American Communists Did a Lot Right and a Lot Wrong
Members of the Communist Party USA in its heyday were much more complicated than the stereotypes of them, shaped so strongly by rabid anti-communism, in our country’s imagination. Today’s socialists should closely examine their track record.
American Communists made vital contributions to a wide range of progressive social movements. Today’s leftists can learn much from their successes and failures. (Abbott Sengstacke Family Papers / Robert Abbott Sengstacke / Getty Images)
I was a small child while the Eastern Bloc was collapsing. During this time, my parents and I would vacation in Upstate New York at a retreat called Arrow Park. The austere resort was known for being owned by a Communist Party–affiliated fraternal organization, with an ostensible bust of Walt Whitman at the entrance that looked more like Karl Marx than the American poet.
At its lake, I enjoyed swimming, boat rides, and a limited menu. While I was oblivious to the crisis of “real existing socialism” on the other side of the world, I was not immune to the anti-communism in US culture. When I saw a large portrait of Abraham Lincoln in a main building, I asked my parents, “If they’re Communists, why do they have a picture of Lincoln?”
My mother succinctly replied, “Lincoln freed the slaves.”
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