People of the Revolution and the USSR

Communist Party USA (CPUSA) Communism 1868–1963 ○ Natural causes

"Capitalism cannot reform itself": father of the modern Negro liberation movement who joined the Communist Party at 93

"Communism will triumph. I want to help bring that day." — from his 1961 application to join the Communist Party USA, submitted at age 93

American sociologist, historian, Pan-Africanist, and the single most important African American intellectual of the 20th century. A co-founder of the NAACP, he edited its magazine The Crisis for 24 years, shaping the direction of the black civil rights movement, while his books The Souls of Black Folk and Black Reconstruction in America transformed American sociology and historiography. He viewed capitalism as the root cause of racism and pursued a synthesis of Marxism and Pan-Africanism. In 1961, at age 93, he joined the Communist Party USA; invited by Kwame Nkrumah, he settled in Ghana to begin work on the Encyclopedia Africana, and died there in 1963.

Communist Party USA (CPUSA) Communism 1881–1961 ○ Natural causes

From leading the Great Steel Strike of 1919 to longest-serving leader of American communism

“The only party that genuinely represents the interests of the workers is the revolutionary party.” — Pages from a Worker's Life, 1939

From leading the Great Steel Strike of 1919 to becoming the CPUSA's longest-serving leader. He rebuilt the party after Browder dissolved it in 1944 and authored major Marxist histories including History of the Communist Party of the United States.

Communist Party USA (CPUSA) Communism 1885–1970 ○ Natural causes

The American journalist who chronicled the Russian and Chinese revolutions from the inside, founder of Moscow News

"We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by labor in this country, a move which will lead — NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!" — editorial on the eve of the Seattle General Strike, 1919

American left-wing journalist and communist. After earning a Chicago PhD, she covered the Seattle General Strike (1919), moved to the USSR in 1921, and co-founded Moscow News (1930). In 1946 she interviewed Mao Zedong in Yan'an, drawing the famous 'paper tigers' declaration. Expelled from the USSR as a spy in 1949, she was rehabilitated in 1955 and settled in China as an honoured 'foreign friend,' chronicling Mao's China through the Cultural Revolution. With over 30 books, she was an unmatched eyewitness to the century's great communist revolutions.

Independent activity Communism 1887–1920 ○ Typhus

From eyewitness of the Bolshevik Revolution to founder of the Communist Labor Party of America: an American buried at the Kremlin Wall

At the mass funeral for revolutionary martyrs in Red Square, Reed suddenly understood: the devout Russian people no longer needed priests to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer.

American journalist and communist. He witnessed the 1917 October Revolution and wrote Ten Days That Shook the World. He co-founded the Communist Labor Party of America and served on the Comintern Executive Committee. One of the very few Americans buried at the Kremlin Wall.

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Communism 1890–1964 ○ Natural causes

"East Side Joan of Arc": from the IWW's Rebel Girl to first woman chair of the CPUSA

"We are Communist leaders, proudly and avowedly. We will prove to you that we are not a criminal conspiracy but a 33-year-old working-class political party, devoted to the immediate needs and aspirations of the American people." — Summation to the jury, Smith Act trial, April 24, 1952

American labor organizer and communist. Known as the IWW's "Rebel Girl" from age 15, she led the Lawrence strike and co-founded the ACLU. Elected CPUSA's first woman chair in 1961; died in Moscow and was given a Red Square state funeral.

Communist Party USA (CPUSA) Communism 1891–1973 ○ Natural causes

The CPUSA leader who declared Communism was 20th-century Americanism, and then dissolved his own party

“Communism is twentieth-century Americanism.” — July 4, 1938, beneath the Star-Spangled Banner and the red flag together

A Kansas-born CPUSA leader for 15 years from 1930, Earl Browder proclaimed 'Communism is 20th-century Americanism' and in 1944 dissolved the party into a 'Communist Political Association', a strategy known as 'Browderism.' Expelled in 1946, he broke definitively with the party.

Communist Party USA (CPUSA) Communism 1898–1985 ○ Natural causes

Architect of the Comintern Black Belt thesis: Southern Blacks are an oppressed nation with the right to self-determination

“The problem is fundamentally a question of an oppressed nation with full rights of self-determination.” — Negro Liberation, 1948

American communist, radicalized from the son of former slaves. He helped establish the Comintern thesis of Black self-determination in the Southern Black Belt, served on the CPUSA Politburo, and fought as a political commissar in the Spanish Civil War. Expelled in 1959 for opposing de-Stalinization, he became a leading figure in the Maoist New Communist Movement.

Communist Party USA (CPUSA) Communism 1910–2000 ○ Diabetes complications

Finnish-American labor militant and CPUSA General Secretary for 41 years, Moscow loyalist, four-time presidential candidate

'Socialism in America will come through the ballot box' — Hall to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1996.

A Finnish immigrant's son forged in the steel strikes, Hall led the CPUSA for 41 years as an orthodox Marxist-Leninist. Trained at Moscow's International Lenin School and imprisoned under the Smith Act, he seized party leadership in 1959, hewed unflinchingly to the Soviet line through every crisis, and ran for president four times, becoming the face of American communism during the Cold War.

Marxism and communism 1946–

A political economist of Soviet system change

In Revolution from Above, Kotz argued that the USSR's ruling party-state elite itself dismantled the Soviet system in pursuit of greater wealth and power.

David M. Kotz is an American economist whose work examines institutional change and political economy. With Fred Weir, he interpreted the Soviet demise not simply as economic collapse and popular revolt, but as a process in which the party-state elite dismantled the system in pursuit of greater wealth and power. Their book Revolution from Above links Soviet stagnation, perestroika, the formation of a pro-capitalist coalition, and Russia's subsequent political economy.