Talk:Communist Party USA

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Section sizes Section size for Communist Party USA (29 sections) Section name Byte count Section total (Top) 11,022 11,022 Modern membership 3,052 3,052 History 16,842 16,842 Beliefs 14 17,094 Constitution program 2,140 2,140 Bill of rights socialism 1,701 1,701 Living standards 1,996 1,996 Imperialism and war 5,213 5,213 Women and minorities 6,030 6,030 Geography 3,210 3,210 Relations with other groups 34 21,065 United States labor movement 661 661 Soviet funding and espionage 8,168 10,922 Counterintelligence 2,754 2,754 Criminal prosecutions 3,664 3,664 African Americans 2,489 2,489 Gay rights movement 2,040 2,040 United States peace movement 1,255 1,255 Election results 158 4,916 Presidential tickets 3,660 3,660 Best results in major races 1,098 1,098 Party leaders 2,170 2,170 Notable CPUSA members 5,509 5,509 See also 703 703 Notes 26 26 References 30 30 Further reading 2,943 2,943 Archives 1,043 1,043 External links 1,541 1,541 Total 91,166 91,166

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I am not deeply familiar with the CPUSA. However, I am not convinced by the current citations that the CPUSA as it stands now is necessarily Marxist-Leninist. References in its constitution to Marx, Engels, and Lenin do not necessarily mean it is Marxist-Leninist, and there are other socialist ideologies like orthodox Marxism and Trotskyism that make similar references but do not identify with Marxism-Leninism.

I won't edit it due to my lack of familiarity with the organization and therefore a lack of knowledge of sources right now, but I will say that, for instance, the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism emerged as a grouping within the CPUSA explicitly rejecting Leninism and its derivations entirely in favor of a non-Leninist form of democratic socialism, and the group still allows dual membership with the CPUSA today. The party constitution itself does not explicitly mention Marxism-Leninism, either. Anecdotally, I have also met some people in person and online part of the CPUSA who identify more closely with other labels such as syndicalism or democratic socialism.

Does someone have more insight into this? 4kbw9Df3Tw (talk) 05:46, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Please fuse the links to Mccarthyism and second red scare as they both lead to the same page P5B0 (talk) 18:31, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Question: What do you mean by fuse the links? GrayStorm^{Talk Contributions} 20:14, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you talking about the phrase "the combined effects of the second Red Scare, McCarthyism, Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 "Secret Speech"" in the History section? I think we should just remove the mention of the "second Red Scare", since McCarthyism is probably the more common term, and a link to the general topic of Red Scare (which is what is currently in the piped link) doesn't help much. Any other thoughts? Liu1126 (talk) 22:44, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I Agree -- It is indeed redundant. But perhaps we should mention that it is also known as the "second Red Scare". I am unsure how.
— Urro^{[talk][edits]} ⋮ 21:51, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe say "the second Red Scare, more commonly known as McCarthyism". GrayStorm^{(Talk|Contributions)} 22:36, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so, we should likely mention the more common name first? Otherwise it could do...

P.S. We're nearly signature twins. :)
— Urro^{[talk][edits]} ⋮ 03:15, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense. Also yeah, we are almost sig twins. :) GrayStorm^{(Talk|Contributions)} 04:16, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. So something like "the combined effects of McCarthyism (also known as the Second Red Scare) and Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech""?

I also noticed another instance of this repetition, this time in the third paragraph of the lead: "However, as Cold War hostility ensued, the party was restored but struggled to maintain its influence amidst the second Red Scare and McCarthyism." We could do the same thing for this one too. Liu1126 (talk) 15:59, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me!
— Urro^{[talk][edits]} ⋮ 18:17, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Changed both phrases. Liu1126 (talk) 20:32, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone add a section on splinter parties, the Trotskyite ones and others? I, and perhaps others, came here hoping to see a bit, or links, to American Communist Parties generally, not just the mainstream one. editeur24 (talk) 15:34, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, the article is about the main party. Are there articles on the other parties? Are they significant (via coverage in mainstream publications) to have an article? Can you provide links to reliable sources that talk about them? If you want changes, it helps if you provide more information, like the name, a site, a reliable article on them, etc. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:15, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Who or what makes it the "main" party? There should be a disambiguation regardless. 76.86.155.146 (talk) 06:19, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

People keep adding 20k members with only a primary source, whereas the secondary sources are saying 5,000. They removed the actual reliable source. I've tagged as dubious, and put in BOTH claims with sources. Watching the video to see if they actually mention the number, as the person who added it didn't bother to add a timestamp, the same as we would expect a page number for book cites. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:57, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I've restored the 5,000 membership and the source. The 20,000 claim was not found in the source given. There has been a couple of people, for years, trying to pump up the numbers to show 20k members using primary sources and claims, but without any reliable sources, and this fake claim seems to be part of that. You are free to watch the whole video (mind numbing as it is) and point to the time stamp if you want to dispute my claim that it doesn't exist. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:23, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article cites David Shannon's "The Rise of the Communist Party USA during the Great Depression" in Journal of American History, 54(2), 351–365, however vol 54 no 2 does not contain this article (https://www.jstor.org/stable/i305511) and in fact there is no evidence he ever wrote this article for this journal (https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?si=1&Query=au%3A%22David+A.+Shannon%22&so=rel). Can anyone else find evidence this exists? Evan5623 (talk) 19:30, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]