in the History of the CPUSA over at Marxists.org], which reads in part:

Two international events of 1956 brought new chaos to the Party: the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolution and revelations of Stalin’s misdeeds at the Twentieth Soviet Congress. Individuals long faithful to the Party now felt betrayed and wondered privately and openly if their political lives had been built upon self-delusion.

Self-appointed reformers centered around the Daily Worker briefly sought an internal transformation into an open, democratic movement. An unprecedented wave of collective self-criticism appeared in the pages of the Party’s national organ. The departure of many like-minded members, filled with despair or disgust, contributed to their defeat by doctrinaire loyalists. With the victors stood a considerable section of the ethnic faithful, many of whom had personally experienced the Palmer era repressions and now refused to be cowed by or to accept the various revelations as sufficient cause to leave the movement. Their now increasingly prominent presence, in a smaller organization, revealed a new demographic reality: the Party had been aging. This process was not as abrupt as it seemed. Recruitment of young people had peaked in the 1930s. That tendency would now

The citations used by Argyriou improve his/her edits. However, the edits themselves just have a different POV than the previous version, so probably still require a notation. It would be preferable to city these changes to scholarly articles, not othe Misplaced Pages pages or online encyclopedias. DJ Silverfish 01:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

71.255.214.63, we *are* talking about this on the talk page. Where are you? Argyriou 02:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Phrases like "the Stalin dictatorship" are POV, so I compromised by adding "Secret Speech" into the list of things that helped break apart the CPUSA as an organization of mass influence and effectiveness. Perhaps the Hungarian Revolution piece should be re-added as well. However, as far as the phrasing of the reshuffling (read: mass exodus) of CP members at that time goes, my phrasing is meant to convey that there were three basic modes of departure other than, and separate from, the New Left. That is to say, three basic classifications for how these people left: 1) gone/disappeared/killed, 2) in jail; or 3) had turned to liberalism (that is, away from communism to a safer leftism). I agree with whoever wrote the "Self-appointed reformers" paragraph that yes, recruitment of young people peaked in the '30s, but it's also important to note that the New Left basically picked up where the CPUSA left off, and for its time and place, did nearly everything one (or a few times) better. 71.255.214.63 04:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The biggest annoyance I have with the changes people are making are the causes driving people from the party. Members of the CPUSA, by and large, didn't leave the party because of the McCarthyite repression, they left from disillusionment after the exposure of the contradictions of Communism. People and groups who had been sympathetic to the CPUSA dropped their alliances in the face of Red Scares and such, which contributed to the weakening of the CP's influence, but only indirectly to the diminishing of the membership.

On the other hand, I've been getting editor's myopia on this article, focusing too closely on the specifics of that paragraph while ignoring how badly that section is structured. I have a framework for a rewrite which I need to more fully work out. Argyriou 06:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Suggested rewrite of intro

The intro to this article is too long, is clumsy, and has some weird claims. I propose:

• Retaining but rewriting the first paragraph. Is the CP no longer the largest communist party in the US? The first para should keep the stuff about unions and African-Americans (though the construction there is clumsy), but should also mention the obesiance to the directives of the CP Soviet Union, and the funding by the USSR from 1959-1989.
• The second paragraph should be rewritten and moved to the history section, or deleted altogether.
• The third paragraph should start about midway through the first sentence - Party leader and membership, party newspaper, and party goals are good info to have in the intro.
• Fourth, fifth and sixth paragraphs should be moved into history, though the fifth and sixth might make a nice "future direction" section, like the Democratic Party and Republican Party articles.

Argyriou 01:59, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know whether the CP is still the largest communist party in the US. Trotskyists have such a habit of fissioning that it is hard to keep track. And so do the neo-Stalinists lately (Workers World Party / Party for Socialism and Liberation). Does anyone have anything citable on numbers?

