In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, American radicals and socialists formed several competing communist parties in 1919. In March 1919, the Third Communist International announced that it would actively support and work toward the spread of communism throughout the world. American socialists who supported the Russian Revolution met in September 1919 to form an American Communist Party. Disagreements over the pace at which revolution should be spread resulted in the formation of two parties—the Communist Labor Party and the American Communist Party. John Reed, who had been one of the few Americans to witness the Russian Revolution firsthand, was among those who formed the smaller Communist Labor Party. The American Communist Party was the party officially recognized by the Soviet Comintern, which was responsible for overseeing the spread of communism.
While many American socialists supported the goals of the Russian Revolution, rival parties kept the Left relatively weak. It soon fell under attack. The strike wave of 1919 resulted in a conservative backlash against American radicals. In April 1919, 36 government officials, including Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, received “May Day” bombs. Palmer and the federal government responded between November 1919 and January 1920 by launching a series of raids against radicals and suspected radicals, especially those of foreign ancestry. The Red Scare of 1919-20 severely undermined the effectiveness of communist parties at all levels.
In 1924, under orders from the Soviet Comintern, the two communist parties agreed to merge. The new party went through several different names before settling on the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) in 1929. When the two factions joined in 1924, the party launched its weekly newspaper, the Daily Worker, which at its peak had a circulation of 35,000. Throughout much of the 1920s, the Communist Party had a small, but extremely dedicated following. In 1929, for example party officials claimed to have 7,000 members. The party’s highest vote total in any presidential election came in 1932 when William Z. Foster received 102,000 votes. The Socialist Party of America remained free of any hint of foreign control and consistently had a much larger following, with its perennial presidential candidate, Eugene Victor Debs, garnering close to a million votes in 1912 and again in 1920. Still, the postwar split among factions had denied the more moderate Socialist Party of support.
Despite this small following, the Communist Party had a significant impact on political and social developments throughout the 1920s. Led by Foster and James P. Cannon, the Communist Party defended the rights of workers, opposed the Ku Kiux Klan and capital, and it advocated equality for African Americans and immigrants. In 1925, the Communist Party formed the International Labor Defense Fund (ILDF) to defend workers and others it viewed as under attack from the “ruling class.”
One of the driving forces behind the ILDF was the Sacco and Vanzetti case. The two Italian immigrants had been tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for armed robbery and murder. The case became a cause celebre for many on the political left who were convinced of Sacco and Vanzetti’s innocence. Although the ILDF’s defense of Sacco and Vanzetti ultimately proved ineffective, it earned the Communist Party a reputation for defending those who opposed American capitalism. The Communist Party also attempted to recruit African Americans throughout the 1920s. The Sixth World Congress of the Communist International in 1928 declared African Americans an oppressed people. Party leaders were instructed to increase their efforts on behalf of African-American workers. The party made important inroads with African Americans in pockets throughout the South and in large urban centers, such as Harlem and Chicago. Despite these efforts, the Communist Party remained weak and largely ineffective until the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Further reading: Albert Fried, Communism in America: A History in Documents (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); Philip Jaffe, The Rise and Fall of American Communism (New York: Horizon Press, 1975).
—Robert Gordon
World History
