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Communist Party of  Actions

the United States of
America
political party, United States
Also known as: American Communist Party, CPUSA, Communist
Party USA
Written by Victor G. Devinatz
Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Apr 22, 2024 • Article History

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Communist Party of the United States

of America (CPUSA), left-wing political
party in the United States that was, from its
founding in 1919 until the latter part of the
1950s, one of the country’s most important
leftist organizations. Its membership reached
its peak of 85,000 in 1942, just as America
entered World War II; the CPUSA had rallied
enthusiastically in favour of a Soviet-
American war effort against Nazi Germany.

Also called: Communist Party USA

Date: 1919 - present

Areas Of Involvement: communism

Related People: Charlotte Anita Whitney •

Herbert Arthur Philbrick • Martin Ritt • Whittaker
Chambers • Elizabeth Gurley Flynn ...(Show more)

On the Web: University of Washington -

Communist Party USA History and Geography
(Apr. 08, 2024) ...(Show more)

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In 1919, inspired by Russia’s October

Revolution (1917), two U.S. communist parties
emerged from the left wing of the Socialist
Party of America (SPA): the Communist Party
of America (CPA), composed of the SPA’s
foreign-language federations and led by the
sizeable and influential Russian Federation,
and the Communist Labor Party of America
(CLP), the predominantly English-language
group. They were established legally but were
soon forced underground. Although the two
parties feuded and various factions broke
away to establish competing communist
groups, the Communist International
encouraged the unification of those
organizations. In 1922 the CPA merged with
the United Communist Party (which had been
established when the CLP joined a breakaway
faction of the CPA) to create the legal and
aboveground Workers Party of America
(WPA). When the United Toilers of America, a
group that adopted the same tactics as the
WPA, combined with the latter organization,
the party renamed itself the Workers
(Communist) Party, finally settling on the
name Communist Party of the United States of
America in 1929.

During the 1920s the CPUSA’s trade-union

arm, the Trade Union Educational League,
promoted industrial unionism vis-à-vis the
craft union-oriented American Federation of
Labor (AFL). When that strategy proved
unsuccessful, the CPUSA upon orders from
Moscow transformed the Trade Union
Educational League into the Trade Union
Unity League in 1929, which was dedicated to
organizing largely unskilled immigrant,
African American, and female workers into
industrial unions. Although the Trade Union
Unity League was not nearly as successful as
the AFL, it did provide a training ground for
CPUSA organizers when they became active in
the Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO) unions.

During the early years of the Great

Depression, the CPUSA emerged as
committed militants within the unemployed
movement. Later in the 1930s, with
approximately 65,000 members and New
Deal liberalism sweeping the country, the
CPUSA became influential in many aspects of
life in the United States. There were also
untold numbers of “fellow travelers” who
sympathized with the aims of the party though
they never became members of it. At that time
CPUSA members became national, regional,
and community leaders in liberal, cultural,
and student organizations. In addition,
because of their roles as industrial union
organizers during the mid-to-late 1930s, they
became a major force in several important
CIO unions by the early 1940s. In New York
City, a stronghold of party support where
communists actively engaged in housing
struggles, CPUSA candidates were elected to
the city council during its zenith.

After World War II, with the onset of the Cold

War and the rise of anti-Soviet sentiment, the
CPUSA increasingly came under attack.
Deprived of significant influence in the labour
movement when the CIO expelled 11 CPUSA-
led unions in 1949 and 1950, the CPUSA
suffered additional losses of power in many
left-liberal organizations when it was
subjected to McCarthyism in the early 1950s.
In 1956 support for the Soviet invasion of
Hungary and the revelation of Joseph Stalin’s
crimes in Nikita Khrushchev’s “secret speech”
at the 20th Soviet Party Congress led to mass
defections from the CPUSA. Although
communists held leadership positions in
several anti-Vietnam War organizations
during the 1960s and ’70s, they exerted little
sway in the U.S. labour movement. While the
party made many significant contributions to
the radical movement, especially during the
1930s and ’40s, the CPUSA’s unswerving
support for Stalin and the Soviet Union
harmed the party not only in the eyes of broad
segments of the population but among other
liberal and left-wing activists as well.

Victor G. Devinatz

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Earl Browder  Actions

American politician
Also known as: Earl Russell Browder
Written and fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Article History

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Earl Browder (born May 20, 1891, Wichita,

Kansas, U.S.—died June 27, 1973, Princeton,
New Jersey) was the U.S. Communist Party
leader for almost 25 years, until his split with
official party doctrine after World War II.

In full: Earl Russell Browder

Born: May 20, 1891, Wichita, Kansas, U.S.

Died: June 27, 1973, Princeton, New Jersey (aged

82)

Political Affiliation: Communist Party of the

United States of America

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As a result of his opposition to the entrance of

the United States into World War I, Browder
was imprisoned in 1919–20. He became a
member of the U.S. Communist Party in 1921,
served as its general secretary from 1930 to
1944, and was the party’s candidate for the
U.S. presidency in 1936 and 1940. In the latter
year he was sentenced to prison for 4 years for
passport irregularities but was released after
serving 14 months.

