American Communist Party
|
Communist Party of the
United States of America |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Chairman | John Bachtell |
| Founded | 1919 |
| Headquarters | 235 W. 23rd Street, New York City, New York, 10011 |
| Newspaper | People's World |
| Youth wing | Young Communist League (1920–2015) |
| Membership |
 est. 5,000 |
| Ideology |
Communism Scientific socialism Marxism–Leninism |
| Political position | Left-wing to Far-left |
| International affiliation | International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties |
| Seats in the Senate |
0 / 100
|
| Seats in the House |
0 / 435
|
| Governorships |
0 / 50
|
| State Upper Houses |
0 / 1,972
|
| State Lower Houses |
0 / 5,411
|
| Website | |
| www.cpusa.org | |
The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) is a communist political party in the United States. Established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America, it has a long, complex history that is closely tied with the U.S. labor movement and the histories of communist parties worldwide.
For the first half of the 20th century, the Communist Party was a highly influential force in various struggles for democratic rights. It played a prominent role in the U.S. labor movement from the 1920s through the 1940s, having a major hand in founding most of the country's first industrial unions (which would later use the McCarran Internal Security Act to expel their Communist members) while also becoming known for opposing racism and fighting for integration in workplaces and communities during the height of the Jim Crow period of U.S. racial segregation. Historian Ellen Schrecker concludes that decades of recent scholarship offer "a more nuanced portrayal of the party as both a Stalinist sect tied to a vicious regime and the most dynamic organization within the American Left during the 1930s and '40s".
By August 1919, only months after its founding, the Communist Party claimed 50,000 to 60,000 members. Members also included anarchists and other radical leftists. At the time, the older and more moderate Socialist Party of America, suffering from criminal prosecutions for its antiwar stance during World War I, had declined to 40,000 members. The sections of the Communist Party's International Workers Order organized for communism around linguistic and ethnic lines, providing mutual aid and tailored cultural activities to an IWO membership that peaked at 200,000 at its height.
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