“Browder, the best of American Marxists, is the most typical American I have ever known. He is more like all the rest of the people than anyone else you ever saw, born in the exact center of the United States, with an ancestor in General Washington’s army, with a good wife and growing sons just like yours, who attend the small-town public schools and compete like yours for D.A.R. and American Legion prizes for scholarships, and not always without success.”
That’s how Robert Minor described Earl Browder in 1944. It was a period of World War and the party had just been dissolved. In the interests of national unity, the party had first pledged itself unconditionally to support Roosevelt, then it insisted that the workers promise not to strike until the war was won. Now, to avoid division in the country it had dissolved the party and offered to collaborate with finance capital.
The architect of this plan was Earl Browder. The above quote is typical of the cult of his personality which had developed in the party. In the absence of genuine Inner-party democracy and theoretical discussion and debate, Browder’s words were absolute, his writings unquestioned. When he proposed dissolving the party, almost the entire leadership went along.
The readings for this session summarize Browderism in the party from 1935-1944 and examines In particular the practice of the party in 1944 which led to the dissolution of the Communist Party.
I. How did Browderism represent the infiltration of bourgeois ideology into the theory and practice of the Communist Party in the following areas: organizational practice of the party, relationship between the workers and the bourgeoisie, the nature of the bourgeois state, Marxist-Leninist ideology.
II. Given what we know about the nature of imperialism, why was it wrong for Browder to believe that the United States would continue to work with the Soviet Union after the war for peace and justice? How is Browder1s support for American finance capital against the Nazis similar to China’s support for the US against the USSR?
III. Do communists always have to have a party as their principal form of organization? How would we argue against Browder’s statements to the contrary?
IV. In a situation like WW II where both the working class and the bourgeois state were fighting for the same goal–the defeat of Germany and Japan–how can the communists contribute to the cause while still avoiding revisionism and class collaboration? To help answer this question think about this quote from Lenin:
“While pointing out that one or other of the various opposition groups are in unison with the workers, [the communists] will always put the workers in a special category, they will always point out that the alliance is temporary and conditional, they will always emphasize the special class position of the proletariat which tomorrow may be the opponent of its allies today.”
On the Roots of Revisionism, Chapter 15, The Roots of Browderism 1935-1945.
“Tehran–History’s Greatest Turning Point,” The Communist, 1944, and Tehran–Our Path Through War and Peace (1944), both by Earl Browder.