Introduction
The communist movement in the US is in a dire state. The working class in the US finds itself without a genuine Communist Party, as the historical Party has mutated into, at best, a social-democratic mass organization.
Our current situation is one where the old party has long since renounced the organizational and ideological principles of Marxism-Leninism. Its leadership hypocritically invokes democratic centralism, a core Leninist principle, while crushing internal party democracy whenever it conflicts with their policy of serving as the left-flank of the Democratic Party. Proletarian internationalism, once a pillar of the communist ideology of the party, has been hollowed out, with the party backing anti-communist social democrats abroad, even in places like Venezuela, where such forces violently repress the workers’ communist movement. The result? A working class stripped of its revolutionary leadership, disarmed in the class struggle, and left to the mercy of bourgeois parties that offer no escape from deepening exploitation. All this in a country ripe with the material basis for the transformation into socialism-communism and the end of exploitation.
To confront this crisis and better understand its historical causes, the CWPUSA needs to study the history of the communist movement in our country. William Z. Foster provided an essential foundation for this task with his work, History of the Communist Party of the United States.
The Central Committee of the CWPUSA has begun reviewing this text in conjunction with the positions developed by the historical CPUSA in its theoretical organ, Political Affairs, that was established in 1944. This effort is part of a broader initiative to draw lessons from the Party’s historical experiences to more effectively intervene in the class struggle today.
What follows are reflections on the first twelve chapters of Foster’s work and the historical period they examine.
Early Marxists
Marxism arrived in the US when the proletariat, already a third of the population, if not more, had experienced two deep crises and had learned the power of its collective strength. Even before reaching these numbers, workers were struggling for their immediate economic demands, particularly against constant wage reductions and for shorter workdays. They formed organizations like the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers, founded in 1794, which frequently led strikes. At the time, unions were entirely illegal and considered unlawful conspiracies, yet workers persisted in their fight.
One of the major problems of these early unions, one that persisted well into the 20th century, was that they were craft unions composed only of skilled workers. Worse, they often refused membership to unskilled workers in the same industry, forcing them to form their own separate unions. Another issue was the prevalence of utopian socialist sentiments, as evidenced by the numerous utopian projects attempted in the US. As Foster highlights, this was due to several factors: (1) the availability of ample cheap land, (2) the absence of significant feudal political restrictions, and (3) a population ready and willing to attempt social change and experimentation, influenced by their proximity to the experience of the American Revolution of 1776. It was under these conditions that Marxism arrived on the continent.
During the latter half of the 1800s, immigration from Europe to the US skyrocketed. Many migrant workers, most of them skilled in one trade or another, poured into the factories. They came from all over Europe, from Italy to Ireland, but it was the German workers who played the most decisive role in the development of Marxism in the US. For the most part, they settled in the country’s industrial hubs, where they contributed to the trade union movement. Many of these workers were veterans of the labor struggles and revolutions in Germany, making them among the most class-conscious and ideologically developed. However, Marxism was not the only political current they brought with them; they also carried various opportunist and utopian ideas. Among these were the theories of Ferdinand Lassalle, which retained legitimacy among German workers and led to harmful consequences. F.A. Sorge would later lead the struggle in the US against “Lassalleanism”.
During this time, figures like Wilhelm Weitling also arrived in the US, advocating an eclectic socialism that straddled the line between utopian and scientific socialism. Weitling’s ideas, particularly his “labor exchange bank scheme”, played a negative role in the early US Marxist movement until the 1860s. This scheme traces its origins to the ideas of Robert Owen, the English utopian socialist whose ideas Engels analyzed and critiqued in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
Owen proposed two measures as transitional steps toward the full communist organization of society: (1) the creation of retail and production cooperatives, and (2) the establishment of labor exchanges that utilized one-hour labor notes as a medium of exchange. The first measure merely demonstrated that the middleman, commercial capitalists and pre-industrial capitalists whose interests this initiative represented, had become obsolete in a more advanced capitalist society. The second measure, as Engels observed, was “necessarily doomed to failure”.
