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For most commentators the Comintern's role in the development of American Communism is wholly negative. Zumoff challenges this narrative.
List of contents
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: History and Historiography of American Communism in the 1920s
1: The Formation of the Communist Party, 1912–21
2: The Fight for Legality
3: Communists and the Labour Movement
4: William Z. Foster and the Turn towards the Labour Movement
5: The Farmer-Labor Party
6: The La Follette Fiasco, 1923–24
7: The Double-Edged Sword of ‘Bolshevisation’, 1924–26
8: The Foreign-Language Federations and ‘Bolshevisation’
9: Factionalism and Mass Work, 1925–27
10: The death of Ruthenberg and the Ascension of Lovestone, 1926–27
11: Lovestone between Bukharin and Stalin, 1927–28
12: The ‘Third Period’, the Sixth Congress and the Elimination of Opposition, 1928–29
13: Lovestone becomes a Lovestoneite, 1928–1929
14: The ‘Negro Question’ to the Fourth Comintern Congress
15: The ‘Negro Question’ from the Fourth to the Sixth Congress
16: The Sixth Congress and the ‘Negro Question’
17: ‘Self-Determination’ and Comintern Intervention
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Jacob A. Zumoff, PhD (2003) in history, University of London, has lectured at several universities, including as a visiting professor at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey and, most recently, New Jersey City University. He has published on the labour movement and racial oppression in the Americas.
Summary
The Communist Party of the United States of America was founded amid the wave of international revolutionary struggles inspired by the Russian Revolution, with the express goal of leading US workers in the struggle against capitalism. Despite these intentions, the first years of its existence were plagued by sectarianism, infighting, and an obsession over the need for an underground organization. It was only through the intervention of the Communist International (Comintern) that the party was pushed to “Americanize,” come out from “the underground,” and focus on the struggles for Black liberation. This unique contribution documents the positive contribution of the Comintern in its early revolutionary years and its decline under Stalin.
Foreword
Features in Historical Materialism
Promotion targeting left academic journals
Published to coincide with the annual Historical Materialism conference
Publicity and promotion in conjunction with the author's speaking engagements 
