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121-582: New Masses (1926–1948) was an American Marxist magazine closely associated with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). It was the successor to both The Masses (1911–1917) and The Liberator (1918–1924). New Masses was later merged into Masses & Mainstream (1948–1963). With the widespread economic hardships brought on by the Great Depression of 1929, many Americans were more receptive to socialist and leftist ideas. As
242-522: A socialist revolution in contemporary society is inevitable. While the inevitability of an eventual socialist revolution is a controversial debate among many different Marxist schools of thought , all Marxists believe socialism is a necessity. Marxists argue that a socialist society is far better for most of the populace than its capitalist counterpart. Prior to the Russian Revolution , Vladimir Lenin wrote: "The socialisation of production
363-483: A Marxist perspective. Other developments include: The latest field of research examines and develops Marxist pedagogy in the postdigital era. Communist Party USA Progressive Era Repression and persecution Anti-war and civil rights movements Contemporary Former parties Former parties Former parties The Communist Party USA , officially the Communist Party of
484-519: A Marxist would conclude that capitalism exploits and oppresses the proletariat; therefore, capitalism will inevitably lead to a proletarian revolution . In a socialist society, private property —as the means of production—would be replaced by cooperative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits but on the criteria of satisfying human needs—that is, production for use . Friedrich Engels explained that "the capitalist mode of appropriation, in which
605-611: A Women's Equality Commission, which recognizes the role of women as an asset in moving towards building socialism. Historically significant in American history as an early fighter for African Americans' rights and playing a leading role in protesting the lynchings of African Americans in the South, the Communist Party in its national program today calls racism the "classic divide-and-conquer tactic". From its New York City base,
726-479: A backlash against Marxist thought in post-communist states, such as Poland . However, it remains prominent in the sociological research sanctioned and supported by communist states, such as in China . Marxian economics is a school of economic thought tracing its foundations to the critique of classical political economy first expounded upon by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxian economics concerns itself with
847-837: A bastion of Marxist conformity. By the end of 1928, when Mike Gold and Joseph Freeman gained full editorial control, the “ Stalinist / Trotskyist ” division began in earnest. Gold’s January 1929 column, "Go Left, Young Writers!", initiated the “ proletarian literature ” movement, one spurred by the emergence of writers with true working-class credentials. Barbara Foley points out, though, that Gold and his peers did not eschew various literary forms in favor of strict realism ; they advocated stylistic experimentation, but championed and preferred genuine proletarian authorship. A substantial number of poems, short stories, journalistic pieces, and quasi-autobiographical sketches by young working-class writers ( Richard Wright and Jack Conroy being prime examples) dominated New Masses in its earliest days because
968-526: A certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution ." These inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in society which are, in turn, fought out at
1089-551: A concrete study of the actual conditions in Europe. According to the Marxist theoretician and revolutionary socialist Vladimir Lenin, "the principal content of Marxism" was "Marx's economic doctrine." Marx demonstrated how the capitalist bourgeoisie and their economists were promoting what he saw as the lie that "the interests of the capitalist and of the worker are ... one and the same." He believed that they did this by purporting
1210-578: A covert apparatus to assist the Soviets with their intelligence activities in the United States and utilized a network of front organizations to shape public opinion. The CPUSA opposed glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union. As a result, major funding from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ended in 1991. During the first half of the 20th century, the Communist Party
1331-653: A daily newspaper written in Yiddish . For decades, its West Coast newspaper was the People's World and its East Coast newspaper was The Daily World . The two newspapers merged in 1986 into the People's Weekly World . The People's Weekly World has since become an online only publication called People's World . It has since ceased being an official Communist Party publication as the party does not fund its publication. The party's former theoretical journal Political Affairs
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#17327760507011452-413: A labourer—is synonymous with surplus labour, and capitalist exploitation is thus realised as deriving surplus value from the worker. In pre-capitalist economies , exploitation of the worker was achieved via physical coercion . Under the capitalist mode of production, workers do not own the means of production and must "voluntarily" enter into an exploitative work relationship with a capitalist to earn
1573-501: A materialist theory of history, Marx did not claim to have produced a master key to history and that the materialist conception of history is not "an historico-philosophic theory of the marche générale , imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself." In a letter to the editor of the Russian newspaper paper Otechestvennyje Zapiski (1877), he explained that his ideas were based upon
1694-517: A minority faction which urged social democrats to exit the now reduced party. The party has since adopted Marxism–Leninism within its program. In 2014, the new draft of the party constitution declared: "We apply the scientific outlook developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin and others in the context of our American history, culture, and traditions." The Communist Party is based in New York City. From 1922 to 1988, it published Morgen Freiheit ,
1815-443: A place for creative writing of a leftist character was one of the original missions of New Masses , but this mission was crowded out by urgent demands for political and economic discussion and by the need for adherence to Party doctrine. According to Arthur Ferrari, the fate of New Masses illustrates how the circumstances under which political and cultural forces converge can be temporary in nature. Despite being an official organ of
1936-403: A post-capitalist society—positive humanism, socialism, Communism, realm of free individuality, free association of producers, etc. He used these terms completely interchangeably. The notion that 'socialism' and 'Communism' are distinct historical stages is alien to his work and only entered the lexicon of Marxism after his death." According to orthodox Marxist theory, overthrowing capitalism by