Despite the influence of utopians, great Marxist theorists and revolutionaries also immigrated, including several of Marx’s close collaborators. Figures such as F.A. Sorge, Adolph Douai, August Willich, Robert Rosa, Fritz Jacobi, and Siegfried Meyer formed the growing circle of Marxists in America. However, one figure stood out as a great leader among them: Joseph Weydemeyer. A German-born artillery officer, Weydemeyer was not only a well-informed Marxist but also a participant in the 1848 German revolution. He worked closely with Marx and Engels as an editor for Neue Rheinische Zeitung (New Rhineland Newspaper), of which Marx was editor-in-chief. In fact, it was in a letter to Weydemeyer that Marx demonstrated that the existence of classes was bound up with the historical phases of the development of production and that the resulting class struggle “necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat” as the “only transition to the abolishment of classes and to a classless society”.
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| Joseph Weydemeyer, 1818 – 1866 |
Despite its short lifespan and weaknesses, such as failing to take a stance on slavery and being composed almost exclusively of German workers, the American Labor Union (ALU) was a positive step forward. It demonstrated the influence of early Marxists over the German-American working class, even though their impact remained limited to this section of workers. While the difficult conditions in the US made it challenging to mobilize the native working class, errors were also made that hindered progress. One such mistake was the German workers’ refusal to learn English, which they saw as a matter of principle. They remained more focused on developments in their home country than on building the revolution in the US. This error persisted well into the 1880s and negatively impacted class struggle among native-born workers.
Engels criticized this mistake in a letter to Sorge, writing:
“The Germans have not understood how to use their theory as a lever which could set the American masses in motion; they do not understand the theory themselves for the most part and treat it in a doctrinaire and dogmatic way, as something which has got to be learned off by heart but which will then supply all needs without more ado. To them it is a credo and not a guide to action.”
He went on to describe how American workers, left to find their own way, ultimately turned to organizations such as the Knights of Labor.
Marxists in the Struggle Against Slavery
One of the most important topics Foster covers is the role of Marxists in the Civil War. Early Marxists played a pivotal role in the fight against slavery, not only promoting the necessity of abolition among workers but also joining the Union Army when war broke out.
When the Republican Party emerged from various groups of liberals, reformers, farmers, and labor leaders disillusioned with the Whig and Democratic parties, it did so explicitly to oppose the expansion of slavery. Northern industrialists saw in this new party a golden opportunity to wrest political control from the slave-owning class and advance their own program. Workers, however, had mixed reactions to the party, but Marxists were solidly in support. They understood that as long as slavery endured, the workers’ movement could not progress.
Marx writes in Capital, Vol. 1:
“In the United States of North America, every independent movement of the workers was paralysed so long as slavery disfigured a part of the Republic. Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded.”
Understanding this, Marxists threw themselves into the struggle by any means necessary, even rallying support for the Republican Party among workers. The reality was that the bourgeois revolution remained incomplete as long as slavery dominated a significant portion of the country. Moreover, the bourgeois republic, with its capitalist system, represented the more progressive socio-economic order. Even the northern bourgeoisie recognized the necessity of destroying this backward holdover to consolidate its rule, however tepid its opposition to slavery remained. Only when forced by the secession of the slave states did northern capital finally commit to military struggle.
In contrast, Marxists were uncompromising enemies of slavery. When the Civil War broke out, many Marxists joined the fight, Weydemeyer among them. He enlisted in the Union Army and, due to his prior military experience in the Prussian artillery, became a technical aide on General J.C. Frémont’s staff. Within just seven months, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and given command of an artillery regiment to fight Confederate forces in southern Missouri. Towards the end of the war, he commanded the 41st Missouri Volunteer Infantry, which defended St. Louis. Even in the military, Weydemeyer never ceased promoting the socialist cause among his fellow soldiers, distributing copies of the Inaugural Address of the International Workingmen’s Association.
Of course, this part of history is deliberately hidden by the bourgeoisie. It was the communists who championed the Abolitionist cause unwaveringly, even as many in the capitalist class dreaded the prospect of war. It was communists, both foreign-born and native-born workers, who took up arms to fight against the barbaric system of slavery, with countless numbers sacrificing their lives for this just cause.
Not only did communists join the struggle, but many, especially the Forty-Eighters, served as high-ranking officers, leading armies into battle. Yet, official history makes no mention of this because it is another example of communists being at the forefront of workers’ struggles throughout history. Acknowledging this would reveal that much of the progress in this country, from the eight-hour workday to the abolition of slavery, is owed to the US communist movement and the valiant sacrifices of hundreds of thousands of workers.
