Early American Marxism: Document Download Page by Year: 1945
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1945APRIL
“On the Dissolution of the Communist Party of the United States,” by Jacques Duclos. [April 1945] One of the seminal documents in the history of the American Communist movement. In 1944, head of the CPUSA Earl Browder launched the party on a “new course,” disavowing the “political party” model for the organization and replacing it with a “Communist Political Association. This change was formally ratified by the 12th National Conference of the CPUSA, held in May 1944. This article by French CP leader Jacques Duclos appeared in the April 1945 issue of the French party’s theoretical magazine and was quickly recognized by American Communists as a signal from Moscow as to the inappropriateness of the “new course” undertaken in 1944. When Browder refused to change course again, a factional struggle ensued, resulting in short order in Browder’s removal from power and expulsion from the party. Despite the document’s length and detail, Duclos’ unleashes only one particularly harsh paragraph: “Despite declarations regarding recognition of the principles of Marxism, one is witnessing a notorious revision of Marxism on the part of Browder and his supporters, a revision which is expressed in the concept of a long-term class peace in the United States, of the possibility of the suppression of the class struggle in the postwar period and of establishment of harmony between labor and capital.”.