2057-525: A result, New Masses grew in circulation and became highly influential in literary, artistic, and intellectual circles. The magazine has been called “the principal organ of the American cultural left from 1926 onwards." New Masses was launched in New York City in 1926 as part of the Workers (Communist) Party of America 's stable of publications, produced by a communist leadership but making use of
2178-576: A school of thought, Marxism has had a profound effect on society and global academia. To date, it has influenced many fields, including anthropology , archaeology , art theory , criminology , cultural studies , economics , education , ethics , film theory , geography , historiography , literary criticism , media studies , philosophy , political science , political economy , psychoanalysis , science studies , sociology , urban planning , and theatre . Marxism seeks to explain social phenomena within any given society by analysing
2299-554: A vision of socialism as an extension of American democracy. Seeking to "build socialism in the United States based on the revolutionary traditions and struggles" of American history, the party promotes a conception of "Bill of Rights Socialism" that will "guarantee all the freedoms we have won over centuries of struggle and also extend the Bill of Rights to include freedom from unemployment" as well as freedom "from poverty, from illiteracy, and from discrimination and oppression." Reiterating
2420-692: A word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." Marx considered recurring class conflicts as the driving force of human history as such conflicts have manifested as distinct transitional stages of development in Western Europe . Accordingly, Marx designated human history as encompassing four stages of development in relations of production: While historical materialism has been referred to as
2541-408: Is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false or seeming motive forces." Because the ruling class controls the society's means of production, the superstructure of society (i.e. the ruling social ideas)
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#17327760507012662-453: Is a study of educational reform in the U.S. and its relationship to the reproduction of capitalism and the possibilities of utilising its contradictions in the revolutionary movement. The work of Peter McLaren , especially since the turn of the 21st century, has further developed Marxist educational theory by developing revolutionary critical pedagogy, as has the work of Glenn Rikowski, Dave Hill, and Paula Allman. Other Marxists have analysed
2783-401: Is bound to lead to the conversion of the means of production into the property of society. ... This conversion will directly result in an immense increase in productivity of labour, a reduction of working hours, and the replacement of the remnants, the ruins of small-scale, primitive, disunited production by collective and improved labour." The failure of the 1905 Russian Revolution , along with
2904-403: Is certain and that is that I am not a Marxist." The discovery of the materialist conception of history, or rather, the consistent continuation and extension of materialism into the domain of social phenomenon, removed two chief defects of earlier historical theories. In the first place, they at best examined only the ideological motives of the historical activity of human beings, without grasping
3025-402: Is determined by the best interests of the ruling class. In The German Ideology , Marx says that "[t]he ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is, at the same time, its ruling intellectual force." The term political economy initially referred to the study of the material conditions of economic production in
3146-449: Is divided between the rich and the poor, and that some people subjugate and exploit other people, you're lost in a forest, not knowing anything. — Cuban revolutionary and Marxist–Leninist politician Fidel Castro on discovering Marxism, 2009 This new way of thinking was invented because socialists believed that common ownership of the means of production (i.e. the industries , land, wealth of nature, trade apparatus and wealth of
3267-448: Is introduced. Because the surplus produced by the workers is the property of the society as a whole, there are no classes of producers and appropriators. Additionally, as the state originates in the bands of retainers hired by the first ruling classes to protect their economic privilege, it will wither away as its conditions of existence have disappeared. According to The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx , "Marx used many terms to refer to
3388-476: Is necessary to understand his later works properly. Contrary to the official dialectical materialism of the Soviet Union and interpretations of Marx rooted in the structural Marxism of Louis Althusser , Marxist humanists argue that Marx's work was an extension or transcendence of enlightenment humanism . Whereas other Marxist philosophies see Marxism as natural science , Marxist humanism reaffirms
3509-465: Is not prerequisite. In addition to criticism, Marx has also praised some of the results of capitalism stating that it "has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together" and that it "has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal arrangements." Marx posited that the remaining feudalist societies in the world and forms of socialism that did not conform with his writings would be replaced by communism in
3630-601: Is now also published exclusively online, but the party still maintains International Publishers as its publishing house. In June 2014, the party held its 30th National Convention in Chicago. The party's 31st National Convention in 2019 celebrated the party's 100th year since its founding. The party announced on April 7, 2021, that it intended to run candidates in elections again, after a hiatus of over thirty years. Steven Estrada, who ran for city council in Long Beach ,
3751-561: Is often critical of reformist positions such as those held by social democrats . Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France ; emphasising the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its destiny without the need for a vanguard party to mediate or aid its liberation. Along with anarchism , libertarian Marxism
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3872-766: Is one of the main currents of libertarian socialism . Libertarian Marxism includes currents such as autonomism , council communism , De Leonism , Lettrism , parts of the New Left , Situationism , Freudo-Marxism (a form of psychoanalysis ), Socialisme ou Barbarie and workerism . Libertarian Marxism has often strongly influenced both post-left and social anarchists . Notable theorists of libertarian Marxism have included Maurice Brinton , Cornelius Castoriadis , Guy Debord , Raya Dunayevskaya , Daniel Guérin , C. L. R. James , Rosa Luxemburg , Antonio Negri , Anton Pannekoek , Fredy Perlman , Ernesto Screpanti , E. P. Thompson , Raoul Vaneigem , and Yanis Varoufakis ,