Other than that, though, the lead doesn't seem disproportionate to the article. A good lead is a precis of the article, and this seems to be precisely that. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:42, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Red-baiting

The effect of this sequence of edits, and, in particular, the way they are worded, is sheer red-baiting: "Look! The Democrats and MoveOn.org are supported by the Communists". One mention, perhaps, but three? - Jmabel | Talk 23:57, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Having received no answer (and questioning also the uncited assertion that MoveOn.org is "within the Democratic Party") I will remove all but one of these. By the way, the "citation" provided for some of this was simply to link the home page of the People's Weekly World, which of course changes weekly. - Jmabel | Talk 21:45, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the original point of those edits was to say "The CP is selling out to the Democrats", rather than to say "The Democrats are just Communists", so it's not really red-baiting. But it is stupidly done, unless there's a good source where someone in the CP says that they're urging people to vote Democrat because the Republicans are so much worse, or something like that. Go ahead and remove them, or find a way to re-write them. Argyriou 19:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

As remarked, I removed all but one. Hmm, I didn't even consider that the intent might be to paint the CPUSA as Democrats rather than vice versa. Blue-baiting? - Jmabel | Talk 18:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

"unless there's a good source where someone in the CP says that they're urging people to vote Democrat because the Republicans are so much worse, or something like that." Actually that is their policy and practice. I'll try to find a source, someday. Fred Bauder 20:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

"We work to support candidates within the two-party system who offer real alternatives to the ultra-right, such as Paul Wellstone did." Fred Bauder 20:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

"We also support progressive Democrats " Fred Bauder 20:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Fred, go ahead and figure out a good way to say "The CP supports some elements in the Democrat Party", and the appropriate place to say it, and put it in the article, now that you've got some references. It's useful information, but the way it was presented previously was pretty POV. Argyriou 23:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Victor Perlo

Victor Perlo. The Economics of Racism, II. New York. International Publishers. 1996. ISBN 01717806987

This is an invalid ISBN. Does someone know the correct one? I find online references to The Economics of Racism by Perlo with ISBN 0717804186 (hardcover) and ISBN 0717804194 (softcover), both 1985; I presume this is a sequel. - Jmabel | Talk 04:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Open secrets

"Some documents revealed that the CPUSA was actively involved in secretly recruiting party members from African-American groups and rural farm workers." Secretly? As I remember my history, they were doing this quite openly. - Jmabel | Talk 05:48, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

There is a constant drive by some editors to deny any community context for CPUSA organizing, to affiliate every individual in a Popular Front organization with Joe Stalin, and to reduce the history of the CPUSA and all its participants to the "history of Soviet espionage in the United States". The quote cited by Jmabel is a good example of this effort. It makes a veiled refrence to the Share Croppers Union, which was organized by the TUUL. The union was no secret: it struck openly for contracts. Hosea Hudson's biography makes it clear that the CP was organizing fairly openly in Birmingham, Alabama in 1932. (Nell Irvin Painter. Narrative of Hosea Hudson. pp. 85–87. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)) Copies of the Daily Worker were distributed, meetings were held, etc. The organization was guarded, of course, because of the dangers of disruption or lynching. People didn't tell their employers they were joining the Party, but membership could be open in community contexts. DJ Silverfish 15:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Web Page

¿The CPUSA have a web page? ¡I can't find the link! (sorry by my english). Rakela 23:05, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

It's in the article, in the section Communist Party USA#CPUSA websites. - Jmabel | Talk 04:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I was just having the same problem that Rakela had. Those links have to be organized better.--Jersey Devil 22:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

A little to pro-communist for wikipedia?

Even the capitalist page isnt all rosy and great. But when I read this, the opening statements make it sound like the communist party of America was behind every great civil rights and/or equality movement of the 20th century in America.

I especially like this line: "Civil Rights leaders kept communists at arms length for fear of being branded a communist."

The Communist Party took an advanced position regarding minority rights. Whether their position was helpful or harmful is very difficult to say from this time. Certainly the average black person in America had no affinity for Stalinism, yet when they demanded civil rights were slandered. So the line makes sense and there is good authority for it. Fred Bauder 23:34, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

That Line makes it sound like Civil Rights leaders were all pro-communism or at least not capitalist or socialist! Its an unbalanced, POV statement. Who says and what proof can be offered that Civil Rights leaders were not full fledged capitalists? Who says the same for socialists?

There are reliable sources for the statement, and, contrary to what you say, no position regarding Civil Rights leaders is implied, although other sources can show most had left wing tendencies. Fred Bauder 23:34, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Listen, CPUSA buds, its time we stop BSing everyone into trying to make em believe we are this rosy, great for all organization that is behind everything that helps normal people. I mean, this whole page reads like some kind of corporate press release, "we supported xxxx candidate that did xxxx for you because we believe in xxxx."

