The Collapse of CPUSA is an ongoing political crisis within the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) that began following the process of the Dissolution of the Soviet Union and the failed August Coup in 1991. Since then, the CPUSA have fallen into factional disarray between liberal pro-Democrat tailists and Marxist-Leninists.[1]
Background[edit | edit source]
Since the beginning of Mikhail Gorbachev's administration of the Soviet Union in 1985, the CPUSA had de facto failed to remain a Communist organization as it began to cave into the demands of the Democratic Party and continued to support the liberalized Gorbachev administration. Instead of advocating for Marxism-Leninism, the CPUSA had begun advocating for what was, effectively, social democracy.[1]
Angela Davis's Attempted Coup[edit | edit source]
After the fall of the Soviet Union (USSR), Angela Davis used this as an opportunity to form a faction against the "conservative" leadership of Gus Hall, who was pro-Soviet but anti-Perestroika. She had managed to get the support of Pete Seeger, Jarvis Tyner and many others who were supposedly "loyal" to the CPUSA in the past. At the 1994 convention they staged a walkout and formed the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), which was a social democratic organization which had the support of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) but also by foreign social democratic parties such as the newly founded German Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS), the revisionist South African Communist Party (SACP) and Lula's Workers' Party (PT) of Brazil.[2]
Liberalization of CPUSA[edit | edit source]
After the CCDS had already split, many people remained inside the CPUSA as supporters of Davis even after she had split. One of those people was Sam Webb, who remained a close associate of Gus Hall while working behind his back. When Gus Hall Died in 2000, Sam Webb took over the party, purging any pro soviet and Marxist-Leninist trace of the party.
In the years following the coup, the CPUSA became a complete puppet of the Democratic Party as it betrayed the proletariat and advocated for electing Democrat candidates across the United States. Many members fo CPUSA criticized this blatant liberalization of the party, however few actually left the party or rebelled against the leadership in the 1992-2022 time period.[3]
CPUSA 2036[edit | edit source]
Infrared and MAGA Communism[edit | edit source]
In 2022, opposing the liberalization of CPUSA, a Marxist-Leninist organization in the United States known as Infrared began pushing for #CPUSA2036. The goal of CPUSA 2036 as a slogan was to infiltrate, reclaim, and deliberalize the CPUSA and turn it into the vanguard party of a Second American Revolution against the bourgeoisie.[4]
A few months into the CPUSA 2036 movement, a new concept of #MAGACommunism began to develop within Infrared and its supporters. MAGA Communism is, now, an adaption of the mass line to the United States where the American proletariat and peasantry of all banners come together and fight for common prosperity, common equality, and liberty from fascism. These groups that would unite include farmers, the railroad strikers, and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.[5]
Party split[edit | edit source]
In August, 2022, a split occurred in the Communist Party of South New Hampshire (CPSNH) when members of the CPUSA from New Hampshire split from the main party and formed their own CPUSA New Hampshire (CPUSANH) as a "rogue" branch of the party that advocated for both #CPUSA2036 and #MAGACommunism.[6] This split remained isolated in New Hampshire for until October, 2022, when more CPUSA branches split between pro-Democrat and "rogue" factions all across the country. It finally came to ahead when, on October 19, 2022, a new organization calling itself the CPUSA emerged as separate from the liberalized one,[7] officially formalizing a split in the party. The new anti-Democrat CPUSA created a website on October 21, 2022,[8] and began to come into conflict with the pro-liberal branches.