Activity

Observers then and later have disagreed regarding the degree to which the CP succeeded in its ambition to be a tightly disciplined organization. Even membership could be ambiguous. Caroline Decker recalled, “I never carried a book, I never paid dues. . . . As far as I was concerned, I was a member;…

Arnstein graduated in 1935 and then continued for another three semesters, including some time in the law school. In 1936, while in law school, she became section organizer for the party’s professional section. She later recalled “everything was so secretive” that she didn’t even know who was in th…

For Brown and Yoneda, party membership led them into union activity. Angela Gizzi’s experience provides a different pattern. Her interest in the left led her to union activism and then to the CP. She was born in San Francisco’s North Beach, an Italian neighborhood. Her parents were middle-class Ita…

For Brown and Yoneda, party membership led them into union activity. Angela Gizzi’s experience provides a different pattern. Her interest in the left led her to union activism and then to the CP. She was born in San Francisco’s North Beach, an Italian neighborhood. Her parents were middle-class Ita…

In the early 1930s, party members formed “fractions” within union locals, which typically met before union meetings and formulated a position that CP members were to follow when the meeting started. However, as Dorothy Ray Healey later recalled, “Some of our closest allies were unhappy about it,” a…