Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 16:45:19 -0400 (EDT) From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena) Subject: M-I: In the Time of Stalin: Nation, Race & Class in the interwar South, 1928-1940 THE COMINTERN & THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY Recent scholars of the heyday of the CPUSA -- generally agreed to be the 1930s and 40s -- have made much of the party's "independence" from Stalin and the Third International. While an earlier generation of cold warriors had sought to show a slavish subservience on the part of American Communists toward Moscow, new studies suggest a home grown radicalism, coupled with innovative organizing techniques and a determined cadre of dedicated activists, enjoying a remarkable success in building the Party across a wide section of America's working class. Rather than the bogey of Moscow, the American CP is seen as a more or less home-grown affair, at worst oblivious to the machinations of the world revolutionary movement headquartered in Moscow. Indeed, in several of the most important works of this new genre, Stalin is barely mentioned, and then only against a larger background of purely local concerns and campaigns in which the Soviet leader figured hardly at all.[1] I find both versions misleading. While I hold no brief for the Theodore Drapers, the Harvey Klehrs, and the rest whose tales concerning Moscow's puppetry amount to little more than sophisticated forms of modern McCarthyism, I remain equally unconvinced by the contemporary arguments of their opponents. There is too much of the simple moralizing on both sides. The real story, I believe, is far more complex, but for the most part reflects credibly on the parties involved.[2] In this brief essay, I can only touch upon the more important features of the relationship between Moscow and America, and only in the most superficial way. Much of the general outline of the work of the CPUSA *was* directed by Moscow, for purposes decreed in Moscow, with leadership approved (or at least not actively opposed) by Moscow, and with the help of resources distributed by Moscow. I am not sure by what standard either side should be condemned for this state of affairs. If a theoretical justification was sought in Comintern for this type of arrangement, it could be found in the argument that the USSR was the one bulwark of communism in a hostile world, and its defense was therefore a primary and overriding interest of communists everywhere. Article 14 of the "twenty-one conditions" of 1920 had already required from communist parties "unconditional support to every Soviet republic in its struggle against counter-revolutionary forces."[3] The slow process of "Bolshevization" of foreign communist parties, initiated in the twenty-one conditions of 1920, proclaimed at the fifth congress of Comintern in 1924, reached its logical conclusion with the consolidation of Stalin's dictatorship. By the end of 1929, long and often bitter struggles within the German, French, Polish, Czechoslovak, British and American parties had been ended by firm decisions of Comintern to cast its mantle over one of the contending factions, and by the expulsion from the party, or removal from the leadership, of those who contested the decisions. After this time, changes in the leadership of parties were effected by *fiat* from Moscow, and with little pretence of debate or choice within the parties themselves.[4] The consequence of this process on Communist movements outside Russia was, of course, decisive. For nearly twenty years before Stalin finally junked the Third International the question could reasonably have been asked whether it did not on balance do more to prejudice than to advance the cause of Communism throughout the world. In every important country except Germany the Communist parties had come into being under the direct impetus of Moscow; they bore the Russian stamp as their birthmark. The mere existence of Comintern with its vast resources and world-wide pretensions stood in the way of the development of indigenous Britsh, French or even German Communism, which might have responded to national outlooks and national emergencies. The movements that existed could be, and were, discredited as puppets whose strings were pulled in Moscow.[5] At the same time, the American Party stands out in two rather remarkable ways. First of all, if it is true that the Communist parties of France, Italy, Belgium and most countries of western Europe grew immensely stronger in the decades following the abolition of the Third International than they were at any time during its existence, the reverse is true for the CPUSA. Second, of the parties experiencing exponential growth within racist societies during the twenties and thirties, only the American CP seems to have *begun* with predominant races in leadership positions, rather than -- as in the case of South Africa, for example -- ending up with a racially balanced leadership only after years of positive and deliberate efforts in that direction.[6] Both features were at least in part attributable to the efforts of Comintern representatives who, during the decade of the twenties, travelled extensively throughout the Black Belt and struggled to fashion a policy for American Communists in a unique and dangerous environment. Too, the leaders of the CPUSA were urged by Moscow to redouble their efforts against intra-party racism, a point brought home to Stalin during a number of meetings with Black working class leaders. The rather unique positon of the American party with respect to the struggle for social security, unemployment insurance and trade union rights -- the US lagged behind prewar Europe in all three -- coupled with the special condition of American blacks as an oppressed "nation" within a nation, proved propitious in building a genuinely native "American" Left-wing movement. This, coupled with the successful struggle to open a Second Front against Hitler in Europe -- a movement that for all practical purposes could only have been undertaken in the US -- insured that this period in American CP history would be its most fruitful to date.[7] NEXT: TURMOIL IN THE BLACK BELT, 1928 - 1940 Louis Godena [1] Draper's *American Communism and Soviet Russia* (1960) was the highwater mark of the cold war school. The American war in Southeast Asia and the concomitant exposure of many of its crimes elsewhere overseas led in part to the reexamination of the history of Communism here in the US. This literature receives a recent but brief survey in Michael E. Brown, *et al* (eds), *New Studies in the Politics and Culture of US Communism* (New York, 1993: Monthly Review Press) [2] There is no published work in English or French of which I am aware that details the history of the relationship between the Comintern and the CPUSA. Such a work is badly needed, and would go far in explaining the unique success and puzzling failures which marked the history of the American party during this era. [3] My own interpretation draws heavily on Carr's *Twilight of the Comintern, 1930 - 1935* (London, 1982: Macmillan), as well as Branco Lazitch, *Lenine et la IIIe Internationale* (Neuchatal, Switzerland, 1952: Editions de la Baconniere), which, despite its age, offers the best precis' of the Third International I have found anywhere. [4] Maurice Doniere, *The Comintern and Western Communist Parties, 1928 - 1943* (New York, 1964: Oxford University Press), pp. 181-189. Also, Carr, "The Third International, " in *From Napoleon to Stalin and other essays* (New York, 1980: St Martin's Press), pp. 82-92. [5] Robin DG Kelly, *Race Matters* (New York, 1994: Free Press), ch. 8. [6] Wm Foster, *History of the CPUSA* (New York, 1953: International Publishers); *Fifty Fighting Years: History of the South African Communist Party* (London, 1986: Inkululeko Publications) [7] Foner and Allen (eds), *American Communism and Black Americans: A Documentary History, 1919-1929* (Philadelphia, 1987: Temple University Press), pp. 161 - 200. --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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