The US Communist movement was splintered at its inception, greatly hindering its capabilities to engage in internal, let alone external political practice. It also shared, a thread of practice linking it to its pre-Communist socialist past which conditioned its functioning in the United States. The character of its acceptance of Bolshevism, its analysis of the conjuncture in the United Sates, its strategy and tactics, and the manner in which it achieved its eventual unity were contingent on this historical thread. The degree to which the Left-Wing of the socialist movement broke with the backward aspects of its historical practices is the degree to which it established a genuine communist current in the United. States.
By seeing what the anti-revisionist movement in the US shares with this heritage, we will be better able to place ourselves within US Communist history and see where we are and where we must go if we are to move forward. Volunteerism, economism, dogmatism and sectarian practices have long been endemic to the US movement and it is only by seeing their roots in the past that we will really see what we are up against. Key to this is understanding the contributions of those communists before us without romanticizing them or taking them at their word alone.
I. How did Left-Wing socialists and Communists perceive the political conjuncture of US capitalism in the period, after the Bolshevik Revolution and the First World War? How did this effect their tactics and strategy? What were the roots of this conjunctural analysis in terms of its continuity with the previous practice of the left-wing?
II. What events and practices led to the birth of the US Communist movement and what was the character of US Communists’ acceptance of bolshevism? How does all this compare to the US anti-revisionist movement’s character and how does the continuity of practice reflect on our present problems?
III. How was unity achieved, by the US Communist Party and how does this fit into previous socialist history? What were the good and bad points of achieving unity in this manner? How does all this reflect on certain aspects of the anti-revisionist movement’s current practice? How do Foster and Draper differ in their expositions as to how unity was achieved?
IV. What was the character of the break with bourgeois ideology and social practices that the early communist movement achieved? How was this break sought and to what degree was it a success? What is the attitude to M-L theory implicit in this?
The Roots of American Communism by T. Draper, pps. 101-06, 261-274.
“The CP of America to the CI,” by Louis Fraina, Theoretical Review #7, pps. 40-46.
The History of the CPUSA by W.Z. Foster, pps. 171-85.
“Manifesto of the Left-Wing Section of the Socialist Party of Local Greater New York” by Louis Fraina, pps. 4-9.
Optional: Programs and platforms of the Communist Labor Party and and the United Communist Party.