Activity

In 1983, on the fiftieth anniversary of the time Elaine and Karl moved in together, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors presented them with a certificate of honor that noted their lifetimes of effort for “Labor, Civil Rights, Peace, and Against Racism” and stated that “their example has been an …

Though those who left the party could be quite critical of the party, other party members, and even themselves, few regretted the time they had given to the party. Sennett said, “My life was enriched by having been a Communist.” Eva Lapin Maas reflected, “The Party had shaped our lives, given us a …

Bill Sennett’s post-party employment was perhaps most at variance from his erstwhile comrades. Within six years he had become a corporate vice president for the company where he had worked in Chicago, and he eventually became president of an international corporation that leased truck trailers for …

After his discharge from the army, Keith Eickman returned to Local 6, moved from the YCL to the CP, and attended CLS classes. He was expelled or dropped from the CP in 1953, during the white chauvinism campaign, which he later called “a hysteria within the CP.” The charge against him was that in a …

In the late 1940s, coincident with a Soviet campaign against national chauvinism in Eastern Europe, the U.S. party launched a campaign against white chauvinism, which it described as the key underlying feature of American capitalism’s success in keeping the working class divided.45 The campaign qui…