Prelude to the Popular Front: The Communist Party in California, 1931-35

The opening of some Russian archives to research by Western historians has permitted new understandings of local Communist parties during the 1920s and 1930s. At the same time, these new sources have intensified historiographical debates over the degree of autonomy within the Communist party of the United States (CPUSA). Historians have long pointed to California in the early 1930s as an example of local autonomy, but the new information permits a more detailed understanding both of the extent of that local autonomy and of relations among local CPUSA leaders, the national party office in New York City, and the Comintern in Moscow. This paper explores the CP's participation in events in California-primarily the coastwise maritime strike, the San Francisco general strike, and the state elections of 1934-along with the internal decision-making processes of the CP at various levels through the lens provided by the newly available Comintern archives as well as other collections.