James P. Cannon. The First Ten Years of American Communism.

Contents

Preface / Theodore Draper

Introduction

Part 1: Letters to a historian

My thesis

Four ways of viewing the early Communist Party

The first years -the underground party

Fraina -the founder

The early leadership

Origin of the policy on the labor party

More on the labor party policy

The» American question» at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern

The reshaping of the leadership after the legalization of the party

The Pepper regime

Overthrow of the Pepper regime

Notes on the Third Party Convention

The pre-war Socialist Party

The pre-war anarchists

The pre-war left wing

Foster in World War I

Foster and Browder

Lovestone and Bittelman

The Foster-Cannon group

Browder’s role

Fourth Plenum of the Comintern – 1924

After the 1924 elections

1925: The «Parity Commission» and the «cable from Moscow»

«Party life» in the twenties

The Passaic strike

The overriding issue in the factional struggle of 1925-1928

After 1925: Permanent factionalism

International labor defense

1927: From Ruthenberg to Lovestone

Notes and sidelights on the year 1927

The Lovestone regime

A note on Zinoviev

Some people in the party

Before the Sixth Congress of the Comintern

Lovestone’s troubles in Moscow

Stalin’s devious design

At the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern

On critics and criticism

The «Third Period»

Foster’s last stand

Foster and the later Stalinists

Spector’s role

Our trial for «Trotskyism»

On «The Birth of American Trotskyism»

The Negro question

Part 2: The Russian Revolution and the American Negro movement

Part 3: The forerunners

Eugene V. Debs and the socialist movement of his time

The IWW – the great anticipation

Part 4: A critical review of Theodore Draper’s history

1 – «The Roots of American Communism»

2 – «American Communism and Soviet Russia»