As communists, we must reclaim this history and teach our class its own legacy. We must show that our history is one of struggle and sacrifice, not of class peace and dialogue.
Socialist Labor Party
The Socialist Labor Party (SLP) emerged as the leading Marxist organization in the US following the dissolution of the International Workingmen’s Association in 1876. Founded that same year as a fusion of Marxist and Lasallian socialist groups under the name the Workingmen’s Party of America, it later changed its name to the Socialist Labor Party.
From the start, the SLP was actively involved in the daily struggles of the working class, supporting strikes such as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and advocating for reforms like the eight-hour workday. However, as Foster notes, the SLP was plagued by constant internal struggles. One major conflict was between the Marxists and the Lassalleans, who initially dominated the party leadership. These opportunists, led by Van Patten, used setbacks in the labor movement as a pretext to denounce trade union struggles, declaring unions worthless and arguing that the party should focus exclusively on parliamentary political action.
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| Maryland National Guard’s Sixth Regiment fighting striking workers on the streets of Maryland during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. |
These elements sank even deeper into opportunism, compromising with the Greenbackers and giving ground to the reactionary slogans of Denis Kearney, such as “The Chinese must go.” The Greenbackers being the political party of the petty bourgeoisie, specifically the small farmer. They emerged in the context of the 1873 crisis that decimated small farmers and that spurred a surge in the agrarian movement in the US. Greenbackers, named after the paper currency issued by the North during the Civil War, advocated for printing large quantities of paper bills, unbacked by gold. They believed that by increasing the money in circulation, the country’s economic ills would be cured.
This position is incorrect for two main reasons:
[1] In capitalist society, with the growth and circulation of money, paper money arises. Marx, even analyzing paper money that was linked to gold, analyzes the result of “excessive” money circulation as a devaluation of the currency or an increase in prices. When exceptionally large masses of it accumulate in circulation, it depreciates and subsequently leads to the lowering of the standard of life for the working people.
[2] Issuing more money suggests “stimulating economic activity” as a viable way out for the working class. The over issuance of paper money causes depreciation. Depreciation is then used by the ruling class for the purpose of transferring the burden of State expenditures onto the backs of the working class, increasing their exploitation through inflation. One of the characteristic features of inflation is the presence of excessive money in circulation. For instance, in the US in 2020, both the Trump and Biden administrations implemented measures that significantly increased the money supply as part of recovery efforts from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these actions have done little to ease the burden on the workers and popular sectors, with inflation remaining above 1% since 2020 and purchasing power declining by approximately 19%.
From this we can conclude that issuing a higher quantity of paper money cannot lead to any improvement in the relationship between capital and labor.
Ultimately, there is no pro-people form of capitalism. All monetary reforms under capitalism are always undertaken at the expense of the working people. These reforms are carried out by the capitalist state, which serves the purpose of maintaining the dictatorship of the capitalist class. The state, as the collective capitalist, is going to implement those monetary reforms which are in the class interests of the capitalists and not the working class. Capitalist development, the profits of capital, presuppose a relative impoverishment of the workers, regardless of whether the increase in the degree of exploitation is achieved by a direct reduction in wages or by redistribution of income through taxes or even inflation.
The early Marxists failed to draw these critical lessons from the economic crises of the 1800s, which deeply affected workers and the popular sectors. As a result, the party’s program became increasingly watered down, eventually abandoning the necessity of revolution in favor of a gradual, step-by-step abolition of capitalism. Subsequently, the SLP entered a period of significant decline, due in no small part to these failures.
Compounding this failure was the emergence of Daniel De Leon as a major figure in the Socialist Labor Party. He joined the party in the 1890s, eventually becoming the editor of one of its newspapers and later its leader. De Leon, and by extension “De Leonism”, expressed major theoretical errors.
Among them were his beliefs that industrial trade unions were destined to manage the new society, a position shared by anarcho-syndicalism. He proposed that the Party would peacefully win a majority at the polls, concluding its political objectives and then dissolve itself. Further, he rejected the Marxist analysis of the class structure within the country leading to a rejection of an elaboration of the necessary alliances between the working class and the popular strata.The Great October Revolution ultimately proved these views incorrect. De Leon also elaborated the line of dual unionism, which in practice siphons off the most militant workers from the unions, leaving them in the hands of reactionary union leaders. He also rejected all partial demands, failing to take up the mantle of educating the working class in the struggle against capital and to form their demands towards this end, reducing the SLP’s program to a single demand: “the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class.”