3993-562: The Bush Doctrine , rejecting the right of the American government to attack "any country it wants, to conduct war without end until it succeeds everywhere, and even to use 'tactical' nuclear weapons and militarize space. Whoever does not support the U.S. policy is condemned as an opponent. Whenever international organizations, such as the United Nations, do not support U.S. government policies, they are reluctantly tolerated until
4114-619: The First Red Scare , the party was influential in American politics in the first half of the 20th century. It also played a prominent role in the history of the labor movement from the 1920s through the 1940s, playing a key role in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations . The party was unique among labor activist groups of the time in being outspokenly anti-racist and opposed to racial segregation after sponsoring
4235-630: The Great Depression , some Americans were attracted by the visible activism of Communists on behalf of a wide range of social and economic causes, including the rights of African Americans, workers, and the unemployed . The Communist Party played a significant role in the resurgence of organized labor in the 1930s. Others, alarmed by the rise of the Falangists in Spain and the Nazis in Germany, admired
4356-667: The Korean War , the Vietnam War , the First Gulf War and the post- September 11 conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan . The Communist Party does not believe that the threat of terrorism can be resolved through war. The Communist Party Constitution defines the U.S. working class as "multiracial and multinational. It unites men and women, young and old, gay and straight, native-born and immigrant, urban and rural." The party further expands its interpretation to include
4477-603: The Progressive Party under-performed in the 1948 presidential election . The party itself imploded following the public condemnation of Stalin by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956, with membership sinking to a few thousand who were increasingly alienated from the rest of the American Left for their support of the Soviet Union. The CPUSA received significant funding from the Soviet Union and crafted its public positions to match those of Moscow. The CPUSA also used
4598-685: The Works Progress Administration . The transformative changes of the New Deal era combined with the U.S. alliance with the Soviet Union during World War II created an atmosphere in which the CPUSA wielded considerable influence with about 70,000 vetted party members. Under the leadership of Earl Browder , the party was critically supportive of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and branded communism as "20th Century Americanism". Envisioning itself as becoming engrained within
4719-480: The multinational corporations . The state thereby becomes thrust into a proxy role that is essentially inclined to help facilitate "control by one section of the capitalist class over all others and over the whole of society". Accordingly, the Communist Party holds that right-wing policymakers such as the neoconservatives, steering the state away from working-class interests on behalf of a disproportionately powerful capitalist class, have "demonized foreign opponents of
4840-464: The "sum total of the forces of production accessible to men determines the condition of society" and forms a society's economic base. The base includes the material forces of production such as the labour , means of production and relations of production , i.e. the social and political arrangements that regulate production and distribution. From this base rises a superstructure of legal and political "forms of social consciousness " that derive from
4961-666: The 1940s, the Western Marxist school became accepted within Western academia, subsequently fracturing into several different perspectives, such as the Frankfurt School or critical theory . The legacy of Critical Theory as a major offshoot of Marxism is controversial. The common thread linking Marxism and Critical theory is an interest in struggles to dismantle structures of oppression, exclusion, and domination. Due to its former state-supported position, there has been
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5082-484: The 2001 Constitution laid out certain positions as non-negotiable: [S]truggle for the unity of the working class, against all forms of national oppression, national chauvinism, discrimination and segregation, against all racist ideologies and practices, ... against all manifestations of male supremacy and discrimination against women, ... against homophobia and all manifestations of discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people. Among
5203-462: The American way of life. Internal and external crises swirled together, to the point when members who did not end up in prison for party activities either tended to disappear quietly from its ranks, or they tended to adopt more moderate political positions which were at odds with the party line . By 1957, membership had dwindled to less than 10,000, of whom some 1,500 were informants for the FBI . The party
5324-573: The Communist Party claimed to have 50,000 to 60,000 members. Its members also included anarchists and other radical leftists . At the time, the older and more moderate Socialist Party of America , suffering from criminal prosecutions for its antiwar stance during World War I, had declined to 40,000 members. The sections of the Communist Party's International Workers Order (IWO) organized for communism around linguistic and ethnic lines, providing mutual aid and tailoring cultural activities to an IWO membership that peaked at 200,000 at its height. During
5445-588: The Communist Party considered Russian security sufficient justification to support the actions. The Comintern and its leader Georgi Dimitrov demanded that Browder change the party's support for Roosevelt. On October 23, the party began attacking Roosevelt. The party changed this policy again after Hitler broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact by attacking the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. In August 1940, after NKVD agent Ramón Mercader killed Trotsky with an ice axe , Browder perpetuated Moscow's line that
5566-877: The Communist Party received a communique from Moscow denouncing the Polish government. Between September 14–16, party leaders bickered about the direction to take. On September 17, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland and occupied the Polish territory assigned to it by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, followed by coordination with German forces in Poland. The Communist Party then turned the focus of its public activities from anti-fascism to advocating peace, opposing military preparations. The party criticized British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French leader Édouard Daladier , but it did not at first attack President Roosevelt, reasoning that this could devastate American Communism, blaming instead Roosevelt's advisors. The party spread
