Talk:Communist Party USA

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Communist Party USA article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3: 6 months

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Politics: American / Political parties Mid‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by American politics task force (assessed as Mid-importance).
	This article is supported by Political parties task force (assessed as Mid-importance).

United States Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Elections and Referendums

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Elections and Referendums, an ongoing effort to improve the quality of, expand upon and create new articles relating to elections, electoral reform and other aspects of democratic decision-making. For more information, visit our project page.Elections and ReferendumsWikipedia:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsTemplate:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsElections and Referendums articles

Socialism High‑importance

	Socialism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Socialism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of socialism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SocialismWikipedia:WikiProject SocialismTemplate:WikiProject Socialismsocialism articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

Ken Braun (August 7, 2019). "Wikipedia's Birthday Gift to American Communism". Capital Research Center.

Section sizes

Section size for Communist Party USA (28 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	10,805	10,805
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	20,890
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	1,865	1,865
United States peace movement	1,255	1,255
Election results	158	4,926
Presidential tickets	3,670	3,670
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	87,732	87,732

Archives

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

This page has archives. Sections older than 180 days may be automatically archived by when more than 4 sections are present.

Marxism-Leninism?

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]

Semi-protected edit request on 9 February 2024

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

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]

Request: Add a section on splinter parties

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]

20000 vs 5000 members

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]

Nonexistent or miscredited Source

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]