Earl Browder: The Failure of American Communism Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Earl Browder: The Failure of American Communism Book

Native Kansan Earl Browder brought a midwestern twang to American Communism, leading the Party's U.S. branch from 1932 to 1945, but his individualistic streak was also his downfall. James G. Ryan follows Browder's career through his adolescent canvasing for Socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs and imprisonment for pacifist resistance to World War I to his rise through the ranks of the CPUSA and guidance of the party during the Popular Front years. Although he professed loyalty to Stalin, Browder believed that he could step away from the party line; by the end of World War II, his mistaken belief would result in a Stalin-sanctioned ouster. Ryan's biography ably delineates how, more than anyone else, Browder had--but ultimately mishandled--the chance "to weld the best of Communism with the best of the American tradition."Read More

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  • Product Description


     

    Earl Browder, the preeminent 20th-century Communist party leader in the United States, steered the CPUSA through the critical years of the Great Depression and World War II. A Kansas native and veteran of numerous radical movements, he was peculiarly fitted by circumstance and temperament to head the cause during its heyday.
    Serving as a bridge between American Communism’s secret and public worlds, Browder did more than anyone to attempt to explain the Soviet Union’s shifting policies to the American people in a way that would serve the interests of the CPUSA. A proud and loyal follower of Joseph Stalin, Browder nevertheless sought to move the party into the U.S. political mainstream. He used his knowledge of domestic politics to persuade the Communist International to modify Popular Front (1935-1939) tactics for the United States.
    Despite his rise in the hierarchy, he possessed an independent streak that ultimately proved his undoing. Imprisonment as he neared age 50 left permanent psychological damage. After being released with the approval of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Browder lost his perspective and began entertaining delusions of grandeur about his status in American politics and in the world Communist movement. Still, he could never quite bring legitimacy to the CPUSA because he lacked the vision and moral courage to separate himself totally from the Soviet Union. Ryan concludes that Browder was not so much insincere as deluded. His failure contributed to the demise of the popularity of the Communist party in the United States.
    In preparation for this book, the author consulted the Browder Papers at Syracuse University and U.S. Government documents, particularly the F.B.I. files. In addition, he traveled to Russia for research in the Soviet Archives when recently opened to Western scholars, including the records of the former Communist International and a collection of American Communist party files, 1919-1944, shipped secretly to Moscow long ago. Indeed, until 1992, the existence of the CPUSA collection was only rumored.

  • 081735199X
  • 9780817351991
  • James G. Ryan
  • 15 March 2006
  • The University of Alabama Press
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 256
  • 2nd Revised edition
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