5687-604: The Communist Party's Ben Davis Club and other Communist Party organizations have been involved in local activism in Harlem and other African American and minority communities. The Communist Party was instrumental in the founding of the progressive Black Radical Congress in 1998, as well as the African Blood Brotherhood . Historically significant in Latino working class history as a successful organizer of
5808-561: The Communist Party, New Masses lost some of its Party support when the CPUSA's Popular Front stage began in 1936. That was when fighting the Spanish Civil War and the threat of world fascism trumped class conflict and political revolution in the U.S., at least for the foreseeable future. Although the magazine supported the Popular Front aims, it found itself in a difficult and complicated position as it tried to strike
5929-569: The Dickstein MacCormack Committee Suppressed” and “Wall Street's Fascist Conspiracy: Morgan Pulls the Strings”. Using a redacted version of congressional committee hearings, Spivak alleged there was a fascist conspiracy of U.S. financiers to take over the country, and cited the names of several implicated business leaders. In furtherance of the magazine’s editorial shift, “[t]he proletariat Stalinists of
6050-652: The Immediate Program, as are opposition to the Iraq War and other military interventions; opposition to free trade treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); nuclear disarmament and a reduced military budget; various civil rights provisions; campaign finance reform including public financing of campaigns; and election law reform, including instant runoff voting . The Communist Party emphasizes
6171-560: The Industrial Revolution which undermines the democratic agency of citizens. Marxists differ in their positions towards democracy. Types of democracy in Marxism include Soviet democracy , New Democracy , Whole-process people's democracy and can include voting on how surplus labour is to be organised. According to democratic centralism political decisions reached by voting in the party are binding for all members of
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#17327760507016292-660: The Mexican American working class in the Southwestern United States in the 1930s, the Communist Party regards working-class Latino people as another oppressed group targeted by overt racism as well as systemic discrimination in areas such as education and sees the participation of Latino voters in a general mass movement in both party-based and nonpartisan work as an essential goal for major left-wing progress. The Communist Party holds that racial and ethnic discrimination not only harms minorities, but
6413-465: The Party of Communists USA revived the name New Masses with its own publication. Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism , to analyse class relations, social conflict , and social transformation . Marxism originates with
6534-513: The Party's affiliated organizations. The goal was to expand the class struggle to the literary realm and support political revolution. In the mid-1930s, New Masses entered a new phase as a forum for left-wing political commentary. With its attention to literature confined mostly to book reviews, the magazine offered eye-catching articles aimed at non-Marxist readers. For instance, John L. Spivak published two provocative investigative pieces in 1935: “Wall Street’s Fascist Conspiracy: Testimony that
6655-490: The Soviet Union's early and staunch opposition to fascism . Party membership swelled from 7,500 at the start of the decade to 55,000 by its end. Party members also rallied to the defense of the Spanish Republic during this period after a nationalist military uprising moved to overthrow it, resulting in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The Communist Party of the Soviet Union , along with leftists throughout
6776-886: The U.S. government is able to subordinate or ignore them". Juxtaposing the support from the Republicans and the right-wing of the Democratic Party for the Bush administration -led invasion of Iraq with the many millions of Americans who opposed the invasion of Iraq from its beginning, the Communist Party notes the spirit of opposition towards the war coming from the American public: Thousands of grassroots peace committees [were] organized by ordinary Americans ... neighborhoods, small towns and universities expressing opposition in countless creative ways. Thousands of actions, vigils, teach-ins and newspaper advertisements were organized. The largest demonstrations were held since
6897-606: The U.S., covertly funded the right-wing-initiated civil war in Nicaragua , and gave weapons to the Saddam Hussein dictatorship in Iraq. They picked small countries to invade, including Panama and Grenada , testing new military equipment and strategy, and breaking down resistance at home and abroad to U.S. military invasion as a policy option". From its ideological framework, the Communist Party understands imperialism as
7018-582: The US labor movement officially opposed the war. In contrast, it took years to build labor opposition to the Vietnam War. ... For example in Chicago, labor leaders formed Labor United for Peace, Justice and Prosperity. They concluded that mass education of their members was essential to counter false propaganda, and that the fight for the peace, economic security and democratic rights was interrelated. The party has consistently opposed American involvement in
7139-613: The United States of America ( CPUSA ), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revolution . The history of the CPUSA is closely related to the history of the American labor movement and the history of communist parties worldwide. Initially operating underground due to the Palmer Raids , which started during
7260-655: The Vietnam War. 500,000 marched in New York after the war started. Students at over 500 universities conducted a Day of Action for " Books not Bombs ." Over 150 anti-war resolutions were passed by city councils. Resolutions were passed by thousands of local unions and community organizations. Local and national actions were organized on the Internet, including the "Virtual March on Washington DC" .... Elected officials were flooded with millions of calls, emails and letters. In an unprecedented development, large sections of
7381-567: The administration of General Secretary Joseph Stalin , a great emphasis was placed on the adoption of Marxist archaeology throughout the country. These theoretical developments were subsequently adopted by archaeologists working in capitalist states outside of the Leninist bloc, most notably by the Australian academic V. Gordon Childe , who used Marxist theory in his understandings of the development of human society. Marxist sociology, as