De Leon misread political and economic developments, demonstrating a poor understanding of Marxist political economy. This led him to view trusts as progressive, causing him to dismiss the struggles of the intermediate classes against the monopolies.
Socialist Party
The Socialist Party was founded in 1901 through the merger of the Social Democratic Party of America and sections of the SLP that had split following the party’s decline. While it was an improvement over the SLP, it suffered from a general underestimation of theory.
Leaders such as Eugene Debs, though great trade unionists, were theoretically underdeveloped yet remained in leadership due to their mass appeal. Debs, for instance, identified imperialism merely as “expansionism” or a quantitative growth of capitalism, failing to grasp its significance as a qualitative development in the capitalist system towards a higher, parasitic stage. He also aligned with De Leon on the issue of trusts, viewing them as a progressive development that the party neither could nor should oppose.
Another issue was Debs’ tendency toward dual unionism, exemplified by his call for the establishment of a new labor movement in 1914. All of this confirms Foster’s assessment of Debs as a courageous and militant trade union fighter but ultimately lacking in theoretical depth.
Morris Hillquit was another leader who remained in a position of influence despite his theoretical shortcomings. Although he led the struggle against De Leon within the SLP, he retained elements of “De Leonism” in his thinking. As Foster highlights, Hillquit leaned toward collaboration with Samuel Gompers, a rabid anti-Marxist, yellow union leader, even advocating a policy of “neutrality” toward the unions.
Raher than working within the unions to strengthen them, raise workers’ consciousness, and orient them in a communist direction, Hillquit’s approach was one of abstention, leaving the workers to the bosses and their labor lieutenants. Ultimately, he revealed himself as a traitor to the movement when, in 1919, he orchestrated the expulsion of over 55,000 left-wing members from the party and consolidated all party property into a corporation controlled by just seven members.
Atits core, the Socialist Party suffered from a general disinterest in theory. Instead of building ideological unity among its leadership, it allowed theoretical weaknesses and opportunism to fester. Even today, we see these same mistakes repeated in other “socialist” organizations, such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), where eclecticism and opportunism dominate through the existence of caucuses expressing various theoretical currents.
Communist Party
The Communist Party emerged in 1919 as a split from the Socialist Party, the result of an increasingly intense struggle between the collaborationist, reformist right wing and the militant left wing. Inspired by the Great October Revolution, the left sought to establish a revolutionary Marxist party. This split led to the formation of two major organizations: the Communist Party of America (CPA) and the Communist Labor Party (CLP). While both shared essentially the same program, the CPA was the more revolutionary of the two.
Unlike the CLP, which advocated a more legalistic approach, the CPA was more willing to promote and utilize all methods of struggle, be they legal or illegal. This is an important aspect of the activity of the Party, no matter the circumstances. The Party must be able to weather all conditions, preserving the operations of the Party both above ground and underground. How else, but through the acceptance and use of all methods of struggle, can the working class take power? Revolutions, by their nature, are hardly “legal” affairs. At the outbreak of the First World War, there were many “socialist” parties that, completely subsumed by opportunism, promoted “defencism”. That is, they called on the workers to support “their” bourgeoisie in the imperialist war, to aid in “their” bourgeoisie’s division and exploitation of the world. For this betrayal, the leaders of these parties were rewarded with official and cabinet positions or complete legal existence.
This period was one of both economic and political crises brought on by the war. Lenin, upholding the revolutionary principles of a communist and with total confidence in the proletariat, recognized the necessity of carrying out all activity, legal and illegal, to use this crisis as a means to “rouse” the masses and “hasten the downfall of capitalist rule.” Instead of this correct position, the opportunist parties turned social-chauvinist and deserted to the camp of the bourgeoisie. Having renounced revolution, they gave up all forms of illegal work and openly collaborated with the bourgeoisie, serving as ministers in the capitalist state.
In Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International, Lenin points out the common political content of opportunism and social-chauvinism, writing: “Opportunism and social-chauvinism have the same political content, namely, class collaboration, repudiation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, repudiation of revolutionary action, unconditional acceptance of bourgeois legality, confidence in the bourgeoisie and lack of confidence in the proletariat.”