The Communist Party tries to track popular progressive sentiment for organizing purposes. They also strongly support the government of North Korea. Go figure. Fred Bauder 23:34, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Stop the BS. Thats all I have to say. **** —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Scryer 360 (talk • contribs) 26 November 2006.

We're doing the best we can. Generally no one known to be affiliated with the Communist Party edits this article, although there has been some anonymous editing by apparent activists. Fred Bauder 23:34, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there any verifiction for the claim that "But in the decade ending in 1989, the membership in the CPUSA grew from 10,000 to 50,000, making it the fastest growing major party on the Left in the US"? I doubt this is true - if it is it would make the US party one of the few if any to grow in membership during this period. If citations are not added it should be deleted.

Not true at all, in fact, they split into two small factions, but they soldier on, fighting for the working people. Fred Bauder 21:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

McCarthyism / Second Red Scare

DJ Silverfish, could you please explain why you insist on turning the broader term Second Red Scare into the narrower McCarthyism, and on not mentioning de-Stalinization as a major factor in the party's decline? On the former: the Second Red Scare includes McCarthyism, but the party continued to be under major attack from the U.S. government for a decade or so after Joe McCarthy died. On the latter: from what I understand from CPUSA members of the relevant generation (and there were several in my family) McCarthyism led to people lying low, but not usually actually quitting the party (since the latter clause of "are you now or have you ever been" didn't mean that leaving had much benefit), but the disillusionment after word got out about Khrushchev's repudiation of Stalin (not to mention the invasion of Hungary) was another matter: a year or so of intense discussion as to how the party could evolve, but resulting more in people deciding that their own evolution was away from the party. - Jmabel | Talk 22:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Reason of decline

I'd like to bring into discussion this phrase: "The party has not yet fully recovered from the effects of McCarthyism, but it continues" Well, I think it is rather absurd to maintain that the problems with the party until today are linked to McCarthyism, more than with the upbringing of the poverty that communism left in a great part of Europe, the coming about of the horrors of stalinism etc. I don't think american people could agree with a regime that forbids younger than 18 to read the Bible (China), and that's quite probably the reason for the decline of the CPUSA. Of course, something like that wouldn't be written in the article like it is today, and I really think that is a shame for Misplaced Pages. If this was the first article I've read in Misplaced Pages, I'd think very low of it. (TSA)

I suppose something about the "dustbin of history".... Fred Bauder 19:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Peace Movement Ommission

It should be added in the "Peace Movement" section, that during the Vietnam War, the CPUSA called for "negotations" rather than an immediate end to the war. Other leftist groups were calling for the victory of the vietnamese national liberation struggle, others called for "bring the troops home", but the CPUSA said "negotiations" only. This is an important point about the way the CPUSA operates compared to other leftist groups. Saying they simply "opposed the war" without getting into nature of which they did so, misrepresents the political line of CPUSA. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 192.150.115.150 (talk) 07:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC).

Please find a good source for this, and add it. Fred Bauder 21:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

If true that would be an interesting point to add but as FB already stated such information must be properly cited.--Jersey Devil 06:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Third Period

I reverted some infantile vandalism in this section, but also cut out the following paragraphs:

At first Browder moved the party closer to Soviet interests, and helped to develop its secret apparatus or underground network. He also assisted in the recruitment of espionage sources and agents for the NKVD. Browder's own younger sister Margerite was an NKVD operative in Europe until removed from those duties at Browder's request.

It was at this point that the CPUSA's foreign policy platform came under the complete control of Stalin, who enforced his directives through his ruthless secret police and foreign intelligence service, the NKVD. The NKVD controlled the secret apparatus of the CPSA, including responsibility for political murders, kidnappings, and assassinations.

One of the founding members of the CPUSA was Juliet Stuart Poyntz, once a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Poyntz directed the CPUSA's women's department and the New York Workers School in the 1920s. Poyntz was on the staff of the Comintern affiliates' Friends of the Soviet Union and International Labor Defense. In 1934, Poyntz dropped out of open party activities and into Soviet military intelligence (GRU) through the CPUSA underground secret apparatus. She secretely visited Moscow in 1936, and while meeting with Soviet intelligence officials, observed Stalin's purges firsthand. She later returned to New York, where she complained bitterly to Carlo Tresca, a leading Italian-American radical of her disgust at witnessing the consequences of Stalin's Great Terror campaign.

