Not only during the Cold War, from 1946 to 1990, but even earlier, since the beginning of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party in the USA had shown a surprising durability and resiliency.
When leaders like Bill Haywood, who organized one of the CPUSA’s “front” organizations, the IWW, got into trouble or were being investigated by the FBI, they fled to the Soviet Union - the source of their organization’s support.
The Industrial Workers of the World, known as the IWW or the “Wobblies,” was only one of several Soviet-funded operations inside the United States. This funding was kept secret. The public didn’t know that the IWW ultimately answered to Moscow.
The IWW was instrumental in organizing the Seattle General Strike of 1919, in which thousands of ordinary citizens were held hostage by socialist and communist terrorists who controlled the city for several days, keeping families confined to their houses for many hours per day, and controlling every aspect of life with totalitarian rigidity.
Not only during the ‘Cold War,’ generally defined as lasting from 1946 to 1990, but also starting even as early as 1919, the USSR was funding, organizing, and directing activities in the United States.
Through its various ‘front’ organizations, the international communist conspiracy hoped to achieve a “violent” revolution in North America. The conspiracy explicitly used the word ‘violence,’ and envisioned sabotage, assassinations, and brute force to impose its socialist agenda on the populace.
As historian John Earl Haynes notes,
My research colleague, Harvey Klehr, and I were extremely fortunate to be the first historians to explore several major long-closed archives: the Communist International and Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) records in Moscow, the decrypted Soviet cables of the National Security Agency’s Venona project, and the KGB archival notebooks of Alexander Vassiliev. Among the most surprising discoveries was that the Soviet Union’s secret subsidies of the CPUSA were much larger and lasted much longer than we expected, only ending in 1988 with a $3 million secret payment. In addition, the number of American sources recruited into Soviet espionage between 1935 and 1945 was much larger than we had earlier expected, and the extent of the CPUSA’s direct involvement in that espionage, making itself into an auxiliary of Soviet intelligence, was much more extensive than we expected.
The USSR was directly involved with the CPUSA even before it was officially formed. In January of 1919, Vladimir Lenin formed contacts within a socialist party in the United States.
The Leninist-Communist elements within the United States then broke away from this particular socialist party and formed two communist parties. Moscow, however, wanted only one party, in order to facilitate easier command and control.
Directives from the USSR ensured that by mid-1921, there was one unified CPUSA. From that point forward, a direct and continuous link brought funding and instructions from the Soviet Union to the CPUSA.