In 1944 Browder was removed from his

position as party secretary for declaring that
capitalism and socialism could peacefully
coexist. He was expelled from the Communist
Party in 1946 and three years later was named
in “treason trials” in Budapest and Prague as
originator of the heresy of “Browderism.”

Among his many published works are The

People’s Front (1938), War or Peace with
Russia? (1947), and Marx and America
(1958).

This article was most recently revised and updated

by Encyclopaedia Britannica.

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United States  Actions

presidential election
of 1932
United States government
Written and fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Article History

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United States presidential election of

1932, American presidential election held on
Nov. 8, 1932, in which Democrat Franklin D.
Roosevelt defeated Republican Pres. Herbert
Hoover. The 1932 election was the first held
during the Great Depression, and it
represented a dramatic shift in the political
alignment of the country. Republicans had
dominated the presidency for almost the
entire period from 1860, save two terms each
won by Grover Cleveland and by Woodrow
Wilson (who benefited from a split in the
Republican Party in 1912). And even in 1928
Hoover had crushed Democrat Alfred E.
Smith, winning 444 electoral votes to Smith’s
87. Roosevelt’s victory would be the first of
five successive Democratic presidential wins.

American presidential election, 1932

See all media

Date: November 8, 1932

Participants: Charles Curtis • William Z. Foster •

John Nance Garner • Herbert Hoover • Franklin D.
Roosevelt • Norman Thomas ...(Show more)

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(Read Eleanor Roosevelt’s Britannica essay

on Franklin Roosevelt.)

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The nominations

Hoover, Herbert
Herbert Hoover.

At the Republican convention in Chicago in

June, Hoover was renominated easily, but
there was a battle for the vice presidential slot
as Vice Pres. Charles Curtis was challenged
unsuccessfully by James Harbord, who had
served as John Pershing’s chief of staff in
World War I. At the Democratic convention in
Chicago two weeks later, Roosevelt had the
support of a majority of the delegates, but the
Democratic Party rules required a two-thirds
majority to win nomination. On the first ballot
Roosevelt was shy of victory by more than 100
delegates, with his main opposition coming
from Smith and John Nance Garner, who had
been elected speaker of the House of
Representatives in 1931. After three ballots
Garner released his delegates, and on the
fourth ballot Roosevelt won the party
nomination. Garner was duly selected
unanimously as the vice presidential
candidate. Roosevelt then broke tradition by
appearing in person to accept the party’s
nomination. In his speech before the
delegates, he said, “I pledge you, I pledge
myself, to a new deal for the American
people.”

The campaign

New Deal pin

Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal pin, 1932.

The depression was the only issue of

consequence in the presidential campaign of
1932. The American public had to choose
between the apparently unsuccessful policies
of the incumbent Hoover, who blamed the
depression on external events and alleged that
Roosevelt would intensify the disaster, and the
vaguely defined New Deal program presented
by Roosevelt. While Roosevelt avoided
specifics, he made clear that his program for
economic recovery would make extensive use
of the power of the federal government. In a
series of addresses carefully prepared by a
team of advisers popularly known as the Brain
Trust, he promised aid to farmers, public
development of electric power, a balanced
budget, and government policing of
irresponsible private economic power. Besides
having policy differences, the two candidates
presented a stark contrast in personal
demeanour as well. Roosevelt was genial and
exuded confidence, while Hoover remained
unremittingly grim and dour. On election day
Roosevelt received nearly 23 million popular
votes (57.3 percent) to Hoover’s nearly 16
million (39.6 percent); the electoral vote was
472 to 59. In a repudiation not just of Hoover
but also of the Republican Party, Americans
also elected substantial Democratic majorities
to both houses of Congress.

In the four months between the election and

Roosevelt’s inauguration, Hoover sought
Roosevelt’s cooperation in stemming the
deepening economic crisis. But the two were
unable to find common ground, as Roosevelt
refused to subscribe to Hoover’s proposals,
which Hoover himself admitted would mean
“the abandonment of 90 percent of the so-
called new deal.” As a result, the economy
continued to decline. By inauguration day—
March 4, 1933—most banks had shut down,
industrial production had fallen to just 56
percent of its 1929 level, at least 13 million
wage earners were unemployed, and farmers
were in desperate straits. In his inaugural
address Roosevelt promised prompt, decisive
action, and he conveyed some of his own
unshakable self-confidence to millions of
Americans listening on radios throughout the
land. “This great nation will endure as it has
endured, will revive and prosper,” he asserted,
adding, “the only thing we have to fear is fear
itself.”

For the results of the previous election, see

United States presidential election of 1928.
For the results of the subsequent election, see
United States presidential election of 1936.

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Results of the 1932 election

The results of the 1932 U.S. presidential
election are provided in the table.

American presidential election, 1932

presidential political electoral popular

candidate party votes votes

Franklin D.
Democratic 472 22,821,857
Roosevelt

Herbert
Republican 59 15,761,841
Hoover

Norman
Socialist 884,781
Thomas

William Z.
Communist 102,991
Foster

William D.
Prohibition 81,869
Upshaw

William H.
Liberty 53,425
Harvey

Verne L. Socialist
33,276
Reynolds Labor

Source: Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of

Representatives.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article was most recently revised and updated

by Michael Levy.

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