Communism in the USA

Résumé du document

To establish a real picture of communism in the USA and to understand its actual situation, I will first talk about the reasons why the USA cannot be seen as the best place to be a communist and then I will ask myself whether we can say there is an agony of communism in the country since 1990.

Extraits

[...] There is no real solidarity of class. Finally, we all know how puritanical US society is and this goes totally against Marx's theories against religion. è The Crucible, Arthur Miller. A deeply rooted anticommunism I will here make a brief recall on the statute of communism in the recent constitutional history. First I will remind you that American parties are more regimented than the French ones. Indeed, in 1939, the Hatch Act has been voted: it constitutionalized the incompatibility between public federal function and partisan functions. [...]

[...] In 1950 and 1952, the Congress voted the Mac Carran Acts. The first one forced the members of communist associations to declare themselves to the Justice department and - by defining the try to establish a totalitarian regime in link with a foreign government (the USSR) as a crime - made them become clandestine. It also allowed preventive internment in case of national emergency. The second one concerned the immigration of communists' sympathizers, who were prevented from living in the USA. In 1954, the Communist Control Act was finally voted. [...]

[...] It must think about a new form of organization. Conclusion As a conclusion, I hope I will have clearly shown the reasons why communism finds itself in a hard position in the USA but also the reasons why there is a future and maybe a great one according to some for Marxism in the country. And this possible renewal may be applicable to the entire US left as we can have seen in the mobilisation against the Millennium round in Seattle, which was, according to US journalists, one of the greatest leftist mobilisation since the 1970s. [...]

[...] Since 1990, the agony of communism ? The CPUSA: the failure of the European model The Communist Party of the USA has had a high time during (the thirties and) the forties (alliance between the USSR until 1947) but it always appeared suspicious. In 1958, there were only 3,000 members left It only survived thanks to soviet subsidies (cut in 1984). Today, about 1,000 members are registered and the party is still divided: Angela Davis for instance left in 1992 because of the hard-liners. [...]

[...] It contributed to discredit them. The hard-liners only managed to be less and less close to the US workers. Besides, the strength of the bipartism is really important and doesn't let the “third parties” live. The influence of the CPUSA is only quite important between the intellectuals. A possible renewal ? But, once considered the probable deaths of the CPUSA because of its archaisms, many searchers in the USA consider that Marxism is not to be buried right away. First, the fall of the USSR is mainly seen as a lucky event. [...]