Internal purges and Popular Front compromise emptied the American Communist Party of theorists.
Evidence
In the United States, dichotomies reflecting the conflicts in Europe and Russia could be found. But in America, Party propagandists were much more prominent than independent theorists. The presence of theorists in the party had been substantially reduced by the events of the late 1920s and early 1930s. The expulsions of a “Trots-kyite” left followed by the “Lovestone” right; the spectacle of the purges of veterans of the Russian Revolution from the Bolshevik Party; the compromises of the Popular Front period after 1933; and the protracted demise of capitalism, had all taken their toll, especially on revolutionary theory: Marx’s emphasis upon the historic inevitability of revolution had diminishing importance for Party members and left intellectuals alike in the thirties. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1095
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Explains the institutional vacuum into which Black radical thought had to insert itself.
Related
- Internal divisions and compromises gutted independent Marxist theory in the American Party. (similarity 0.93)
- The Comintern forced America’s fragmented communist factions into a federated party. (similarity 0.78)
- Black radicals resigned from Communist parties when doctrine dominated Black people’s needs. (similarity 0.78)