The Communist Party in Ohio and Cuyahoga County, Ohio
A group of socialists from Ohio and Cuyahoga County leave the national Socialist Party to form a local Communist section. They adopt Lenin’s interpretation of orthodox Marxism.
Party leaders promoted massive projects of social engineering – lineage-based kinship structures were to be broken up, gender and authority roles reworked, classes abolished, and ethnonational differences eliminated. They accorded a special role to knowledge and expertise, which they claimed to monopolize.
Origins
The Communist Party dominated the Soviet Union after 1917 when a group with a decidedly Marxist philosophy took control of government in the country. This cadre imposed a strict set of ideals and practices on populations throughout the world.
Lenin’s Bolsheviks, ascribing to the principles of Marxism, seized power in Russia’s October Revolution. Among their early actions was the Red Terror, the mass execution of members of the Czar’s regime and the Provisional Government.
Local communists garnered support in particular communities, developing a distinctive geography of activism. They staffed labor and left wing organizations, either starting them or moving into leadership positions in existing groups. They also led strikes, including the Seattle general strike of 1919. In the late 19th century, two young parties emerged from a split in the old Socialist Party: the Communist Labor Party on Aug. 31 and the Communist Party on Sept. 1. The naming of the new parties reflected aspirations for class struggle policy and sectarianism on the part of the older group.
Influence
The party consolidated its hold on labor organizations and other groups. Party members rarely declared their membership in unions and other political groups, so its influence was semi-secret. But alert Washingtonians knew that Communists controlled the most active local groups.
Party leaders believed that they could strengthen their own positions by taking part in everyday struggles and by injecting those struggles with socialist principles. This was a break with sectarianism and a recognition of the need for broad mass work.
Party members were dedicated to a revolution that would destroy bourgeois capitalism and establish a new society based on equality of all peoples. Existing social relations would be transformed – lineage-based kinship structures broken up, gender differences minimized, classes eliminated, ethnonational distinctions erased. Social life would revolve around state and collective farms, teams and brigades instead of families, villages and petty associations.
Goals
Dedicated to building an alternative to the world of bourgeois capitalism, communist leaders launched an assault on all forms of inequality. Religion would be attacked as superstition, pedagogy broadened to instill a puritan socialist ethic, and social organization expanded into state and collective farms, teams, and brigades to replace lineage-based kin groupings, gender differences, class, and ethnonational distinctions (Kligman 1998).
Every five years the party convened an all-member National Congress, where policies were set and top leadership selected. Between Congresses members elected a central committee and a secretariat, known as the Organization Bureau or Orgbureau. This was entrusted with administrative functions while the Politbureau was tasked with formulation of party policies. Lenin’s April 1920 article “Left-Wing Communism” made an important impact, moving the party away from narrow sectarianism.
Methods
Aiming to create new moralities and new modes of social control, Party cadres intervened exhaustively in every sphere of life. They accorded a privileged place to knowledge and expertise, which they sought to monopolize, and developed hieratic speech that used reduced vocabularies and clusters of noun phrases and verbs to create a standardized authoritative discourse.
They centralized and controlled civil society, taking over and running the ostensibly independent trade unions, writers’ organizations, theaters and film companies, etc. They also unified educational conducts at all levels, from student admission to curriculum development.
They relied on a theory, called Marxism-Leninism, to guide development and to explain current and future trends. As belief in Marxism-Leninism waned, Party members began to rely on more earthly criteria to judge performance.
Success
The CP’s hard work and reliability in daily struggles won it millions of members in a matter of months. Its militant fight for racial equality brought thousands of black radicals into the fold.
By contrast, the right wing of the Socialist Party leadership refused to allow the majority of its membership to elect new national delegates and started a purge of left-led state organizations and language federations. The CP split from the SP in 1919.
The CP continues to have huge influence in trade unions, shops, and other working-class organizations. Its main departments are organization and propaganda. Yet it is a party of many factions and Xi’s consolidation of power could weaken the centralized structure that made the CCP so successful. This could undermine the ability of the party to navigate reforms and maintain its grip on China’s economy.