Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism

by Maurice Isserman

The definitive history of the Communist Party USA, revealing how its members contributed to struggles for justice and equality in America even as they championed a brutal, totalitarian state, the USSR     After generations in the shadows, socialism is making headlines in the United States, following the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns and the election of several democratic socialists to Congress. Today’s leftists hail from a long lineage of anti-capitalist activists in the United States, yet the true legacy and lessons of their most radical and controversial forebears, the American Communists, remain little understood.   ​ In Reds, historian Maurice Isserman focuses on the deeply contradictory nature of the history of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), a movement that attracted egalitarian idealists and bred authoritarian zealots. Founded in 1919, the CPUSA fought for a just society in members organized powerful industrial unions, protested racism, and moved the nation left. At the same time, Communists maintained unwavering faith in the USSR’s claims to be a democratic workers’ state and came to be regarded as agents of a hostile foreign power. Following Nikita Khrushchev’s revelation of Joseph Stalin’s crimes, however, doubt in Soviet leadership erupted within the CPUSA, leading to the organization’s decline into political irrelevance.  This is the balanced and definitive account of an essential chapter in the history of radical politics in the United States. 

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, 20th Century

308 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 4, 2024

About the author

Maurice Isserman received a B.A. in history from Reed College in 1973 and his Ph.D. in American history from the University of Rochester in 1979. He is Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.

Reviews

[Shaun Richman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Readers could use a really good, one volume history of the Communist Party. This is not it. Too superficial and disdainful of its subject. I just don't know what audience this book is meant for.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just finished:

"Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism"

By: Maurice Isserman

New York: Basic Books, 2024.

Isserman presents a cautionary tale about the CPUSA. He mentions five points in the preface that really summed up the book (I thought he got into the nitty gritty too much though)
1. The party attracted egalitarian idealists but bred authoritarian zealots.

The party was good at cracking down on members who became "unorthodox."

2. While championing democratic reforms it championed Stalin's regime.

The CPUSA helped create the CIO and gained prominence in it. That said, it also supported Stalin's purges in the USSR.

3. While good organizers, party member had naive beliefs about American workers.

Members believed that the United States would follow the Soviet model even though it never happened.

4. At times it exercised free speech but at others it was treated as a criminal organization.

5. Claimed to be scientific but clung to blind faith.

It wasn't my favorite book but it wasn't terrible.

[David Rodish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do not read for American revolutionary optimism. Lenin would’ve written another book called “American communism, an infantile disorder” if he were around long enough to see the party

[Camille McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written account of the history of the Communist Party in the US that explains why it is not a formidable part of our current political landscape. I kind of wish there were more about the modern period, but since the CPUSA really hasn't done a whole lot since 1991 I understand why the author chose to end things there. Blindly following the USSR, accepting Soviet money illegally, a few members committing espionage, and generally having anti-democratic attitudes within the orgs and combative relationships with other prominent leftist orgs led to their downfall, but I appreciated that the author genuinely seemed to come from a place of admiration of the values and wanted to analyze what went wrong in order to learn from it, not to vilify Communists/Communism itself. I learned a lot about prominent American historical figures and it helped me put a lot of events into context.

[Seth J. Vogelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommend this book as an excellent dispassionate history of an intriguing chapter in US history.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now that it's a museum piece, historians feel safe in looking back at the history of the Communist Party, USA with all its glory and disaster. In the heyday of American communism the CPUSA built trade unions and helped found the CIO, defended African-Americans from lynchings, militated for full equality for women, led rent strikes, and filled its ranks with Broadway dancers (yes, there really were dancing Stalins), Hollywood celebrities and prized authors, including Theodore Dreiser and Langston Hughes. Maurice Isserman, an ex-member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), has written a history of the Party from a right-wing, social democratic perspective. Since the ins and outs of early Party history are thoroughly covered in Theodore Draper's two volumes, THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN COMMUNISM and AMERICAN COMMUNISM AND SOVIET RUSSIA, I will focus on three controversies that defined American Communism and sealed its fate quickly after 1945. The first American Communists found it difficult to disassociate themselves from the charge that they constituted a foreign party grafted onto the skin of American politics, thus Lenin's famous inquiry of John Reed, "Are you an American? An AMERICAN American?". He meant, are you native born? An unpatriotic party with a large immigrant membership would never catch on with American workers. But, a much more crucial point was the Party's allegiance. Did it put American or Soviet interests first? Those who argued for the former, such as Jay Lovestone with his theory of "American exceptionalism", got chucked out of the Party once Stalin took over from Lenin. (Lovestone later became a CIA asset and union-buster; take that, Uncle Joe). Reed had been instrumental in forging Party policy on the Negro question in the United States. Negro workers had been fully integrated into the American working class, at the bottom, and Black nationalist fantasies of independence, like those of Marcus Garvey, were regarded by most Negroes as a pipe dream. Armed with this insight the Party proceeded to fight for integrated trade unions and civil rights. Unfortunately, the CPUSA abandoned abandoned this strategy in the Thirties to advocate the ridiculous and fatal vision of a "Black Nation" in the United States located in the Black Belt of the South, losing it key support among Negro industrial workers. A third point of contention: What was the Party's attitude towards working with progressives? Party policy in the early Thirties followed Chairman William Foster's line of fighting for "a Soviet America" and denouncing other leftists as "social fascists". When Moscow imposed a Popular Front policy on the Communist International in 1935 the new line, pushed by next Party Chair Earl Browder, was to build alliances with all political forces opposed to fascism and for the New Deal. (The CPUSA has not abandoned this tactic; witness its "Kamela, We're Here to Help" campaign in the 2024 election.) If so, Party critics wondered, how was the CPUSA any different from the Democrats? Why did the Party even exist? Isserman sees in these strange formulations and reformulations of strategy the heavy hand of Moscow, placing the CPUSA in a straight jacket from which it never emerged. By the late Forties, with the coming of the Red Scare and McCarthyism, the Party found itself isolated, diminished in numbers and persecuted by its wartime allies. Was this wretched fate inevitable? If the CPUSA had shown some backbone and defied Stalin would it have flourished on native soil? The history of American Communism is tragic, a bit absurd, all those funny twists and turns in policies, and now consigned to the land of "never was".

