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With the party under attack on all sides, and given harsh penalties under state law for homosexual behavior and smoking marijuana, the party feared that anyone charged under such laws might turn informer. One draft report noted, “Due to laws recently enacted in California re. homosexuals . . . (20 …

Left sectarianism was not the only basis for expulsions. In 1948 the party’s State Review Commission drafted a report on its work over the three years since the reorganization. Noting that its most important work had been “smashing” the left sectarian faction, the committee’s draft also reported on…

Other institutions joined the CLS in contributing to San Francisco’s postwar labor-left culture. People’s World continued to present reviews of art, music, literature, and film as well as sports and the party’s perspective on the news. Subscribers far outnumbered party members. In parts of San Fran…

The Comintern had always been the most important channel for information from Moscow to New York, both through written material and, more importantly, through regular visits by top CPUSA leaders to Moscow for in-person discussions. Those channels were seriously interrupted from 1939 onward, as wars…

During the war the Bay Area became the largest shipbuilding site in the world. New shipyards and expansions of existing ones constructed some fourteen hundred ships, averaging more than one a day. This rapid expansion of shipbuilding produced a huge demand for workers. Some new workers were local, …