Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 09:19:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: CPUSA and woman's movement


I can't disagree with Dave's assessment of the CP on the woman question
during the 1960s, however the 1930s and 40s was probably a different
story. You have to remember that the CP was a *massive* organization back
then and Earl Browder had made a conscious decision to relax the
centralism in an effort to appear more American. When this occurred, local
initiatives were much more feasible. In the 1960s, the CPUSA was tightly
controlled by Gus Hall and except for the West Coast Dorothy Healy group
followed the Daily World line slavishly.

There's an essay by Rosalyn Baxandall titled "The Question Seldom Asked: 
Women and the CPUSA" in the collection "New Studies in the Politics and
Culture of US Communism". This MR book, edited by Michael Brown, Frank
Rosengarten and Randy Martin, is invaluable for understanding the CPUSA in
context. 

Baxandall, who is a feminist scholar, says:

"The party was by no means a feminist organization, but women within it
were no doubt freer and had more opportunities for activism than did those
in other parties and organizations. Communists wrote books about women,
like Yuri Suhl's book about Ernestine Rose, a Jewish socialist equal
rights agitator; Howard Fast's short story 'Rachel and Her Daughters,'
about an indentured servant; and Philip Foner's volumes on labor history,
which included women, albeit as tokens--but at the time, even this was an
advance. The Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) bolstered and
provided an alternative to the nuclear family, supported family members of
those in jail or underground (most usually in the leadership), and created
a supplementary space and counterforce to U.S. nationalism and consumer
culture. During the McCarthy years, the party kept the embers of female
militancy alive and nourished the feminists of the 1960s and 1970s, many
of whom, like myself, were red diaper babies, daughters of party members,
who had read communist history books and participated in Communist
picnics, hootenanies and camps."

Louis Proyect




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