Having lost its left wing, the Socialist Party quickly disintegrated, fading into irrelevance as expected. Social-democratic mass parties, of which the SP certainly qualified, are characterized by their ideological and organizational eclecticism. With a logic of “unity for the sake of unity”, the existence of several tendencies is not only tolerated within such parties but even celebrated. The social composition of such parties, skewed towards non-proletarian classes, invariably leads them to opportunism. Once stripped of their revolutionary elements, they are incapable of winning over the working class. This is not only because their opportunism becomes more blatant as the right wing consolidates control but also because the most militant and committed organizers, who carry out the bulk of grassroots work, are no longer present. Without them, these parties rot and swiftly collapse.
This is why it is a dangerous mistake for truly revolutionary and earnest individuals to join such organizations. No matter their numbers, it is impossible to transform social-democratic parties into vanguard parties. These parties are not revolutionary. Some may pay lip service to revolutionary aims or employ revolutionary phrases, but none of it changes their reformist, class-collaborationist character. This character is made evident when they participate in bourgeois governments or vote for wars or measures that favor the capitalists. Take the case of the DSA and their endorsement of Bernie Sanders, who self-styles as a “democratic socialist” and a champion of the working class. In 1999, he voted in favor of NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia, siding with the bourgeoisie and its imperialist plans. The DSA’s endorsement of the release valve for capital through the Green New Deal, and its member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vilifying pro-Palestine protests and voting “present” and then “yes” on US funding for Israel’s Iron Dome, are further examples. Other instances include the mutation of the CPUSA into an appendage of the Democratic Party and its support for the governments of Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.
In both cases, the actions of the modern CPUSA and the DSA demonstrate their usefulness as the “left-wing” of capital, as obstacles in the development of the revolutionary consciousness of the masses, delaying the reorganization of the Communist Party and thus the socialist revolution itself. The correct response is to abandon these formations—immediately, decisively, and completely.
Concluding Remarks
The Communist Party was founded in 1919 as a direct response to the October Revolution. The establishment of a Party of a New Type in the United States could not have occurred any sooner, as it was only after the success of the Bolsheviks that the Leninist model of organization became undeniably clear.
Foster highlights that, prior to this, US communists had largely ignored developments in Russia, in part because the opportunist leadership of the Second International had painted both the Bolsheviks and Lenin in an extremely negative light. Only after the revolution succeeded, when word spread that the workers had taken power in Russia, did communists in the US begin to seriously seek out Lenin’s works. Even then, it remains an open question whether the party as a whole ever fully absorbed the lessons of the October Revolution. Though the following thirty years of the Party’s history suggests that was not the case.
One of the principal issues that persisted throughout the early history of the movement, up until the formation of the Communist Party, was the lack of an effective program. Many of the programs of the various socialist and communist parties failed to address key aspects of the class struggle, ultimately falling short of developing a truly revolutionary program.
A revolutionary program must first and foremost clarify the character of the revolution it seeks to bring about. That is, it must clearly define which class will take power as a result and what fundamental contradiction will be resolved through this social revolution. A party that fails to provide this clarity will be unable to develop a strategy for mobilizing the key forces necessary to wage a concentrated struggle against the capitalist class and advance towards revolution. Once the character of the revolution is identified and the contradiction it seeks to resolve is understood, the groundwork is laid for developing a strategy to unite and direct those social forces with an objective interest in revolution.
However, this is only a precondition, far from the entirety of what a revolutionary program must encompass. A revolutionary program must also analyze and predict the tendencies of the country’s capitalist system, how these tendencies interact with political developments, and the relationship between the domestic bourgeois state and the broader world imperialist system. Crucially, it must identify contradictions that could serve as potential destabilizing factors for capitalism in the future.
Beyond explaining the present society, the program must also articulate the basic structure, scientific laws, and guiding principles of the future communist society it seeks to establish. Further, it must outline the key challenges that will arise during the early phase of socialism-communism and provide a strategic approach for overcoming them.
Another persistent issue was the ideological immaturity of the native US working class. This was, in part, due to the absence of a revolutionary party with an effective program capable of cutting through the non-proletarian, petty-bourgeois ideas that persisted among native-born workers. However, the material conditions of the United States at the time also played a significant role in fostering this immaturity.