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#17327760507017502-514: The analysis of crisis in capitalism, the role and distribution of the surplus product and surplus value in various types of economic systems , the nature and origin of economic value , the impact of class and class struggle on economic and political processes, and the process of economic evolution . Although the Marxian school is considered heterodox , ideas that have come out of Marxian economics have contributed to mainstream understanding of
7623-414: The awareness—of itself and the social world—that a social class possesses and its capacity to act rationally in its best interests. Class consciousness is required before a social class can effect a successful revolution and, thus, the dictatorship of the proletariat . Without defining ideology , Marx used the term to describe the production of images of social reality. According to Engels, "ideology
7744-408: The capitalist class or any part of it on any issue with the aim of improving or defending their lives" part of the class struggle. The Communist Party maintains that developments within the foreign policy of the United States —as reflected in the rise of neoconservatives and other groups associated with right-wing politics —have developed in tandem with the interests of large-scale capital such as
7865-417: The capitalist system. In Marxism, political economy is the study of the means of production, specifically of capital and how that manifests as economic activity. Marxism taught me what society was. I was like a blindfolded man in a forest, who doesn't even know where north or south is. If you don't eventually come to truly understand the history of the class struggle, or at least have a clear idea that society
7986-415: The complex dynamics of modern society." Influenced by the thought of Karl Marx , Marxist sociology emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With Marx, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim are considered seminal influences in early sociology . The first Marxist school of sociology was known as Austro-Marxism , of which Carl Grünberg and Antonio Labriola were among its most notable members. During
8107-399: The concept that "the fastest possible growth of productive capital " was best for wealthy capitalists and workers because it provided them with employment. Exploitation is a matter of surplus labour —the amount of labour performed beyond what is received in goods. Exploitation has been a socioeconomic feature of every class society and is one of the principal features distinguishing
8228-515: The continuing Cold War mentality, steadily weakened the party's internal structure and confidence. Party membership in the Communist International and its close adherence to the political positions of the Soviet Union gave most Americans the impression that the party was not only a threatening, subversive domestic entity, but that it was also a foreign agent that espoused an ideology which was fundamentally alien and threatening to
8349-471: The defense for the Scottsboro Boys in 1931. The party reached the apex of its influence in U.S. politics during the Great Depression , playing a prominent role in the political landscape as a militant grassroots network capable of effectively organizing and mobilizing workers and the unemployed in support of cornerstone New Deal programs, principally Social Security , unemployment insurance , and
8470-493: The doctrine that "man is the measure of all things"—that humans are essentially different to the rest of the natural order and should be treated so by Marxist theory. According to a 2007 survey of American professors by Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, 17.6% of social science professors and 5.0% of humanities professors identify as Marxists, while between 0 and 2% of professors in all other disciplines identify as Marxists. The theoretical development of Marxist archaeology
8591-425: The economic base that conditions both the superstructure and the dominant ideology of a society. Conflicts between the development of material productive forces and the relations of production provoke social revolutions , whereby changes to the economic base lead to the superstructure's social transformation . This relationship is reflexive in that the base initially gives rise to the superstructure and remains
8712-415: The employed and unemployed, organized and unorganized, and of all occupations. The Communist Party seeks equal rights for women, equal pay for equal work and the protection of reproductive rights, together with putting an end to sexism. They support the right of abortion and social services to provide access to it, arguing that unplanned pregnancy is prejudiced against poor women. The party's ranks include
8833-408: The end of class society, which Marx saw as the fundamental division of all hitherto existing history. Marx saw the fundamental nature of capitalist society as little different from that of a slave society in that one small group of society exploits the larger group. Through common ownership of the means of production, the profit motive is eliminated, and the motive of furthering human flourishing
8954-650: The established political structure in the post-war era, the party was dissolved in 1944 to become the 'Communist Political Association.' However, as Cold War hostility ensued, the party was restored but struggled to maintain its influence amidst the prevalence of McCarthyism (also known as the Second Red Scare). Its opposition to the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine failed to gain traction, and its endorsed candidate Henry A. Wallace of
9075-399: The excessive luxuries of the super-rich. Rather than making all wages entirely equal, the Communist Party holds that building socialism would entail "eliminating private wealth from stock speculation, from private ownership of large corporations, from the export of capital and jobs, and from the exploitation of large numbers of workers." Among the primary concerns of the Communist Party are
9196-405: The failure of socialist movements to resist the outbreak of World War I , led to renewed theoretical effort and valuable contributions from Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg towards an appreciation of Marx's crisis theory and efforts to formulate a theory of imperialism . Karl Marx criticised liberal democracy as not democratic enough due to the unequal socio-economic situation of the workers during
9317-401: The fight for wages, hours, benefits, working conditions, job security, and jobs. But it also includes an endless variety of other forms for fighting specific battles: resisting speed-up, picketing, contract negotiations, strikes, demonstrations, lobbying for pro-labor legislation, elections, and even general strikes". The Communist Party's national programs considers workers who struggle "against
9438-496: The forms and pedagogical processes of capitalist and communist education, such as Tyson E. Lewis, Noah De Lissovoy, Gregory Bourassa, and Derek R. Ford. Curry Malott has developed a Marxist history of education in the U.S., and Marvin Gettleman examined the history of communist education. Sandy Grande has synthesised Marxist educational theory with Indigenous pedagogy, while others like John Holt analyse adult education from
