To Schrecker and other post-Draper interpretations of American Communist history, the movement of Communism is somewhat of a tricky identity since for nearly 30 years it was consistently associated with one of two major socialist organizations, the Communist Party (CPUSA) and the Socialist Party (SPUSA). To explain, it's first important to remember that the ideals of an organization usually supersede the organization itself. The CPUSA, nor the SPUSA, did not create the American Communist movement. Rather, they tapped into a flowing push of activism and attempted to coordinate and facilitate its growth.
By the 1930s, however, this movement and the formal organizations were practically inseparable. The CPUSA and the SPUSA, for all their minute ideological differences, supported virtually the same broad visions for America in their 1932 election campaigns. In addition, these views were supported by a broad coalition of working-class and labor-oriented groups. Though many members of the American working-class did not end up joining the CPUSA or the SPUSA after 1932, they nevertheless found support among these organizations and the individuals that helped operate them.
Part of the main idea here is to separate an organization from the individuals that make it up. Similar to how a Corporation is not representative of its employees in a total sense, the CPUSA and the SPUSA were not representative of the entire ideals of its membership. Throughout the turbulent history of the 1930s, time and time again we see individual communists and socialists resisting the structural demands by their Parties in favor of whatever was most practical and applicable to specific conditions of American workers. Donald Henderson's engagement with the agricultural industry and the UCAPAWA, for example, in many ways broke former CPUSA protocol by establishing an independent union separated from the Party's Trade Union Unity League (TUUL). Likewise, Emma Tenyuaca's engagement against Mexican-American racism in Texas was a direct resistance of the CPUSA's desire to focus more on union organizing.
It is important to see the movement that exists independent of organizations claiming to represent it. Typically the membership of these organizations acted as members of a broad idea, that being peace and solidarity under socialism; this is in contrast to the depiction sometimes made by SPUSA and especially CPUSA leaders, the latter whom routinely described the necessity of a Dictatorship of the Proletariat during its 1932 election campaign. These sorts of concepts (dictatorship of the proletariat, vanguard party, democratic centralism) were not genuinely tied to the movement of American Communism, simply because American Communism was always more broad than the dictation and policies of socialist and communist organizations.
It is difficult, for example, for historians to explain how and why platforms of the CPUSA during the 1930s became canon ideals for the post-WWII Progressive campaigns, and the 1950s Civil Rights movement. Despite being the first political party to place an African American on the ticket for Vice President, the CPUSA never received credit for its involvement with civil rights activism; but there is cause and explanation for this. Again, the movement cannot be simply equated to organizations within it. Rather, we need to understand how this movement can advance far beyond the organization to turn into a social idea. Civil Rights, by the 1960s, did not have any taint of "red" to it, except maybe in the eyes of political pundits.
Part of the explanation comes directly from the CPUSA and SPUSA's engagement with the Henry Wallace Progressive Party campaign of 1948. American communists and socialists from all walks of life joined onto the Progressive bandwagon as a means for continuing their movement without the label and identity of being "anti-American" or "pro-Soviet." The CPUSA's political diffusion by the 1970s into the broad stream of Left-wing politics is a great example of this. Whereas in the 1930s it was clear and easy to draw policy lines between the CPUSA and the Democratic Party, by 1975 this was no longer the case. The rise of alternative Communist groups as well, such as the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) demonstrated how the movement could still retain a radical character and identity while rejecting traditional channels of organizing.
The story of American Communism is getting more dynamic the more we look into its full history; one that includes not just the history of the CPUSA or the SPUSA, but rather one that includes the history of anyone and everyone who identified with the ideals of American Communism established in the 1920s and 30s.
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