Poyntz disappeared from her New York City home in 1937, and a police investigation turned up no clues to her fate. In early 1938 Carlo Tresca publicly accused the Soviets of kidnapping Poyntz in order to prevent her defection, recounting his prior conversation with Poyntz. Poyntz's kidnapping and apparent murder was the key to the ultimate unraveling of the CPUSA secret apparatus. Whittaker Chambers, a former Soviet NKVD agent, said he heard Poyntz had been killed for attempted desertion, and this rumor contributed to his caution when he defected from the party in 1938. Elizabeth Bentley, another Soviet agent who defected to U.S. intelligence, stated that in the late 1930s her controller Jacob Golos, and later in 1945 KGB officer, Anatoli Gromov, told her Poyntz had been a traitor and was now dead.

I don't take any position on whether any of this is true or false, since I've never heard of Poyntz or Browder's daughter. It is out of place, however, in a discussion of Third Period politics. It could be moved to the section on Espionage, but frankly it looks too speculative to merit inclusion even there. This article is, moreover, already too long and a little pruning would do it good; even the talk page is 38 kb long.

I also toned down the phrase "organized and led most major industrial unions," which is, as others have pointed out, an overstatement, to put it mildly. Italo Svevo 03:32, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

2008 Presidential Ticket

The article notes the exsistance of a presidential ticket for the year 2008, but no source. Is there any source for this claim--Engelmann15 11:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Removed. - Jmabel | Talk 01:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I doubt this is true. The party isn't strong enough yet for a national run. MC John

CPUSA as a political party

I'm sorry, but what's the point of this being a political party that tries to get elected? Doesn't communism work by power being transferred during the revolution, not to a pre-existing political party, but a pre-existing workers' council? And then the party is there to administer it? Isn't the CPUSA just supporting the American electoral system in place, by existing within it and under it? Isn't that just encouraging the democratic form of government that Marx hoped to circumvent and defeat? This may not have much to do with the article, but can someone please just provide me with some answers anyway? VolatileChemical 09:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

VolatileChemical, For one answer to your question, please see: --Horse Badorties 13:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Removed section "Anti-CPUSA Articles"

I removed the section "Anti-CPUSA Articles", which contained only one link, in any case. No other U.S. political party has such a section on its page. The Democratic Party has no such section. The Republican Party has no such section. The Libertarian Party has no such section. Even the Green Party has no such section. If the link to this article belongs anywhere, it would be on the Anti-communism page. --Horse Badorties 14:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:People Demand Peace.jpeg

Image:People Demand Peace.jpeg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Misplaced Pages article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Misplaced Pages:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Misplaced Pages policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 06:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:People Demand Peace.jpeg

Image:People Demand Peace.jpeg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Misplaced Pages article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Misplaced Pages:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Misplaced Pages policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 06:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Edits by TDC

User:TDC, a well known and frequently -blocked reverter on this page, continues to remove the caveats given to the Mitrokhin Archive. I find this improper for two reasons:

• 1. TDC presents Mitrokhin's claims as fact, when they are merely notes one man allegedly took over thirty years.
• 2. Historians such as Getty have found the material problematic given it's single-sourced and fantastic claims. American Historical Review (106:2, April 2001)

TDC claims Mitrokhin's material is cited, but look closely. The cites refer back to the Mitrokhin archive itself. This is circular verification. I believe removing the caveats given to the Mitrokhin material is tendentious at best, POV at worst.

Passage TDC removes:

Mitrokhin's claims were based on notes allegedly taken from the Former Soviet Union. Historian J. Arch Getty of the UCLA in the American Historical Review (106:2, April 2001): found Mitrokhin's material to be “fascinating," but he also questioned plausibility that Mitrokhin could have smuggled and transcribed thousands of KGB documents, undetected, over 30 years. Former Indian counter-terrorism chief Bahukutumbi Raman also questions both the validity of the material as well as the conclusions drawn from them. Raman points out that Mitrokhin did not bring either the original documents or photocopies. Instead, he brought handwritten/typed notes of the contents of the documents.

I believe the caveats should be reinstated. Abe Froman 16:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)