9559-482: The foundation of a form of social organisation . Those newly formed social organisations can then act again upon both parts of the base and superstructure so that rather than being static, the relationship is dialectic , expressed and driven by conflicts and contradictions. Engels clarified: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave , patrician and plebeian , lord and serf , guild -master and journeyman , in
9680-458: The founding group,” according to Samuel Richard West, “began applying a Marxist litmus test to every contribution; as a result, the less ideological contributors and editors began to drop away”. But the magazine still managed to include literary, artistic, and sociological content, just not in the same abundance as in previous years. While this content was slowly phased out in favor of politically oriented journalism, New Masses continued to influence
9801-405: The future in a similar manner as with capitalism. Marx distinguishes social classes based on two criteria, i.e. ownership of means of production and control over the labour power of others. Following this criterion of class based on property relations, Marx identified the social stratification of the capitalist mode of production with the following social groups: Class consciousness denotes
9922-552: The global economy. Certain concepts of Marxian economics, especially those related to capital accumulation and the business cycle , such as creative destruction , have been fitted for use in capitalist systems. Marxist education develops Marx's works and those of the movements he influenced in various ways. In addition to the educational psychology of Lev Vygotsky and the pedagogy of Paulo Freire , Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis' Schooling in Capitalist America
10043-557: The history of the women's struggle for equality in the U.S., the USSR, and within the international socialist movement. Though the Great Depression caused a surge in American communism and expanded New Masses readership – so much so that Mike Gold and his colleagues responded by turning the magazine into a weekly publication starting in January of 1934 – New Masses would eventually encounter competition from Partisan Review . Providing
10164-487: The idea of property rights in socialist society as it is outlined in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 's Communist Manifesto (1848), the Communist Party emphasizes: Many myths have been propagated about socialism. Contrary to right-wing claims, socialism would not take away the personal private property of workers, only the private ownership of major industries, financial institutions, and other large corporations, and
10285-416: The killer, who had been dating one of Trotsky's secretaries, was a disillusioned follower. The Communist Party's early labor and organizing successes did not last long. As the decades progressed, the combined effects of McCarthyism (also known as the Second Red Scare) and Nikita Khrushchev 's 1956 " Secret Speech " in which he denounced the previous decades of Joseph Stalin 's rule and the adversities of
10406-420: The late 1920s to 1940s was an attempt to create a radical culture in opposition to mass culture . Infused with a defiant, outsider mentality, this leftist cultural front represented a rich period in American history. Michael Denning has called it a "Second American Renaissance" because it permanently transformed American modernism and popular culture as a whole. One of the foremost periodicals of this renaissance
10527-550: The latter claiming that Marx himself was a libertarian Marxist. Marxist humanism was born in 1932 with the publication of Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and reached a degree of prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Marxist humanists contend that there is continuity between the early philosophical writings of Marx, in which he develops his theory of alienation , and the structural description of capitalist society found in his later works, such as Capital . They hold that grasping Marx's philosophical foundations
10648-580: The leadership of the Soviet Union itself. In 1989, the Soviet Communist Party cut off major funding to the Communist Party USA due to its opposition to glasnost and perestroika . With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the party held its convention and attempted to resolve the issue of whether the party should reject Marxism–Leninism . The majority reasserted the party's now purely Marxist outlook, prompting
10769-487: The leftist cultural scene. For example, in 1937 New Masses printed Abel Meeropol 's anti-lynching poem " Strange Fruit ", later popularized in song by Billie Holiday . The magazine also sponsored the first From Spirituals to Swing concert on 23 December 1938 at Carnegie Hall , an event organized by John Hammond . In one of the magazine's last issues on 30 December 1947, editor Betty Millard published her groundbreaking feminist text, "Woman Against Myth", which examined
10890-426: The level of class struggle . Under the capitalist mode of production , this struggle materialises between the minority who own the means of production (the bourgeoisie ) and the vast majority of the population who produce goods and services (the proletariat ). Starting with the conjectural premise that social change occurs due to the struggle between different classes within society who contradict one another,
11011-550: The magazine sought "to make the ‘worker-writer’ a reality in the American radical press." Rather than cater only to the college-educated intelligentsia, the editorial policy lauded rough-hewn literature considered more appealing to a working-class audience. The convergence of this literary philosophy and CPUSA policy in Depression-era America was facilitated by the John Reed Club of New York City , one of
11132-570: The material conditions and economic activities required to fulfill human material needs. It assumes that the form of economic organisation, or mode of production , influences all other social phenomena, including broader social relations, political institutions, legal systems, cultural systems, aesthetics and ideologies. These social relations and the economic system form a base and superstructure . As forces of production (i.e. technology ) improve, existing forms of organising production become obsolete and hinder further progress. Karl Marx wrote: "At
11253-407: The necessities of life. The worker's entry into such employment is voluntary because they choose which capitalist to work for. However, the worker must work or starve. Thus, exploitation is inevitable, and the voluntary nature of a worker participating in a capitalist society is illusory; it is production, not circulation, that causes exploitation. Marx emphasised that capitalism per se does not cheat
