A New Heyday for American Communism

If you haven’t noticed, capitalism isn’t particularly popular these days. Maybe it’s the long work hours, runaway inflation, and mountains of debt. Or the fact that 99% of Americans can’t afford to buy a home. Or the billions of public tax dollars sent to Israel to perpetuate genocide in Gaza. Or the mass shootings, mental health crisis, and accelerating climate catastrophe. Or perhaps it’s because the only political options we’re offered are the embodiment of pure evil—and we’re expected to grin and bear it.

All of this is pressing on people’s consciousness, and the general instability of the system means that even more dramatic transformations in outlook are on the way. In society, as in nature, similar conditions lead to similar results, and the American stage is being set for something big.

In the 1930s, capitalism was in a deep crisis, and the idea that the system’s days were numbered resonated with millions. Communists were at the forefront of virtually every workers’ struggle, injecting them with energy, ideas, and audacity. Oceans of communists filled the streets of major cities, and entire workplaces and neighborhoods were communist strongholds.

Those of us alive today should learn from the example and tenacity of our forebears. But a new generation of communists has arrived, and we should be confident that the best days of American communism lie ahead of us, not in the past.

Because the 2020s are shaping up to be more like the 1930s than anything we’ve seen since then. Even the inspiring struggles of the ‘60s and ‘70s will pale in comparison. Ours will be a period of intensifying class battles that will eventually pose the question: Who should run society—the workers or the capitalists?

Based on their own experience, millions of Americans will make the leap and realize that they agree with the communists when they say capitalism has got to go.

This is why the RCA has launched the most extensive communist recruitment campaign since World War II. Over the last few weeks, we’ve met hundreds of people who are fed up with doomscrolling on the sidelines and want to do something that can actually contribute to ending capitalism in their lifetime.

That something is to build and spread the RCA. Our immediate goal is to find and organize the first 10,000 members, the backbone for a future mass communist party.

The communists are no longer a handful of individuals huddled together in the political wilderness. It’s taken nearly a century, but communism is making a comeback—and we’re only getting started.

This isn’t the first time revolutionary ideas have resonated with vast numbers in the US. Let’s learn from last time.

As the billionaire investor Warren Buffet once said: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

American workers are sick and tired of this one-sided affair and are beginning to regroup to move onto the offensive. As we begin to flex our collective muscles, it’s worth looking back, not only to this country’s incredible revolutionary traditions, but to the inspiring class wars fought between labor and capital many decades ago.

The 1920s and ‘30s were a time when the working class had a force behind it­, giving it strength and confidence to stand up to the bosses. That backbone was made up of communists.

When the bosses tried to force a wage cut, saying it was “out of their hands” due to conditions in the economy, the communists were there to expose their lies and show their coworkers precisely how the employers were exploiting them.

When the union leaders claimed they had no choice but to accept another concessionary contract, the communists stood up and made a case for fighting the company’s attacks, with concrete proposals for forcing the bosses’ hand.

When the bosses tried to prevent workers from coming together to fight for better wages and conditions, communists were there to help organize general strikes, factory occupations, and industrial unions.

The rise of industrial unions was the work of militant fighters who understood what the class war was about. Instead of organizing only workers in a specific occupation or trade, industrial unions include all the workers in a specific industry, regardless of their job description. The CIO unions exploded onto the scene as a result of aggressive strike tactics that spread from industry to industry, inspiring workers in their collective power to assert their interests.

Another example of class struggle spearheaded by communists was the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), founded by William Z. Foster in 1920. Foster was a seasoned radical labor organizer who joined the underground Communist Party of America after a trip to Soviet Russia. TUEL aimed at uniting radicals within various trade unions for a common course of militant action.

Founded in Chicago, TUEL began with about two dozen active members, including Communists, Socialists, and former Wobblies. Partially subsidized by the Communist International after 1922, it focused on disseminating its ideas through pamphlets and a monthly magazine, the Labor Herald. While not an openly Marxist publication, it did present Marxist ideas in language that would be readily received by ordinary workers.

Needless to say, TUEL faced opposition from the American Federation of Labor and Samuel Gompers, who opposed its efforts to amalgamate small unions into larger industrial ones, and to replace conservative union leaderships with class fighters—not to mention its communist ties.

TUEL also advocated breaking the labor movement from the Democrats and Republicans. In December 1922, The Labor Herald called for an independent workers’ movement and a united front labor party to represent working-class interests, encompass all working-class parties, and allow political formations to maintain their identity while partaking in collective action.

Through the energetic action of the communists, TUEL made rapid gains and had serious potential. Unfortunately, the bureaucratic degeneration of the USSR also affected TUEL and it went into decline after 1928. Nonetheless, the role of these pioneering American communists remains an inspiration to this day. As TUEL’s founding program proclaimed:

These live spirits are the natural head of the working class, the driving force of the labor movement. They are the only ones who really understand what the labor struggle means and who have practical plans for its prosecution. Touched by the divine fire of proletarian revolt, they are the ones who furnish inspiration and guidance … The activities of the militants are the ‘key’ to the labor movement, the source of all its real life and progress.