Browderism

History

After the Tehran Conference of 1943, Browder hoped the Allied alliance would continue as peaceful coexistence. In his Bridgeport speech of December 12, 1943, he declared that capitalism and socialism had begun to find their way to peaceful coexistence and collaboration, and that the Communist organization should drop the word "party" for "Communist Political Association."

On January 7, 1944, the 28-member National Committee met publicly and voted unanimously for Browder's proposals. At the congress of May 20, 1944, Browder moved that "the Communist Party of America be and hereby is dissolved"; the party dissolved with 80,000 members plus 10,000 in the army, though only about 45,000 had registered by July 16, 1944. The course was judged in practice to have liquidated the independent political party of the working class.

Opposition took the form of the Foster-Darcy letter, signed by William Z. Foster and Philadelphia district organizer Sam Darcy. Browder let it circulate to only a handful of top leaders, who rejected it at a February 1944 Politburo meeting, and Darcy was subsequently expelled by a committee headed by Foster.

The April 1945 article published under the name of the French Communist Jacques Duclos was the turning point. Quoting the Foster-Darcy letter, it criticized Browder for drawing "erroneous conclusions in no wise flowing from a Marxist analysis of the situation" from the Tehran decisions and called the dissolution a "notorious revision of Marxism." Its conclusions were that the course under Browder's leadership had ended in practice in liquidation of the independent political party of the working class in the United States, and that a notorious revision of Marxism was being witnessed, expressed in the concept of a long-term class peace, suppression of the class struggle in the postwar period, and harmony between labor and capital. Historians Klehr, Haynes and Anderson concluded the article was written in Russian and initiated by Moscow, which had decided postwar relations would be hostile; Duclos was instructed to publish it under his own name after the Pacific War ended.

At a snap convention in July 1945 the CPUSA was re-established: Browder was removed as general secretary, Foster became chairman and Eugene Dennis general secretary, and Browder was formally expelled on February 5, 1946. His attempted reintegration around the 20th Congress failed and he never rejoined. Duclos's fourth conclusion records that most Communist Parties had not approved Browder's position, that several (South Africa, Australia) openly opposed it, and that only the parties of Cuba and Colombia regarded the American position as correct and generally followed the same path.

Distinctions

Unlike Maoism and Hoxhaism, Browderism retained no relevance in American communist politics and its international influence was predominantly confined to the 1940s. Anti-revisionists read it as evidence of American exceptionalism, argued the broad popular front subordinated the CPUSA to bourgeois interests via the Democratic Party, and claimed the fascist threat used as justification was non-existent.

Its principled deviation from orthodox Marxism-Leninism lay in patriotic, Americanist rhetoric addressed to a broader audience. Class collaboration produced abandonment of revolution for a reformist approach combined with appeals to Americanism and support for the New Deal. During the Sino-Soviet split the editorial departments of the People's Daily and Red Flag traced Khrushchev's revisionism back to Browderism, calling Khrushchev "a disciple of Browder."

Inside the party, John Gates attacked the ideology alongside Titoism and Trotskyism in a 1951 pamphlet, calling it "a valuable instrument in the hands of U.S. imperialism"; Claudia Jones criticized the Browderist line on race as strengthening bourgeois nationalism among Black people and relying unduly on reformist leadership; and a 2020 CPUSA article called Browderism "opportunistic."

Examples

Rooting the rallying cry, Browder wrote in a June 1935 New Masses article that Communists claim the revolutionary traditions of Americanism and are the only ones who continue them, concluding that "Communism is the Americanism of the twentieth century"; this fed the "Communism is 20th Century Americanism" campaign and a patriotic "penny pamphlet" of the late 1930s. In his December 1943 Bridgeport speech he said that if J. P. Morgan supported the Tehran coalition he as a Communist was prepared to clasp his hand, and that class divisions or political groupings had no significance now except as they reflected that issue. Explaining himself, he said he was not verbally abolishing class differences but rejecting the slogan of "class against class" as the guide to political alignments.

The CPA's founding preamble pledged to carry forward the traditions of Washington, Jefferson, Paine, Jackson and Lincoln, to uphold the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and to adhere to the principles of scientific socialism, Marxism, looking forward to solving the contradiction between the social character of production and private ownership by democratic choice in a form consistent with American traditions. The liquidation exemplified a uniquely American approach to communism that disregarded vanguardism and prioritized electoral politics, and on race the Browderist approach diverged from the Leninist principle of self-determination for African Americans in favor of social integration.

Internationally Browderism won brief support, particularly in Latin America. Per historian Manuel Caballero, the communist parties of Colombia, Cuba and Venezuela "most openly accepted the ideas of Earl Browder [and] quoted him by name," including class collaboration; parties in Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Greece also reorganized on the CPA model. In Cuba the PSP adopted a class-collaboration position with Lázaro Peña's Colaboración entre Obreros y Patronos, and general secretary Blas Roca Calderio announced cooperation with British and American investors citing Browder as inspiration; the party formally repudiated Browderism at Foster's address to its 3rd National Assembly in January 1946.

In Britain, Browder sent New Masses editor Joseph North to London in February 1945 to advocate the line; at its 18th Congress in November 1945 the CPGB criticized Browderism while denying deep infiltration, and Harry Pollitt's report said Browder's proposals "assumed a basic change in the character of imperialism, denied its reactionary role, and held out a long-term perspective of harmonious capitalist development and class peace after the war," a portrayal historian Neil Redfern challenged. In Mexico, the PCM under Dionisio Encina followed the CPA model in 1944 by supporting the Mexican Socialist League and dissolving its "factory cells," while debating renaming itself Partido Socialista; Carlos Sánchez Cárdenas denounced reliance on CPA advice on July 3, 1945 and prepared a "Victory Resolution" calling Browder's influence in Mexico "decisive," though the revised May 1946 document claimed the PCM had always rejected Browderism.

Relations

Since the 1940s Browderism has remained scrutinized by anti-revisionists, including within the CPUSA, as indicative of American exceptionalism and as a betrayal of the American labor movement. The successor leadership, Foster as chairman and Eugene Dennis as general secretary, reversed Browder's policies after the party's re-establishment, and Browder never rejoined after the failed attempt to reintegrate him around the 20th Congress.

Gus Hall, who later took up the popular-front idea within "Bill of Rights socialism," is identified as a figure who carried forward the popular front line.

같이 보기

• [[earl-browder|얼 브라우더]]
• [[jacques-duclos|자크 뒤클로]]
• [[william-z-foster|윌리엄 Z. 포스터]]