11374-511: The objective laws governing the development of the system of social relations. ... in the second place, the earlier theories did not cover the activities of the masses of the population, whereas historical materialism made it possible for the first time to study with scientific accuracy the social conditions of the life of the masses and the changes in these conditions. — Russian Marxist theoretician and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin , 1913 Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses
11495-530: The party. Classical Marxism denotes the collection of socio-eco-political theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . As Ernest Mandel remarked, "Marxism is always open, always critical, always self-critical." Classical Marxism distinguishes Marxism as broadly perceived from "what Marx believed." In 1883, Marx wrote to his son-in-law Paul Lafargue and French labour leader Jules Guesde —both of whom claimed to represent Marxist principles—accusing them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and denying
11616-450: The pinnacle of capitalist development : the state, working on behalf of the few who wield disproportionate power, assumes the role of proffering "phony rationalizations" for economically driven imperial ambition as a means to promote the sectional economic interests of big business. In opposition to what it considers the ultimate agenda of the conservative wing of American politics, the Communist Party rejects foreign policy proposals such as
11737-413: The points in the party's "Immediate Program" are a $ 15/hour minimum wage for all workers, national universal health care, and opposition to privatization of Social Security . Economic measures such as increased taxes on "the rich and corporations, strong regulation of the financial industry, regulation and public ownership of utilities," and increased federal aid to cities and states are also included in
11858-434: The population's living standards due to its need to compensate for the falling rate of profit by cutting employees' wages and social benefits while pursuing military aggression. The socialist mode of production would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through revolution by workers. According to Marxian crisis theory , socialism is not an inevitability but an economic necessity. The term Marxism
11979-435: The poverty level; many suffer homelessness and hunger. Public and private programs to alleviate poverty and hunger do not reach everyone, and are inadequate even for those they do reach. With capitalist globalization, jobs move from place to place as capitalists export factories and even entire industries to other countries in a relentless search for the lowest wages. The Communist Party believes that "class struggle starts with
12100-818: The problems of unemployment , underemployment and job insecurity , which the party considers the natural result of the profit-driven incentives of the capitalist economy: Millions of workers are unemployed, underemployed, or insecure in their jobs, even during economic upswings and periods of 'recovery' from recessions. Most workers experience long years of stagnant and declining real wages, while health and education costs soar. Many workers are forced to work second and third jobs to make ends meet. Most workers now average four different occupations during their lifetime, many involuntarily moved from job to job and career to career. Often, retirement-age workers are forced to continue working just to provide health care for themselves and their families. Millions of people continuously live below
12221-500: The product enslaves first the producer, and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the products that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production; upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production—on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment." Marxian economics and its proponents view capitalism as economically unsustainable and incapable of improving
12342-616: The proper editorial balance. The 1940s brought significant philosophical and practical troubles to the publication. It struggled with the ideological upheavals caused by blowback from the Moscow Trials and Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 , while at the same time facing virulent anti-communism and censorship at home during the war. With its readership declining, New Masses published its final issue on 13 January 1948. The magazine soon merged with another Communist quarterly to form Masses & Mainstream (1948–1963). In 2016,
12463-463: The rest of the left-wing in the United States, which saw this supportive role as outdated and even dangerous. At the same time, the party's aging membership demographics distanced it from the New Left in the United States . With the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev and his effort to radically alter the Soviet economic and political system from the mid-1980s, the Communist Party finally became estranged from
12584-541: The slogans " The Yanks Are Not Coming " and "Hands Off," set up a "perpetual peace vigil" across the street from the White House , and announced that Roosevelt was the head of the "war party of the American bourgeoisie." The party was active in the isolationist America First Committee . In October and November, after the Soviets invaded Finland and forced mutual assistance pacts from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania ,
12705-415: The social classes. The power of one social class to control the means of production enables its exploitation of other classes. Under capitalism, the labour theory of value is the operative concern, whereby the value of a commodity equals the socially necessary labour time required to produce it. Under such conditions, surplus value —the difference between the value produced and the value received by
12826-603: The society) would abolish the exploitative working conditions experienced under capitalism. Through working class revolution, the state (which Marxists saw as a weapon for the subjugation of one class by another) is seized and used to suppress the hitherto ruling class of capitalists and (by implementing a commonly owned, democratically controlled workplace) create the society of communism which Marxists see as true democracy. An economy based on cooperation on human need and social betterment, rather than competition for profit of many independently acting profit seekers, would also be
12947-474: The study of sociology from a Marxist perspective, is "a form of conflict theory associated with ... Marxism's objective of developing a positive ( empirical ) science of capitalist society as part of the mobilisation of a revolutionary working class ." The American Sociological Association has a section dedicated to the issues of Marxist sociology that is "interested in examining how insights from Marxist methodology and Marxist analysis can help explain
13068-412: The sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand. Marxism uses a materialist methodology, referred to by Marx and Engels as the materialist conception of history and later better known as historical materialism, to analyse the underlying causes of societal development and change from the perspective of the collective ways in which humans make their living. Marx's account of
