From Crisis to Split: The Communist Party USA, 1989–1991

The Communist Party USA split in 1991. As a vital force on the Left, playing historically documented roles in labor, peace, civil rights, education, housing, and other progressive movements the Party weathered the storms of Soviet and socialist crises poorly. Its contributions to such movements were thus weakened. The Party erupted along ancestral streams: democracy, race, and “real, existing” socialism, which met in the socket of the Party. The interactive flow of argument was continuous, with exacerbating milestone moments driving a two-year process finished by the 25th convention in December 1991. There was a history to these issues. The “back story” informing the course of events is extensive. Antecedent factors, especially McCarthyism, were essential to Party mores, style, and policies in the 1960 s and 1970 s. But an extended analysis of the experience of 1989–1991 comprises the core of the present study. The following article first traces the Party’s perspectives in the mid-80s, and shortly before. In this light, it discusses methods of action, leadership, and basic conceptions prior to changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It likewise pinpoints areas of incipient disagreement. The next part takes the narrative through 1990, demonstrating how problems in socialist countries impacted debates in the Party about all manner of subjects, including internal democracy and African–American oppression. Landmark conferences accentuated the bitter arguments. Finally, the article analyzes the stages culminating in the 25th National Convention in December 1991. The aforementioned ancestral streams overflowed their banks, summoning a large opposition into existence. Historians have long commented on the close relationship between the CPUSA and the USSR. To a New England member, the “huge bearing of the Soviet Union on the Party” was unmistakable: whatever problems it experienced “would be resolved in the context of socialism,” she believed. That it would end was “unimaginable.” Soviet ties embraced ideological affinity and fraternal feeling, but also extended to fiscal transfers to leader Gus Hall. With sister parties, the CPUSA believed that socialism’s time had come. “It is,” as general secretary Gus Hall said in 1969, “both a historic process and a current event.” Its triumph proved “capitalism has... lost its ability as a class to basically influence or