[Nick Rabkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Isserman gets it right. The tragedy is this: American communists were vital to the emergence and success of industrial unions in the Great Depression. They were the only predominantly white organization that recognized and fought the deep threads of racism that structure American society - leading the fight the Scottsboro Boys in the 30s as well. This was a heroic contribution to what is great about America.BUT they also venerated the Soviet Union, its Leninist revolutionary party model, and were blind to the authoritarian horrors of Stalinism. They excused the show trials and willfully ignored the mass starvation that Stalin imposed in Ukraine and elsewhere. Their party asked "how high?" every time the Soviets told them to jump. They fought for American ideals of equality, opportunity, and democracy but were simultaneously dedicated to the Soviet Union. In its later decades, it supported the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, fell into every trap set by the right, and utterly discredited its own commitment to American democracy. Progressive movements in the US are still challenged to find a way to dissociate from the Communist legacy, still venerate some fights for national liberation iled by despots, and a remain uncertain about making fundamental progressive change without a vanguard party.

[Frank Duke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a bit of a disappointment. As a graduate student I read the Communist newspaper in the library every week and found myself often agreeing with the positions it contained, especially those regarding civil rights. As I grew older and entered the workforce, my sentiments inevitably changed. I suppose I picked up this book in the romantic hope of regaining my youthful optimism; I did not.

AS a survey of the history of the Communist Party, the book glosses over much of the details of what was going on within the party. That is to be expected. Characters enter and leave quickly; I never felt that I understood the motivations of men like Earl Browder, William Foster, or Gus Hall. They remain only names from the past after reading the book. that disappointed me.

Still, I am glad I read the book -- though it will not earn a place in my permanent library.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Isserman's assessment of American Communists is generally fair: he believes their effectiveness was hamstrung by enforced loyalty to Moscow's policies and by US government anticommunism (though he doesn't spend a huge amount of time exploring this; the sense is that he feels that this has been best covered elsewhere). He does talk about communist successes, especially when they were willing to work with other segments of the left. I think some of the miffed reviews from leftists here are missing the point.

The weakness of the book is that it could have been twice as long. I would give it 3.5 if GR allowed this.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is easy to read narrative history, although a bit jumpy time period-wise and a little repetitive. The author has a clear point of view and he just hammers it home. On the topic itself, to me, the tragedy isn't "American Communism", it's communism in general as it has been enacted and "sold" around the world.

[Jake Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tragedy is an apt description. it seems like at every turn the American Communist movement fumbled nearly every chance to truly become a force to be reckoned with - at least in between the 2 Red Scares of the 20s and 50s respectively

[Melissa]

WSJ

[Blane · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy-to-digest look at the Communist Party as it existed (exists?) in the USA from its inception in 1919 through the fall of the USSR in 1991.

[Joshua Lawrence · Rating 2 out of 5]

dnf. Got half of the way through and went with a "what am I even doing here". The book can be summed up in one sentence: American Communism is a land of contrasts.

Avoid.

[Rebecca]

Recommended Kim Strassel

[Evan Frew · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it’s cool to read up on the early years of the Communist Party of the US, it feels very messy and rushed towards the end. Anyone have any suggestions for other reads?

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

magnificent, fair, insightful, depressing (for a socialist like me)....