13189-613: The theory is in The German Ideology (1845) and the preface A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859). All constituent features of a society ( social classes , political pyramid and ideologies ) are assumed to stem from economic activity, forming what is considered the base and superstructure . The base and superstructure metaphor describes the totality of social relations by which humans produce and re-produce their social existence. According to Marx,
13310-484: The value of reformist struggle. From Marx's letter derives Marx's famous remark that, if their politics represented Marxism, ' ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste ' ('what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist')." Libertarian Marxism emphasises the anti-authoritarian and libertarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, such as left communism , emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism . Libertarian Marxism
13431-538: The various schools of thought , which emphasise or modify elements of classical Marxism , several Marxian concepts have been incorporated into an array of social theories . This has led to widely varying conclusions. Alongside Marx's critique of political economy , the defining characteristics of Marxism have often been described using the terms " dialectical materialism " and "historical materialism", though these terms were coined after Marx's death and their tenets have been challenged by some self-described Marxists. As
13552-1431: The work of an array of independent writers and artists. The magazine was established to fill a void caused by the gradual transition of The Workers Monthly (successor to The Liberator ) into a more theoretically-oriented publication. The name of the new magazine was a tip of the hat to The Masses (1911–1917), forerunner of both publications. The New Masses' editorial staff included The Masses alumni Hugo Gellert , John F. Sloan , Max Eastman , Mike Gold , as well as Joseph Freeman , Granville Hicks (starting in 1934), Walt Carmon , and James Rorty . Many contributors are now considered distinguished, even canonical authors/writers, artists, and musical composers: William Carlos Williams , Theodore Dreiser , John Dos Passos , Upton Sinclair , Richard Wright , Ralph Ellison , Dorothy Parker , Dorothy Day , John Breecher, Langston Hughes , Eugene O'Neill , Rex Stout and Ernest Hemingway . More importantly, it also circulated works by avowedly leftist, even “ proletarian ” (working-class) artists: Kenneth Fearing , H.H. Lewis , Jack Conroy , Grace Lumpkin , Jan Matulka , Ruth McKenney , Maxwell Bodenheim , Meridel LeSueur , Josephine Herbst , Jacob Burck , Tillie Olsen , Stanley Burnshaw , Louis Zukofsky , George Oppen , Crockett Johnson , Wanda Gág , Albert Halper , Hyman Warsager , and Aaron Copland . The vast production of left-wing popular art from
13673-432: The worker. Alienation ( German : Entfremdung ) is the estrangement of people from their humanity and a systematic result of capitalism. Under capitalism, the fruits of production belong to employers, who expropriate the surplus created by others and generate alienated labourers. In Marx's view, alienation is an objective characterisation of the worker's situation in capitalism—his or her self-awareness of this condition
13794-428: The works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought , and as a result, there is no single, definitive " Marxist theory ". Marxism has had a profound effect in shaping the modern world, with various left-wing and far-left political movements taking inspiration from it in varying local contexts. In addition to
13915-722: The world, raised funds for medical relief while many of its members made their way to Spain with the aid of the party to join the Lincoln Brigade , one of the International Brigades . The Communist Party was adamantly opposed to fascism during the Popular Front period. Although membership in the party rose to about 66,000 by 1939, nearly 20,000 members left the party by 1943. While general secretary Browder at first attacked Germany for its September 1, 1939 invasion of western Poland , on September 11
14036-525: Was New Masses . At the outset, New Masses adopted a loosely leftist position: "Among the fifty-six writers and artists connected in some way with the early issues of the New Masses , [Joseph] Freeman reports, only two were members of the Communist Party , and less than a dozen were fellow travelers ." There was, however, an eventual transformation in which this magazine of the “generic left”, with its numerous competing points of view, gradually became
14157-532: Was also banned by the Communist Control Act of 1954 , although it was never really enforced and Congress later repealed most provisions of the act, also with some declared unconstitutional via the court system. The party attempted to recover with its opposition to the Vietnam War during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, but its continued uncritical support for an increasingly stultified and militaristic Soviet Union further alienated it from
14278-401: Was first developed in the Soviet Union in 1929, when a young archaeologist named Vladislav I. Ravdonikas published a report entitled "For a Soviet history of material culture"; within this work, the very discipline of archaeology as it then stood was criticised as being inherently bourgeois, therefore anti-socialist and so, as a part of the academic reforms instituted in the Soviet Union under
14399-444: Was influential in various struggles. Historian Ellen Schrecker concludes that decades of recent scholarship offer "a more nuanced portrayal of the party as both a Stalinist sect tied to a vicious regime and the most dynamic organization within the American Left during the 1930s and '40s." It was also the first political party in the United States to be "fully" racially integrated. By August 1919, only months after its founding,
14520-438: Was one of the first candidates to run as an open member of the CPUSA again (although Long Beach local elections are officially non-partisan). Estrada received 8.5% of the vote. According to the constitution of the party adopted at the 30th National Convention in 2014, the Communist Party operates on the principle of democratic centralism , its highest authority being the quadrennial National Convention. Article VI, Section 3 of
14641-693: Was popularised by Karl Kautsky , who considered himself an orthodox Marxist during the dispute between Marx's orthodox and revisionist followers. Kautsky's revisionist rival Eduard Bernstein also later adopted the term. Engels did not support using Marxism to describe either Marx's or his views. He claimed that the term was being abusively used as a rhetorical qualifier by those attempting to cast themselves as genuine followers of Marx while casting others in different terms, such as Lassallians . In 1882, Engels claimed that Marx had criticised self-proclaimed Marxist Paul Lafargue by saying that if Lafargue's views were considered Marxist, then "one thing
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