The vast amounts of so-called “free” land, secured through the American Indian Wars, the Mexican-American War, and other wars of conquest, acted as a release valve for class conflict. They are part of the favorable conditions of the development of capitalism in the US and its early entrance into the imperialist phase. The development of imperialism, and the entrance of countries into the imperialist system, as Lenin points out, is related to the development of opportunism. Instead of developing class consciousness and engaging in proletarian struggle, many workers saw westward expansion as an individual escape from economic hardship. The availability of land also lent credence to utopian ideas, further delaying the ideological development of the working class.
All of this contributed to the political backwardness of the US working class, making it more difficult for a revolutionary movement to develop critical momentum and for Marxist ideas to gain traction on a mass scale.
It is crucial to consider the state of the Communist Party and the broader movement when engaging with Foster’s book. Despite its wealth of knowledge, his account retains some ideological errors that were common within the Party at that time. Foster wrote this in a period when the Party had already suffered the effects of the line of the 7th Congress of the Communist International, the Popular Front strategy, Browderism, and even the liquidation of the Party itself. These errors are reflected in certain aspects of his analysis of historical events.
One example can be found in Chapter 8, where Foster rejects the use of violence on principle. He criticizes the left wing of the Socialist Party for rejecting an amendment that stated:
“Any member of the Party who opposes political action or advocates crime, sabotage, or other methods of violence as a weapon of the working class to aid in its emancipation, shall be expelled from membership in this Party.”
Foster’s discussion of this is ambiguous. On the one hand, he correctly identifies that the real struggle over this amendment was between those who wished to preserve the Party’s fighting spirit and those who sought to turn it into a purely electoral machine with an opportunist program. On the other hand, he frames the debate as revolving primarily around sabotage, despite also acknowledging that the previous Socialist Party convention had rejected the use of force and violence more broadly. This reveals the increasingly peaceful and legalistic orientation of the Party, as well as a lack of clarity on the question of the seizure of state power.
While it is true that this book was written in 1956, during the height of the second Red Scare and intense censorship, this cannot diminish the character and objectives of the Communist Party. Lenin and the Bolsheviks faced similar, if not worse, repression but never diluted or abandoned their principles. At most, Lenin would use euphemisms or an allegory to make his case subtly. If a topic could not be openly addressed, it was better to avoid it entirely, reserving it for the illegal press, than to argue against violence on principle.
Violence, as Lenin explains in Where to Begin?, is “one of the forms of military action that may be perfectly suitable and even essential at a definite juncture in the battle, given a definite state of the troops and the existence of definite conditions.”
The rejection of violence on principle is ultimately a rejection of revolution. It is also a rejection of the class struggle, the development of which determines the strategy and tactics necessary at any given period. It is the conditions created by the violence of the ruling class that make such tactics necessary in the first place.
One must understand that the bourgeoisie will never relinquish its dictatorship peacefully. It has used, and will continue to use, the state—an instrument of organized force—to preserve exploitation. In other words, it will employ as much violence as needed to maintain its dominance over the exploited classes.
History offers many examples of this. One such instance is the Ludlow Massacre, where the National Guard acted alongside company guards and private militias to murder striking mine workers and their families in Colorado. A more recent example is the violent repression of pro-Palestinian encampments on university campuses, including the deportation of leaders and participants involved in this student movement.
The Proletarian Revolution—the armed insurrection of the proletariat, in alliance with social forces that share an objective interest in overthrowing the ruling class—is simply a continuation of the class struggle. Under revolutionary conditions, workers and the popular sections of society with an objective interest in the end of capitalism must be organized into a unified front with the goal of seizing power.
This revolutionary front must utilize all forms of activity to become the center of a popular uprising, ultimately gaining the capacity to confront the violence of capital with its own. Such an outcome is impossible if the Party, even in non-revolutionary conditions, refuses to employ every form of activity required by the current stage of the class struggle.
A key area for further study is the underestimation of theory, which was only briefly touched upon. Understanding why theory was underestimated will help us grasp why the Communist movement, despite its numbers and apparent strength, failed to take power in the US or seemingly made no discernible effort to prepare for an insurrection. Part of this task requires a close examination of the essential documents of historical parties, the writings of their leading members, and an investigation into their class composition.
